Playoffs - Round 1, or "This Is It, Don't Get Scared Now"

What a weird week! So incredibly low scoring (with one exception). But the NFL had a weird week too. Such is real life, sports, real-life sports and fantasy sports.

Recaps? Ok, sure.

Jeff Fisher Effect holds off Hardcore Sacks, advances to second straight title game

A combination of bad luck and shrewd managing allowed Fisher Effect a chance to defend his title. Joe Mixon went off for 26 points (the most in this matchup). Melvin Gordon’s replacement Justin Jackson managed a TD, which kept Fisher’s head above water on Thursday. And then came Sunday, an injury to Aaron Jones, and Eric Ebron showing his true colors with his stone hands and Hardcore was done. Shitty way to go out  and have your season come crashing down.

 Death Valley Driver emerges from slumber, overwhelms Dancin’ Dennis Nedry

For all the joking and trash talk I’ve given this year for getting lucky, this wasn’t really luck. His team was nuts, and he played the hot hand against his own team’s terrible defense (Derrick Henry). Dancin’ Dennis was behind the 8-ball early, when Tyreek Hill put up a stinker on Thursday, got worse when Lamar Miller got injured on the Texans first series on Saturday, and was topped off by JuJu playing in a game that didn’t turn out to be a shootout.  Here's a graphic representation of how Dancin' Dennis felt during the weekend:

It was some bad luck for DDN, but he still would have beaten every team in the consolation bracket (not that it’s any consolation for the the league’s second leading scorer).

Because OH! The consolation bracket, or what I’ve been referring to as the Garbage Bowl. What a dumpster fire. 

It’s not really a chastisement of their teams, but helps illustrate how weird and low-scoring the week was for fantasy football, and the NFL on the whole (little bit more on that later).

Panic Time Squad wins low scoring affair over Iron Ryan, 64.5-61

Remember last week when both these teams were challenging for a playoff spot? Gus Edwards and Julio Jones led the scoring for Iron Ryan, who also got nothing from his TE spot and less than nothing from his kicker spot. Panic Time stays in the running for the extra $5 in scratch tickets, thanks to a few more points from Julian Edelman and Big Ben. Combined, these two wouldn't have beaten Death Valley Driver.

Scrote Squad topples Pedro Pickles, 83-52.5

Once Pickles didn’t play Damien Williams on Thursday night, and LeSean McCoy was ruled out on Sunday, he was forced to roll with Chris Thompson. And that’s never a good thing. With Patrick Mahomes putting up a pedestrian score (for him), Pickles was destined to struggle. Not that Scrote’s guys played much better, aside from Christian McCaffrey.

Released Dix On Boobies dodges his second straight Garbage Bowl “title”, defeats Team Provost, 80.5-48.5

This is almost the biggest weird one of the week. Provost has ridden Zeke and Saquon all year: no one has more points from the RB slot. But this week? Neither of those guys could do a darn thing. His lack of depth (or really any good, consistent players outside those two RBs) really showed in this one. On the Boobies (heh) side, Russell Wilson and the Vikings D scored 15 points, his two WRs scored 11.5 each, but then the rest was underwhelming. Or maybe just whelming, given the overall scores this week.

Man, oh, man. Thanks to Kevin's Home Alone GIF suggestion, I'm not considering re-naming the "Garbage Bowl" (which I guess I just named?) the "Les Incompetents Bowl." Thoughts? Anyway....moving on!

Title Game Preview

It’s The Jeff Fisher Effect vs. Death Valley Driver in a rematch of last year’s Championship game. DVD is hoping it goes the other way this year. He’ll need another big game from DeAndre Hopkins and Derrick Henry to make it happen. Fisher Effect is hoping Melvin Gordon returns from injury to have a shot.

Garbage Bowl Preview

It’s Pickles vs. Provost here, and imagine they put up scores like they did this past week? They barely combined for 100 this week. If Provost gets his usual from Zeke and Saquon, he’ll be tough to beat. If Pickles get his usual from Mahomes...same thing.

The Week of Futility

Our 10 teams combined to score 791.5 this week. Our second lowest scoring week this year was last week: we scored 1025 points, a difference of 231.5 points. Trey Wingo talked about a good reason for the low fantasy scores in a tweet on Monday:

So just how low scoring was this week in STPS? Well, the 793.5 points was a number we surpassed 4 times in 2014. For clarity's sake, in 2014, we did not give the half-point per reception. Oh…and we only had 8 teams.

Our previous low week was Week 1 of last year, when we managed only 802.5 points. But that was Week 1, and it wasn’t a major deal; we all had the entire season ahead of us.

The thing that gets me about this week is just how much lower it was than EVERY other weeek we've had this year. Such a weird statistical anomaly of a week.

Also, on any other week that wasn't the playoffs, there would have been much more attention drawn to the incredibly low scores of Pedro Pickles and Team Provost, both in the bottom 10 all-time. So....

(I hadn't seen this movie enough times to notice the van was a Dodge in this scene. Classic humor.) 

End of Season: The Gathering

Just a reminder, we decided on January 6^th for our year-end fiesta. Shall we do Rumbleseat again? Or perhaps we should wait to decide on venue when we know if the Patriots or Cowboys might be playing that weekend?

I gather you'll hear from me again before the holiday, but if not...