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.
#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:
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.
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.
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.
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.