Season 10 - Playoff Preview

Week 14 is in the books and that means the regular season of Year 10 has come to an end.  Just think about that gentlemen, a decade of fake footballing (not the soccer kind, Seth) together.  It’s been a good run and it’s also great to have the continuous text thread documenting the fun along the way.  Although if any of us chose to run to congress or something, there’d be a substantial payoff for NDAs to make this thread magically disappear.  It’s like they always say, keep your friends close and keep the assholes that you want to crush in fantasy football closer.

Our playoff field has been set for several weeks even with the double matchups each week that take all the fun and randomness out of CNK.  All that to say, it was a fairly anticlimactic end to the season.  Our #1 seed, South (shocking, we now) chose to take on Mitch over a 2 week in round 1.  That leaves Seth and Abel to battle to be the beneficiary of Garrett’s inevitable collapse in the finals.  He almost has enough runner up finishes to match Chris’s 12 titles.  We’ll get more into those important matchups after we review the “who-cares” results below. 

 

The Trump Bracket (or loser’s bracket) is also set.  Since we decided to set draft order by optimal scoring for the top 4, there was nothing to decide down here other than pride initially.  But having 4 teams just sit around for 3 weeks while they could be continuing to ignore their family (not Riley) and professional (also not Riley) responsibilities, just didn’t seem right.  So after furiously texting with the Trump Bracket contestants, we’ve decided to do a guillotine-style playoff over the final 3 weeks to determine bragging rights and some loot, in terms of cash and picks.  The winner of this gets $30 and a crappy pick.  And if that doesn’t motivate everyone, not sure what will.  Despite that, this is the best we’re going to do on short notice over text but we’ll all have to put our heads together at the next draft and make sure this is how we want it to go annually for this pathetic group of losers. 

And finally, before we get to our beloved CNK postseason, let’s take a look at how the other leagues we participate in wrapped up.  Abel finished the season with the best record and most points in Best Ball to take home the Benjamin, clinching the #1 seed.  No one should be surprised as he has vast experience of set-it-and-forget-it practice in the CNK.  He’ll take on South in the 1^st round of the playoffs, who edged out Seth of the #4 spot by just over 3 points.  Reached for comment, Seth mentioned that he was fine with this as it was the same 3 points that his Cyclones beat the Hawkeyes by back in September.

 Mitch and Kyle finished #2-3 and will face off on the other side of the bracket.  The remaining 4 don’t care as they probably forgot this league was still going on.  And while Chris somehow managed to win 2 of his last 3 after losing 8 in a row to finish not-last in the standings, he still was last in points by a decent margin.  At least until his lawsuit reaches the kangaroo court and proves tabulation fraud and he’s crowned the rightful league champion. 

In the Guillotine league, the final four ended up being all CNK as Seth, Mitch, Riley and Chris played it off for the title.  Mitch fell in Week 11 to finish 4^th and Seth lost his head in Week 12 to grab 3^rd.  That left Chris and Riley to battle it out.  The “Old Man vs The Kid”, “Teacher vs. Pupil”, “Dancing Disco Ball vs. The Schozz”.  Hollywood could not have scripted a final between two less-deserving individuals. 

It was up to them to essentially build the ultimate roster with the entire NFL available.  Chris ended up constructing a formidable team on paper for the final week but Riley made the correct decisions.  He rode Hurts, CMC, Diggs, Devante and the Sun God to a total that Chris couldn’t have beaten with an optimized lineup, which should give him peace of mind as we’re not sure he could have done any worse in the final week setting his starting lineup.  Congrats Riley, you can take all those winnings from beating a bunch of old men and finally buy that engagement ring that would pry even more money out of Chris.

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for, our CNK playoff preview:

 

Fuck It Three vs. Play It Backwards

South finished the season 13-1 and only dropped his match with Abel in Week 12, thereby earning the right to choose his opponent between Mitch, Seth and Jared.  Much game-theory computing was done trying to decide what choice to make.  Does he take the weakest opponent so he’s almost assured of a shot at the title or does he choose the stronger opponent since his team is stacked and he’d have to lose over a 2-week total, which hasn’t happened all season? 

In the end, he chose Mitch who is the 2^nd highest in points and record.  Inside sources say it’s primarily because PIB just lost Kyler and maybe DJ Moore along with not having his little Cooper Kupp around; not to mention the revolving door of TEs goose-eggs Mitch cycles thru each week.  South wanted no part of Dak and Mahomes over a 2 week stretch or Abel’s red-hot squad after 5 wins in a row. 

As usual when FIT is involved, the match-up looks quite lopsided even if Garrett has to stick with DeShaun Waston and can’t massage Lamar back into the lineup.  JJ, Tyreeeeek, Diggs, and CMC should do enough to keep him above a PIB squad that is missing the key guys already mentioned and has some real tough matchups.  Tua has to do snow-angels in the Buffalo snow, Belichick will take Davante away and Kamara can’t repeat 2020’s miraculous 6-TD game surely.  Between Southy luck and his team being a freight train, we’ll say FIT wins by an easy 69 (nice!) points overall.

South seeing Mitch's team trying to avoid him.

Ah It’s Early vs. I’m Out

After getting a taste of the playoffs in 2020, Abel is back and this time is ready to party.  A midseason trade for Kelce really jump-started his ascent (South could not be reached for comment on his feelings on this trade now) and as mentioned, he’s won 5 in a row to claim this spot.  Josh Jacobs has got to be the fantasy MVP this year and TLaw has really started playing up to the potential now that he’s finally washed the Urban off him.  Jamaal Williams is a TD-machine and King Henry just keeps trucking.  Losing Pierce and maybe Stevenson is going to hurt and depth is not Abel’s strong suit so it’ll be interesting if he can plug those holes.  However, plugging holes may be his new strong suit now that he’s got multiple Tinder profiles up and running.

Abel's recent invention.

Seth had his own 6-week win streak to speak of this year but has faltered recently, losing his last two to Abel and South.  Mahomes and Dak will keep him in every matchup and his roster is pretty healthy for this time of year.  Now it’ll all be about making the right decisions on who to insert and that’s never easy when you’ve got a bunch of quality options like Seth does, between NFL players and Lazer’s sister.  He’ll look to improve on that 3^rd place finish last year so we’ll say that Seth moves on in a close one over Abel in a chance to lose to South by 50 in the finals.

Seth, it's better than 3rd place...

And last but not least, this will be the final power rankings for the year as the holidays kick in.  Just wanted to reiterate how great it is to have this league with everybody and be able to poke fun and get together on a regular basis.  I know it hasn't been as consistent as previous years but we don't want our outings or write-ups to die off.  Wish everyone a safe and happy holidays and Merry Christmas!