So, the regular season is over! Hwood was still the run away winner this year, with two more wins than the rest of the top four, and we didn't have quite enough drama on the last week to drop anyone out of playoff contention, although an unlucky couple of weeks has seen both R1N3 and Hoff drop out of the playoffs. Congratulations to both bueller and hwood as well for scoring more than 1400 points in 14 games. I actually managed to concede more points than I scored, and still maintained a winning record
I'm also top of my four man league (lol) with three more wins than anyone else, and a total of just under 2,000 points
)
So onto the matchups. We had a lot of very close duels this week, but only two where either side scored over 100 points.
First up was another bye for me against BOOST. Even though it seems like BOOST is not paying attention to his lineup week on week, he still manages to put up a decent amount of points and is not an easy win. With Carlos Hyde on IR since week 8, and Coby Fleener continuing to be pretty terrible, he was limited to 68 points, with his flex, kicker and defence putting up double digits. Luckily for me, I had faith in Eric Decker and Alshon Jeffries, even if Big Ben did let me down a little bit. Boost did take the lead late into Sunday, but the 6 points from Richard Rodgers on Sunday night took me six points ahead to cement my third place spot and confirm my place in the playoffs against the super high scoring bueller. BOOST ends the season 3-11 with a 7 game losing streak, finishing only above Demik in the standings.
Bueller and TJ faced off in the highest scoring game of the week, with a total of 257.5 points between them. Who would have thought that Blake Bortles and Eli Manning would be comparable at the start of the season? Or that the Jaguars would beat the Colts? But that's what happened. The top four positions looks mighty favourable for TJ, with James Starks scoring two TDs and 103 total yards, Darren McFadden with 111 yards, and Bueller's Latavius Murray only getting 2.7 points, and Demarius Thomas's average 7.5 points, but the rest of the matchup tells a different story. Ted Ginn smashed his way through the Falcons, with two TDs and 122 total yards, Chandler Cantazaro's five successful kicks, and the Jets sacking poor Martcus Mariota five times. Gary Barnidge also managed over 10 points for the eighth week this season, and while the Panthers shut out the Falcons, managed a huge four turnovers, and five sacks as well, it wasn't enough to bridge the gap to the leagues second highest average points scorer, and TJ ends the season 7-7 after a pretty abysmal start. Bueller finishes second, with a three game win streak, and a 9-5 record.
The end of Sunday must have seen absyrd crying curled up on a ball on his sofa, after he finished the day with a grand total of 16 points. Andy Dalton broke his hand in the first quarter trying to tackle a big Steeler who had caught a wayward pass, and only managed 0.36 points. Amari Cooper was targeted eight times but didn't catch a thing, while only TJ Yeldon put up a respectable 6.3 points, and Greg Olsen putting up a points tally that wouldn't look out of place for a regular TE, but he went down late in the first half with a knee injury which pinned his points back. He also did not practise on Wednesday, putting his appearance on Sunday, and absyrd's chances in the playoffs in doubt. As always, the wait for the Giants, and the OBJ show, was going to be his saviour, and while Beckham managed 28 points (with THAT TD catch) Shane Vereen scored just one point, and the defence and kicker scored an average seven points each. Meanwhile, Hoff's lineup does not look much better, other than Aaron Rodgers managing a substantial amount of points against those horrible Cowboys, and Blair Walsh doing what he does, but Antonio Brown had only an average performance for a WR of his stature, and Charles Clay dropping out of the game against the Eagles with only 9 yards to his name, made it a lot closer at the end of Monday night than Hoff would have liked.
Bitter rivals Demik and Hwood were next, and well, it's no surprise that Demik lost, but then again, even if he had still been playing this season he probably still would have lost to the Devonta Freemen. Making the decision to abandon Matt Ryan, his replacement Jameis Winston fared a lot better, and even Devonta Freeman himself couldn't run through the Panthers as he only put up four points. Pretty much every other position managed double digits too, with Lamar Miller and AJ Green having great days, and the Seahawks looking more like the Legion of boom of old. Demik's sacrifice did not do what he had intended it to, and Hwood finishes top of the league, while Demik enjoyed a six loss streak to end the season at the bottom with a record of 3-11.
Another fantastically close matchup this week was between R1N3 and Trees. There was no info on Mark Ingram's injury all week, until the Saints said he was inactive on Sunday morning. This left a gaping hole in R1N3's lineup, and it did not look good. Then came along Russell Wilson who tore apart the Ravens and put him into the conversations for league MVP with 5 passing TDs and 300 combined yards. The Steelers were also ruthless for trees against the Bengals, scoring 16 points, but that's pretty much where the impressive scores came to an end. Danny Amendola was pinned back against the Texans, and it seemed that Allen Robinson was the only Jaguars WR to not get given a lot of the ball, even though he pulled in one of the three TDs Blake Bortles threw for against the Colts. Delaine Walker also did alright for himself, considering the Titans played horribly. With trees' successes came R1N3's woes as the clinical precision of Wilson meant that Hauschka only had 6 PATs to put his boot through. Matthew Stafford only threw for one INT in the Lions loss to the Rams, while the Rams defence managed to score only three points less than Stafford. I guess sacks don't count against a QB's performance which is kinda good I guess. Stafford has now been R1N3's top points scorer for the last five weeks, which, I don't really know what that shows. We reached the end of Sunday with R1N3 trailing by almost 20 points. Luckily for him, he had two last plays up his sleeves in Rashad Jennings and Jarvis Landry. They combined for a total of 201 yards. The graph on the desktop site doesn't even show R1N3 going ahead at the end of MNF, it was THAT close. The score ended 87.0 - 86.88 - a difference of 12 QB passing yards, or just over one rushing/receiving yard for an outfield player. Pretty nuts. R1N3 ends up in 6th place with an 8-6 record, while on trees' début he finishes in 10th place at 5-9.
Almost done.....
