UPS CENTER

Bear Dunn scored 307.6 in Week 8, the best score of the week, and beat all eleven teams in All-Play. He swept both games: Eric Mannila by 89.5 and Chris Klingenberg by 78.4. He is 19–2 overall and 78–10 in All-Play.

That is .886 for Bear. Martel’s 2018 start was .955. After Bear, the next-best starts are Derrick Whitman’s 2013 team at 73–15 and his 2015 team at 72–16, then Martel again in 2021 at 70–18.

Bear knows both ends of this. In 2017 he was 21–67 in All-Play at this point, and in 2021 he was 22–66. Now he is 78–10, with a 99.8% chance at the first-round bye and a 39.3% chance at the title in the forecast. The next best title odds belong to Brian Cutting at 23.2%.

Every game in Week 8 was played inside a division: four triangles of three teams, twelve games in all, and the same script in each one. One team swept. One split. One went home with nothing.

Outlast PG Time. Eric Martel scored 243.5, with 35.5 from Ja’Marr Chase on 11 catches, and beat Brian Cutting by 39.6 and Brian Cross by 61.7. That makes him 6–0 against his own division. Cutting beat Cross by 22.1 and is 12–9, and the forecast gives him a better title chance, 23.2%, than Martel, 18.6%. Cross is 0–6 inside the division and 0.0% to make the playoffs.

Maddie Mondays. Josh Martel scored 218.5 and swept Keith Creelman by 35.0 and Ryan Bousquet by 4.2, the closest game of the week. Bousquet beat Creelman by 30.8. Everyone in the division is 3–3 against it, so the overall record decides it: Creelman leads at 10–11, Bousquet is 8–13 and Martel is 6–15.

Breaking, and it is small. The league office posted 23 official stat changes for Week 8, and two of them touched a UPS starter. Tuli Tuipulotu picked up a second quarterback hit, which is a half point for Josh Martel. Dane Belton lost a tackle and gained an assist, and that cost Keith Creelman half a point.

That swapped one All-Play game between them. Martel’s Week 8 All-Play went from 7–4 to 8–3, and Mannila’s from 8–3 to 7–4. Their season All-Play records moved with it: Martel is 22–66, not 21–67, and Mannila is 41–47, not 42–46. Their Week 8 scoring ranks swapped too, Martel fourth and Mannila fifth.

Here is the shape of it. Four division leaders: Bear Dunn at 99.9% to win Dog Pound, Eric Martel at 84.8%, Shawn Blake at 79.9% and Keith Creelman at 75.5%. Creelman’s is the soft one, with Ryan Bousquet at 22.3% and Josh Martel at 2.2% sharing the rest.

And the bottom: Josh Martel is at 2.2%, Matt Gerardi at 0.1% and Brian Cross at 0.0%.

Start with the number nobody had. Joe Burrow was projected for 15.6 and scored 54.4 for Bear Dunn: 38-of-48 for 462 yards, five touchdowns, three interceptions and a rushing score. That is +38.8, the biggest bargain of the week. Tee Higgins added 42.3 against a 19.3 projection.

Now the other side. Brian Cutting started Lamar Jackson and Zay Flowers, projected for 16.4 and 16.1, and got 0.0 and 0.0 from them. That is 32.5 projected points that never showed up, and Cutting still scored 203.9 and split. Eric Martel’s Michael Penix Jr. went from 14.6 projected to -0.9, and Martel still scored 243.5.

On defense, Quinnen Williams gave Blake 17.5 on a 4.3 projection, and Chris Klingenberg’s linebackers Alex Anzalone and CJ Allen beat their projections by 10.9 and 10.1. Klingenberg scored 229.2, third best of the week.

Treat the last three weeks as their own season. In Weeks 6–8, Bear Dunn is 33–0 in All-Play and Eric Martel is 29–4. Those are the only two Dominant teams in the league. The next best are Chris Klingenberg at 22–11 and Brian Cutting at 21–12.

Then ask what history says about where everyone sits after Week 8. The Survival Line looks at past seasons: of teams with Bear’s All-Play rank at this point, 19 of 20 made the playoffs; Martel’s group, 19 of 20; Cutting’s, 15 of 16; Blake’s, 15 of 16.

At the bottom, Matt Gerardi is 1 of 17 by All-Play rank and 0 of 7 by wins, and Brian Cross is 3 of 18 and 0 of 7. Their odds are 0.1% and 0.0%. Josh Martel is 3 of 18 and 4 of 20, and 2.2%.