Week 14, or The Tie Heard 'Round the League

Generally, when I work overnights on the weekend (as I did this past weekend), I spend some time on Sunday night, after the Sunday Night Football game, getting a headstart on the Notes for the week. So I woke up this morning, came downstairs, poured my coffee and checked the scoreboard. My jaw dropped when I saw the Iron Ryan vs. Panic Time Squad score. Nope, hadn’t thought of THAT possibility. And so, I had to re-write some portions. That’s what I get for trying to get ahead. Anyway…

RECAPS!

The Jeff Fisher Effect holds on, clinches final playoff spot with win over Hardcore Sacks, 121-118.5

George Kittle brought the heat in this one, dropping 33.5 points to lead The Effect to victory. A multitude of double-digit scorers like Nick Chubb and Aaron Jones (among others) for Hardcore kept the game close. So close, in fact, that had Greg The Leg made the 40 yard field goal he missed in the 4th quarter on Sunday night, the outcome of this game would have flipped. (Sorry, Tim, I’m sure you didn’t want to hear that.) These two will face-off again next week in the Semifinal Round.

Death Valley Driver eliminates Pedro Pickles, 89-85

Eighty-nine points is all it took to end Pedro Pickles playoff possibilities. It was DVD’s fifth win while scoring less than 100 points this season, which ties a league record (more on that later). Pickles got bit by injuries to LeSean McCoy (who missed most of his game) and any useful player on his bench. And his starters just didn’t produce. It’s a bitter pill for Pickles, who probably deserved to be in the playoffs. Meanwhile, DVD moves on to be a presumed punching bag in the playoffs.

Iron Ryan and Panic Time Squad take 10 paces, draw, and both die, 100.5-100.5

Each of these teams needed to win and get some help to make the playoffs. It never occurred to me, but a tie would have also worked, had Fisher Effect not managed a win. Iron Ryan put up his usual un-high score. His 100.5 was more than his weekly average this year, though more than half his points came from Tom Brady (24 points) and Julio Jones (27).  The Emmanuel Sanders mid-week injury put a dent in his chances. PTSd continued to get bitten by his mediocre RB situation. He started Doug Martin (9 points) and some guy named Jeff Wilson (9.5 points), while leaving Spencer Ware and Kenyan Drake (both scored 14.5) on his bench. Big Ben’s mid-game injury hurt him here. And then, Adam Thielen came in to rescue him on Monday night. Unfortunately for both these teams, it didn’t matter after The Effect won his game. But the tie makes the Garbage Bowl more interesting than I thought.

Team Provost blasts Released Dix On Boobies, 127-83

Amari Cooper led Provost to the victory and this week’s Tidwell with a second blow-up performance in three weeks. Saquon and Zeke weren’t too bad either. Too bad for Provost (and maybe good for the rest of us), he isn’t in the playoffs. Boobies was dealt the rough hand of losing James Conner to injury this week and Kareem Hunt to stupidity last week, and his RBs just couldn’t recover. To make matters worse, his keeper Derrick Henry) who he’d long since given up on scored 51 points on Thursday night. To make those bad matters even just a little bit worse, the RB he picked up to use (Isaiah Crowell) missed most of his game with injury.

Dancin’ Dennis Nedry taps Scrote Squad, 114.5-86

Todd Gurley is the #2 player in our fantasy league this year. He had a bad game and DDN still had the fire power to win. JuJu Smith-Schuster picked up the slack, and Tyreek Hill was his usual self. It also doesn’t hurt that Scrote Squad started two other members of the Rams offense that could do basically nothing against the Bears D on Sunday night. Jared Goff’s goose egg really put a damper on Scrote’s chances in this one. The game really only mattered for seeding in the Loser’s Bracket.

Playoff Preview

Hardcore Sacks and the Jeff Fisher Effect will face off again this week. It doesn’t really look promising for Fisher Effect to be able to beat Hardcore two weeks in a row. I just don’t see it happening. And it will be exponentially harder if Melvin Gordon isn’t back from injury.

Dancin’ Dennis gets Death Valley Driver, which one would assume will be a win for Dancin’ Dennis; his team really is better. But imagine a world where DVD pulls off another sub-100 point win and sneaks into the Finals.

Thanks to that missed field goal, we now have a 75 percent chance of our first two-time champion. I'm guessing each of these guys wants it pretty badly.

Garbage Bowl Preview

Panic Time and Iron Ryan will do battle again in the first round, thanks to their tie. Thanks to their tie, neither of these teams will be in the running to be The Worst.

It’s bad luck for Pedro Pickles that he winds up here, because he’s in the running for the Worst, the week immediately following a shot at the playoffs. Plus, he’s the #4 scorer in our league, but has the potential to end up as The Worst. And he’s got the tall task of going up against Scrote Squad, who deserved better than he got this year.

Based on his last two weeks, it’s also sort of bad luck that Provost is even one of the bottom two seeds. But I guess someone has to be, right? I say "sort of" because Amari Cooper has gone for over 30 points, or under 10. Otherwise, his team hasn't been great, aside from those RBs. Boobies (heh) is really hoping that James Conner comes back this week to have a shot, or he seems destined to be headed to his third ever The Worst Bowl.

I never would have thought I needed to throw this in there, but because of The Tie, I should mention the playoff tiebreaker listed in our constitution: ties are broken by the most bench points.

How big was that Greg Zuerlein miss to our playoff picture? If he makes that kick, Hardcore beats The Effect. Which would have meant Panic Time would have made the playoffs because he has more points than Iron Ryan. Iron Ryan would be playing The Effect with a leg up on the extra $5 in scratchers for next year's draft. 

Shake Your Money Maker

As previously mentioned (but I started this portion of the notes, so I can’t not do it), Team Provost is this week’s Tidwell Award winner. With this win, 4 of the 6 non-playoff teams have more Tidwell Awards than the #4 seed this year, The Jeff Fisher Effect.

Winning while scoring less than 100 points

I also mentioned earlier that Death Valley Driver won his fifth game this year with a score of less than 100 points. Three other teams have accomplished the same feat during the 14 weeks of the regular season: Boobies (heh) in both 2016 AND 2017, and Hardcore in 2017.

The interesting part here is: Boobies (heh) went a total of 9-14 in games where he scored less than 100 over those two years; Hardcore was 5-7 last year. None of these teams made the playoffs. Their winning percentage in these games is .400. Good batting average, not a good winning percentage.

Death Valley Driver failed to top the 100-point mark 7 times this year: he is 5-2 in those games, good for a .714 winning percentage. It’s a little bit fluky. But hey, that’s fantasy football.

I don’t have an overall winning percentage for the league in games we score under 100. Yet. I promise to bring that to our End of Season: The Gathering.

End of Season: The Gathering

Speaking of which, when should we have it this year? I tossed out January 5-6 in the GroupMe, but not much in the way of response. I like the idea of it being that weekend: there will be a game on, and we can also do our usual fun and frivolity. Would the Sunday be better for people, if we do 1:00 in the afternoon?