We are back for what was a fairly surprising Week 10, where the two heavyweights stumbled, LKA! regained his place among the elite, Carlos shocked even himself, and the playoff picture is more perplexing than even last year.
First, a special shout out to the guys at the Back Row Fantasy Show podcast, who spent nearly 20 minutes last week dissecting the plethora of #GMRRFFA trades on their podcast. I was excited for this; it’s the closest we’ve gotten to a podcast since your illustrious Commish nose-dived league pal Joey Bag Ov Donuts’ listening audience double digits after saying “Umm,” “I think,” and “Candidly” 763 times in a twenty minute conversation… (sigh)
Not Today
What do you say to giving up first place in your division? Not today… A week after losing to the Filipino tag team of Tito Galen and the Sausage King, the unlikely duo of FIL and Makese responded with MASSIVE wins – FIL knocking off the Sausage King (easily) in posting his season-high 168 points, thanks in large part to Allen Robinson’s 33 point game (BEAR DOWN). Meanwhile, Makese pulled off a pretty massive upset over Tito Galen, thanks to Big Ben and (wait for it) Lesean McCoy… Tito Galen though had an atrocious week for his standards, posting just 116 points, even with David Johnson’s 37 points. Yikes. This ends the Filipnos’ simultaneous five game winning streaks while obliterating the Kidney Stone Division race, which Makese leads by a game. More importantly, it’s a huge tiebreaker for Makese over Tito Galen now, who is virtually two games back and could be the most ridiculously stacked third/fourth/fifth seed in fantasy football history…
Full-FIL-ing His Data Destiny
Speaking of division leaders, we can’t sleep on how important that win (coupled with Dorne’s loss, more below) is for FIL, who now has a commanding two-game lead over three opponents – Dorne, Stabs, and Carlos. In fact, FIL holds tie breakers over both Mark and Carlos, so neither can win the division, even if they finish tied with FIL. In order to secure the division title, FIL simply needs one more loss from Stabs in the next three weeks against LKA!, Toby Kobach or… FIL in Week 13 to ensure a division crown.
Coop-ing with a Loss
Poor Coop… he couldn’t do what the Commish did last week, avoiding a huge upset to #Smeet and subsequently derailing what could have been the start of something (a potential three game winning streak) ahead of the post-season. The three-point loss is a tough one for the best smile in the league (seriously, look at the smile...), but Smeet added insult to injury benching his kicker for MNF (potentially angering the fantasy football gods?). Instead of being just one game behind Makese for the division (and a looming Week 13 match-up), Coop now finds himself part of the blob of mediocrity, joining five others at 5-5 and currently out of the playoffs.
What’s Happening in Denver?
Welcome back Leonard Fournette! For the first time in six weeks, Fournette returned and tripled his season output in one week, leading the ponyboys to an astronomical 213-point performance (a league high this season) in beating back an equally-game Mark (184 points in defeat and the second time he lost to a team with 200+ points!). Poor Dorne – he posts the 4th highest total this season and loses in horrible fashion, and can’t win the division title now at 5-5 (two games + tie breaker behind FIL). I refuse to understand Carlos’ season – his 213 nearly tripled his Week 9 performance (88 points), and he had SIX players post 20+ including Zack Ertz eclipsing 42. Yeesh… a critical win for sure for the ponyboys, and honestly, we need to simply review the lines for Carlos… Four times he’s exceeded the league’s weekly scoring average, five times he’s fallen below it and honestly trying to comprehend his season gives me serious migraines…
LKA! Returns to Form
I’m really happy I predicted this last week… I spent most of the early games wondering how the Redskins’ Defense could give up 500+ yards but only three points in our battle, only to realize Alvin Kamara and Zeke Eliot are reallllllllly good. LKA! snapped the most bizarre five-game losing streak ever with his best performance since Week 4, and now finds himself right back in the playoff hunt in a crowded Kidney Stone Division.
Playoff Scenarios
So, we are three weeks away from the playoffs – this season went too damn fast – and the murky playoff picture remains just that… The things we know for certain? First, as mentioned, FIL has a stranglehold on the Infinity Stones Division, and one more win clinches his post-season spot. Second, everyone else, yes, even 2-8 Smeet, has a chance... Playoff positioning and tiebreakers below:
1. FIL (7-3)
Key Tiebreakers over: Carlos, Mark, Commish, LKA!, the Sausage King
2. Makese (7-3)
Key Tiebreakers over: Stabs, Mark, LKA!, Tito Galen
3. Tito Gronkowski (6-4)
Key Tiebreakers over: The Commish, Dorne, FIL
4. The Sausage King (6-4)
Key Tiebreakers over: Carlos, LKA!, Makese
5. LKA! (5-5)
Key Tiebreakers over: Coop, Carlos, Tito Galen, the Commish
6. Dorne (5-5)
Key Tiebreakers over: The Sausage King, the Commish, Coop
7. Stabs (5-5)
Key Tiebreakers over: Tito Galen, the Sausage King, Mark
8. Carlos (5-5)
Key Tiebreakers over: Tito Galen, Stabs, Makese, Mark
9. The Commish (5-5)
Key Tiebreakers over: Coop, Stabs
10. Coop (5-5)
Key Tiebreakers over: FIL, the Sausage King, Stabs
11. Fredo (4-6)
12. The Unicorn (4-6)
13. Toby Kobach (4-6)
14. Smeet (2-8)
Week 11 Preview
Given that 13 teams are within one game of the playoffs, Week 11 obviously is a critical week (again) for all parties involved. The biggest match-up of course features the two division leaders, FIL and Makese. Perhaps not the most stacked, but the winner controls both their divisions as well as a potential tiebreaker for the #1 seed overall. Even more, the key to success in the playoffs may simply be avoiding Tito Galen for as long as possible. He’s currently in the bottom half of the bracket as a projected 3 seed, so securing a #1 seed overall may not be more valuable ever than in 2018. There’s multiple 5-5 battles too! Carlos and the Commish could be a double-up score for the ponyboys, and LKA!/Stabs could tell us a lot about both teams, who have literally been all over the map this season. Toby Kobach and Fredo Maisel are essentially in win-or-go-home match-ups against Dorne and Coop (a loss drops either Toby or Fredo to 4-7, two games behind the 8 seed with only two left, so its literally win-or-go-home), and candidly, the Unicorn is facing 2-8 Smeet, the same basement dweller that has been within ten points of his opponent in each match-up over the last four weeks, so the Unicorn is probably gonna be sweating it out…
Rivalry of the Week
This one sort of writes itself, but we have two 6-4 teams, both coming off losses that snapped five game winning streaks with owners of Filipino decent. There’s currently a poll in the Philippines asking who they prefer win this massive rivalry, and surprisingly, None of the Above is leading with 87% of the vote. That said, this one will have serious league-wide implications… A Tito Galen loss means he’s out for the division crown and he has his second losing streak of the season (unfathomable at the start). A loss means either of these formidable teams are back in the muckety muck of the playoff chase, vying with 7 other teams for 3 or 4 spots. Both rosters are loaded but who really wants to take chances this late in the season?
Oh, One More Thing
Hey, special shout out to Fredo for highlighting this but did you all know an actual NFL player is also a #GMRRFFA owner? I mean, if punters are legit considered NFL players, I’m stoked Matt Prater’s been in the league this long without anyone suspecting otherwise…
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