How low can you go? Week 11 goes down as the lowest overall scoring week of the season (only 689 points scored), and the second lowest overall scoring week in Sacred Sundays history. The lowest scoring week of all-time happened in Week 16 of 2007 when only 644 points were scored. In that week, only 5 teams scored 70 points or better. This week nearly matched that with only six teams managing to score 70 points or better.
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| This image should make Shawn happy... |
Parity has been strong in the league this season, as we have had six different Weekly High Score Prize winners so far, and no one has been the high scorer more than twice. In terms of league standings, the Coors Light Drunk Guys lead the way with eight wins, but then it gets tight as there are three teams with six wins, two teams with five wins and three teams with four or fewer wins. With only two weeks left of the regular season, it is time to take a deep dive into playoff scenarios! More on that below. Plus this week, I get something off my chest that has been annoying me about all day breakfast at McDonalds. But first some quick observations...
THE GOOD
-Thomas Rawls, RB - Free Agent - 39 pts - It's not very often that a free agent is the top scorer of the week. Rawls annihilated the 49ers defense while filling for an injured Marshawn Lynch, racking up 255 total yards (209 rush, 45 rec) and 2 TD's (1 rushing, 1 receiving). One more performance like this and we may have seen the last of Beast Mode.
-Cam Newton, QB - Scottish Rebels - 30 pts - Over the last three weeks, Newton is averaging 27.3 ppg. He set a personal record this week by tossing 5 touchdown passes!
-Jameis Winston, QB - Free Agent - 29 pts - Another QB who tossed five touchdown passes on Sunday. Winston is actually shaping up to be a "not bad" quarterback, and currently ranks as the 11th QB in all of fantasy.
-Doug Martin, RB - sprouts - 26 pts - Great day yardage-wise for Muscle Hamster, rumbling for 235 yards, but somehow with all that yardage he did not cross the goalline.
-Russell Wilson, QB - Joe's Pats - 25 pts - Russell had his best game of the season, and scored over 20 points for the first time since Week 2. In all he finished with 250 passing yards, 30 rushing yards and 3 passing TD's.
-Philadelphia, DEF - Midnight Maulers - 1 pt – First the good part… Philly recorded a fumble recovery and one sack. And now the bad… they gave up 39 points in the process. Yikes!
-Richard Rodgers, TE - Z German Overlords - 0 pts - To his credit, Rodgers did catch 3 of the 5 passes thrown his way. But, those 3 catches only added up to 7 yards. Wow…that is weak.
-Amari Cooper, WR - Bubble Craps Bandits - 0 pts - Here is the headline on Cooper, which pretty well sums up his day: "1 catch, 4 yards, two drops".
-Blair Walsh, K - sprouts - 0 pts - Walsh's only activity on the day was attempting 2 extra points... one he made and one he missed.
-Danny Woodhead, RB - Coors Light Drunk Guys - 0 pts - The Chargers had zero offense against the Chiefs. Woodhead rushed 6 times and had an average per carry of 1.17 yards. I'll save you the trouble of doing the math... he only got 7 yards.
-Antonio Gates, TE - SofaKinglucky - 0 pts - This is the sixth time this season that Gates has been bageled. This week he caught one pass for six yards. Puh-theh-tick.
ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK #1
I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
PLAYOFFS?! DON’T TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS!
As a refresher, here are the rules for the playoffs: Six teams will qualify for the playoffs, and the playoffs will run in Weeks 14, 15 and 16. The top two teams in each division automatically qualify, with the top team in each division receiving a first round bye. The remaining two spots will be awarded as wildcards to the top two remaining teams. Here are the tiebreakers used in determining division standings and wildcard standings:
Division Standings:
1) Overall record
2) Division record
3) Head-to-head record
4) Points scored
5) Coin flip
Wild Card Standing:
1) Overall record
2) Head-to-head record
3) Points scored
4) Coin flip
Note 1 - These differ from what Yahoo! uses as their default, so don't look at the website for tiebreak rules. These are the tiebreakers that we will use.
Note 2 - We have never gotten down to the coin flip tie-breaker... if we ever do, I will make it a live broadcast event!
On to team by team playoff qualification scenarios... if my calculations are correct, getting to seven wins will qualify a team for the playoffs, so that means that the Coors Light Drunk Guys and the Bubble Craps Bandits are in. They are only playing to earn the bye week. Here are how the rest of the teams shake out:
In Control of Own Fate:
Scottish Rebels - Win one of next two games.
Joe's Pats - Win one of next two games.
Midnight Maulers - Win one of next two games.
American BadAss - Win two games OR win one game PLUS one loss from Z German Overlords.
Z German Overlords - Win two games OR win one game PLUS two losses from American BadAss.
In Need of Some Help:
All Hope is Gone:
sprouts
Vandelay lndustries
Unfortunately, try as I might I could not work a scenario where sprouts or Vandelay qualify for the playoffs.
Bear in mind that the scenarios illustrated above only represent one possible scenario for each team to qualify for the playoffs. There are likely many more. And remember that the Weekly High Score Prize continues every week even through the playoffs, and all teams are eligible to win. So make sure you have your best lineup in every week!
MCDONALD's RANT
In case you didn't know already, McDonald's has started serving breakfast all day. Along with that they have also started a very annoying ad campaign where they act as if frying eggs at night is a wholly unheard of concept and all their customers are idiots for never thinking of it before. Sorry Ron...you guys are the ones who are behind the times.
First off, the arbitrary cut-off time McDonald's had for their breakfast menu was entirely their own construct. There is not a law deeming 10:31 to be the start of lunchtime. Second, nearly all fast food places that serve breakfast serve it all day long already. Not a new concept there. This goes along with a multitude of sit down restaurants like Village lnn, IHOP, and 500,000 diners across the country that have happily been slinging flapjacks for dinner since the invention of the spatula.
McDonald's should have used this ad campaign to poke fun at themselves (who doesn't love some good self-deprecating humor?) for not realizing that people eat breakfast at all times throughout the day. But instead they are trying to make it seem as though they are the pioneers of some never-before-thought-of idea. "First we changed how you thought about breakfast...now it's time to change when." What an arrogant freakin' tag line. Much better would have been "Breakfast happens on your schedule, not ours. Enjoy breakfast all day at McDonald's. (p.s. Sorry it took us so long to figure out something so goddamn simple)". That last part of the tagline might be a bit long, but I'm just brainstorming here...
ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK #2
When cannibals ate the missionary, they got a taste of religion.
WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?
This will be my final check in on the Browns this season. As you recall, there was not a single Browns player who was drafted in our league so I have been tracking their progress to see if we were wise for avoiding them. The best game for the Browns came in Week 5 where they totaled 107 points, which was more than any team in the league that week.
Since then it has not been a happy picture, as they have not scored more than 66 points any week. Here is how they fared in Week 10, as they were on a bye this last week:
| Johnny Manziel Cle - QB | 18 |
| Duke Johnson Jr. Cle - RB | 3 |
| Isaiah Crowell Cle - RB | 0 |
| Travis Benjamin Cle - WR | 11 |
| Brian Hartline Cle - WR | 7 |
| Gary Barnidge Cle - TE | 12 |
| Travis Coons Cle - K | 2 |
| Cleveland Cle - DEF | 6 |
| Total | 59 |
The bright spots for this team are clearly Gary Barnidge (4th ranked TE in fantasy), and Travis Benjamin (16th ranked WR in fantasy) and not much else. I would say we were right for avoiding the Browns.
DEFENSE
All season long I have been tracking defenses to see how closely reality matches up with their preseason Yahoo! ranking. My prediction was, and l'm quoting from my post-draft write-up dated 8-21-2015,
“…there will be 2 or 3 highly ranked preseason defenses that finish as highly ranked defenses and the remaining 29 teams will be a big jumble.”
Here is the full preseason ranking of all 32 teams, and whether they are exceeding expectations, right in line with expectations or failing expectations.
(Note - I considered a team within 2 spots of their preseason rank to be "IN LINE" with expectations.)
| Pre | Actual | Pre vs. | ||
| Rank | Defense | Rank | Act | Note |
| 1 | Seattle Sea | 2 | (1) | IN LINE |
| 2 | Buffalo Buf | 19 | (17) | FAILING |
| 3 | Houston Hou | 18 | (15) | FAILING |
| 4 | Philadelphia Phi | 9 | (5) | FAILING |
| 5 | St. Louis StL | 7 | (2) | IN LINE |
| 6 | Arizona Ari | 5 | 1 | IN LINE |
| 7 | New England NE | 11 | (4) | FAILING |
| 8 | Baltimore Bal | 24 | (16) | FAILING |
| 9 | Green Bay GB | 14 | (5) | FAILING |
| 10 | Kansas City KC | 3 | 7 | EXCEED |
| 11 | San Francisco SF | 32 | (21) | FAILING |
| 12 | Carolina Car | 4 | 8 | EXCEED |
| 13 | Indianapolis Ind | 21 | (8) | FAILING |
| 14 | Miami Mia | 17 | (3) | FAILING |
| 15 | Detroit Det | 23 | (8) | FAILING |
| 16 | Cleveland Cle | 26 | (10) | FAILING |
| 17 | Denver Den | 1 | 16 | EXCEED |
| 18 | Minnesota Min | 15 | 3 | EXCEED |
| 19 | Dallas Dal | 28 | (9) | FAILING |
| 20 | Cincinnati Cin | 12 | 8 | EXCEED |
| 21 | Pittsburgh Pit | 9 | 12 | EXCEED |
| 22 | New York NYG | 6 | 16 | EXCEED |
| 23 | Tampa Bay TB | 8 | 15 | EXCEED |
| 24 | Chicago Chi | 30 | (6) | FAILING |
| 25 | Jacksonville Jax | 25 | 0 | IN LINE |
| 26 | Atlanta Atl | 22 | 4 | EXCEED |
| 27 | San Diego SD | 31 | (4) | FAILING |
| 28 | Tennessee Ten | 20 | 8 | EXCEED |
| 29 | New York NYJ | 15 | 14 | EXCEED |
| 30 | New Orleans NO | 29 | 1 | IN LINE |
| 31 | Washington Was | 13 | 18 | EXCEED |
| 32 | Oakland Oak | 27 | 5 | EXCEED |
BEST QB HAS WORST FANTASY DAY
Peyton Manning is one of the best quarterbacks to ever play in the NFL. However, last week he posted an absolutely atrocious stat line, one so bad that it has only been outdone one other time since l've been keeping records on this stuff.
Against the Chiefs on 11/15, Manning tallied only 35 yards on 20 attempts and threw 4 interceptions before being benched. This gave him a fantasy score of -7. This is a guy who has thrown 7 touchdowns in a game and scored 49 points. Heck, his average points per game last season was 20.5. This was truly an appalling performance, and one I'm sure Peyton would not like to remember.
In case you are wondering, the worst game in Sacred Sundays history was accomplished by John Skelton quarterbacking the Cardinals in Week 14, 2012. In that game, he had only 74 yards passing, while tossing 4 interceptions and losing a fumble, finishing with a fantasy score of -8 points. So Peyton you were really bad last week, but at least you were not as bad as Skelton.
BEST BENCH
With the low scoring rosters this week you would think that there were a lot of points left on the bench. Well, you would be wrong. Surprisingly, there were not a lot of improvements to be had this week. But one team did rise to the occasion with a 43-point improvement possibility...Joe's Pats! Joe only needed three roster moves to make it happen: R. Wilson for D. Carr (+19), J. Jones for TY Hilton (+16) and Packers for Jets (+8).
We are getting down to the nitty gritty... only two more weeks until it's PLAYOFF TIME!! Also, we are finally done with bye weeks, so all non-injured players will be active!
