Week 3 is in the books, and it was exciting stuff… I assume. I don’t really know because I didn’t watch any of the games because I was out at a music festival until the early hours. After reading about how my Steelers played, it is probably for the best. In fact, it was not a good week for the UK Dynasty managers in terms of the real teams they support, with 10 of the 12 leaguemates feeling blue after losses for the Steelers, Texans, Chiefs, Jags, Pats, Bucs, Seahawks, 49ers and Eagles.
Thankfully we all know our dynasty teams are far more important than actual real football, and so some of us could console ourselves with fantasy wins. Incredibly, the league’s fantasy results were exactly even this week, with 6 teams winning and 6 teams losing! Incredible stuff, you couldn’t make it up.
The Buzzsaw - Lurgan Leopards
Week 3 was relatively low scoring, the average score throughout the league being 104.2, a bit of a drop off since Weeks 1 and 2 which were 115 and 111.6 respectively. This week’s buzzsaw would have only been the 3rd highest score in those earlier weeks.
The Lurgan Leopards made a big trade for Zeke at the start of the season, wisely snagging Pollard at the same time, but it took until week 3 for the trade to pay off properly with Zeke having his first big fantasy game of the season. Cooper Kupp also put up a big score, his 3rd of the season. Solid but unspectacular games from the rest of the starters – Noah Fant being the only major disappointment with 2.5 – helped the Leopards rack up 136.38 points and more importantly they remain unbeaten so far this season.
Nottingham Bandits 🏆
Oxford Pythons 🏆
Lurgan Leopards 🏆
Highest Point Scorer - Justin Herbert – Wigan Wombats
Only 1 player, a QB, topped the 30 point mark in week 3. The other 11 starting QBs throughout the UK dynasty league were generally pedestrian. In fact 6 managers would have been better off starting a different QB, and if the Seahawks had done then they’d have taken away this award, but they left Josh Allen’s 37.22 points to rot on the bench.
The Wombats started Justin Herbert, who led the Chargers to a statement victory over the Chiefs, and Herbert’s 4 TDs, 281 passing yards and smattering of rushing yards translated to a healthy 30.84 points. This wasn’t enough to save a bad day at the office for the Wombats as whole, who had faced the buzzsaw this week.
Flitwick Fireflies 🏆
Oxford Pythons 🏆
Wigan Wombats 🏆
Unluckiest Loser - Wigan Wombats
As the Wombats were unfortunate enough to be matched with the buzzsaw this week their respectable haul of 114.64 points was ultimately meaningless. It would have been enough to beat 7 of the other teams in the league this week if fixtures were different.
An honourable mention goes to the Eagles who scored only 0.2 points fewer than the Wombats but came up against the surprisingly consistent Flitwick Fireflies who have put up solid scores each week so far.
Oxford Pythons 🏆
Wigan Wombats 🏆🏆
Closest Matchup - Chippenham Beavers
Excluding the closest matchup, in Week 1 the average points difference was 51.65 points, in Week 2 46 points – but in Week 3 the average fell to 26.9. Just based on that stat it seemed like Week 3 was tighter, but in practice there were still only 2 close games. They were the Coventry Eagles (114.44) versus the Flitwick Fireflies (121.24) and Andover Sandslashers (98.74) who lost by only 4.28 points to the Chippenham Beavers (103.02). The Sandslashers may well be feeling very sorry for themselves after losing so narrowly, for reasons explained below.
Flitwick Fireflies 🏆
Andover Sandslashers 🏆
Chippenham Beavers 🏆
Most Impactful Injury - Andover Sandslashers
While there were thankfully no obvious season ending injuries in week 3, a few players received knocks that took them out of some or all of the game. AJ Brown, Juju, Gronk, Shepard and Slayton all had their fantasy days capped through injury, though none look to miss significant time going forward.
On Thursday night Christian McCaffrey received a hamstring injury that also took him out of the game. While it looks as though he is avoiding being placed on IR, and is speculated to miss 2 weeks, that isn’t set in stone and fantasy managers and Panthers fans will be keeping their fingers crossed. Even if he comes back sooner rather than later, damage had already been done. McCaffrey had scored 5 points before getting injured in the second quarter – it is safe to assume that he would have gotten a lot more and comfortably won the matchup for the Sandslashers if he hadn’t exited early.
Nottingham Bandits 🏆
Oxford Seahawks 🏆
Andover Sandslashers 🏆
Worst Decision - ?
In Week 1 the Sandslashers won this award for ‘every decision they made’ and they could arguably win it again for the second time for the same reason this week. 6 starters were outscored by bench players, almost all by margins which would have won the matchup. However the individual decisions don’t jump out as being scandalous. While Rodgers had a nightmare week 1 he seemed to be back to winning ways in week 2 so starting him isn’t too strange. Robby Anderson has had a quiet season so far but had been seeing targets. Aiyuk’s situation is murky and Christian Kirk is risky as possibly the 4th receiver on the Cardinals so Anderson wasn’t too odd a choice. The other Sandslashers lineup decisions were no brainers which just didn’t work out. Nothing stands out in the other game close enough to have swung on a sit/start decision or two, between the Eagles and Fireflies.
The Seahawks sat Josh Allen, who would have been highest scoring player, but it was understandable to bench him against what last season at least would have been a very tough matchup in the Washington defense – especially when your alternative is Wilson, who had had a great first two weeks.
No egregiously terrible lineup decisions stand out to me, so I shall award the Worst Decision to everyone who didn’t put money on the 100/1 bet Dan suggested which turned out to be a winner. Dan is the bet whisperer.
Andover Sandslashers 🏆
Gateshead Spartans 🏆
Everybody Who Didn’t Put Money on the 100/1 Bet Dan Suggested Which Turned Out To Be a Winner 🏆
Roll of Honour
Nottingham Bandits 🏆🏆
Oxford Pythons 🏆🏆🏆
Flitwick Fireflies 🏆🏆
Andover Sandslashers 🏆🏆🏆
Gateshead Spartans 🏆
Oxford Seahawks 🏆
Wigan Wombats 🏆🏆🏆
Chippenham Beavers 🏆
Lurgan Leopards 🏆