News:

Apologies for the late and somewhat abridged newsletter this week. We seem to have more challenges than usual to juggle at Clan McDonald Fantasy Headquarters this week and it’s been a bit more difficult to carve out the time.

The big news in Clan McDonald is the solidification of all but one play-off spot. Congrats to those that can breathe a little easier heading into Week 14.

An interesting pair of match-ups await us this week. The Brewers have a “win and you’re in” scenario but need to play the first place Rosstitutes to do it. The Mucklucks can also slip into that last spot with a Brewers loss and by beating the last place Pipers. In that event it will come down to a tiebreaker which would be too close to call.

Shark Award of the Week:

Honourable mention to the Piper, who coaxed a solid total out of his roster this week. Sometimes outscoring your projections is the only success you can control.

Cutting to the chase, I narrowed my choice to those two aforementioned teams, who happened to play each other. In the end, the difference was an early exit for Roschon Johnson and the Brewers’ special teams, who combined for 35 points and a 21 point differential over the Mucklucks.

It will be interesting to try a new DEF scoring formular next year, although I’m not entirely sure I’ll ever achieve an objectively correct definition of a “good” defense. Denver gave up 31 real points, nearly 500 passing yards and 4 TDs yet still scored 19 fantasy points. Is that good? You tell me…

Also while not fantasy related, congrats to our resident Junior Football coaching shark Neil on a great real football season!

Guppy Award of the Week:

It’s a stretch to pin this on AOB but there’s a certain irony to the fact he tends to be the manager in our league that year in and year out, can never have enough RBs. This year it would seem the RB whisperer ran out of breath a little too soon. At a glance, it was Canadian boy Chuba Hubbard that let him down on the scoreboard but on closer inspection, you can’t help but wonder if he might have found a way to get Jerry “En Fuego” Jeudy into his line-up instead of Jennings, who was playing in a snow globe on the other side of the country. Things that make you go hmmm…

Smack Talk Award of the Week:

In the spirit of the season, I’d like to say that we’re all winners in the smack talk thread. We had lots of chatter, solid participation and dad jokes a plenty! We are even starting to see images and emojis, which I initially assumed was due to the Mooglar’s new iPhone but he isn’t the only one surfing the wave of this new modern technology! Nicely done everyone and keep it up!

Welcome to Fantasy Hell Award of the Week:

There’s a number of directions you can go with this award this time of year. If you go with the injury train, well, we had CMC, Mason, Ekeler, Lawrence and Taysom Hill head to the IR (I’m no doubt missing some people too). We’re a week before the fantasy play-offs and the big news is who won the Isaac Guerendo sweepstakes, so that’s pretty close to hell if you ask me.

Alternatively we can zoom in on our league and take a snapshot of the moment hopes dies. Neil wrote up his “Season in review” summary even though it’s only Week 13 (I do hope he doesn’t clean out his locker just yet). AOB had to watch his team come up two and a bit points shy of keeping the dream alive, which is pretty rough as well.

Bananarama taught us it’s a cruel, cruel summer but when you play fantasy football, winter isn’t any better.