Highest Scoring Team ($15)
Des Moines Football Team
Coach Qualley
154.78 pts
Highest Scoring Player ($7)
Tuna with Mustard
Coach Jack (2nd time this season)
Keenan Allen - 41.3 pts
Current Playoff Standings
Qualley’s DSM Football Team (7-3) [Papa Jord Leader]
Ewoldt’s Course Rangers (7-3) [X-IA Leader] X-IA
Nick’s Curtis’ Bronco Coat (6-4) [Cul-de-Sack Leader]
John’s Scallon Express (6-4) [Boy Scout Cyclone Leader]
Hunt’s Groovers (7-3) [Wildcard Leader] X-IA
Jord's Shirt Brothers (6-4) [Wildcard Leader] Papa Jord’s
Austin’s Goffpocalpyse (4-6) [PPG Leader - 117 PPG] Papa Jord’s
Jack’s Tuna with Mustard (5-5) [PPG Leader - 116 PPG] X-IA
Bubble Teams
Jesse’s La Bamba (6-4) X-IA
Brady’s ALL-TIME D (5-5) CdS
Curtis’ 3-Peat Pick ‘Em Champ (5-5) CdS
Fantasy football is a mystifying pastime, isn’t it? Producing at times weightless euphoria and other times gut-wrenching, hair pulling despair, and sometimes those moments are within minutes of the very same Monday Night Football game you’re watching.
Take my Dierks’ Heathens for example - up 40 points going into MNF - ahead of their most hated rival Andrew “Author of All My Pain” Gustin. After a full quarter of his two players being held to just two catches, and Sleeper upping my chance of winning to 99%, I foolishly let just a smidgin of hope creep in, and within 4 minutes of each other on back-to-back possessions, his two players would each score touchdowns, cutting my lead to 15 and my chance of winning down to 83%. As his players widdled that 15 down to 8, and both had chances to score a TD and win him the game, it’s not an exaggeration to tell to you that the final two quarters of that game shaved two decades of my life. But alas, Dierks’ Heathens would vanquish the idiotic Drew, and his awful team, and until next weekend - euphoria.
And then there’s Jesse and La Bamba, featured in last week’s post as the current win streak leader, winner of five straight, and sitting in the top Wildcard spot, as the then #5 seed in the playoffs. That’s when the fantasy gods come for you. With his #1 and #2 scorers on bye (Cheetah and Swift), La Bamba would start just two players that would score more than 7 points, and if not for Big Game Gabe Davis, putting up 10.1 points last night, Jesse would have cemented himself as the lowest scoring team of all time. Instead, his 48.76-108.72 loss to Curtis will place him 2nd on the all-time low list:
The C-Team - Anton - 45.37 pts (2019 Week 3)
La Bamba - Jesse - 48.76 (2023 Week 10)
The Nut Grabbing 9-Year-Olds - Joe - 48.78 pts (2018 Week 9)
Brady’s Boat Bucks - Joe - 52.17 pts (2021 Week 16)
El Slobberknockers - Brady - 54.48 pts (2015 Week 2)
Can’t keep a good man down; however, as Coach Jesse boldly proclaims he’s going all the way:
In other news, Ewoldt loses his 3rd straight game as his hype bubble burst in trademark fashion, this week losing to Nick 107-118. It’s an important win for Nick, who wrestles himself back into a one-game lead over the CdS. Ewoldt, who once had a 3-game lead in his division, has now opened the door to Hunt, who is now on a 4-game win streak himself, after beating TC this week 134-100. Both Tanners (not TC) are 7-3, and for Ewoldt’s sake he does hold the head-to-head tiebreaker against Hunt, but he’ll need to stop the backslide if he wants to hold onto the reigns. Hunt has averaged the most points in the league over the last 4 weeks, and become the 2nd highest scoring team on the season.
All of these things speak to the razor’s edge margin of error many have alluded to about the IFL and particularly this season. We’ve got some hot teams right now, certainly, but no one team has been flat out dominant this season, and in fact, I analyzed the point differential of the highest scoring team from each season of our league history compared to the league average, to see where our current point leader, Qualley, stacked up to historic teams:
Points Differential (Percentage Better than League Average that Year)
Don't Mess with the Zoquon - TC - 145.27 PPG +24.13% (2019)
Momma Cat - Jord - 154.59 PPG +23.32% (2018)
Tatooine Sith Lords Zach - 146.58 PPG +21.03% (2015)
The GROOVERS - Hunt - 141.47 PPG +20.36% (2021)
Bellhops - Jack - 137.15 PPG +20.08% (2017)
Brett's Regrets - Drew - 137.37 PPG +17.38% (2019)
Badassmailman - Aaron - 127.62 PPG +17.05% (2022)
Slick Rick's Firepoles - Drew - 145.83 PPG +16.33% (2018)
Grady Olson Presents - Aaron - 140.5 PPG +15.66% (2016)
FULLY STOCKED - Brady - 174.79 PPG +12.15% (2020)
Qualley’s 122.93 PPG is only a 9.94% point differential to the league average (111.82 PPG) this season, and that is the lowest-ever for a season point leader. Now there’s still a lot of football to be played, so this can change of course, but at least though 10 weeks, the parity in the league is at an all-time high.
The Des Moines Football Team, after being highlighted last week, only shined that much brighter under the spotlight this week, as Coach Qualley posted a league-high 155 points against Aaron, despite having two of his players, Heinicke and Mattison, knocked out of their respective games. Qualley has ascended to the top of the overall standings…. for now.
Finally, Brady and Jord, two bottom feeders, whose teams’ level of heart does so much heavy lifting finally settled the score on whose heart is bigger, with the Shirt Brothers’ CeeDee Lamb putting on a clinic, and icing Brady 114-99. Jord moves to 6-4, and sits a game back in his namesake division, while Brady falls back a game in the CdS. Jord continues to grit out wins, but you know what they say about a big heart…
$20 BOUNTY
Hunt earned this year’s bounty Week 1 by posting the lowest score of the week. He would beat Jesse Week 2, and TC Week 3, before losing the bounty to Jord in Week 4. Jord would then turn around and lose the bounty to TC in Week 5 and TC would hand it off to Drew in Week 6. Drew would lose it to the then undefeated Ewoldt in Week 7, who would lose his first game, and the bounty to Jesse in Week 8. Jesse would keep it in Week 9, beating Austin but then score the 3rd lowest point total in IFL history in Week 9, 48.76 points, and lost the bounty to Curtis in Week 10. Curtis will face Qualley in Week 11, the hottest team in the league.
TOP DIVISION
Status quo all-around, but Papa Jord’s does cut X-Iowa’s lead down to 2 games.
PICK ‘EM
I touched on the unpredictability of this season last week, and here it is again, with our best pickers this week going 2 for 5. Two of our game polls only had a single picker get it right - Jack the lone picker to select Curtis’ Bronco Coat and Austin the only buck to have the sack to pick Dierks’ Heathens (bless you). Amidst the mess, Qualley places himself back on top.
