Post-Weeks 7-10

Back At It

So I know it has been 4 weeks since I’ve written a post, but I think I’ve determined that I’m trying to do a lot of things while starting to work, and I’ve gotten really lazy about writing these posts. So I figured I’d finish out this season with a couple of more posts for the rest of the way. This will be another 4-week review, and there’ll be one last one at the end of the regular season for another 4-week review. Then we’ll conclude the fantasy year with a post-season review and analysis.

So with that in mind, let’s get to it.

Week 7

This week was plagued by low scoring all around, with only 2 teams surpassing 100 points on the week. The league averaged 88.1 points per team this week, which is super low compared to every other week. To put that into perspective, historically speaking, it’s the lowest average we’ve ever had for a single week in league history since switching to PPR format a couple years ago. But we’ll chalk that up to blaming that on the tornado. No one can score when something like that happens! Guess everyone was seeing ghosts on the field this week. Daniel and Ahsan were those two teams this week scoring over 100 and were able to easily dispose of their opponents, Ali B and Parth, respectively. Ali B finally changed his name, but it was no help in this matchup, as he scored his lowest point total on the season with 79.7 points. Kyriacos lost to Rimmel, despite a combined 52.9 points from his proclaimed “triple-headed” RB monster (63.9% of his total points for the week). Yaseer suffered a disappointing loss to Ali S due to clerical errors. Forgetting to play a defense, and having Aaron Rodgers and Marvin Jones on your bench score a combined 81.9 points when all your combined starters scored 75.9 points is just plain rough. This was especially painful considering it could have been a huge win when the opponent was an undefeated team that only put up 85.1 points. In regards to the trends from before, Ali B and Ahsan continued their trend of opposing wins and losses, while Yaseer broke his trend with Rimmel since he earned the loss (albeit, he really shouldn’t have) and Rimmel got the win. My matchup with Zeeshan ended up being a lot closer than I thought it would going into Sunday night. You would think that with a small lead and Carson Wentz vs Jason Witten, it would be a lock to win the week. That was not the case. An abysmal performance from Wentz led to a close 2.9-point victory because he was only able to score 1.5 points more than Jason Witten. ONE-POINT FIVE! The man was a commentator last year… But anyways, I digress. With three relatively close games, kickers made no difference on the end results for any of the games. Playoff positioning is now at 4-3, and only 2 teams are now 1 game out of the playoffs. Kyriacos is now three games out of the playoffs and we are officially halfway through the season. The original plan when I was first writing this post was to look up if anyone in years past had come back from 3 games out at the halfway point to make the playoffs and/or win the championship, but that seems irrelevant now that we’re way past the halfway point. On the waiver wire, Parth took a big victory, securing Mohammed Sanu for $40 and beating out Ali S and myself.

Week 8

The most interesting thing to note this week is the weekly winner award for most points. I took home that award this week, but why does that matter? Well, we’ve played 8 weeks and of those weeks, I have had the most points on the week four times now, but that’s not the interesting part. The four times I’ve won the $5: week 2, 4, 6, and 8. Every other week (every even number week). Crazy stuff, but I doubt I’ll be able to hold that up throughout the rest of the season. With that said, I was able to put up a big total of 154.8 points this week, taking down Parth, who scored the second most points on the week with 142.6 points, thanks to 37.3 points from Mike Evans. A tough loss for sure and a close call for me, who made a last second decision to pick-up and play Matthew Stafford and DK Metcalf. That decision resulted in me scoring an extra 15 points over the replacements I would’ve had playing. If I had not done that, Parth would’ve won by 2.8 points… Zeeshan, the last winless team in our league was able to take down the only remaining undefeated team, Ali S, after Yaseer failed to do so last week, thanks to a ridiculous 36.8 points from Tevin Coleman and a lack of offense from the Cardinals. Funny how those results from San Francisco and Arizona were so different on Sunday (51 and 9 points, respectively), and then they played a super close game on Thursday night, where Arizona had their chance to win the game. Yaseer, on the other hand, was able to follow up a poor performance last week with a solid win over Rimmel, partially because Juju was playing against Miami and put up 18.8 points to give Yaseer a 7.5-point win. But honestly, it’s probably because he changed his team name. And obviously, the trend could not continue between Yaseer and Rimmel since they played each other. Ali B handed Kyriacos another close loss, despite a valiant effort from Pittsburgh’s defense on Monday night, putting up 16 points. But it wasn’t enough, Kyriacos fell 4.6 points short, and is now in a solid last place with a record of 1-7. Tough sledding, and it doesn’t look good. Ahsan took the dub over Daniel thanks to another ridiculous day from Aaron Jones, scoring a monstrous 38.1 points, despite Latavius Murray putting up 32.2 points for Daniel (who he benched last week even though Kamara did not play… He scored 29.5 points on his bench, maybe this is karma(ra)). And the long 7-week trend between Ali B and Ahsan was broken this week, as they both earned wins. I guess halfway point in the season was the actual turning point. There were a couple of close games this week, but kickers did not make a difference in those games. 5-3 is now what it takes to make the playoffs, and there are 4 teams within 2 games, with 6 games left in the regular season. Still a chance for pretty much everyone. Kinda feels like the beginning of the NBA season, doesn’t it? Everyone still has a chance! Exciting times! Good luck to us all.

Week 9

Well Parth followed up a 142.6 week with a huge explosion of points, scoring 166.8 points, which is the most anyone scored for a single week all season. Poor Yaseer didn’t even stand a chance… Not that he put up a huge total, but it’s tough to win when Christian McCaffrey scored 36.1 points, Tyler Lockett scores 3.7 points, and Mike Evans scored 30 points. Ali B took out Ali S, handing him his second loss of the season and second loss in a row, closing the division gap. The trend seems to have flipped between Ali B and Ahsan as they are both now matching each other with wins this week. Rimmel was able to easily defeat Zeeshan, thanks to a lack of effort. Zeeshan leaves an open RB slot with Kenyon Drake on the bench, scoring 26.2 points… Bruh, it’s DRAKE, how you gonna do him like that?! Granted, it still would’ve been a loss, but only by 1 point if he had played him, instead of a 27-point loss. And the trend seems to have flipped for Yaseer and Rimmel as well, as Yaseer lost this week and Rimmel won this week. We’ll see if both of these trends have officially flipped and continue next week. In what was a close game between Daniel and Kyriacos, Kyriacos was able to pull out a big win to turn around his losing streak. Daniel had a 2.5-point lead going into the Monday night game between the Cowboys and the Giants. He had Evan Engram and Kyriacos had Zeke, but he fell just short of keeping that lead. Zeke outscored Engram by 5.9 points and gave Kyriacos the close 3.4-point victory. And guess who was one of the only people helped by the kicker in close games this year? You guessed it, the guy who wanted to get rid of them. Kyriacos had a +8 margin from his kicker over Daniel’s and led to his victory. Needless to say, I’m not sure if Kyriacos would any wins this season if it weren’t for his Gay kicker… hah, GAY! (I don’t discriminate). On the waiver wire, Ali S got Ronald Jones for $55 outbidding Kyriacos, Ahsan, and me. A huge pickup that could make an immediate impact. Oh, and I lost to Ahsan. Nothing happened there though, no need to talk about that…

Week 10

Big totals this week across the board with 8 out of 10 teams scoring over 100 points, and the other two teams, just barely missing the mark. Yaseer was able to edge the win over Ali B by 7 points with each team’s QBs scoring ~30% of their team’s points. Not surprising from Lamar Jackson since he continually does that, but definitely a surprise for Daniel Jones to almost get as many points as Lamar. Rimmel was able to take care of Ahsan easily, scoring the highest points on the week, despite Ahsan having the 3rd highest total this week and another huge performance from Aaron Jones scoring 27.3 points. Seems like that tends to happen often. What can you say? Matchups… Matchups… Tough. The trends between all those teams was impossible to continue both ways, since we needed Yaseer and Rimmel to have opposite results and Ahsan and Ali B to have the same result. That couldn’t happen since the 4 teams all played each other in a way that wouldn’t allow for those results. So, we’ll just consider this week an exception and look to see if it’ll continue next week. Kyriacos was able to dismantle Zeeshan and extend his winning streak to 2 games, thanks to a 32.1-point game from Derrick Henry. It was a matchup that heavily relied on what happened in the Tennessee-Kansas City game. Kyriacos had Patrick Mahomes and Derrick Henry, while Zeeshan went all in on the rest of the Chiefs players, with Tyreek Hill, Sammy Watkins, Harrison Butker, and the defense/special teams. Parth was able to enact his revenge on Daniel after losing to him by 2 points in week 2. In a battle of chubbiness, Parth easily won the matchup, despite not being able to replace his kicker. Even if Daniel had actually played Jared Cook, who was on his bench and left the TE slot open, it still would have been a solid victory for Parth. Oh, and I lost to Ali S. Nothing happened there though, no need to talk about that…

Playoff Chances

So where are we now? Well, with 4 weeks left, Ali S has all but locked in a playoff spot at 8-2 and three games ahead of 5th place. Then we have 3 teams tied in 2nd place, taking up the remaining 3 playoff spots as of right now. We then have Ali B and Rimmel 1 game out, Yaseer and Parth 2 games out, and Kyriacos and Zeeshan 3 games out. While a huge shift flipping the league upside down is unlikely, it’s not impossible. Anyone can still move anywhere with 4 games left until the playoffs. Matchups will be huge down the stretch and will define who’s in the last place game as well as who ends up in the playoffs. So, what exactly is everyone’s chance to be in the playoffs? Well according to my world-renown algorithm, here is everyone’s odds:

Ali S

97%

Ahsan

63%

Nazim

53%

Daniel

51%

Ali B

38%

Rimmel

34%

Yaseer

19%

Parth

13%

Kyriacos

4%

Zeeshan

2%

Your reward for if you've made it this far through the post without quitting:

Key Notes:

1. I guess Parth is officially Full Chubbs

2. Yaseer: Yes, still waiting on that dress. The league has determined further action needs to be taken. More news coming soon.

Weekly Winners:

Week 1: Ali S. ($5)

Week 2: Naz

Week 3: Ali B. ($5)

Week 4: Naz

Week 5: Ahsan ($5)

Week 6: Naz

Week 7: Daniel ($5)

Week 8: Naz ($20)

Week 9: Parth ($5)

Week 10: Rimmel ($5)

Only Yaseer, Kyriacos, and Zeeshan are yet to win $5… Not surprising that they also account for the bottom three records.

Naz’s Pick 6:

I think it’s time to officially retire this unless I was to do it every week. So long…

Venting Zone

*Reader’s beware*

**Final Warning**

***Stop reading now if you don’t want to hear me complain***

****SPOILERS****

Bruh, 2 weeks in a row I’ve lost on the last plays of Monday night football! How does that even happen!? The amount of bad luck in my matchups is insane! I literally have the most points scored on the season and yet I’m 1 game from being out of the playoffs?! I’ve had to score the most points out of anyone just to get my wins! No joke, 4 out of my 6 wins have been because no one scored higher than me… Like why can’t I just get a couple of wins where I only score like 80-something points? Everyone else has one of those. In my 4 losses this season, I scored 131.6, 111.7, 103, and 104.4 points!

In week 9, I lost on literally the last play of the game because of a stupid fumble by Daniel Jones that was returned for a touchdown! Just insane! Cowboys defense has never scored 20 points in a game. Not this year, not last year… And that’s what it took to beat me. Saquon put up a relatively okay game, and I thought that would be enough, but I was wrong. I was literally sitting there on the final few plays of the game analyzing what could possibly happen. I thought to myself, “I’m up by 3, Saquon is off the field. Only a couple of plays left. Defense gets a fumble, I still win by 1. Defense gets a pick, I still win by 1. Defense gets a sack, I still win by 1. I’m good! Solid win!” It didn’t even register in my head that there could be a sack fumble returned for a touchdown. The only thing running through my head at that time was, “There’s no way that just happened?!” And yes, as Ahsan mentioned, the Cowboys let me down twice this year, both while I was playing Ahsan… But reality hit me hard that day and I took the L. I didn’t even think that it might happen again…

In week 10, I thought for sure I was going to lose going into the Monday night game. But when Emmanuel Sanders went down, I thought there was still a slim chance, and as the game went along, there was a real possibility that might happen. Down by like 50 points, I had Chris Carson, 49ers defense, and Jimmy Garoppolo playing. I thought I lost at the end of regulation, but then kickers saved me extending the game into OT, and then further in OT. All I could think was just give the ball to Carson, but if you throw, I hope it’s a sack, fumble, or pick. And then when the 49ers had the ball, I just wanted Garoppolo to air it out! I’m not gonna say there was 1 play that cost me the game, but there was definitely 1 play I immediately recognized while watching the game that I thought might end up costing me the game. In OT, as the Seahawks were driving down the field, Russell tossed a dump off to the flat for Carson and he dropped it. It wasn’t like he was going to get many yards on that play anyways, but it hit him in the freaking hands, and that’s 0.5 points just for the catch… The difference in the matchup? 0.2 points… What makes it worse is that because Stafford broke his back, I needed to pickup another QB to start and I chose to drop Kirk and pick up Garoppolo. Definitely, the worse move I’ve made all season. That would be my luck though… Stafford literally hadn’t missed a game in 136 straight games (over 8 seasons), and he chose the week my other QB was on a bye and the week I lost by 0.2 points because of the decision I made for his replacement.

Just unbelievable. There are no more words I can say of the frustration from the past 2 weeks. And now that I’m finishing this after the Thursday night game this week, I think the best explanation I can give as to how I’m feeling after the last 2 weeks can be described by Myles Garrett manhandling Mason Rudolph… But I swear, I better make the freaking playoffs!!