Last week of the regular season!

Sprouts nickname should be “Rollercoaster”.  Over the last three weeks, Russ’ team has averaged 100.3 points per week, but those points have come in quite the wide range.  He has gone from 127 to 64 to 110.  Up, down, up… could we see 55 points this coming week?   Regardless, Week 12 marked his fourth High Score Prize of season!!  Russ got massive production from his runningbacks, with Knowshon Moreno racking up 31 and Maurice Jones-Drew (yeah, remember that guy?) rattled off 20.  Well done sir!!

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, I just have a quick update this week where we’ll go through the final playoff scenarios and give out one of the rarest awards of all… A Double Best Bench Award!  Woohoo!  You only see these about as often as you see a victory from BoomGoesTheDynamite.  HAHA!  What do you know?!?

But first, some observations…

BIG TIME

-Josh Gordon, WR – Sofa King Good – 32 pts – Gordon had a remarkable 17 targets and caught 14 of those for 237 yards and a touchdown.  The catches tied a Browns franchise record for most catches in a game.

-Knowshow Moreno, RB – sprouts – 31 pts – Russ has always seemed to manage big scores from Denver Broncos… when Peyton Manning only manages 12 in a week, Knowshon Moreno comes through with a massive performance, going for 224 yards and a touchdown.  This was Moreno’s biggest game of the season, but may have come at a cost as he was seen on crutches and in a walking boot after the game.

-Philip Rivers, QB – Vandelay Industries – 30 pts – Old Man Rivers can still get the job done, as he proved against the touch KC defense, going off for 392 yards and three touchdown passes!

-Jamaal Charles, RB – Channel 4 News Team – 27 pts – Charles has really lived up to his potential this season, as he is the top ranked RB in fantasy, now currently averaging 16.5 points per game.  We’ll see if he can do better than the 7 points he scored in their first meeting when the Chiefs have a rematch with the Broncos in Week 13.

COME ON, MAN!

-Cleveland, DEF – Joe’s Pats – 1 pt – The Browns got no sacks, no turnovers, no touchdowns and gave up 27 points.  No, they weren’t playing the Broncos… this lackluster performance came against the Steelers.  Yuck.

-Kansas City, DEF -  Channel 4 News Team – 1 pt – After averaging 19.4 ppg in their first 7 games, the Chiefs D is only averaging 8.0 per game over their last four.

-Victor Cruz, WR – BoomGoesTheDynamite – 0 pts – Cruz actually caught two balls for 27 yards, but lost a fumble to negate that.  The best part was that he was held out of the endzone this week, so all of us were spared from watching salsa dancing.

-Brian Leonard, RB – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – Leonard’s best game all season has been scoring 6 points (he’s done that twice), but has also been held scoreless four other times not counting this week.  So it can’t be too surprising that he finished with only 3 yards rushing and 3 yards receiving.  But it still sucks…

-Aaron Dobson, WR – Midnight Maulers – 0 pts – Dobson was only on the field for 2 plays after halftime after being in for 35 in the first half, yet he wasn’t on an injury report.  It’s hard to score points from the sideline.

-Eric Decker, WR – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 0 pts – On a cold night in New England, passing yards were hard to come by.  Especially so for Decker who only finished with one catch for 5 yards.

-Chicago, DEF – Midnight Maulers – -1 pts – The Bears D got used and abused by St. Louis, giving up 42 points and only recording 2 sacks.

PLAYOFFS!

The games this week settled quite a bit in the playoff picture.  Five teams are in for sure: Channel 4 News Team, sprouts, Sofa King Good, American BadAss and Midnight Maulers.  Three teams are out of contention: BoomGoesTheDynamite, Vandelay Industries and Coors Light Drunk Guys.  That leaves only two teams vying for the final wildcard spot:

Butkus’ Dick – WIN final game against Midnight Maulers, OR Joe’s Pats lose to Sofa King Good.

Joe’s Pats -  WIN final game against Sofa King Good PLUS Butkus’ Dick lose to Midnight Maulers.

For the divisional standings, it looks like the top seed in the South Division will be Channel 4 News Team.  Even if sprouts prevails in their head-to-head game this week, the News Team will still have a better divisional record, so will claim the top spot.  In the North Division, the top seed is still up for grabs between Sofa King Good and American BadAss.  If Sofa King Good wins, they will be the top seed… if they lose and American BadAss wins, BadAss will be the top seed.  The Maulers will go into the playoffs as a wildcard regardless of the outcome of games this week.

ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK

186,282 miles per second: It isn't just a good idea, it's the law!

BEST BENCH

For the first time since Week of 2011, and only the third time since I’ve been keeping track, we have a Double Best Bench!  That means that two teams could have improved point totals this week by 29 points, with three roster moves for each.  The two teams are…. Channel 4 News Team and Butkus’ Dick!  Timmy needed to swap A. Boldin for J. Nelson (+16), R. Mendenhall for B. Tate (+11) and A. Smith for C. Newton (+2).  I needed to change T. Austin for A. Johnson (+12), L. Fitzgerald for D. Bryant (+9) and M. Bennett for T. Gonzales (+8).  The unimind is alive and well.

Last week of the regular season coming up!  Hard to believe that we have already gotten this far…  Next week I’ll do a recap of this season’s milestonses.

Lastly…

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  Eat plenty of turkey, and have an extra slice of pumpkin pie for me!  And if you are going to be traveling, be safe.

The King has Returned

At long last at runningback is the highest scoring player for a single week!  Only his name is not LeSean McCoy, or Adrian Peterson, or Jamaal Charles or Marshawn Lynch.  Heck, it’s not even Matt Forte or Chris Johnson.  The first runningback to lead all scorers for a single week is a gentleman by the name of Bobby Rainey.  Rainey is a runningback for the Buccaneers who is mainly getting his shot due to Doug Martin being out for the season.  And he definitely made the most of it this week going for 161 yards and 2 TD’s on the ground, along with a 4-yard catch for a TD!  In all he racked up 37 points this week, which is the highest single week production from any runningback.  I never would have guessed that it would have taken until Week 11 for a runningback to break one off... but fantasy football is strange like that.

Also strange is that last week’s high scorer (sprouts) only managed half the points that he scored a week ago.  The big congrats go to Sofa King Good who blew away everyone this week with 120 points!  The next closest was 92 points.  James did it with a huge game from Megatron (32 points) and Marshawn Lynch (23 points).   Sofa King Good is the sixth different team to take home a Weekly High Score Prize this season.  Well don Cap’n!!

So the big thing this week is the push to playoffs with only two games left!  Let’s get right to it!

PLAYOFFS?!  DON’T TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS!
Two teams are already in and have been for a while now.  Channel 4 News Team and sprouts are just playing to see who will be the South Division champion and be the top seed in the playoffs.  The News Team is in the driver’s seat in this race.

Two teams have also been eliminated from making the post-season.  Vandelay Industries and Coors Light Drunk Guys don’t have a path to get in as far as I can tell.  Because of the tie games that have happened, even if these two teams win out, and the other bubble teams lose out, they won’t be able to have a better overall record.  However, all teams are still eligible to win Weekly High Score Prizes.

The remaining six teams are all on the bubble, and still have a shot to make it in.  Here are some possible scenarios for these teams to qualify.  (There may be more scenarios than just these listed here…):
-Sofa King Good – Win one of next two games OR Lose both games Plus losses from Butkus’ Dick, American BadAss and Joe’s Pats and it will come down to tiebreakers.
-Midnight Maulers – Win one of next two games
-Butkus’ Dick – Win next two games, OR Win one game PLUS a loss by Joe’s Pats or American BadAss
-American BadAss – Win next two games, OR Win one game PLUS a loss by Butkus’ Dick or Joe’s Pats
-BoomGoesTheDynamite – Win next two games PLUS losses from Butkus’ Dick or American BadAss and Joe’s Pats
-Joe’s Pats – Win next two games PLUS losses from American BadAss and Butkus’ Dick and it will come down to tiebreakers.
Here is a refresher on the tie-breakers to determine final standings and playoff seeding:
For Divisional standings:
Overall record
Division record
Head-to-head record
Points scored
Coin flip

For Wild Card spots:
Overall record
Head-to-head record
Points scored
Coin flip


BEST BENCH
There has been one team to rack up more Best Benches this season than any other.  With his third Best Bench of the season, this week’s winner is…  American BadAss!!  Jason could have improved his point total by 39 points this week with three roster moves:  V. Jackson for P. Garcon (+19), G. Graham for J. Cameron (+15), and Broncos for Titans +5

Two weeks of regular season play left!  And this is the last week to contend with bye weeks…

Sprouts owns Week 10

The league is starting to become a two-team show!  Channel 4 News Team (version 2 now) and sprouts both have the impressive record of 8-2, with the next best teams only having 5 wins.  Timmy’s News Team is also the first and only team thus far to crack 1,000 total points for the season.  Well done guys!

The big congrats for Week 10 go to the aforementioned sprouts, who destroyed my team in the week’s biggest blowout.  Russ got big time performances from Peyton Manning (as always), and also got 49 points from his receiver duo of AJ Green (24 pts) and Brandon Marshall (25 pts).  Julius Thomas also pitched in a cool 15 points from the tight end position, giving sprouts 127 points for the week!  That marks the 3rd Weekly High Score Prize for Russ this season, and his 6th win in a row.  Nice job!

So just a quick update this week to talk about the playoffs and get ready for a push to the end of the regular season…

On with it!!


NICE!
-Tavon Austin, WR – Free Agent – 34 pts – What in Sam Hill is going on?  Again this week, the top scoring player (well, tied for top score) is a wide receiver.  Tavon Austin gets the honors this week, who while the Rams were humiliating the Colts caught passes for 138 yards and 2 TD’s, along with 172 return yards and 1 return TD.  (Btw – the highest scoring running back this week was Pierre Thomas who only notched 22 points.)
-Drew Brees, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 34 pts – Brees is having quite a run, having scored over 30 points in 2 of his last 3 outings.  (33 pts in Week 8, 22 in Week 9).  However, he still trails Peyton for the total fantasy lead by 32 points.
-Rams, DEF – Sofa King Good – The Rams clobbered the Colts, in what has to be one of the biggest surprises of the season.  In all, they only allowed 8 points, got 3 sacks, 5 turnovers (4 interceptions, 1 fumble), and had 2 return TD’s (1 punt return, 1 off of a turnover).

-Demaryius Thomas, WR – American BadAss – 28 pts – Another wide receiver at the top of scoring!  Just a ho-hum game for Thomas, racking up 108 yards and 3 TD’s!
-Peyton Manning, QB – sprouts – 27 pts – Mr. Manning is now averaging 28.6 points per game, with his lowest score being 13 points in Week 6.  Truly impressive.


COME ON MAN!
I’m only giving out one “Come on, man!” this week, and it goes to:
-Coors Light Drunk Guys – THREE players on their bye week in the starting line-up.  Shawn has apparently fallen asleep at the wheel as this is the second week in a row where the Drunk Guys have started a player who was on a bye.  You can’t score points if your players aren’t playing!!


PLAYOFFS?!  DON’T TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS!  PLAYOFFS?!?!
Hard to believe that it is already getting down to crunch time for playoffs, but with only 3 regular season games remaining, that is exactly where we find ourselves.  Here is a quick refresher on the playoffs:  the top six teams qualify; the top two in each division automatically qualify; the top team in each division gets a bye in the first round; the remaining two spots are awarded as wildcards; wildcards are not division dependent (i.e. the two wildcard teams could both come from the same division).  For a refresher on tie-breakers, refer to last week’s column.

So here is what we know about the playoffs:
ALREADY IN – Channel 4 News Team2 and sprouts.  Both with a record of 8-2, Timmy and Russ are merely playing to see who gets the top spot in the South Division.

IN CONTROL – American BadAss, Sofa King Good, Butkus’ Dick, Midnight Maulers.  These four teams just need to win the remainder of their games in order to qualify for the playoffs.

IN NEED OF HELP – Joe’s Pats, Vandelay Industries, Coors Light Drunk Guys, BoomGoesTheDynamite.  All four of these teams are still alive to make it in, but they will need to win out plus have losses by other teams (namely those in the “IN CONTROL” section).

Starting next week, I will go through the actual scenarios that need to happen for each team that has not qualified to make it in.  Best of luck to everyone!!

DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS
If you exclude quarterbacks, do you know who is the highest scoring player in Sacred Sundays?  Okay, kind of a trick question, because it is a group of players actually.  That distinction belongs to the Kansas City Chiefs, who have posted 164 points so far this season.  They have scored that many points, and lead all other non-quarterbacks, in spite of having a bye week this last week.  The next closest player is a tie between LeSean McCoy and Jamaal Charles who have scored 147 points so far.  The Chiefs D has had point totals of 27, 25, 21, 26 and 23 this season and average 18.2 per week.  That, my friends, is some Tenacious D.


ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK
An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The bartender says: “What’ll it be, boys?” The first mathematician: “I’ll have one half of a beer.” The second mathematician: “I’ll have one quarter of a beer.” The third mathematician: “I’ll have one eight of a beer.” The fourth mathematician: “I’ll have one sixteenth of a…” The bartender interrupts: “Know your limits, boys” as he pours out a single beer.


BEST BENCH
Shawn Martin and the Drunk Guys had lots of holes in their starting roster this week, owing to three players being on byes.  But he only had a 32-point improvement possibility, which wasn’t the highest for this week.  The Best Bench improvement this week was 36 points and it goes to… Sofa King Good!!  James only need two roster moves to achieve this one: Rams for Colts (+28 pts) and P. Thomas for L. Bell (+8 pts).


Here's to making a strong kick toward the playoffs!!

Week 9 magic!

The whole nine yards... A stitch in time saves nine... Dressed to the nines... There is something special about the number 9. (It is not as cool of a number as 27, but hey, not many things are…) Week 9 proved to be a magical week, with players scoring craptons of points, and the race to the playoffs heating up big time! More on that below...

This week my team finally lived up to all the preseason hype, and posted a super solid 138 points! That is the second highest total that we have seen all season. (Timmy posted 140 in Week 6). My team was boosted by Andre Johnson having a career day in basically the 1st half of his game. Johnson had all 3 of his touchdowns and all but 39 of his 229 yards in the first 2 quarters. Not bad for 30 minutes of work! I also got big games from Russell Wilson and Tony Gonzalez. Well done chaps! Let's keep that going for another couple weeks!!

This week I do a refresher on the playoff rules, put together the best free agent team of all time, and explore a paradigm shift that may be occurring in fantasy football right now.

Onward and upward!!


BIG TIME!
-Nick Foles, QB – Free Agent – 48 pts – Foles gets to notch his name in the NFL record books as only the 7th player to throw 7 touchdown passes in a game.  He made the Raiders secondary look like the Raiders.

-Andre Johnson, WR – Butkus’ Dick – 43 pts – Johnson had 229 yards and three touchdowns en route to the highest scoring game by a wide receiver in Sacred Sundays history.  This bested the 39 points put up by his brother Calvin from last week.

-Tom Brady, QB – Joe’s Pats – 36 pts – You know there was some ridiculousness going on when a quarterback has a game throwing for 432 yards and 4 touchdowns is not the best game for a quarterback that week.

-Chris Johnson, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 32 pts – Best performance by a runningback this season, going for 150 yards and 2 TD’s plus 20 yards receiving.  Johnson doubled his points from the last time he played (16 in Week 7, on a bye in Week 8), so he should get 64 next week.

-Riley Cooper, WR – Free Agent – 32 pts – Cooper had the game of his life, catching 3 TD’s and 139 yards.

-Case Keenum, QB – Free Agent – 31 pts – Keenum made a “case” to take over the starting job for the Texans.  Ok, that was bad, but his performance wasn’t, throwing for 350 yards and 3 TD’s.

-T.Y. Hilton, WR – Vandelay Industries – 30 pts – Another wide receiver with 3 TD’s this week?  Oh yeah!  Tyrone’s Youngin’ did that while racking up 121 yards.

-Zac Stacy, RB – American BadAss – 29 pts – Good game for the rookie, rushing for 127 yards and 2 TD’s, and adding 51 yards receiving.  That’ll do.


COME ON, MAN…
-Bernard Pierce, RB – sprouts – 1 pt – Pierce has only gained 33 yards on 18 carries over the last three games, so yeah, he’s not seeing much playing time.

-Vincent Jackson, WR – American BadAss – 1 pt – Nothing doing for V Jax this week against the Seahawks, with only 2 catches for 11 yards.

-Brandon Pettigrew, TE – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 0 pts – Hard to have a guy score points for you when he’s on a bye…

-Jordan Cameron, TE – American BadAss – 0 pts – Only one catch for four yards this week.


FREE AGENT DOMINATION
Talk about the power of the un-wanteds.  Four of the top five quarterbacks in Week 9 were free agents: Nick Foles, PHI (48 pts), Case Keenum, HOU (31 pts), Ben Roethlisberger (29 pts) and Jason Campbell, CLE (24 pts);  two of the top four wide receivers were free agents: Riley Cooper, PHI (32 pts), Jerricho Cotchery, PIT (27 pts); the fourth ranked runningback was a free agent: Rashad Jennings, OAK (23 pts); and the top defense was a free agent: Miami (23 pts).  Just look at the free agent team I put together for this week:
QB: Nick Foles, PHI – 48 pts
RB: Rashad Jennings, OAK – 23 pts
RB: Darrel Young, WSH – 19 pts
WR: Riley Cooper, PHI – 32 pts
WR: Jerricho Cotchery, PIT – 27 pts
TE: Tim Wright, TB – 11 pts
K: Nick Folk, NYJ – 16 pts
DEF: Miami – 23 pts
GRAND TOTAL – 199 points!  Best Free Agent team ever!!


CHANGING PARADIGM
Wide receivers have been having some massive weeks lately.  Calvin Johnson led all scorers in Weeks 7 and 8, scoring 30 and 39 points… Antonio Brown was the top scorer in Week 3 with 34 points.  Vernon Davis, a Tight End, even led all scorers in Week 6 with 33 points!  So where are the runningbacks this season?  Thus far this year, no runningback has been top scorer in a week.  Quarterbacks have done it 5 times, wide receivers 3 times and tight ends once.

In the past, the conventional wisdom has always been to get a good runningback and a good quarterback because that is where your main points will come from.  I believe we are seeing a paradigm shift, where that might not be the only way to fantasy success.  A top notch quarterback is still going to deliver buckets of points each week, but more and more it’s the guys catching those balls that are becoming ever more valuable.  I don’t know if it’s due to runningback injuries, runningback by committee, or just the NFL going pass-wacky, but wide receivers have really closed the gap in terms of scoring production.  Looking at the Top 5 RB’s versus the Top 5 WR’s, we see only a point and a half difference in their weekly production (RB = 14.6 pts, WR = 13.1 pts), and it drops to only 1.1 points difference amongst the Top 10 at each position (RB = 13.1 pts, WR = 12.0 pts).  So the difference between a Top 10 runningback and a Top 10 wide receiver is only about a point per week.

But here’s the real difference… as mentioned earlier, wide receivers this season have provided the home run threat.  Amongst the Top 20 runningbacks, the highest weekly score has been 32 points put up by Chris Johnson this last week.  If you look at the Top 20 wide receivers, they have scored at or above 32 points 4 times this year.  Prior to Chris Johnson this week, the best week by a runningback was Week 2 when Marshawn Lynch scored 30.  The Top 20 wide receivers have scored at or above 30 nine times this season!  So wide receivers as a group are posting bigger totals than runningbacks.  My whole draft strategy might have to get revamped if this trend continues…

PLAYOFFS?!
There are four more weeks until the playoffs start.  Playoffs will begin in Week 14 and conclude in Week 16.  Here is a recap on the rules for getting into the playoffs, and the tie-breakers that will be used.  (The Yahoo! Fantasy Football site has their own set of tie-breakers, but we do not use those.  The tie-breakers for our league will be the ones listed here)
-Six teams qualify for the playoffs.  The top two teams from each division automatically qualify, the other two spots are wildcards and are not division specific (i.e. both wildcard teams can come from the same division).
For the divisional standings, here are the tie-breakers that determine the ranking:
                -Overall record
                -Divisional record
                -Head-to-head record
                -Points scored
                -Coin flip
For the wildcard standings, here are the tie-breakers that determine the ranking:
                -Overall record
                -Head-to-head record
                -Points scored
                -Coin flip
Other playoff notes:
-The two divisional winners will receive byes in the first round (Week 14) of the playoffs.
-Throughout the playoffs (Weeks 14-16), all teams are still eligible to win the Weekly High Score prize.
-The final standings at the end of the regular season will determine the final standings for teams in 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th place.  (Yahoo! does a playoff bracket with those teams, but it does not determine the final standings for those teams.)
-There are no tie games in the playoffs.  If there is a tie game in any playoff game prior to the Championship game, the higher seeded team will be declared the winner.  If there is a tie in the Championship game, the following tie-breakers 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.
Starting next week, I’ll work on playoff scenarios to show how each team can still qualify.  As of right now, only one team is in for sure (SOFAKINGGOOD (formerly Channel 4 News Team)), and everyone else is still alive to make it in!


ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK
There are 10 types of people in this world. Those that know binary, and those that don’t.


BEST BENCH
 Posting a low score doesn’t guarantee that a team will win the Best Bench, but it definitely leaves a lot of room for improvement.  This week’s winner proved that point to a T.  With a stout 51-point improvement possibility, the winner of the Best Bench for Week 9 is… American BadAss!!  That’s right, Jason could have improved his point total to 94 points with four roster moves: Z. Stacy for D. Murray (+25 pts), P. Garcon for V. Jackson (+19 pts), G. Graham for J. Cameron (+4 pts) and Titans for Saints (+3 pts).


Get ready for Week 10!  Next week playoff scenarios will begin…

At least there is something worth watching in Jacksonville...