MoFo Fantasy Football 2015 - The Playoffs

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Hey now, it's the playoffs.

We all know the drill by now: the playoffs are a bit of a crap shoot. Your job as an owner is to try to finish among the top scorers, but whether not you actually take home the trophy is up to Fate, that fickle jezebel. It's kind of like winning the NBA draft lottery: your performance has a definite influence on the odds, but it's a long way from dispositive. You still end up in a flashy suit behind a lectern sweating it out while a lot of ping pong balls bounce around. I may or may not have lost control of this analogy.

In our league, however, the correlation has been fairly strong: the champions each year have been #1, #5, #2, #4, #1, #1, and #1 in scoring. And here's what those champions get:



On to the playoff teams.




The Byes

#1 seed Fabulous hopped aboard the Devonta Freeman train early in the year and rode it to such a strong start that he was able to more or less coast to the top spot. He needed that early-season dominance to hang onto it, though, as he heads into the Bye having lost his last two games and (more importantly) averaging under 90 points over the last four weeks.

Spaulding, on the other hand, has won his last two and scored over 300 points across them. In fact, the difference the last two weeks was such that he fell just 22 points shy of taking the #1 seed, which would've been unthinkable just a month ago.

Anyway, Byes in fantasy are nothing like Byes in real life. In real life the team gets a week off to rest up and prepare. In fantasy, all your dudes are still playing, so all you get is a) one more week of data to make lineup decisions, and b) a chance to have a crappy week (or run into an opponent with a great one) and not have it hurt you. Most of the time neither matters: teams with Byes tend to have stable lineups at this point in the season, and they don't usually have crappy weeks

This year, I think a) may have a noticeable benefit: Spaulding has an unusual glut of mid-range startable depth and, correspondingly, an unusual number of lineup decisions for a top-seeded team, so he may well benefit from seeing what everybody does in Week 14.

The real value of the Bye is that lower-seeded teams can have randomly great weeks. So Fab and the Cap'n get to kick back while the rest of us have to play a round of Russian Roulette with each other. Here are those of us who've gotta pull that trigger in Week 14:




#4. PlasticPads&IronMen (8-5, TONGO) vs. #5. Hired Goons (8-5, WBadger)

TONGO's the fourth seed, and fourth in points. Can't complain, especially given that he started off 2-4. Since then he's gone 6-1 and scored at least 106 points every week, averaging almost 140 over more than half the season. How's he done it? By nabbing Cam Newton on the cheap (I expect he's on a lot of playoff teams this year) and getting big returns from A.J. Green and ODBJ the last month or so. And the running backs, previously looking like a major weakness, have put up solid totals. And when you've got a top 5 QB and two explosive receivers, solid totals are really all you need at the position. He might be the scariest team in the playoffs.

Badger's gone the other way, jumping out to a 7-1 record before going 1-4 down the stretch. But like TONGO, his points ranking (5th) matches his seeding. There's no one reason for the second-half slump: Brady's been human lately, Cobb's been solid but has had very few big games, and Benjamin's been boom-and-bust. He may have gotten an exceedingly well-timed gift in the injury to Chris Johnson, though, which gives him a potential top 15 RB in David Johnson heading into the playoffs. A lot of fantasy football champions have won their titles on the backs of RBs who explode over the last few weeks of the season.

History: TONGO's played in all eight seasons, and this is his fourth trip to the playoffs--all in the last four years. This is Badger's fifth year, and his second trip to the playoffs, with last year being the first.




#3. 11 Angry Men (8-5, Yoda) vs. Clockwork Angels (8-5, Sedai)

A late rush got me near my own points record from last year (full-PPR adjusted), but I fell a little short. I nearly became just the second top scorer to end up as the #6 seed, along with Fiscal in 2011. Sedai was steady all year; he never dipped below .500 and he didn't win or lose more than two in a row until the very end of the season.

What's interesting about his team is that it puts up very decent totals, but has very little breakout potential (especially with Gronk out). Of his five RB/WR starters last week, only two of them ahve broken 20 points in any game this season, and one of those two only did it once. This is a team built to score a decent total almost every week, but it's not going to win many shootouts. In the regular season, the Angels only scored more than 124 points once, and never dipped below 84. In eight of the 13 regular season weeks, they scored between 95 and 120.

Put another way: if I hit near my projection, I almost certainly win. But we all know how often that doesn't happen.

History: Sedai's played every season, and this is his fourth trip to the playoffs, and his first time since 2011. He's yet to win a playoff game, though he scored 123 in a loss his last time out.

I've also played in all eight seasons and this is my sixth trip, my third time as the top scorer, and my fifth time in the top two. I've been boom-or-bust: every year I've either made the finals or missed the playoffs entirely. I'm trying to become the first back-to-back winner in league history.




Predictions

Pretty significant disparity in both points projections. It'd have been much more interesting if I'd lost (or Badger had won), in which case I'd be playing TONGO and he'd be playing Sedai. In that scenario both projections would be about 5 points apart. Instead, they're 25 and 13 apart, respectively.

That's an awful thick chalk line to cross. Nobody Knows Anything, as I repeat over and over every year, but the most likely outcome is that both favorites win. If they do, I think it'll be because TONGO's wideouts have big days again, and because Sedai's ceiling might not be quite enough.



Okay, some other stuff: thank you to all the teams who missed the playoffs. You guys were tough and fun to compete with. jiraffe, Frightened Inmate, and Pete all finished above .500 and only missed the playoffs on a points tiebreaker, and PW still had a path to the postseason as recently as last week. In all, 10 of the 14 teams were still in the hunt in Week 12, and that's really cool.

A big hat tip to our three new players, two of whom took the top two seeds! And Cole's 9th place finish in points was three spots higher than his position based on record, so that's not too shabby either.

Also, a quick reminder: the following people agreed to send a DVD to the eventual champion, but they only have to do so if the champion is one of the people who committed to it:

Yoda
seanc
jiraffe
PW
TONGO
Badger
Cole416
Captain Spaulding


Among that group: four of the six playoff teams. If Sedai or Fabulous win, nobody has to send anything. Any of the other playoff teams, and the rest of us are out a DVD.



I hope they get very, very scatched. So much scathing. I hope there's just scathing left and right.

Actually, I'd be looking pretty far ahead to say that, because we have playoff reseeding turned on so, if I win, I'll play Spaulding next week. If you and I play each other again, it'll be in MoFo Bowl VIII.



So, according to ESPN's consensus ranks, I'm rolling with the #1 receiver, the #1 RB, the #1 TE, and the #3 QB this week. I've got a higher-ranked player at every position other than DEF and Yahoo thinks I should win by 25+.

Somehow, I only find this mildly comforting. I expect to wake up in a cold sweat on Saturday fresh from nightmares about improbable Dalton-to-Bernard TDs.



Wow, Mark Ingram done for the year. Tough blow for Fabulous, and probably a lot of other teams in other leagues; like Newton, I suspect he's on a lot of playoff teams, given his performance relative to his draft position.



A system of cells interlinked
Well damn - I am pretty surprised my team hobbled into the playoffs this year. This is the most workmanlike team I have had in this league, and as Yoda said, with Gronk down, I don't see much breakout potential from any position. All I can hope for is solid numbers across the board, and perhaps a little bad luck for the Angry folk.

Go Angels!
__________________
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



Clawing and scratching my way to that trophy totem closer and closer......each year I gets closer......my precious.........

Yeah after the way I blew it big time in baseball this year, I came into the FFB season a broken owner, truly for the first time not care if I won or lost. I did my part and maintained my team fully, but I wasnt gonna do more. Best thing that happened as players that underperformed early on, that I normally would have moved (drop, trade) I instead kept, and now theyre keepers. Drafting Cam in rd 8, hell to the yeah. OBJ & Green are delivering, and my 3 RBs have been steady. Connor Barth has averaged 9.75 pts a game since returning to the Bucs, and thank you to whoever dropped Cincinnati.

Closer...



Yeah, I forgot to mention: TONGO had a crazily normal () number of transactions this year. Part of it was the league climate--we had just three trades all year--but I'm pretty sure this is the least tinkering he's done in any team, ever, baseball or football.



Anyway, post-Thursday-game update:

In the Badger/TONGO matchup, David Johnson scored 14.8 points, just a shade below his projection. But remember, the projected scores had up 9, so at some point Badger needs to overperform those (or hope TONGO's guys underperform theirs). From that view, I feel like anything around the projection is probably a positive for TONGO. He remains a (moderate) favorite.

In my matchup with Sedai, I had Carson Palmer and Arizona's kicker (Catanzaro). Palmer finish about a point shy of his projection, but Catanzaro finished 3-4 over his. Given that I can survive every player dropping 20% off their projections, this is an awfully good start. Especially since QBs are disproportionately high scorers; under the scenarios where I lose, "Carson Palmer has a bad game" is one of the factors in the majority of them, I'd say.



Wow, so many things had to break right for Mike to win...and so far, they have. Two late TDs, and Olsen left early. Lots of other players underperforming significantly. We're neck and neck.



Not looking good. Tate had his best game of the year and everyone on my team other than the kicker finished below their projections. Barring something crazy, that's probably gonna be it.



A system of cells interlinked
Wow! After Dalton went down with a thumb injury, I thought my MoFo fate was sealed...

Alas...we are playing fantasy football here.

My team continues to limp on...However, without a good QB, I am in trouble next week.



Yeah, congrats Mike. I won't pretend it isn't a bit of a stomach punch of a game; it was my team's lowest score since week 4, and it's definitely the biggest upset in league playoff history. It's the first time the top scoring team has been bounced in the first round (most have Byes, obviously, as it takes a weird confluence of events to achieve one but not the other), and it'll snap the three-year league streak of the top scoring team also being the champion.

Alas...we are playing fantasy football here.
You said it.

Best of luck next week!