Week 16, or the Longest Fantasy Season

Monday Night Football can be fun. Remember that Chiefs-Rams Monday Night game a few years ago? That game was FUN! Here's the link to the highlights if you want to remember.

Stupid NFL, blocking content.

But a Monday Night game in which one teams starting QB is a rookie making his first NFL start simply because the other QBs on his team had to miss the game for COVID reasons is a lot less fun. Especially if you were facing the Miami Dolphins defense. Sorry, I-Ry, though that matchup was already over going into that game.

A matchup that wasn't over going into Monday Night pitted Hardcore Sacks against Death Valley Driver. DVD needed a huge night from Jaylen Waddle, and almost got it. So close, yet so far away. In a stroke of bad luck for DVD as well, once James Robinson's Achilles fall off his body, so that 1 point is a big kick in the teeth in a semi-final matchup.

So we get Hardcore Sacks vs. The Jeff Fisher Effect for the championship. It's each manager's third title game, and each will be looking for his second title. Projections don't have this one particularly close, but it's a matchup of the top two teams in the league by record and by points this year. It should be fun!

Now the real question, which I know you are all wondering (ok, at least the 6 of you involved) is "what the hell did ESPN do with the consolation bracket?" In short, it's weird. Basically, it looks like the first week of the bracket was kind of for "seeding", and the next two weeks are more like the "tournament."

As it stands, you've got HRG who is 2-0 in the consolation, Pickles and Boobies (heh) who are each 1-1, and Provost, who's 0-2.

As it's laid out, the Worst will be the loser of Pickles and Team Provost, while the winner of yet another matchup of Boobies (heh) and HRG will be the winner of the extra scratchies. I apologize that I didn't realize how this consolation bracket was going to work before the season. I think I thought it was going to just eliminate the third week, and this past week was going to be the end of it. Way to go, ESPN.

I've got a couple ideas for how it can work better next year, but we can talk about that at End of Season: The Gathering (or perhaps End of Season: The Zoom Call?). If there's anything else you guys want to adjust for next year, either let me know, or put it in the GroupMe. I'll tabulate them and we can discuss them then. I don't know that there's a lot even worthy of changing, but if you've got an idea, I'm open to hearing it.

Also, Pedro Pickles is going to run our Playoff Pool again this year. I'll leave it to him to explain the thing in the GroupMe.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and enjoy the extra week of Fantasy Football this year!