2013 MoFo Fantasy Football - The Playoffs

Tools    





So, here we are again. Eight of us are on the outside looking in at the glorious playoffs. No, I'm not bitter. What? That's ridiculous. WHY ARE HUMAN BODIES SO FRAIL? Excuse me while I go concuss myself on a filing cabinet.

The Top Two
The two teams with the Byes won them going away, having clinched them before the final week. And what's more, they were the #1 and #2 scoring teams. That last happened in 2010 (and came within 2 points of happening in 2008).

Not only that, but they were #1 and #2 by a large margin. Dig this, man: the gap between the #2 scoring team and the #3 scoring team was 166 points. The gap between that #3 scoring team and the lowest scoring team in the league was 178 points. Yeah, read that again.

jiraffe's Hot Jamaales might have had the best regular season in league history, putting up an 11-2 record, which tied the mark for most wins and set the mark for best winning percentage (Swedish Chef went 11-3 our first season, when we had 12 teams and played 14 games). As is always the case with a great season, there was a mix of great numbers and great timing: he had the highest Points For in the league, but also the lowest Points Against, which is pretty incredible. Looking at the the individual matchups, you can see how well-timed the totals were: he played TONGO's #2 seed in week 9 and won a barnburner 138-130, and he won in week 11 despite putting up just 89 points.

TONGO made some early season moves (and he owes me a big fat thank you for convincing him not to drop Le'Veon Bell!), trading for Drew Brees and later Adrian Peterson, though he also gave away Knowson Moreno back when nobody was sure if he was for real. Weirdly, both the Brees and AP trades still look pretty reasonable in both directions: he gave up guys like Stafford and Jimmy Graham for them, so he parted with some serious value. He also survived having used the #4 overall pick on Doug Martin. The winning formula, at least this time, appears to have been grabbing a couple of studs that live up to their reputation and plugging the rest of the lineup here and there.

Both teams, however, are beatable. Not just because this is fantasy football, where the Gods fickley (is that a word? Whatever) laugh at your best-laid plans. But more specifically, because they do have some vulnerabilities. The Hot Jamaales are relying on Andrew Luck, who's faded down the stretch, and TONGO's PlasticPads&IronMen went 3-4 after their 6-0 start, putting up fairly low totals in 2 of the last 3 weeks.


Week 14
Two matchups:

Beast Mode (8-5) vs. Vick dont fail me no (7-6)
Beast Mode is pretty much the Seattle Seahawks: 5 of their 9 starters come from Rainy McFogTown. Of course, Seattle is one of just a few teams where this is a potentially viable strategy, even though one suspects it'd have been employed even if they weren't quite so good. But hey, you say: clearly it worked! Well, technically, but don't let the record fool you: Beast Mode actually put up the 8th-highest score in the league, winning weeks 3 and 5 by a combined 4 points.

Vick dont fail me no is, amusingly, had Vick fail them, but got into the playoffs anyway thanks in large part to trading for Moreno early in the year and getting Gronkowski back at midseason, making it pretty hard to gauge their actual quality. They're trotting a couple of really iffy guys out there, but some genuinely dangerous ones, too. I think they probably advance here, but you never know when a huge game from Seattle is going to single-handedly win the week for Beast Mode.


Peyton's (sic) of Doom (7-6) vs. Mud Dogs (7-6)
Pretty cool that seanc's Mud Dogs made the playoffs, because that means both newbie owners (along with jiraffe) did. Nice. And hey, another fantasy-team-that's-pretty-much-just-an-NFL-team team, with Dionne's squad running 4-5 Broncos out most weeks.

Problem is, he's not really the Broncos so much as he's the Broncos' passing game, and they play the Titans this week, who've got a heck of a pass defense. And obviously having 2 of their 3 receivers (and probably not their best) limits his upside most of the time. And the Mud Dogs are rounding into form: Stevie Johnson's back, Josh Gordon is exploding, and Matthew Stafford has been crazily reliable. I think sean moves onto the semifinals here.



TONGO made some early season moves (and he owes me a big fat thank you for convincing him not to drop Le'Veon Bell!)
Oh I almost forgot -

THANK YOU YODA!

If I had dropped LeVeon Bell to waivers at seasons beginning I surely wouldnt be in the playoffs.



Nice write up Yoda, and I am not just saying that because you picked me to win.

I sure am glad Stafford has been as good as he has, I felt in danger of being kicked out of the league before games even started for that one. Of course it wasn't all good news, I fully expected Willams to be my flex play most weeks and provide me with 10-12 TDs. That did not come close to happening.

Playoffs should be fun.
__________________
Letterboxd



Yeah, the projections are kinda useless most of the time, but especially with a team that has a lot of players in the same game. Suddenly you don't need a lot of different games or outcomes to be "weird," but just the one, and it can drag them all down.

Makes sense that both matchups look like total toss-ups right now, because in one matchup you've got a bunch of Broncos and the other, a bunch of Seahawks. We'll know a lot more in a few hours.



That's right. Ball scores the final TD of Denver's day. It's as if Denver was running up the score on MY fantasy team. Congrats Peyton's Of Doom, you picked the right year to stock up on Broncos.



Adrian Petersons sprained his ankle and status next weeks up in the air. Well thats just wonderful! At least I have Toby Gerhart, but would he be worth starting over, like say, a Riley Cooper?! Having a lineup question is no way to enter the playoffs. Meanwhile the Jamalles Machine keeps on going and going and going...

Regardless of the pitfalls Ive never been closer to the championship as I am right now. I get Dex next week, and Knowshon Moreno better have on the golden shoes of Jack Dundee.



That's right. Ball scores the final TD of Denver's day. It's as if Denver was running up the score on MY fantasy team. Congrats Peyton's Of Doom, you picked the right year to stock up on Broncos.
Thanks - although it is not mathematically over yet, I feel pretty good.


I was not sure picking up and starting Reece was going to pay off, but it worked out well. If Welker stays "out" which it looks like he is, it is going to be tough to move further for me unless some other players come up big.

I mean I actually watched a Raiders game and they were not playing against any of my fav teams, weird.

Nice write up Yods - glad you were wrong.... well if it holds I mean.
__________________
“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton



Yeah, the general logic seems okay: Manning's great but it's hard for both your receivers to go off, let alone in bad weather against a great pass defense. But hey, it happens. Congrats on the (probable) win. We'll be down to four shortly.



A system of cells interlinked
Crazy day in Football yesterday....
__________________
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



And then there were four: TONGO, jiraffe, Dex, and Dionne. Dex, in particular, took a crazy path to the playoffs and beyond, but here he is. That said, he was already going to be a big underdog this week even before losing Gronkowski.

FYI: Dex is having computer issues and asked me to set his lineup.



Me vs Dionnes Broncos. Theyre playing San Diego which is good, but theyre playing in Denver, and thats not good. Thursday night game, and Ill find out how big of a total Ill need to crack.

Toby Gerhart has hamstring problems so my teams reeling. Damn so close lol! They say Riley Coopers got 2 sweet matchups coming. I might just have to go there.

The Jamaales are facing a Gronkless Dexter. Between AP & Gronk there might be a carpet of their jerseys leading to the championship for him. If statistics to this point was all, then he's got it won, but the old saying applies "this is why they play the games". It is looking rough though.



A system of cells interlinked
I have to be that guy for a second.

Dominating in my other league, and ready for the first round of our playoffs this week! Having P Manning, J Charles, AJ Green, R Cooper and Carolina Defense have put me over the top more weeks than not!

In other news - my team completely fell apart in this league!



Here we go!


#1 The Hot Jamaales (11-2) vs #6 Vick dont fail me no (8-6)
Hard not to root for Dex, being such a big underdog, and given the way his season has unfolded. He did the duct-tape-a-broken-team-long-enough-to-get-into-the-playoffs thing that I was going for, and it just worked. What's more, offline concerns have kept him away (I think he said his desktop stopped working), so he had to ask me to slot a few guys in for him. But here he is, in the final four.

jiraffe, meanwhile, has had a great first year and one of, if not the, best regular seasons. But Smaug's got a few scales missing, to be sure: Andrew Luck had a really rough second half of the season (though a great game last week), and with RGIII benched he has to choose between Kendall Wright and a Pierre Garcon with something called Kirk Cousins throwing to him. But whoever it is he pairs him with Brandon Marshall and he's stacked at RB.

Dex has a lot of question marks, but there's plenty of potential there, too, especially now that Roddy White is looking like himself again.

Dex can definitely win this, but it's just more likely he doesnt. I think jiraffe advances to MoFo Bowl VI.



#2 PlasticPads&IronMen (9-4) vs #4 Peyton's (sic) of Doom (8-6)
This one really defies prediction, for two reasons. First, because TONGO's team was much stronger in the first half of the season than the second, and now he's probably without Adrian Peterson, to (in a?) boot. This might not be too bad if Gerhart replaces him, but he's a little gimpy, too.

The second reason is that any team made up largely of one NFL team is subject to a lot of variance. If you have good players from lots of different teams, the odds of them all having weird or disappointing games are pretty low. But if half your team is playing together, it only takes one snowstorm (or one great day from the opposing defense) for the whole thing to fall apart. Thankfully for Dionne, he employed this strategy with the offense led by a QB who might be having the greatest season in the history of the position.

But there's trouble in this Rocky Mountain paradise, because Denver plays on Thursday this week, and it looks like they're going to be without Wes Welker. Moreover, the aerial stuff's been covering for a dearth of RBs...though he might have stumbled into a legit starter with Montee Ball, even though that seemed incredibly unlikely just a couple of weeks ago. He had no choice but to trot him out there, and somehow that prompted him to produce. Go figure.

Boy, I keep going back and forth on this one. But I'll go with TONGO, because I think relying on Ball/Williams/Holmes is just too risky. Peyton's covered for these kinds of lottery tickets most of the year, but I have to think that filling a third of your lineup with them is going to backfire at some point.


Have fun everyone!



Let the night air cool you off
I could certainly make an early departure from the playoffs this week. I am nervous about this one. Brandon Marshall has to face Joe Haden. Reggie Bush is questionable. Andre Brown is facing the Seahawks, which means the Giants will be down early. The Chiefs might not want to put too much on Jamaal's plate with the playoffs looming. I have concerns, but hopefully I am just overthinking this.



Well, it's overthinking in the sense that it's not actionable, you know? It's reasonable to worry about all that, but none of it is extreme enough for you to play different players, so there's not much use.

I'm going through the same thing; I'm the defending champ in my other league and one win away from returning to the title game, and I have some of the same guys you do: Marshall and Brown. Probably benching the latter, in fact, but that's because I've got some really good alternatives.

I'd forgotten about the Haden thing, though. Thanks, now I'll be worrying even more.