Thanks to everyone who chipped in to the awards last week, it was nice to be on the other side of it and read the highest quality writing the awards have ever seen! I think this would be something we should do more often and not just because I’m running out of things to say or getting swamped with work, or swamped with kids or swamped with stress about buying a house. None of those reasons. None. I admit that I started them as it gave me an excuse to pull out these details and see if anything could help me get over the edge and finally win the damn thing.

That leads me onto the next thing, especially as it was a question that was asked in the chat and I don’t think it was answered by either Dermy or myself. I haven’t passed the trophy to its rightful owner and I feel shame. The original plan was to take it over to Dermy and hand it over to him face to face as my work takes me over to Craigavon a few times a year, but the first opportunity I had, I ended up not being there as long as I thought, had a colleague with me and couldn’t explain to him that I needed an hour at lunch to go off the site to hand over a trophy! The next opportunity got cancelled because of Covid and I just kept saying to myself, “I’ll get over soon, I don’t need to post it” but here we are going into week 7 and Dermy hasn’t had his rightful prize yet. It is engraved and it isn’t on my shelf anymore but I’m taking this chance to apologise to Dermy and the league and I will be visiting the post office this week to rectify my mistake.

As far as fantasy football goes, it was a very weird week for scoring! You either got a good score or a bad one, there was no in-between and we no longer have any unbeaten teams. The Bandits lose to the autopilot Otters but still keep the overall top spot in the league but are tied record-wise with the Midland-leading Eagles and the South-leading Seahawks who both won this week. The race for the bottom is also a three way tie now between the Wombats, Otters and Chargers thanks to that Otters win.

Once this week’s games are done, we are past the half way mark of the fantasy season and don’t forget that the Sunday games kick off an hour early.

The Buzzsaw: Oxford Pythons

“Olly’s at the wheel, Olly’s at the wheel!”

This was supposed to be a more relaxed week for the Pythons as that they were facing the Wombats who look like they have decided that 2020 isn’t their year and haven’t scored over 100 points since week 2. Instead the Wombats woke up (mainly thanks to a pair of Vikings) and put up a top half score of 120 that the Pythons needed to beat if they wanted to keep up with the Seahawks and the Beavers in the South. Having arguably two of the best fantasy assets of the season in Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry allowed Olly to score 148.5 points and top the week for the first time this season. Starting Claypool and Fulgham shows that the Pythons can work both the draft and the waiver wire and the race for the South is still interesting.

The South had the top two scores this week as the Sandslashers were only 7 points behind the Pythons and if Mark Andrews had one of his up weeks instead of one of his down weeks then Scott would be snatching the Buzzsaw trophy instead. Continuing the surprising teams at the top theme, the Otters came in third with 129 points and the Wombats in fourth with 120. Going into week 6, those four teams had a combined 4 wins between them!!

Gateshead Spartans - 🏆
Chippenham Beavers - 🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆
Flitwick Fireflies - 🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆

Highest Point Scorer - Oxford Pythons

Winning the buzzsaw is a lot easier when you have the highest point scorer and as I’ve already said above, Derrick Henry was a monster on Sunday with 39.4 points and he doesn’t even catch the ball (2 for 5 for 52 receiving)! He is averaging 22 points per game so far this season, 6 TDs in total and that is the second time that Henry has rushed for over 200 yards and scored 2 TDs in his career. That 94 yard TD run in the 4th quarter was something to behold, not blazing speed, not cat-like agility, not bulldozer strength, just a player in a league above everyone else.

Justin Jefferson with 35 points shows his fantasy output lives and dies on Kirk Cousins. Imagine if he was with a QB such as Wentz for example…

The top ten is full of QBs as usual with Watson, Ryan, Wentz, Murray, Tannehill and Jackson all in there but there were a few surprises in the top twenty. Swift finally emerged from the Detroit RB graveyard after being given 14 attempts and showing what he can do and Ronald Jones also showed up in the surprise beat down of Green Bay. If you had asked me if Anthony Firsker would have had over/under 100 yards for the season, I would have probably put my money on the under but the undrafted TE at Tennessee was the 17th highest scorer this week with 21 points and now has a home with the Beavers.

Wigan Wombats – 🏆
Chippenham Beavers – 🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆
Lurgan Leopards - 🏆
Flitwick Fireflies - 🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆

Unluckiest Loser - Wigan Wombats

This might be the one time where someone is very, very happy to be the unluckiest loser!

When you give up on a season you don’t deliberately try to lose but, you are content if you do, to improve your draft position. But getting a higher pick normally means a bad team, so getting the 4th highest score shows your team is still competitive (which is nice) but getting it and losing so you are still in for the first overall pick is the best tanking I’ve ever seen!

The Wombats will hope for better out of their picks than Cam Akers though as this week he put up an ugly 0, but the time of Tua has arrived in Miami and Tee Higgins is starting to show a little something with Burrow.

120 points was a losing score as it was up against the buzzsaw Pythons but it would have been enough to beat my Eagles, the Seahawks and the Spartans who all won with lower scores, some much lower than others. Luck has a BIG part to play in this game!

Chippenham Beavers - 🏆
Gateshead Spartans - 🏆🏆
Coventry Eagles - 🏆
Andover Sandslashers - 🏆
Wigan Wombat - 🏆

Closest Matchup - Gateshead Spartans

What a sad, sad state of affairs the match up between the Chargers and the Spartans proved to be! Surprisingly, 66 and 68 were not the worst scores of the week but scoring 68 points and still winning by 2.2 points is unreal and it keeps the Spartans 2nd in the North. To be fair to Chris, a lot of things went against him this week with Aaron Rodgers getting just 3.8 points after a decent first quarter against the Buccs, Edelman seemingly disappearing from the Patriots playbook, Mostert picking up another injury and Landry stuck on the Browns during a Steelers beatdown.

To be fair to Jason as well, his efficiency rating of 80% showed he got the most out of his roster but starting Jordan Howard who has been a healthy scratch for the Dolphins wasn’t a great idea.

All the other match ups were not that close at all with three of them being won by margins greater than 40 points. The Otters beat the Bandits by almost as many points as the Leopards scored in total!! This was very much the boom or bust week and you just had to hope that you were paired up with a bust.

Oxford Seahawks – 🏆
Coventry Eagles – 🏆🏆
Flitwick Fireflies – 🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆
Gateshead Spartans - 🏆

Most Impactful Injury - Lurgan Leopards

Two teams were hit hardest by injuries in week six, the Spartans and the Leopards.

The Spartans lost both Raheem Mostert and Mark Ingram to the same injury, an ankle sprain, and that backfield is already suffering from the lost of McCaffrey. The remaining options are Freeman on Thursday night against the Eagles rush D, McKinnon maybe stepping into Mostert’s role and hoping he scores against Chris’ own Patriots or hope Belichick decides it’s a James White game as he has only put up points in three games so far this season.

Dermy and his Leopards lost Miles Sanders and Zach Ertz for a few weeks at least and like the Spartans, the Leopards were already reeling from their number one RB not playing, this time Barkley. Also just like the Spartans, they only have 3 options left to play, Melvin Gordon coming off a suspension, Joe Mixon going up against a good Cleveland run D or Rex Burkhead. The similarities between the Leopards and the Spartans at RB are incredible but the Ertz injury tips the scales to the Leopards side, even though Ertz has been a shadow of himself this season. Trey Burton has just come back in time to help Dermy but his injury history means he’ll want Ertz back sooner rather than later.

Gateshead Spartans – 🏆🏆
Coventry Eagles – 🏆
Oxford Pythons – 🏆
Chippenham Beavers – 🏆
Lurgan Leopards - 🏆

Worst Decision - Lurgan Leopards

This decision stood out for me and I almost stopped looking for others once I saw it. Ryan Tannehill is loving his post-Gase life in Tennessee and is currently the number 9 QB on the season, number 10 overall whilst Andy Dalton signed as a backup for the Cowboys and probably hasn’t taken many snaps with the first team as this is Dak’s team (Dak had never missed a game before this, so the likelihood of needing Dalton was low). I only hope this was a reverse-jinx Dermy! Tannehill is also the highest scoring player on the Leopards roster ahead of the likes of Mixon, Sanders and Evans! Why wont you start him DERMY!!!!!!!!!

I mentioned earlier the mistake of the Chargers starting Jordan Howard but maybe the idea of the Jets made Jason think that Howard would get something there, but that was a game costing decision as Gus Edwards would have gotten the points for the win.

Still, starting Dalton over Tannehill is the more egregious error here so the Leopards get the trophy,

Chippenham Beavers - 🏆
Gateshead Spartans - 🏆
Andover Sandslashers – 🏆🏆
Lurgan Leopards – 🏆🏆