2023 Power Rankings-Week 11

## Introduction

2023 is now solely about Paddock 9. Sure, there are 9 other teams. And hell, all 9 of those teams are still in playoff contention which is nuts. But we have passed a threshold, and the season is not about those 9. It's about Paddock 9. In much the same way that the 2007 season is about the New England Patriots, and beating the New England Patriots, Season 13 is basically about whether Pat is going to go undefeated or if he is going to suffer a catastrophic, Atlanta Falcons-esque meltdown.

If week 9 proved anything, it is that either Paddock 9 is a team of destiny, or the Fantasy Gods have something extra special in store for him. He beat the brakes off of Shotti, who still managed to have a really good day. And he did so with Stefon Diggs scoring under 7 points, two Baltimore Ravens RBs as his lead backs, Sam Howell at QB, and a tandem of Marvin Mims Jr (negative points in two of his last four games), and Trentin Irwin (seven games under 6 points this season). He lead the league in scoring this week, and his final score of 270.29 is more than eight other teams have scored at any point this year. In fact, there have only been four games over 270 points this year and Paddock 9 has three of them. In case your wondering, Shotti has the fourth. And in case you're wondering, two of the three games Paddock 9 has had over 270 were AGAINST Shotti.

So yeah, in many ways it doesn't matter what the rest of us do. It doesn't matter that the 10th-place team is one of only three teams over 2,000 points on the season, or that they are only two games out of a playoff spot with four games left to play, and about to face two of the four teams standing in their way.

It doesn't matter that three teams are 6-4 and tied for the second bye.

Or that RIPDab is on a three game losing streak that took him from the heat of the playoff race to the outskirts of elimination.

Or that Sweet Dee is a quiet 2-1 over their last three weeks, in a playoff spot, and yet just lost her two best players.

Or that Papa is a slightly less quiet 3-1 over their last four, in classic late season form and making yet another run at a miracle playoff berth.

Or that Pain Train is on their first win streak of the season, projected to win today, and could be tied for 6th by week's end as a result.

We're beyond all of that. It is about Pat. Can he lose? Is there a NYG team in our midst? Many players from that '07 team have said that they wish they had lost a regular season game somewhere along the way, because the pressure to win the big game was too great to overcome. What will the pressure be like if P9 hits the playoffs 14-0? Is that even possible in fantasy football? In the LOC? In this economy??

## Matchup Recap

* Paddock 9 combines for a gargantuan 573.33 points in a DH beatdown for the ages against a strong 461.42 combined points from The Shotti Bunch (9-10). **Next Matchup: N/A**
* Ma ma momma said ma ma moves into a bye position with a DH sweep vs. Doomed Duck Punchers (8-13). **Next Matchup: N/A**
* Sweet Dee gets a much-needed win in what would unknowingly be their final healthy game of the year against Multiverse of Mattness (9-10). **Next Matchup: N/A**
* Papa's Posse is doing that thing he does and takes care of business against a fledging RIPDab (11-11). **Next Matchup: N/A**
* Pain Train is either going to be a playoff story we tell our kids about, or one of the best spoiler teams in LOC history, as they take down The Stupid Idiots (6-5). **Next Matchup: N/A**

## Stat Chat

* Ma ma momma said becomes the 4th team to reach 100 combined wins.
* Pain Train becomes the 2nd team to reach 90 regular season wins.
* RIPDab becomes the 5th team to reach 80 regular season losses.
* Paddock 9 becomes the 7th ream to reach 80 regular season wins.
* Paddock 9 ties RIPDab for the 3rd most blowout wins of all time (18).
* Paddock 9 breaks a tie with momma to become the team with the 5th-most weeks in first place (16 weeks). He does not have a chance at passing anybody else this season, as RIPDab stands above him with 22 weeks.
* Duck Punchers breaks a five-way tie for the 9th-most weeks in last place and is now tied for the 8th-most weeks in last place with Why am I doing this.
* The Stupid Idiots loses back-to-back games for the first time this season. TSI has never had a season without back-to-back losses.
* Papa's Posse and Pain Train are both on their first multigame win streak of the season.
* RIPDab is on their longest losing streak since 2019.
* The Shotti Bunch continues to be the Dallas Cowboys of the 2023 LOC season. They have been involved in 5 blowouts of the week this season.

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

\*championship year

Paddock 9 has now gone beyond where anyone has gone before in any single season.

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

Guess I'll just keep adding to this shit.

## This Time Last Year... (2022 Week 10 Standings)

Well if this isn't a clear sign that scoring is down, I don't know what is. Last season, seven teams had broken 2,000 points through week 10. This year, only three teams. But with scoring down, parity is up (aside from Paddock 9). Last season, the 6th place team had five wins. This year, the 6th place team only has four. Sweet Dee was 4-6 in 9th place last year, now she is 4-6 in 6th place (but trending down). Not only that, but the 10th place team this year is third in the league in scoring, while the 5th place team is second in the league in scoring. Mattness, at 6-4, has over 100 fewer points then a season ago when they were 3-7.

## Above and Below

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

Duck Punchers was the only team in week 10 that did not exceed projection.

## Absolute Standings

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

### 2023

Pain Train, Papa, and RIP are all at the same absolute record as their actual record, while Momma has double the wins than she should based on absolute scoring. Where do those extra 3 wins go? All to Duck. He has three fewer actual wins than absolute wins. Basically Momma has sucked the wins from Duck like a vampire.

## Trade Tracker

Starts (Paddock 9):

* 5

Starts (RIPDab)

* 6

Bye week for the boiz.

## Most Trades Completed

Now that the deadline has passed, we can finalize this list for 2023. Paddock 9 will likely hit 40 trades in 2024, while Papa ties Sweet Dee on the leaderboard with his 11th trade.

## Partners in Crime

Paddock 9 now owns the top three spots on this list, having completed 6+ trades with Mattness, Momma, and now Papa. He is also tied for the 4th-most connections with a single partner as he's completed four trades with Duck Punchers.

## Power Rankings - Week 10

I haven't missed a power ranking since week 13 of the 2014 season, and I'm not about to start now.

But I had a week (more on that below). So we're just doing a quick hit for each team today.

### 1(1). Paddock 9

Looks to be unbeatable except for the fact that several teams have benched wins against them and they have finished as the top scorer of the week just 6 times out of the first 10 weeks.

### 2(2). The Shotti Bunch

Bad beat for TSB, who has been chomped by the Schedule Gremlin several times this year. Favorable finish to the schedule with a combined record of 10-20 over their last three games.

### 3(4). Multiverse of Mattness

Might be on the cusp of losing back-to-back for the first time all year, and has not won back-to-back games since weeks 2/3, but Mattness is getting healthy at the right time and could see the return of the great Justin Jefferson next week.

### 4(5). Ma ma momma said

After losing to the 2011 champion, momma got back on the horse with a win against 2014 champion Duck Punchers, and now faces 2013, '15, '16, '17 champ Shotti in a pivotal game that could swing the makeup of the whole playoff race.

### 5(3). Duck Punchers

I meant to do a little "Benched Wins" chart this week but ran out of time. Needless to say, Duck has benched a few of them. The Fantasy Gods were wicked pissed that he benched his keeper/pal Kenneth Walker.

### 6(7). Papa's Posse

Papa magic is real and has been renewed for another season.

### 7(6). The Stupid Idiots

Idiots has dropped three of four but was gifted with Sweet Dee losing her QB and TE on Thursday night, which evens the playing field for this week 11 matchup. If they don't get this W, they might as well just call the rest of the season off because how embarrassing.

### 8(10). Pain Train

If you tell me you want to play Pain Train right now I'll tell you that you are a liar. If Pain Train beats RIPDab then a playoff run is officially on and poppin'.

### 9(8). RIPDab

The most amazing thing has happened this week, as Kyler Murray has come back to the team to try and help his former manager make the cut for the Festival of Champions. It is currently my favorite storyline in the LOC. Kyler is getting the start over Josh Allen this week. What a fucking time to be alive.

### 10(9). Sweet Dee

Nothing you can do about the injury bug, but it totally sucks.

## Matchup of the Week: Bubble Battle (Pain Train vs. RIPDab)

I gotta dial in to Pain Train vs. RIPDab. Momma vs. Shotti is fireworks too, but I love the stench of desperation emanating from the 7th vs. 9th place teams. Both of them are so alive, yet so close to being dead. Pain Train is the hotter team, but with fewer wins.

Updated through 10/4/23

Earlier this season we had a close one, and I expect the same today.

## Conclusion

So most of you probably know this already but this week I had a pretty big change in my life. Yesterday, after three long, awful hours at immigration services, I officially got approved by the gov't of Canada to enter as a foreign worker and I will be spending 2024 in Quebec on a project for Apple studios. It has been very exciting but a tiny bit stressful and very time consuming. Moving is hard enough, but moving countries, turns out, even harder. I had to figure out how to fucking stream football. NO SMALL TASK. But anyway, hope to be able to finish the fantasy season strong but with the new job starting Monday I could be a little distracted, and I am not moved into an apartment yet so next weekend I have to move from my Air BnB to my apartment and that's going to be a pain in the ass too. So we'll see how everything goes, but still wanted to get something out for the squad!

Enjoy football and happy birthday Pat you fuck, hope I kick your ass.