News:

Week 15 provided more interesting NFL football but we’ve come to expect the unexpected in that department. The Eagles walk into Seattle as fairly heavy favourites and get beaten. The Bengals and Vikings trade punches with backup QBs and combine for 51 points. The one win Panthers beat an Atlanta team still in the play-off mix despite their inability to score more than 7 points in an NFL game. In other words, it’s the meme with the cartoon dog sitting at a table surrounded by fire with the caption “This is fine”.

Week 15 was also the poster child for why first round byes are so important. I’m not saying Scott and Dan did or didn’t set “practice” line-ups last week but if they did, they might both be looking forward to the 5th place game this week instead of the semi-finals. As it stands, it is AOB and I with that honour. Regardless of the path to excellence, I think we have two great match-ups on tap this weekend!

Random Thought of the Week:

I’m watching the San Fran – Cards game and other than being thoroughly impressed by McCaffrey, I’m wondering why they are up 20+ points on Arizona and still handing him the ball 20 times instead of giving Mason (or anyone really) that mop-up duty? Is anyone else wondering this? This is a championship team with him and very much not that without him. The 49ers have a brutal track record with injury and honest to god are they trying to write the script for a tragedy themselves?!? Are they stupid?!?

Shark Move of the Week:

I can’t decide if this was a shark move or not and to be honest, I’m not even entirely sure of the underlying strategy to it. Around 3:45 on Sunday, Brandon picks up Drew Lock. Lock was likely to start for the Hawks but BK had already started Love and I was never not going to start Purdy so the move had nothing to do with our match-up. Maybe he had a sudden realization come over him that he’s only rostering one QB for a championship run? Well, Lock isn’t the answer to that problem. Maybe he was thinking that Scott or Dan might see an injury to their QBs? Not sure Lock is the answer to that either. In short, I have no idea what happened there but it feels like Brandon was playing Chess while the rest of us play Checkers. Fun fact: Of the teams left in the championship bracket, Ceilidh is the only one with more than one QB. Things that make you go hmmmm….

Guppy Move of the Week:

This time of year I am really scraping the guppy barrel. Two of the things I look for are “Why did you start that guy?” and “Why didn’t you start that guy”? The first one that jumped out at me was Sam LaPorta. He’s sitting 20th in combined WR/TE fantasy scoring year to date, so why wouldn’t you start that guy? Oh right, because you also have Travis Kelce who is 17th in combined WR/TE scoring. Too bad you can only start one…

Smack talk award of the week:

It became quite clear that Neilly must have managed to break into his local Legion and steal the last remaining case of Miller Genuine Draft that exists in the province of Ontario for this past Sunday’s festivities because sure enough, come Sunday afternoon, the zingers were starting to fly.

In fantasy sports just as in real sports, everyone has a job to do. Some people play on the field. Some people stand on the sidelines and squirt water into the mouths of the players when they come to the sidelines (What do you call those people? Hydration Management Engineers?). Then there’s the guys at home on their couch with their expired MGDs shaking their fist at the TV and telling the ones still in the game that they’re not doing it right. I coulda been a contendah!

Still Neil is right about one thing. We had us the spiciest Sunday chat in a long spell. Cheers to that!

Welcome to Fantasy Football Hell Award of the Week:

By this point in a fantasy season there’s no sudden shortage of fantasy hell to go around. It’s just that you’re basically desensitized to the violence and injustice of it all. What more do you say? I would love to claim that last year’s finalists were cruelly ousted from the championship bracket by one of those injustices but the truth is, Andy and I just didn’t get quite enough from the most logical players on our squads that could provide it. Managers manage and players play and this week, the points just weren’t there. Looking forward, good luck to our semi-finalists and don’t forget to tip your server!