Yoohoo! One week until the playoffs!

Crazy week!  In a weird timing of matchups, the six highest scoring teams ended up matched up with each other across three games, while the bottom four teams faced off in the other two games.  This resulted in two winning teams with point totals of just 79 and 75 points.  Meanwhile, Joe’s Pats lost after scoring 98, Attack of Mahomes lost with 102 points and sprouts lost in spite of scoring 111!  In the last two weeks, sprouts has lost with scores of 100 and 111… brutal!  Scoring over 100 points has normally carried with it a fairly certain victory, but not so this season.  This year currently sports the lowest winning percentage for teams scoring over 100 points since 2007 (the first year I started tracking this).  Factoring in all years, including 2018, teams scoring over 100 have won 87.3% of the time.  (Coming into 2018, the winning percentage was 88.6%).  The best year was 2008 which saw 100% of teams scoring over 100 win, and the previous worst season was 2012, which had only 83.3% of 100-pt teams win.  This season, though, the win percentage for teams scoring over 100 is currently at only 76.7%!  Nearly 25% of teams scoring over 100 points have lost their game this year.  That is just crazy!!   The official record this season is 33-10, which ties 2011 for the most scores in excess of 100 in a season (43). 

Scoring has been huge this season, as we are on pace to destroy the record for most points scored in a season.  2011 holds the record as the highest scoring season when there were 14,166 points scored.  This works out to a weekly average of 885.4 points.  This season, through 12 weeks we have scored 10,937 points for a weekly average of 911.4 points!  At our current rate, we are on track to score 14,582 total points!  The lowest scoring season was 2009 which only saw 11,066 points scored… we’ll pass that milestone by the upcoming Thursday night game.

Speaking of big scores, the big congratulations this week go to Young Guns, who countered a pathetic 1-point performance from Jordan Howard by having 3 players score over 26 points!  Saquon Barkley (26 pts), JuJu Smith-Schuster (27 pts) and Deshaun Watson (29 pts) came through big time and led the Young Guns to an impressive 129 points!  This is the 2^nd highest single week score this season, and is John’s second Weekly High Score Prize!  Well done sir!

 In the playoff race, two more items became known…

1) American BadAss is in, joining Attack of Mahomes and Joe’s Pats.  

2) Big Sack is out, joining the Coors Light Drunk Guys.  WHAT DO YOU KNOW?! 

The remaining five teams are still alive.  Team IR & Holdout, Longshanks, Vandelay Industries and Young Guns are all in control of their own fate—win in Week 13 and they will make it in.  sprouts needs to win and have losses from Team IR & Holdout or Young Guns to force some tie-breakers.

Now, there are two scenarios where we could end up with the 5^th, 6^th, 7^th & 8^th ranked teams with records of 6-7.  (In Scenario A teams tied at 6-7 would be Team IR, sprouts, Vandelay and Young Guns, and in Scenario B teams tied at 6-7 would be Team IR, spouts, Longshanks and Young Guns).  This would trigger a whole series of tie-breakers to figure out who gets in.  I honestly started working on figuring it all out, and yeah, let’s just say we will cross that bridge if we get there.

As a reminder, here are the tie-breakers we will use:

Divisional standing ranking

Overall record

Division record

Head-to-head record

Points scored

Coin flip

Wildcard standing ranking/tiebreakers

Overall record

Head-to-head record

Points scored

Coin flip

Yahoo! doesn’t exactly follow these tie-breakers, so I will send out an email on Monday night with the official playoff seeding.  Good luck to everyone!

BEST BENCH

No week is complete without awarding the Best Bench, and this week we have a good one!  Not good in the sense of the point improvement but in the sense of the number of players involved.  This week’s winner could’ve swapped five (yes FIVE!) players to improve their point total by 37 points.  Collecting his second Best Bench this season, Week 12 goes to… Big Sack!  Here is the laundry list of player swaps:  S. Michel for M. Ingram +14, M. Mariota for A. Rodgers +11, D. Cook for J. White +5, J. Reed for A. Hooper +4 and D. Thomas for D. Adams +3.

Are we seriously only one week away from the playoffs?!  Let’s do this!!

Make it two in a row for BadAss (again!)

Monday night was insane!  Chiefs @ Rams went in with an over-under line of 63 which at the time seemed like a big number to beat.  I think they might’ve passed that by midway through the 2nd quarter!  They ended up beating the line by 42 points (54-51 final score), which is, ironically, the over-under line you’d expect to see on a normal game.  There were 14 touchdowns, 56 first downs and an incredible 291 fantasy points scored between the two teams.  This was more like an NFL Blitz game (“Nice catch Tony!!”) than an NFL game!

For the second week in a row, the big congratulations go to American BadAss, who was a big beneficiary of the aforementioned Blitz game, as he had Tyreek Hill and Brandin Cooks both playing.  Hill went crazy with 36 points, while Cooks added 10, and Jason also got solid performance from his runningbacks (Elliott 25 pts and Johnson 14 pts) to finish with 121 points!  This marks Jason’s 4th Weekly High Score Prize this season, and the 2nd time he’s won back-to-back weeks.  Nice work bro!

So the big question on everyone’s mind this week has to be, ‘Am I going to make it into the playoffs’?  Short answer… not likely (Shawn only).  For the rest of you, it may be a bit more complicated, but I’ve got it all worked out below.  So without further ado, let’s get to it!!


BIG TIME

• Patrick Mahomes, QB – Attack of Mahomes – 38 pts – It’s not often you’ll see a guy commit 5 turnovers and still lead all fantasy scorers that week.  In fact, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say this is the first time ever.  Mahomes got there by throwing an incredible 6 TD’s to go along with 478 passing yards, and 28 rushing yards.  He is far and away the highest scoring player this season having scored 47 more points than the next closest player.
• Jared Goff, QB – Joe’s Pats – 37 pts – Speaking of which, here is your 2nd highest scoring player in fantasy.  Goff had an amazing day as well, going for 413 yards and 4 TD’s through the air, plus he added a rushing TD.
• Tyreek Hill, WR – American BadAss – 36 pts – Hill was a major part of the shootout between the Chiefs and the Rams, catching 10 passes for 215 yards and 2 TD’s.  Third time this season Hill has scored over 30 points.
• Saquon Barkley, RB – Young Guns – 33 pts – Barkley’s best game of the season (142 yards and 2 TD’s) puts him in a tie for 4th highest scoring running back.
• Drew Brees, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 33 pts – If Mahomes wasn’t just destroying the NFL the way he is, there would be a lot more talk about Brees.  This was his third game over 30 points this year, and over the last 3 games, he is averaging 30.3 points per game.  That's just crazy!
• TY Hilton, WR – Joe’s Pats – 30 pts – Finally a breakout game for Tyrone’s Youngin’, hauling in 9 catches for 155 yards and 2 TD’s.

COME ON MAN

• Carson Wentz, QB – Longshanks – 0 pts – What in the flippin’ hell?  Wentz comes into the game averaging 21.4 ppg, and proceeds to throw 3 picks, 0 TD’s and only 153 yards.  Eat a damn dick.
• Dalvin Cook, RB – Big Sack – -1 pt – Jensy’s first round pick not living up to the hype.  Twelve yards and a lost fumble were all he could manage in this one.
• Tennessee, DEF – sprouts – -4 pts – The Titans only defensive stat… 35+ pts allowed.  Negative four points is the lowest single-week score so far this season, so there’s that.
• Graham Gano, K – Vandelay Industries – 0 pts – 1 PAT made, 1 PAT miss.  Yin and yang.
• Coors Light Drunk Guys – Four players scored zero points (Latavius Murray, Chris Thompson, Trey Burton and Stephen Gostkowski).  Come on Shawn, you're smarter than this!

HAIL TO THE CHIEFS!
All season I’ve been tracking weekly scoring by NFL team.  This week saw some crazy point totals.  A complete Colts roster would have scored 109 points…a complete Rams roster would have scored 122 points…a complete Saints roster would have scored 137 points… but none were better than a full Chiefs roster.  Check this out:
    QB Patrick Mahomes - 38
    WR Tyreek Hill - 36
    WR Chris Conley - 19
    RB Kareem Hunt - 17
    TE Travis Kelce - 18
    DEF Kansas City - 15
     K Harrison Butker - 8
Total                 151
That’s 151 points, plus you would still have an open roster spot for one more runningback!  All hail the Chiefs!


PLAYOFFS?!  DON’T TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS!
Two more regular season games to go and then it’s PLAYOFF time!  At this point, teams fall into one of five categories:  Already In, 1 Win & In, 2 Wins & In, 2 Wins & Some Help, and Eliminated.  Remarkably, with only 2 weeks to go, 9 teams are still in contention to make it into the playoffs.  Here are the categories and some additional scenarios.

Already In

• Joe’s Pats
• Attack of Mahomes

1 Win & In

• Vandelay Industries – Win 1 game.  Or, 2 losses plus 2 losses from American BadAss and 2 losses from sprouts.
• American BadAss – Win 1 game.  Or, 2 losses plus 2 losses from Vandelay Industries and 2 losses from sprouts.

2 Wins & In 

• Team I.R. & Holdout – Win 2 games.  Or, Win 1 game plus 2 losses from Vandelay Industries, 2 losses from Young Guns, and 1 loss from sprouts (will still come down to tie-breakers).
• Longshanks – Win 2 games.  Or, Win 1 game plus 2 losses from Team I.R. & Holdout and 2 losses from Young Guns.
• sprouts – Win 2 games.  Or, Win 1 game plus 2 losses from Team I.R. & Holdout and 2 losses from Young Guns.
• Young Guns – Win 2 games.  Or, Win 1 game plus 2 losses from Team I.R. & Holdout and 2 losses from sprouts.

2 Wins & Some Help

• Big Sack – Win 2 games, plus 2 losses from Team I.R. & Holdout, 2 losses from Longshanks and 2 losses from sprouts.

Mathematically Eliminated

• Coors Light Drunk Guys – No path to the playoffs exists.

As always, the above scenarios may not represent the only way for teams to get in, just one of the possible ways.  And there still may be some tiebreakers that come into effect.  The key games to watch this week are 'Team I.R. & Holdout vs. Vandelay Industries' and 'sprouts vs. Young Guns'.  The outcomes of those games will have a big impact on who gets in.


WHY IS ENGLISH SO WEIRD?
So these four words don’t rhyme:
   Cough
   Rough
   Though
   Through
But these two do:
   Pony
   Bologna
Uh…what?


BEST BENCH
Not a lot of points left idle this week, as this week’s Best Bench tied for the 3rd lowest Best Bench total this year.  Claiming a second Best Bench of the season, Week 11 goes to… Longshanks!  Yep, I needed just two roster moves to improve my point total by 28 points:  R. Wilson for C. Wentz +17 and P. Lindsay for C. McCaffrey +11.

Get those waivers in and get set for Week 12!  Last week of byes!

Record Setter

Now I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but there are literally only 3 weeks left of the regular season, which means we are only 4 weeks away from the start of the playoffs and only 7 short weeks away from crowning a champion!  Good lord this season is flying by!  Flying by so fast, in fact, that I haven’t finished a write-up in three weeks.  (There are two half-started Word docs saved on my computer...d'oh!)  So we’ve got a lot to get to this week.

Weeks 7, 8 and 9 belonged to Joe’s Pats with scores of 127, 114 and 121 claiming all three weeks in a row, bringing Joe’s total number of Weekly High Score Prizes to four!  Pulling off a triplet and winning three weeks in a row is a feat which has been only accomplished three previous times since 2010.  Here’s a couple throwbacks for you:  Jensy’s “Boom Goes The Dynamite” did it back in 2012 (Weeks 13, 14 & 15), Timmy’s “Ch. 4 News Team” did it in 2013 (Weeks 2, 3 & 4), and Joe also did it last season (Weeks 14, 15 & 16).  Nice work Joe!

In Week 10 we had two record-setting performances… sprouts had a phenomenal game with six players scoring in excess of 13 points, led by Nick Chubb’s 35 points, and finished with 138 points.  But not to be outdone, American BadAss had a game for the ages with seven players scoring in excess of 17 points (four of those greater than 20!), led by Ezekiel Elliott’s 33 points, and finished with 158 points!  The 158 points by BadAss is the highest single-week score in Sacred Sundays history, breaking the 150 point record held by the Midnight Maulers since Week 4, 2016.  Why did I bring up sprouts score?  Well the 138 points scored by Russ is the highest score ever to not win a Weekly High Score Prize.  Fortunately, sprouts and BadAss were not playing head-to-head because to lose when scoring 138 would be a tough one to swallow.  Well done bro, and nice game as well Russ! 

As mentioned earlier, we have only three weeks left of the regular season, so it’s time to start talking about playoff scenarios.  More on that below…. So let’s do this!!

BIG TIME BABY!

• Mitchell Trubisky, QB – sprouts – 38 pts – Trubisky threw for 355 yards and 3 TD’s, plus added a rushing TD, plus added a 2-pt conversion.  This is the second time this season Trubisky has led all scorers in a week, and he still owns the highest single-game score of this season with his 46 point performance in Week4.
• Ben Roethlisberger, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 35 pts – Big Ben is still getting it done, and currently ranks as the 4th highest scoring QB in fantasy.
• Nick Chubb, RB – sprouts – 35 pts – Quite the breakout game for Chubb, going for 176 yards on the ground, plus 33 yards through the air (over 200 yards of offense), plus added 2 TD’s. 
• Ezekiel Elliott, RB – American BadAss – 33 pts – Keep on feeding him!  151 yards on the ground and a TD, plus 33 yards receiving and a TD.  That’ll work.
• Christian McCaffrey, RB – Longshanks – 31 pts – Through his first six games, McCaffrey was averaging only 11.5 points per game.  In his last three, he’s averaging 24.7, with point totals of 17, 26 and 31.  Using Excel’s trending, he should score 39 points this week and 46 points in Week 12!  Bring it on!

COME ON MAN!

• Coors Light Drunk Guys – Starters included two players on byes (Latavius Murray and Houston Def) and one player on inactive list (Chris Thompson).  Set your roster Shawn!!  Come on man!
• David Njoku, TE – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 1 pt – Then you have your tight end only score 1 pt!  How did you only lose by 4 points??!
• OJ Howard, TE – Joe’s Pats – 1 pt – To his credit, he caught every ball thrown his way.  Unfortunately, that was 1 catch for 15 yards.
• Cody Parkey, K – Beats Shawn-not off! – 0 pts – Here’s a great stat line for a kicker:  2 PAT made, 2 PAT missed.  Wow.
• Jimmy Graham, TE – Young Guns – 1 pt – Another 1-for-1 guy… caught the only ball thrown to him for a meager 14 yards.
• New York Jets, DEF – Young Guns – 0 pts – In what looked like a sweet matchup for the Jets, playing at home against Buffalo, they got lit up for 41 points and managed only 1 sack on the day.

PLAYOFFS?!  DON’T TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS!
Before we get into any scenario discussion, a quick refresher on the playoff rules: 
Six teams qualify for the playoffs:  Top two teams in each division automatically qualify.  The next two highest ranked teams receive Wildcards.  (The top team in each division receives a first round bye.) 
Wildcards are not division specific…both can come from the same division.
For divisional rankings, the following criteria will be used (in order): Overall record, Division record, Head-to-head record, Points scored, Coin flip.
For Wildcard rankings, the following criteria will be used (in order): Overall record, Head-to-head record, Points scored, Coin flip.

During the playoffs, all teams are still eligible to win the Weekly High Score Prize.   The final standings at the end of the regular season determine team standings for 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th place.

Finally, in playoff matchups there are no tie games.  Ties in any 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 tie-breakers will be used (in order): team with highest scoring QB, team with highest scoring RB, team with highest scoring WR, Co-champions if still tied.

Now onto this season.  The standings are remarkably tight and remarkably similar to last season.  Last season going into Week 11 there were two 7 win teams and one 3 win team.  This season we again have two 7 win teams and two 3 win teams.  Last season, among the playoff qualifying teams, three had only 7 wins and one had only 6 wins.  This means any team who can get to 8 wins will assure themselves of a playoff spot, so 8 wins is the goal at this point.  There are seven teams with the potential to make it to eight wins (Attack of Mahomes, Joe’s Pats, Vandelay Industries, Team IR and Holdout!, Longshanks, American BadAss and sprouts).  So all of those teams are well in control of their own destiny.

Young Guns can win out to still finish with 7 wins, which I gotta think would almost definitely secure a playoff spot, and the fact that a 6 win team made it in last year means the Coors Light Drunk Guys and Beats Shawn-not off! still have a shot to make it in. 
I’m going to make a prediction right here, right now, that any team who wins out from this point will make it into the playoffs. 
Next week I’ll have full playoff scenarios for each team.

Why does Kid Rock look like Dr. Phil dressed up as Kid Rock?

WEEKLY RANDOMNESS
I think I want a job cleaning mirrors.  It’s just something I could really see myself doing.

What’s orange and sounds like a parrot.  A carrot.

Why was six afraid of seven?  Because seven was a registered six offender.

Two fish are in a tank.  One is driving and the other is operating the gun.

What’s something that’s red and bad for your teeth?  A brick.

My grandpa has the heart of a lion, and a lifetime ban from the zoo.

A horse walks into a bar.  The bartender says, “Why the long face?”  The horse replies, “My alcoholism is destroying my family.”

ALL UNWANTEDS
It has been an up and down season for the All Unwanteds, but mostly down.  It appears there was good reason we steered clear of drafting many Cardinals, Dolphins or Jets.  Their last four weekly point totals have been 66 (Week 7), 77 (Week 8), 63 (Week 9) and 57 (Week 10).  In head-to-head matchups with every team in the league across those four weeks, it adds up to 7 wins and 33 losses.  Ouch! 
But there was one bright spot I wanted to highlight… Week 6 was a magical week for the AU’s, check out this roster:
QB Brock Osweiler Mia   28
RB Frank Gore Mia          11
RB Bilal Powell NYJ        5
WR Albert Wilson Mia     30
WR Terrelle Pryor NYJ     11
TE Chris Herndon NYJ    11
 K Jason Myers NYJ       27
DEF Arizona Ari       15
Total                           138
Osweiler 28 points(!), Albert Wilson 30 points(!!) and kicker Jason Myers spinning the scoreboard for 27!!!  Go All Unwanteds!!  The 138 points scored would have defeated all teams that week (Weekly High Score was 127).


BEST BENCH(ES)
We’ve got three Best Benches to give out this week…
Week 8 saw a lot of points scored in the games and just a 36 point improvement possibility for Best Bench, which ended up going to first time recipient… Attack of Mahomes!  Timmy needed only 3 roster moves to get there:  M. Jones Jr. for A. Jeffrey +20, S. Watkins for D. Jackson +10, and K. Drake for K. Hunt +6.

In Week 9 it was one of the lower point improvement possibilities to take the crown at only 28 points.  Needing just three roster moves to get there, Week 9’s Best Bench went to… Young Guns!  John’s first Best Bench this season:  Miami for NY Jets +18, C. Ridley for J. Smith-Schuster +6, R. Fitzpatrick for D. Watson +4.

This week there were several teams with some solid bench play, but Timmy loved it so much in Week 8 he wanted to do it again in Week 10!  This time it was a solid 44 point improvement with three roster moves:  E. Ebron for T. Kelce +20, A. Jones for D. Jackson +19 and S. Shepard for A. Jeffrey +5.


Get those waivers in and get your rosters set!  Final push to the playoffs!!