2023 Week 16 Playoff Preview

Winners

Holley (10-5), Culver City (10-5), Linn County (5-10), Bestine (5-10)

The Lumberjacks and Banthas bring their seasons to a merciful close.

2024 Divisions (OFFICIAL!)

Adam brought up a good point about the division names a couple weeks ago, before he lost his playoff game. He noted that in the rulebook it says division winners can rename the division. That was part of our storied past, but after we went to our modified relegation model, nobody could really think of anything better than Gold, Bronze, Silver. I’m open to returning to the renaming model if people are down with it.

Playoff Recap

Did you see how the Holley Hawks came from behind to beat the Pirates by exactly one point thanks to Drew Lock’s touchdown pass with 28 seconds left? That is crazy! Drew. Fucking. Lock.

The Pirates had yet another successful season (let’s be honest, that’s all they do) but they won’t be adding any hardware to their vast trophy case this season. The Hawks have completely turned their franchise around after buying most of the first round of last year’s rookie draft. They’ve had far more hits than misses and now they are a division winner with a playoff win. They will travel to Oregon to face the number one ranked Oregon Dream Team, who put up a paltry 137 points on the bye. BUT THAT’S WHY YOU HAVE THE BYE.

On the other side of the ledger, the Culver City Krakens took it to Fransburg, who only scored 138 points thanks in part to an ill-timed ankle injury to Tyreek Hill. That dashed Fransburg’s championship hopes but more importantly it put Hill off the 2,000 yards receiving pace. It’s kind of wild that Calvin Johnson had nearly 2,000 yards in 16 games. I would still argue that the most incredible wide receiver fact is that Jerry Rice scored 22 touchdowns in 12 games during 1987’s strike-shortened season.

Culver City benefited from Sam LaPorta’s three-touchdown performance. Not bad for pick 2.07 in this year’s draft. Amon-Ra St. Brown also scored a bunch as Jared Goff tossed 5 touchdown passes on Fransburg’s bench. Fucking ouch.

The Colliders scored a respectable 158 on the bye, but lost both Trevor Lawrence and Will Levis to injury and may have to start Bryce Young in their playoff debut. Neato.

The Lumberjacks put up an impressive performance to save themselves from Most Futile Franchise status, while the Battery demonstrated they are still in the running with a mere 114 points. This follows their 164 point performance from the previous week, which was second overall. The Battery could best be described by every analyst’s favorite word for wide receivers: mercurial.

Jalen Hurts managed to outduel Tommy Devito but it wasn’t enough for the Chitons to overcome the mighty Banthas. That means the Chitons going from first to worst is still a possibility, which is admittedly funny.

#6 Holley (10-5) @ #1 Oregon (11-3)

Can the Holley Hawks continue their miracle run? They face a good, but not necessarily dominant, Dream Team squad. These two teams met in week 5 and it resulted in a convincing win for the ODT (yeah you know me.)

The latest information my sources have is that CJ Stroud is likely to be held out of week 16 due to his concussion. The problem with that is Drew Lock is heading back to the bench, which leaves the Hawks without a quarterback. That’s really unfortunate because Stroud has been a beast. On the bright side, Ty Chandler became the starting running back for the Vikings and scored 17.65 points in that role. Hopefully he can reprise it this week.

With all that being said, the Dream Team have some injury concerns of their own. Keenan Allen has been held out of practice and now has a dipshit quarterback throwing to him even if he does play. Josh Jacobs is questionable after missing last week (though he seems to be trending in the right direction.) Hollywood Brown missed last week’s game and is also questionable. Michael Pittman is concussed. Jayden Reed left with a toe injury last week. Who (the F) will they even line up at wide receiver, outside of Drake London who has QB issues of his own?

The Dream Team can stay in this game if their defense plays up to the standard they’ve set for the season. TJ Watt has just under 200 points. They have two startable defensive tackles in DeForest Buckner and Christian Wilkins. Even linebacker Alex Singleton is playing well despite having the look of a child molester.

It’s possible that this could be a low-scoring game and that the winner will have a very tough matchup in the title game.

#5 Culver City (10-5) @ #2 Batavia (10-4)

The Holley Hawks miracle comeback really screwed the Colliders, as they would have hosted the higher-seeded Pirates had they won. That matchup looks to be a lot more favorable than drawing the league’s highest scoring team.

As mentioned above, the Colliders have a big problem at quarterback with Lawrence and Levis both being potentially out. Bryce Young is not good. Not even a little bit. He also doesn’t have any good players around him. That’s why he consistently finishes in the range of -2.82 to 3.89 points per game. That’s a big disadvantage when compared to the Krakens, who start a l’il guy named Patrick Mahomes (you’ve probably never heard of him.) Even with the Panthers collecting a miracle second win last week, Brycelberry scored 5.43 points on a typical zero-touchdown performance.

The Krakens are pretty solid across the board with Derrick Henry, Raheem Mostert, AJ Brown, DJ Moore, and all the Lions’s receivers. The Colliders counter with league-best Christian McCaffrey, a surprisingly productive Rachaad White and receivers Justin Jefferson and CeeDee Lamb, 2020 draft picks that have really contributed to the Collider’s success these past three years (no titles though.)

You probably have to give the Krakens the edge here, but they don’t play these games on paper (they play them on computers these days.) The Colliders beat the Krakens by 1.46 points earlier this year. Perhaps they can somehow cobble together another victory.

Regardless, it is the opinion of this humble columnist that the winner of this game will go on to win the title.

Most Futile Franchise

These teams don’t deserve their own write-ups, but I wouldn’t be that surprised if the Tooz Town GIMB somehow managed to fend off the Cleveland Battery this week. Seems like Matt M. got a wake up call and actually posted a sensible lineup this week. The Battery have some holes in their lineup, so you never know.

I don’t like the North Point Chitons lineup outside of Jalen Hurts, but it’s not like the Madtown Marauders are sending their best. Cooper Kupp has been good the last three weeks so maybe he’ll put it out of reach on Thursday night. Who knows? Who cares?

Not me.

In Closing

Last week I made fun of the Thursday night game. I didn’t watch it because it was the Raiders and Chargers without even so much as a Josh Jacobs. I woke up to see that the Raiders put up 63 points and the Chargers fired their coach and GM. Vegas (not the Raiders) probably cleaned up on people betting the under.

The Rams and Saints is theoretically better but my only hope is that my corner gets 10 tackles and a pick.

I also hope the new Chargers interim coaching staff decides to give Austin Ekeler a try. What a waste of $57 this season.

I need to wrap some presents and brave the Target, so wish me luck. I hope all your fantasy wishes come true (not you Marcot). Enjoy the games!

© 2023, Josh Hammond. All rights reserved.