FCNPFFL: Playoffs Week 2 - Semifinals

Bad news: the fantasy football season is almost over.

More bad news: there's no Thursday night football to bridge us to the weekend

Who said this is the most wonderful time of the year? I for one am very sad. I'm probably the only fantasy owner in the world that not only lost WITH Jamaal Charles (another league), but got blown out 179-153. My last ditch effort last night was needing Megatron to outscore Justin Tucker by 15 points...how did that work out?

Okay back to this league where I could continue to whine and vent, but I won't (much). Let's keep the focus on the people who are actually still vying for a championship and not a whole bunch of what ifs.

The 'under card' of the week pitted defending champion and #6 Seed Nate against the Detroit Lions #2 Seed team coached by Luke. You have to hand it to Nate who started 1-4, then went 5-1, then 0-2 and backed into the last spot for not giving up all year. He won his first round playoff game with RGIII being benched in a blowout loss and then went into the semis without RGIII who has been shutdown. Nate plucked Kirk Cousins from the waivers and inserted him into the biggest game of the year and boy did he respond with a game high 31 points. He also got 20 from DeMarco Murray and 9 each from VJax and Nick Novak. Luke had a pretty deep hole to crawl out of with only Kendall Wright eclipsing double digits by the time the games stopped on Sunday. With three Detroit Lions left to play, Luke needed 53 points to win. He got 23. The good news is he didn't even have to sweat it out and be heartbroken down the stretch. The Lions just crapped the bed and ended Luke's season. Nate moves on to defend his title. We have only had two franchises reach a championship game the year after winning. Ben is the only team to win back-to-back and he did that way back in 2000-01 (long before free agency balanced out the league). The other franchise was Jody who won in 1999 and then lost to Ben in 2000. So it's safe to say that it's been awhile since this has happened. Kudos again to Nate who will be making his fourth appearance in the championship game. He is 2-1 so far.

Last season Nate beat Adam to win his championship. With a 10th (or 11th*) straight win, he'd get his chance at revenge. Standing in his way was another Hardi, this time Luke's big brother in Joel. Last week Joel went crazy with scoring, so Adam sent a note to his best player, Jamaal Charles, and asked for help. Five touchdowns and 51 fantasy points later, Adam was running away with this game. He also got 25 from Tom Brady, 17 from Vernon Davis and 15 from Julian Edelman to lead the league in scoring for the week. Joel gave it a great effort getting 29 from Matt Flynn, 18 from Ryan Mathews, 13 from Keenan Allen and 11 from the Cardinals D. Adam moves to 13-1 and hasn't scored less than 94 points in the last four weeks. He will be the heavy favorite to win his 2nd championship in his fourth appearance (1-2 so far). It's been a great run so far for Adam, but next week is the big one.

The matchup should look like this:

#1 Seed Adam               v               #6 Seed Nate

QB Tom Brady                              QB Kirk Cousins
RB Jamaal Charles                         RB DeMarco Murray
RB Pierre Thomas                          RB Bobby Rainey
WR Eric Decker                             WR Andre Johnson
WR Julian Edleman                         WR Vincent Jackson
TE Vernon Davis                            TE   Heath Miller
K   Matt Prater                                K Nick Novak
D   Cincy                                         D Chicago??

Commish predicted score: 84-73 Adam

It's gotta be like looking into a mirror from last year for Nate who steamrolled through the competition winning his last 13 games.

Best of luck to you two.

Luke and Joel square off in the 3rd/4th place game as the only other true Week 16 game.

In other games from Week 15:

5th/6th place: Nick G defeated Ben 82-82...tie broken by the higher seed.
7th/8th place: John used 25 from Drew Brees to beat Mike 84-50
9th/10th place: Nick B rolled through Matt with 22 from Cam Newton 100-86
11th/12th place: I destroyed Ike behind seven double digit scorers 109-56

And finally....

Jody and Alex squared off in the Toilet Bowl Championship. Loser runs the draft board during the 2014 draft. Alex got 23 each from his two Cowboys, Tony Romo and Dan Bailey to defeat Jody who topped out with 16 from Philip Rivers. The stickers await DoggNutz.

Final Score: The Worthless Peons 76 DoggNutz 64