Hey everyone! I've decided to do two special write-ups for our playoff weeks. I'm starting with a "What If" write-up this week, and then next week I'll do a breakdown of the impending championship game and also the possible consolation bracket outcomes.
I will no longer be doing the Power Rankings because they don't really apply like they used to. These are going to be a little different. BEST MOVE OF THE WEEK The Best Move of the Week goes to 38V for sticking with Charles Johnson after last week's 4.1 point performance. He responded in a big way this week earning 14.3 points by way of 103 yards and one TD, though I think everyone knows that his score was about 6 inches away from being eight points higher. Had Johnson not fumbled at the goal-line, he would have not only gotten two points back for the non-fumble, but he would have had another TD. This was very very close to a huge 22.3 point game from a guy that 38V just picked up off waivers a couple weeks ago. Nice get, Mike, and good call on playing him despite his poor Week 13. WORST MOVE OF THE WEEK Our Worst Move of the Week is a shoe-in. PMotr has been scratching and clawing all season to get to the playoffs, and they did it. They were in! Sure, they were an underdog in the first round, but everyone knows that underdogs can certainly pull an upset in one-week matches! Just ask 302 about that. The problem is that PMotr would need solid contributions from all its main guys to earn an upset. What happened next? Andre Ellington was ruled out the the Cardinals 3:25pm Sunday game. When did that happen? Friday at 11:38am. Why oh why then was Ellington still in PMotr's starting lineup on Sunday, costing him a valuable RB slot? Since PMotr also started Joique Bell (25.3) and Marshawn Lynch (15.3), he could have replaced Andre with anyone (RB or WR) on his bench. Sammy Watkins (11) and Steve Smith (13) were probably the most likely candidates. Though PMotr ultimately fell by 17, meaning neither would have won the match, playing Sammy or Steve would have been the smart call. It's tough to understand putting in all this work to get to the playoffs only to leave an open roster spot in your first playoff match. Big time bummer. What If: This is going to be a special section regarding the fluidity of the playoffs. I'll highlight a couple things along the way in the season that could have majorly changed how the playoffs are unfolding. #1 What if the Seahawks DST had outscored Steven Hauschka in Week Five? Picture this: SI vs. TDfW. The score is 109 - 108 favoring SI. The only game remaining is the Monday Night Football match of Seattle @ Washington. The only players remaining are Steven Hauschka (SI) and Seattle DST (TDfW). The game reaches the fourth quarter and the fantasy counterpart is neck-and-neck. In real life, the Seahawks are easily in control, up 24-10 with only four minutes left. Suddenly, the Redskins start moving the ball and score a late TD, meaning the Seahawks DST loses points. The Seahawks get the ball back, kill the clock with a three-minute drive, and kick a 40+ yard field goal as time expires. The MNF game ends with the DST earning just 5, and Hauschka earning a nice 11. SI beats TDfW. At the end of the year they both end up 9-4, with SI holding the tie-breaker. What if the Seahawks defense holds the Redskins out of the endzone, and Hauschka never gets the opportunity to kick a last-second field goal? TDfW wins the Week Five match-up. At the end of the season TDfW is 10-3 (#2 seed), while SI is 8-5 (#3 seed). #2 What if the mullynation had bid on Cam Newton instead of Andrew Luck? Allyssa went into this draft knowing one thing: she was either going to draft Andrew Luck or Cam Newton. I can't be sure, but I think she had allotted a bit more money for Luck than for Newton, but she acknowledged that she would be happy with either. Tom Brady was the backup plan, I later learned. She ended up spending $12 on Andrew Luck (a ridiculously great move that I highlighted specially in the Draft In Review, if you'll recall), and with him as the #1 fantasy QB, she's our #1 seed. What if the bidding on Luck had gone in the Brees/Rodgers region and the mullynation had bowed out, instead spending her money on Cam Newton (who went for $15)? In Week One Cam Newton had broken ribs, and she would have had to find him a replacement. Since then though, he's played. He's played mostly poorly. Here's an interesting stat about Cam: He has scored 33.3 points and 34.1 points, but he has NEVER scored in the 20's. Not once. He's either low-to-mid teens, or a 30+ point game. That's it. Looking at how poorly TDfW fared QB-wise with Newton at the helm, I find it incredibly unlikely that the mullynation would have earned a Top 2 seed and a bye. The playoff landscape would be quite different, and we have no idea who would have ended up with the jackpot that is Andrew Luck. #3 What if GMMBP played TDfW in Week 10 instead of Week 11? The way ESPN generates the schedule at the beginning of the season is supposedly random. I think this creates a multitude of different What If scenarios, including the aforementioned GMMBP-TDfW question. In Week 11 GMMBP and TDfW faced off, with TDfW winning 119.4 to 92.2. There weren't any interesting bench-start critiques to make, so instead I looked at Week 10. Technically, it was just as likely for GMMBP to face TDfW in Week 10 as it was Week 11, so what if that had happened? What if the schedule randomizer had opted to have TDfW play against GMMBP in Week 10? First of all, GMMBP would have won the match-up 142.4 to 132.4. That would have been one hell of a game. This would mean that GMMBP would hold the tie-breaker over TDfW due to a 2-0 head-to-head record (remember that ridiculous drubbing in Week Two?). It's impossible to speculate how this would have changed other match-ups on the schedules, but it would guarantee one fewer win from TDfW. With the tie-breaker also in hand, GMMBP very well may have been our #3 seed. #4 What if GMMBP had never traded Golden Tate and Brandon Marshall for Reggie Wayne and Michael Crabtree? GMMBP has gotten by this year with excellent play from the QB position and also a strong, deep WR corps. GMMBP boasts Emmanuel Sanders (#7 WR), Desean Jackson (#17 WR), and Mike Wallace (#27). Those are a pretty nice trio to have! The RB position has been a struggle all year, though Justin Forsett has absolutely been a god-send. Really, the RB2 position has been a struggle, if I'm being more clear. Currently Trent Richardson is there, though it has also been filled by Darren Sproles and Shane Vereen at times. What if GMMBP had decided not to trade away Golden Tate and Brandon Marshall before Week Five? GMMBP would have had a WR corps of Sanders, Tate (#14 WR), Jackson, Marshall (#20 WR), and Wallace. Wow. He could have easily traded that same considerable WR talent for a nice RB2 or even an RB1. Crabtree (#37 WR) and Wayne (#55 WR) have not contributed very much to GMMBP's efforts. Securing an RB1 would have made GMMBP's team pretty fearsome, with a lineup of: Rodgers, [INSERT RB1 HERE], Forsett, Wallace, Jackson, Sanders, Gates #5 What if Adrian Peterson would have played this year? We've all made a joke here or there about the caliber of 38V, or really Team Kanne, since Mike has done a great job since taking over. Team Kanne had some struggles this season, and it really all comes back to losing Adrian Peterson. AD only played Week One, then he was gone. Actually he was worse than gone; he was maybe gone. This forced Team Kanne to keep him on the team way longer than he deserved, taking up a precious roster spot. Team Kanne was thrust into a bad position right off the bat. Their draft was... questionable... choosing to only take three total RBs (one a backup). Losing Adrian made Knile Davis a starter, but that wasn't going to work out in the long run. Team Kanne needed RBs and it needed them badly. When Arian Foster hurt his hamstring, it was time for Team Kanne to panic. His hand was forced. He traded Jordy Nelson, his one good asset (at the time) for Donald Brown (the supposed heir to the Chargers' throne with Ryan Mathews out), Alfred Blue (to handcuff Foster), and Greg Jennings (to make up a modicum of Jordy's production). This trade didn't work out well, and that comes down to Donald Brown. Brown was supposed to be the big piece in the trade for Team Kanne, being an RB2 for 6+ weeks until Mathews returned. When Brown immediately got injured, his value went into the toilet. Look at what Brandon Oliver's production in that offense did for GMMBP! He pulled GMMBP from the #10 seed to the playoffs. That was supposed to be Brown with Team Kanne. Mathews only just came back to the Chargers, so Team Kanne would have had a nice run with Brown, plenty of time to find another long-term solution. Meanwhile Blue has actually been pretty useful since Foster has been occasionally banged up, and Jennings surprisingly has been Team Kanne's most consistent WR. It's still not enough though because of the loss of Brown, and Team Kanne struggled all year to fill the RB position, ultimately missing the playoffs. What if Adrian Peterson had never been put on the Commissioner's Exempt list, and had had a productive, healthy season? A duo of AD and Foster would have undoubtedly been one of the best in Just Win, Maybe. It's highly unlikely that Kanne would have traded away Jordy Nelson if his RB position was solid. Adding Jordy Nelson (#2 WR) to that RB combo would have been a really nice core to build around. Sure, the rest of the WR corps is horrible, but Delanie Walker and Jay Cutler have been decent, so this could definitely have been a playoff team. I'm guessing it would have been around a #4 seed with average team management. Cutler (26.5), Foster (20.8), and Nelson (26.6) just had enormous Week Fourteen totals, so I'm guessing this team would be in our Final Four right now. How's that for a difference? Furthermore, GMMBP would have missed out on all of Brandon Oliver's production, meaning he likely would have not had his 5-game winning streak in the middle of the season (largely hinging on Oliver). GMMBP misses the playoffs.
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By: Hayden HansonMr. Hayden Hanson (Editor in Chief) is an Accountant-extraordinaire, as well as an aspiring writer. He has written several moderately-successful self-help books, the most famous of which is "What Do You Mean You Can Smell My BO?" Gustav Travers of the New York Times praised the book as "A vulnerable, courageous look into the mind of a man who has literally no sense that other people exist. And also no sense of smell. Nope, he definitely doesn't have that either. Just musk, like a hog that's gotten into the cabbage." Archives
September 2019
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