Highest Scoring Team ($15)
THE GROOVERS
Coach Hunt (3rd time this season)
149.9 pts
Highest Scoring Player ($7)
Tuna with Spicy Mustard
Coach Jack (2nd time this season)
Josh Allen - 43.3 pts (Highest point total by an award winner this season, but Puka was actually only the 3rd highest scorer this week. #1 was Josh Allen with 53.4 points and #2 was Jamar Chase with 45.6 points, both contributing to Jack’s ridiculous 200 point game in Week 14; however, you cannot win both weekly awards.)
^^^ A live look at me watching my fantasy score this weekend.
What a horrible weekend to have eyes. As one of two Make-A-Wish entrants into the playoffs this season, I couldn’t believe my luck when Jord’s Cooper Kupp posted a goose egg Thursday night. And after a middling noon slate, my Spawn of Satan was sitting at a projected 82% chance of winning.
Why is it that that hopeful feeling is the most dangerous of all emotions? You finally let your guard down and feel vulnerable for the first time in a long time only for the fantasy gods to smile at your stupidity and send you so back down to rock bottom so fast that it makes you question whether you’ll ever feel vulnerable again.
And that moment for me wasn’t just a moment, but an excruciating three and a half hour beatdown that was the Lions / Bills game. The Bills, who were always in command of that game, and always held a 2+ score lead, were apparently amused by the little Lions’ annoying refusal to quit. Bills would go up 3 scores, Lions would score. Bills would go up 3 scores, Lions would score. And that cycle would repeat itself infinitely, until Amon Ra St. Brown had 35.8 points, and my chances of winning had fallen to 35%. I don’t even want to talk about how things played out from there for my boys, but suffice it to say, that the completely battle-tested Control Room will move on the semifinals.
I hate to lose, but if there’s one coach losing to makes palatable, it’s Jord, and I wish him the best. Jord will join the semifinals for the first time since his fabled 2018 Momma Cat squad.
The stupid 90 points in the Bills / Lions game did not just flip the trajectories of my own fate, but that of Drew’s and Brady’s as well.
Drew shared a similar story to mine, as the other Make-a-Wish kid in this year’s playoffs, and I believe he too had a 80% or better chance of winning heading into Bills / Lions, but even worse for him, the Doc had 4 players in that dreaded game, and with Josh Allen leading the charge, you know how it played out. 75.6 later, 43.28 of which were from Josh, Drew was reliant on the Las Vegas Raiders blowing out the Falcons DEF on MNF, the reality of which played out the exact opposite, and Tuna with Spicy Mustard would return to the semifinals for the first time since their 2020 Championship run.
Brady’s winning odds flipped as well due to Lions / Bills, but not quite as dramatically, as he benefitted from early James Cook production in that game to the tune of 27.3 points, but Qualley’s late Gibbs touchdowns netted him 28.4 points, which in combination with the lack of Cardinal’s production Brady got, put Qualley’s chances fairly high. Brady would get 21.6 points from Josh Jacobs in SNF, and then needed about 6 points from Keenan Allen in MNF to win, which was far scarier for him than it should have been, as he didn’t secure those into partway into the 3rd quarter. Brady will move onto the semifinals after his 146-132 win for the first time since his 2020 Fully Stocked squad would lose there in the opener despite their #1 seed. Qualley will be knocked out of the championship playoffs for the third straight season, which is a backhanded complement I guess, but perhaps it will sting a little less given that he didn’t lose the IFL Superbowl this time.
The most straightforward game, and least affected by Lions / Bills was Hunt v Nelson, and that was basically due to the fact that Nelson’s team posted their season low, by 16 points, 74.16 points this week, a number which Hunt more than doubled at 158.93 points, and perhaps poetically, a season high for THE GROOVERS. Hunt, who went from power-ranked 3rd to 12th and closed the regular season 5th, has now captured the title of highest scoring team through 15 weeks, and his squad leads the league in highest score of the week at 3. He’ll return to the final four for his second consecutive season, where he would lose to last year’s champ Nick. Hunt is the lone wildcard to move on, as 3 of 4 division champs would hold strong.
The consolation bracket’s top seeds all found their way to the semifinals, with the exception of Curtis, who lost handily to Austin 148-104. Austin will look to take that momentum into his matchup with Jesse, who won by default this week against Nick, who somehow only scored 49.65 points, the 4th lowest score in IFL history. Amazingly, he also did this without posting any goose eggs, which makes it all the more impressive. Perhaps his newborn baby will absorb a bit of the sting of this embarrassment.
The Commish’ extends his lead from the pack by one through the first round of Playoff Pick ‘Em with bonus points in full effect.
