Here we are again, at the end of another week of the NFL season. And boy oh boy, what a week it has been! This season has been a crazy ride so far, and I don’t know if I am ready for what is still to come! We have seen a little bit of everything…some great performances, some total surprises, and of course some more injuries. I am beginning to think that we, as a fantasy community, have angered the football gods in some way the way injuries keep piling up to all of our fantasy stars. So, without further ado, let’s jump into what I saw this week.

They Are Who We Thought They Were…Right?

This week we learned that two things can be simultaneously true. Those things are 1) You are what your record says you are, and 2) Your record can be a mirage. So, what do I mean by this? In short, it means that there are far more bad teams in the NFL than there are good teams. As I was watching the games this weekend, I couldn’t help but notice that many teams with “average” records were playing incredibly poorly against teams that their records indicated that they were better than. Some of them still won, but they didn’t make it look easy. On the flip side, there were some teams that had “below average” records that were playing teams tough that they, in theory, shouldn’t have. My takeaway from this was that there is a lot of parity in the NFL this season, but most of it is amongst the teams at the bottom of the league. The top teams to me are still pretty clear (even though some of them lost this weekend). This sets up for a pretty exciting last ⅔ of the NFL season! I can’t wait to see who ends up emerging from the pack as the season wears on!

Fantasy Not Goodness

I spend an incredible amount of my time as an NFL fan watching the games for fantasy purposes. This year has been a struggle for me on that front. Every week when I am watching the games, I see fantasy asset after fantasy asset go down to significant injury. And yes, I know the NFL is a violent game and injuries are part of it, but this year has been a total fantasy buzzkill. I don’t care what your draft strategy was, your team has been significantly impacted by injuries. Especially our high-end assets. If we look back at pre-draft consensus ranks, over half of the first-round picks have missed or are about to miss time due to injury. While this may not be unprecedented, it is very rare. As I said in my Injury Round-up article, the person who ends up winning your fantasy league won’t be the one who had the best draft…it will be the last man standing. So, what do we as well-prepared fantasy managers do? The same thing we do every night Pinky…we scour the waiver wire looking for the appropriate players to add to give our teams the depth we need, or we take advantage of the less prepared fantasy managers’ panic drops and add them to give us a future advantage. We also look to take advantage of players that may have over-inflated, or deflated trade values. Stay diligent! Even if you are 1-5 or 2-4, the season is not necessarily over. You may be just a move or two away from going on a hot streak and sneaking into the playoffs, and that is all we need. Once you are in the playoffs it is a totally new game!

Defense Wins Games

This week served as a great reminder that while offense gets most of the press, defense is just as much a part of the game (and some would even say a more important part). This week was also a reminder that defense is more than just having an elite player or two, it is a total team effort. We saw some of the best defenses in the league this year stifle what have been pretty good offenses, and at least one of them did it with their best player out of the game. It is going to be hard to overlook some of these defenses going forward. Now, I’m not sure if we saw the playbook of how to beat the Eagles and 49ers this week, but I do think we learned that the Browns and Jets defenses are really good. Who knows, if those teams can begin to field competent offenses they may be the ones that emerge as playoff teams at the end of the year.

Last Century Officiating

Being an official at any level is a frustrating job. You never hear people say that you did a good job. They only speak up when they believe there has been an error. I cannot imagine the stress that goes into being an NFL official. Literally, the eyes of the world are upon you. I’m not sure you could pay me enough to do it. That being said, I think the NFL is doing their officials a disservice by continuing to do things the way they have always been done. So many things could be taken off their plate with modern technology. Other leagues have begun moving into the 21st century with their officiating, what is stopping the NFL from doing it too? We could eliminate the chain-gang by putting a GPS in the ball, we already have them in player shoulder-pads. Allow the Sky Judge to involve themselves in calls that the officials on the field clearly missed (or got wrong), we already use them for expedited reviews. Just these couple of quality-of-life changes would make it much easier to officiate the game effectively, and it would begin to change fans’ perception of the officials as well.

These are just a few of my takeaways from the games this week. I look forward to helping many of you with your fantasy rosters again this week! As always, if I can help, please reach out to me on X(Twitter) @2fatguysff