Week 8 Power Rankings

With the 49ers defeating the Cardinals Thursday, two NFL teams have started 8-0 for just the fourth time in the Super Bowl era. But with apologies to the 49ers and the Patriots who are both off to terrific starts, they get to play teams like the Redskins and the Dolphins. In the Worst League, the competition is a little tougher.

So no, we don’t have any undefeated teams. But after Week 8, we do have two team owners that are tied for the best start through eight weeks—Josh and Brandon. Led by a pair of WRs last week, Mike Evans (31 points) and Cooper Kupp (28), pictured above, both team owners advanced to 7-1 on the season.

How rare is that? Only four other teams in league history have started 7-1 and it hasn’t happened since 2015. Those teams belonged to Brandon, Gray (twice) and Jess, the last team owner to do it. All four made the championship game with two winning the championship, Brandon in 2011 and Gray in 2013. And interestingly, the last time we had two 7-1 teams, those two team owners ultimately met in the finals with Brandon defeating Gray 240-218 in the highest-scoring finals in league history. Might we be headed for a Josh vs. Brandon showdown in the playoffs? Perhaps.

But let’s pump the breaks a little bit on the hype before we crown anybody just yet. As we know, fantasy football has a tendency to be a little flukey. And it’s not just what happens on the field, but the teams against which you happen to be matched up with off it.

For example, if we gave Josh’s schedule to Brandon and Brandon’s schedule to Josh, both team owners would be 5-3 instead of 7-1. Josh would have lost Week 1 and 3 contests against high-scoring opponents that Brandon crushed. Meanwhile Brandon would have lost in Weeks 6 and 7 instead of scraping by despite scoring 76 points or less. It’s not even necessarily that one team owner had a better schedule than the other. After all, they’re both worse off by swapping schedules. They just happened to play the right teams at the right times. They’ve been, in a word, lucky.

So for the intro to this week’s Power Rankings, let’s bring back one of my favorite charts that measures just how lucky or unlucky your team has been. Remember, the way we measure luck is to compare a team owner’s true win percentage (TW%) with that of their observed win percentage (W%). For example, Samantha’s true record this season is 43-45, which equates to a TW% of .489. By comparison, her actual record is 4-4, which means her W% is pretty close at .500. That means that through eight weeks, Samantha’s team has performed almost exactly as we’d expect given her true record. She’s been neither lucky nor unlucky. But that’s not the case for other owners in the league.

Here’s a list of team owners sorted by the difference between their W% and their TW%. The more positive your number, the luckier you’ve been. The more negative, the more unlucky.

1. Brandon: +.324 (.875 W% vs .551 TW%)
2. Josh: +.199 (.875 W% vs .676 TW%)
3. Gray: +.136 (.750 W% vs .614 TW%)
4. Jess: +.034 (.625 W% vs .591 TW%)
5. JT: +.023 (.375 W% vs .352 TW%)
6. Samantha: +.011 (.500 W% vs .489 TW%)
7. Nick: -.028 (.313 W% vs .341 TW%)
8. Alex: -.102 (.500 W% vs .602 TW%)
9. Geoff: -.108 (.375 W% vs .483 TW%)
10. Erik: -.153 (.250 W% vs .403 TW%)
11. Beth Ann: -.165 (.313 W% vs .477 TW%)
12. Greco: -.170 (.250 W% vs .420 TW%)

No surprise, the two team owners with 7-1 records find themselves at the top—Brandon and Josh. They, along with Gray, have been the three luckiest team owners in the league this season. Brandon has won with scores of 76 and 65, both well below league average. Josh has won three times despite scores that ranked outside the top-4 in a given week. And Gray is 6-0 in weeks in which he hasn’t had the absolute worst point total in the league.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, five team owners have had seasons we would characterize as unlucky. Of course, the most unlucky of all has been Alex…

Wait a minute. (Squints at screen.)

No, not that Alex. It turns out Greco (who lost by 2 points this week) has been the unluckiest team owner this season, having lost twice when scoring 99 points or more. That seems like a lot until you realize the commissioner has lost twice when scoring 115 points or more. So why is Greco more unlucky? Well, Alex kinda had it coming. Early in the season, he won both of his first two games despite scoring just 88 points in each. So his luck’s been a little more balanced. Other unlucky team owners include Beth Ann, Erik and Geoff.

Jess, JT, Samantha and Nick—you guys are all right about where you should be.

So how does that compare to teams historically? Let’s go to the chart.

Each dot above represents an individual season from league history. Gray dots are teams from past years. Orange dots are from this year. It’s a simple scatterplot of TW% vs. W%. The way the chart works is that if your team is above the dotted line, it’s lucky. And if it’s below the dotted line, it’s unlucky.

As you can see, the general trend of the scatter is to follow that dotted line. For the most part, good teams (teams with high TW%) are good (high W%) and bad teams (low TW%) are bad (low W%).

But over the years, there have been a few outliers. Most noteworthy among them are Terryn in 2013 and Alex in 2014. The former finished last in the final Power Rankings with a TW% of .287, and yet made the playoffs as a 4-seed with an 8-5 record. She won eight games despite never scoring more than 92 points in a single week and won three times with point totals in the 70s. Whereas Alex in 2014 had an average team with a TW% of exactly .500, but finished 2-10-1. That season, teams averaged 99.7 ppg against him, fourth most all-time.

This year, the unlucky teams haven’t been nearly as unlucky as Alex once was. Even Greco’s team, which is the worst this season, would currently rank sixth-unluckiest ever. And she still has five games left for her luck to turn around.

But to bring this whole thing full circle, Josh and Brandon have been historically lucky. You can tell just by looking at the chart, seeing how far away from the middle cluster their orange dots have ventured. Brandon, in particular, is close to Terryn’s record. Currently, his team ranks as the second-luckiest team of all time to hers, and just by a hair.

Based on his TW% of .551, we’d expect his team to be closer to 4-4 than it is to 7-1. That’s a difference of almost three games.

So while there are two team owners on top of the standings this week at 7-1, the division between them and the rest of the league is not as stark as it seems. Yes, Josh is leading the pack, but we’ve had better front-runners. Alex last year was much more dominant. And Brandon this year is really just middle-of-the-pack despite his record. Same goes for team owners near the bottom. Nobody has been Miami Dolphins bad.

Which means with five weeks left to go in the regular season, several team owners are still within striking distance of a playoff spot. And if you make it in, anything can happen.

After all, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than it is to be good.

The Scoreboard

Samantha claimed her second weekly prize of the season with 119 points in a key win over Geoff.

Alright, let’s get to the scoreboard.

In Week 8, there were several key matchups with playoff implications, perhaps none more consequential than the one between Jess and Josh—the two team owners atop last week’s Power Rankings. Ultimately, it was Josh who rose to the occasion, shrugging off an in-game injury to Chase Edmonds to defeat Jess 105-80 behind big games for Mike Evans (31 points), James Conner (20) and of course the Patriots D/ST (20). (They have to slow down eventually, right? RIGHT?!) Meanwhile, without David Johnson and Adam Thielen (both injured), Jess struggled, scoring 80 points, which was shockingly the lowest point total of the week. In fact, 80 points is the second-highest lowest score in a week. Only JT’s 83 points, a league-low in Week 4 of 2012, was higher.

Jumping to the highest point total of the week, Samantha defeated Geoff 119-98. It’s her second weekly prize this season (having previously won it in Week 5) and third since joining the league in 2018. Last week we talked about the greatness of Aaron Rodgers. But this week, his teammate Aaron Jones was even better. Ironically, they played against each other this week. Thanks to 33 points from Jones, Samantha defeated Geoff who played well enough to win but ultimately came up short.

In the highest-scoring matchup of the week, Alex defeated Beth Ann 115-104, snapping a three-game losing streak. Bye-week fill-in Matthew Stafford poured in 23 points while Tevin Coleman scored a season-high 35. Beth Ann got great games from Deshaun Watson (27 points) and Kenny Golladay (22), but it was not enough as Alvin Kamara and Sterling Shepard continued to sit with injuries. Hers was the fifth loss this season in which a team owner scored more than 100 points. Alex, who has two of those, was luckily on the right side of things this time.

Brandon defeated JT 112-90 on the strength of Cooper Kupp (28 points) and Christian McCaffrey (22) who continued to lead the way (as they have all season long for Brandon). Meanwhile, JT had some colorful roster management in Week 8. First off, he benched Odell Beckham Jr. (playing against the Patriots) and Gardner Minshew (gasp!) in favor of Drew Brees. Both of those calls worked out. What did not was starting Rex Burkhead over Duke Johnson and Justin Tucker over ANY OTHER KICKER NOT ON BYE last week. This is JT’s third loss in the last four weeks since starting 2-2 and trading for Gardner Minshew.

Gray took down Erik 95-82. Despite 27 points from Latavius Murray filling in for an injured Alvin Kamara, the rest of Erik’s lineup could not muster the necessary points to challenge Gray who got double-digit scoring from seven of nine players this week. He gets the win despite his best player, Ezekiel Elliott, being on bye, and once again got double-digit points from his defense.

Finally, Nick got his first win since Week 1, defeating Greco 90-88 in a very close game that came down to the wire on Monday night. We recapped it on the podcast yesterday, but needless to say Nick got just enough points from Mason Rudolph without receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster spoiling the party. Greco very nearly could have won had she started another QB in place of Matt Ryan who was inactive due to injury.

Power Rankings

There were two big movers in this week’s Power Rankings, going in opposite directions—Jess and Samantha. Following her league-low 80 points in Week 8, Jess plummeted down the rankings, falling from first to fourth. Meanwhile, Samantha with this week’s weekly prize rockets up the charts, vaulting four team owners. She now sits in sixth.

As for the top, Josh has negotiated the slightest bit of cushion between his team and the rest of the top tier where he has a 5.5 game lead in true wins on the second-place team owner. The rest of that tier includes Gray, Alex, Jess and (I’m going to include myself) Brandon.

The middle tier is arguably everybody else with only 13 true games separating sixth and last place. But if we want to be picky about it, I’d say there’s a division between the middle three and the bottom four with Samantha, Geoff and Beth Ann looking most competitive among the middle group and Greco, Erik, JT and Nick still fighting it out in the basement.

Playoff Picture

Gray moves into the lead for the Legends Division; Samantha takes over sixth place.

Only five games left in the regular season. We are officially in the back stretch of the regular season. Nobody is eliminated just yet, even from the division races, but time is starting to run out. Now’s the time to make your push. Every win and every point counts.

Given all that, here are some things I’m thinking as we enter Week 9.

The division races are going to be insanely competitive.

When we expanded the playoffs to six teams last season, my first thought was that perhaps this would allow some team owners to go on cruise control down the home stretch. I’m sure Nick was able to do a bit of that last season when he jumped out to a 6-1 start, ultimately finishing 10-3. But this year, things are totally different.

Because the tops of each division are so competitive, the fight to win the division and get a first-round bye may actually end up being more heated than the competition for the sixth and final playoff spot.

Look no further than the Leaders Division, which is for all intents and purposes a two-team race between Josh and Brandon. Both owners are 7-1. The computer likes Josh a lot more because he’s got the better team by TW% and the better schedule. Of Brandon’s five remaining games, four are against projected playoff teams meanwhile Josh has two matchups against Nick and JT, the two teams at the bottom of the Power Rankings.

But at the risk of jinxing myself, Brandon’s hot streak has kinda become a regular thing. In fact, in each of the last three years, Brandon has gone on a midseason seven-game winning streak, starting in Week 4 and culminating in Week 10. This week’s win over JT brings his streak to six. If he wins next week, it would make it his fourth-straight seven-game winning streak in four years at almost the exact same point in the season. Wild.

As for the Legends Division, that one’s a four-way race between Gray and Jess and to a lesser extent Alex and Samantha. Gray’s victory over Erik this week combined with Jess’s loss to Josh helped pushed him to the lead. It’s his second three-game winning streak this season and his best start since 2016 when he also started 6-2 en route to claiming the title of greatest team of all-time. This team’s not as dominant as that one. But don’t look now. Suddenly, Gray is leading the league in scoring and has a one-game lead on the division. He’s even pushed up to #2 in the Power Rankings, his highest spot since Week 12 of 2017, the last time he was on top.

But before we proclaim Gray as “back,” let’s not take the division away from Jess just yet. After her matchup with Brandon this week, she has four straight games to close out the season against non-projected playoff teams who all rank in the bottom half of the Power Rankings. That’s the easiest schedule remaining in the league. Not to mention both Alex and Samantha have teams capable of making noise down the stretch.

With five games to play, nobody can pack it in just yet.

Speaking of Samantha, is she for real?

And that’s not like a question asking if Brandon’s wife is imaginary or not. Unlike my Canadian girlfriend from high school, Samantha is 100% real.

What I mean is can Samantha compete for a championship?

And once again, I think the answer is 100% yes. Since starting 0-3, she has now won four of her last five to get back to 4-4. Of the 12 other teams that previously started 0-3, only six were able to claw their way back to .500. And of those six, only Brandon in 2016 made the playoffs, though Trevor (2014) and Nick (2016) would have made a six-team playoff had it existed. This year, Samantha is aiming to become the second.

And I think she has the players to do it. With four top-22 RBs in Aaron Jones, Nick Chubb, Jordan Howard and Carlos Hyde, Samantha is now averaging 37.6 ppg from RBs, which is second only to Jess and would rank sixth all-time. Her WR duo of DeAndre Hopkins and Julian Edelman have probably underperformed this season, and yet they rank 14th and 10th, respectively.

And on the bench, she has some interesting acquisitions, including a couple players that she beat me to the waiver wire on. That includes the new starting RB in Miami in Mark Walton and perhaps most interestingly Josh Gordon. After being released by Alex and then the Patriots, Josh Gordon was claimed this past week by the Seahawks. With Russell Wilson throwing him the ball, Gordon suddenly becomes a very interesting flex to pair with the rest of those studs.

If she can find a QB and/or a TE, perhaps via trade, to round out the lineup, I like this roster to make some moves up the Power Rankings in the closing weeks. As Michael Scott once said, “you have no idea how how I can fly.”

Who from outside the playoffs is most likely to make a run?

Of the 3-5 teams, the numbers like Geoff more than JT. He’s got the third-hottest team by TW% with the fourth-most points over the last three weeks, topping 94 points in each game despite a 1-2 record over that time. We talked about him a lot last week, so I won’t add much more other than to say I’m still a believer. Probably not as much as Samantha, but he’s got her beat at QB/TE and I still think he can piece together enough from his flex to get back into the hunt. Unfortunately, his loss to her this past week puts her in the driver seat.

Finally, of the two-win (or two-and-a-half-win) teams, the computer likes Beth Ann, giving her a 16% chance to make the playoffs. But what the computer doesn’t know is that the biggest hurdle will be Alvin Kamara’s health. The second overall pick has been quietly bad this season even when healthy and is currently RB21 on the year. Deshaun Watson continues to be awesome, but she’s going to need even more from him unless Kamara and Sterling Shepard (also injured) can get back on the field. Nyheim Hines as a starter is probably not going to cut it.

Looking Ahead to Week 9

There are two key matchups in Week 9. The first features the two favorites for the first-round byes and the top two teams in the Power Rankings, Josh (7-1) and Gray (6-2), who will go head-to-head this week. Gray is 3-2 against Josh all time.

Also matching up will be their challengers, Brandon (7-1) and Jess (5-3), who you might recall last met in last year’s championship game, which was a tense 90-89 victory for Brandon. For Jess, she’s probably not happy to see Brandon on her schedule as no team owner has had more success against Jess. In fact, Brandon is 8-1 against Jess all time with Brandon’s only loss coming in Jess’ championship season in 2014.

As for the best of the rest, Alex (4-4) will face off against Geoff (3-5). Both need wins to stay in the playoff hunt and both are slightly shorthanded. Alex will be without Devonta Freeman while Geoff will be without Michael Thomas. Alex is 7-2 against Geoff all time. Notably, one of Geoff’s wins came in the 2011 playoffs when Geoff defeated Alex to finish third.

Samantha (4-4) takes on Greco (2-6). Greco will be without Austin Hooper, Tyler Boyd and Matt Ryan, in whose place it appears she will start Sam Darnold picked up off of waivers. Samantha should be at full strength and will try to get above .500 for the first time this season. Last year, Samantha defeated Greco in their only matchup 80-54.

JT (3-5) will face Beth Ann (2-5-1) in their first-ever matchup where it appears Gardner Minshew and Odell Beckham Jr. will move back into the starting lineup for JT as Julio Jones (on bye) moves to the bench. Hopefully for Beth Ann, Alvin Kamara heals up while on bye this week. In the meanwhile, Nyheim Hines will try to get the job done in his place.

Lastly, Nick (2-5-1) and Erik (2-6) will battle it out. Erik should still be without Patrick Mahomes for at least another week. But we might be looking at the lowest scoring matchup of the week as both will be without significant players. Nick will be without Joe Mixon, Robert Woods and Calvin Ridley while Erik will play without Todd Gurley and last week’s stud Latavius Murray. This one will be a war of attrition. Erik is 5-3 against Nick all time.

Alright, get out of here. Go back to enjoying your Sunday and hopefully you used the extra hour you got this weekend to doing something more productive than reading this post.