Yoohoo! I'll make you famous...

Young Guns came out with guns blazing this week and posted the highest score of the season… 119 points!  (This tops sprouts’ score of 118 back in Week 5).  John basically got there thanks to the Houston Texans… his three highest scoring players were from the Moo Cows (Deshaun Watson 35 pts, Will Fuller 34 pts, and Lamar Miller 18 points).  A total of 77 points from one team---nearly 65% of his total!  Who knew the Texans were so potent?  With the win this week, the Young Guns become the sixth different team to take home a Weekly High Score Prize this season.  Well done sir!

The league standings are still as tight as ever, once again with only 1 game separating the teams in the South Division.  Vandelay Industries is in 1^st with a 5-3 record and three teams are tied in last place at 4-4.  In the North, the Bubble Craps Bandits are pulling away from the pack with a league-best 6-2 record, while the next closest divisional team is two games back at 4-4 (Joe’s Pats).  We have five games to go in the regular season, so there is still a lot of movin’ and shakin’ to come.  Every year going back to 2011 there has been at least one team in the playoffs with 6 losses, and SOFA KING GOOD actually qualified with a 5-8 record in 2011.  Crazy shit happens, so make sure you’ve got your best line-up each week.

With Young Guns getting such a significant chuck of scoring from one NFL team, it got me curious about which NFL team would be the best if you were to load up solely on one team.  Timmy has basically tested this theory with the Chiefs for the last 14 years, now we’ll see what the other 31 teams look like.  Below I’ve ranked all 32 teams on points per week based on their 8 best starting players.  Also this week we’ll check in on the experts’ pre-season Top 5 ranks and the Best Bench this week is one for the record books!

Onward!

NOW THAT’S THE INSIDE STUFF

• Russell Wilson, QB – American BadAss – 38 pts – 452 yards passing and 4 TD’s with only 1 INT.  Wilson is averaging 22.4 points per game this season which is the highest average of any player.
• Deshaun Watson, QB – Young Guns – 35 pts – He nearly matched Wilson’s production, with 402 passing yards and 4 TD’s, but unfortunately added 3 INT’s.  Regardless, this guy has become an absolute scoring monster… he’s scored >30 points three times in the last four weeks, and is averaging 29.2 points per game in his last 5 outings, the highest average for any player across that time frame.
• DeAndre Hopkins, WR – Joe’s Pats – 31 pts – The two Texan’s “De’s” killed it this week, with “De”Andre Hopkins recording his best game of the season: 224 yards on 8 catches with 1 TD.
• Baltimore, DEF – Longshanks – 29 pts – The Ravens absolutely annihilated the Dolphins 40-0, and on the way got 3 sacks and two interceptions, both of which were returned for TD’s.  In spite of recording -4 points in Week 3, the Ravens are the second highest scoring Defense in fantasy, averaging 14.1 ppg just behind Jacksonville (averaging 15.4 ppg).
• Ezekiel Elliott, RB – American BadAss – 28 pts – Zeke needs to rack up as many yards as possible, because one of these weeks he’s going to actually be suspended.  He got 150 this week, plus added a pair of TD’s.
• Juju Smith-Schuster, WR – Young Guns – 28 pts – After having only one double-digit scoring game this season (10 points in Week 4), Juju exploded with 7 catches for 193 yard and a TD in the Steelers win over the Lions.  Big props to John for having this guy on his roster (although not in his active line-up), as I honestly had not heard of him prior to this week.

COME ON MAN!

• Brandin Cooks, WR – Joe’s Pats – 2 pts – Cooks showed flashes of his potential with a breakout game in Week 3 (27 pts), but hasn’t been able to recapture that magic since.  He is on pace for his lowest yardage total since his rookie season in 2014. 
• Stefon Diggs, WR – American BadAss – 2 pts – After looking like the second coming of Randy Moss early in the season, Diggs has not done much.  A groin injury kept him out for the last couple weeks, but he only managed 27 yards on four catches against the Browns.  The freaking Browns!
• TY Hilton, WR – sprouts – 1 pt – Over the last three weeks, Hilton has scored only 4 points. 
• Hunter Henry, TE – Glory Days – 1 pt – Not much for Henry on this day, as he caught just 2 balls for 11 yards.
• Miami, DEF – Vandelay Industries – 1 pt – Just a bad week for the Dolphins as they got smoked Love-40.  Miami is the 23^rd ranked defense.
• O.J. Howard, TE – Longshanks – 1 pt – The Juice was not loose this week, as he had only 2 catches for a meager 16 yards.
• Coby Fleener, TE – sprouts – 0 pts – Fleener had 1 catch for -1 yards.  Not sure how that happens, but Fleener is a complete non-factor at this point, having scored 6 points in his last 5 games.

NFL TEAM SCORING RANKS

Young Guns had 65% of their scoring (77 pts) from the Texans this week, and the Bubble Craps Bandits (aka Chief Dredd) had 86 % of their scoring (81 pts) from the Chiefs.  Below are all 32 NFL teams ranked based on average weekly points scored.  For each team, I calculated what their point total would have been with their best starting lineup (i.e. 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K and 1 DEF).  Here are the results from worst to first:

Rank	Team	Avg/Wk
32	Miami	47.29
31	Cleveland	49.88
30	Chicago	54.25
29	NY Giants	56.14
28	San Francisco	56.75
27	Indianapolis	58.50
26	Cincinnati	59.57
25	NY Jets	59.75
24	Arizona	60.29
23	Denver	61.43
22	Oakland	62.38
21	Tennessee	63.14
20	Baltimore	63.88
19	Carolina	65.63
18	Pittsburgh	68.00
17	LA Chargers	68.25
16	Buffalo	68.43
15	Green Bay	68.57
14	Tampa Bay	69.00
13	Atlanta	70.57
12	Washington	71.57
11	Detroit	73.43
10	Minnesota	74.75
9	Seattle	77.57
8	Jacksonville	78.29
7	Dallas	80.29
6	New Orleans	81.43
5	New England	82.75
4	LA Rams	83.14
3	Philadelphia	84.63
2	Houston	86.57
1	Kansas City	88.88

So it looks like Timmy and John are definitely on to something with the Chiefs and the Texans being the top two scoring teams.  It was also surprising to see the LA Rams (ranked #4) as high as they are, and to see teams like Carolina (#19), Oakland (#22) and Denver (#23) in the bottom half.

TOP 5 CHECK IN

The day before the start of the season, I locked in the Yahoo! rankings for the Top 5 players in each position, a total of 30 players.  Through 8 weeks of play, and based on average points per week, 10 of those players ranked by Yahoo! are still in the Top 5 of their respective positions.

Top 5 Ranks per Yahoo!
QB	as of 9/5/17	After Week 8 (10/30/17)
1	Aaron Rodgers	Deshaun Watson Hou	24.0
2	Tom Brady	Russell Wilson Sea	22.4
3	Drew Brees	Alex Smith KC	20.8
4	Russell Wilson	Tom Brady NE	20.3
5	Matt Ryan	Carson Wentz Phi	20.3
RB
1	David Johnson	Ezekiel Elliott Dal	19.0
2	Le'Veon Bell	Todd Gurley II LAR	18.4
3	LeSean McCoy	Kareem Hunt KC	17.1
4	Melvin Gordon	Le'Veon Bell Pit	15.1
5	Devonta Freeman	Melvin Gordon LAC	14.5
WR
1	Antonio Brown	DeAndre Hopkins Hou	14.6
2	Julio Jones	Antonio Brown Pit	13.5
3	Odell Beckham, Jr.	A.J. Green Cin	11.3
4	Mike Evans	Mike Evans TB	10.3
5	A.J. Green	Will Fuller V Hou	9.7
TE
1	Rob Gronkowski	Zach Ertz Phi	10.4
2	Travis Kelce	Rob Gronkowski NE	9.8
3	Greg Olsen	Travis Kelce KC	9.6
4	Jordan Reed	Cameron Brate TB	8.9
5	Jimmy Graham	Evan Engram NYG	7.1
DEF
1	Denver	Jacksonville Jax	15.4
2	Seattle	Baltimore Bal	14.1
3	Houston	Los Angeles LAR	13.4
4	Kansas City	Detroit Det	12.7
5	Minnesota	New Orleans NO	11.0
K
1	Stephen Gostkowski	Greg Zuerlein LAR	13.9
2	Justin Tucker	Ryan Succop Ten	12.3
3	Matt Bryant	Stephen Hauschka Buf	10.9
4	Dan Bailey	Stephen Gostkowski NE	10.6
5	Mason Crosby	Kai Forbath Min	10.5

BEST BENCH

We almost had an historic "Single-Player" Best Bench this week from American BadAss, where Jason could have improved his point total by 32 with only one player swap: R. Wilson for D. Prescott.  The single-player Best Bench is a very rare occurrence, as it has only happened on 3 other occasions.  But BadAss didn’t quite get there this week, and instead we got a different historic Best Bench… one which has only happened 7 times prior to this week.  With a 38-point improvement, the Week 8 Best Bench goes to… Young Guns!  Yup, John is the latest owner to snag a Weekly High Score Prize and Best Bench in the same week.  (My Scottish Rebels did it last year in Week 6).  John needed only two roster moves to make it happen:  J. Smith-Schuster for J. Jones +21 and J. McKinnon for J. Ajayi +17.

Get those waiver claims in and get ready for Week 9!!