Z’s Island: The 5 Biggest Surprises Heading into Week 12
1. Steelers halt the Circling Wagons in Buffalo: In an upset no one expected heading into the week. The Steelers went into Buffalo and defeated Coach Tbandit and the Buffalo Bills 44-34. David Montgomery was the workhorse for the Steelers, carrying the ball 24 times for 100 yards. The story of the day would be the Steelers defense. They scored FOUR defensive touchdowns on the day. While their season might be over, wins like this show that the Steelers’ defense can keep them in games. If the offense can pick it up, they’ll be in a much better space moving forward.
2. Bears Run Away with the Game in Baltimore: The story of this game: the defense of the Chicago Bears and the running game. The Bears forced SEVEN interceptions (five from Lamar, and two from Wimsatt) on the day, with one going for a touchdown. Brandon Thomas reignited what’s been a slow sophomore campaign, carrying the ball 13 times for 128 yards and three touchdowns. Rookie running back Thaddius Franklin also provided 49 yards on the ground, as the Bears would amass 176 total rushing yards. A dominant 41-16 win helps the Bears keep their momentum as they look to hold off the Green Bay Packers as well as push for the one seed.
3. Chargers Shock the Raiders in LA: The Raiders came into week 11 as one of the hottest teams in the league. Boasting an 8-1 record, they surely would breeze past the inconsistent Chargers, right? Wrong. The Chargers simply outperformed the Raiders in this one, with Herbert (333 yards, and two touchdowns) and Donald Parham Jr (10 catches for 147 yards) led the way offensively. While both teams played a relatively clean game, two forced fumbles by the Chargers defense (one of which went for a touchdown) is what ultimately propelled them to a 41-24 upset over their division rival. The Raiders will look to bounce back against the Denver Broncos next week.
4. Falcons Fly High in Atlanta: It’s no secret that the Buccaneers have had the NFC South in a chokehold for the entire cycle. They’ve survived slow starts, suspensions, and a general disinterest in divisional games. This season, however, they might have to kick it in gear a lot earlier than anticipated. The Atlanta Falcons finally pull off the elusive win over their divisional opponents. Johnathan Taylor was huge for the Falcons, rushing 30 times for 184 yards and adding another 83 through receptions. 4th year receiver Tyquan Thornton also had a big day, securing 4 catches for 115 yards and a touchdown. He’s quietly having a great year with over 1150 yards on the season. While the Falcons have a ways to go to make the playoffs (even though they’re in the thick of the playoff race), this is a solid first step as they’ve been the winners of 5 of their last 6 games.
5. Cowboys Go Lambeau Leaping: The Dallas Cowboys survived a dreadful day through the air by rookie QB Mason Garcia to pull out a 37-27 win over the Green Bay Packers. While the passing game suffered, the rushing game (led by TreVeyon Henderson) did not. The Cowboys amassed a total of 158 yards on the ground. The defense was also stout, forcing 4 Hendon Hooker interceptions and holding the Packers to 205 yards of total offense. The Cowboys will take on their division rival Philadelphia Eagles next week before heading into the bye week
Z’s Happy Hour Bonus
What I liked About This Week
Brotherhood: This league has incredible content, great users, a great commish team (the lead commish is the best in CFM history), and features you won’t find anywhere else. However, what stands out the most is the overall camaraderie of the league. A melting pot of individuals with a wide variety of backgrounds, skillsets, and personalities makes up our group. We laugh, we talk trash to one another, we unite for sporting events (whether against each other or together) and we play video game football at the highest level. At the end of the day, things all come back to us being a tight knit unit that will support each other no matter what. I wanted to use this section to extend even more condolences to Drama. He’s dealing with a very difficult situation right now and we need to come together now more than ever to make sure we support him however we can. We laugh with each other, but always take the time to check in with people to see how things are going. Real life can and will hit you hard, and it’s important that at the end of the day we support each other to the best of our abilities (you don’t have to be friends with everyone lol). Here’s to a great week 12. Have a good one gentlemen.
“Cracking The Code!”- Codes’ Storylines of The Week
Any Given Sunday: This statement is so true in season 4 of PML and the truest it’s ever been from my time in PML. This week alone we saw HD beat the 8-1 Raiders, Arod beat Tbrother, Burn push DK to his limits, Spdot blowing out Ke (not really an upset but nobody expected a blowout like that), 4-7 Texans beating 7-4 Niners, and a few others throughout the season. It shows no matter what week or matchup… anything can happen.
HD vs Matigy = Best Rivalry: I know there’s a few good rivalries in PML, but none achieve the amount of real trash talk and good games like these two. Matigy has 110% had the better cycle, but I believe HD has the lead on the H2H with Matigy. Matigy also does a great job of trolling HD which few can ever do. I hope I see the same thing in season 5.
Codes’ Unknown Heroes of the Week
Darrynton Evans (17 rushes, 150 total yards, 1 TD): With Chubb being suspended Doc refuses to let Kareem play, so we instead Evans have a career game… this man had 12 yards THE WHOLE CYCLE before Chubb got suspended.
Rashee Rice (6 catches, 83 yards, 1 TD): Maybe not the flashiest game, but before joining the Chargers he had a few okay games but no TDs. He’s had a good season for the Chargers so far, hopefully this game is a sign he’s on his way to breakout.
What is this?
Nef’s Power Rankings is a Power Rankings that will be provided weekly for PML members to enjoy! It’s rankings that don’t necessarily go off popular opinion or past results. It’s a fresh new look into power rankings that completely takes the popularity contest and bias out of it!
What is our goal?
Our goal is to provide a better understanding on who is really performing the best within a specific season using nothing but stats!
Who is involved?
Nefarious- Data gathering and inputing weekly.
Z- Weekly summary on the biggest surprises week to week to provide some substance to the Power Rankings and graphic itself.
CB- Weekly graphic to add something pretty to look at!
What stats are involved? Also what matters most?
Our Power Rankings are based into multiple scores. First you have your Record Score which gives you a certain amount of points every week. Making wins and loses weigh heavily week to week.Then you have your Weekly Score which gathers multiple stats based on that week to give you an overall score and performance on a week to week basis. Next you have Streak which takes your recent winning or losing streak to also adjust your ranking week to week. Then you have Team Overall that plays a very small factor when deciding where teams fall weekly. Finally we have our Total Score which is a combination of average Weekly Score, Record Score, Streak and Team Overall.
All of these things matter and factor into the final result but some matter more than others. Based on formulas used in this spreadsheet i can tell you roughly what effects the rankings mostly week to week and what effects them the least.
(From most to least)
Record Score– This is simple and self explanatory. The more you win the higher your score is. Wins and loses both weigh evenly. Wins effect it in a positive manner and loses effect it in a negative manner. For ties both team get half of what a win would get them.
Weekly Score– Recent weekly scores matter the most after record score. Older weeks (combined in 2’s) will effect the Total Score a little less and less as the season goes on. Weekly Scores does have multiple factors in it itself so I’ll break it down in most important to least.
– Record Differential in a win
– Point Differential
– Record Differential in a loss
– Ranking Differential in a win/loss (based on previous weeks total rankings)
– Team Overall Differential in a win/loss (based on team overall going into that weeks game)
– Points For/Points Against (small amount positive points for high scoring teams, and small amount subtracted for bad defenses)
Streak- With every win streak or losing streak you’ll receive a small hit or bump to your Total Score. So even if you lose one after having a big win streak you won’t punished by it in your total score. But the longer the streak is the more effect it can have on your Total Score and ranking.
Team Overall– Team Overall should matter. Especially when building a team is half of the battle. Though it matters it will not have a significant effect on our Power Rankings.
Thats a quick summary of what goes into it week to week. Please DM me (Nefarious) if you have any other questions.
Can I join?
Yes, we appreciate any help we can get. The more authors the better!
