It's boring, but it's just the draft. The two team that got byes were the two teams that won the most, because they scored the most, because they had the best drafts. That and dodging massive injuries, of course, which turned out to be a bigger part of this season than anyone expected.
Hey Fred went RB-RB with Cook and Jones, and it worked great: Cook's #1 at RB, and Jones is #5. The reason this worked isn't just because they both did great, but because he didn't sacrifice a lot for it: while none of his receivers were studs, they were all solid: Kupp, Boyd, and Cooks all finished between 23rd and 32nd at WR, and more than that, they were consistent. Same story with Watson, who's 6th at QB. He nailed his first two RBs early and then surrounded them with solid contributors, ranging from decent at worst to good at best. Oh, and I almost forgot: he nabbed Mike Davis off of waivers and McCaffrey's injury meant he was just handed a low-end RB1 for free. Huge. That kind of free Top 10 guy is almost always part of the story when a team makes a MoFo Bowl. But this squad probably makes it anyway, just on that draft.
For all the hullabaloo about trades, the die was cast on draft day on the other side, too: I somehow came out of it with three top 10 backs and three top 10 receivers. Read that again, because I had to and I was there. And that's before you toss in the #2 TE (totally in his own tier there apart from all the other non-Kelce mortals) and the #7 QB. That'd be absurd in a 10-team league, nevermind this one. So absurd that while nobody can call it mere luck, I obviously can't pretend it was all skill, either. Nobody's that lucky OR that good. It's the best draft I've ever had, it's not close, and I'm not sure I'll ever manage it again. Unsurprisingly, the result was a new league points record.
First, the bad: several significant players have bad-to-awful matchups. Fred's got Dalvin Cook's up against the Saints (which means Thielen is, too), and I've got Tannehill against the Packers. None of these are as bad as they seem, though: Cook seems matchup-proof, and Miles Sanders destroyed that same Saints' run D two weeks ago. Thielen's become really TD-dependent (I shoulda kept Jefferson, who's clearly more valuable now), which caps his overall value but also means he's more likely to salvage a decent total even if the Viking offense struggles. And Green Bay's totals against QBs sure seem like the product of dodging pretty much all of the best ones.
There's also a nice either-or with Henry, in that whether the Titans go pass or run I'm gonna get a part of it, so anything other than a total shutdown of that offense probably ends up being okay. And guess what? Vegas has the over-under at a crazy high 55+.
Second, the good: a few skill players have really good matchups. Aaron Jones against the Titans is pretty good. Cooper Kupp against Seattle is, on paper, literally the best matchup he could have. And that concerns me, because 20 points from Aaron Jones is very much priced in...but not from Kupp. If he tosses up a Benjamin instead of his usual Jackson, that's a big deal. Meanwhile Hill and Henry both have good matchups, though you always worry about star players on playoff-bound teams late in the year, and Hill's hamstring got some kind of spray this past week. It's depressingly easy to imagine guys like that coming out as a precaution for teams that are wrapping things up.
Obviously, whether McCaffrey finally comes back and makes Fred sit Mike Davis matters a lot, but Davis has a tough matchup against The WFT anyway, and they've been quite good recently. Boyd has a good matchup against Houston, and Sanders has the same against the Vikings, especially with Thomas out. Looks like a genuinely tough choice for Fred.
On my end, a lot depends Gibson. He's the obvious play if he's healthy, not just because the Panters are a fairly soft matchup, but because he's been a revelation. My concern is that he gets rushed back, because two weeks for turf toe is really pushing it. An aggravation could burn me, or he could just not be himself, and I've got a lot of great options after him.
One of those options is Antonio Brown, who's been very flex-worthy since he came back and finally had a big game this past week, and gets a great matchup with Detroit. Just another waiver gem, and one that'll probably find his way into a MoFo Bowl lineup if Gibson doesn't play, or if there's enough reporting to suggest he'll be limited.
Oh, and Tyreek Hill missed a practice, which is very concerning. That alone maybe pulls this into a dead heat, and if you combine it with some kind of Gibson setback, things could get dicey very quick.
I'm not gonna get cute here. I'll usually win this matchup, if you ran it over and over. But the route to an upset is exceedingly clear, too. Hey Fred handed me one of my two losses this year when Cook went off, I might be out Gibson (or, worse, play him when he's limited), and Thielen could easily throw up a TD-less dud. Oh, and if Green Bay flouts that Vegas line and actually severely limits the Titan's offense, it takes out two of my players with it, so you could say that's literally the only thing that has to happen for Fred here. But more to the point, he's got guys who can neutralize huge games on the other side or win the week for him on his own.
It's fairly likely this'll be the highest-scoring MoFo Bowl ever, a title that currently belongs to MoFo Bowl I in 2008, which was 143-126. Projections alone are gonna have us close to that, and they're notoriously conservative.
This is my seventh MoFo Bowl in 13 years, and if I win it'll be my fifth title. I think that probably happens, because I think Hill and Gibson both play and are more themselves than not.
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