2023 Week 7 : Muddy Waters

 get 'em marshtomp

Well alright, I said last week that in this pivotal point in the season there was a lot of room for shifting standings, and just one week later 2/3 of the league is within a single game duking it out for playoff positioning.

While the wonderfully renamed Jonathan (Taylor's Version) has a big enough point buffer to fend off the 3-4 teams for a bit, it's not an exaggeration to say that teams as far down as 9th could rise to the 3rd-5th range by next week's commentary.

With that in mind, lets do some power rankings.

Power Rankings

Rather than discuss which teams will or won't make the playoffs, I thought we could take a look at just the last 3 weeks to see which teams are trending in positive or negative directions. After all, things change quickly in fantasy. Since the September kickoff we've seen players break out, fade into obscurity, or lose their season to injury. These teams are not what they were in week 1.

Leading The Race(120+ points/week)

Ja'Mario Kart 125pts/week : Man, what a run for Ja'Mario Kart. Since posting just 60 points in week 4 this team has been on a tear. They have struggled with injury to some extent but finding great value in RB depth from Swift, Ford, and Achane has been huge for this squad.

Kuppheads 125pts/week: There's no team that owes more to one player than this team does to CMC. Consistent WR play and surprisingly big RB performances from players like D'Onta Foreman and Zach Moss have pushed this team into the lead.

Chasing(110-120 points/week)

Jonathan (Taylor's Version) 119pts/week: After absolutely crushing the first 4 weeks of the season (150+ points/game), this team has slowed a lot, but still sits comfortably in the second tier just outside my somewhat arbitrary round number cutoff. A slower stretch of games for Bijan (one missed to illness) and a gradual ramp-up for Jonathan Taylor brought that average down but I expect this team to shoot back into the top tier extremely soon.

Allen Wake 119pts/week: You wouldn't know based on Allen's output that he's currently missing both 1st round pick Justin Jefferson and RB2 James Connor to IR, and that's thanks to huge weeks from Goedert, and the insane value of Adam Theilen. Looking over this team I'm surprised to see the average this high, but they've also had some pretty solid defensive performances in this 3 week snapshot.

Praise the Sun 114pts/week: Season over huh? Praise the Sun has rebounded from a 1-4 start and is in the top half of the league in scoring in recent weeks. The secret? Rookie WRs. We've talked a lot about the amazing emergence of Puka Nacua, but not enough has been said about how strong Jordan Addison's start to his career has been. Over the last 3 weeks he's averaging 17pts/game, with 6TDs already on the year. Oh yeah, and it doesn't  hurt that Travis Kelce has returned to form after a somewhat sluggish start.

On Water Break(100-110 points/week)

momo 109pts/week : After a pretty awful first month, momo has become a consistently solid team in the last 3 weeks, putting up their best effort in week 7. Unexpectedly great play from Jakobi Meyers combined with a return to greatness for Mark Andrews have made this turnaround possible. This team is statistically unlikely to claw all the way back to the playoffs, but that doesn't mean you want to face them.

Pollard's Gate III 108pts/week : This story of this team can be told by starting RBs Tony and Travis. While Pollard hasn't scored a single TD since week 1, Travis has notched 6 in the last 3 weeks to balance him out. When paired with players like Burrow and Lamb who have been good but not amazing as of late, we get a very middle of the pack team.

DK King of Swing 107pts/week : KWIII and AJB are a fun pair of acronyms (which actually rhyme depending on how you pronounce them in your head) that are currently carrying this team. While Najee Harris is starting to show signs of life, we're seeing a downturn for Justin Herbert. This team really needs to figure out a solid flex position plan, because between Michael Wilson, Kadarius Toney, McLaughlin, Eli Mitchell, and Claypool I'm not sure I would want to start anybody.

Tying Their Shoes(sub 100 points/week)

Ok, here's the big tier break. A 10pt/week difference means there's some real challenges for these bottom 4 teams.

Bass Hunter 64 97pts/week : What exactly has happened to Davante Adams? After an awesome first month of play he has failed to break double digits in the last 3 weeks, with his best performance being 57 yards on 12 targets (!!). Oh what's that? Bryan Hoyer is starting for the Raiders? well, maybe there's hope for him to turn this around. Losing Justin Fields to injury during that same span made things difficult for this team but they have all the pieces to bounce back.

Diggs Dug 96pts/week : Stevenson/Pierce has been an incredibly meh pair of starting RBs compared to their preseason expectations, but the real question mark for me is Jaylen Waddle. For an offense as good as Miami's is, I'm shocked to see his season high output is just 14 points. In the QB department, while the Rams have exceeded expectations there seems to be no ceiling for Stafford, who has hovered between 15 and 21 points all season. Honestly I feel like this roster is full of these kinds of players: good enough to start but not explosive enough to win a week.

TJ Hock's Pro Skater 95pts/week : It's been a rough year for TJ, a team that has only managed to break 100 points twice this season. All teams have to deal with injuries but Pro Skater has been particularly unfortunate in this category as I count 8/14 of their roster spots (K and DST not withstanding) with some kind of injury designation. I wrote a few weeks back that this team was performing pretty well against those brutal odds, but that hasn't been the case in recent weeks. On paper a team with Hockenson, Barkley, Kamara, and Deebo should be setup for success as they get healthier, but we'll see if that happens quickly enough to turn this season around.

Lockett League 94pts/week. Austin Ekeler has to be in the conversation for biggest fantasy bust through these first 7 weeks, right? Missing 3 weeks to injury hurts your lineup, but not as much as returning to the field and failing to break 10 points either attempt, because there's no way you benched him for either of those games. Really the whole RB room has been a problem for this team, as neither Mattison nor Javonte has had the breakout season fantasy players hoped for.

Pickup of the Week

For the first time this year I'm awarding this to myself. D'Onta Foreman took over the Chicago backfield in the absence of Herbert and Roschon and dominated, with 3TDs against a pathetic Raiders team.

Seeing a former Texas Longhorn dominate in the NFL is always a good time, and doubly so when I get fantasy points for it.

Shameful benching of the week

I'm not going to fault Jonathan (Taylor's Version) for starting Bijan when there was literally 0 indication he was unwell, but this matchup was still entirely winnable had he chosen to play JT. In a 7 point loss, Taylor outscored his RB2 (Brian Robinson) and Flex (Aiyuk) by 11 points.