We have four teams remaining in this second week of the
fantasy playoffs. Two top-seeded teams
will make their 2013 post-season debut this week, with the regular-season champ
Ferries squaring off against the ROY Goslings and the record-making Grossman
squad facing the hair-pulling Trichs. Who
will get to the championship next week and reach for the green dough? The Master’s foresight is clouded and he
cannot see the vision. Some teams are
playing their final match of 2013 in consolation. They shall be commended for withstanding the
long emotional roller-coaster that is fantasy football 2013. Anyhow, here we go.
Semi-finalists
(1)
SanFranciscoFerries vs (4) The
Goslings
The improbable run of the Goslings face the biggest
challenge to date, with the Ferries that have won nine in a row making the
playoffs debut in this semi-final matchup.
The Boatmen carry a handful of SD-DEN players on the roster and will
look to get ahead Thursday night with Rivera, Moreno and the kicker Novak. The Baby Geese have the bulk of their lineup
playing in the late afternoon and SNF match on Sunday, so will be in a
full-throttle catchup mode at that point.
The prediction would have been lop-sided two weeks ago, but the bye
weeks for the top-seeded Ferries brought on some major injury concerns. Now the Goslings have a fair chance against
suddenly-vulnerable-looking Ferries. In
their regular-season meeting, the
Goslings did beat the Ferries in the last game below 100 for the Boatmen back
in week 3. We’ll find out if history
repeats itself.
Week 14 was supposed to be a relaxing bye-week for the
regular-season champions, but it turned out to be nothing but. Tight end Gronkowski, who's success on the
field have been instrumental to the Ferries' record-tying winning streak, tore
multiple ligaments in the knee and is done for the season. Edelman may be the man to replace his touches
in New England, but the Bay Area Boatmen had to scramble through the wires to
pick up a late-season tight end fill.
Half of the four-headed backfield monster also visited the infirmary
last week as well, with Bush re-injuring his calf during warm-up and Lacy
rolling his ankle. Moreno is also banged
up and is surrendering touches, especially and notably in the red zone, to
rookie Bell in Denver, and Alfred Morris may be losing the lane-opening
presence of RGIII in Washington. All of
a sudden the strength of this team has become a major concern. Cor-kkkkkk-darrelle Patterson's emergence as
a possible elite receiver may be a saving grace and the Vikes are playing the
Phillies this weekend so he may come through again, but it's not ideal to rely
on an emerging rookie having a big game in the second week of the fantasy
playoffs. Looks like Rivers is getting
the nod to start at QB, so the Ferries need him to have a huge game in Denver
against a fairly vulnerable secondary to give them a nice start to their
playoffs quest.
This year's Darlings did it again, knocking out Monique and
the Girlz from the playoffs in week 13.
It marked the fifth win in a row for the Baby Birds, who have been on
top of eight of their last nine matches.
The win over the Girlz was once again not pretty, with only three
players scoring in double digits. In
fact, Shady McCoy almost single-handedly beat the Girlz with a ridiculous 200+
yards and two TDs in eight inches of snow, notching 37+pts for the Birds. No one else on the lineup got to the end
zone, which makes the Goslings' win (and Shady's work) that much more improbable
and impressive. Fitzpatrick was no match
for Peyton, only passing for one TD and scoring less than ten in replacing
Luck, who himself had a monster game on the bench with four TDs and 33+ pts. We'll see who'll make the start for the Birds
this week. Tavon tweaked his leg in week
13, so looks like once again Shady will need to lead the charge against the
Ferries to continue the miraculous run for the Goslings.
-SFF -3.5
(2) GrossmanSachs
vs (6) Trichotillomanics
Two high-octane offenses square off against each other in
the 2013 playoffs debut for the bankerz.
This semi-final match is full of interesting titration battles, with
Peyton Manning throwing to a couple of Far East receivers in Decker and Julius,
as well as the battle for the Bears receiver-supremacy between Alshon and
Marshall. Denver plays San Diego in the final
TNF match of the season, and the outcome there will set the tone for the rest
of the weekend. It’s a rare week for the
Far East side playing runaway, with the bulk of the players on the field by the
early Sunday games. The bankerz look to
come from behind with Gio Bernard playing in the Sunday night game. These two met in the regular season on week
4, and Grossman beat the Hairpullers handedly in that contest. DMC played for the Trichs and Marshall for
the bankerz back then before the two switched sides in week 6; the winner of
this match will claim the beneficiary of that crucial trade. Yahoo projection has this one being very
close, and it probably will come down to the wire.
 | |
| The Dreadz look to rob the Bank |
GrossmanSachs, like
the Ferries, hoped for an eventless week 13 for the first-round bye. Although the bankerz didn’t lose anyone for
the season like the Ferries did, AP did get hurt and looks like he’ll be
missing a game at least for this week, although his super-human ability to heal
was evident last season and he may suit up on Sunday. Still, banged-up star running backs are one
of the more difficult things to handle in fantasy football in terms of setting
the lineup and best be avoided especially in the second week of the
playoffs. At least there’s good news
coming out of Oakland that Jennings is a go after clearing the head-bang protocol. The news may be too good if DMC also gets
clearance to play, cannibalizing backfield touches with each other, but for now
the return of an Oakland back will be welcomed by the Commish. Steven Jackson will be replacing Peterson and
has a favorable matchup against the dysfunctional Skins, but the key to the
backfield success will be rookie Bernard running well against stingy Pittsburg
defense in the cold SNF matchup.
Receivers Jeffery and Gordon will hopefully be involved in a
happy-go-lucky kind of pass-friendly match between Chicago and Cleveland, but
somehow that doesn’t seem right for a battle between these two Midwest
cities. Too much of success from Manning
will actually be counter-productive to the bankerz’ cause because of the
counter-titration effect of the Trichs receiver, unless Manning throws most of
his TDs to Demaryius Thomas like he did to Decker in week 13. Although Grossman boasted the highest-scoring
offense at the end of regular season that accounted for whopping 200+ pts in
week 13, this is the playoffs, one and done, and some question marks surround
the bankerz. We’ll see if the Commish
can overcome those this week in a tough match against the pesky Hairpullers.
The Trichotillomaniacs
regained their offensive fire-power in their first-round blast of Polk High in
week 14. The decision to bench most of
the 49ers playing against Seattle defense paid off, with fill-in QB McCown
getting the biggest production out of the position of the season for the Trichs
with a 40+pts game. The good game wasn’t
limited to the QB, with seven Hairpullers scoring in the double digit for a
well-rounded demolition of the third-seeded Bundy squad. The only notable low-balling was from Carolina
defense playing high-powered Saints offense. The General went through total of four kickers
in the week-span, but the constant titration paid off with Phil Dawson kicking
four field goals in a mild-weathered west-coast game, while the kicker in
original Sunday matchup Henery got a fat goose-egg with eight inches of snow
preventing the Philly kicker from getting on the filed save for kickoffs all
together. This is the kind of attention
to detail that’s required to win a fantasy football playoffs game. It’s still unclear who the General will
decide to send in as the starting QB in week 14, with the Trichs acquiring both
Dalton and Cutler while Kaepernick is facing a relatively favorable matchup
against Tampa Bay in a warm Florida Sunday game. The Trichs receivers should be able to counter-titrate
Peyton Manning, and Carolina D will have a bounce-back against Geno and the
Jets, but the key to winning for the Far East brigade will probably be on QB
and backfield production. Gore and Stacy’s
matchups aren’t too favorable, which is a bit concerning. This NFC West backfield duo needs to have big
games in week 14 for the General Far East’s dream of getting to and winning the
championship to materialize.
-GS even
5th Place Game
(3) Polk High Panthers vs (5)
Phat Girlz
Two disappointed teams
have one more game to play in 2013, it’s the fifth-place game! Now that Millie’s college fund has been
emptied out of the PSAS reserve, they are playing for nothing but pride. Nevertheless it’ll be a good match up, with
the Yahoo projection virtual tied. In
week 6 of the regular season, Monique and the Girlz won convincingly to hand
Bundy the first loss of 2013.
-PG even
Consolation
(7) TakingTigerMountain vs (10)
Aethernauts
Disappointed TTM makes
their post-season debut against the Nauts that beat the Bandits decisively last
week. Another closely-projected game
will feature two stars of NFC South in Brees and Newton. The Nauts upset the Mountain in week 9 with
the score of 116-103.
-TTM even
(8) Tusken Raiders vs (9)
ThePelicanBrief
With just a slight
different bend of the needle, these two teams could have easily been playing in
a semi-final playoffs match. Such was
not the destiny this year. We’ll see if
the Pelican will replace the concussed Welker in the lineup or keep the heart
of this team in the lineup in this ceremonial match. The Legal Thrillers won the regular season
meeting between these two in a close match in week 4, but the projection favors
the Sand People this time.
-TR -3.5
11th Place Game
(11) BldgDW3LL1NGTh1nk1ng (vs) (12)
Dijonnaise All-Stars
These two teams will
play their final game of 2013 season this week in the 11th place
game. In September, neither of them
envisioned to be playing in such meaningless match. Just ask the Bloodz; they should feel
embraced to even be playing in this match.
In week 8, the Mustard Yellow routed the Boyz 127-111.
-BDT -6
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