GWBL - WEEK 9

WEEK 9 – 2025 SEASON – GWBL

Welcome back for your weekly GWBL entertainment. Apologies for missing last week’s writeups. We had a nice little run there as I was able to get something out the first 7 weeks. Unfortunately, Week 8 was the breaking point. I went to the Pats game against the Browns that Sunday and had a few too many (understatement of the year). A crippling hangover stretched from Monday, to Tuesday, to Wednesday and honestly… might have lasted until Thursday. At the same time, my kids were bringing home every imaginable plague from daycare/school. It was also Halloween week, which involved no fewer than 3 school activities leading up to the actual night of trick-or-treating (Ariel and Charmander costumes for the kids, exhausted Dad costume for me). All while my job decided to give me an unexpected spike week, despite it being well the October 15th tax deadline.  

Anyways we’re back and hopefully this will be the start of another streak. For this week I figured we’d check in on each team and see how the last two weeks went. K.I.S.S. In order of the standings:

Chase is On the Case (Ken): 8-1

Ken continued his hot start, winning a convincing Week 8 matchup against Frader – 154-110. Mahomes, James Cook and Jamar Chase continued their great seasons and brought him to 8-0. Everything was looking great and we all started to wonder: How long will this streak last? Can Ken go undefeated?

Annnnndd it’s gone. Ken faced Lamone in Week 9 and ran into a buzzsaw. It was like the British troops advancing into German artillery and machine gun fire on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Ken didn’t even make it to no-man’s land, losing 130-184 to Lamone.

STILL, this was an impressive achievement by Ken. An 8 game win streak to start the season, well done. To be honest, I’m not sure how many 8-0 starts we’ve ever seen. One other time at least, back in 2023 when I had the undefeated regular season (no big deal). I’m not sure we’ve ever seen an 8-0 season aside from that though. Honestly it’s for the best that the streak ended. Get some L’s out of the way now and save the W’s for the playoffs.

Tom’s Retirement Tour (Commish): 7-2

My team has had a nice run the last two weeks, going 2-0 and putting up 161 and 151 points in each of the matchups. Jonathan Taylor won me week 8 almost single handedly (40 points) and I’ve been getting nice contributions across the roster. The Rashee Rice trade has paid dividends and I was able to swing a trade for Kyren as well (more on that next week, I’ll do a trade deadline focused recap). The team caught some shrapnel this week though – both Jayden Daniels and Tucker Kraft got knocked out for the year. Hopefully I can rebuild that depth and keep it going.

The LiGHT SKiNS (Lamone): 6-3

Likewise Lamone’s been on a run lately, going 2-0 over the past two weeks. Week 9 of course was a bonanza. A ridiculous week – 184.81 points. That’s the third highest score of the season, coming just 5 points shy of the season high score. Which Lamone also put up, bastard.

So how’d he do it? For one, Lamar came back from injury. He had a cushy landing spot against the Dolphins but he didn’t miss a beat. Four TD passes on the way to 30 fantasy points. Drake London also gets some flowers – an INSANE 3 TD game against the Patriots (39 fantasy points). The real story is Rico Dowdle and his 33 points though. What a ridiculous fucking story line this is. Mediocre journeyman type running back. Had a decent year in Dallas in 2024, but was largely ignored when free agency opened. Signed a ONE year deal with CAR for 2.75M to be Chuba’s backup. So naturally he becomes the second coming of Ricky Williams and is RB9 on the year. That doesn’t sound that impressive, but it becomes impressive when you consider that he scored 9 points combined in Weeks 1+2 combined. Fantasy just doesn’t make sense sometimes.

Brown ^ 2  (Keetz): 6-3

Keetz is on a heater and has won 5 in a row. In Weeks 7-8 he had the league high score and he got a critical win over DMO in Week 9. As for observations:

Chase Brown has been an under the radar beneficiary of Joe Flacco’s fountain of youth. I said Rico Dowdle was a ridiculous surprise, but Joe Flacco is just an absurd development. Anyways the matchups have been favorable (NYJ-CHI) and Chase Brown has taken advantage – 27 points and 21 points the last two weeks.

Speaking of the fountain of youth – Davante Adams has scored 5 TDs the past two weeks for Keetz. Davante Adams, who will be 33 this coming Christmas Eve. Those 5 TDs the past two weeks are more than the following WRs have all season: Courtland Sutton, Jaylen Waddle, Jaxon Smith Njigba, Garret Wilson, Nico Collins and Chris Olave just to name a few. All in all Adams already has 8 TDs on the year.

King Henry’s Court (DMO): 5-4

Tough loss for DMO in Week 9, but the win streak had to end I suppose. Coming in to Week 9 he had won 5 in a row. So what did we miss? Derrick Henry feels like a topical one given the team name. For a while there Henry was getting a lot of hate. The Ravens slump and Lamar’s injury had the fantasy community worrying about King Henry. Fear not though, he is still a monster. He’s put up 17+ three weeks in a row and just ran for 120 in Week 9. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of that as the season wears on and the weather gets colder.

Jaxon Smith Njigba continues to be one of the best WRs in the league. In Week 9 he put up 8 catches for 129 yards and 22 fantasy points. In their 8 games he has 6 games with 20 or more points (rounding up in Week 1), and 6 games with 100+ yards. He’s WR2 on the season, only behind Jamar Chase.

She Wants the Young Caff (Dyl): 4-5

Dyl followed up a disappointing Week 8 loss with a runaway victory over Tieg in Week 9. It wasn’t just the opponent though, the 166 Dyl put up in Week 9 were the 2nd highest of the week (such a good score I accidentally sent him the $10 for weekly high score before I double took and saw Lamone’s score).

Christian McCaffrey continues to dominate, putting up 40 points in Week 9. He’s the #1 overall player in fantasy and is putting up an all-time fantasy season. It won’t quite match the 470 points he put up in 2019, but he’s on pace for 430 points. He’s already over 1,200 all purpose yards and has 8 TDs.

We’ll talk about the Puka trade when I do a deadline recap, but Dyl had another major acquisition – Oronde Gadsden Jr. I noticed Gadsden at Cuse back in 2022*, but I never thought he’d turn out to be such a weapon in the NFL. With Kittle struggling, Dyl may have to turn it over to the Young Caff. You’re welcome. (*My Dad’s family is from Syracuse so I pay attention to their sports. Hasn’t been that fun the past 10 years in the post-Boeheim era but the football team has been decent at times.)

Deebo Baggins (Frader): 4-5

It’s been a rocky road for Deebo Baggins, losing both his Week 8 and Week 9 matchups. His team has hid a speed bump the past two weeks, netting just 218 points combined the past two weeks. Currently on a 3 game losing streak when looking at the bigger picture.

Why? The Cam Skattebo injury seems to be a momentum killer for Frader. He was found money and that kind of momentum can carry a fantasy team – just look at Rico Dowdle with Lamone’s team. It sounds ridiculous but I stand by it. Good vibes matter in fantasy, scoring attracts scoring, whatever you want to call it. Aside from that I think it’s just been poor performance and bad sequencing. Egbuka’s lost a lot of steam as well.

I will say – respect to Frader for taking a swing with Saquon. Some teams on the bubble might play it conservative, but Frader’s making a move for a playoff spot. (Trade analysis to come.)

Oshkosh B’JOSH (Kev): 2-7

After a disastrous 7 game losing streak (Weeks 2-8), Kev showed some real guts in Week 9. A 165-89 point beatdown of Tone, which may have implications for Gabe or Vice Gabe come the end of the season. Josh Allen decided to show up and netted Kev 35 points in a statement win, for both Kev and the Bills. He also got a nice spot start from Rutgers’ own Kyle Monangai. A 28 point outburst against the Bengals. Maybe a keeper option for 2026?

The real story was BROCK BOWERS though. WOAH. What a legend. 12 catches, 127 yards and 3 TDs in Week 9. 43.5 fantasy points. That might be the highest output by any non-QB this year. It makes you wonder how much different Kev’s season would have been had Bowers been healthy all along.

Two Joe’s One Kupp (Tone): 2-7

It’s been a rough go for Tone and he’s gone 0-2 the past two weeks. A 3.5 point loss in Week 8 may have been the nail in the coffin. Had he won that he woulda been 3-5 with an outside shot of making a run. Instead he fell to 2-6 and followed that up with an 89 point “effort” in Week 9. That’s all she wrote on the season. I saw he put some guys on the block so maybe we’ll have some more trades coming….

I LOVE LAMB (Tieg): 1-8

Likewise Tieg’s seen better days in this league. He’s on a 4 game bender and is averaging 106 a week over that time. Trading away Ceedee (Lamone) and Kyren (me) hasn’t helped in that regard, but this team has been lifeless for most of the season. Looking back at it – I think this might be 3 season in a row without a playoff appearance for Tieg? Weird to type that. Is it the pendulum swinging back for all the good fortune Tieg had in the early days of the league? Or has family life and career made him lose focus on fantasy? Time will tell…

One positive: Tieg’s already in good position for next year’s draft with two 1st rounders and two 2nds (expected to be top half of the 2nd).