Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Season 11 - Week 13

Week 13 is in the books and we only have one precious week of our regular season left before the fake football playoffs begin.  It’s been an entertaining season as there’s been lots of movement up and down.  And while once again, South’s clinched the #1 seed, he has been fallible and somehow found a way to take 6 losses against the bottom-feeders of the league giving hope to all others. 

Heading into our final week, there’s really only one spot left in the playoff picture.  As mentioned, South has locked up his pick of opponents in the 1st round as Finken could match his record but probably won’t outscore him by 245 points.  R4D and IWUL have secured their 6th and 23rd trips to the playoffs, respectively, with very strong performances in the 2nd half of the season.  Pretty impressive them being 2 of our most senior members of the league.    

 


That brings us to the drama, Abel vs. Mitch.  Winner gets the #4 hole, loser gets it in the b-hole.  Both are tied for the same record and face the highest scoring teams in Week 14.  Abel has an 18.5 point lead but has to face South.  Mitch has to overcome that deficit and faces The Traitor (as his daughter affectionately calls Lazer).  Neither come into this final week on a particular hot streak and will likely try to salvage a median-scoring win in order to sneak past the other. 

But we’ll dig deeper into that below as we get on with the Power Rankings…

1. Fuck It Three – Garrett obtained the #1 for the 12th year in a row accordingly to the Lansink League Archive.  Word has it he already has 5 spreadsheets going on possible outcomes and formulas to discover who he should choose to face.  Logic would suggest he choose the weakest opponent guaranteeing himself a place in the title game.  However, game theory would posit that he choose the strongest opponent to beat over a 2 week span and therefore, have a cakewalk in the title game.  He may need to reduce his high fructose corn syrup ratio in his blood stream in order to clear his mind and make the wisest decision.  Otherwise he could be saddled with his 6th runner-up finish in 11 years. 

 

South once again calculating incorrectly in the playoffs.

2. Rollin’ 4 Deep – Finken claimed his playoff spot with a win over Riley last week and rebounded after narrowly missing the playoffs last year.  He’s had a lot of things fall right for him this year despite losing Rodgers in Week 1.  Howell and Love (both waiver adds last year) have each been top 10 QBs to go along with Herbert, which according our research, no one had forecasted. Pollard, Gibbs and Barkley have balanced each other’s roller coaster weeks out and his veteran WRs have been set and forget.  And outside of LaPorta, Kincaid has proven to be the new Pitts, you know if Pitts were actually good at footballing.  When reached for comment on her husband’s recent hot streak, Rachel expressed “surprise at his sudden vigor.”  Stating “he rarely wows for long but I’m glad to see the stamina start to take shape.  Wait, what are we talking about again?” 

 

Finken's emotions from beginning to end of the year.

3. If We’re Using Logic – Chris took care of business these past two weeks but really it was getting those median-score wins in losses against South and Finken (how much did Chris lose to Finken by again?  Everyone should go look again, we’ll wait).  Lansink seems to be peaking at the right time as he hit his first 200+ game in 2 years to clinch his spot.  Even Chase having to catch passes from a different JB didn’t impact his production.  The Power Rankings reached out to Chris’s good friend Donald Trump for comment on his return to the playoffs.  He had this to say, “Possibly it’s one of the reasons, certainly it’s one of the very big reasons, trade and things related to trade, he got in in the first place.  I told him to stay away from CEH but no!  He didn’t listen much like those crooks in Georgia.  But I’m glad to see he’s overcome that mistake.  I’ve been talking about it for a long time, along with many other subjects, frankly.”

 

Chris has all Trump's advisors on stand-by for playoffs strategy. 

4. I’m Out – Getting the median score win in a loss against Chris was the key to staying alive.  He posted the 3rd most points on the week but may have lost TLaw, King Henry, Stevenson and Kirk for at least a week or two.  That means that Abel’s biggest opponent this week may not be South or even Mitch’s point total.  It may be the waiver wire.  He’s getting several guys back off byes to fill some of those spots but without the mystical land of the waiver wire, he may be may be a mere muggle relegated to a closet under the stairs.  We will have to see what sort of magic awaits in Week 14. 

 

The Fantasy Gods to Abel just when he's about to make a playoff run.

5. Play It Backwards – Back in the early stages of the season, we thought Mitch might’ve taken South’s spot as prime contender for the year, but that isn’t the case anymore.  He has lost 3 straight and 4 of the last 5 all while not scoring 150+ since Week 6.  We’re not statistics majors but our spreadsheets show that’s not great.  And he got chopped from the Guillotine League this week too (the curse of Chase strikes again, although this time it was because he didn’t play him).  Kyler and Kamara have bolstered his depth a bit but Ekeler and Kupp both look washed and his flex spots have been erratic at best.  All that being said, he could still sneak into the playoffs and make a run at the title.  Or he could miss them and end up with the 2nd pick.  Quite the conundrum.  When reached for comment on the matter, Aidan indicated that Mitch was unavailable as he was tending to his chores of smoking chickens and watering the horses. 

 

All of us to Mitch after the past 6 weeks.

6. Smells Low – Despite winning the title for most fun love life, Riley’s squad is not keeping up with his real-life scoring.  He barely broke 100 this week and had 3(!) players throw up a cock-ring on the scoreboard.  Despite his hopes early in the year, it’s been another forgettable season.  Luckily, he’s got plenty of threesomes and orgies on the calendar to ease the pain of this forgettable year.  With an orgy of talent at RB, a strong threesome of WRs and the master of the tush-push at QB, Riley only needs to fill in the right tight end in order to be dangerous in 2024.   

 

Be careful what you wish for in a threesome.

7. Off Suit 10s – Kyle may be bringing the draft meal again but he’s come on strong at the end of the year.  After beating South in Week 10, he’s rolled off 2 straight wins against Abel and Mitch and scored median-score wins as well.  He now has a chance in the last week to tie Seth in sharing the worst record.  As we mentioned in our last installment, he’s got some good young pieces to build around for next year and likely the #1 pick again to auction off to anyone but Chris.  Quite an accomplishment for where he was several weeks ago.  The league hasn’t seen a riser like this since all 3 of Chris’s sisters showed up at the Halloween party. 

 

Kyle's ready for the offseason.

8. Ah It’s Early – Even though Seth may not be the worst team, when you go from winning the title to eliminated from playoff contention this early, you deserve this fate. Your team is bad and you should feel bad. 



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