Last Place Wisdom: Week 14 - Don't mess with the Dog Pound

This is a tough blog to write. For the first time in the history of the blog, I have to go into a week with absolutely nothing to play for, and therefor less to write for. For all my loyal readers however, do not fear, I will not leave you hanging for the rest of the season. 2 more weeks to go, plenty to play for for those teams still in it. Most excitingly, we'll have a new champion and a new jersey going on. I'll get to a preview of the teams in the semi-finals, but first, a look at what went wrong for me this season.

This picture is the proper mix of awesome and terrifying, pretty much summing up the entire Brown's team. Laugh Dawson!

So apparently I bit myself in the ass by talking smack about the Cleveland Browns before the match up, because nothing ended up hurting me more. Ultimately, I wouldn't have won anyways, but I can't believe the Brown's defense just scored 27 points on Andrew Luck and the Colts (but still went on to lose the game, because they're the Browns and nothing good ever really happens to them). Ultimately Dawson's big guns came through for him, and it hurts a little worse that it was Le'Veon Bell who really killed me, as he's another player I would have loved on my team (although the danger of loading up on too many players from one team can be a real issue, as we'll discuss later). Dawson has gotten the right amount of luck at the late part of the season, and while he still can't be considered a favourite, if he can keep the luck going he might be able to pull it off and get his very own Phil Dawson Brown's jersey as the league champ this year.

If you would have told me that Peyton Manning would score 3 points and Stan would win, I wouldn't have believed you. Somehow he did, and his high variance team lives on to scare Steve in the semi-finals. CJ Anderson and the Rams Defense came through again for him, while John ran into problems in trusting the Saints so much. Loading up your team with players from a strong offense (Denver, Packers, Saints are the usual suspects) can certainly be a good play, but when they have an off week it can ruin your season. John had an impressive season up till this point, and while he might not be feeling great right now, he should be feeling better. What's for sure is that we will have a new champ this season, as the quest for the first 2 time champ will have to wait for another year.

Mr. Manager of the Week Award

Dawson playing the Brown's D/ST is probably the gutsiest call I can remember seeing in some time, and boy did it ever pay off. It was a swing for the fences move by Dawson, and it paid off as well as he could have ever hoped. Indy is one of the few offenses that I would be scared of playing a Defense against, and it just goes to show that sometimes you have to ignore conventional wisdom if you're going to be the champ and go with your heart/gut.

I could have countered that by playing the Giant's D, who had some very good playoff matchups. However, I foolishly stuck with the terrible 49ers, who embarrassed themselves against the not quite as terrible Oakland Raiders. Defense is tough to predict, and is not usually the part of your team that you can rely upon, but can have a huge impact on whether you win or lose.

Random Thoughts

My team was too reliant on Andrew Luck, Eddy Lacy and Antonio Brown. Those were my studs and they were great for me, but the rest of my team let me down. I was counting on one or two more guys to take the next step into fantasy stardom, and while they showed flashes, it never really happened. Marshall should have been more consistent, but he really wasn't, leaving me with a hole at WR2. Hopkins is currently the 11th highest scoring WR, but that is skewed a bit by his 40 point game, he's really more of a flex than a #2 option. Michael Floyd, Justin Hunter and Reuben Randal were guys I was hoping to count on to take a step forward, but they seem to have regressed.

At RB I should've trusted Joique Bell more in the late part of the season, but my big problem there (besides Zac Stacy losing his job) was Rashad Jennings was unable to stay healthy. If you take the games were Jennings was healthy, not leaving with an injury or playing through an injury, and average that score out for the entire year, Jennings would have been scoring in the same range as Charles and Lacy right now. Of course it's tough to expect that level of health out of any RB, but Jennings looked good enough when he played to make me wonder "if only" at this point.

Basically I was left with 3 stars and a whole bunch of players that could best be considered in the flex category. It meant I was good enough to compete every week, but not quite good enough to really improve my odds of winning.

Playoff Matchups

NFL Owner vs oh that’s nasty  – Like John, I'm done offering offical predictions after how badly I messed up in my prognostications last week. Shayne has to be the favourite, and he kind of reminds me of how my team was looking at the end of last season. He's never going to get a better matchup for Eli Manning, and that means there are not a lot of holes in his roster right now. The one place that's might not be the case is at flex.  Josh Gordon has been disappointing to say the least, and personally I hate the entire Carolina RB situation, however with Cam being out and Stewart showing some consistency lately, I can understand why he's leaning towards that move.

There are a lot of terms you can use to describe Dawson's team, lucky, feisty, scrappy, etc. All I know is that Dawson is the one team that might have a RB advantage over Shayne thanks to how insane Le'Veon Bell has been lately. If he can continue his great run against the worst run defense in the league this year, Dawson will have a shot if he gets anything out of his receivers and QBs. These two had a close game in Week 13, that Dawson lost on the strength of Shayne's D and a practical goose egg by Witten. Andy Dalton has been known to throw his share of interceptions, so Dawson's gutsy call of riding the Browns to the championship might continue to pay off.  

Sideliners vs NINERS –Both of these guys came close to the championship last year, so this is their chance to either get over the hump or risk turning into the San Jose Sharks of TFLOEG. There are a lot of Patriots and Broncos involved in this game, which goes to show the advantage that can come from starting players on winning teams. Stan has the advantage at QB, where Steve's combo of Sanchez and Cutler certainly can't measure up to Manning and Brady. I'd say the RB matchup is fairly even, while Steve has the clear advantage at WR. Latavius Murray and Julius Thomas could be the wildcards here, and a big game by either one of these guys could swing this matchup.

 Finally, the Rams D might just have been the added advantage that Stan's team needed considering his holes elsewhere. 5 of the last  games they have scored over 10 points, including 35 and 29 in the last 2. If they can keep it up against Drew Stanton this week, and potentially Eli Manning the next week, they might even start to rival CJ Anderson as Stan's late season MVP.

For all of us not in the playoffs, I'll try and see about doing some writeups on our teams in the next week or two, and for now, good luck to those still in it. I'm looking forward to seeing another Official Championship Jersey around the draft table next August.