TKP Fantasy Football - Playoffs!

Hey everybody!

A brief reminder of how the playoffs work:

• Each conference will have 1v4 and 2v3 during week 14, with the winners facing off in week 15 for the conference championships (there's no Big 12 here - everyone gets a conference championship game!)
• The five conference champions will face off in one big clusterf@#% during weeks 16 and 17 by sending their lineups to me via email (I will tabulate the stats manually)
• Week 16 will be standard scoring. Week 17 will be PPR scoring.
• In weeks 16 and 17, each conference champion will be allowed to make two add/drops from their league's waiver wire per week.
• The winner of the combined weeks 16 and 17 will receive their choice of any one item from TKP store or they can elect a $20 donation to be made to TKP in lieu of a gift. If I win, I will make a $20 donation to TKP because I already have everything from the store.
• More details will follow, but that's the gist of it.

In the Frank Beamer Conference, the #4 seed Centaurrian Gray (me!) knocked off the #1 seed Daniballs Deep by a score of 88.7-77.3. Balls was too busy living her life to notice that Mark Ingram was on the IR, and left him in the lineup in favor of Lamar Miller, who scored 20.9 points and would have given her an easy win. Carson Palmer (20.7) and A.J. Green (19.2) led the way for my squad, while Cam Newton (23) was the only top performer for Balls.

#2 seed CHIP CHIP CHIPadelphia continued their recent surge, beating #3 seed Team Koma 111.7-87.9. Team Koma was one of the only two teams ranked in the top 5 in every week of TKP Fantasy Power Rankings, but CHIPadelphia had no problem taking them down thanks to big games from Doug Baldwin (26.2), Brandon Marshall (18.5), and Tom Brady (18). Team Koma saw Odell Beckham, Jr. put up 28.6 on Monday night, but it was too little too late, as Eli Manning's 27.3 points and James Starks' 22.3 points were on the bench in favor of Jameis Winston's 13.7 and Thomas Rawls' 4.4.

In the Frank Beamer Conference Championship, Centaurrian Gray's "ideal" lineup is projected to score 105.3 vs. CHIP CHIP CHIPadelphia's 99.8 (the lineup combination which ESPN projects the most points, even though their projections are wack). Centaurrian Gray picked up Bryce Brown off of waivers this week whereas CHIP CHIP CHIPadelphia grabbed Denard Robinson.

In the Bud Foster Conference, the underdogs won both matchups, starting with #4 Hashtag GoACC knocking off #1 Team Needs a Name, 84.6-73.7. This is especially notable because some asshole's fancy math rankings (those are mine) had Hashtag GoACC as the weakest playoff squad (FWIW, mine was the third-lowest ranked). Mama Giraffe was able to overcome duds by Dwayne Allen (-0.3) and Calvin Johnson (1.6), mainly thanks to a studly 32.3 points from Russell Wilson. Carson Palmer (20.7) and A.J. Green (19.2) led the way for Team Needs a Name, who saw Emmanuel Sanders score negative points and had LeGarrette Blount and Thomas Rawls go down in the first half of their games with season-ending injuries.

#3 Vindictive Blitzes crushed #2 TD's an DD's, 141.5-71.7, thanks to 23+ points from Cam Newton (23), Odell Beckham, Jr. (28.6) and Doug Baldwin (26.2). Zach Ertz's 9.8 and Cairo Santos' 4 were the only two starters for the Vindictive Blitzes who had fewer than 10 points. TD's an DD's did not have such luck, with Andy Dalton leaving early with an injury and neither Chiefs RB gaining a lot of traction against the Chargers (West and Ware combined for 10.6 points). Allen Hurns (16.5) and the Panthers' D (20) were her only double-digit scorers.

In the Bud Foster Conference Championship, Vindictive Blitzes' "ideal" lineup is projected to score 102.6 points compared to Hashtag GoACC's projection of scoring 94.5 points. Again, these projections mean nothing. I don't even know why I keep bringing the up. I guess I just like to hear myself talk.

In the Sam Rogers Conference, #1 12 Straight won their 8th straight game, defeating #4 Taste The DwayneBowe 97.3-72.6. Blake "Teenage Mutant Ninja" Bortles notched 25.7 points, leading the way for a team of football players who scored 24.7 more fantasy points than their opponents. For Taste The DwayneBowe, Isaiah Crowell's 27.4 spot was sadly nested at the end of the bench, while Danny Woodhead (1.3) and Frank Gore (5.9) started (for the record, I'm not suggesting Crowell was the better start...hindsight is 20/20).

#2 Party Like a Gronk Star must have partied like Johnny Manziel before the week, as they were crushed 135.2-67.4 by #3 Dude You're Getting Odell. The latter had 20.7+ points out of four different players: Carson Palmer (20.7), Lamar Miller (20.9), DeAngelo Williams (21.1) and OBJ (28.6). They even had two more guys who fit into that category on the bench this week in Eddie Lacy (20.8) and James Starks (22.3). Party Like a Gronk Star on the other hand, had as many double digit scorers in the lineup (Cam Newton – 23 and Doug Martin – 14.6), as they did on the bench (Jordan Reed – 18 and Allen Hurns – 16.5).

The championship game will be interesting here, with Dude You're Getting Odell projected to score 103.6 in their "ideal" lineup to 12 Straight's "ideal" projection of 94.0 points. Should be a good one.

In the Danny Coale Conference, #1 Enter Sandman continued their dominance, beating #4 Tobacco Road Infiltrators 137.1-94.6. Six of Enter Sandman's nine starters scored 15+ points, which is a lot of high-scoring players to be starting. On the other hand, the Tobacco Road Infiltrators only had three double digit scorers, namely because they started four Packers this week not named Eddie Lacy or James Starks.

#3 Coale Drogo beat #2 Highty Tighty Mavericks 119-93.5 despite having Tyler Eifert and Thomas Rawls go down. Bortles and Brandon Marshall put up a combined 50.2 points, and Matt Forte and David Johnson helped pitch in on the edges as well. The Highty Tighty Mavericks had an insane 91.6 bench points, but would have needed both Jordan Reed's 27 points and Ted Ginn, Jr's 26.5 in the lineup to come out on top.

The championship game has Enter Sandman as a 6.6 point favorite, with a 132.8 "ideal" projection against Coale Drogo's 126.2. Coale Drogo is surely looking for a similar result as week 8, when they defeated Enter Sandman 144.4-143.7. Time will only tell if Enter Sandman's players come in with a chip on their shoulder after that heart-breaking loss.

In the Vincent and Nina Fuller Conference, chalk won out. #1 Catticus' Finches beat #4 Bring Back CJ 86.8-71.6, with a fairly underwhelming week across the board but no real duds. A.J. Green put up 19.2 and Doug Martin scored 14.6 to lead the way for the #1 seed. Bring Back CJ was hurt by Rawls and Eifert, but also by duds from Javorius Allen, Danny Amendola, Charcandrick West, the Lions' D, and Matt Prater. Only Blake Bortles (25.7) and Brandon Marshall (18.5) put up more than 5.5 points here, while Sammy Watkins (14.2), Willie Snead (12.2), James White (10) and Benjamin Watson (10) were all on the bench.

#2 To Hover is Divine beat #3 Pastor of Muppets 73.1-70.9 in the TKP Playoff equivalent of last week's Cowboys-Redskins game, with the two teams combining to have only six players scoring double digit points. The victors overcame duds from their studs (Demaryius Thomas and DeAndre Hopkins combined for 12.7 points) thanks to solid performances by Ryan Tannehill, David Johnson, the Chiefs' D, and Blair Walsh. Pastor of Muppets, on the other hand, had only Tom Brady's 18 and the Patriots' D's 15 score over 9 points, and previous solid performers in Devonta Freeman, Larry Fitzgerald and company all lay collective eggs.

ESPN considers this to be an impossibly close matchup, projecting Catticus' Finches to defeat To Hover is Divine to beat by 2 points using their "ideal" lineups.