Week 16: A week late, but worth the wait?

Last Sunday was championship Sunday, but I was driving for about 11 hours that day, and wasn't able to write a post about it.  The next day was Christmas Eve, and then Christmas, and the day after that I more or less forgot/had a few minor plans.

Brady ended up winning by 9 points, and had to sweat out Sunday night as Mahomes and Carson tried to bring Matt back to victory.  Brady was led by his stalwarts that he depended on all year long: Damian Williams, Jamaal Williams, and Kirk Cousins -- and by that I mean Kirk Cousins had 7 starts, D Williams had 2 starts and J Williams had 2 starts.

Matt was letdown by Gronk, he got 0 points (the 4th time he did that this year, not sure how many of them he was healthy for, and I don't care enough to check).  Otherwise, his team was solid.  Gronk getting his average this year (7.9 points) wouldn't have been enough to get Matt the win, so maybe that will give him some solace. 

I had Jocelyn occasionally check the score for me while we were driving, but I didn't have her check the rosters.  Before we left for the day, Matt had Jordy Nelson in his starting lineup, so when I saw that Brady was down 9 at the end of the day, I thought he would have to suffer through Monday night football, but then she noted how all of Matt's players had played and Brady had won.  I think I missed something like 60 group messages on WhatsApp.  Congrats to Brady on winning his first championship, and keeping Matt from being a two-time champion.

The draft order will be as follows: Ren, Up N Atoms*, TJ, Trevor, Rob, I am Batman**, Kyle, Tyler, Jordan, Skyler, Matt, Brady.

*This will be Tommy's team if Chad comes back, if Chad does not come back, it will be the new persons' draft spot.
** This will be Tommy's team if Chad does not come back.  If Chad comes back, this is his spot.

Now I will write my year in review, so if you don't want to read even more self-congratulations, feel free to leave now.

This season, I was in 5 leagues, I made the playoffs in all 5 of them.  I made the semifinals in 4 leagues (I missed the semifinals in my money/auction league), I made the championship game in 2 of my leagues (missed out on my brother's league as well as my main league that this blog post is about), and I won one championship (I lost the championship in the reddit league where the winner gets promoted, and I won in my dynasty league which was a 2 week game over week 16 and 17).

I got blown out in the reddit league, so I had no chance there. I got blown out in my money/auction league, so I had no chance there.  I made some dumb choices (like believing in Gronk) in my brother's league, but I had a chance there.  Had Keenan Allen not gotten hurt in the semifinals where I lost to Brady, and assuming Allen would have hit his season average (17 points -- which I believe would have happened given that Mike Williams scored 36 points that night), I would have beaten Matt in the championship game -- I swear I won't be bitter about that for years.  I won my dynasty league with some luck in that my opponent left Antonio Brown on his bench this week.  I also benefitted by big scores in my second weeks in both games since I was behind in week one in both of my matchups.

Now that all of fantasy is over, I will look forward to having fewer podcasts in my life.  Not that I don't enjoy them, but they were taking a lot of time, and for only 1 championship, I'm not sure it was worth all of the time.

Congrats to Brady on the championship, and everyone else on the fun season.  In a few months I will reach out about finding a replacement for Chad if he doesn't want back in, as well as a few potential rule changes, and picking draft pick orders.  Good season, and good night.

Week 15: And Then There Were Two

I won't bury the lead.  I lost, and I hate it.  Ekeler and Ware ended up not playing, which led to Brady being able to start Damian Williams -- who went off for a measly 30.30 points.  I also had Keenan Allen get hurt early on -- before he even scored a point.  Gurley did his best to get me back in the game, but it was to no avail.  The guys from Monday night let me down. Ugh.  I'll get over it.

The other game (Matt vs. Jordan) followed the path of last week's games, and Matt blew out Jordan.  Derrick Henry had another great week, Deandre Hopkins, Chris Carson, his DST, and his Kicker had their best games of the year.

So this next week is the runner-up from last year (Brady) vs. the champion from two years ago (Matt).  They are both making their second finals appearance. **Warning, ego boost eminent**  If Matt wins he will be only the second person to have his name on the trophy more than once (guess who the multi-champion person is). If Brady wins, he will become the 9th different person to win the title -- people already on the trophy include Kyle*, Jordan**, Geoff, Skyler, Konner, Tyler, Matt, and Rob.

* - Pre-mission, with no proof that it happened.
** - Pre-mission, managed by Matt because Jordan left on his mission right before the playoffs started.

Looking forward to the championship matchup, the projections give Matt an edge (130.93 to 124.07), and FantasyPros (who does their power rankings on a scale from 1-100) give Matt a 100 (first for the week) and Brady an 87 (third for the week).  I sadly must agree with both sites, and I, unfortunately, have to give the edge to Matt.  Brady only has two matchups where he has the clear advantages, which are the WR2 (Cooks over Davis), and the TE (Kittle over Gronk), though if Gronk outscored Kittle, no one would be shocked.  The WR1 matchup (Julio vs Hopkins) is a push, and matchups like Kicker and DST are always a crapshoot, but the other matchups all favor Matt.  I hope I'm wrong, but it's a lot for Brady to overcome.

For the record, I am cheering for Brady for 3 reasons.  1) I want to be the only person to win multiple championships, 2) Brady is in my division, which needs more champions, and 3) Brady is family, so he gets my support.

Back to the matchup -- No one has anyone playing on Monday night, which is also Christmas Eve, so no one will have their Christmas Eve ruined by losing.  Sunday night features the Chiefs vs the Seahawks.  Matt has Mahomes and Carson playing that night, and Brady has Damian Williams.  Matt also has two guys playing on Saturday, while Brady only has one.  Matt has all of his other players playing in the early Sunday game, while Brady has two players playing in the Sunday afternoon games.  So the matchup will probably Start with Matt in the lead Saturday, and Sunday through the morning games, with Brady taking the lead back Sunday afternoon, and then battle it out on Sunday Night Football.

It should be a fun day of fantasy for the rest of us, but I will be driving all that day, so don't expect a season recap that night.

Best of luck everyone, let's hope there won't be any season crushing injuries, and let's hope the game goes down to the wire.

Week 14: Round One -- Snoozefest

What started out looking like some good opening matches for the first round of the playoffs, ended up being blowouts that were decided before Sunday Night Football.  Brady beat Tyler by almost 40, and Matt beat Kyle by about 50 (guesstimate based on what Carson may get).  So no real upsets in round 1 (at least based on seeding).

Brady vs Tyler:  This game was defined by the Tight Ends.  Kittle scored 34 points (career high) for Brady, while Ertz got 8.8 points (second lowest on the season) for Tyler.  Tyler was also let down by his DST who had scored 22 points two weeks in a row.  Brady also benefited from solid work by Joe Mixon, and from Julio Jones best game of the season.  Brady will play Skyler next week.

Kyle vs Matt:  The best way to summarize Kyle's team this week was to say his best scorer was his defense, and they scored him 22 points this week, and that he is next highest scorer was under 16 points.  Matt had 4 people (including his defense) match or beat 22 points this week, including season highs from Gronk as well as the Giants.  Interesting tidbit about the Giants -- from weeks 1-12 they totaled 50 points.  In weeks 13 and 14 they have totaled 40 points.  Matt will play Jordan next week.

As far as consolation bracket goes, Trevor put the hammer down on Rob in what was the highest scoring game of the week.  Had they been in the playoffs, those teams would have done some damage.  On the other side of the consolation bracket, TJ and Tommy had the lowest scoring game of the week, and TJ makes it through to advance to the next round.

No awards will be given this week as it is the playoffs, and the time for participation trophies has ended.  It is win or go home.

In preparation for the Semi-Finals, here is a breakdown of each matchup.

Jordan vs Matt

• Record
• Jordan 8-5
• Matt 6-7
• Seed
• Jordan #2
• Matt #3
• Regular season points
• Jordan 1696.26
• Matt 1757.88
• Actual head to head record this season (week 7)
• Jordan 1 (158.70)
• Matt 0 (147.02) 
• Wins had they played each other exclusively this season:
• Jordan 6 (If Wilson scores 20.18 more than Carson tonight, this will be 7-7)
• Matt 8
• All-time wins between the two against each other in the regular season
• Jordan 5
• Matt 4
• Wins between the two against each other in the playoffs
• First time meeting in playoffs
• Playoff appearances
• Jordan 6
• Matt 5
• All-time playoff wins
• Jordan 2
• Matt 4
• All-time semi-finals appearances
• Jordan 4
• Matt 3
• Last semi-final appearance
• Jordan 2016
• Matt 2016
• All-time championship appearances*
• Jordan 1
• Matt 1
• Last championship appearance*
• Jordan 2007
• Matt 2016
• Number of championships*
• These jokes just write themselves
• Jordan 0.5
• Matt 1.5

* Information from before 2010 was included

I normally don't include Thursday Night Football as a primetime game, but I will this week because it is the Chiefs vs the Chargers, and it should be fun and a good game.  And since I'm bending that rule, I will also include the Saturday night game between the Broncos and the Browns, even though it won't be as good.  So that means "primetime" games include Thursday night, Saturday, Sunday night, and Monday night.

Jordan has several players that could be part of the primetime games, but it depends if Hill is healthy enough (currently day to do) and if he wants to bring Mayfield or Jeffrey off of the bench.  Matt has two players in his starting lineup that will have a primetime game, and maybe a 3rd if he wants to bring Conley off of the bench.  Both could have someone in the Sunday night game, but neither have anyone from the Monday night game as of this writing.

Skyler vs Brady

• Record
• Skyler 10-3
• Brady 9-4
• Seed
• Skyler #1
• Brady #4
• Regular season points
• Skyler 1805.64
• Brady 1800.24
• Actual head to head record this season (weeks 3 and 13)
• Skyler 2
• Brady 0
• Wins had they played each other exclusively this season:
• Skyler 7
• Brady 7
• All-time wins between the two against each other in the regular season
• Skyler 11
• Brady 7
• Wins between the two against each other in the playoffs
• First time meeting in playoffs
• Playoff appearances
• Skyler 8
• Brady 3
• All-time playoff wins
• Skyler 9
• Brady 2
• All-time semifinals appearances
• Skyler 7
• Brady 2
• Last semi-finals appearance
• Skyler 2015
• Brady 2017
• All-time championship appearances
• Skyler 3
• Brady 1
• Last championship appearance
• Skyler 2015
• Brady 2017
• Number of championships
• Skyler 3
• Brady 0

Skyler has up to 7 players in primetime games (depending on injuries and matchups) and has a kicker and a running back (Ingram) on Monday night.  Brady has 3 players who could play in primetime, the latest being Woods on Sunday night.

Week 13 and Regular Season Awards

Time for the weekly awards that I didn't get done earlier in the week, and a few other thoughts as well.

High Scorer of the Week:  Matt wins this award over Jordan by .06 and scored a solid 152.00 on the week.

Low Scorer of the Week:  TJ had a week to forget, scoring a paltry 61.34, which was the lowest score of any team for the year.

Luckiest Team of the Week: Kyle gets this award this week.  Kyle "beat the pants off [TJ]" (not my wording, but I laughed), but he wins the award because he needed Tommy to lose to Konner, and Tommy lost by .24, which allowed Kyle to make the playoffs.

Unluckiest Team of the Week:  This is a two-part award this week.  Tommy wins the first part for missing out on the playoffs by .24, which in part comes from Fournette being suspended for the week.  The long-term unluckiest team of the week goes to Brady for losing Kareem Hunt for the playoffs this week. 

A few interesting trade notes now that the regular season is over.  

• Obviously, we never know about injury or suspensions, but Tommy is now the clear winner of the Hunt/White trade (it was still close before the suspension).  
• The Gurley/Allen for Zeke/Deandre trade has appeared like a win for Matt and Skyler.  
• The first two games results (weeks 11 and 12) wouldn't have changed for Skyler, but he got the win this week because of the trade.  
• The same can be said of weeks 12 and 13 for Matt, but he got the win week 11 because of the trade. 
• Even though each team ended up with an extra win because of the trade, the players' combined points net out to Matt ending up with 2.5-3 extra points (however, that is with a Gurley bye, so it's 6 games to 5 games).
• The Shepard/Kerryon for AJ Green trade between TJ and Skyler appears to have been a lose/lose.  The Shepard/Kerryon combo got TJ about 66 points, but he went 0-4 during that run, and AJ Green never got Skyler any points because he never got healthy enough to play.
• Kareem Hunt played 1 game for Kyle, 4 games for Skyler, 6 games for Tommy, and 0 games for Brady (his 2 weeks on the team included a bye week and a suspension).  
• His averages by team
• Kyle: 4.9
• Skyler: 18.58
• Tommy: 25.17
• Brady: 0

Now for some end of season awards.

Highest Scorer of the Year:  Skyler edges out Brady by 5.4 points to win this award.

Lowest Scorer of the Year: TJ gets this award after a terrible last week.  If TJ had hit his average this week, he wouldn't have won this award.

Luckiest Team of the Year:  I mentioned above how TJ wouldn't have won lowest scorer of the year had he had an average week.  Had he hit his average, Kyle would have been the lowest scorer of the year.  Instead, he is only the 2nd lowest scorer of the year, but he still made the playoffs somehow, so he wins Luckiest Team of the Year.  I want to keep making fun of Kyle, but he wasn't even the worst team to make the playoffs.  That distinction belongs to Tyler in 2014 for having the least points in the league, but still making the playoffs.  

Below are the *luckiest* teams each year, a.k.a. the lowest scorer to make the playoffs, and their position for the year.

Year	Lowest scorer to make the playoffs	Lowest position
2010	Matt	9
2011	Jordan	6
2012	Chad	11
2013	Jordan	9
2014	Tyler	12
2015	Matt	6
2016	Jordan	6
2017	Tyler	6
2018	Kyle	11

So we were on a solid streak of the 6th best scorer being the lowest scorer to make the playoffs 3 years in a row.

Unluckiest Team of the Year: Rob wins the award for the year because of his breakdown score.  If you look on the main page and go to breakdown, Rob finished 6th best on the year, and everyone who finished ahead of him made the playoffs, plus he was the 7th leading scorer of the year, which wouldn't be a stretch for the 7th highest scorer to make the playoffs.  Rob got really unlucky in his quest to go back to back.

Worst preseason cut: Kyle for James Conner

Best preseason garbage collection (cut by someone else) pickup: Skyler for James Conner

Best preseason diamond in the rough (undrafted waiver wire) pickup: Brady for James White. 

Worst in season cut: Skyler for Tarik Cohen

Best in season garbage collection pickup: Jordan for Tarik Cohen

Best in season diamond in the rough pickup: I thought this was going to go to Kyle for Phillip Lindsay, but Tyler Boyd has actually outscored him, so Trevor wins the award with Tyler Boyd.  Rob was also in consideration with Kenny Golladay.

Best 1st round pick: It would be easy to say Matt with Gurley, but this will go to Trevor for Saquon, who is the #2 flex player on the year (25.3 points behind Gurley), but is a rookie and was taken 4 spots later.

Worst 1st round pick: Kyle taking Bell #1 overall is the clear winner because he never saw the field, but Geoff with David Johnson is a good second because he was a major disappointment this year.

Best later-round pick: Matt with Mahomes in the 12th -- who was taken 1 round after he took a kicker, 2 rounds after he took Baker Mayfield, and 3 rounds after the Jags D, and was his 3rd QB because he also drafted Rodgers in the 3rd round.  I was going to write how unlucky Matt was with Mahomes and Gurley and it's amazing he didn't finish higher, but now I think I know why.

Other interesting notes:

Thanks to Kyle making the playoffs with Phillip Lindsay, it has now been 7 out of 9 years that the person with the worst record in the first week/first waiver claim makes the playoffs.  Maybe Lindsay should have been the pickup of the year.

Some information on how the bracket shakes out -- the upper bracket has a combined 26 wins with 5345.62 points, the lower bracket split is 21/5015.26 with a difference of 5/329.8.  To make it easier to read I'll put that information below in bullet points, with 2 other bracket layouts and their differences.  Positive numbers mean the numbers in the upper bracket (the bracket with the 1 seed) are higher, and negative means lower.

• Current setup difference of 5 wins and 329.8 points
• Don't give division winner 3 seed would have a difference of -1 win and 245.28 points
• This would be the scenario where Matt doesn't automatically get the 3 seed if he doesn't earn it.  It would still give the bye/2 seed to the 2nd best division winner.
• True 1-6 ranking difference of 1 win and -147.52 points
• This would seed the top 6 seed according to the actual standings.

So we might want to reconsider how we seed the playoffs because the upper bracket is more loaded than the lower bracket.

While doing that analysis about bracket breakdown, it came to my attention that Matt is the 3rd highest scorer in the league, and the highest scorer on that side of the bracket, so he might actually have a real shot to make it out of that bracket, even though we made fun of the south division all year.

Now for the playoff previews:

Matt vs Kyle: Before the James Conner news, I wanted to give Kyle the edge, but that is a big loss for him.  FantasyPros has a feature that looks at each team, their players, and their matchups and gives the team a score between 0-100 for the week.  This week Matt's score is 91, and Kyle's score is 69.  Matt has the latest player playing (assuming Carson is healthy) on Monday night, so Kyle will have to sweat this one out most likely.

Brady vs Tyler: Losing Kareem Hunt last week did a number on Brady's playoff outlook, but he should still have a decent chance this week.  The score is projected to be within 2 points on nfl.com, and FantasyPros has them both ranked at an 83 for the week, so it should be a good match for those of us not involved or getting stressed out with the results.  As of this moment, Tyler has a WR in the Monday night game (though that could change, Tyler might play someone else at the flex), and Brady has a kicker in the Monday night game.  Brady also has an important WR in the Sunday night game, so if Tyler chooses to bench Moore (his Monday night WR), Tyler will have to sweat out the results through 2 nights.  That sucks and is one way to make sure you are stressed longer than you need to be.

Good luck to anyone and everyone next week.  I don't play, so I don't really care how you do.  All I know is whoever I play between Brady or Tyler, I will have my hands full.

Week 13: Final Playoff Standings

I know the title is asking for a jinx, but I'm not worried about it at this point.

Skyler vs Brady:  Skyler will get the win, and the 1 seed, while Brady finishes with the 4 seed.

Tommy vs Konner:  In the heartbreaker of the night, Tommy misses out on the playoffs by .24 points.  If Big Ben would have thrown it for 7 fewer yards, Tommy would have won and made the playoffs.  Because Kyle won (spoiler alert), this loss eliminates Tommy from the playoffs

Matt vs Trevor:  Matt gets the win and gets to 6 wins -- Ren loses, which means they are tied on record, but Matt gets in on tiebreaker.  He gets the 3 seed.

Ren vs Rob:  Rob gets the win, which put Ren in a bad place, and Matt and Kyle winning finished him off.

Kyle vs TJ:  Kyle blows out TJ, and combined with Tommy losing, Kyle gets back into the playoffs (6 seed) after dropping out the last few weeks.

Jordan vs Tyler:  Jordan gets the win and the 2 seed.  Tyler loses and will get the 5 seed.

3 seed (Matt) plays 6 seed (Kyle) next week, and the winner will play against the number 2 seed (Jordan) the week after.

4 seed (Brady) plays 5 seed (Tyler) next week, and the winner will play against the number 1 seed (Skyler) the week after.

Thanks everyone for the great regular season.  I will hand out the "awards" in a post tomorrow, as well as look at the playoff previews, but I wanted to do the standings post tonight.