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.
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