The BEN Fantasy Football Newsletter

NOTE: Any rankings appearing before names in this edition refer to ESPN power rankings, not my own rankings nor the actual fantasy standings. Additionally, last week’s ranking will be used to recap the below matchups, and the new rankings will be used near the bottom where the Power Rankings and the preview for this week’s matchups are.

Happy November managers. Now that Halloween is past us, we are in the greatest time of the year: Christmas season! Thanksgiving is just an intermission from that season. The NFL Trade Deadline also passed yesterday, so that shook some things up.

Week 9 came and went, so let’s recap what happened.

Luke continues to stack Ws, making this his third straight win! What a turnaround from last season. Rico Dowdle continues to shine with 28.1 points. Michael Pittman Jr. continues to prove to be a great draft pick with 20.5, and Jameson Williams had 16.6. On the other hand, Jahmyr Gibbs only had 5.8 points, despite being projected 19.2! With modest contributions from him, Xavier Worthy, and others, it was all enough to outlast Isaac in a close battle.

It’s now 5. Straight. Losses. For Isaac. Jaxson Dart had 27.24, Puka Nacua had 22.8, and the kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn had 17.3 points. But that’s the extent of good news. Isaac had the other Panthers runningback Chuba Hubbard, and he only managed a measly 1.7 points. It may be time to give up on him and accept that Rico Dowdle is the guy in Carolina. Jonathan Taylor, in shocking fashion, only scored 7.7 points. Jakobi Meyers had 6.3, and George Kittle only had 6.9. Brutally, Isaac had Caleb Williams on the bench, and although Jaxson Dart over-achieved, Caleb over-achieved to a higher level, scoring 38.7 points. Starting him would’ve single-handedly given Isaac the win. The season started off so well for Isaac, and now he’s seeing his season fall apart. Where does he go from here?

Sudais just keeps on winning. It’s almost getting boring writing up a win for Sudais in these newsletters. Jaxon Smith-Njigba continues to be a grown man, scoring 22 points. Ja’Marr Chase had 17.1, Travis Kelce had 12.6, De’Von Achane had 16.6 (a disappointment in his regard). But the biggest story was Sam LaPorta scoring 21.7 points! Patrick Mahomes only had 10.5 and Nick Chubb unsurprisingly only had 3.4, but yet again, another week, another win for Sudais.

It might just be that type of season for Mohit. Win, loss, win, loss, etc. In the absence of Jalen Hurts on a bye week, Jacoby Brissett had 24.84 points! James Cook simmered down with 13.5, Jaylen warren was able to salvage his night with 16.9, the Seahawks Defense put up 11, but the flip side was UGLY. Despite the Bears scoring 47 points in a win against the Bengals, newly-acquired Rome Odunze had ZERO points! Brian Thomas Jr. continues to let down with 8.5 points, and Ladd McConkey only managed to score 9.6 points. Wil Lutz only scored 3.4 points, after missing a 50+ yarder. But the toughest news of all: Tucker Kraft scored only 4 points before tearing is ACL, and will be done for the season. After losing Malik Nabers earlier in the season, Mohit loses another one of his star players for the season. Will he be able to survive another gut punch? One thing is for sure: after scoring the least amount of points this week, Mohit will have to answer to the press this week for the first time this season!

Carson gets his third straight win! And in his return, Brock Bowers scored an incredible 43.3 points that led the way. Christian McCaffrey also had a sizzling 34.3 points. Those two accounted for over half of Carson’s points (50.88%)! CeeDee Lamb and Nico Collins combined for 30 points, Kareem Hunt had 12.5, and Eddy Pineiro had 12.7. The star performances overshadowed the fact that Jordan Love only scored 9.02 points or that Bam Knight scored 6.7 points.

Another high scoring effort for Ryan doesn’t result in a win. It’s getting brutal at this point. Bijan Robinson had 17.6, Chase Brown had 19.2, Jaylen Waddle and Rashid Shaheed combined for 26 points, and the standout backup RB in place for D’Andre Swift, Kyle Monangai, lived up to the hype with 22.8 points. But all of that was not enough to overcome the onslaught from Carson.

Caden finally got into the win column! After scoring a low 82 points last week, he flipped the script and scored 139.2! You don’t have to look far to see how it happened, just look at his first four players. Justin Herbert with 27.7, Kyren Williams with 17.4, Josh Jacobs with 20, and Tee Higgins with an astonishing 33.1 points! With modest contributions from Chris Boswell, Wan’Dale Robinson, Tyler Warren, and Tyrone Tracy Jr., Caden grabs a very important win. This win now makes last place a three way tie between him, Eric, and Ryan.

After winning 2 weeks in a row, Eric has now lost two weeks in a row. Matthew Stafford had 26.84 points, newly-aquired Ashton Jeanty bounced back with 19.9, Davante Adams had 23, and Rashee Rice had 18.6. But the lows were LOWS. DK Metcalf only had 2.6 points, Kimani Vidal only had 3 points, and Brandon Aubrey only had 3.6 points. A loss here puts him in a tie for last place again.

This one was nerve-wracking to follow as it came down to Monday Night Football, but Johnny was able to survive a late surge from Patrick’s team. Josh Allen had 28.82 points, Travis Etienne Jr. was able to have a good game with 16.5, Derrick Henry had a serviceable performance with 13.1, George Pickens had 13.9, and Michael Badgley the kicker had 12.5. But the real story here is Drake London coming back from injury and dropping a 38.8 bomb. What a performance! That was enough to survive a late push from Patrick, and gets Johnny above .500.

And in this case, one team goes above .500, and the other goes below .500. This is Patrick’s 4th straight loss, a far fall from the top. Lamar Jackson had 25.56, Justin Jefferson had 16.7, Amon-Ra St. Brown had 18.7, Trey McBride had 16.5, and Marvin Harrison Jr. surprisingly had 22.6. But what stopped Patrick from taking the lead during Monday Night Football was Javonte Williams only scoring 7.3 points despite being projected 16.2 points. He obviously needed more than the projection, but to only score 7.3 was tough to see. Will Patrick make a move to get his season back on track?

There was a trade completed before last week’s Thursday Night Football between Mohit and Eric.

Mohit receives…

Eric receives…

There will not be a commissioner’s opinion since I am involved in the trade.

Week 9 of the Lucky Rankings are here. As a reminder, this is a ranking that tries to quantify how “lucky” is team over a season. As the season moves on, the more refined and accurate this data becomes. A reminder that if you end up being the most lucky team, you will infact get a trophy for it.

The farther away from 0 you are, the more lucky/unlucky you are. Alternatively, the more greener/redder you are, the more lucky/unlucky you are. 0 is the baseline, meaning your record is exactly what is expected at that point.

Let’s take a look at the ESPN Power rankings after Week 8.

And here is the Commissioner’s Power Rankings:

Here’s a visual of the ESPN Power Rankings so far:

The All-Play Record is a record that shows what your cumulative record would be if your team played every other team each week.

This is an indicator that removes some of the luck involved in a head-to-head scheduling, where you play one team a week, and gives a more accurate picture of each team’s performance.

With that being said, these are the cumulative All-play Standings so far this season:

I try not to have potential repeats, but this matchup is too good to pass up on. Both 6-3 teams. Both on winning streaks, but only one team can get to 7-3. For Carson, will Brock Bowers build off his great performance last week? Can CMC deliver another stable performance? The most important question of all: will Carson be able to get a win despite having CeeDee Lamb on bye? On the flip side, Luke Carter will have to replace Jake Ferguson who’s on bye. Will Bucky Irving play? Can Aaron Rodgers adequately replace Jayden Daniels?

The other matchups are as follows:

#6 Mohit (4-5) vs. #7 Patrick (4-5)
#8 Caden (3-6) vs. #4 Johnny (5-4)
#10 Eric (3-6) vs. #1 Sudais (7-2)
#9 Ryan (3-6) vs. #5 Isaac (4-5)

Make sure you submit a question for Mohit to answer in his Press Conference! Each manager can submit a question, and the more people that send a question, the better. You’re limited to one question. You can send it in the fantasy group chat, or to someone else if you want it to be a surprise (to be clear, Mohit will know who sent what question, but the questions will not be revealed to him until close to when its time to answer them, giving him little to no time to prepare answers).

Thank you for being in this league.

By participating in this league, you agree to follow the rules. The commissioner reserves the right to issue rulings regarding league matters so long as they don’t conflict with pre-existing rules or previously proposed, but rejected, amendments. These rulings include, but are not limited to: vetoing trades despite public vote, collusion, tanking, and inactivity.