And Then There Were Six

So we didn't quite manage to achieve the seven-way tie for first place.  Kubicek's 27-point stinker (with goose eggs courtesy of injuries to Matt Forte and Miles Austin) was sufficiently lame he couldn't even manage to beat Kevin, so he falls to 6-6 while Kevin stands alone atop the league at 8-4.

I'll pause for a moment to let everyone try to wrap their heads around that one.

If you think that's something, consider this.  If Elias hadn't made their late stat correction in the Steelers-Eagles game in week 5, it would be the MIGHTY NINJAS sitting alone atop the league right now, riding an 8-game winning streak rather than the puny, little, 7-game winning streak they're currently on.

Nevertheless, things are what they are, and with only two games left in the season, things are still a complete mess.  Not as messy as seven teams all tied for the lead, but still pretty bad.

First, as mentioned above, are the 8-4 Golden Graham's.  You might think they only need one win to clinch a playoff spot, and that may well turn out to be the case.  But it's actually possible for the Ninjas, Eagles, Merrill and Strike Team to all win out to finish at 9-5.  So in order to clinch a playoff spot in week 13, Kevin needs to beat Team Datanator and hope for a loss by either the Ninjas, Marauders or Strike Team (in addition to the inevitable loss by either the Leviathans or Screaming Eagles, who play each other).

Needless to say, if the league-leading Graham's need help to clinch a playoff spot in week 13, then none of the 7-5 teams will clinch next week.  These teams are currently sitting in positions 2-6 as follows based on points: Leviathans, Ninjas, the formerly league-leading Screaming Eagles, Merrill's Marauders and Strike Team.  Of those, only the Leviathans are guaranteed a playoff spot even if they win out, by virtue of the fact that their remaining matchups are against the 7-5 Eagles and 7-5 Ninjas.  All other 7-5 teams will probably clinch a playoff spot with wins in their final two games, but for each of those teams, it's possible to finish 9-5 and still end up in 5th place.

It goes without saying that if 9-5 doesn't guarantee a spot, then neither does 8-6.  So the 6-6 teams --- in order, Air Apparent, Los Diablos and Team Datanator --- need 2 more wins and a healthy dose of luck in order to participate in the postseason.

Rounding out the bottom of the league are the Puttheads, the defending champion River Horses and Atomnation, all of whom look likely to participate in the end-of-season loser bowl (though only Atomnation has clinched a spot in that playoff bracket).  Jody has already clinched the hard-luck award for the season, sitting at 4-8 despite having the fourth-highest point total in the league going into week 12.

And could Pete pull off a stunning first-to-worst finish, and proudly lead (perhaps) the Orion River Dorkuses next year?  Time will tell.

Tightening of the Screws

After week 10, two games separated the top 9 teams in the league.  I optimistically predicted that "The playoff picture should clear up a bit in the next two weeks," but as usual, it's clear that I had no idea what I was talking about.

What is going on here?  Now ONE GAME separates the top 9 teams in the league, with the Leviathans, Screaming Eagles and Graham's all at 7-4, and Air Apparent, Los Diablos, the mighty Psychotic Ninjas, Team Datanator, Merrill and Strike Team all one game behind at 6-5.

It didn't have to be this way.  Jason --- in first place and leading the league in points scored going into the week --- should have beaten Merrill, but his wideouts underperformed (especially Julio Jones).  Along with the Bears, Kubicek fell on Monday night when the Niners DST outscored Matt Forte 12-3.  And the MIGHTY NINJAS came agonizingly close to returning to their early-season irrelevance, edging the defending champion River Horses by a single point (I stole a page from Kubicek's book and started the DST which was going up against the Eagles.  It helped that Pete started Matthew 'three turnovers' Stafford over Robert Griffin '32 fantasy points' III).

Wait, it gets better.  If the week 12 games end up just so, we could be looking at a seven-way tie for first place this time next week.

Adam finally ended his bad karma streak, winning the week, but his season is officially over.  And there's such a logjam at the top, there's no hope for Jody to climb back into it, either.  Pete may have a theoretical path to the playoffs if he wins out, but I doubt it.  Frankly, I'm too lazy to do the math on that one.

But we still have no clue who the playoff teams will be for 2012, and I don't think anyone has a shot at qualifying this week.  Things are really going to come down to the wire.

Hang On, It's About to Get Bloody

Wow.  I mean, just wow.

After my most recent update, I marveled at the balance in the league.  At the end of week 8, we had:

• One 7-1 team.
• Three 5-3 teams.
• Four 4-4 teams.
• Three 3-5 teams.
• One 1-7 team.

That kind of made sense.  One clear-cut leader, one clear-cut loser, and the rest of the teams spread out between 3 and 5 wins apiece.

Somehow, in just two weeks, the league has suddenly become top-heavy.  Jason has been dragged down a bit while the mighty Ninjas have recovered from their 0-5 start and are firmly in the middle of the pack.  With four weeks left in the regular season, NINE teams in the league sit at .500 or better (and it would have been ten if Kubicek hadn't made an opportunistic pickup of the Cowboys' DST before week 10 to drop the defending champ River Horses to 4-6), and only two games separate first and ninth place.

The playoff picture should clear up a bit in the next two weeks, as 8 of the 9 'big boys' square off against each other in week 11, and again in week 12. Three or four of us are going to be hurting come week 13.

In the 5 years I've been in the league, 8 wins has always been enough to guarantee a playoff berth.  This year there's a good chance that as many as TWO teams might finish 8-6 but miss the big dance.

Good luck gentlemen. You too, Merrill and Kubicek.

UPDATE: Taylor is fairly confident he missed the playoffs in 2009, the MyFantasyLeague year (otherwise known as the 'dark times'), with 8 wins.  Could be.  I know I made the playoffs as the #4 seed that year with a record of 8-5-1.  Maybe an 8-6 team or two did miss out that year.  But I know I was the #4 seed in 2007 with a 7-6-1 record, and in 2008 with a 6-7-1 record, if you can believe that.  And since we can look at the history since 2010, when we got on the ESPN site, you can check that 8 wins has been enough to qualify since then.

This year --- probably not so much.

Doug Martin is Awesomeness

Email sent to both leagues, 11/4/2012:

I just want to take moment here and call out something that is worthy of mention in the history of both the TrashTalking Fantasy Football League and the Battlin' Sweethearts Fantasy Football League.

Last week, Buccaneers rookie running back Doug Martin had his best game as a pro, and his best fantasy day to that date, running for 135 yards on 29 carries for a touchdown, and catching 3 passes for 79 yards and another touchdown.  This performance was good enough for 21 fantasy points under TTFFL scoring, and 35 points using Battlin' Sweethearts scoring.

This week, Martin has a chance to make not only fantasy history, but NFL history as well.  So far today, Martin has broken scoring runs of 45, 67 and 70 yards.  He currently sits at 50 fantasy points on the day under Battlin' Sweethearts scoring rules, and 31 points under TTFFL scoring.

His 244 total rushing yards on the day stand just 52 yards shy of Adrian Peterson's single-game rushing record of 296 yards in a game, and there are still nearly 10 minutes still to play in the game.

But you know what the sweetest part of this is?  It's not *just* the fact that I own Martin in TTFFL, and it's not just the poetic irony that my nemesis, Brandy 'Precious' Cain owns him in Battlin' Sweethearts.

No, the sweetest part is that Merrill got pummeled by Doug Martin in BOTH leagues last week in his games against myself and Precious --- and the fact that Kubicek is getting smacked around by Martin in both leagues this week.  While the result of my game with Kubicek is still up in the air, Martin's heroics give me a very good chance of handing Kubicek a defeat on a week when Aaron Rodgers threw for 4 TDs and Eric Decker caught 2.

Doug Martin is the definition of awesomeness.