After Week 8 of the NFL season, most regular football fans see the season as half-way over and get a good taste as to whether or not their favorite team will be contending for a shot in the playoffs. However, the many fans that spend countless hours tweaking their fantasy football line-ups are making their final moves attempting to make that push into the playoffs with only five weeks to go in the most season.

A trend that has become evident in the 2015 season is the poor performance of many first round picks due to injury or just underperforming. This is especially the case in my own league as only three of the eight first round picks are being started in Week 9 (note: Marshawn Lynch isn’t being started due to his bye week). While trying to get more insight in this year’s fantasy football season, I looked no further than members of my own league.

Junior Matthew Peterson, who is currently tied for first in the league, had some mixed feelings about his first round selection.

“I was happy with my first round pick all the way up until this week (week 8) because Le’veon Bell pretty much snapped his knee in half during the second quarter of the Bengals and Steelers game,” said Peterson.

The injury to the Pittsburgh Steelers running back, which ended up being a torn right MCL, caused Peterson and many fantasy owners to lose their best player for the season. Another star running back that left fantasy owners devastated by an injury is Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles who is owned by senior Brian Schenkel.

“I took Jamaal with the first overall pick because he is usually pretty consistent but when he went down it just killed me,” commented Schenkel.

However, some owners are more than happy with their first round picks.

Junior Adam Noeth, who is also tied for the league lead, explained, “LeSean McCoy (Buffalo Bills running back) has been a great first round pick because he has put up solid number and has been able to avoid serious injury.”

“I picked AP (Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Vikings running back) and he has been back to his normal self after his season off,” added junior Alex Lott.

Besides those two first rounders whose season was cut short by injury and the two who have shown worthy of the first round pick, one running back has got to be the “Bust of the Year”. Broncos running back, CJ Anderson, was ranked as ESPN’s sixth running back in the preseason rankings and has been far from performing like that. Anderson failed to score more than six points in ESPN standard leagues throughout the first seven weeks of the NFL season. However, Anderson did give owners a glimmer of hope this past weekend by rushing for 101 yards and a score to tally up sixteen fantasy points.

Junior Ryan Schenkel, the unlucky guy who drafted Anderson, commented, “CJ Anderson highly underperformed and didn’t score his first touchdown until I dropped him.”

“The bust of the year has to be CJ Anderson, especially because he came off such a great finish last season then proceeded to disappoint,” added Peterson.

Well if we talk about the “Bust of the Year” then we are kinda forced to mention who everyone’s selections are for the “Cop of the Year” as well.

“It’s been Freeman up to this point, he’s scored more points than any other RB. He’s also a duel threat so he gets a good amount of rushing and receiving yards.” referring to Falcons running back Devonta Freeman who he added off of waivers before week 3 of the season.

Brian Schenkel said, “Chris Johnson (Arizona Cardinals running back) in my opinion because I got him in week five and he has averaged 10.5 points a game for me.”

“Todd Gurley (St. Louis Rams running back) because he has been an absolute tank after the first couple of weeks when he was recovering from and injury.” mentioned Lott.

The best player in fantasy football can’t be decided by whichever player scores the most points because quarterbacks have many more opportunities to receive fantasy points than all the other positions shown here.

“The best player in fantasy football this year has to be either Tom Brady (New England Patriots quarterback) or Devonta Freeman. While playing different positions, both of them have come out of nowhere to take the number one ranking in their position.” said Peterson.

Brian Schenkel added, “I hate the guy but I have to say Tom Brady. The dude is averaging over 26 points a game which is kinda nuts.”

With the fantasy football playoffs in sight, don’t be surprised if you see some of these students trash talking and maybe getting a little physical in the hallway because they’re fighting for the sacred league trophy (yes, we bought an actual trophy) that has been in the possession of Adam Noeth for the past two years.