NFL Week 8

NFL Week 8

It was a great week for the Commanders. For once the stars aligned, and they actually took advantage of it.

First, the Cowboys collapsed and lost in overtime to the Arizona Cardinals, leaving them at 3-5.

Then, after an absolutely awful start falling behind 10-0 to the Eagles on Sunday night, the Commanders remembered how to play football and rattled off 27 unanswered points over the rest of the game to get a much-needed win over a struggling divisional opponent. And for once, they aren’t last in the division anymore.

So after starting about as bad as you could possibly start a season, the Commanders are somehow just 2 games behind the first-place Giants in the NFC East with 10 games left.

NFC East Record New York Giants 4-2-1 Dallas Cowboys 3-5 Washington Commanders 2-4-1 Philadelphia Eagles 2-6

Next up are the Rams at home, a tough opponent, though thankfully somewhat less tough than the preseason predictions indicated. Still I only give the Commanders a 50/50 shot to win. The Commanders have yet to put together a full game of solid football. They teeter wildly between competitive professionals and circus clowns from quarter to quarter (and/or from play to play).

AI Fantasy League

ChatGPT was getting tiresome to use for this solo AI fantasy league thing. I kept telling it to finalize the week’s results and it kept saying it will do that and then it … didn’t do that. And when I explained that it should have all the information it needs to make all the calculations, it agrees and says “you’re right, I should be able to do better.” And then it … doesn’t do anything. I had to berate it for a long time before I got full league week 7 results.

So I’m trying to migrate my league to a local Antigravity project. I also added head-to-head matchups against the other CPU players because that’s apparently a common thing, and asked the AI to name all the CPU players after Breaking Bad characters. I had some trouble getting it to use actual NFL 2026 data for the calculations, and I haven’t verified any of this data beyond a very cursory look, but here’s what it came up with for week 8.

📊 User vs Hector Salamanca — Week 8 Box Score

On the advice of ChatGPT I replaced the Vikings defense with the Jacksonville defense, which turned out to be a good idea. And I put Jayden Daniels in as my quarterback just so I have some connection to my actual team in my fantasy team. He’s just about the only fantasy-worthy player on the Commanders.

My Team (User) — 131.48 pts Slot Player NFL Team Real NFL Stats Points QB Jayden Daniels WAS 217 pass yds, 1 TD, 23 rush yds 14.98 RB1 Bucky Irving TB 170 rush yds, 1 TD 21.00 RB2 James Cook BUF 80 rush yds, 1 TD, 2 rec, 21 yds 18.10 WR1 Jaylen Waddle DEN 3 rec, 39 rec yds, 1 TD 14.90 WR2 Keenan Allen IND 7 rec, 67 rec yds 13.70 TE T.J. Hockenson MIN 4 rec, 58 rec yds, 1 TD 15.80 FLEX Germie Bernard PIT 5 rec, 30 rec yds 8.00 K Harrison Butker KC 1 FG, 3 XP, 1 miss 5.00 DST Jacksonville Jaguars JAX 4 sacks, 2 INT, 1 FR, 1 TD, 7 PA 20.00 Ding Ding Ding F.C. (Hector Salamanca) — 64.10 pts Slot Player NFL Team Real NFL Stats Points QB Baker Mayfield TB 14 rush yds 1.40 RB1 Ashton Jeanty LV 9 rush yds, 3 rec, 64 yds 10.30 RB2 Jonathan Taylor IND 23 rush yds, 4 rec, 24 yds 6.70 WR1 CeeDee Lamb DAL 7 rec, 58 rec yds 12.80 WR2 Ladd McConkey LAC 4 rec, 86 rec yds 12.60 TE Sam LaPorta DET 3 rec, 33 rec yds, 2 rush yds 6.50 FLEX Tetairoa McMillan CAR 6 rec, 58 rec yds 11.80 K Younghoe Koo ATL Did not record stats / Bye week 0.00 DST Seattle Seahawks SEA 1 sacks, 0 INT, 1 FR, 34 PA 2.00 🏆 Breaking Bad League 2026 Standings (Week 8)

These standings were sort of retroactively calculated by looking back at weeks 1-7 with a fixed lineup per team. Not really a clean solution but it worked out great for me and it would be weird to start at 0-0 in week 8. (I have no idea if the AI calculated the first 7 weeks correctly or not.)

Rank Team Manager Record Win % Points For (PF) Points Against (PA) Point Diff Playoff Status #1 Heisenberg Chem Corp Walter White 8–0 1.000 1159.8 914.5 +245.3 Playoff Seed (1) #2 My Team ⭐ User 7–1 0.875 1097.4 913.1 +184.3 Playoff Seed (2) #3 Cap’n Cook Express Jesse Pinkman 5–3 0.625 1081.8 899.2 +182.6 Playoff Seed (3) #4 Los Pollos Hermanos Gustavo Fring 5–3 0.625 984.4 979.8 +4.6 Playoff Seed (4) #5 No Half Measures Mike Ehrmantraut 5–3 0.625 972.8 929.4 +43.4 In Hunt #6 Better Call Saul LLC Saul Goodman 4–4 0.500 1150.7 1103.1 +47.6 In Hunt #7 A1A Car Washers Skyler White 2–6 0.250 923.8 1087.5 -163.7 In Hunt #8 Ding Ding Ding F.C. Hector Salamanca 2–6 0.250 880.5 1104.7 -224.3 In Hunt #9 Schrader Minerals Hank Schrader 1–7 0.125 962.6 1142.7 -180.1 In Hunt #10 Tight! Tight! Tight! Tuco Salamanca 1–7 0.125 864.0 1003.8 -139.8 In Hunt Alternates

My alternate teams, chosen on the off chance that the Commanders don’t make the playoffs har-har, were hit or miss.

The Jacksonville Jaguars crushed the imploding Indianapolis Colts 42-7, solidly leading the AFC South by 3 games at 5-2 and looking like a playoff shoe-in.

The Buffalo Bills beat the luckless Baltimore Ravens 36-10 at home, staying ahead of the Patriots by a game in the AFC East at 6-1.

The Seattle Seahawks lost to the surging Chicago Bears at home on Monday night 34-17, falling to 4-4 in the NFC West, 2 games behind the 49ers.

The Carolina Panthers lost to the Green Bay Packers on Thursday night 27-19, but still somehow lead the NFC South at 3-4.