Last Place Wisdom: One more time as the Champ

No fancy videos from me this week, I've been too busy dealing with political fallout to think much about fantasy football or put together a finely crafted championship preview like John. For Dawson and Stan however, I'm sure they're in full-on fantasy mode, trying to figure out the perfect lineup to win one more week and get them the championship.

First though, I wanted to take some time to highlight those unfortunate semi-final losers who are now playing for pride and 3rd place. I feel for Shayne, and think he's much like Andrew was last year. Strong team all regular season, but then hits the tough match-up in the semi-finals to take him out. I wouldn't be surprised to see him rebound with a strong performance this week, leaving him to question "what if" when it came to his semi-final opponent. Rodgers and Forsett picked a bad week to each give their worst performance of the year.

Steve just fell short last year, and he couldn't quite get over the hump this year either. Charles leaving the game with an injury did him in, and Peyton Manning's bad game hurt Steve's receivers more than it hurt Stan at QB. Both Steve and Shayne are in good keeper shape, so they should have many more attempts at getting a championship going forward, but for now, welcome to the loser club with the rest of us.

Mr. Manager of the Week Award

The award is Stan's this week. Starting Harry Douglas over his other WR options was key to pulling out the victory. Stan didn't have a good week by any means, but he did just enough to win thanks to Douglas' 131 yards. He will need a much better effort in order to beat Dawson in the finals, but it would help him if Julio is still banged up and he can rely on Douglas once again.

And this is the final Mr. Manager of the Week Award for 2014, since next week the award for the best manager is called The Championship instead. Although the award is kind of like Whose Line is it Anyways (everything is made up and the points don't matter), the team with the most Mr. Manager awards this year ended up being Mike. In a way it's surprising, but alternatively when you have as bad of a draft as Mike did but still manage to claw your way back to competitiveness, it makes sense. I would have been second, but my Mr. Anti-manager of the Week award in Week 2 nullifies one of my mentions and ties me with Dawson, Stan and John. Andrew, Curtis and Steve did not receive any, which goes to show how flawed my award giving judgement really is, since Andrew and Steve were fairly successful all year.

Random Thoughts

Not much in the way of Random Thoughts this week. If I was still playing, my team certainly rebounded well in what was a down week across the entire league. Of course none of that matters, other than to reinforce my own belief that I put together a solid and dependable team, even if I couldn't get it done.

Playoff Matchups

NINERS vs oh that’s nasty  – Dawson has a bit of "team of destiny" appeal going on right now, getting hot just at the right time. Le'Veon Bell has continued his historically good run, and if he can keep it up for one more week Dawson will have a good chance of winning. He needs at least one of his big 2 receivers to come through for him I think, last week it was Bryant, and Fred Jackson has a pretty good matchup against Oakland. The Browns didn't perform very well last week, but against Carolina have a better chance of doing something.

I have one thing to say to Dawson however....you're playing with fire by leaving Toby Gerhardt in your lineup this week. Yes, Tennessee is horrible, but so is Gerhardt and I've given you all sorts of crap for continuing to start him this year. Your hot streak somewhat coincides with you moving on from Gerhardt, going 8-2 since week 6, with one loss to me when you started Toby and one win with Toby when you were forced to start him with Jackson and Sankey on bye. My advice is often horrible, so do what you think is best, but I'm just throwing it out there before getting on your case next week if Gerhardt has a bad game.

For Stan, his advantage continues to be at QB, with a great matchup for Brady against the Jets. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Patriots drop 50 points on the Jets because of their rivalry, so Brady could end up winning things for Stan here. Latavius Murray has been good, but Buffalo's D is for real, putting up strong performances against both the Broncos and the Packers. If I'm Stan I'm nervous, not because my team is bad but because it has great upside and downside, and personally nothing would be worse to get to the final only to see my team put up a real stinker. Hopefully for him that's not the case and we get a competitive game right to the end. It will come down to Monday night, because unless Stan has a huge lead going into the game, Manning, Anderson and Green all have the potential to swing the matchup by themselves no matter the score.

Best of luck to both teams, and I will do my best to enjoy my position of Champion for 4 more days.