Week 11 - The Playoff Push

Thomas
Nov 17, 2016
16 min read

“Feel it yet?”

- The Philadelphia Eagles Twitter

Fuck the Falcons… trash ass franchise. You do not fuck with Rocky and get away with it.

So I’m gonna try to post this LM Note in 3 parts over 3 days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) instead of putting it all off until Thursday at 8:00PM. It’ll be the same note as usual (with more content, and some added sections for playoffs and end of season awards) and I'll simply add on each day, not replace the previous day's update. So if you miss a day, it's all Gucci. If you guys don't like this way and just want it all on Thursday, please let me know. Now back to it.

If you can believe it, this attempted murder wasn’t flagged in that same PHI v ATL game

You gotta love the “player safety” line we get fed every year. Let's check in on some other questionable no calls

Congrats to the Cowboys though on doing something for the first time in like 20 years

Need to win a Super Bowl soon, those ’95 title shirts cowboys fans wear every day without washing are starting to look more faded every year.

Check out the biggest disaster in New Orleans since Katrina

The Broncos may have revealed the deeper secret to why you should always wear white cleats (sorry Joe Pa, yes I know black looks slower on film)

We had a nice flashback to the 2014-15 Super Bowl this week. New England fans tried to troll Seattle.

Unfortunately, all the goal-line jokes backfired

Peep the sign in the background of that picture. The irony. That’s a shot of Gronk not coming down with a jump ball (really that was your play call??) on 4th and the game from the 1-yard line. PBut, how you gonna not run the ball with Big Boy Blount in the game and the best player on Seattle’s Roster DT Michael Bennett out for the game? OUTCOACHED.

The best part of that game, though, was Chris Collinsworth doing the first good thing he has ever done: roasting Bill “whiny voice of New England sports” Simmons

context: Bill Simmons’ show was canceled last week and nobody likes him. New England did get one W this week, however, check out Tom Brady throwing shade lime a gotdamn umbrella:

A REAAAAALLLLLY good week of Piesman magic too. Appreciate this shit, you guys. First up is 6’5” 250LB Penn Defensive End Louis Vecchio with a nice little Pick 6 to help defeat Harvard.

This one takes the cake for the best big-man play off all time. Check out Kolton Koch, Guard for Monmouth College pulling, taking a lateral and then throwing a 40-yard bomb. 6’1” 275LBS and a fucking southpaw hell yeah!!

Not sure if I’ll find something better than that this year, but I will try.

Can’t believe I made it this far without bringing up that COLLEGE BASKETBALL IS BACK!!!!!!

Finally, been waiting so long for this one. A new season means new hope for Penn State let’s get it this year Baby IM EXCITED! LETS GO GAME1! WOOOOO !

Wow, are you fucking kidding me? Actually, the Danes might win the American East, maybe you’ll see them in March (similar to ‘14/’15) when you pretend you’ve paid attention to CBB this year. (UPDATE: They lost in the Conference Tourney Finals by 3 points)

The NCAA still hasn’t caught up to the NBA in halftime games, though…. Really no one has

Speaking of being back, the NFL is going back to Mexico this Monday.

ESPN loves anything that lets them try to tap into the rabid Mexican sports demographic so they’ll be all over this one. They do have a decent wrap up of the NFL’s History (and likely future) with Mexico here:

Monday Night Football In Mexico

This Thursday we head to the NFC South for New Orleans vs. Carolina for what will probably be the best looking Color Rush of the whole season.

9/10 for this one. Carolina in all light blue is a much better choice than what I’m sure what a very tempting chance at another lame as hell all black uniform (since those are all the rage). Not a super new look here but enough that I won’t complain this time. The Saints, though… those need to be your new white jersey. That’s clean as hell, nice (improved honestly) take on the old Saints jerseys.

This is what every color rush matchup should’ve looked like. If I was making $25 Billion, I could’ve put in the effort to make the jerseys look like this every week. Nah jk I’d be out doing cocaine on a private yet (that’s a yacht/jet hybrid for you lame brokes) with bottles and models just like most of these owners.

Plenty of talented players to go to waste on a short week of rest and preparation

Only 3 regular season weeks left… could this be the last week you matter?

Without further ado.

Week 10 Review

THE BONE ZONE 130.5 @ Harrisonburg 21-16 107.7

Fuck all my talk about needing running backs Charlie is gonna do it his own way. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team consistently fight conventional FF wisdom and rock 0 viable running backs on the roster yet still pump out points at this rate. Charlie gonna fight all you bitches with essentially 2 fewer roster spots each week and he doesn’t give one fuck about it, welcome to the BONE ZONE bitches this shit is real. Rodgers to Nelson is still the most underrated passing duo in the league and Doug Baldwin decided to remind everyone why they didn’t know who the fuck Malcolm Butler was before ‘THAT” play. Jacob had a decent showing, almost mirroring Chuck’s roster, but Larry Fitz combined with some Wisconsin voodoo (GB netted Charlie 59.9 points) was just too in favor of Charlie.

DO NOT fuck with the Sconnies:

Can I Play Baseball Now? 110.8 @ Skittle Monster 144.3

Another game where the loser put out a pretty decent performance only to be completely mauled like a small child who tried to pet a bear cub in the wild. Zeke Elliot stayed feasting and getting credit for running behind a loaded O-Line. LeGarrette Blount ran for 3 (could’ve been 4 lol idiots) TDs as Seattle learned why it needs to pay Marcellus Bennett (please be out next week too) like $100 mil. Sam got decent showings out of DeMarco and Odell as usual. Will Fuller’s kidnapping prior to week 5 is really starting to have an effect on the team, though. Gotta get a milk carton ad or something out for that guy. Doesn’t really matter when you play the Big Orange (-100 if you can't get that reference even without the logo up), you just sit there and take it has he rolls up the points against your roster.

When you know you play Pat’s team this week:

What A Time To Be Alive 89 @ Kings of Leon 117.5

Usually, at this point in the season I would take up the Squancher name again and try to rally, but college football has just been too magical. Mike Evans led a team-wide Trump protest, resulting in everyone taking a knee on Sunday and refusing to score. I gotta respect that, though, freedom of speech, I can’t tell him, no, ya know. Julio Jones looked like a bum in the 4th quarter, so at least Philly got that W. Phillip Rivers decided to have his Phillip Rivers game this week, while Russell Wilson decided to have his Russell Wilson game this week. Other than that things went very well for a Kings of Leon team that has seriously put things together the past few weeks despite an overall lack of production…. peaking at the right time?

Kings of Leon living the dream right now:

Dicks Out For Harambe 84 @ Winterfell Wolves 122.5

As Pat likely remembers, from owning every Patriots player for the last 6 years we’ve done this league, when you ride the home team train in fantasy the good days are good, but the bad days are bad. Sunday was a bad day. Pat’s Patriot trio combined for only 31 points this week; in the previous weeks, they’ve all played together they average 56.3, a difference of 25.3 points. This is a good indicator of how Pat’s team will be performing in the playoffs when the Patriots are resting their starters. Brian took advantage of Pat’s slow week with a pretty typical big point performance. David Johnson showed out as usual with help from a very strong trio of WRs. Hopefully, the Patriots can do better next week.

No Justice for Harambe:

Mister Meeseeks 133.5 @ Genderfluid Nonbinary 83.3

This is possibly the most shocking result of the year. Phil managed to keep his playoff hopes on life support and fought for another week taking out one of the higher scoring teams in the league entering last week. Marcus Mariota could turn out to be the waiver move of the year if he carries Phil to the division 2 seed (which is entirely possible now thanks, Joe). Joe was his typical nonbinary self and made a fluid switch from good team to bad team last week. Joe must’ve had someone on his team leading a Trump protest too, eerily similar numbers to my squad. Make sense considering Genderfluid Nonbinaries in America are probably not too happy about the results of last Tuesday. He still has a nice clear path to the playoffs, depending on which of his teams shows up each week moving forward. It’s getting hard to keep track of all the different forms it has shown this season.

Meeseeks Rampage:

Power Rankings

*as of 11/16 7:00PM

Pat holds onto a perfect score for a second week in a row. He’s currently averaging 128.83 points per game and has been the top scoring team in half (5) of the weeks we’ve played so far. Pat might even have enough of a lead to hold onto that score for the remainder of the regular season.

Brian climbs a spot back into second, despite consistently being a top scoring team all year (and the only team really keeping pace with Pat) he’s caught in a WorldStar caliber fight for playoff positioning.

Charlie is back up to third this week after a strong showing in the Game of the Week. Charlie has defied the roster projections all year long to maintain a lead in the Schwfity Division. Charlie doesn’t give a fuck about your fantasy projections, though. Get some wins or get lost.

Jacob slides slightly into the 4th spot after a tough loss to Charlie. After a solid 5-1 start, Jacob now sits at 5-5, 0-2 since his trade with Joe. The season certainly has taken a turn.

Nick is flying high after a 2 game win streak and sits at 5th in the rankings. He faces Pat’s juggernaut this week as the only player to have given Pat a loss this season (back in week 2 when Pat scored just 59 points). This team he may need significantly more help to come away with a victory.

Joe took the toughest fall of the week, sliding 4 places down to a tie for 6th. Joe’s team has flip-flopped like John Kerry the last few weeks. Now, he looks to begin an era of stability in the Game of the Week

Tieing Joe in 6th, quietly having a strong scoring season, is Sam. The third best team in scoring and consistency, Sam’s Tebow Troupe is just a game out of the wildcard and a tiebreaker away from second in the division. The Arizona Fall League ends this Thursday though, and Tebow is likely done until Spring Training and then either spring ball in the Florida State League or Short Season play in the Ney York-Penn League this summer. Tl;dr what will Sam do for his good Karma in the mean time?

I don’t wanna ruin it (by talking about it I’m gonna ruin it), but in week 7 my team stopped winning… that same week

I go for a season low this week, and a second miracle happens….

“You must submit to supreme suffering in order to discover the completion of joy” - John Calvin. Yeah, I’m 8th this week; you wanna guess what other team is 8th this week?

Pat is all the way up (shout out Fat Joe) to second on the division and would be in the playoffs if the season ended today. Still, the power rankings hold a long grudge for his slow start, and if Jay Ajayi doesn’t go back to getting 200 yards a game Pat could go right back to the bottom. Pat is also the only team yet to score 1000 points on the season, make sure you text him individually this week to remind him about that.

Phil picked up a win and actually moved out of last in the league standings. Another win could seriously put him right back into the playoff discussion with plenty of opportunities remaining to make noise. Since I’m not rooting for myself anymore, I’m rooting for you, Phil. Go get em!

Game of The Week

Winterfell Wolves (5-5)

Genderfluid Nonbinary (5-5)

Wolves: -27.7

This Matchup, like several of this weekend’s, is huge for the playoffs.

Joe currently holds the tiebreaker over Brian, and a win this week could almost dash Brian’s hopes of a 2nd place finish in the division. You’ll likely have to be at least 7-6 to claim second in this division as well as have any relevance in the wild card race.

With a matchup vs. Lockett remaining, Brian likely needs this to be one of his two wins to reach that mark. Joe can give himself a very solid chance of making the playoffs with a win, but a loss puts his odds pretty much at a coin toss or worse.

All three remaining games are winnable, and Joe has potential to claim all three tiebreaks (record over Brian and Nick, points over Jacob) if he wins just 2 of these 3 games but he could just as easily lose those three tiebreakers with a poor showing over the next three weeks.

For the first time in 4 weeks, Brian will have his big three of Stafford, Johnson, and McCoy together.

If Dez and TP can continue to have big weeks at wideout, Brian looks capable of putting this game away soundly, as he has done with most of his wins this season.

Joe suffers an unfortunate double bye on his first round pick due to the Freeman-Brown trade 2 weeks ago. Joe certainly has his work cut out for him, going after the league’s second leading scorer this week, but Drew Brees always provides huge breakout potential

and the rise of Robert Kelley in the Washington backfield could be the saving grace of Joe’s season.

All three wide receivers will likely have to step up for Joe to spring the upset and take control of his destiny.

This game will air in 8:30 Monday Night in MEXICOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! #DontTellTrumpThough

Hunger Foul

Kings of Leon : 73.7 Points

This pretty much comes down to one crazy, psycho, god fearing, healing spirit water drinking quarterback: Russell Wilson. During his 2 week return-to-form, Wilson has thrown for 630 yard and 5 TDs, scoring 59.1 fantasy points. Maybe the AFC East is just trash at defense… or maybe he drank enough Jesus electrolyte water to heal his foot injury. Whatever it is, I’m sure Nick would like for him to keep it up (just please don’t do it against the Eagles, jk he’s getting 4TDs against our trash secondary)

Waiver Move of the Week*

Mister Meeseeks

Add QB Marcus Mariota, Drop QB Carson Palmer

SCALE 1 to 10:

Give a hat tip to nick for having the best waiver move of the actual past week, rotating out tight ends for Cameron Brate; but he would’ve won his matchup regardless and I absolutely gotta bring up this waiver move. This transaction didn’t pay its full dividends until this week, but it seriously has paid off. Marcus Mariota is averaging 25 points a week since the Titans offense woke up and that number is only climbing as the season goes on. Topping things off, in the two weeks since this move Mariota has scored 57.6 points (28.8 per game) while Palmer scored 15.4 in his lone performance during that stretch. Palmer now ranks 21st among fantasy quarterback, Mariota is 4th. Phil might only have a few more favorable weeks left with Mariota, but in a close divisional race that might be all he needs to see the post season.

Bad Luck of the Week

Dicks Out For Harambe

Rob Gronkowski’s Punctured (maybe) Lung

On that hit, last Sunday, Gronkowski (Pat’s first round pick) suffered some kind of chest injury. We have no idea how bad the injury is, but it’s bad enough that he wasn’t medically cleared to travel to an EA sports event just this Tuesday. It’s very likely that Gronk will miss this week’s game vs. San Francisco and possibly more time after that. Not exactly the news you want to hear entering the most critical stretch of the season. Pat will have to hope all of Gronk’s touches go to Edelman for a week or two, as he fights for playoff life. Get him some of that Russell Wilson water.

Week 11 At A Glance

Winterfell Wolves (5-5) @ Genderfluid Nonbinary (5-5)

Who will take a big step forward in the Wubalubadubdub division?

Kings of Leon (6-4) @ Skittle Monster (9-1)

The good news for Nick is that he’s already beaten Pat once this year,

the bad news is that Pat is going to score more than 50 points this time.

Maybe more than 150, you never know. Pat doesn’t have his best player, Melvin Gordon, this week but you really couldn’t tell from looking at his roster. Nick’s got his work cut out for him, and Russell Wilson is going to have to do most of it. 4 Players are on bye this week for Nick, including his two best players of late: Forte and Jones.

Both teams actually lose their leading scorer to a bye this week, which is a nice example of how Pat’s depth has been his biggest strength by far this year.

Most teams would lose 15-20 projected points with those combinations of byes; Pat didn’t project to lose any. When it's your week to play Pat, you just turn the TVs off for a weekend and stay away from football.

Harrisonburg 21-16 (5-5) @ What A Time To Be Alive (3-7)

Jacob is going to have a fun Thursday night, watching his mega trio play against the lame as hell New Orleans defense.

As the Carolina 3 go (I’m calling them that because it makes me feel like an old-timey journalist writing about a bank heist in the wild western territories or some shit, if Carolina was in the west) so does the rest of the team, usually. Jacob is also affording me the pleasure of being one of the few people who gets to face Antonio Brown twice this year.

At least it’s not the Eagles defense he will be torching this time. Derek Carr makes his (hopefully) glorious return to the starting lineup. Really, though, 100% of my hopes lie in the Rams putrid excuse of an offense finally getting its shit together under the leadership of Jared Goff.

Jeff Fisher .500 rule has been killing me this year.

Someone in the CFB top 7 will lose this week as a result of my weekly sacrifice though and things will be ok. (I was right, #5 Louisville lost to Houston)

Can I Play Baseball Now? (4-6) @ Mister Meeseeks (3-7)

Phil’s roster is actually starting to look impressive since the addition of Mariota.

Le’Veon Bell and Latavius Murray are serious workhorse backs capable of scoring in the top tier. Phil’s WRs are both breakout options as well.Really any given week this roster is capable of going off for 120+, which makes it incredibly dangerous in the postseason, it’s an uphill battle getting there first.

Sam looks to continue a very under the radar season, pumping out points with bellwethers Beckham and Murray. The difference continues to be whether or not the rest of the roster finds a way to offer support besides the emotional kind.

The winner of this one can do a lot for their season turnaround and suddenly find themselves sitting in second in the division in 2 weeks.

THE BONE ZONE (6-4) @ Dicks Out For Harambe (4-6)

Charlie is gonna rock 2 guys you’ve never heard of at RB, for the sake of fairness. As the weather gets colder, the Sconnies grow stronger. Winter is Coming, the night is dark and full of terrors.

Terrors like Aaron Rodgers throwing 3 TD passes in a game to Jordy Nelson. If the running backs can get some juice going Charlie should be able to make big moves.

Pat is without Gronk this week as he suffered some kind of mystery injury. In order to make up for this loss, he has to move the New England Defense into his lineup to maintain his legal minimum of 3 active Patriot’s players.

Pat also starts James Starks this week, he has owned 3 different Packers RBs over the last 4 weeks. Trying to use some of that Sconnie magic against Charlie is not going to work, Patrick.

Playoff Scenarios

Schwifty Division

Pat has essentially locked up the number 1 seed in the division (and overall). A win this week would make that official. Otherwise, Nick is still able to still the top seed if he wins out, Pat loses out AND Nick (the league’s second lowest scoring team) nets 228 points on the season over Plockett (the league’s highest scoring team). I don’t know which of those three things is less likely to happen.

The four remaining teams in the division are all within a game of each other for the automatic qualifying 2 seed. There're too many scenarios to play out here, but as of right now all tiebreakers are currently split or 1-0 (so no complete advantage either way) with the only exception being that Nick holds the 2-0 tiebreaker over Brian.

Wubalubadubdub Division

Charlie can clinch the Wubalubadubdub Divison with a win over Pat, a loss would keep the door open for Myself, Pat and Sam to compete for the division still.

Much like the Schwifty Division, the Wubalubadubdub division has several possible scenarios to play out. With wildcard teams likely needing a winning record of 7-6 or better, it’s likely that only the top 2 teams in the division make it out. Phil and I both really need to win out to make the postseason, 2-1 would leave us needing quite a bit of help elsewhere. Pat and Sam need to go 1-1 and then win in that last game of the season when they face each other.

Wild Card

For Now, it looks like the wild card race will come down to whoever doesn’t finish last in the Schwifty division with the possible inclusion of PBut or Sam if they get the right wins/help. 7-6 is likely the standard necessary for the wildcard, but with the right tiebreaks, 6-7 could work.

End of Season Awards

The topic of end of the year awards has come up a few times in texts/discussion. Some of those, like MVP, are pretty objective and won't be much more than just “hey, here was the top guy for this stat.” I will, however, have a few that I open up voting for. They’ll be more subjective ranging from Owner of the Year & Waiver manager of the Year to things that are hopefully funnier. If you have any ideas for an end of the year trophy/superlative we could hand out let me know.

Additionally, there has ben some talk of adding a trophy to the prize, to be passed from winner to winner, each winner adding their name/something to the trophy (pretty much straight outta The league). I’m open to this idea, I wouldn’t mind having to manage that amongst the other LM duties. We would really have to decide between getting an actual trophy, like one of those $20 things you get from the trophy store or creating one on our own from scratch. I personally want to make it look like the toilet bowl statue in front of CHS but I think that’s ambitious. It’s also possible that the majority of you would find this superfluous and a waste of time and resources for a fake league. So we will once again go to the court of public opinion for this one.

As the season progresses, we will discuss this further.

That’s all for this week. Have a fun weekend and prepare yourselves for what is to come.

Thanksgiving week is next week, that means A LOT more Thursday football for you newbies. Hopefully, your roster will allow you to have some rooting interests because I personally love my annual tradition of rooting against the Cowboys while drunkenly complaining that Texas never stayed independent.

If you’re coming home for the Holiday see you soon, if not FUCK YOU!

Love you, bye.