It certainly wasn’t 2017, but last night’s MNF provided some high-stakes drama for the best fantasy football league I’ve ever commissioned. The Eagles-DC Football team game saw a dramatic shift at the top of the playoff seeding with fourth quarter drama that could potentially prove disastrous (in denver at least). Meanwhile, a win-or-go-home match-up for the league’s best smile ended as you’d expect, your Commish may actually pay attention to Round 1 and our Loser’s Bracket is as compelling as ever. Let’s dive in and check out a playoff preview on the back end.
FIL Nabs #1 Seed
He needed a lot of help, but FIL shocked everyone and swiped the #1 overall seed last night, thanks to Golden Tate re-emerging in the Unicorn’s unlikely defeat of League powerhouse Tito Galen, plus Mark Sanchez running an anemic Washington offense, which saw Stabs’ Jordan Reed and Chris Thompson combine for a dismal 11 points. Winning three of his last four, FIL had his division wrapped up last week, but the Tito Galen loss will have dramatic effects on Rounds 1 and 2 of the playoffs (see below). Meanwhile, FIL gets a much easier road to the championship, so when we’re hypothetically trying to figure out how to send FIL his winnings via Paypal, remember Tate’s 23 points as absolute key.
Coop Drops Opportunity, Goes to Hang with Losers
At the onset of Week 13, the 8th seed (and possibly Tito Galen in Round 1) didn’t seem very appealing. Nonetheless, Coop controlled his own destiny and, based on his trade activity, was all in on winning this year. Unfortunately, even against a less-than-stellar opponent (sorry Makese), Coop posted an anemic 70 points – by far, his worst performance of the year – and was subsequently knocked out of the playoffs. His best Week 13 performance was 18 by Dalvin Cook, but Coop didn’t have a single other player, including Drew Brees, score double digits… Don’t let Coop say this was just a bad week; he finished 1-3 in his last four, averaging just 106 points per week in that stretch (down 11 points from his season average) and now he moves to the Loser’s Bracket.
Sneaking In
Speaking of 1-3 over his last four, the Commissioner gets the backdoor entry in to the post season despite getting housed by the Sausage Kings by 50+. It’s the most bizarre way to get in to the playoffs, and the Commissioner needed to sweep all other 6-win teams (the Unicorn, Toby Kobach and Coop). That said, his Week 11 and 13 losses actually happened against the League’s top scorers those weeks, so bad luck certainly comes in to play particularly since he all but closed shop for the post season a few weeks ago. Let’s not fool ourselves; I’m 1-6 against the 7 other playoff teams (thanks Makese) and 5-1 against the Losers (bracket). The Commish’s third straight playoff appearance was highly unlikely, and remains simply a good opportunity for my young core of players to gain valuable playoff experience ahead of the 2019 season.
This Week Didn’t Matter
Look, its been a tough week for Carlos, who had the top score in the League three weeks in a row before losing a “meaningless” Week 13 match-up to Toby Kobach. Before this past weekend, losing Fournette to suspension and Gordon to injury, he bought low on Dion Lewis (just 5 points in Week 13). But even before that, he and I had vigorous trade talks surrounding a now-injured and unable-to-be-kept RB, and he pushed back saying he wasn’t worried about what happens in Week 13:
Now, yes, the assets I would’ve sent him would’ve ultimately given him an extra 22 points (not enough for a win but still), its the lack of concern by Carlos that certainly can’t be overlooked. If he had won this week, he’d have 8 wins and and the 4th seed against a recently-imploded Dorne. Now? After his loss, he’s the 7th seed and gets Tito Galen. It’s a good reminder for 2019: even if you’re in the playoffs, seeding matters.
Playoff Preview
Speaking of the playoffs – I know dozens of fans are hoping for a playoff preview, and they’re in luck! Before we get in to individual match-ups, let’s break down some key stats:
Tito Galen absolutely OBLITERATED the best scoring season in #GMRRFFA by 260 points!!! Holy schnike… though five other teams this year also exceeded the Unicorn’s 2017 points total of 1706 so its not that impressive.
Congrats to Carlos, who will make his first ever playoff appearance this week; only one owner has never made the playoffs in league history (F. Maisel).
Despite a significant amount of well-deserved flack, Mark Hutchinson owns the very best postseason record in GMRRFFA history at 5-1. No one else has more than 3 wins (the Unicorn and the Commish).
Since we moved to a 13 week regular season, the Commish is the first team under .500 to make the playoffs.
Top 2 seeds are a mixed bag – the 1 and 2 seeds overall have just a 4-4 playoff record, and both have been bounced out of the post season in the first round at least once in the last two seasons.
The best seed for post-season success? The 5th seed (Finally, good news for Makese), which is 5-1, having made the final in 2016 and won the championship in 2017.
The 8th seed is surprisingly frisky in GMRRFFA – in 2016, Mark Hutchinson won the title as an 8th seed and, in 2017, Coop lost by just 9 points after some questionable early week transactions cost him at Tight End.
All but one seeded team (4th seed) have at least one post-season victory.
Ok, let’s get this show rolling:
FIL won a Week 5 match-up by 28 points but we can probably throw that out at this point, given the Commish has exactly zero players from that week in his post-season starting line-up. I was thrilled to not get Tito Galen in Round 1, but FIL is incredibly tough. The Ryan/Barkley/AB/Ebron combo is legitimately scary and the results of this match-up are literally contingent on FIL’s performance. He averages 132.8 point per week (just 6th best in the league) and his scores are all over the place – check out his last 5 weeks: 133; 168; 108; 119; 142. If his horses produce, the Commish’s Michael Thomas and a squad of resurgent underdogs stand little chance of contending, but if FIL’s squad struggles to break 115-120? Then this could be competitive.
Congratulations to Carlos (and Tito Galen!) for this monster Round 1 match-up. Seriously, Tito Galen’s loss means he went from facing the weakest playoff team ever (the Commish) to probably the most-stacked 7th seed. Both have issues; Tito Galen clearly struggled without the scumbag Kareem Hunt in his line-up in Week 13, resulting in his second-worst performance of the season. He obviously has depth (his entire bench produced double digits in Week 13) but his TE (David Njoku) has just one double digit performance in five weeks and Emanuel Sander has just one 10+ point performance in the same time (his first seven weeks, Sanders averaged 21 per week; his last five games, just 11.5).
For Carlos, he needs rebound games for Andrew Luck, Tyreek Hill, and Mike Evans – all of which are doable – plus a strong Fournette performance on Thursday night and Dion Lewis to do anything (over the last four weeks, Lewis is averaging a paltry 7.3 points). Considering how explosive these two are, both squads could have 200+…
In Week 12, these two had their match-up determined by less than a point and a playoff rematch seems perfectly timed. Ironically, if Garcia had won two weeks ago, he’d get Makese instead of the quasi-potent Mr. Hutchinson (sorry, Makese), but Nick Chubb’s 28 points carried Dorne to the Week 12 win. Now, Mark has Alvin Kamara and Deshaun Watson (instead of Patrick Maholmes because why not). His OBJ/Nuk WR combo is lethal but perhaps he’s regretting nabbing Jarvis Landry a few months back from a garbage team, because the Browns’ WR is benched for AP in his line-up this week.
I’d analyze Garcia’s line-up but he’s being difficult and his roster is currently empty, so I'll just state that the Julio/Gurley/Zeke/Kelce combination is flat frightening, but his success may ultimately rely on Lamar Jackson at QB. This could be an epic match-up, or Garcia could forget to set his line-up and get shut out (highly unlikely but would be amazing).
Should I apologize now to Makese? He had a surprise Cinderella-esque start to the season, winning five in a row, and hung tough the remainder of the way but, there’s of course a ‘But.’ Over his last 8 weeks, he’s just 3-5, including a Week 9 loss to his Round 1 opponents from Vienna. He’s only the 9th best scoring team in the league, trailing even Stabs who is in the Loser’s Bracket, and averaging just 120 points per week. Over his last five match-ups (2-3 record), his scoring dipped to 109 points per week. There’s more; in his 8 wins this season, his opponents averaged just 115, but in his five losses, they’ve scored 124. Hence, I deduce Makese needs a strong performance PLUS a poor opponent’s performance to be successful. Its tough sledding.
Meanwhile, the Sausage King is salivating, knowing his side of the bracket is less challenging (of the 4 upper bracket teams, he easily outscored the other three this season) and he’s peaking with his best performance of the season in Week 13. He’s often been overlooked by others, but the Sausage King is 7-2 in his last nine, averaging 143 points in that spurt.
Loser’s Bracket
In what world does any other fantasy football league care about its Loser’s Bracket? Thanks to the Commissioner’s visionary leadership, there’s a renewed vigor for all the scrubs of the league in the form of $109 2019 draft dollars. I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time on this, but its fun and a new way to keep the whole league enthralled in the season so let’s take a look at the match-ups:
#11 Toby Kobach (6-7) vs Stabs (5-8)
Some key factors to remember going in to the first round:
Because of a scheduling snafu, the Unicorn/Coop loser isn’t actually eliminated; they’ll just go on to face the Fredo/Smeet winner – its definitely something to address next season but alas it is what it is;
The Unicorn’s massive win over Tito Galen propelled him from facing a for-some-reason-feared Stabs to the vulnerable cuddle bear Coop. I fully anticipate a 50-49 match-up out of these two;
Given the level of tension between the two of them, I am all but certain Fredo and Smeet will end a 25 year friendship as a result of this match-up. They’ve essentially copied each other’s strategy all season (SELL SELL SELL) and literally Smeet said he’d murder Fredo in the WM side chat last week, largely because Fredo told him to shut up five minutes earlier. The tension is almost as extreme as the sexual tension between Smeet and Mark Hutchinson following last Friday’s mailbag; and,
Finally, only Stabs and the Unicorn actually won three games in a row this season among all 6 teams, and the most recent was the Unicorn Weeks 4 through 6 (one week later, after a loss, he traded away his best asset -Zeke - for peanuts and his season cratered fast). The point is, I don’t believe any team of this group can win three in a row, so my pick for the $109 draft dollars is whoever loses between Coop and the Unicorn this weekend.
Good luck to ALL 14 teams, except FIL, this weekend. Its going to be fantastic.