2023 Week 12: Future Foe Scenarios

 

and there's no way to know, our future foe scenarios

Wow, it's been a minute huh? I won't bother with excuses, I just haven't gotten around to writing anything the last 3 weeks for one reason or another. And man, I've missed a lot.

• The ascension of CJ Stroud to potential MVP candidate
• Old Man Mike Evans still has it, while Older Man Adam Theilen has apparently lost it
• The Broncos are actually good?
• Josh Dobbs became a very real thing and then stopped doing that abruptly
• Josh Allen's Bills actually might not be a playoff team

While all of those things were going on in the real NFL, much more interesting battles were waged in the GW13 fantasy football standings, and we're primed for a very interesting final two weeks. Lets analyze the scenarios for all of our teams going into the final regular season stretch.

Playoff Push Scenarios

for bonus atmosphere, google the lyrics in the title of this post and listen to the song while reading

Kuppheads

By far the luckiest scheduled team in the league, Kuppheads holds a 2 game lead on the massive pack of 7-5 teams behind them. Yahoo has not marked this team as locked, but I don't know how. There are 3 matchups between teams in our 7-5 group, meaning they cannot all win out.

A win in either of the final two weeks guarantees Kuppheads the #1 seed, and that looks incredibly likely to be decided in week 13 against momo, who has seemingly given up playing. If they somehow lose that game they get another shot at locking a playoff bye vs Bass Hunter 64 the following week.

Jonathan (Taylor's Version)

JTV is the most dominant team in the league this year, outpacing many playoff teams by 200+ points. This all but guarantees they will be at the top of any list of teams with a tied record, but with 5 teams tied below them, a single loss could drastically change their seeding.

While this team currently owns a bye week, it's actually not a lock for the playoffs. While their point lead protects them from being jumped by our 6-6 teams if they were to lose the final 2 weeks, there are very realistic scenarios where all of the other 7-5 teams pick up 1 of 2, dropping JTV to 7th. With that in mind, a single win should lock them into the playoffs. As we discussed in the first breakdown, a few of these 7-5 teams have to lose.

JTV gets 3-9 Diggs Dug in week 13, and then closes with Lockett League.

Ja'Mario Kart

To highlight how far ahead JTV is: Ja'Mario Kart holds a 100 point lead on their closest trailing opponents, and is still more than 100 points behind JTV.

What does that tell us about their playoff chances? Well for starters, they need some bad games from Taylor's Version to have a shot at the bye week in 2nd position. From a survival standpoint though, their lots are essentially the same. If they can win one of the following two weeks it is unlikely that they will get caught in points (50/week is a lot to overcome), and should therefore cling to a 6th seed slot at worst.

Any spot from seeds 3-6 is a relatively likely outcome, and they have the clearest chance to jump into 2nd if JTV stumbles.

In week 13 Ja'Mario Kart gets 4-8 TJ Hock's Pro Skater, and ends their season against 3-9 Diggs Dug. This schedule is deceptively strong as TJ is actually one of the tougher teams to face.

Allen Wake

Alright, now we're getting to the messy part of all this. With a 100 point deficit to Ja'Mario Kart, moving up at all on tiebreakers is very unlikely. If Allen wants to improve their standing they likely need to win out.

However, that might also be the case if they want to make the playoffs at all. There are 3 matchups between 7-5 teams but with Allen owning one of them, a 1-1 record in this final stretch could potentially see them looking in from the 7th position. 

We're also now at the point in the standings where we have to consider a 6-6 team like Dobbs Space program catching them by closing a relatively small 30 point gap.

They will face Dobb's Space Program next, and then Pollard's Gate III in the final week. Both teams are capable of passing them in the event of a loss, which makes for a tense closing schedule.

Bass Hunter 64

Wading deeper into the mud, we get to our 5th ranked team, separated by only 4 points from 6th. Bass Hunter is likely to land in the 3-6 range by my estimation.

They don't have the points to challenge teams 2-4 in the event of a tie, and even if they win out they don't get opportunities to knock any of those teams down a peg. Like other teams in this part of the rankings, their grip on the playoffs is very tenuous.

Going 1-1 in the last two weeks could drop them out, and losing both matchups almost certainly would.

Bass Hunter finishes with games against Pollard's Gate III and Kuppheads, which is the (I think) toughest schedule of any of the 7-5 teams. Good luck!

Pollard's Gate III 

For the most part, PGIII is in the same boat as Bass Hunter. Tied in record, less than a touchdown behind him in season total scoring. However, Pollard's Gate III has the unique "advantage" of playing both of their remaining games against other 7-5 teams.

From a probability standpoint, that means they are unlikely to sit where they are in 6th place. If they lose they're going to drop out of the playoffs, and if they win those games they can easily climb into 4th.

Their opponents are Bass Hunter 64 and Allen Wake.

Lockett League

Here we are at the end of the 7-5 bunch, and we find our first of those winning teams to be outside the playoff picture currently. Lockett League is actually a bottom 3 team in scoring but has been quite fortunate to make it to this record. They're going to need that luck to hold up a little longer if they want a shot at a playoff run.

There are many scenarios were they end up in the 5 or 6 spot, but those primarily rely on them winning both of their next games as they aren't passing anyone on tiebreaker points.

Lockett finishes with DK King of Swing and Jonathan (Taylor's Version), which makes winning out a tall task indeed.

Dobbs Space Program

Maybe the most interesting team to discuss, Dobbs is the first team on the outside of the big tiebreaker pack, but carries enough points to pass 3 of them if they find themselves in a tied position. This gives Dobbs a very real shot at a backend playoff spot, despite sitting in 8th at the moment.

They get Allen Wake in week 13 and close with DK King of Swing in 14. It's unfortunate for Dobbs that Wake is one of the 7-5 teams that holds a point advantage over them, meaning that scoring an upset win might not mean movement in standings. However, as discussed above, both Lockett League and Pollard's Gate III need to play games against 7-5 teams, so there's still an opening if they can't catch Wake with a high scoring finish.

DK King of Swing

What a difference 40 points makes huh? This team looks similar to Dobbs in positioning, but that lead could prove very important. Not only because they need to score enough to outscore Dobbs if they both win out, but because if they end up scoring similarly to teams like Bass Hunter and Pollard's Gate III in the last two weeks they won't be able to catch them in a tie of record.

DK finishes the season with Lockett League and Dobbs Space Program. If there's enough chaos in week 13 there could be a really interesting week 14 between these two 6-6 teams (currently) for the final playoff spot.

TJ Hock's Pro Skater

And now for the truly sad entry in this list. TJ has the 3rd highest score of any team this season but sits at 4-8 due to insanely bad scheduling luck. They are completely eliminated from playoffs at this point, as the entire pack of teams discussed above from spots 2-7 cannot finish worse than 7-7, and TJ is capped at 6-8.

TJ ends their run against Ja'Mario Kart and momo, which doesn't even give them a lot of room to cause chaos. momo is dead and buried and Ja'Mario Kart has so much point insulation they will likely survive a loss. Sorry TJ

Diggs Dug and momo

I won't belabor the point here, these teams are out. I'm sorry if you read this far hoping to learn something about your teams, but the headline is they're just not very good.

Diggs Dug plays against JTV and Ja'Mario Kart which will make wins very hard to come by but also very funny if they happen. I'm rooting for you Diggs Dug.

momo finishes against Kuppheads and TJ Hock's Pro Skater, which are entirely uninteresting matchups.

Pickup of the Week

Jordan Love, Diggs Dug. A very timely pickup before the Packers took advantage of a sloppy thanksgiving game by the Detroit Lions earned Diggs his 3rd win of the season.