I won!
Despite Gurley being a scratch I prevailed. It was a shoot-out, hinging on the Sunday night game, but I prevailed. Lots of lead changes, high drama, everything you could want in a championship game.
My opponent (my sister-in-law) made a couple tactical errors, which I was happy to benefit from. The big one is because she has been riding Mahomes to victory all year and obviously was going to start him in the big game she decided to drop her back-up QB from her bench to make room for another position player to give her options. The QB she dropped was Russell Wilson.I picked him up off the waiver wire, started him, and that was the difference between me winning and losing.
I drafted Carson Wentz as my top QB and used Phil Rivers most of the year. In Week Nine I scooped up Matt Ryan from the waiver wire, since at that point Wentz was still decidedly looking less than 100%. In Week Ten after I had lost my top two WRs to injury (A.J. Green and Will Fuller) I made a trade: Phil Rivers and Mohammed Sanu for Mike Evans. I was desperate for a quality WR and at the moment I was quarterback rich. Wentz was still inconsistent (Gawd, that fu*king New Orleans game) and then, mercifully, he was just plain out. Which left me with only Matt Ryan for the playoffs. Which I wasn't super stoked about. Though he had a great game against the lowly Cardinals in Week Fifteen. Still, I was a little nervous about how he would do against Carolina, with nothing to play for. And then, miraculously, there was Russell Wilson.
I did pick up C.J. Anderson, but not until Sunday morning, when it was looking like Gurley might not go. Thank goodness I did. The one mistake I made, which could have cost me big, was sitting Sterling Shepard. When I saw OBJ was officially out, I knew I should have put Sterling in. But I sat him in favor of Dolphins RB Kalen Ballage, who had a great game last week. Came back to earth against Jacksonville. That was a ten-point decision, as Sterling streaked to 113 yards on six catches. Whoopsie.
I used my first round pick, first pick of our draft, on Gurley, and despite his not making this game I don't regret that. He was a horse and dependable. But what wound up being the best pick of my draft was my second pick: Christian McCaffrey. Wow, what a year. And even with Cam gone this week he rumbled to 101 rushing yards and another 77 on TWELVE receptions. 29.80 points and he never even made the end zone.
Another one of my good waiver wire moves was getting Jaylen Samuels in Week Fourteen. He took most of the load for the injured phenom James Connor, and in my league (Yahoo) because Samuels was on the roster originally as a back-up TE you were able to use him either as a RB or a TE. Seeing as my TE Greg Olsen got injured the week before, this was perfect timing. Samuels promptly scored 16.20 in that first week, 19.20 the next, and finished with 15.40 in this week's game in the loss against the Saints.
My opponent was hanging with me all day. Her best player before the Sunday night tilt was Alvin Kamara, who rocked 26.50 points against Samuels and Pittsburgh. And that game held my opponent's other error. She had Juju Smith-Schuster, who was coming off a horrible game versus New England and was listed a questionable all week. She benched him and he was good for 20.50 fantasy points...even with his game-ending fumble.
So it truly came down to the Kansas City vs. Seattle game. Neither of us had players in the Monday night contest, it was all about Sunday night. At the game's start I was leading 124.70 to 104.40, I had Russell Wilson and Daniel Baldwin left to play. She had Mahomes, Travis Kelce,
and Seahawks RB Chris Carson. Going by the projections she was favored 53% to win, with the imagined totals of 161.29 for me and 163.41 for her. Tight. And knowing what these two QBs are capable of we both knew their projections of 24 and 25 points were conservative.
With 4:06 left in the first half and the scoreboard showing 14-10 in favor of the hometown Seahawks we were sitting at 50/50. The projections had it coming down to hundredths of a point being the difference. In the third quarter with the game tied 17-17 after Mahomes had led a seven-play 83-yard drive to tie it up and all the momentum seeming to be going red I was down to a 38% chance to win. But there was lots of time left. Russell Wilson answered with a drive of his own, ending with a 27-yard TD pass to Baldwin. Because I had the QB and the WR on the score, that was an instant 16.78 point swing my direction.
After that play, with 45 seconds left in the third, I was suddenly an 81% favorite. But a quarter is a long time, especially with these offenses. The next Chiefs possession stalled with a FG and Seattle answered with another TD pass from Wilson. The Seahawks were up by ten points and I was now a 99% favorite to win with 7:31 left to play in the game. But even with that 99%, I knew if Carson got another TD and there was a big swing like I had with her QB tossing a TD to her TE, she had a legit chance to still win. Mahomes led another drive, ending in a non-Kelce TD, and Seattle followed with a drive ending with her Carson getting the TD. If KC got the ball back and it ended with that potentially dangerous Mahomes to Kelce strike, I was still going to lose.
Luckily for me they settled for a FG and lost 38-31. I won by a margin of 12.22.
Champion.