We’re headed into week 7, and with the regular season now extended to week 14, there is still a lot that can happen. Looking back to the past two seasons, a lot has already happened before with week 7–8 being a critical tipping point:
- By week 8 of 2019: Sammy’s team was 10th seed with a 2–5 record. His team went on a 5–1 run to clinch the playoffs, and eventually progressed to win the title with one of the most prolific playoff performances in league history (177.3 points per game).
- By week 8 of 2020: Danny’s team was the 3rd seed with a 4–3 record. He held the highest Yahoo! power ranking in the league by a large margin. However, Danny’s team went 1–5 the rest of the season, and ended up missing the playoffs.
Let’s take a look at some Squid Game storylines that will shape the rest of the season.
Ddakji: Jesse’s Retirement In the Balance
Over Cancun, Jesse re-emphasized his intention to retire if he does not finish as a top-3 seed. Even though there is still a lot of fantasy football left to play, this is an incredibly high bar with his team sitting at league low record of 1–5. No team in league history has clinched the playoffs, let alone, finished within the top-three with a single win halfway into the season.
In order to stave off retirement, Jesse made a pool-side deal with Benny for a stronger throwing card in Ja’Marr Chase — but will that upgrade get him the necessary win this week? Or will Jesse get slapped into retirement?
This precarious situation makes the matchup between Jesse and Sammy the marquee matchup of the week. Jesse is the projected favorite and is facing Sammy’s team at an opportunistic time with Sammy’s core duo hit with a BYE (Zeke) and injury (Chubb).
Honeycomb: Theo’s Grasp on 4th Seed
Theo’s team was leading the league in points scored, while sporting a middling record. His team also leads the league in Y! Power Rankings, indicating his projections are strong for rest of season. Both factors should make Theo the favorite to land the 4th seed, which defaults to the highest non-top 3 seed points scorer.
However, explosive performances by Kong, Gordon, and AA have thrown a wrench in Theo’s plans. All three teams have 170+ point performances in the past 3 weeks to make the gap more manageable. And to make matters more difficult, Theo has the 3rd most difficult remaining schedule. (Only Gordon and Benny have more difficult schedules.)
Will Theo stay put with his roster, or will he shake things up and diversify his LA-heavy portfolio?
Theo has a 3-deep Chargers stack (Allen, Ekeler, and Herbert) and a 2-deep Rams stack (Kupp, Henderson). Meanwhile, QB1 Josh Allen sits on the bench.
Red Light — Green Light: PC Waiting on CMC
PC’s team was voted by the league as the “pretender” among the top-5 seeds. The key to proving the consensus wrong was his alpha-RB1: CMC.
However, the past weekend, CMC was placed on IR, indicating yet another setback with his hamstring. The next 3 weeks could be even more brutal with a heavy dose of BYE-mageddon. Jesse rostering Chuba Hubbard is also less than ideal.
The only thing keeping Paul Chung’s team from getting eliminated is CMC’s trade value. Will a team make trade for CMC and gamble on his return? Or has the league soured on an oft-injured CMC (as we saw last year, when Danny traded for CMC, only to see CMC get re-injured in his first game back.)
