Week 6 Power Rankings

Paul “Bear” Bryant once famously said, “Offense sells tickets. Defense wins championships.” And he would know. The legendary Alabama football coach won a record six national championships in his time in Tuscaloosa.

But with apologies to the Bear, I would bet he probably never played fantasy football where offense reigns supreme and, unless you play in an IDP league, defense is an afterthought. After all, it’s the stud RBs, WRs and QBs that go early in a fantasy draft with defenses relegated to the last few picks. Case in point, this year the majority of defenses were taken between rounds 13-14.

And in fact, multiple team owners have won fantasy championships with below average defenses for which high-scoring performances are often seen as flukey. In 2015, for example, Alex won the league averaging just 5.2 ppg from defenses in (no surprise) the lowest scoring championship final in league history.

No person is probably more aware of this fact than Gray. Of all the team owners in the league, Gray waited the longest to draft a defense this season, deferring until the 16th and final round to select the Browns D/ST with the 189th pick out of 192.

And yet with his third weekly prize and fourth game of 109 points or more in just six weeks, Gray has me wondering if I’m overlooking the last great unexplored frontier of fantasy football—defense.

That’s because Gray is killing it at defense this season. And he’s doing so at a historical rate, averaging a ridiculous 17.7 ppg from the position, which is currently shattering the previous all-time record by 3.6 points.

And it’s officially not just the Patriots D/ST anymore. A week after trading them to Josh in a package deal that ultimately netted him Travis Kelce, Gray got 18 points in Week 6 from his latest waiver wire wonder—the Panthers D/ST. It’s his fifth straight game getting at least 14 points from a defense. No surprise he’s 4-1 over that stretch.

Judging from his recent activity, this is not just a passing interest. Gray has invested in some serious roster space to maintaining his superiority at the defensive position. At a time during the bye weeks where every bench spot is critical, Gray is currently rostering three defenses (the Panthers, Steelers and Titans) in his lineup. Aside from Gray, Alex is the only other owner with multiple defenses on his roster and he has two.

So what’s the method to the madness? Because when it comes to the winningest team owner in league history, there’s no doubt it’s more method than madness. It turns out defenses actually might count for more than you think. Yes, you can win it all without a good defense. But the numbers suggest that champions do a little bit better at the position than their counterparts. Specifically, the league’s eight championship teams have averaged 8.0 ppg from defenses, which is slightly higher than the league’s historical average of 7.7 ppg. Playoff teams in general do even better with an average of 8.3 ppg.

And of the top-10 defensive teams in league history, impressively six made the playoffs. Only RBs have a better playoff success rate among the top-10 than defenses, which personally I found a little surprising. That’s a better mark than for QBs or WRs, which means a top-10 defensive season is a better predictor of reaching the playoffs than a top-10 season from either QBs or WRs.

Is it possible that in fantasy football, the best offense is a good defense?

Somebody who might have figured this out awhile ago is Gray. For his career, he leads the league in defensive scoring, averaging an impressive 10.0 ppg. He also owns the current record for highest scoring defensive season of all-time (14.1 ppg in 2011) as well as two of the top four and three of the top 11. In total, he’s recorded four seasons with double-digit scoring from the position and is angling for a fifth, easily the most in the league.

Almost halfway through the regular season, Gray’s team may be shaping up to join the ranks of other great defenses that won a championship including the 2015 Broncos, the 2002 Buccaneers and the 2000 Ravens. With apologies to late-career Peyton Manning, those championships were all won with strong defenses and game managers at QB, which it turns out might be Gray’s biggest weakness this season.

In six weeks, he’s had four explosive weeks (130, 109, 119 and 132 points) and two absolute duds (59 and 66 points). Sure the boom-or-bust play of his WRs has had something to do with that (see: Evans, Mike and Diggs, Stefon—this week’s cover boy). But the common denominator in those poor-scoring performances has been QB. In both weeks in which Gray finished with the lowest score of the week, his QB has seriously underperformed—6 points from Jameis Winston in Week 1 and just 4 points from Philip Rivers in Week 5.

But if he can continue to press his advantage at defense, and his QBs can find ways to not screw it up, he may prove the old adage right once again.

Even in fantasy football, defense wins championships.

The Scoreboard

Gray led all scorers for the third time this season with 132 points.

For the third time this season, Gray claimed the weekly prize, meaning he’s won half of this season’s weekly prizes and has nearly recouped almost all of his initial investment. His 132-99 defeat of Geoff was powered in large part by the play of Stefon Diggs who exploded for 35 points, which was 11 points more in one week than he’d scored all season. Geoff has now lost three of four despite better-than-you’d-think production over that time period, including the return of Tyreek Hill who scored 20 points Sunday in his first week back. Unfortunately for Geoff, Will Dissly went down with 0 points and has been placed on IR.

In another high-scoring affair, Josh defeated Alex 129-115 to advance to 5-1 on the season. A matchup that was close entering Sunday night, James Conner poured in 23 points to seal the deal for Josh over Alex who got just 4 points from Marquez Valdes-Scantling on Monday. In a run of luck that’s particularly bad, even for him, this is Alex’s second-straight loss despite scoring 115 points or more. He drops to 3-3 on the season.

Keeping pace with Gray in the standings of the Legends Division, Jess won for the second-straight week, defeating Greco 103-99. In an extremely close game, Jess and Greco were separated by just three points entering Monday night with a face-off between Mason Crosby and Kerryon Johnson to go. Luckily for Jess, her favorite team’s kicker came through with the highest-scoring game of his season posting 12 points compared to just 11 for Johnson. Greco drops to 2-4 and is now just 1-2 when scoring 99 points or more.

Erik got a much-needed win with an 86-54 victory over JT. A week after celebrating the performance of his recently acquired QB beau, JT saw Gardner Minshew bomb spectacularly, scoring just 4 points in a low-scoring affair with the Saints. Minshew took down not only the Jaguars, but DJ Chark and JT too who posted his lowest score since Week 13 of last year when he scored 47 in an elimination game against Josh. For Erik, it’s a welcome bounce back and his second-straight win after starting the season 0-4.

We have our first tie! In the ninth tie game in league history, Beth Ann and Nick both scored exactly 84 points. With Marlon Mack on bye, Beth Ann got 1 point from waiver wire pickup Chris Thompson, which was just the point she needed to avoid the loss. Meanwhile, Nick finally inserted Terry McLaurin into his lineup, who rewarded his faith with a team-high 22 points. McLaurin is now WR7 on the season despite sitting out a week due to injury.

Lastly, the knock-down, drag-out brawl between Brandon and Samantha turned out to be quite the pillow fight with neither team owner topping 76 points. Brandon, whose WRs were relatively shut out (just 8 points combined from Keenan Allen, Cooper Kupp and Will Fuller) lucked out, defeating Samantha 76-71. For Samantha, it seemed like she had the victory all locked up (which would have been her third straight to get her back to 3-3 after starting 0-3), but got just 3 points from Aaron Jones on Monday night—a shocking development considering Jones had 41 points last week. A dropped pass that should have gone for an Aaron Jones TD would have made the difference.

Power Rankings

Alex, Josh and Gray all make moves up the Power Rankings.

Jess continues to keep her hold on the top spot of the Power Rankings with Alex, Josh and Gray all advancing up the board. Meanwhile, Brandon, Greco and Beth Ann all take a tumble. And in the back half of the Power Rankings, the order remains relatively the same with Geoff moving up two spots into ninth place.

Rather than go through each owner like I usually do with a few stats here and there, I’m going to change the format a bit this week and present a few thoughts I have about narratives that are developing so far this season.

Is it possible Alex got better without Saquon Barkley?

This week, Saquon Barkley is scheduled to make his return for the New York Giants and more importantly for Alex’s fantasy football team. The #1 overall pick in this year’s fantasy draft, Barkley went down with a high-ankle sprain in Week 3. As a result, Alex not only lost the game to Gray, but he also posted his lowest fantasy score of the season (just 70 points). At the time, it seemed like he could miss a good chunk of the regular season and potentially doom Alex’s playoff hopes. This is what I wrote:

Speaking of Alex, he ranks ninth and is so far the weakest of the teams with winning records. And he’s going to need that good start, because now the real test begins. That’s because as we alluded to at the top of the post, #1 overall pick Saquon Barkley was injured in Week 3 with a high ankle sprain, which is expected to keep him out between 4-8 weeks. If it’s the latter, that means he would not return until Week 12 after the Giants’ Week 11 bye.

Let’s assume Alex wins the last two regular season games after Barkley’s return. That gets him to four wins. But you need at least six and probably seven to make the playoffs, in which case he’d need to go 3-5 while Barkley is out. It’s doable. Based on his current TW%, we’d expect him to win three out of his next eight games. But it’s not going to be easy. It’s a tough break for Alex who the last time he had the #1 pick (David Johnson, 2017) lost him early to an injury as well.

Well, fast-forward three weeks and Barkley is back five weeks sooner than we expected. Meanwhile, Alex went 1-2 while Barkley was out, which was not too far off from my prediction of 3-5. But how it happened is certainly not how anyone could have predicted.

Without Barkley, Alex actually got… better. In fact, over the last three weeks, Alex’s team has been the best in the league. Yes, they’ve gone 1-2, but with a true record of 28-5 for a TW% of .848 while averaging 113.7 ppg. He’s gotten some timely scoring from defenses, plus his WRs (particularly Chris Godwin and Courtland Sutton) have been the best in the league over that stretch with 32.3 ppg. But crazy as it sounds, his RB scoring even went up from 20.7 ppg to 24.0 ppg thanks in part to the resurgence of Devonta Freeman and a little bit of Tevin Coleman. These are not household names, but they’re more than getting the job one.

Which makes me wonder if there’s some serious Patrick Ewing Theory going on with Saquon Barkley. Take a look at the splits with and without Barkley.

Weeks 1-3: 2-1, 424 TW% (14-19), 82.0 ppg
Weeks 4-6: 1-2, .848 TW% (28-5), 113.7 ppg

True to his reputation, Alex has been really, really unlucky in the early going here. Think about it. He went 1-2 over the last three weeks, but 28-5 overall. That means there were only five matchups over the last three weeks that he would have lost and two of them happened to be ones on his schedule. That’s extraordinarily unlucky. Truthfully, his season-long TW% indicates that he should be 4-2, not 3-3.

But going forward, I think it means that we should be kinda scared of Alex. Because the league’s hottest team just got the best player in fantasy back this week. And wouldn’t you know it, he plays me this week.

Perfect.

The key to Jess’ team remains the Chargers backfield.

Since Melvin Gordon returned from his holdout, Jess has ripped off two straight wins and jumped to the top of the Power Rankings. In my opinion, hers is definitely the team to beat. Speaking of splits, let’s take a look at Jess’ before and after the Melvin Gordon holdout, which ended in Week 5.

Weeks 1-4: 2-2, .636 TW% (28-16), 104.5 ppg
Weeks 5-6: 2-0, .773 TW% (17-5), 109.5 ppg

From the looks of it, Melvin Gordon has been a real shot in the arm. She’s undefeated since his return and has upped both her TW% and her scoring average.

But that’s not really the whole story. In fact, at least in the short term, Melvin Gordon has undoubtedly made her team worse. Scoring just 3 and 4 points in his two weeks back, Gordon has not only himself struggled on the field, but he’s hampered Austin Ekeler’s hot start. After averaging 19.8 ppg through the first four games, Ekeler has just 8 points total over the last two weeks. As a result, her elite RB scoring dropped from a superhuman 52.0 ppg to a mortal, but still impressive 38.0 ppg since Melvin Gordon returned.

It seems the worst-case scenario regarding Gordon’s return, which I outlined in Week 3, has come to fruition:

The question becomes what happens to Ekeler now that Melvin Gordon has officially returned to the team. Yes, Jess picked Gordon in the fifth round. So she’s in good shape. He was one of the biggest draft-day fallers, sliding almost nine spots below his ADP. But with the performance of Ekeler, I wonder if the whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts. In other words, is this backfield now a committee and will the production of two backs in Los Angeles limit the potential of either as a workhorse?

Truthfully, her team has thrived in recent weeks in spite of, not because of, Melvin Gordon. That’s thanks to an increase in scoring at WR (+7.7 ppg) where Adam Thielen and Tyler Lockett have picked up the pace.

But if and when the Chargers ever bring clarity to their backfield situation, Jess’ team could become even more lethal. And that remains, as ever, the key not only to her season, but perhaps the entire fantasy playoffs.

Who has the best bad team? And the worst good team?

Right now we have two 5-1 teams, two 4-2 teams, two 3-3 teams, four 2-4 teams and then one 2-3-1 team and one 1-4-1 team. But of course, not all records are created equal. And that’s what the Power Rankings are for, to help us separate the pretenders from the contenders.

Of the “bad” teams—teams with a losing record currently—Greco’s is the best with a TW% above .500. She’s actually had the worst luck of any team this season, twice losing as we mentioned when scoring 99 points or more. Over the last two weeks, she’s actually been third-best in the league (trailing only Alex and Jess over that time period) while averaging 104.5 ppg, which has been powered by elite production from a pair of Falcons—Matt Ryan and Austin Hooper. The former has topped 30 points each of the last two weeks while Hooper has been a sneaky good waiver wire pickup for Greco after Jess dropped him after Week 2. With Jamaal Williams unexpectedly good Week 6 performance plus a bench full of productive WRs, there’s no reason Greco couldn’t make more noise in the second half of the season.

On the flip side, the worst of the good teams is Brandon (👋) who tumbled down the rankings this week following a second week of scoring in the 70s. Like Gray’s team, Brandon’s has been prone to wild swings based on the performance of his WRs. And while Christian McCaffrey has been the rock for this team and the early favorite for fantasy MVP, his outstanding point totals have possibly inflated the overall performance of his team. After all, McCaffrey can’t go for 40 points every week, can he? (Well, at least not this week when he’ll be on bye.) Despite the 5-1 record, Brandon’s team is really more like 3-2-1 good.

Playoff Picture

Jess leads all team owners with a 69% chance at a first-round bye in the playoffs.

Even though we’re nearing the halfway point of the regular season, there’s still plenty of time left before the playoffs. Even Nick who is currently last in the official standings with a record of 1-4-1 is just 1.5 games back of the final wildcard playoff spot with seven games to go. Remember, the Playoff Picture slightly inflates the odds of the favorites and underrates the odds of the underdogs because of the points tiebreaker.

That being said, a small degree of separation has started to occur between the top five and the rest of the pack. That five includes Josh and Brandon from the Leaders Division (both 5-1) and Jess (4-2), Gray (4-2) and Alex (3-3) from the Legends Division. In addition to being near the top of the standings, those five teams also comprise the top five positions in the Power Rankings. As a result, all five of those teams have at least an 84% chance of making the playoffs according to the latest simulation. And while the Leaders Division is seen as a toss-up between Josh and Brandon, Jess is the clear favorite in the Legends Division where she has a 69% chance of securing a first-round bye.

But of the remaining seven teams vying for the sixth and final playoff spot, it’s really anyone’s game. Despite his 3-3 record, JT is much further down the list of the contenders than you might think, projected for just 5.3 wins and 7.7 losses. Instead the computer favors teams currently with a losing record, but with a better standing in the Power Rankings. That includes team owners like Beth Ann, Greco and Geoff. Even Erik, Samantha and Nick, were they to pick up more wins, would be able to challenge JT in points who currently ranks last with just 481 points scored or 80.2 ppg.

Beth Ann’s tie also doesn’t hurt. While it may feel like kissing your sister (or brother), it’s actually quite beneficial all things considered. Often when we tie, we lament the game as a loss and obsess over how close we were to a win. But the reality is we were just as close to a loss. I prefer to see a tie as a glass half full. After all, the tie literally equates to a half of a win. Which means come playoff time, that tie can often serve as the tiebreaker you need to get a leg up on the competition competing for a final wildcard spot.

Does this mean all five of the teams I mentioned up top are definitely going to make the playoffs? No. Of course, not. Any one of them could fall out. Even Brandon or Josh despite the fact that no 5-1 team has ever missed the playoffs. Still, they’re in the driver seat for now. And the rest of the teams are still along for the ride.

Looking Ahead to Week 7

At this point, we’re already midway through Week 7, but I swear I haven’t yet looked at the box scores. (I prefer to have a happy Sunday.) So this preview is still relatively spoiler free.

In Week 7, inter-divisional play continues with members from the Legends Division facing off with competitors from the Leaders Division.

This week’s most high profile matchup is between new podcast co-hosts Brandon and Alex, both within the top-five of the Power Rankings. While Alex will be back at full strength with Saquon Barkley back, Brandon will be without Christian McCaffrey who is on bye. In 16 regular season matchups, Brandon and Alex are tied at 8 games apiece.

Also facing off this week will be Josh and JT. Last season, Josh eliminated JT from the playoffs in Week 13 and maintains a 5-1 record against JT all-time. Jess will take on Erik; both are teams on two-game winning streaks. Gray will face off against Greco—the only team owner against whom he has a losing record. (He’s 4-5 against Greco all-time.) Nick will battle Geoff in a matchup of teams hoping to avoid a fifth loss. And finally Samantha will take on Beth Ann in a game featuring two relative newcomers to the league.