A Football Life, Week 6

After two relatively quiet weeks across the league, we had a huge scoring outburst and week 6 saw the third most points scored of any single week this season, and consequently of any week in league history.

Leading the charge was Sean Kennedy, who snapped a five-game losing streak to start the season with a 146.7-point performance, good for the 12th highest score of all time. Kennedy’s big game came on a fairly balanced attack. Just two starters finished in the top five at their position this week, but his defense and kicker contributed solid games and he had two running backs who finished just outside the top five at the position.

Andrew Perez was the second highest scorer of the week with 138.6 points, and the performance gave him the win in the game of the week over division rival Brandon Saunders. Perez now holds the division lead with the head-to-head tiebreaker. The two teams are also very close in total points, with Saunders holding just a 7-point advantage in that tertiary tiebreaker.

Anthony Battle and Nolan Soter are the two unluckiest teams in the league to this point. Anthony has been in the top half of the league in scoring every week but holds just a 2-4 record. Nolan had a rough start to the season but he’s now been in the top half of the league three times through six weeks and is just 1-5. Both owners scored 121 points this week and lost.

As we get set to close out the first half of the season, we will get a showdown between the two best teams in the league thus far. William Massimini and Eric Meyer are both 5-1 and sit atop their respective divisions. Massimini has some room for error, with two games separating him and his division rivals. Meyer has just a one-game lead over Evan Ash, so a victory over Massimini would be most welcome.

Evan Ash placed fourth in scoring last week and put a starter in the top five at every offensive position.

Check out the review of Week 6 below (team names have been changed to the names of their owners):

Standings:

AFL East	Record	GB	AFL West	Record	GB
William Massimini	5-1	--	Andrew Perez	4-2	--
Cory Puffett	3-3	2	Brandon Saunders	4-2	--
Adam Perez	2-4	3	William Battle	3-3	1
Nolan Soter	1-5	4	Sean Kennedy	1-5	3
AFL Central	Record	GB
Eric Meyer	5-1	--
Evan Ash	4-2	1
Danny Hatcher	2-4	3
Anthony Battle	2-4	3

Schedule:

Away	Score	Home	Score
Brandon Saunders (BS)	117.7	Andrew Perez (AP1)	138.6
Adam Perez (AP2)	81.0	Cory Puffett (CP)	100.5
William Massimini (WM)	136.4	Nolan Soter (NS)	121.1
Evan Ash (EA)	135.7	Anthony Battle (AB)	121.6
Danny Hatcher (DH)	77.7	Eric Meyer (EM)	119.0
Sean Kennedy (SK)	146.7	William Battle (WB)	72.9

Scoring Leaders (Must be starting on a team to qualify):

QB	Pts	HB	Pts
1. Drew Brees, SK	34.5	1. David Johnson, EM	35.5
2. Tom Brady, AB	29.7	2. LeSean McCoy, WM	34.6
3. Marcus Mariota, EA	29.3	3. Lamar Miller, AP1	33.7
4. Cam Newton, WM	27.8	4. Terrance West, CP	28.6
5. Andrew Luck, NS	25.0	5. Christine Michael, EA	23.4
WR	Pts	TE	Pts
1. Odell Beckham, Jr., BS	36.2	1. Rob Gronkowski, EA	25.7
2. Kenny Britt, SK	29.1	2. Coby Fleener, AP1	22.7
3. Brandin Cooks, EM	27.1	3. Hunter Henry, NS	17.3
4. Terrelle Pryor, AB	24.5	4. Greg Olsen, BS	12.4
5. Julio Jones, EA	23.4	5. Jimmy Graham, DH	11.9

Game of the Week: Brandon Saunders at Andrew Perez

Perez had the second highest scoring team in the league this week. Lamar Miller finally showed up for Houston with a two-touchdown performance, and Coby Fleener complimented Miller nicely with a two-score game of his own. Even with a monster game from his namesake, there was no way Brandon would be saved by the Odell.

A Football Life, Week 5

Only one starter made it into the top 20 scorers at their position in league history this week. David Johnson had his biggest game of the year, topping 100 rushing yards for the first time in 2016 and scoring two touchdowns for the second time this season. His 34.7 points were good enough to tie for the 11th highest single-game score by a running back in league history, alongside DeAngelo Williams who put up the same number of points in the opening week of this season.

Johnson’s performance helped Eric Meyer to his fourth win of the campaign as all three division leaders have an identical 4-1 record. Eric was the number two scorer of the week behind William Battle, whose 147.4 points where the 11th most scored by a team in a single game in league history. Battle is the fifth unique owner to post an 11-0 weekly breakdown this season. Additionally, Battle had five of his seven position players finish among the top five at their respective positions for the week, one at each of the four offensive positions and a second at running back.

William’s brother, Anthony Battle, is the only owner to have a breakdown of 6-5 or better every week this season, despite his 2-3 record to being the season. Anthony was the third highest scorer this week as he clinched his second consecutive victory, but he trails Meyer by two games in the AFL Central.

While the Central and the West have only one game separating the top two teams in their divisions, William Massimini holds a commanding two game advantage in the AFL East. All four of Massimini’s games had been decided by at least 20 points until this week, when his margin of victory over Andrew Perez was just 2.5 points.

Andrew would have beaten one of this week’s winners, but his luck wasn’t as bad as Nolan Soter’s. Nolan, who fell to 1-4 with his loss, posted a 7-4 breakdown, scoring 119.6 points, which would have beaten both Massimini and Cory Puffett, both of whom won their games.

Puffett, meanwhile, was the luckiest owner of the week, scoring just 85.6 points in his win. He was facing Evan Ash, who was the only owner to score fewer points than Cory in week five.

Sean Kennedy remains the only owner without a win, though he scored more points than four other teams last week. Kennedy’s team certainly is not a playoff caliber team, much less a playoff contender after its 0-5 start, but it will be shocking if they fail to gather at least one or two wins before the regular season ends in nine weeks.

Check out the review of Week 5 below (team names have been changed to the names of their owners):

Week 5:

Standings:

AFL East	Record	GB	AFL West	Record	GB
William Massimini	4-1	--	Brandon Saunders	4-1	--
Adam Perez	2-3	2	Andrew Perez	3-2	1
Cory Puffett	2-3	2	William Battle	3-2	1
Nolan Soter	1-4	3	Sean Kennedy	0-5	5
AFL Central	Record	GB
Eric Meyer	4-1	--
Evan Ash	3-2	1
Anthony Battle	2-3	2
Danny Hatcher	2-3	2

Schedule:

Away	Score	Home	Score
William Battle (WB)	147.4	Danny Hatcher (DH)	108.3
Andrew Perez (AP1)	109.2	William Massimini (WM)	111.7
Cory Puffett (CP)	85.6	Evan Ash (EA)	61.2
Nolan Soter (NS)	119.6	Brandon Saunders (BS)	125.3
Anthony Battle (AB)	132.2	Adam Perez (AP2)	87.9
Eric Meyer (EM)	136.0	Sean Kennedy (SK)	97.1

Scoring Leaders (Must be starting on a team to qualify):

QB	Pts	HB	Pts
1. Tom Brady, AB	31.4	1. David Johnson, EM	34.7
2. Ben Roethlisberger, BS	31.3	2. Ezekiel Elliott, AB	32.1
3. Philip Rivers, WB	27.4	3. Jordan Howard, EM	25.4
T4. Andrew Luck, NS	24.3	4. Theo Riddick, WB	24.3
T4. Andy Dalton, SK	24.3	5. Carlos Hyde, WB	22.6
WR	Pts	TE	Pts
1. T.Y. Hilton, DH	28.1	1. Greg Olsen, BS	22.6
2. Amari Cooper, NS	24.8	2. Delanie Walker, WB	15.1
3. Larry Fitzgerald, SK	23.1	3. Hunter Henry, NS	14.9
4. Tyrell Williams, WB	20.2	4. Dwayne Allen, EM	14.0
5. Antonio Brown, AB	18.3	5. Rob Gronkowski, EA	13.4

Game of the Week: Andrew Perez at William Massimini

In the closest game this week, Massimini had two of his players combine for just two points. Everybody else on his roster showed up though, and the Vikings defense continues to produce fantasy points at a breakneck pace. Meanwhile, Lamar Miller continues to be the bane of Perez’s offense.