In week 4 fantasy imitated life, with the league’s unbeaten teams whittled down to one only – the Cardinals in reality, the Bandits in UK Dynasty.
The North and Midlands both appear to be 2 horse races in the early running. In the North the unbeaten Bandits have the 3 and 1 Leopards nipping at their heels, the week 5 matchup between the two will be a big one. While the Spartans will be quite content to be 0-4 on the season, the Wombats will be disappointed to have just the one victory so far, considering the quality of some of their players (Herbert, Barkley, Aaron Jones and Justin Jefferson in particular). Their Dynasty Assistant team value is very close to that of their 4-0 division rivals the Bandits (47344 and 49515 respectively), and much higher than the Leopards (at 31734). It’s early days though, and the Wombats will be hoping their first taste of victory on the season, thanks to an essentially free win in week 4 against the abject Cymru Cobras, will motivate their team and be the start of a comeback fight.
In the Midlands the leaders are the Coventry Eagles and Flitwick Fireflies, both 3-1 on the season so far. The previously mentioned 0-4 Cobras are almost guaranteed last place and the first pick of next year’s draft – though if the Gateshead Spartans manage to go winless ethically until the week 11 matchup between the 2 things could get interesting. The Derby Otters will also do well to win against anyone other than the Cobras while Diggs underperforms and AJ Brown remains injured.
Of the two strong Midlands teams the Eagles have the better average points scored, but the Fireflies have kept things interesting between the two by beating the Eagles week 3. The Eagles have the much stronger team on paper with stars few and far between on the fireflies – comparing the values of the teams on Dynasty Assistant the difference is striking. The Eagles worth 35561 in total to the Fireflies’ 23150, and the Eagles Starters worth 32731 to the Fireflies 19829. The Fireflies have achieved a 3-1 record despite a team worth less on paper than the 1-3 Derby Otters (25962 overall, 24609 starters) and only slightly more than the 0-4 Gateshead Spartans (19538 overall, 17414 starters). If they can keep it up and go all the way it’ll be the greatest underdog story since Leicester City’s Premier League win. But with their QB the mighty atom Kyler Murray playing MVP standard anything is possible.
The South remains tight, with defending champs the Oxford Seahawks, the Chippenham Beavers and the Andover Sandslashers all 2-2 on the season. Only the Oxford Pythons have managed to get a nose in front on 3-1. The Dynasty Assistant values also support it being the toughest division, with all 4 South teams in the top 6 by value, the Seahawks the most valuable at 54309, the Sandslashers the least at 36148 – but still more valuable on paper than any Midlands team.
The Seahawks haven’t yet lived up to their high pricetags, with 21 fewer points scored per game than the Pythons so far. Week 5 would be a good time for that to change as there are 2 division games in the South, the Beavers and Seahawks slugging it out, and the Pythons and Sandslashers also head to head. With MFL’s win probability for the Sandslashers only 15% before anyone on either team has seen the field it looks like a David and Goliath fight, but the Sandslashers may have a trump card in their back pocket if McCaffrey is able to play.
Looking back at week 4, here are the awards:
The Buzzsaw - Coventry Eagles
A couple of big scores in week 4, the Pythons stomped the Fireflies by putting up 156.54 points, but they were pipped by the Coventry Eagles who scored the 3rd highest score of the season – and the highest since week 1, with 160.78. It would have been even better if he’d benched Michel, who perhaps had money on a Spartans upset, seeing as he attempted to sabotage the week by scoring negative 0.9 points.
Nottingham Bandits 🏆
Oxford Pythons 🏆
Lurgan Leopards 🏆
Coventry Eagles 🏆
Highest Point Scorer - Tyreek Hill – Oxford Pythons
The league’s QBs were mostly underwhelming again in week 4. Only 4 starting QBs were the highest scorer for their team, and only Mahomes scored more than 30 points. Mahomes was one of the 8 players outscored by a teammate, with Cordarelle Patterson inexplicably continuing his impressive season and putting up 32 points. MFL continue to list him as a WR despite primarily lining up in the backfield – 4 weeks into the season he has scored more than all but 2 other RBs.
Deebo Samuel put up a similarly big game with 31.7 points for the Coventry Eagles, as he continues to hog all of the 49ers opportunities, to the chagrin of Aiyuk and Kittle owners in particular.
Both Patterson and Samuel were blown out of the water by Tyreek Hill, owned by the Oxford Pythons. After 2 very quiet games which didn’t come close to reaching double digit points he exploded for 42.1 points thanks to 11 catches for 186 yards and 3 TDs.
Flitwick Fireflies 🏆
Oxford Pythons 🏆🏆
Wigan Wombats 🏆
Unluckiest Loser - Flitwick Fireflies
The Fireflies were the highest scoring losing team this week, with an uncharacteristically low 97.52, their first week below triple digits. They probably won’t feel too unlucky having been outscored by almost 60 points by the Pythons, but they would have beaten 5 of the other teams if they had played them.
Oxford Pythons 🏆
Wigan Wombats 🏆🏆
Flitwick Fireflies 🏆
Closest Matchup - Andover Sandslashers
The closest matchup this week was the Sandslashers 98.62 to 83.14 victory over the Otters. This was a potentially scandalous result seeing as the Otters started AJ Brown, who was out with injury, so the result could very easily have gone differently…
If it weren’t for the fact that all 5 of the Otters WRs on the bench also scored 0 on the week – perhaps not terribly surprising seeing as their bench resembles a branch of jobcentre plus, with 6 players not signed to a team, including 4 of their 5 bench WRs. The Bennie Fowler dream is over Jordan! You can drop him!
Flitwick Fireflies 🏆
Andover Sandslashers 🏆
Chippenham Beavers 🏆
Andover Sandslashers 🏆
Most Impactful Injury - Coventry Eagles
The Hereford Chargers saw two starters go down and be put onto IR the following week, the first being their 4th most valuable player (as per Dynasty Assistant) DJ Chark, the other being their 2nd most valuable running back (yes, really) Tony Jones. The injuries are impactful in the sense that the Cobras may struggle to put out a side if injuries continue.
While it doesn’t appear to have occurred in their week 4 game the Fireflies will be concerned over Chris Carson, who missed his Week 5 Thursday Night Football game against the Rams with a long term neck issue. Both the Fireflies and the Seahawks will be hoping he is able to contribute to their seasons going forward.
However the most impactful injury this week goes to the Coventry Eagles. Their impressive trio of RB starters took a hit with David Montgomery suffering a painful looking injury. He looks to be out for 4-5 weeks, and so could make fielding 2 startable RBs difficult when Kamara and Gibson go on bye. The Saints bye is only a week away, in week 6 – how the season is flying!
Nottingham Bandits 🏆
Oxford Seahawks 🏆
Andover Sandslashers 🏆
Coventry Eagles 🏆
Worst Decision - Derby Otters and Cymru Cobras
The Sandslashers still struggle to predict which of their players will have big games, having earned the lowest MFL efficiency rating for the second time this season. Though there does appear to be no rhyme or reason to which of their players will have big games, and so this week at least it would be harsh to award them this trophy.
Reasonable cases could be made for all of the decisions which led to big point swings. The Beavers started Brady over Prescott and ended up with 11 points not 27, but the revenge game narrative for Brady was strong there.
The Spartans started Ingram who has scored dreadfully since week 1, but the alternatives – such as Ronald Jones - certainly wouldn’t have looked any better. The Otters got 0.2 measly points out of Kenyan Drake but except perhaps for McKissic no-one on their bench was assured to have a bigger role.
As previously mentioned the Otters did also start an injured AJ Brown however, and could probably have gotten some points off of the waiver wire. The Cymru Cobras also started a player who was out, Elijah Mitchell, and so though the decisions or lack of them won’t have impacted the outcomes of their weeks they still earn them a joint share of the Worst Decision award.
Andover Sandslashers 🏆
Gateshead Spartans 🏆
Everybody Who Didn’t Put Money on the 100/1 Bet Dan Suggested Which Turned Out To Be a Winner 🏆
Derby Otters 🏆
Cymru Cobras 🏆
Roll of Honour
Oxford Pythons 🏆🏆🏆🏆
Andover Sandslashers 🏆🏆🏆🏆
Wigan Wombats 🏆🏆🏆
Flitwick Fireflies 🏆🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits 🏆🏆
Coventry Eagles 🏆🏆
Gateshead Spartans 🏆
Oxford Seahawks 🏆
Chippenham Beavers 🏆
Lurgan Leopards 🏆
Derby Otters 🏆
Cymru Cobras 🏆