Week 13 Preview

Winners

Marshfield (6-6), Batavia (9-3), Bestine (8-4), Fransburg (7-5), Oregon (6-6), Linn County (5-7)

Prediction Record

Week 12: 3-3

Overall: 39-33

2022 Divisions (if they were made today)

North Point falls out of the top-4 in all-play record, despite having scored more points than Cleveland and Marshfield. Curious.

Week 13 Matchups

The next two weeks are division games, and playoff spots are on the line. Marshfield has made the playoffs in the Gold Division, and Tooz Town punches their ticket with one more win. If Holley loses once, then Culver City is in. If Holley can pull off the unlikely sweep of Marshfield and Culver City, then they are in the playoffs, which would frankly be hilarious.

The Silver Division is much more muddled. There are 4 good teams vying for two spots and every team has a 2-2 division record. The Colliders can win the division by winning out, which won’t be easy against North Point and Cleveland. This one is going to come down to tie-breakers, and two deserving teams are going to be shut out of the playoffs.

Linn County needs to win out to stay alive in the Bronze division; Madtown is out of the playoffs already. But it’s basically a two-team race between Fransburg and Oregon for the one playoff spot. Those two teams split on the season and don’t play each other in the next two weeks. Fransburg can win the division by winning out. Oregon can win the division by winning out plus a Fransburg loss.

It’s go time!

Batavia (9-3) @ North Point (8-4)

Batavia is running out of running backs with Derrick Henry on IR and AJ Dillon on the bye. Alvin Kamara missed his fourth straight game on Thursday night, so the Colliders have to turn to one of the three Philly running backs not named Miles Sanders that currently litter their roster. That crumb bum would complement starting crumb bum David Montgomery (who has also missed time this year…a real shit show all around in the RB department.)

The Colliders also lost tight end Darren Waller, who famously hasn’t lived up to his holdout contract, as is often the case with these prima donna fantasy players. They still have a strong wide receiver duo in Justin Jefferson and CeeDee Lamb, but they often alternate good games. Now would be a good time for both of them to step up. Lamb did okay on Thursday night, scoring 13 points. Would it be too much to ask for both of those receivers to score 3TDs the same week? Apparently it would be.

North Point’s Tampa players get a tasty matchup against a soft Atlanta defense. But that soft Atlanta defense might feature Cordarrelle Patterson at backup safety. You just know that in addition to scoring Atlanta’s only touchdown, Patterson is going to be put in the game for the end of the half hail mary and snatch an interception.

North Point has to run the two-TE set this week, and Kyle Pitts hasn’t had a good game since Week 7. If he insists on stepping up against Tampa, one can only hope that he is tackled often by Lavonte David or Devin White (if he plays).

The Chitons won the first matchup this season, so they can dominate the Colliders tie-breaker wise if they pull out the W. They have a 66% chance of winning, according to often error-prone MFL win-probability stat.

Austin Ekeler faces a decent run defense, but he’s score in double digits in 9 of 11 games this season. James Connor has scored in double digits in 7 of 11 games, including the last 5 in a row. No wonder the Chitons are good. They don’t have name guys, but they sure have production.

The Colliders have been clawing their way to the top all season, and their stint in first place will be a short one. Look for the Chitons to get the job done this week, since Kamara couldn’t be bothered to play.

Tooz Town (5-7) @ Culver City (3-9)

I feel like I must be some sort of crazy person for constantly picking the Krakens to win, but they are right in the middle of the pack in terms of scoring! They should be 6-6 not 3-9! Madness!

Speaking of madness, I’m always saying how the GIMB haven’t submitted a lineup at the time of publication and then I get a huffy (not really) email saying that he did in fact submit a lineup. But last week the games were off and running and there was no lineup submitted! I had to consult the rulebook and submit a lineup on his behalf that was the previous week’s lineup minus Thursday players. Matt figured it out and submitted one before the late games. And this week we’ve got a real lineup submitted ahead of the Thursday games. Huzzah!

After talking up Elijah Moore, he responded with 5.55 points. There’s still hope, though, because he was targeted a lot. I love the fantasy pattern of the bench players:

21.10 points

11.30 points

19.50 points

*puts in lineup*

5.55 points

We’ve all been there. At least he got 5.55 points. Usually it’s 0 points if you put a guy in the lineup for the first time.

Culver City must have been excited to see Tony Pollard in the lineup. Pollard used one of his few touches to scamper 58 yards to paydirt, so the GIMB got unexpected double-digit production out of their desperation-backup-RB start. Mark Ingram, who started for the Krakens and in place of Kamara (who is definitely earning that $62 paycheck from the bench) only scored 2.80 points on 28 yards rushing. The Krakens other RBs are Melvin Gordon (50/50 to play) and Myles Gaskin.

Advantage, GIMB, right? BUT WAIT! The GIMB have James Robinson and D’Andre Swift in the lineup, both of whom are questionable.

Looks like RBs are scarce all over.

So when all is said and done, I like the Krakens (I know, I know) and I’ll tell you why: their corner scored 16 points on Thursday night, and that’s a lot of points for a corner.

Holley (3-9) @ Marshfield (6-6)

Marshfield wisely benched Taysom Hill and his 4 interceptions.

Just kidding, Hill’s 4-INT game was still better than what Dak Prescott managed on Thursday night. Lol, amrite? All those Kamara yards didn’t go to Mark Ingram. No, Taysom Hill kept them all for himself, rushing for 101 yards in addition to his 4 INTs.

Enright did some boo-hooing on the email thread about Christian McCaffrey being hurt all year, but he should be woo-hooing about Joe Mixon having a career year. It’s called gratitude, Jason. He should also be grateful for Holley not submitting a lineup in time for the Thursday game. Holley’s CB scored 16.45 points…from the bench. While the Hawks did barely manage to get to 100 points last week, the odds of that happening again have significantly decreased. It would have been funny to see Holley put together 2 wins and make the playoffs, but you have to submit a lineup to do that, Matt Matuszak junior.

Joe Mixon has scored over 20 points 3 weeks in a row. 4 weeks ago he scored 19.95. 20 points will probably be enough to beat the Hawks. Another win for the Marshfield Omicrons. Er, Pirates.

Bestine (8-4) @ Cleveland (8-4)

Bestine took down Cleveland the first time these teams played, and they are coming off a week in which they were the highest scoring team by close to 30 points. That keeps them in the mix for a playoff spot after a couple of weeks in which some low scoring outputs put them in danger of not only missing the playoffs but of being a Bronze team next year. 182 points can change your fortunes quite a bit, as they are now slated for the Silver (for now) and could nab one of those playoff spots with a good run here at the end.

Cleveland has been an Odell Beckham apologist for a few years now, but Odell actually scored last week! I didn’t know he could still do that. This week he has migrated into the Battery lineup, where Ben surely hopes he gets targeted 10 times again. Cleveland could use the help at receiver, where they have Rashod Bateman and an injured Brandin Cooks in the lineup. Philly WR Devonta Smith is a boom-or-bust speedster, which are just the type of receivers I hate to have in my lineup (that’s why I heroically traded vehicular homicide enthusiast Henry Ruggs away). The Battery definitely need a boom performance this week.

Bestine’s Ezekiel Elliott and Dalton Shultz underwhelmed, but I’m still inclined to pick Bestine to win this one. I just don’t see “Ty Johnson” doing anything, and Rhamondre Stevenson only had one good game. He won’t have another one until next week when the Battery play the Colliders.

Oregon (6-6) @ Madtown (4-8)

The Dream Team are making a final push in hopes of stealing the Bronze Division from the (r)EvoLUtion. They’ve got a full complement of running backs at their disposal, including Elijah Mitchell who had 19 bench points last week. Most teams can’t cobble together 2 starting RBs these days, and here the Dream Team have 4. That alone should be enough to overcome Madtown.

The Marauders have scoring potential with Lamar Jackson, Dalvin Cook, Cooper Kupp, and Josh Allen. But every time I see Gabriel Davis in the lineup I can’t in good conscience pick them to win. The Dream Team need to pick up a kicker who isn’t on the bye, because if they think they can win without one that’s called hubris and we all know from high school English class that the result of that is nemesis. Oregon has two games to win one spot and go to the playoffs for the first time in…damn, when was the last time the Dream Team made the playoffs? At any rate, now is not the time to anger the fantasy gods by posting a partial lineup.

I won’t rule out the possibility of Dalvin Cook scoring 5 TDs against the Lions, but I’m picking Oregon to make things interesting in the Bronze division during the last week of the season.

Fransburg (7-5) @ Linn County (5-7)

Linn county jumped out to a 46-point lead on Thursday night thanks to a big night from safety Jayron Kearse, who scored 18.60. This is a 6th-year safety who has done nothing in his career before this season. He’s scored 121 points so far, which goes to show you that you should never pay money for a safety. He’ll probably go back to being a nobody next year.

Michael Gallup also scored a touchdown. Remember that guy? Plays for the Cowboys?

It was a strong Thursday performance for Linn County, and Fransburg will be without Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams this week. Ben Roethlisberger gets his first start of the season. Look for him to score a season low. This is how it works.

The Davante Adams hole gets plugged with DK Metcalf. Metcalf averaged 13.04 points per game in 8 games with the Hawks. In his 3 games with Fransburg he’s averaged 3.03 points per game. FUN! He’ll need to step up in a big way.

Fransburg still has a good receiving corps and Jonathan Taylor, so they should have enough to overcome the hot start from Linn County. But when we all wake up bleary eyed on Tuesday morning, we’ll see that the (r)EvoLUtion has pulled out the W and made it one step closer to the playoffs.

Enjoy the games everyone!

© 2021, Josh Hammond. All rights reserved.