After six weeks of the NFL season, we have hit upon a trend:
4 teams with 5 or more wins (Eagles, Bills, Vikings, Giants[!])
4 teams with 1 win (Raiders, Lions, Texans, Panthers)
The rest of the 24 teams fill in the morass in between, and if your team inhabits one of these places, you’re likely to believe that a) your team could be better this season and b) there’s still hope for the playoffs. The league’s stated goal has been for parity to exist between the teams in the league, and it seems like that objective has been fulfilled this season. Nearly every team has some form of hope as we approach the midpoint of the season, though perhaps at the expense of quality. For the fans of the Packers, Broncos, or Browns – those that feel like the season is already a lost cause – those teams haven’t given you a lot of hope this year, but there is still plenty of time for a turnaround (there is also plenty of time for a complete implosion of course). Teams will start to break away from this pack (Kansas City is not a mediocre team, for example), so the next few weeks should do a lot to break up this middle ground. Or we could be here in a month still talking about the league-wide mediocrity.
APY NFL POOL RECAP
This was a weekend of upsets in the NFL, from the minor variety (Atlanta is not great, but not bad either), to the “maybe we should start respecting the record” (Jets at Lambeau, Giants over the Ravens), to the shocking (Steelers over Bucs!). As a collective, we took a bath this week: the average score of the pool was 5.7 points – in 14 games, you’d expect to get 7 if you picked winners by flipping a coin – but just two poolies were able to shake off the dire results of the crowd and post downright adequate weeks: Darryl and Donna K were the only people to break double-digits this week, scoring 10 points to earn the honours as our top scorers this week! Congrats Darryl and Donna!
At the top of the standings at the 1/3 mark of the season stands Donna P, whose 67 points have her one point clear of Randy, who occupies second place by himself. In third place is the aforementioned Darryl, with 64 points. Fred is in fourth place at 63, while Adam, Marcus, and Anthony are tied for fifth place at 61.
Here are the full standings after 6 weeks!
Good luck to everyone in Week 7!