Week 5 - Playoff Predictions are In!

Well there we go, finally starting to see some points on the board!  Three teams scored over 100 points this week, with Vandelay Industries being the unlucky one scoring 107 yet not pulling out a victory.  Historically, scoring in the triple digits has led to a victory 88.5% of the time.  So it is quite rare to see this happen.  And while scoring 107 and losing sucks, it’s certainly not as bad as when James scored 118 and lost to Ch. 4 News Team 149-118 in Week 15, 2013.  Ouch!  (Record high score in a loss).

This week’s big winner was sprouts who posted the highest score we’ve seen this year (118 points) and thoroughly drubbed Joe’s Pats by 61 points, the largest margin of victory of the year!  Russ put up these impressive numbers in spite of his tight end (Evan Engram) scoring zilch.  The big production came from Leonard Fournette (33 pts), Philip Rivers (20 pts) and TY Hilton (20 pts).  The win gets Russ his second win of the season, improving to 2-3 on the season.  Russ gets an extra tip of the hat this week as his line-up was optimal…nary a point improvement with any of his bench players.  Nicely done sir!

Last week no team scored in triple digits, but the one who came the closest was Mr. James R Hard!  Under team name “Rebuilding Year”, James racked up 99 points thanks to Le’Veon Bell’s 30 points, Tom Brady’s 20 points and Stephen Gostkowski’s 15.  Nice work MAJOR!

In other league standing notes, the Scottish Rebels have officially been overrun by Longshanks, falling to an 0-5 record.  The worst starting record is 0-6, which I have accomplished twice before, so this is familiar territory.  Bad choices combined with bad luck on matchups (I lead the league in points against) have gotten me here.  But the way I look at it, 8-5 should still get me in the playoffs!  Oh yeah!  Longshanks shall take no prisoners!  And speaking of playoffs, its time once again for me to make my playoff predictions… much more on that below.

Let’s do this!


YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT
-Deshaun Watson, QB – Young Guns – 35 pts – Two weeks in a row as the highest scoring player in fantasy, which was the result of two weeks in a row with 5 touchdowns.  This dude is on fire and should expect to see it continue as he faces the Browns next week.

-Leonard Fournette, RB – sprouts – 33 pts – Fournette finished with 181 yards and 2 TD’s, with nearly half of his yards coming on one play, a 90-yard TD run.  That just so happened to be the longest run in Jaguars history.

-Cam Newton, QB – Bubble Craps Bandits – 29 pts – Cam needs to insult women more often, because it apparently makes him play really well.  He racked up 355 yards with 3 TD’s and no interceptions this week.

-Dak Prescott, QB – American BadAss – 29 pts – Best performance of the season from Prescott, totaling 4 TD’s (3 passing, 1 rushing) and just got unlucky on a pick-6 which went right through his receiver’s hands.  Dak is now the 4th ranked fantasy QB, and has scored >20 pts for three weeks in a row.

-Jacksonville, DEF – Vandelay Industries – 28 pts – The Jaguars had Big Ben’s number as they picked him of 5 times (!!!), returning two of those on back-to-back possessions for touchdowns.  They also sacked him twice and only allowed 9 points.  The Jaguars are the #1 defense in fantasy, and it’s not even close.  Never in 100 years would I have ever thought I would write that last line.

-Melvin Gordon, RB – Glory Days – 27 pts – In by far his best game of the season, Gordon went for 163 total yards (105 rushing, 58 receiving) and had 2 TD catches.

WTF?!
-Todd Gurley, RB – Joe’s Pats – 2 pts – Gurley committed the worst fumble of all, losing the ball out of the opponent’s endzone.  It happened on the very first drive of the game, and it didn’t improve from there, as he finished with a meager 43 yards on 14 carries.

-Carlos Hyde, RB – Young Guns – 1 pt – Although he’s apparently not injured, some dude name Matt Breida is getting more snaps than him.  Not a good sign.

-Jared Cook, TE – Scottish Rebels – 0 pts – Cook’s only production (25 yards) was negated by a lost fumble which was returned for a touchdown.  Nice work.

-Amari Cooper, WR – Goose Eggs – 0 pts – Cooper had only 1 catch for 8 yards, giving him 4 catches for 23 yards over his last 4 games.  He is literally the 81st ranked receiver, just ahead of Terrance Williams and behind TJ Jones.

-Dwayne Allen, TE – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – Joe reached deep here, starting a New England tight end no one has ever heard of, including Tom Brady.  The ball was never thrown his way on Sunday, leaving him with zero yards to add the zero yards he has on the season.  This might be the first guy ever to score zero points and it is not a disappointment. 

-Oakland, DEF – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – Not a single sack or turnover could be found, and the Raiders surrendered 30 points to the Ravens.  Not a good day.


PLAYOFFS?  DON’T TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS!  PLAYOFFS?!?!
Each season between Week 5 and 6, I’ve made my prediction on the six teams who will make it to the playoffs.  Last year of the six teams I picked to make it in, all six made it.  My methodology is fluid (which basically means I don’t remember exactly how I did it last year), but this year I'm taking into account current records, current standings, points scored and schedule difficulty (for remaining games).

Without further ado, here are my playoff predictions for 2017:
(and yes, these are in a particular order):

1. Bubble Craps Bandits – Timmy – The Bandits are the highest scoring team thru 5 weeks (which qualifies 100% of the time), and teams who are 4-1 have qualified 75% of the time.
2. Joe’s Pats – Joe – The Pats are the second highest scoring team thru 5 weeks (which also qualifies 100% of the time), plus teams who are 3-2 have qualified 70% of the time.
3. sprouts – Russ – sprouts currently ranks 5th in scoring, which has qualified 72.7% of the time, plus they have the easiest schedule through the remaining 8 games.
4. Coors Light Drunk Guys – Shawn – The Drunks record of 4-1 qualifies 75% of the time, plus Shawn has the third easiest remaining schedule.
5. Young Guns – John – Teams at 2-2-1 have made it to the playoffs 67% of the time.
6. Vandelay Industries – Rob – Vandelay is currently 3rd in points scored, which makes it in to the playoffs 60% of the time, plus Rob has the 4th easiest remaining schedule.

This means the teams on the outside looking in are: Glory Days, Goose Eggs, American BadAss and Longshanks.  I’ll revisit my predictions around Week 12 to see how accurate I am.  Let me just say, I hope I am wildly wrong.

DAD JOKES OF THE WEEK
Caller: Send help, I’m being robbed!
911 Operator: Hi, Being Robbed, I’m dad.  What’s your emergency?

I farted in my wallet, so now I have gas money.

My friend David lost his ID.  So now I call him Dav.

I got diagnosed with color blindness the other day.  It really came right out of the light beige.

I bought my gym membership at Costco and now I’ve got 36-pack abs.

I found a spider in my shoes.  He looks ridiculous…they’re way too big for him.


BEST BENCH
With this being a higher scoring week and with teams on byes, there were not many points left on the bench.  It was a close one, but as I said a couple weeks ago, if you’re gonna do anything, you might as well be the best at it.  Thus, with a 23-point improvement possibility, and for a third time in this young season, the Week 5 Best Bench goes to… Longshanks!  I only needed two roster moves to make it happen this week:  C. Wentz for R. Wilson +17, and D. Bryant for L. Fitzgerald +6.


Get those waiver claims in!  We’re only 3 weeks away from mid terms!  Holy crap!