Fantasy football 2023 -- week 9 recap

A lot of players stood out in the Eagles’ huge win over the Cowboys on Sunday, but the individuals who took center stage in the thrilling game were the zebra’s trying to muck it all up. Consider their stats on the day:

** 24 — The number of penalties the refs called in the game. That means they were on camera more than Dallas running backs (only 21 rushing attempts for the game).

** 20 — The number of penalties accepted. That means the refs hit their targets more than QB Jalen Hurts (17 completions for the game).

** 61 — The penalty yards against the Eagles on the Cowboys’ final drive. That means over the final minute, the Cowboys only earned 18 yards on their own (79-yard drive).

** 181 — Total penalty yards for both teams. That means the refs were as effective on the ground as both teams (182 combined rushing yards).

** 2.2 million — Approximate number of Dallas fans who posted within 10 minutes of the end of the game that the refs favored the Eagles and cost the Cowboys a win, even though both teams ended up with 10 penalties and the Eagles ended up with 15 more penalty yards.

Shout out to head referee Tra Blake for his service on Sunday. Nobody wanted to see you, but you made sure that viewers got plenty of you anyway.

QB: CJ Stroud, 51.80 pts — started by Joel
WR: Tank Dell, 23.82 pts — on the wire
RB: Rachaad White, 24.37 pts — started by Jeff
TE: Cole Kmet, 19.17 pts — started by Bob
K: Younghoe Koo, 19.00 pts — started by Mike
DEF: LA Chargers, 30.00 pts — started by Jo
D: Kenny Moore II, 20.50 pts — on the wire

Welcome to the NFL, CJ Stroud. The rookie from Ohio State had the best fantasy day of any player in the last four years on Sunday, throwing for 470 yards and five TDs (and a two-point conversion) in the Texans wild 39-37 win over Tampa Bay. You have to go back to week 7 of 2019 for the last QB to top his total (Aaron Rodgers, 53.76 pts), and you can’t find any rookie fantasy performance better in NFL history. It’s starting to look like maybe that guy should have been the #1 overall pick ahead of Bryce Young…

Only four players had two receiving TDs this week: Dell, Kmet, Bucs TE Cade Otton and Moore. However, only three of those players are on offense. Moore picked off two passes and returned them both for TDs in the Colts 27-13 win over the Panthers. That means he was the best defensive and offensive player for Indianapolis, since the actual offense only managed 13 points on its own.

Just a reminder that even though Taysom Hill outscored Kmet this week, he doesn’t count as the top TE because he is not actually a TE.

“Names I may have made up” edition

3rd place: Ben Skowronek, -0.20 pts — on the wire
2nd place: Zamir White, -0.20 pts — on the wire
1st place: Clayton Tune, -0.88 pts — on the wire

Clayton Tune is a real football player, although none of the stats I’m about to present will back that up. After the Cardinals traded away Josh Dobbs early last week, Tune was pressed into the starting role. He responded with 58 yds on 11 completions, plus two interceptions and a fumble lost in a 27-0 loss to the Browns. That’s a 20.8 QB rating for the day, much worse than the 39.6 rating you posted sitting on your couch (0 for 1, zero yards).

Meanwhile, Dobbs didn’t practice at all with the Vikings this week, but still came off the bench to lead the Vikings to a 31-28 comeback win over the Falcons. Dobbs finished with 158 yds passing and two TDs, plus 66 yds rushing and another TD, in about one half of work. Minnesota now sits in the 7th seed in standings, good enough to make the playoffs if the season ended today. And what did Arizona get for giving up a solid QB starter? A Vikings 6th round pick. Oh, and Arizona also gave up a 7th round pick. So they maybe moved up 40 spots at the end of the draft. Good work, guys. That’ll definitely get you a new franchise leader.


** At the end of Saturday’s Ohio State win over Rutgers, CBS studio analyst Brent Stover noted that the victory over the New Jersey school was especially sweet for a few Ohio State players. QB Kyle McCord grew up a Rutgers fan, and WR Marvin Harrison Jr. was raised in Philly.

Then fellow talking head Danny Kanell chimed in too — “And Safety Ja’Had Carter grew up in Virginia!”

Stover actually paused, stared at him and said, “that’s a little farther away.” Kannell, apparently unable to stop his mouth from spouting ignorance, replied, “well I mean they’re all from the East Coast.”

Kannell, a former starting QB at Florida State University, grew up in Fort Lauderdale which is … (checks map) … also on the East Coast, so apparently it’s also close to Rutgers. That, or Florida State’s geography requirements for graduation really are not good.

** At halftime of the LSU-Alabama game Saturday night, Army recruiting sponsored an “impossible kick” challenge. They set up a 10-foot wide goalpost 40 feet in the air and challenged former All-Pro kicker David Akers to try and boot it through.

Reading from a script, Akers exclaimed “I don’t know if anyone can do that!” then proceeded to try a few times (with former LB Clay Matthews as a holder, for no discernable reason). His best attempt missed low by a few feet. Then the Army brought in a whole squad of assistants to load the ball into a modified cannon, fire the football through the uprights, and lecture about the importance of teamwork in reaching your goals and blah blah blah.

Here’s the thing though — you could see that Akers totally could have done it if they gave him a few more tries. If the point was to make it look impossible, don’t bring a superhuman kicker into the picture and have him barely miss. Why not use a Gramática brother instead? Either of those guys would have missed by a mile, underscoring the point.

Anyways, David Akers is still out there making money and looking solid, so that’s a silver lining amid all that dumb.

** Last week, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said he didn’t want to “poke the bear” by saying anything controversial ahead of Sunday’s big Eagles game. Dallas QB Dak Prescott had a different take:

“Pour honey on me. If you see me and a bear in a fight, pour honey on me.”

RIP to Dak, who got what he wanted — a mauling from a hungry bear in the form of the Eagles team.

Halfway through the season, here’s a look at where we stand in the NFL’s annual “best fantasy football color” contest:

Brown — 538.46 pts
The clear favorite so far. WRs AJ Brown (Eagles), Amon-Ra St. Brown (Lions) and Marquise Brown (Cardinals) account for almost 300 points by themselves. And the Cleveland defense adds another 91 points to the total.

White — 163.21 pts
Tampa RB Rachaad White is doing most of the work here, with 89.40 pts. But Cardinals LB Kyzir White is pushing the team ahead with 29.50 pts of his own. Jets Safety Jordan Whitehead sadly did not make the squad, since only part of his body qualified.

Moss — 115.70 pts
Colts RB Zack Moss is doing this all on his own. His petition to team up with green was denied.

Green — 74.63 pts
Always the most controversial contestant. Nine players named Green or Greene have combined for a pitiful 13.63 pts this season, but the team gets a huge boost from the Packers defense, since their entire bay is Green.

Gray — 44.86 pts
Only four players qualified for the team this year, but Chiefs TE Noah Gray (30.37 pts) is making a strong push to bring the shade back into relevance.

Gold — 17.2 pts
Steelers LB Markus Golden leads the way with 10.5 pts, but don’t discount Miami RB Alec Ingold’s contributions (6.70 pts).

Apple — 17.00 pts
The team’s only member is Dolphins CB Eli Apple. That’s a lonely orchard.

Better luck next year to blue, yellow, red, orange, purple, silver and the rest of the rainbow.

Dallas rookie Hunter Luepke got his first taste of the rivalry with the Eagles on Sunday, recording a single sack on special teams. The running back has not shown much promise thus far this season on the field, but coaches see him as a key character guy in the locker room. And by character, I mean destructive character. Just look at what his name spells out:

Dallas Cowboys rookie RB Hunter Luepke
** Uncool. He takes kid earlobes. Pry, blur, ow!

I don’t know what you do with earlobes after you steal them, and I do not want to know.

** Rough week for Dad, who went 1-4 in our head-to-head picks. That leaves him down eight in the yearly standings at the midway point of the season. I’m fairly confident he has gotten the Jets wrong every single week this year. Luckily, he can still toss a few deep passes to catch up to me … unlike the Jets, who cannot move the ball at all.

** Dallas has the highest home attendance of any team this season, averaging about 93,600 fans. But that’s actually way short of capacity at AT&T Stadium, which is listed as fitting just over 100,000 fans. On a capacity basis, Dallas is the second least successful team at filling their home stadium, beating out only the Falcons (93.6% vs 92.8%). The Eagles are at 100% capacity so far this year, meaning unlike the Cowboys, they have not been playing in front of thousands of empty seats.


Week 9 standings

1 — Tight Ends for Everyone! (Jo), 1110.23 pts
2 — The Best (Jonathan), 1095.06 pts
3 — Jalen Ain't Failin (Dad), 1088.59 pts
4 — Standard Deviations (Sam), 1087.62 pts
5 — DeVonta’s Inferno (Mom D), 1060.29 pts
6 — Brotherly Shove Squad (Capt Awesome), 1020.30 pts
7 — Murder Hornets (Mike), 1019.15 pts
8 — No One Likes Us We Don't Care (Bob), 997.12 pts
9 — Evil Maniacal Laughter (Paul), 966.57 pts
10 — All Rogers No Sauce (Joel), 888.67 pts
11 — Jabronis (Ant), 878.25 pts
12 — Blue Collar Killers (Jeff), 803.99 pts

Who cares about the medal stand? Not Jo, who jumped from fourth to first in a single week, thanks to a monster 152.65-pts performance over the weekend slate of games (even with a dead defensive player). In doing so, she dethroned her son for the first time since week 3.

And the bad news keeps coming for the boy, who now sits less than eight points out of fourth place after a miserable week from his backups (Jonathan had three starters on a bye). Dad and Sam are a TD and two-point conversion away from tossing his team down even further.

The second highest-scoring team this week? You can hear Paul’s cackling all up and down the East Coast. Another name change, and another morale boost for his squad. This has been just a remarkable coaching turnaround this season.

But we’re only at the halfway mark. There are more byes (hello, Eagles) and another Germany game (goodbye, Patriots!) to worry about this week, so check your squads early.