MoFo Fantasy Football 2014 - The Playoffs

Go with the one that's going to score more points.

Scoring more points is the key to victory.

I will take that advice into consideration, thank you!!

Enjoy it while it lasts: if we meet in MoFo Bowl VII the advice well is drying right up.

That's all I needed, I just needed that one piece of advice to propel me to MoFo Bowl VII

Let's do this.

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Badger scored over 100 more points during the regular season, but as we've established over and over, that doesn't necessarily matter. LT has a long history in this league of outkicking her coverage (grumble grumble MoFo Bowl II grumble grumble). This year she can attribute most of her success to DeMarco Murray, who's not only run over everyone, but is one of the few stud RBs not to get hurt, play terribly, or be investigated for a crime.

On the other hand, she's got some huge holes in the lineup, and she's basically counting on her studs to each score enough to cover for an adjacent scrub. The thing is, the Murrays and A.J. Greens of the world can, indeed, do that.

Badger's had one of the better teams all year, propelled initially by buying Rivers at a bargain, but surviving later in the season when Rivers came back down to earth thanks to improvement by Lacy and Hilton. Lacy's a little iffy for this week, but he does have Starks to fall back on.

Unfortunately, he played STL over ARI last night, and it cost him 8 points. But he's still the favorite, thanks primarily to the combination of Nelson and Hilton. PREDICTION: LT gets a couple of duds, one of the studs has a good-not-great game, and Badger earns a spot in MoFo Bowl VII.



Look: this team tied the record for wins and broke the records for setting-adjusted points, consecutive wins, and like five other things. By all quantifiable measures it's the best team in league history. But it could always lose. Do not think I am not terrified of this.

Unfortunately, in addition to being an underdog initially, raul's had some pretty awful luck leading up to this game, with Newton in an awful car accident and Julio Jones banged up during last week's explosion (not a literal one, though at this point the NFL's crazy enough that I probably have to make this clear).

But--but!--Julio is a beast, and so is Charles. And you really can't count out anyone with multiple guys who are capable of tossing up 30 points. Thankfully, I've got five of those guys myself: Rodgers, Foster, and the Terrifying Trio of Calvin Johnson, Demaryius Thomas, and Antonio Brown. Just thinking about these three in the same lineup makes me smile/fist-pump/fist-smile. PREDICTION: Stay Angry, my friends.

FYI, raul and I played in the Semifinals once before, in 2010. I won en route (and in rout--it was/is the highest playoff score in league history) to a victory in MoFo Bowl III, though his score that week (112) would've beat both of the teams in the other Semifinal game.

I really like that the league's been going on long enough, with enough return owners, that we have all this history built in to all the things that happen.

Yeah, as I mentioned yesterday, Hayden has Green's number, so that might be the stud that falls down to Earth this week. That's OK, because this is LT's team, so her garbage TE will have his one good game of the season this week, her kicker will get 18, and Jordan Matthews will have his best game of the year. So it is written.

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Yeah, this does feel disturbingly similar to 2009. She had Cutler that year, too, and she's switched back to the same team name.

I hope you all tie this week! Ho-ray!

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Yikes, raul didn't check his lineup this morning and left Julio Jones in.

Updates:

LT/Badger: Badger's receivers are off to a really slow start, but Lacy's put up 15 and Olsen 10 in just the first halves of their respective games, and Fred Jackson has just 3.6. LT has enough players yet to play that it's hard to project the range of her total, but Badger's definitely built up a little margin.

Me/raul: both of us with slow starts. Amazingly, Newton sub Derek Anderson is actually having a good game, so this could still be a game if raul's team can build up a margin before the 1:00 games are over. He probably needs to be up at least 30 (and probably more like ~40) points going into the 4:00 games to have a chance. If this happens, suddenly failing to sub Colston in for Julio looms large, but it's still more likely than not that it won't change the outcome. His best bet at this point is to get one or more Anderson-to-Benjamin hookups. And as I wrote this, they connected on a 21-yard pass...

Hope my players decide to show up here in the 2nd half, Jordy Nelson just dropped a wide open touchdown

Aye, but you're still favored at this point--LT's team isn't doing too much.

Meanwhile, Rodgers throws another pick. As many seasons as Manning ended last week, Rodgers might match it this week. This Buffalo defense has shut down the two best QBs in football in consecutive games.

Odell Beckham Jr. with his third TD. Nearing 40 points.

How high is this guy gonna be ranked next year?

Forgot to pull Julio damn work.

Colston would have been in that slot so we will see if it even mattered.

Rivers drives late in game with chance to salvage mediocre performance, throws another INT

I was actually sweating it out for a bit there--Thomas was having a so-so game and Calvin and Walker had done basically nothing in the first half, but they all picked it up to varying degrees, so now I've got an 18-point edge with only the kickers left, so I should be safe.

On one hand, I might struggle to crack 100 points, which is a mediocre output, victory or no. That said, the Buffalo defense is clearly tremendous against the QB and Rodgers had one of the worst games in his career; that doesn't figure to repeat next week. And when I look around, it's clear this is just a weirdly low-scoring week in general. For example, even 100 points might end up being the high score of the week, with LT and Badger both on pace for about the same total.

Speaking of which, those two are pretty much neck and neck thanks to Rivers' 11.58 points. Badger has Jeffrey and 50 points against Cutler, Murray, Matthews and the Eagles D. Basically a coin flip at this point. Three of hers go tonight, and then it'll be Murray and Jeffrey tomorrow. Whoever has the edge going into that, it probably won't be enough to feel safe, so this one's probably coming down to that final matchup on Monday.

I was very surprised to see Im most likely beating Sleezy. Especially with that pathetic point total Tre Mason put up thursday. O.B.J. - Nuff' said!

Weirdly low-scoring week, for sure! In my semi match in NFL, both my opponent and I had the worst scores of our entire season. I went into the late game ahead by 9 points, with all my players done, and he still have McCoy to go! The fantasy Gods smiled upon me, and Shady only got 7 points...We both scored under 90 total for the week. I scored almost 170 last week with the same lineup.

WHEW!!!

Congrats on that, Mike! Yeah, it's pretty clear now that points were down league-wide. What looks like a crappy score was enough to win in a lot of leagues.

Meanwhile, I did indeed hold on, and LT's luck finally ran out. Here's what I said in the preview:

'Tis exactly what happened. Green had a bad game, and she got 0 points from Davis and Matthews, only one of which was surprising. Badger survived subpar performances from both receivers, though Hilton may have an injury nagging him next week. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

Congrats to Badger on his first MoFo Bowl, and a hat tip to both LT and raul for reaching the semis, which isn't easy in a league this competitive. This was LT's fourth semifinal in just six years, and raul's second in five.

MoFo Bowl VII preview coming right up!