Playoffs!?

Heading into the final week, everyone is mathematically alive after a tight week 13 and even the byes have yet to be locked up. Yet its likely down to the three 6-7 squads for the last two playoff spots. Congrats to Red Solo Kupp for clinching playoffs last week. Here are your scenarios for every team (not comprehensive but likely enough for me to spend time writing them out. point leads are estimated):

RKTH: effectively clinches bye (1 win and 167pt lead)

Team Tallman: effectively clinches bye (1 win and 85pt lead)

RSK: Congrats on playoffs

BCLR: Win and in OR eliminated with wins from all of WTTB, Hindsight Lad, Seattle Krakens

WTTB: Win and in OR Loss plus one of Hindsight Lad (83pt lead) / Seattle Kraken (70pt lead) Loss

Seattle Krakens: Win and one of Hindsight Lad / WTTB loss OR Win and outscore Hindsight Lad (12pt lead) OR Loss and Hindsight Lad loss and fend off all the 5-8 garbage (25pt+ lead)

Alan’s Five-Win JWillies: Win and Hindsight Lad (13pt behind) + Seattle Krakens (25pt behind) loss and outscore both and don’t get caught by Token Female (34pt lead) + Jesus Christ Cenobites (53pt lead)

Token Female: Win and Hindsight Lad (48pt behind) + Seattle Krakens (61pt behind) loss and outscore them both and Alan loss (or catch up 34pts if he wins) and Zach loss (or if he wins keep ahead; 21pt lead)

Jesus Christ Cenobites: Win and all of Token Female’s scenario but add 21pts and do so without either of your starting QBs (Lamar / Jimmy G)

Waiver-wire and trades

Its late in the year, so time to spend that FAAB. $87 total FAAB was bid this week and 4 QBs were bid on. Jesus Christ Cenobites got both their backup QBs (Tyler Huntley and Mr. Irrelevant).

Defenses are stupid

Seattle Krakens (138.54pts) came through to save their season against Alan’s Five-Win JWillies (126.86pts). The Krakens had a relatively poor game from Rhamondre (13.1) Thursday night and an early injury to Jaylen Waddle (1.9) had things looking well for the Willies. Travis Etienne (7.6) even fumbled and stumbled against a great Lions runningback matchup. The hero of the week for Seattle Krakens however was the $16 FAAB Cleveland DST (31) with not one, not two, but count ‘em three… TDs. It was such a dominant performance that the Houston Texans decided Davis Mills was the better option at QB. The Willies fought valiantly but in the end, 126pts in a superflex league aint gettin you in the playoffs. gg no re but bless the poor team that has to face me in the playoffs if I miraculously get in. After destroying me this week, Jeff is uniquely positioned to fuck me in all three of our mutual leagues with matchups against the team standing between me and the bye, and the team standing between me and playoffs.

Taysom is a TE

Red Solo Kupp (126.68pts) squeaked out a win against Runnin Kupp That Hill (125.88pts). Red Solo Kupp’s squad was highlighted by the stellar Davante Adams 37.7pts). This guy needs a quick highlight. The concern heading into the season was Adams going from a first ballot HOF QB Aaron Rodgers to middling Derek Carr. Additionally, fantasy WRs that changed QBs historically finish worse than the prior year. There was some optimism of Carr and Adams being college teammates but with Hunter Renfrow and Darren Waller being in Vegas there were many mouths to feed in an average offense. But Adams is/was/and will be spectacular. I mean watch this guy play and he’s uncommonly open with highlight catch after highlight catch. The past five weeks, the guy has over 650 yards and 7 scores. Adams sits behind only Diggs in PPR scoring and even then is only 3 pts behind. Back to the matchup. RKTH needed Alvin Kamara (5.7) to outscore Taysom Hill (13.34) by ~6.4pts to lock up the bye week. Prior to this week barring injury to either player, that’s happened once this season and twice this week. In fact, Hill doubled his season’s receiving yardage on a single 34yd TD. Mark Ingram made sure to play through a partially torn MCL to ensure Kamara continued his poor recent streak (~8.5avg the last 5 weeks). Regardless, both of these teams are playoff bound so who gives a damn.

Defenses are stupid.. still

Hindsight Lad (130.56pts) survived the allegations and their opponent Wide Tiddys Tied Biddys (129.5pts). The Fantasy Footballers Podcast decided to not call the Cleveland QB by name, referring to him instead as “he who must not be named” and I’m gonna ride with that shtick. Hindsight Lad drafted Voldemort in the 12th round and rostered him all year for his return this week. The only other 12 rounders rostered all year are Chris Olave and DeVonta Smith. The debut (5.34pts) went about the same as the Dark Lord in “The Sorceror’s Stone” as he was so weak he needed to rely on another (their DST) to get the win. After the Dallas DST (19) surge in the 4th quarter against the Colts on Sunday night, WTTB needed 15.4pts from Chris Godwin, a mark he’s hit only 3 times this year. The Bucs offense was sluggish early, but overcame a 13 point 4th quarter deficit. On Tom Brady’s 44th game winning drive he connected with Godwin for a TD that was called back for holding that in my opinion did not affect the play and left WTTB one point short of clinching playoffs.

He’s alive

Broncos Country Lets Ride (146.16pts) broke their scoring slump this week against Token Female (109.98pts). AJ Brown (31.9) led the way for BCLR with a pair of “Revenge” TDs against his former team. On his first, Brown trucked a defender while running the route and they fell over leading to an easy score. The defender was called for defensive pass interference on the play. It was that kind of day for the Titans who after this game fired their general manager, and it was that kind of day for Token Female. Token Female sat a pair of 20+pt wide receivers (Keenan Allen and Terry McLaurin) and also got a full goose from Dawson Knox (though their backup TE Mike Gesicki also goosed). BCLR’s win was a team effort as AJ Brown was the only player to crack 20 for their squad with the lowest scorer being the Seahawks DST (8). Token Female should learn from the Titans and fire whoever was in charge of their TE personel.

Doubled! .. almost

Team Tallman Kiss My A$$ (168.04pts) demoralized Jesus Christ Cenobites (88.68pts) into changing their team name and probably sitting out fantasy next year (please don’t Zach, we love you). In typical lucky Tallman fashion, on Travis Kelce’s worst performance of the year (7.6), every other player outscored their projections; highlighted by Amon-Ra”wesome” St. Brown (34.6) and Christian Watson (24.4). Watson now has 9 TDs in his last 4 games. The regression will be just in time for the playoffs. JCC’s squad was marred by a trio of injuries to Lamar Jackson (1.34), Jimmy G (2.24), and Courtland Sutton (0). Best to make like the Rams and place the squad on IR to heal up for next year.

Predictions

Week 13 I went 0-5 (which again is just as impressive as 5-0) for 26-39 overall. ESPN also 2-3 for 31-34 overall. This week’s winners are how I get into the playoffs: “Alans Five-Win We-iners”, “Runnin Kupp That Hill”, “Team Tallman Kiss My A$$”, “Red Solo Kupp”, and “Jesus Christ Cenobites”.

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