Tyreek Hill Trade Haunts Pinstripe Bowl on Halloween Weekend

When professional teams trade away superstar players, the general conscious is those teams never trade within their respective divisions or conferences to avoid those players from coming back and haunting them.

After a subpar performance in week two that ultimately cost Pinstripe Bowl their matchup, management decided to trade away all-star wide receiver Tyreek Hill (Kansas City) for Stefon Diggs (Buffalo). The swap was ultimately a WR1 for WR1, with HIll producing the higher upside thanks to the high octane Chiefs offense. Yet, the Bills are on the verge of finally winning a championship, thanks in large part to Diggs’ chemistry with quarterback Josh Allen.

As fate would have it, Hill and Diggs met in week eight, and although Diggs put up respectable numbers, the entire matchup came down to what Hill could do on Monday Night Football. He did not disappoint, scoring 27.40 points to secure the win for his new team Nukl Busters.

Pinstripe Bowl was in line for the upset win, thanks to an early 19.26-8.60 lead after Thursday Night Football. Kyler Murray and his Arizona Cardinals finally lost, losing a nail-biter to the Green Bay Packers. Week eight marked the first time Murray didn’t throw for a touchdown in 2021, which drastically hurt his numbers in the matchup.

On Sunday, the Bowl continued to surge ahead, even though the majority of the players were not reaching their original projections. Thanks to a 115.26-96.06 lead after Sunday night, the Bowl needed Hill to have an off-game and score less than 19.20 points. Hill went above and beyond that, scoring almost 30 to keep the Busters close to first place in the standings.

Jonathan Taylor (Indianapolis) secured his second-best player award with a team-high 21.20 points. Taylor won the award way back in week five with 31.90, so to win it again with ten fewer points was an indicator of how bad the best of the team performed in week eight.

Only three starters failed to reach double digits, while one of the four bench players scored more than ten points. Overall, the Bowl came 20.16 points under their initial projections of 135.43, scoring just 115.27 points in the defeat.

One of the main reasons everyone is so close in the standings is that no one appears to have a roster made up of all-stars. No one has more than three players in the top 25 in scoring, with the Bowl producing two – Murray and Taylor, while What’s an ACL anyways? has just one. There are two free agents available (both quarterbacks), so the list is an excellent indicator of the offense’s spread in 2021.

As the NFL closes the book on week eight action, ACL remains the only team in Ladies and Edelman who has yet to find the win column. Only the Detroit Lions have yet to see the win column in the league, so these two franchises currently share a unique place in the record books.

Pinstripe Bowl scored more points (115.26) than Garoppolypse Now (112.16), who remains the top team with a 7-1 record. The Bowl scored the fourth-highest points in the league, with Pleasantly Plump getting the most (134.70) this past week. After a week of blowouts, teams played much closer this week, except for Trump Towers and ACL, who had the widest margin of 42.42 points in their contest.

Taylor, as mentioned earlier, won the best starter award with 21.20 points. He beat out Adam Thielen (Minnesota), who scored 19.80 points, as the highest scorer on the team. With a projection of 18.65 points, Taylor managed to win the award by scoring 2.55 points more than the experts thought he could.

If you followed scores across the league, you might be aware that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost to the New Orleans Saints in week eight, and their kicker Ryan Succop had a subpar week kicking. His 3.00 points is a season-low, even though the Bucs stayed within striking distance of the Saints until the bitter end.

The best player on the bench was Chase Claypool (Pittsburgh), who managed to snag 10.10 points in his team’s win over the Cleveland Browns. Despite all the surprises and misfortunes in week eight, the biggest shock had to be Michael Carter, running back for the New York Jets. Carter scored a league-high 32.20 points, becoming the first Jets player in ages to be the league’s top scorer.

As the losses pile up, the Bowl’s management continues to find pieces to correct the sinking ship. Rhamondre Stevenson (New England) failed to play in his week seven game; management went ahead and decided to move on from the running back. In his place, the team signed a teammate of his, Kendrick Bourne. Bourne had come off consecutive weeks of 14 points or more, so it made sense to sign a guy with the potential to keep that streak alive this past week.
Bowl management approached the Garoppolyse Now manager earlier in the season to see what kind of trade could be worked out for Jakobi Meyers, also of the Patriots. Both teams didn’t come to a deal; however, Meyers found himself on the waiver wire after week seven, and management hopped at the opportunity to bring in one of the Pats’ top receivers. Since Meyers was cut after all the games were played, the waiver wire transaction wasn’t eligible for processing until Thursday morning, when the Bowl’s number came up.