Scenarios!

Lets skip the data nugget this week and focus on some playoff scenarios. This thing is wide open. Here’s a snapshot of the standings (that matter). Our four eight loss or more teams are officially eliminated from playoff contention. Emily with a 2 win lead on the field has clinched the first round bye and is the only one to mathematically claim a spot in the playoffs. We’ll see you again the weekend before Christmas. The only matchup this week involving two playoff hopefuls is IDC vs SWHATC. The other five matchups feature teams fighting for a playoff spot against an eliminated team or Em. This means literally any of you could get bounced this week, even Steve at 8-5, if things break right. These scenarios are not exhaustive, I’m just going to write the most likely paths for everyone (or the funniest). Lets start with the easy ones:

Steve: win and in. Lose and for all intents and purposes you’re still in unless five other teams win AND Mike catches you by checks notes 212 points. Steve clinches a bye with a win and can still get a bye with a loss if Cody loses AND Max doesn’t catch you by 65 points. Funny enough, ESPN lists you as 100% clinched already.

Zach: Lose and out full stop. You’re the only alive team this applies to. Win AND you’re probably still out, sorry. Mike and Max have to lose AND you need to catch Max by 104 points (ESPN projects a 5% of this???). Fingers crossed for another 50 point Jonathan Taylor performance.

Cody Cat: You have the most points for in the league, congrats! That almost guarantees you a playoff spot. Win and in. Lose and the only probable way you get bounced is all other 7-6 teams winning. Side mission of maintaining your 33 points for lead to nab the “regular season points for leader” bonus payout. You also lead the points against category by 60 (!).

Mike: You have the least points for in the league, so you have the toughest path of the 7-6 teams. Win and you need just one of the four other 7-6 teams to lose. Lose AND you’re pretty much out.

Cody M: Win and in effectively. Lose AND one of the 7-6 teams not named Cody needs to lose. If that team is Dave you still need to hold him off by 34 points.

Dave: Similar to Cody M, yet swap your name out for Cody M and make that a 34 point deficit to catch up by.

Transactions

With half the league’s playoff lives on the line non of yall spent FAAB (to be fair to Mike and Dave, they’re both at $0). Shout out to Zach and Cody Cat for not spending a single dollar all year. Emily got the Bucs defense potentially for their week 16 matchup against the Panthers while I grabbed Blake Corum for $6.

Matchups

Team End Jeffs Season (144.62) did just that against Team Jeff (115.68). At 5-7, Jeff needed to avoid another loss to remain alive for playoffs. Regardless of being last in points for (1309), Jeff had the pleasure of playing against the week’s highest scoring team. To cut straight to the chase, the only reason I sniffed top points was thanks to Max Brosmer, undrafted rookie QB for the Vikings giving up 30 points to the Seattle DST. Brosmer had one of those, “if you spiked the ball on every dropback you would have ended up with a better passer rating” kind of weeks with four interceptions and four sacks. On the one interception returned for a TD Brosmer was pressured early, rolled to his right, and started to get tackled. 15+ yards behind the line of scrimmage, the notion of throwing the ball away was already far fetched, but to be fair to Max, you never know until you try. Unable to throw a proper pass, Max decided on the underhand technique, lofting the ball to, as the Vikings home radio announcer put it, “absolutely nobody except Ernest Jones IV”. Jeff’s squad saw the fortunate return of Joe Burrow (19.24) and a rare great game from Bryce Young (22.54) in their the defeat of Rams whom many consider the best team in the NFL. Tyrone Tracy Jr. (4.3) was Jeff’s only player to score less than 9 points, yet no non-quarterback exceeded 14. Team End Jeffs Season had three such players in Bucky (16.1), Kimani Vidal (20.7), and Nico Collins (21.5) to put them over the top in this loser vs. loser matchup.

Too Many Bengals (134.22) spanked Mike’s team (82.04). Mike’s team has been on a bit of a cold scoring streak. Despite finding victory every other week since week 2, he’s only cracked 130 points twice in the last 11 weeks. With Mike heavily reliant on the Ravens, this matchup followed the narrative of the Bengals Ravens Thanksgiving night game. The return of Joe Burrow apparently fixed the Bengals defense who came up with three first half fumbles (two by Lamar; 7.54). In the second half, Zay Flowers (0.6) joined in on the fumble party. With Tee Higgins concussed, Ja’Marr Chase (18) dominated with 14 targets while Joe Burrow learned from Flacco its okay to check the ball down 7 times to Chase Brown (18.3). Prior to that night game, TMB was already off to a great start thanks to a high scoring Dallas win over the Chiefs. Dak (21.6) threw for 321 yards against a usually tough Chiefs defense while Javonte (17) ended up with a good game thanks to a receiving TD (his first rushing or receiving TD since week 8). With the Cowboys moving the ball, pressure was on Mahomes and Rashee Rice (29.4; WR2 on the week) to keep up. A 104.3 point (~21 per player) Thanksgiving day for TMB against Mike’s 35.64 (~9 per player) pretty much put a bow on this one. Staring down 7-6 heading into the last week, it would be nice for Mike to put up some points to help in any potential tie breakers. Unfortunately for him, things did not get much better. The Texans defense (4) were shutting down the Colts ending drives often despite a lack of sacks (1) or turn overs (0). BTJ (4.8) is likely the biggest fantasy disappointment this year (though certainly not the only one, just take a peek at my squad). Marvin Harrison Jr. (12.9) looked solid in his return from an appendectomy, but left the game early with a heel injury. Finally on Sunday night Mike generated some offense with a 10 for 106 day out of Zach Ertz, but in the same game got only 4.1 points from Troy Franklin.

Hamas Rockets (134.52) came alive against Team Tendonitis (119.4). The Rockets were once again top heavy. AJ Brown (35.2) and the Eagles found themselves in a rare passing game script against the Bears on Black Friday while Bijan (30.3) carried the Falcons to a wi.. no wait they still lost to the Jets. Without Drake London, The Rockets opted for Jake Ferguson (8.6) in the superflex which was still a better decision than Cam Ward (6.34) who he left on the bench. This matchup featured Jahmyr Gibbs for Team Tendonitis against David Montgomery for Hamas Rockets as well as Matt Stafford for the Rockets against Team Tendonitis’s Davante Adams. Adams (21.8) got the best of Stafford (13.62) thanks to another pair of redzone TDs, but for the fifth time this year Montgomery (12.8) outscored Gibbs (11.6; I would have guessed that hadn’t happened yet this year). Team Tendonitis squeezed 29.44 points out of Mahomes in their Thanksgiving day loss to the Cowboys and really struggled past that. The Rams defense (1) were humbled by Bryce Young, Egbuka (8.2) couldn’t connect much with Baker’s bum shoulder, and Michael Pittman (2.3) was shut down by Derek Stingly Jr. Hamas Rockets on the back of their stars rose past Team Tendonitis despite -1 from the Lions DST and -1 rushing yard from Tyjae Spears (who still had 8.4 points. Yay PPR!). This surprise win by the Rockets was destiny to set up our wild week 14.

Token Female (116.5) locked up a two week vacation this week against Some Whiffs Here And There Club (87). As their score suggests, not much went right for SWHATC. Daniel Jones was their top scorer with only 16.14 followed by Jonathan Taylor who only had 15.1 against the stout Texans defense. SWHATC started a pair of Chiefs on an offense that put up 28 points, yet none of the TDs went to Worthy (11.4) nor Pacheco (5.3) while Token Female’s Kelce (15.5) got theirs. Kenny G (6.5) only saw three targets which is surprising given how the second half of the Steelers game went. I was a bit surprised to see SWHATC go for Pacheco over Bam Knight since it was Pacheco’s first game back from injury, but I guess he was playing the matchups there. For Token Female things didn’t go much better. JSN (4.3) had by far their worst game of the year. JSN’s second worst game was 13 points with a season low 79 yards and third worst was a 10 catch 103 yard game. Man that kid is having a special year, lets hope Brian Flores didn’t just show the rest of the league how to blow Sam Darnold back to 2018. Herbert (13.84) had a rough game that was actually very impressive given he was playing with a broken left hand while Saquon (5.6) and Puka (13.2) had down games. Token Female were carried to victory thanks to the Jags DST (17) and T-Law (21.66) feasting on the Titans’ pop warner operation.

I Digg Christians (138.8) bested $81k Team (119.58). On Thanksgiving day, IDC started strong thanks to an early injury for ARSB that led to 10 targets for Jameson Williams (26.9). On Black Friday, the hot start continued with a dominant rushing performance from the #1 NFC seed Chicago Bears and 125 rushing yards from D’Andre Swift (20.8). Down big, $81k Team needed star games from their star players to catch up. Brock Bowers (22.3) did just that despite being on one of the worst offenses in the league with another incredible TD catch against man coverage. Bowers had both of the Raiders TDs and 63 of Geno Smith’s 165 passing yards. Josh Allen (17.72) against the Steelers had a great game but didn’t need to play hero ball and rack up the fantasy points as the Steelers offense couldn’t move the ball in the second half. That was double bad news for Steve’s DK Metcalf (6.2). At WR27 on the year, Metcalf is averaging 8.5 points in games he doesn’t score a TD in, and he hasn’t scored since week 8. Steve’s defense (49ers) was against IDC’s Shedeur Sanders and therefore any Sanders turnover would have resulted in a 3 or 4 point swing. Shockingly, Sanders committed 0 turnovers, but perhaps less shockingly, the 49ers still rolled past the Browns while their DST put up 13 points. That figure was bested by IDC’s Dolphins defense against the Saints. The Dolphins sacked Tyler Shough four times and turned the Saints over twice. Their DST even scored the rare 2 point conversion on defense to prevent a possible overtime. Heading into Monday night, Steve was down 37.58 points with the Dart-Wan’Dale stack against Diggs. Diggs had a mediocre night with 5.6 points meaning Dart and his leading receiver had to connect downfield and probably score to reach the 43 points required to clinch a bye. Fortunately for Steve, the Giants were trailing 30-7 to start the second half. Unfortunately for Steve, Wan’Dale went back to his close to the line of scrimmage role and Dart found little success against the Pats defense.

Mr Big Chests (137.66) rolled to victory over Mrs Goff (111.96). Mrs Goff’s week couldn’t have started much worse on Thanksgiving with an injury to ARSB that knocked him out of the game. Jared Goff (20.64) still put up a solid outing, but your week is pretty shot when your top receiver gives you a goose. MBC didn’t have the hottest start himself with an average game from Pickens (16.8; wow.. thats average for him) and Hurts (17.3). Meanwhile Mrs Goff’s CeeDee scored 24.2 against the Chiefs and James Cook (18.7) shredded the Steelers for 144 rushing yards. MBC chipped away with Kittle (10.7) and Rico (9.9) while Mrs Goff caught up with Kyren (13.2) and Alec Pierce (17.8). Mrs Goff fell off hard however with a game manager outing from Sam Darnold (3.12) who didn’t really have to throw the ball against the Vikings. MBC put this game out of reach on Sunday night with a pair of overtime bonus TDs from RJ Harvey (21.2) and Marcus Mariota (24.26).

Predictions

Last week we both went 3-3 for 43-35 and 49-29. ESPN predicted winners are: Too Many Bengals, Mike, Cody Cat, Mrs Goff, MBC, and IDC. That projects literally all the 7-6 teams to win and Steve to lose making 5 of the 6 playoff teams have a record of 8-6, Cody Cat getting the bye, Zach getting bounced, and Mike missing the playoffs with an 8-6 record. Just to have some fun, I’ll take myself as the only disagreement which leaves Cody M out of the playoffs. I’m in head hunting season.

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