IT'S PLAYOFF TIME!!!

Going into last week, four of the six playoff teams were known for sure, while two spots were still up for grabs. The Lords of Lumberg won their game to get six wins on the season, which secured the second wildcard spot. Three teams finished tied at 5-8 in the South Division that led to a four-level tiebreaker to determine the division runner-up. Here’s how it broke down – Level 1 - SOFA KING GOOD, sprouts and Frito Pie all had overall records of 5-8. Level 2 – All had divisional records of 3-4. Level 3 - In head-to-head matchups, SOFA KING GOOD had the advantage over Frito Pie, Frito Pie had the advantage over sprouts, and sprouts had the advantage over SOFA KING GOOD. Level 4 – Points scored: SOFA KING GOOD-1208, Frito Pie-1067, sprouts-990. So by virtue of scoring more points, SOFA KING GOOD is in! But in an odd twist, because of the overall record, SOFA KING enters the playoffs as the 6th seed—behind both wildcard teams! Crazy!

But the big congratulations this week go to Mr. F’n’A himself—Shawn Martin and his Coors Light Drunk Guys!! This week’s victory marked Shawn’s 9th straight win, and by scoring 122 points, he took home his second Weekly High Score Prize of the season! The Drunk Guys lead all teams in scoring with 1,316 points and thus enter the playoffs as the top seed. And Shawn has done this essentially with the team he drafted, having only made 3 waiver claims all year. (Two of his three claims involved first dropping Marshawn Lynch then re-adding him a week later…so really it’s more like only two claims made.) That is quite an impressive feat, as my current team barely resembles the team I drafted (only 5 players that I drafted are still on my team. Lol!) Well done Shawn!! F! N! A!!!

So now that the playoff teams are known, we’ll take a look to see how close I was with my early-season playoff predictions. Also, we’ll see if the worst player in all of fantasy can pull himself out of the cellar and we will find out which team claimed a league-leading fourth Best Bench Award of the season! But first, some observations...

HARD-NOSED FOOTBALL

Cam Newton, QB – Scottish Rebels – 37 pts – In twelve games, Newton has rushed for 13 touchdowns, which is already the most ever by a quarterback in a season. This also marks the third time this year that he has scored over 30 points. He’s good.

Aaron Rodgers, QB – American BadAss – 34 pts – Rodgers continues to dominate the world of fantasy football, and the world of real football for that matter. He has not scored less than 20 points in any week, and now leads all players by a wide margin in total points for the season. He has 323 points so far which is 37 points ahead of second-place Drew Brees.

Percy Harvin, WR – Lords of Lumberg – 31 pts – Harvin has shown promise the last two weeks (scoring 15 and 18 points), but really broke out this week with a 156 yards receiving and two touchdowns along with 19 yards rushing. Who says you can’t have a good receiver with Christian Ponder as your QB?

Ray Rice, RB – Moves Like Jagger – 30 pts – The Browns defense offered little-to-no resistance for Ray Rice, as he gouged them for 204 yards and a touchdown.

Pierre Garcon, WR – sprouts – 30 pts – In spite of the season that the Colts are having, Garcon is actually having a fairly decent season. He is currently on pace to have his first 1,000 yard season, and ranks 14th among wide receivers in points scored this year. (Which is higher than Dwayne Bowe, Brandon Marshall and Anquan Boldin). This week, he added 150 yards and two touchdowns.

Chris Johnson, RB – SOFA KING GOOD – 30 pts – Johnson apparently decided to sleep through the first 8 games of the year. Through those 8 games, he averaged a pedestrian 7.13 points per game. In his last four, he is averaging 18.75. Yeah, I’ll take the second one.

POWDER PUFF

Oakland, DEF – Scottish Rebels – 1 pt – Oakland was averaging 18.67 points per game over their previous three games coming in to this week, and were playing against the Miami Dolphins. Should have been a dream match-up. Instead, they surrendered 28 points, got no turnovers and only were able to sack Matt Moore one time. One freaking time. Yuck.

LeGarrette Blount, RB – sprouts – 1 pt – Blount averaged 1.7 yards per carry on his 11 attempts Sunday, finishing with barely 19 yards. Now there are reports that he is in trouble with the law. Fitting… he should get arrested after a pathetic performance like that.

PLAYOFFS?

After Weeks 3 – 6 this season, I made predictions on which teams would make the playoffs based on previous year’s standings. In Week 3, I was only correct with 50% of my predictions. In Weeks 4 & 5, I was correct with four of the six entrants. In Week 6, I was correct with 5 of the 6 eventual playoff participants. In that Week, I predicted that Moves Like Jagger, Joe’s Pats, American BadAss, Lords of Lumberg, Coors Light Drunk Guys and Frito Pie would make the playoffs. Not bad… I’ll hone my methods over the off-season and see if I can’t nail the prediction by Week 4 next year!

A TIE GAME IS KINDA LIKE KISSING YOUR SISTER

Remarkably, for the first time since 2007 we finished the regular season with no tie games. Here is a reminder of how any tie games will be settled in the playoffs:

Ties in any playoff game prior to the Championship Game will automatically go to the higher seeded team.

If there is a tie in the Championship Game, the following tiebreakers will be used:

1) Team with the highest scoring quarterback wins

2) Team with the highest scoring runningback wins

3) Team with the highest scoring wide receiver wins

4) If still tied at that point, co-Champions will be declared.

And don’t think that these won’t come into play… last year sprouts and my Rebels tied 87-87 in the championship game, and I won because Vick outscored Schaub. Also remember that throughout the playoffs (Weeks 14 – 16), Weekly High Score Prizes will still be awarded with all teams being eligible to win.

WORST PLAYER IN FANTASY

Going in to Week 13, Josh Johnson held the title for Worst Player In All Of Fantasy, owing to the fact that he had minus (-)2 points total for the year. But fortune smiled on him this week as Tampa’s starting QB Josh Freeman was out with an injury. So Josh Johnson took to the field as the starter and threw for 229 yards and a touchdown, and rushed for 45 yards. He did toss one interception as well, but finished the day with 15 points! Way to go Josh! And I have newfound respect for him after reading this Yahoo! report: “Johnson separated his left (non-throwing) shoulder Sunday against Carolina, but was able to pop it back in place and finish the game.” Hell yeah! Any player that finishes a game after separating their shoulder is all right in my book.

Josh Johnson, you are no longer the Worst Player In All Of Fantasy. That title now belongs to Mike Kafka…

NORTHERN DOMINATION

The North Division was the powerhouse this year, besting the South Division in points scored (5,925 to 5,621), games won (37 to 28), playoff entrants (4 to 2), and in inter-divisional head-to-head victories (19-11).

PICKING THE WINNERS

Only two teams made their selections in the Weekly Matchups, and ironically, it was two teams that would be at or near the top of waiver priority anyway. In the end, my Scottish Rebels bested Jamie’s Midnight Maulers by picking correctly in three of the games.

BEST BENCH

The winner of this week’s Best Bench is becoming a familiar name in this section. This marks the fourth time this season that this team has won this award, and the second time in the last two weeks. (Not since Joe’s Pats did it in Week’s 14 and 15 of 2010 has a team taken home the award for Best Bench two weeks in a row!) If you remember the winner from last week, then you already know that this week’s winner for Best Bench is… sprouts!! This week Russ could have improved his point total by 44, with three roster moves: P. Garcon for A. Johnson (+21), R. Mendenhall for L. Blount (+17) and N. Novak for S. Janikowski (+6). And not to point to fine a point on it, but had Russ made these roster changes, he would have tied the record for the highest point total of all-time, currently held by SOFA KING GOOD from Week 3 of this year, 148.

There is another Thursday night game this week, so make sure you have your roster set by then. Best of luck to the playoff teams!!