Headhunters 5: The Fine Nine

## Introduction

Last night saw one beheading and unfortunately zero be-dickings, as ETE made like E.T. and left this earth for another world (the world of the dead).

## In Memoriam: Extra Tight Ends (P.S. Nobody wanted to tell me I've been spelling "Memoriam" wrong for five years?)

In the end, it wasn't very tight.

Extra Tight Ends was losing a little steam over the last few weeks, which is ironic because to this point he had been one of the few teams to not start two QBs. That changed in week 8 and so did their hot streak of scoring. They started Kirk Cousins and Zach Wilson, only to have Kirk go down with a season-ender. That left Zach Wilson as the lone QB on the roster for week 9, which is a scary prospect. So they made a deal with Monty, trading Swift for a guy you may have heard of...Daniel freaking Dimes. No big deal.

Unfortunately the only thing Swift about this exchange was that it led to a swift exit for Keeling.

Danny Dimes short-changed ETE by going down in the opening quarter of play, finishing with just 3.33 points and putting ETE in a huge hole. It was bad enough that Travis Kelce turns into Patriots-era Jonnu Smith when Taylor Swift isn't sucking Brittany Mahomes's dick in the sky box. And Tyreek Hill, the other player who has managed to cover up the glaring insufficiencies on this roster, also fell below projection in Germany. I guess you could say the Frankfurt games really FrankHURT this team's chances at survival.

Still, there was an outside chance that Zach Wilson would score 33 points. He's done it once before. I mean, literally just once, but it's happened! And if it did, Pat volunteered to eat his own dick, so there was added incentive.

But putting your fate in Zach Wilson is never a good time, and it became obvious pretty early on that Extra Tight Ends was going home.

ETE typically started just one TE, and one QB. Taking advantage of exactly zero perks associated with a superflex TE premium league, ETE was blowing the doors off this league until both of his studs crapped the bed the same week that Daniel Jones slipped on a banana peel and Zach Wilson did exactly what Zach Wilson was born to do which is underperform.

It's a bit of a shock, considering some of the shitty teams still alive (looking at you, me!). And it also puts the entire league in a weird spot because the best available players from his team all have byes in week 10. But that's not his problem. He's dead.

Extra Tight Ends:

## Dead Money

Keeping track of all the cash that never got spent by teams that are now eliminated.

Dead Money 2023

$102 left over for Extra Tight Ends.

## Top New Releases

1. Tyreek Hill
2. Travis Kelce
3. Kenneth Walker III
4. Puka Nacua
5. Josh Jacobs

## Week Nine Bidding Results

### Quick-Hit Thoughts

* Last Year's Most Expensive Player: George Kittle - $114 (Hasta Laviska Baby)
* Biggest Overpay: C.J. Stroud ($97 over next highest bid - Monty's Python). How did we get CJ Stroud overpays two straight weeks? I mean 70 points but read the market.
* Narrowest Margin of Bid Victory: Jalen Hurts ($11 over next highest bid - Monty's Python)
* Scott willing to go all-in on DeVonta Smith with his remaining FAAB just goes to show what a diehard Eagles fan he is. Could use that FAAB down the line for like Travis Kelce, or CMC, or Josh Allen, but nah man..DeVonta! Full send.
* Super confused where the Courtland Sutton bidding war was?
* Sucks for Horsemen to bid on Waller, with no competing bids, and then lose him to IR. But luckily $17 was a small investment.

## Excessive Spend

Excessive spend is anything over a single dollar more than the next highest bid for the player you won, and does not take into account the talent level or value of the player.

Monty shoots way up the list after going big on two QBs. Henry VIII lurks just outside the top five with a bunch of micro-overbids that will ultimately lead to his downfall.

## Money Spent Per Week

First real sign that bidding might be slowing down now that funds have been depleted. It's amazing that we are already down to 9 teams. It seems like just yesterday someone was starting Dalvin Cook.

## Week Nine Results

* Biggest Climber: Tee Diggs (^7)
* Biggest Faller: Never Done This Before (v7)

## Draft Dodgers

The top of the draft continues to get massacred. Only the first overall pick remains from the top five.

## Kings of the Castle

### 1. Monty's Python

Went all out for Stroud and Hurts but they combined for 109.33 points so whatever works. Add in D'Andre Swift, who he basically got for free, and that 121.41 would have almost been enough to take down Extra Tight Ends. The funny thing is they traded Russell Wilson FOR Daniel Jones on Halloween, then flipped Jones for Swift, all because Jared Goff/Wildon were both on a bye and he didn't have any active QBs. And look at this guy now.

### 2. Headless Horsemen

Huge loss at a bad time with Dallas Goedert going down with a four-week plus injury to his arm, rendering him essentially useless for Headhunters. That's two weeks in a row he has lost a top-10 TE, after Waller went down last week. They currently do not have an active TE on the roster, and Kelce is off in week 10, making this a really interesting week of manuevers for Horsemen.

### 3. Tee Diggs my RIP for sure-oh

Bye Diggs is finally back to Tee Diggs, and Tee Higgs is finally back to his old self, while Stef Diggs continues to impress. Rachaad has been White hot, while Jaylen Warren Jaylen Wasn't going to slow down for anybody on Thursday night. Somehow Derek Carr continues to drive scoring up on this team, while Baker Mayfield is cooking despite the Bucs being 3-5.

### 4. Jeff Probst' Tribe

JP might be in NZ ziplining and hanging out in Hobbit holes, but his players are still showing up on the gridiron. This week, it was five players over 20 points in the starting roster, with 39.05 from Tank Dell on the bench. Gus the Bus is still hard to truss because he's TD dependent, but newcomer Brian Robinson (acquired in a trade with Henry VIII for Mac Jones) is more volume based and a nice compliment. Sun GAWD Amon-Ra, along with Russell Wilson, will both be back in week 10.

### 5. Obi-Wan Mahomie

Obi-Wan Mahomie will just be Obi-Wan, hold the homie, in week 10 as Patrick takes a breather and Jaylen Limps his way to an off-week with a sore knee, with hopes that he will be back to full waddle by week 11. Obi-Wan had all his flex players score just over 17 points this week, including Chris Olive Branch Olave who extended his streak of games over 10+ points to four, and Mike Evans whos quest for a record-breaking 1,000 yard season is just about as important to me as who wins the Super Bowl.

## On the Chopping Block

### 9. Never Done This Before

NDTB, who is still going by "Hoyer the Destroyer" on Yahoo even though Hoyer isn't on the team or even starting in the NFL anymore, was a healthy Dime away from going home this week. They got sub-10 point games from Geno Smith, who has turned back into a pumpkin, Tyler Lockett (guess the Seattle SeaStack isn't all it's Krakened up to be), Roschon Johnson (who got his job snatched by old man Freeman), Josh Downs (who should really be called Josh Downer because expectations have been really high for him of late), and Romeo Doubs (who isn't going to be attracting any Juliets with performances like this).

### 8. Müller Lite

Only needed like 3 points from Justin Herbert and nearly didn't get them. Surviving this week without Kirk and Etienne was absolutely huge, but it remains to be seen if Bryce Young is enough in the superflex spot now that we are down to 9 teams. Their defense was the only starter who managed to break 17 points. It's also incredible that Logan Thomas doesn't have a season-ending head injury yet, so that is a situation to watch. Now Christian Watson and Christian Kirk will get to start alongside Adam Theologian in what has got to be the most religious WR room in the league.

### 7. Henry VIII

Survived an off day from the Jackson/Flowers duo thanks to 16 carries each from Pacheco and Najee, plus a nice 13-target night from Garrett Wilson to top it off. Henry was the only team in the league this week without a single player, including defense, to not score over 23.23 points. Every other team had at least one starter break 28 points.

### 6. Bad Boys II - The Soundtrack

Jake Ferguson scored more points than George Pickens, Cooper Kupp, and Davante Adams combined. That's fantasy football, baby. The self-proclaimed most complete team in the league gets back LaPorta and McCaffrey this week, so the season is pretty much over and everyone should quit.

## Unique Players Started

How many unique players (Defense included) were started by each team. The table can be sorted by players and also by week eliminated.

ETE had not made a lot of roster changes to this point, since they have been so strong. They started the same Buffalo defense for all 9 week, and had started just Kirk Cousins at QB until week 8.

## Rulers of the Kingdom

2023 first place finishers:

Monty strong and getting stronger. Meanwhile, what a fall from grace for ETE, who notched his third first place finish just two weeks ago.

## Dungeon Dwellers

2023 teams that finished second-to-last, narrowly avoiding elimination:

The worst second-to-last place score since week 3. Off week for the league.

## Single Season Scoring Records

As teams get eliminated, their single season performance will appear here. Bolded lines indicate performances from the current season.

ETE's score was so high that there is a good chance whoever gets eliminated next week will finish their season with fewer points.

## All-Time Combined Points Scored

Same as above: eliminated teams will have their 2023 season added to the total. Bolded lines indicate that the record has been updated through 2023.