2023 Power Rankings-Week 8

## Introduction

For the first time since their single days of the early 2010's, both Papa and Commish were able to go out in prime time and really fuck some bitches. One team was able to hold off a late rally attempt by their opponent, while the other led a ferocious comeback.

It's hard to say a team in 2nd "needed" a win, but after three straight games at sub-170, Mattness was on the edge. And with each Alvin Kamara catch on Thursday night, it was looking more and more like Commish was ready to jump.

Things got bleak on Sunday, when Bijan Robinson simply wasn't feeling it and opted to just not play, no big deal. Head hurty. Luckily D'Onta Foreman made like a pregnant woman and ate for two, hitting the end zone more times than Tyreek Hill hit his girlfriend (people forget). But Tyreek also choked his girlfriend, and there was plenty of choking to go around. Both Goff (Shotti) and Herbert (Commish) went full Johnny Manziel and fell way short of expectations.

On SNF, Jaylen Waddle hurt his back and spent two quarters working it on the sidelines like he got confused and thought he was at a pilattes class instead of a crucial primetime football game. That's when Commish had no choice but to call in the big guns, texting shotti a grumbly concession speech and thus triggering the first MattJinx of the season.

After that, Jaylen Waddle celebrated Easter late by rising from the grave and putting up just enough to ultimately give Mattness the win.

On the other side of things, Papa needed just under 40 points combined from K.J. Osborn and Kirk Cousins to pull off a massive come from behind win against Pain Train, who traded his two most productive players and somehow improved (is Kelce a lockerroom cancer, news at 11!).

Pain Train had a shot to win thanks to Christian "Captain" Kirk on TNF, and in fact could have won had they started newcomer Josh Downs (37 on the bench). But Glorio made it clear that he is still a #Papa guy, by eliminating Chris in Headhunters on the same week that he effectively eliminated him from the LOC postseason, as Kirk "Captain" Cousins put the Posse on his back and brought Papa all the way back single-handedly. KJ's 10 points were a nice bonus.

But the DiGennaro boiz weren't the only two teams to play in week 7. We also had a nice recovery effort from RIBDab, who ends momma's four game win streak.

And we have Duck Punchers, who outscored everybody in week 7 and is the only team besides Paddock 9 with an active multi-game win streak.

How fitting, considering that Duck Punchers and Paddock 9 square off in week 8....The Schedule Gremlin strikes again!

## Matchup Recap

* Paddock 9 is on the verge of history after waltzing to another win vs. The Stupid Idiots (7-5). **Next Matchup: N/A**
* Multiverse of Mattness, for the first time in October in franchise history, is able to defeat The Shotti Bunch (8-12). **Next Matchup: N/A**
* RIPDab, in what is quickly becoming a rivalry on the rise in the LOC, takes a double-header win from defending champion ma ma momma said (13-9). **Next Matchup: N/A**
* Duck Punchers puts the whole league on notice with a blowout of the week victory against Sweet Dee (10-7). **Next Matchup: N/A**
* Papa's Posse pulls off an exciting comeback and keeps their season alive by bowling over the depleted Pain Train (11-14). **Next Matchup: N/A**

## Stat Chat

* Duck Punchers has a win streak of 2+ games for the 13th straight season. DP is the only franchise to log consecutive wins in every season they have played. Even Shotti, the team with the 2nd-most wins in LOC history, had one season without back-to-back wins (2020). RIPDab has the 2nd-most seasons with consecutive wins (12).
* Duck Punchers ties momma for the most blowout-of-the-week wins (22).
* Pain Train becomes the 7th team to reach 90 combined losses.
* Sweet Dee becomes the 2nd team to reach 90 regular season losses.
* Mattness becomes the 6th team to reach 80 regular season wins.
* Papa's Posse becomes the 8th team to reach 70 regular season wins.
* Paddock 9 has broken his franchise record for longest win streak, previously six games.
* Paddock 9 has tied the record for longest wins treak to start a season (7, RIPDab).
* Paddock 9 has already met their win total from a season ago, 7 wins, doing so in half the games.
* Pain Train has recorded a six-loss season for the fourth straight year.
* LOC has four teams at 2-5 or worse and three teams at 5-2 or better for the first time since 2012.
* For the first time this season, none of the five matchups played will be repeated again in the regular season (until 2024).

## Longest Win Streaks of All-Time (by Team) - Updated

\*championship year

Updated 10/25/23

Paddock now ties Duck Punchers and RIPDab for the third-longest win streak of all-time.

Worth noting that of the five teams who have had win streaks over 7 games, only Duck Punchers in 2014 was able to win the championship in that season. Three of the five teams are the three active franchises to have never won a trophy.

## Longest Winning Streaks to Start a Season by Team - Updated

As long as he keeps winning I have no choice but to keep updating. Someone please beat his ass so I have one less chart I need to plug in every week.

Updated 10/25/23

## Seasons with 7 or More Wins by Team

P9 ties momma for the 5th-most seasons with at least 7 wins. Momma has a decent chance of pulling ahead by the end of 2023 if they can muster 3 more victories. Pain Train will have to nearly win out, which doesn't seem likely, in order to add a season to his belt. In order for Duck to get to 12 seasons with 7+ wins, he will have to finish 5-2 or better...not impossible considering his recent success.

## This Time Last Year... (2022 Week Seven Standings)

Paddock 9 has over 300 points more than the first place team from a year ago. However, they still trail behind Duck Punchers 1789.62 point total through seven weeks from 2020.

## Above and Below

A chart to track how many games above/below projections for each team.

Mattness may have five wins but they are underperforming, whereas Papa is 2-5 but has overperformed nearly every week.

## Absolute Standings

Absolute Standings tracks the standings if the top five scoring teams won every week regardless of matchup.

## 2023 Narrowest Wins of the Week

While Yahoo calculates the biggest blowout for me, the narrowest win is a little bit harder because it has to be manually tabulated every week. That said, I thought it might be interesting to track and see who is winning the closest games every season. For now, only 2023 is done but as the year goes on I'll get the other ones done.

Stupid Idiots has won four games, and three of them have been the narrowest wins of that week. Duck, meanwhile, has narrowly lost two matchups. If those had gone the other way, the standings would look very different.

## Trade Tracker

Starts (Paddock 9):

* 3

Starts (RIPDab)

* 4

And now this week the pendulum swings in the other direction. It didn't cost them a win, but Paddock 9 would have been better off keeping Nacua and his 3rd this time around. So far, so good for RIPDab, who is 3-1 since acquiring Nacua, with nearly 30 more points.

## Power Rankings - Week 8

### 1(1). Paddock 9

Only one team in LOC history has made it this far into the season without a loss. In 2013, RIPDab was so good that they didn't score under 200 for the first time until the Salty Dolphin Down, a streak of 14-straight games. in week 7 they notched their seventh-consecutive victory by scoring 260.63, 24.73 more than Paddock 9 put up last week. They then took their first L against Pain Train, 206.63-245.76. That was the last time they scored under 221 points until the playoffs, and they would lose just one more game the rest of the regular season (a 236.44-240.34 crushing defeat at the hands of The Shotti Bunch). Yes, even one of the greatest teams of all time lost two games and failed to win the championship.

### 2(3). Duck Punchers

Sorry if this offends. The team with the second-fewest wins, tied for 9th place, is the second-strongest team in the LOC. It's just a cold, hard, fact. Four games over 200 (double Stupid Idiots), only one games under 170 (Mattness has three), and coming off a game scoring over 240 (momma has zero such games). Their point total is second-best, and they have the best RB group in the LOC, with Travis Etiendzone and Kenneth Walker VI (touchdowns). Scary, powerful, dangerous. Needs to be stopped.

### 3(2). Ma ma momma said

Seven players under 11 points, eclipsed by 67.74 from Patrick Mahomes. Usually a bad sign when your best non-QB, non-defensive player is Kareem Hunt in the year 2023, but a valiant effort considering their studs were both on the bye. they'll be at full strength in a winnable match vs. Mattness in week 8.

### 4(6). Multiverse of Mattness

When they were needed most, the flex guys stepped up big for Mattness in week six. Deebo out, Waddle hurt, Bijan suffering from a headache (which we Atlantians totally get because this city is annoying), and finally Rachaad White did numbers, Waller existed, and Stevenson got used in the passing game. A huge relief heading into the toughest part of the schedule, where they will now face a combined record of 17-11 over the next four weeks.

### 5(5). The Shotti Bunch

It's still not clear what this team is. They are third in scoring, but three starters have yet to break 100 points on the season (Kittle, Cooper, and Ridley). Ridley has been quite the riddle. Is he good, or nah? And what's up with Jameson Williams? He's giving off real Josh Gordon vibes. Not necessarily that he smokes a ton of pot, just that it seems like he's going to get passed around fantasy teams for the next five years, with everybody convinced he's finally going to arrive.

### 6(4). The Stupid Idiots

Are the Idiots starting to lose steam? They've lost two of their last three games and scored under 175 in three of their last four. Like Drake's later albums, London has not performed very well this year. And with Wilson, Johnson, and Higgins coming back this week, it remains to be seen if there is a place on the active roster for the Atlanta WR. More importantly, Idiots has only a few weeks before the trade deadline and has a massive need for RB (if only there were a team elsewhere in the league who is so good that they are nearly benching Jonathan Taylor every week...).

### 7(7). RIPDab

A team effor this week as a WR, a QB, and a RB managed to break 30 points, and almost everyone showed up to play besides Gabe Davis. But we have to wonder what is going on behind closed doors at RIP HQ. Chris Olave seems so unhappy with his position on the team that he tried to escape by driving as fast as he could in one direction and hoping nobody would catch him. Unfortunately for him, he was apprehended and forced to return to RIPDab for a week 8 game vs. none other than Sweet Dee, the woman to whom Nate gave his losing seed.

### 8(8). Papa's Posse

Papa had a tough road to navigate this week with DK questionable and most of his players going at 1pm. This win wouldn't even have been close on Monday if he had made the executive decision not to risk DK at 4pm and just roll with either Allgeier or Bourne. But thanks to a little help from his friends (Amon-Ra the Sun God and Glorio the Fantasy God), Papa pulled it out. Now they have another close contest againt Stupid Idiots, who they are outscoring on the year by less than a single point.

### 9(9). Sweet Dee

2-0 seems like a lifetime ago, and so does their week 1 win against RIPDab. Austin Ekeler, not sure how old he is but he looks 40. Aiyuk and CMC each took a huge hit because of the Brock Purdy concussion in the 4th on MNF. And Matt Stafford made for a poor sub for Joe Burrow. Sweet Dee's season seems to have soured early, and Nate has a chance to this team on the compost pile this week, and enact some revenge in the process.

### 10(10). Pain Train

Going to be a long back half of the season for Pain Train, especially if they string a few wins together with Josh Downs and Zay Flowers and start to wonder what could have been. Him saying "at least I have Headhunters" and then getting sniped there the next week must not have felt good, but fantasy is a cruel beast.

## Matchup of the Week: Duck Hunting (Paddock 9 vs. Duck Punchers)

7-0 vs. 2-5 has no right being this good. This legit feels like a heavyweight throwdown between the two best teams in the league. It's paddock 9, looking to become the first team to have an 8-0 record in the LOC, vs. Duck Punchers, who is the winningest team in league history. Duck is coming off a fantastic couple of games, doing so at less than full strength. Paddock 9 has amassed three of the 10 players taken in the first round in 2023, and also has a bonafide first rounder in Stefon Diggs as one of his keepers. He is strong, but he was outscored by Duck last week. He's human.

Updated through 10/01/23

These two teams are 2-2 since the Glory Bowl X matchup. Paddock 9 already has a win against them this season, but hasn't swept Duck Punchers in a season since 2016. A win by Duck would not only ruin Paddock's perfect season, it would also eliminate them from eligibility of a coveted Double-Header Sweep!

This is the only matchup in week 8 where both teams are projected to score over 200 points. Neither team has ANY players on the bye. In a somewhat cruel fate, there is only one player going on Monday night: Zach's kicker. Arguably the most volatile position in the game, Zach has at least an outside chance of pulling an upset if he is within 20 points, has a real change if he's within 10, but could have literally zero chance even if he is only down 1 because a team could get shut out, miss an XP, miss all his FGs, or get hurt trying to chase someone down on a kickoff return. It's a really scary position to be in for Zach, so he should probably just try to win before then.

We'll see how good of a position he is in after Thursday, when Paddock will send out Stefon Diggs to set the tone. On Sunday night, Paddock will once again send out a premiere WR, this time Keenan Allen (holy shit this guy's team is good). It's a weird instance of only one player going each primetime game, but they will be big. If Paddock 9 is behind, Keenan Allen will be his last chance to take a lead and build it up enough to withstand the great Riley Patterson.

It's quite possibly the biggest week 8 matchup of all time. Hopefully these two teams don't let us down.

## Survivor Update - Week 7

Another crazy week! In a risky pick, Zach got eliminated by selecting the Rams. In another risky pick, Pat survived a huge week by selecting the Falcons!

Nate and Shotti both took their first marks by picking the Buffalo Bills. Many are saying they don't believe in Jared's bet that the Patriots will go 12-5. SAD!!

So Shotti, Commish, Nate and Pat all remain, all with one strike.

## Conclusion

Well, we're halfway there. Hard to believe.

Just remember, any team that started 2-5 has just as much a chance at going 5-2 or better in the next seven games. Any team that is 5-2 has the opposite potential fate. Nothing is over until it is over.