Week 17: Thnks fr th Mmrs (Let Mr Goodtimes Roll)

Let's not bury the lede, congratulations to TJ on winning his first STG Fantasy Football League Championship!

I knew if TJ won that I wanted to do a specific video celebrating his win, but I am a terrible video/photoshop editor.  It's from The Return of the King (specific link here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjZY2EfR-f8) and I would have photoshopped TJ's head over Aragorn giving the speech. When he says "Stand, men of the West", I would have put the faces of Tyler, Kyle, and Jordan, as well as people from TJ's team all pulling their swords out. In the opposing army, it would have been Matt, people from his team, and then Brady, Rob, and me in the corner somewhere -- not because we were inherently against TJ, but just because of the theme last week of West vs Blue Bloods.  Anyway, unfunny descriptions aside, let's get to the game recap.

Game Recap

Things started on Christmas with Worthy, Schultz, and Tucker for Matt, while TJ only had the Chiefs DST. Worthy was a bright spot for Matt as he saved his best game for the last game of the season. Schultz had a bottom 5 game of his for the season. Tucker was middle of the road by his standards. The Chiefs had their second-best game of the season in the championship, with their best game also happening in the playoffs (when TJ beat Rob by a narrow 3 points). I'm not saying they were the playoff MVP, but they definitely pulled their weight in the postseason.

Thursday saw Matt trot out JSN and Charbonnet to awful and middle-of-the-road results respectively. JSN hadn't scored single digits since week 7, and the only other times he did this season before that were weeks 1 and 3.  For someone who was a revelation all year for a 9th round pick, he let down Matt in the biggest week of the year.

Saturday is when the championship trajectory really became clear -- to the point TJ tempted fate and spat in the face of the Fantasy Gods -- but more on that later

Matt had Ja'Marr Chase, who much like the rest of Matt's team, decided to stay in the middle-of-the-road with 19.2 points.  Let me be clear, 19.2 is a good week for most people, and for most teams in a given week, they would be happy with their top WR on the week scoring 19.2 points. 19.2 points a game multiplied by 16 games gets you 307.2 points on the season, which would have been the 4th best WR on the year.  However, Ja'Marr chase is not most WR -- he was the #1 WR this year and scored 403 points this year (25 points a game), and 85 points better than #2 ARSB. If he had hit his average and scored the 6 extra points, it wouldn't have given Matt the win.  It's just that you need your best WR to be at their best in the championship, especially when 1) that WR real-life QB goes off for 4 total TD's [while you have 0], and 2) said real-life QB is playing for the fantasy opposition.

TJ had an outstanding game from Burrow in the finals, as he went for 42.98 points (it was his second best game of his season, less than 1 point from his season high), with 4 total touchdowns, and 0 of them going to Chase, which led to this exchange:

Assuming you have normal eyes and can't zoom in properly, that's just a gif of someone saying 'you jinxed it'.  Most members of the fantasy league would try and reverse jinx their opponents, but not Mr. Goodtimes. Thankfully for him, Puka got the memo and put up a top 3 game for his season and actually outscored Ja'Marr Chase.

I don't want to say it was all over from that point, but Matt needed a miracle from his remaining players, and while he needed a total collapse from TJ.  There was a brief scare for TJ and a glimmer of hope for Matt when Ford went out early, but Bowers was right down the middle for his season, while JT put up his 2nd best game of the season. Drake London was down the middle as well, but it was his best game in nearly 2 months. On Matt's side, the Eagles DST actually had their 2nd best game of the season, but it wasn't enough to boost him back up after Cook put up a bottom 4 performance for the year, while Goff put up a top 3 game for his year, but was only 'really really good', but not phenomenal on MNF.

In the end, TJ ended up winning by nearly 20 points, and as mentioned last week, is the first person to newly join the champions club since Brady in 2018.  He is the first person from the West to win since Tyler in 2013.

Award Season

MVP: Joe Burrow

LVP: Ja'Marr Chase and JSN

End-of-Season Recaps

Interesting Players of Note: Michael Pittman just went back to back in our league. Justin Tucker would have gone back-to-back if Matt had won. Dalton Schultz has lost back-to-back championships. Justin Jefferson had appeared in back-to-back championships before this year, but missed the championship this time around. At least he had an LSU teammate on both rosters this year. Ja'Marr Chase has appeared in 2 of the last 3 championships, and Joe Burrow has appeared (and won) 2 of the last 4 championships. It looks like you have to go all the way back to 2019 to find roster in the championship without an LSU Tiger involved as Fournette appeared in the 2020 game for Trevor.

I'll do some quick awards with some gut feelings and light stat-checking on the best and worst pick from each round of the draft -- although worst will disappear at round 10.

	Best	Worst
1	Bijan	CMC
2	Saquon	Mahomes
3	Evans	McBride
4	Kamara	Pittman
5	Kittle	Kincaid
6	Pollard	Pitts
7	BTJ	Zamir White
8	Bowers	Christian Kirk
9	JSN	Brooks
10	Rico
11	Dobbins
12	Mooney
13	Goff
14	Hubbard
15	Mason

Award Season Recaps

This isn't to say the team was the highest scoring team on the season, or the luckiest team over the whole season, but who won the season-long awards the most times.

Luckiest: Matt won this award in 4 different weeks.

Unluckiest: Tommy and Brady each won this award in 3 different weeks. It makes sense you would win this award so much when you play in the historically toughest division.

Highest: TJ has the most wins at 3, and wins this award. Matt, Jordan, and Trevor all won the award twice this season.  Skyler, Tommy, and Rob were the only teams to never win it this year

Lowest: Skyler has the most 'wins' at 4. Tyle, Kyle, and Matt each have 2. In the 0 appearances club are TJ, Jordan, Trevor, and Scott.

Draft of Draft Order Standings - to be picked around Memorial Day

1. Kyle
2. Tyler
3. Skyler
4. Scott
5. Brandon
6. Tommy
7. Rob
8. Trevor
9. Brady
10. Jordan
11. Matt
12. TJ

Thank you all for the season, I look forward to having you as friends again instead of rivals. Congrats again to TJ on the first trophy, and being the first name on the 4th side of the trophy.  Only 5 more seasons until we need to attach an extension at the bottom!

Week 16: A Champion Will Be Crowned

I'll blame being late on the blog on all of the holidays, and hopefully, that's an acceptable answer for the few of you still reading. Neither game was particularly close this week, which made things a little less fun for neutral parties

Game Recaps

Matt vs Brady: Matt won by just under 30, and with only 2 games going on this week, that made this the nail-biter of the week and also the battle of ineptitude. Matt led wire to wire, and had Goff, Cook Ja'Marr, and JSN all score 20+ points. Brady only had AJ Brown and the Bengals DST cross the 20+ point threshold.

TJ vs Jordan:  TJ won this game by just over 40, making this the blowout of the week. This was also the weekly bonanza. TJ gets his revenge on Jordan for denying him a bye week on the division title.  TJ's vengeance was brought about thanks to Burrow, Taylor, Ford, and Bowers all scoring 20+. Jordan had Murray, Barkley, and Jacobs all in the same 20+ group, but his low scorers let him down as he had two guys score under 3 points.

Award Season

MVP: In two blowout performances, it's hard to pick one guy, so we'll go with JTT for being the high scorer of the week on the highest-scoring team of the week.  It was 13 points higher than his previous high score of the season.

LVP: Again with 2 blowouts, it's hard to fault one or two people, but this will be a team effort for two of Brady's guys. Brian Robinson had his worst (healthy) game of the season, and Allen had his 3rd worst game of the season, and hadn't scored this low in nearly 3 months.

Lucky/Unlucky: N/A this week as the top two teams won.

Highest Scoring Team of the Week: TJ

Lowest Scoring Team of the Week: Brady

Game Previews

Several games have already happened (my bad), so this will simply be forward-looking

Matt (1) vs TJ (3): Matt has 1 player on Saturday and 1 player in primetime (MNF). 5 of his 9 players have already played. TJ has 2 players on Saturday and 1 player in primetime (SNF). 1 of his 9 players have already played. TJ is currently projected to win by 26 points, but his team could easily come crashing down, and it could all come down to Jared Goff on MNF. I'm sure no matter what happens, TJ won't be sweating it out.  It's not like Goff has a game over 40 this season, and then another game over 50.

History

Based on seeding, the underdog has won 8 straight championships and 12 total.  The last time the higher seed won was when #1 Skyler beat #2 Kyle in 2015, and the only other time before that was #1 Skyler over #2 Ren in 2014. That bit of history favors TJ.  That being said, the last time a #3 seed won a championship was back in 2013, when Tyler last led the West to glory. I would guess that historically the #3 team has been overseeded thanks to being the division winner, and they were likely bounced early.  Our recent rule changes have put the better teams higher up, and we should be seeing more #3's being successful going forward.

In the West Corner, we see TJ, carrying the weight of his whole division, as well as for the underdogs who have yet to win a championship.  In the Blue corner, we see Matt trying to solidify himself as the 2nd best blue blood. The other blue bloods are arguing if they want to see him move up in their internal rankings, or if they want him to keep the underdog out of the club.

This is TJ's first championship appearance. A win here would see him join the rank of champion, and he would leave behind Trevor, Tommy, Brandon, and Scott, and the corpses of Ren and Chad in the land of the Trophy-less.  On his ascent to the throne, he would see pre-historic cave drawings on the stairs of what appears to be Jordan and Kyle, and then he would join the fully verified champions of Tyler, Matt, Brady, and Skyler (editors note: Rob was erroneously left out originally, but instead of adding him back in and acting like it never happened, we'll call out the mishap here).  While looking around the championship penthouse, he might want to check out the 'in memoriam' section and pay tribute to former fallen champions Konner and Geoff. A TJ win would be the most recent "first championship" since Brady won his first in 2018.

This is Matt's fourth championship appearance. He first appeared in 2016, when he won by less than a point over Chad.  It was such an epic comeback, it actually made me post on facebook, and I saw the memory show up just the other day. He also appeared in 2018, in a loss to Brady, and Matt's most recent appearance was in 2022 when he beat Jordan. Matt's win over Brady last week means they are tied with 4 championship appearances total. Matt is looking to become the 2nd team to win 3 times and break the tie with Rob and Brady.

This is their first playoff matchup. The one time they played this year was week 6, and TJ won by 36 points. If they played each other every week in the regular season TJ would lead 8-6 over Matt.  That being said, TJ would have started 6-1, and Matt would have finished 5-2 in the second half of the season. If you throw in the playoffs, TJ would have won week 16, and week 15 it's hard to tell because Matt had a bye and didn't set a real lineup, but it likely would have been a Matt win based on how his bench did.  The total for the regular season and playoffs favors TJ 9-7, but recent scores favor Matt. For the lifetime regular season, Matt leads TJ 6-4.

Whoever wins, they will be the first name on the last panel of the trophy. We are only 6 years away from needing an extension on the base.

Happy last week of fantasy football.  It's hard to believe it's already over for most of us, and almost over for all of us.

Week 15.9999... : The Forgotten Matchup Stats

It might be a little late now, but I wanted to bring up some history for the matchups going on right now for posterity.

On one half of the bracket, we have the two newest members of the 2x champion club who are looking for the chance to get to the 3x club.  The one time they played all season was week 11, when Matt won by around 10 points and that game was the bonanza.  If they only played each other all year, I believe Brady would be 9-6 (including last week when Matt was on bye).  That bodes well for Brady.  Matt should be optimistic though as Brady went 6-1 against Matt in the first 7 weeks.  Since then, Matt has been 5-3.

On the other half of the bracket, we get the top two teams in the West who have been dancing around and towards each other all season.  Jordan may have won the division this year, but we all know this is their biggest matchup of the season.  Courtesy of guest author TJ "I’m 0-2 against @⁨Jordan Gray⁩ for the year. If we played each other every week we’d be 7-7. " TJ would is now 8-7 after looking at week 15 (assuming Jordan had set a full lineup). The West hasn't won time with the Trophy since Tyler won in 2013. That was actually a back-to-back title for them as Konner won it for the West in 2012. They hope the winner of this matchup ends their decade drought.

This is Brady's 7th semi-final appearance and 5th consecutive appearance. That is the second-longest consecutive streak behind Skyler from 2010 - 2015. No one has matched Brady's consistency of 7 semi-finals in 8 years though.  His 7 appearances tie him for second-most all-time with Jordan...

This is Jordan's 7th total semi-final appearance (as mentioned above). This is his first appearance since 2022.  We are so happy he was able to end this terrible drought.

This is Matt's 6th semi-final appearance (tied with Chad), and it's his 3rd consecutive semi-final.  

This is TJ's 1st semi-final appearance and the best season of his career. (For historical information, Rob and Ren are tied at 5 total semi-final appearances)

If Brady wins, he will tie the record at 5 total championship appearances, but if Matt wins, he will move into second, tied with Brady for 4 total championship appearances.  If Jordan wins, he would have 3 championship appearances, which would tie him with Rob, Chad, and Matt if Matt loses. A win by TJ would help him get to the championship for the first time.

As of this writing, it does seem like we'll get Matt vs TJ, but you never know.  Hopefully, I'll get to writing the blog faster this week.

Week 15: It's the Final Countdown

 With only two games to cover (sorry, not sorry consolation bracket), things should be pretty straightforward. We had one nail-biter and one blowout with the high score of the year finally hitting 200+ (TJ previously set it with 199).

Game Recaps

Brady vs Trevor: This was supposed to be the close/tight game based on the rankings and the identical record.  Instead, Josh Allen went off for 45, while Evans and St. Brown each went for 35+, and Brady ended up winning by 70.  That's not to say Trevor had a bad game -- he did better than both teams on the other side of the bracket -- he just had the tougher matchup.  Brian Thomas Jr. had the first 30 point game of his career and solidified himself as the rookie WR of the year, but it just wasn't enough.  It's kind of crazy that Trevor's top scorer would have only been Brady's 4th highest scorer.  Trevor had no one else break 20, while Brady had two more players (Chase Brown and AJ Brown) score 25+.  Given the games Chase Brown, AJ Brown, and Amon-Ra St. Brown, Brady should change his name to 'UPS' because the answer to the old question of "What can brown do for you" has an answer, and that answer is send you to the semifinals.

TJ vs Rob: This was quite the nail-biter as Jahmyrr Gibbs went off and got Rob back in the game, but in the end, Bowers and London did enough to hold off Sam Darnold on Monday Night.  There are obviously a dozen different plays over the course of the week that could have changed this game, but Justin Jefferson getting tackled at the one and then seeing the TD get vultured by Aaron Jones was the final nail in the coffin for Rob's attempt to join the 3x club. Gibbs was the only player for Rob to score 20+, while TJ had two of them with Burrow and the Chiefs DST.  On an interesting (to me anyway) note, Rob had the lead after Thursday Night, but it seemed like the results favored TJ as Puka had nearly outscored Kyren and Jauan combined.

Award Season

MVP: The Chiefs DST more than doubled their previous high score this season and punched TJ's ticket to the semi-finals.

LVP: Jauan Jennings had been averaging around 17 points per game over the last 5 weeks (his low over that time frame was 8.6), and he only puts up 5.1 this game.  If he had even put up the low score of that run of 8.6, Rob wins the game.

Lucky: TJ for the late win and getting matched up with Rob instead of Brady or Trevor

Unlucky: Trevor for the bad matchup.

Highest Scoring Team of the Week: Brady

Lowest Scoring Team of the Week: Rob

King of the Court: On hiatus in Cancun with the rest of Hit Squad until next season.

Game Previews

Programming Note — there are multiple Saturday games this week.

Matt (1) vs Brady (4): Matt has 0 players on Thursday, 2 players on Saturday, and 1 player in primetime. Brady has 1 player on Thursday, 1 player on Saturday, and 1 player in primetime.

TJ (3) vs Jordan (2): TJ has 0 players on Thursday, 0 players on Saturday, and 1 player in primetime. Jordan has 0 players on Thursday, 2 players on Saturday, and 1 player in primetime.

Week 14: All Quiet on the Southern Front

Depending on who you ask, this weekend was fortunate or unfortunate, to be all chalk with no major upsets or changes to the wildcard race. Rob won and crushed Kyle, Skyler, and Tyler's dreams of making the playoffs. Kyle was the only one who had a shot as he won his game (and was the highest-scoring team of the week), and even outscored Rob this week by 22 points.  Unfortunately for Kyle, it was too little as Rob still beat him by 36 points in the tiebreaker, which is less than 2.6 points per week on average.

In the top half of the bracket, Kyle's win over TJ put Jordan in contention to win and secure the 1 seed, which he did by sneaking past Tyler with a 4-point win. TJ's loss dropped him to the 3 seed and put Matt at the 1 seed, with Jordan taking the 2 seed.  Brady and Trevor were essentially locked into the 4/5 matchup, so their games were irrelevant.

Game Recaps

Skyler vs Brady: After a blip the last 2 weeks where Skyler maybe looked like a real team, he was back to his old ways of scoring under 100 points (4 of the last 6 weeks). Skyler had only one person go over 20+ with Mooney, while Brady 'only' had two of them.  I put only in quotes because one of those people was Josh Allen, who scored 57 points -- and that was without throwing a TD to himself.  They both had 4 players score in the single digits.

Kyle vs TJ: Six teams this week scored 148+ points -- this was the only game to feature two of them, and made this the clear Bonanza.  It was mentioned above that Kyle won, but it is worth calling out that he led wire to wire over TJ, but did not do enough to take the title from TJ of highest-scoring single game. Kyle had four people score 20+ while TJ had two.  In a 32 point win, there is no 'one player' who lost TJ the game, but getting a negative from his defense this week certainly did him no favors. We shall see how long Kyle and the Vikings can keep this up.

Tyler vs Jordan: We go from Bonanza to ineptitude as this was the matchup of the 9th and 10th highest scoring teams in the league, or 3rd and 4th lowest, whatever you want to call them. This game was close for a while, but Tyler played the Bills DST, who ended up scoring -5, which was the difference in the game as this was also the weekly and nightly nail-biter. Tyler had one players score 20+ points and Jordan had two. I mentioned Tyler's DST scoring -5, and when paired with Deebo Samuel, they combined for 0.5, which was 0.5 more than Jordan's starting TE got. This was an ugly game all around, but Jordan doesn't care since it got him the bye week.

Scott vs Tommy: Scott broke a 3-game streak of being sub-100 by putting up 159.62 this week, and was the 3rd highest scorer. This loss means Tommy sits tied at the bottom of the list with the fewest wins in a season. Scott had five people score 20+, which appears to be the high this week, while Tommy only had one. Scott had two people score in the single digits, while Tommy had four.

Rob vs Brandon: Raise your hand if you had Sam Darnold having the best day of his career (44.58) on the day of playoff-clinching before the start of the season?  If your hand is up, put it down you liar. In his best year, Darnold had his best day, making sure Rob didn't lose his spot to Kyle.  Though the two biggest reasons Kyle had a chance to steal the spot is because he had two of Darnold's wide receivers -- so maybe it wouldn't have mattered?  Anyway, in this match, Rob beat Brandon by a solid 45 points. Most of that was Darnold, but Williams and Jennings also joined the 20+ points club.  Brandon had three people score 20+ as well.  Unfortunately for him, he was let down by having 5 players in single digits, while Rob only had 3.

Matt vs Trevor:  This game was mostly played for pride as Matt secured the division and the bye week last week.  After a couple of mediocre weeks, Matt got back to putting up big points, while Trevor stayed in his sweet spot of 105-120. Matt only had three people score 20+, but one of them was Ja'Marr Chase, who went for 45.  Trevor had no players score 20+. Amazingly, Trevor only had two players score in single digits while Matt had four.

Award Season

MVP: Darnold, Addison, and Jefferson all went off this week together and got their two teams big points.

LVP: Only one game was close enough where an LVP could even be possible.  The Bills DST could have got 0 points and Tyler would have won, but their -5 saw him lose this week.

Luckiest Team of the Week: Jordan would have lost to 8 other teams and would have lost the bye, but instead he played a bottom-three team, won the week, and secured the division and the bye.

Unluckiest Team of the Week: TJ would have beaten 7 other teams this week and would have won the bye week and the division, but instead he played the highest-scoring team of the week and has to square off against Rob.

Highest Scoring Team of the Week: Kyle

Lowest Scoring Team of the Week: Skyler

King of the Court: Kyle wins it from TJ, but is eliminated from the playoffs.  I made the executive decision that the King of the Court will stay with Kyle until week 1 next year.  I don't talk about the consolation in the blog, and bringing up King of the Court would require me to talk about the consolation bracket. Any losses in the consolation will not lose Kyle his crown, but neither will any wins add to the total number of weeks of holding the crown.

Game Previews

Programming Note -- There are two Monday Night Football games this week. Don't forget to optimize your lineups accordingly.

Brady (4) vs Trevor (5): Brady has 0 players on Thursday and 0 players in primetime.  Trevor has 1 player on Thursday and 0 players in primetime.  If there aren't any drastic lineup changes, this one will be decided by the end of the Sunday afternoon games. The one time they played head-to-head this year, Trevor won 169-147. If they played each other every game this season, Brady would be winning 8-6, and would be on a 3-game win streak. The last time they met in the playoffs was in the first round in 2022, where Brady won 146.74 to 104.28. Brady also beat him in the championship in 2020 143.8 to 106.34. Those are the only two times they have met in the playoffs.

TJ (3) vs Rob (6): TJ has 1 player on Thursday and 3 players in primetime. Rob has 2 players on Thursday and 1 player in primetime. It looks like they will have to sweat out this game as 3 players play on Monday night, including Darnold (Rob), London (TJ), and Bowers (TJ).  It should make for an intense night. The one time they played head-to-head this year, TJ won 119-112. If they played each other every game this season, TJ would be winning 9-5. but Rob would be on a 1 game win streak and would have won 4 of the last 7. They have never met in the playoffs.

Some Regular Season in Review Notes

I put in everyone's information for each week to find their quartile information and then any outliers.  If you remember the phrases boxplot, box and whisker diagram, or a Tukey plot, that is what I did with our data. Based on that methodology, Tommy had one positive outlier (week 12), Brandon had two positive outliers (weeks 6 and 9), Trevor had two positive outliers (weeks 6 and 11), TJ had 1 positive outlier (week 5), and Kyle had one negative outlier (week 7), and one positive outlier (week 14).  This may be of some concern for Trevor as his highest games are mathematical outliers. Of all the playoff teams, if you look at the amount of times they scored 130+, Trevor has the least at 3. Matt has 5, Brady, Rob, and TJ have 6, and Rob leads the group with 7. If we move the cut-off to 150+ points, Brady has the least at 1, Rob, Trevor, and TJ have 2, Jordan has 3, and Matt has 4.

From a season-total perspective, TJ finished as the highest-scoring team.  Compared to the other highest-scoring teams at season end, he finishes in last all time (out of 4) for the 14-game schedule. If we take a points-per-game average so we can better compare team totals across shorter schedules, he finishes at 132.4 per game, which is 10th all time out of 15.  The record high for the high points per game is still Stephen Lorenzo Quinn from the 2014 season (145.6 per game), and the record low for the season high is Rob in 2010 at 124.3 points per game

Skyler finished as the lowest-scoring team. Compared to the other lowest-scoring teams at seasons end, he finishes in second all time (out of 4) for the 14-game schedule. If we take a points per game average so we can better compare team totals across shorter schedules, he finished at 109.4 points per game, which is 5th all time out of 15.  The record high for the low points per game is Travis James Morrison for the 2018 season (116.5 per game), and the record low for the season low is TJ in 2019 at 95.2 points per game.

Some interesting data I found was when I calculated averages and medians for everyone.  Usually, an average is higher than a median.  For example, if you take the average net worth of Americans, the billionaires skew the data high, but if you take the median net worth of Americans, it finds the person in the middle of the 330+ million people in the US, and that number will be lower than the average of the same data set.  When comparing the average and median of everyone in the league, Skyler, Tommy, and Kyle all had a lower median score than an average score. The other 9 people had averages higher than their medians.  The overall league score when looking at every score of every week has an average that is 2.5 points higher than the median. Matt, Scott, and Jordan have the highest positive difference between average and median, with the lowest difference of the 3 being 9.75, and the highest being 10.58.  I'm not sure that's cause for concern for Matt and Jordan in the playoffs, but it's an interesting note.

As a late note, congratulations to Matt back in week 11.  According to my records, that win over Brady made him a centurion.  The all-time regular season wins count is now Skyler 113, Jordan 108, Brady and Rob 106, Matt 102, Kyle 95, Tyler 94, Trevor and Chad 93, TJ 68, Ren 66, Geoff 44, Tommy 38, Brandon 32, Konner 29, and Scott 9.

Lastly (for this post anyway), congrats to Brady on being only the second person to 3-peat as a division champ.  The only other person to do it was Ren from 2012 to 2014.  His division championship gives him 5 all time. Matt won his 4th division championship this year.  Not to be outdone, Jordan has won his 7th division championship, which is tied for most all time with Skyler.

Good luck to none of you this week.

Week 13: 4 Guys, 1 Wild Card

With only one week to go, we finally have some clarity.  I will put more details down below, in the playoff section, but I say only some clarity because we only *know* one division winner, we have a greater than 99.999999999999999% idea of another, but we don't know their seedings, or the seedings of those who have already clinched qualification.  We also have 4 people fighting for the last spot.  The scenarios for that last spot are pretty cut and dry, but who knows how things will play out.

Game Recaps

Skyler vs Scott: The margin for victory in this game was 28.12, which made this the blowout of the week.  After last week where we had multiple games of around 60 point margins, a much smaller blow out was much appreciated.  In a different world, Scott starts Jeudy over Cooper, and wins by enough that it wouldn't even be the nail-biter of the week.  Anyway, enough multiversal events of who could have won, let's get to what actually happened. Skyler won on the backs of only two 20+ point players (Daniels and McConkey), while Scott only had one (Harris). Skyler had 4 single digit players, while Scott also had 4 (if you include the DST in negative single digits). The loss eliminates Scott from playoff contention.

TJ vs Tyler: TJ was the leading scorer of the week, and Tyler was number 3, but the real story is Tyler taking himself out of the playoff race by not checking in time (Saturday Night/Sunday Morning) to start his first-round pick, the #2 pick overall, the #4 RB on the season, and the #5 RB/WR/TE on the season. This loss doesn't eliminate Tyler, but it takes him from the driver's seat for the last Wild Card spot, to the last spot, and needing a lot of help. TJ got the win no thanks to three 20+ point scorers (Burrow, Bowers, and the Cowboys DST), because Tyler actually had more with four of them (Lamar, Mixon, Dowdle, and Jonnu).  A minor help to TJ was that he had fewer (2) single-digit scorers than Tyler (3). The win also came down to TJ having the only person over 30, and most of his double-digit, but non-20+ scorers getting in the high teens. This was easily the weekly bonanza.

Kyle vs Jordan: Kyle could have lost and not been eliminated, but it would have put him in a really tough spot.  Thankfully for him, he got a narrow win over Jordan this week. They each had one person score 20+ this week (Kyle with Tyreek, and Jordan with Jacobs), and they each had 3 scoring single digits.  In a 6-point win, there likely won't be any clear reasons for victory, and that's the case here. The loss for Jordan takes him out of the driver's seat for the division and the bye week, but he's currently in shotgun and he can grab the wheel pretty easily while TJ is driving.

Matt vs Brandon: Matt needed a win to lock up the division from a surging Trevor, and he got it this week. This was the second biggest blowout of the week, which says more about Brandon than Matt as Matt was the 3 lowest scorer of the week. Matt and Brandon both had two 20+ scorers this week (Matt - Goff and Chase, Brandon - Achane and Allen). Matt had 4 players in single digits while Brandon had 5 -- the big difference there though is that all of Matt's single-digit players were >5, while all of Brandon's were <=5. The loss officially eliminated Brandon. With their joint low scores, this was the battle of ineptitude.

Trevor vs Rob: A win by Rob would have put Rob and Trevor in great spots to both make the playoffs, but they still could have theoretically been knocked out. A win by Trevor would clinch a spot for him and would put Rob in a much tougher spot (though still in the driver's seat). Thankfully for the Yle's, Trevor won. This was the nail-biter of the week as it was decided by less than 2 points, and adding to the fun of the game was that there was a 49er player on each team on SNF. They each had a 20+ point scorer (Rob had Darnold, and Trevor had McBride). Trevor had more single-digit scorers than Rob (4 to 3). The difference in this game didn't really even come down to Trevor's double-digit scorers doing more as I think Rob's were slightly better. In a game this tight, you can say anything was the reason, so I'll give up trying to find something obvious.

Tommy vs Brady: With a difference of 16 this was the 3rd biggest blowout or the 4th closest game -- I'll let you all decide how you want to spin the narrative.  Brady was the 2nd highest scorer, while Tommy was the 4th highest scorer. Brady had two people go for 20+ (Allen and Evans), while Tommy only had one (McLaurin).  Brady only had one person score single digits, while Tommy had two. The play of the night was the Hook and Ladder to Allen, which made sure he got the Receiving TD and the Passing TD.

Award Season

MVP: In the closest games, no one had a player who scored a season-high.  At best it was their 2nd best game of the season.  So we'll give it to Tyreek for breaking 20 points for the first time since week 1 in a game Kyle was desperate to win.

LVP: I want to give this to Demario Douglas for not being Bijan, but I feel like I've piled onto Tyler enough already. So let's give it to Jahmyr Gibbs who had his lowest-scoring game of the season and fumbled at the 6-yard line

Luckiest Team of the Week: The award will be split this week.  Matt won despite being the 10th-highest scorer, and TJ won thanks to Tyler being checked out.

Unluckiest Team of the Week: Based on the above, you would think I might split this, but Tyler brought it on himself and will not win this award.  So it will all go to Tommy -- I'm sure it is making him feel so much better.

Highest Scoring Team of the Week: TJ is back to sitting on top after this week.

Lowest Scoring Team of the Week: Brandon had a rough week and 'wins' the award.

King of the Court: TJ gets the crown back after a few weeks of not having it.  

Game Previews

Skyler (8) vs Brady (5): Skyler has 1 player on Thursday and 1 player in primetime. He has 1 player on bye. Brady has 2 players on Thursday and 1 player in primetime. He has 1 player on bye. 

Kyle (7) vs TJ (1): Kyle has 0 players on Thursday and 1 player in primetime. He has 1 player on bye. TJ has 0 players on Thursday and 1 player in primetime. He has 1 player on bye. 

Tyler (9) vs Jordan (2): Tyler has 0 players on Thursday and 2 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. Jordan has 1 player on Thursday and 2 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. 

Tommy (12) vs Scott (11): Tommy has 0 players on Thursday and 1 player in primetime. He has 5 players on bye. Scott has 0 players on Thursday and 1 player in primetime. He has 1 player on bye. 

Brandon (10) vs Rob (6): Brandon has 0 players on Thursday and 1 player in primetime. He has 2 players on bye. Rob has 1 player on Thursday and 2 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. 

Trevor (4) vs Matt (3): Trevor has 1 player on Thursday and 1 player in primetime. He has 1 players on bye. Matt has 2 players on Thursday and 3 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. 

Playoff Scenarios

1 Seed - If Matt wins and both TJ and Jordan lose, he is the 1 seed. If either TJ or Jordan win, Matt is likely the 2 seed due to tiebreaker.  If TJ wins, he is likely the 1 seed due to tiebreaker.  If Jordan wins, and Matt and TJ lose, Jordan would be the 1 seed.

2 Seed - If Jordan and/or TJ win, Matt is the 2 seed. If they all lose, Matt is the 2 seed. If Matt wins, and TJ and Jordan lose, TJ is the 2 seed.

3 Seed - The system will put the North winner will be put here by the system, but due to our recent rule changes, Jordan or TJ will be here, and I will move them manually.  If one of them wins while the other loses, the loser will be here.  If they both win, or both lose, odds are that TJ will be here. Jordan is only behind TJ by 40ish points, so in theory he could pass TJ if they have the same result, but it's not likely.

4 Seed - If Trevor wins, he is the 4 seed.  If Trevor loses and Brady wins, Brady is the 4 see (unless Trevor were to somehow outscore Brady in that scenario, in which case Trevor would be 4).

5 Seed - If Trevor wins and Brady wins, Brady is the 5 seed. If Trevor loses and Brady wins, Trevor is the 5 seed.  If Brady loses and Rob, Kyle, or Skyler win, and they manage to outscore Brady by 60, 125, or 205 points respectively, that person would be the 5 seed.

6 Seed - (Ignoring tiebreakers for a second) If Rob wins, Rob is the 6 seed. If Rob loses and Kyle wins, Kyle is the 6 seed. If Rob and Kyle lose and Skyler wins, Skyler is the 6 seed. If Rob, Kyle, and Skyler all lose, and Tyler wins, Rob is the 6 seed (though Tyler could catch Rob on tiebreaker as he is only back 20ish points). Skyler is 85 points behind Kyle, Kyle is 60 points behind Rob, so expecting them to catch on the points tiebreaker is very unlikely.

My predictions - (Mostly based on projections) 1 TJ, 2 Matt, 3 Jordan, 4 Trevor, 5 Brady, 6 Rob.

Good luck to everyone but Brady, Rob, and Kyle this week.

Week 12: Math Meets Probability

Mathematically, no one new has clinched the playoffs or been eliminated.  Rob is the current six seed is 6-6, and with two games to go, Brandon and Scott who are both at 4-7 could win out and catch him. However, they are behind on total points, and the schedule doesn't appear to be kind to them.

The YLE's (skYLEr, tYLEr, and kYLE) are all 5-7 and could mathematically catch Trevor who is at 7-5.  They are all behind on points, but Tyler and Kyle could reasonably make that up in two weeks, Skyler would have to out score Trevor by 70+ points each of the next two weeks to catch him. If they all won out, Trevor lost out, and the 6-6 teams won, Trevor could still be eliminated.  So as the title said, the math says it's possible, but the probability of it is low -- similar to BYU making the CFP.

Game Recaps

Skyler vs Tommy: This was projected as the battle of ineptitude for good reason, but instead it ended up being the bonanza.  The game was decided by less than 4 points, but it wasn't even the Weekly or Nightly Nail Biter, or the Monday Nightmare/Miracle.  Games this close often come down to one or two plays, or one or two decisions.  For example, if Skyler had kept Elliott instead of Seibert, he would have won by 0.08. On the other side, if Tommy's kicker doesn't miss a couple of field goals, this is a double-digit win and we aren't even having this conversation.  Tommy was led to victory by 3 players scoring 20+ (Stack of Nix and Sutton, and Scary Terry), while Skyler only had 2 (Daniels and Waddle).  The biggest difference in this game though was seen with the single-digit scorers.  Skyler had 4 people score single digits, while Tommy only had 1.  This win guarantees Tommy won't finish as the first 1-loss team in league history.

Jordan vs TJ: This was supposed to be the bonanza, and Jordan pulled his weight as the only team to hit 150+ this week, but the Bye-mageddon was too much for TJ to overcome.  This was only the 2nd time he has scored under 100 all season -- the other time being week 1, also against Jordan. Jordan was led to victory by 3 people scoring 20+ (the Texans DST, Josh Jacobs, and the fantasy season MVP Saquon Barkley). TJ's stack of Rams (Stafford and Puka) also got 20+. TJ had 4 people score single digits, while Jordan had 3.  The biggest difference in this game was Saquon going for 46, which was more than TJ's top two scorers.  That being said, this was enough of a blowout that Jordan could have sat Saquon and still won by double digits.

Kyle vs Tyler: This was the underrated game of the week.  It didn't score a lot, it was only the 3rd closest game, but it was a big deal for the playoff hunt, and it included a come-from-behind win thanks to Lamar.  A Kyle win would have put him to 6-6 and it would have put Tyler on life support at 4-8. Instead, they are tied at 5-7 and the tiebreaker is manageable enough that Tyler could overcome it if things break his way.  Tyler had 3 people score 20+ (Lamar, Jakobi, and Jonnu), while Kyle had 2 (Mahomes and Pollard). Kyle had 5 people score single digits, while Tyler only had 3.

Matt vs Rob: Another victim of the Bye-pocalypse, Matt lost in the blowout of the week.  This was his first time getting under 100 on the season.  Rob put the beatdown on thanks to Tua and Jahmyr each scoring 20+.  They actually combined for 60, and if Rob only played them, Matt would have only won by 24 points (he lost to Rob by nearly 60 for context). Matt had no one score 20+ points this week, but fret not dear reader, we will not leave Matt's accomplishments out -- he had 5 people score single digits.  That's more than half his team scoring less than 50 points. Rob only had one person score single digits

Scott vs Brady: This was another blowout, but not the blowout.  Brady had two players score 20+ (AJ Brown and his Kicker), while Scott had 0.  Speaking of 0, Scott wishes his DST scored that high (it was -1).  Scott had 6 people in single digits (including negative single digits), while Brady only had 2.  This blowout would have been more had Brady's top 2 RB's not both left with injuries.  This was also the battle of ineptitude.

Brandon vs Trevor:  I was distracted by my own game, but this was the game of the week.  It was decided by 1.26 points.  Herbert had enough of a good game for Trevor, and King Henry didn't do enough to offset the Chargers DST for Brandon.  I can't imagine a stat correction will come into play, but you never know. There are so many one off plays that could have changed the course of this game, so we won't dive down that rabbit hole. Trevor had two players score 20+ points (Trey and Nico), while Brandon had three people score 20+ (Achane, Kupp, and Kittle). Trevor also had 5 players score single digits, while Brandon had 4. I am legitimately incredibly confused how Trevor won.  I suppose if the DST scored 8 more points, they still would have been a single digit team, and Brandon would have won by about a TD, but the overall blog metrics would have been the same.

Award Season

MVP: I wanted to give it to Saquon as the best player on the best team, but he wasn't even necessary for the win.  I will split the award though between Courtland Sutton and Trey McBride for scoring their highest games of the season during and incredibly close week.

LVP: Another split -- Seibert had his lowest game of the season, and Downs scored single digits for the firs time since week 7.

Luckiest Team of the Week: Trevor wins this award for how he won, and also because he only outscored 4 teams this weeks.

Unluckiest Team of the Week: Only 3 teams would have beat Skyler this week, and he was matched up with one of them.

Highest Scoring Team of the Week: Jordan 

Lowest Scoring Team of the Week: Matt

King of the Court: Tyler takes it from Kyle, and goes up against TJ, normally a juggernaut, but maybe he’s trending down? Or maybe that was just the bye week. 

Game Previews

Stupid Reminder that there will be a Black Friday game on Amazon this week. How many prime commercials will there? The small, small bonus, I suppose, is that the game will be for anyone who has an Amazon account, and not just an amazon prime account.

Skyler (9) vs Scott (11): Skyler has 2 players on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 0 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. Scott has 0 players on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 2 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. 

TJ (2) vs Tyler (7): TJ has 2 players on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 0 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. Tyler has 5 player on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 1 player in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. 

Kyle (8) vs Jordan (1): Kyle has 2 players on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 0 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. Jordan has 3 players on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 0 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. 

Matt (3) vs Brandon (10): Matt has 3 players on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 1 player in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. Brandon has 2 players on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 2 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. 

Trevor (4) vs Rob (6): Trevor has 2 players on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 2 players in primetime. He has 0 player on bye. Rob has 3 players on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 1 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. 

Tommy (12) vs Brady (5): Tommy has 2 players on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 4 players in primetime. He has 2 players on bye. Brady has 3 players on Thanksgiving/Black Friday and 2 players in primetime. He has 0 players on bye. 

Playoff Update

Playoff Scenarios

Matt, TJ, Jordan -- In

Tommy -- Out

Trevor -  7-4 If he beats Rob, he is locked into the playoffs.

Rob and Brady - 6-5 If they win and all the 5-6 teams lose, they are locked into the playoffs. Brady will win the division with a win and a Skyler loss.

Kyle, Tyler, and Skyler - 5-6 If Kyle and Tyler lose and Rob wins, they are out.  Brady winning or losing will not affect Kyle or Tyler. A win keeps them all alive. 

Scott, Brandon - 4-8 If they lose or if Rob wins, they are out. Brady winning or losing doesn't affect them.

Divisions and Seeding

West: TJ and Jordan are still fighting for their division, but Jordan beat down TJ by so much this week that the tiebreaker difference is now at 6 points, which is easily overcome in the last two weeks.

South: Matt still leads the division, but Trevor still has a small chance to win it. A Matt win or a Trevor loss makes Matt the division champion.

North: Anyone but Tommy can still win, but it will be incredibly difficult for anyone to catch Brady given the current schedule and tiebreakers. A Brady win and a Skyler loss gives Brady the division.

There's a lot of you who I need to lose, so I hope you do.  Same to the teams in the B12 ahead of BYU.