Week 10 : Playoff Scenarios

 

Don't look now, but we're 10 weeks through the regular season with just 4 left to go. With that in mind, we're going to dive into Playoff scenarios. What does each team need to make it happen, who's in line for bye weeks, what games should we look forward to in the next few weeks?

But before we get there, lets take a brief moment to remember that both the best catch of the year and the worst attempt at one occurred on the same Sunday in November. I seriously can't see how either of these plays can be outdone in their respective greatness/badness.

Path to the Playoffs

• Hazers : At 8-2, Hazers are a lock for playoffs, but have a very tenuous hold on the first round bye. This team trails every other playoff team in total points, meaning anyone and everyone can jump them with a tied record. 3 of the final 4 weeks come against (current) top 6 teams so there's a lot of room for movement here.
  Upcoming games :
• Kelsey Lohan's Ghost
• KY
• Ancient Allens
• Loch Ness Burrow
• Kelsey Lohan's Ghost: At 7-3 with the 2nd highest points for, Kelsey is close to locked in, but could still possibly get left out if they lose out and end up 7-7. They get a huge matchup with Hazers in week 11 to potentially overtake them for the #1 spot, although both teams are in bye position today. They will close out the year with 3 games against teams currently in the losers bracket, giving them decent odds to hold their position.
  Upcoming games:
• Hazers
  
• Bye Week
• Ballderberg
• Oh Godwin He Can See
• Roswell LAMARtians: Sporting the same record as Kelsey and only 20 points shy of them in total points, LAMARtians also have a very strong chance at a bye week and almost no chance of missing playoffs. Unlike Kelsey, they aren't forced to play the #1 team in the league and finish with 4 straight game against bottom half teams.
  Upcoming Games
• Ballderberg
• Oh Godwin He Can See
• Chipped by Billy G
• Jets Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beam
• Loch Ness Burrow: 6-4 Burrow still holds the title for highest points for, but has landed poor matchups the last two weeks to fall behind our new 2nd and 3rd place teams. With a 2 game/130 point lead on the 7th seed they likely need to win 2/4 remaining games to stay in the playoffs. However, their schedule to close the year is not easy, facing teams 9,5,7, and 1 to finish.
  Upcoming games:
• KY
  
• Ancient Allens
• Jets Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beam
• Hazers
• Ancient Allens: Also at 6-4, Allens has a much smaller 40 point buffer on the 7th seed and could potentially miss playoffs at 8-6 depending on how their scoring closes out. They face 2 playoff bound teams in their remaining schedule.
  Upcoming games
• Jets Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams
• The Loch Ness Burrow
• Hazers
• Bye Week
• momo: The current bubble team is momo. Sporting a 2 game lead on 7th but only a 5 point scoring buffer they could easily be overtaken by any of the 4-6 teams with a tied record. They are likely to get in if they split their final 4 games or better, but only feel like a lock if they win 3 of them. They have a very soft closing schedule, facing 0 teams in the top half of our bracket.
  Upcoming games
• Bye Week
• Ballderberg
• Oh Godwin He Can See
• Chipped By Billy G
• Jets Fuels Can't Melt Steel Beam: Now we come to the 4-6 teams on the other side of the bubble. Jets Fuel has a brutal 4 game schedule, facing 3 top half teams, and probably needs to win 3/4 of them to catch momo or Ancient Allens.
  Upcoming games
• Ancient Allens
• Chipped by Billy G
• The Loch Ness Burrow
• Roswell LAMARtians
• Ballderberg: A 2 game win streak has Ballderberg close to the playoffs, but they are in a similar boat to Jets Fuel with a slighly larger ~20pt gap to overcome. Much like Jets Fuel, they also have a very difficult closing schedule, facing only 1 team in the bottom half.
  Upcoming games
• Roswell LAMARtians
• momo
• Kelsey Lohan's Ghost
• KY
• KY: This is where things get a bit less likely. Yes, KY sports the same 4-6 record as the two teams above, but they have a full 100 point deficit to the 7th place team, meaning that even with 4 straight wins it's possible they get left out.
  Upcoming games
• The Loch Ness Burrow
• Hazers
  
• Bye Week
• Ballderberg
• Bye Week : Now we come to our 3-7 teams. The path for Bye Week is simple: they must win all 4 remaining games to end up 7-7 and close a substantial 120+ point gap, and that's assuming the bubble team is 7-7 and not 8-6. Odds are not good and their schedule is rough, facing 3 top half teams.
  Upcoming games
• momo
• Kelsey Lohan's Ghost
• KY
• Ancient Allens
• Oh Godwin He Can See: Things are even more bleak for Oh Godwin, as they must close a 190 point gap in addition to winning out, meaning they must outscore the worst team above them by almost 50 points a week while beating 3 current playoff teams.
  Upcoming games
• Chipped by Billy G
  
• Roswell LAMARtians
• momo
• Kelsey Lohan's Ghost
• Chipped by Billy G: I have not done the math on whether it's possible for Billy G to make playoffs, but it's very unlikely the final playoff team is 6-8, as it would require one of our 6-4 teams to lose out. At least their score gap is smaller at ~100 points.
  Upcoming games
• Oh Godwin he Can See
• Jets Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams
• Roswell LAMARtians
• momo

Pickup of the Week

Cole Kmet, Roswell LAMARtians. Justin Fields is ascending into football god status and he's pulling Kmet with him. 4 TDs in the last 2 weeks and scores of 8, 19, 21 the last 3 weeks make him an every week play.

As a Kyle Pitts owner I'm ashamed that I let both Kmet and Greg D. get picked up off waivers without putting in bids on either.

Shameful Benching of the Week

Honestly, there weren't any this week, good job guys! I wanted to give this to Loch Ness Burrow for benching JT, but all 3 of his RBs performed well and the score gap between his worst one (if he were to guess KWIII would be his weakest) wasn't big enough to change the matchup outcome.