Four teams have punched their tickets to the dance, so there are only 2 spots left. One of those is for the division winner of the Pappy Van Winkle and the other is the 6th place wildcard spot. Here is a list of what needs to happen for every team to make the playoffs.
Sam - 82.1%
Sawyer - 24.1%
Ean - 0.00000000000000000000001%
Matt - 27.2%
Basil - 66.3%
Sam and Basil still control their own destiny, win and you are in. The stakes are a bit higher for Basil though because if he loses, Sawyer and I are right on his heels and would have more wins, thanks to the tie. That tie is the only reason why you have the 6th seed over me right now but if you had won that first week's matchup then you would have a shot at the division title too.
So now lets talk about seeding. Since there are 64 possible outcomes for any given week, not including ties, I am only going to go through the scenarios for the division winners since Majors and Trevor have locked up the #1 and #5 seed and let's assume that all the points for remain similar, no crazy blowouts. Sorry Ean but that excludes you from the playoffs.
So there you have it, Hunter needs to win if he wants a bye week, otherwise Willis or Basil will claim that bye week depending on the outcome of their game.
The playoff stuff above I guess could go under the fun fact for this week but I'd rather add another table to this to see who had the easiest schedule and also everyone can see what their schedule would be if they had any other teams schedule. That's right, I made a wins matrix. So in order to read this, let me give you a helpful example. Say you want to see how Trevor would have done this year if he had Majors schedule. You would go the to row with Trevor's name, and then go to the column with Majors' name. By doing this for everyone, we can determine the strength of schedule for everybody. Which is basically the average of how well everyone would have done with your schedule. Enjoy!
The higher, the easier the schedule which I bet you can figure out because Sawyer is at the top.
So as you can see, there's a bunch of jumbled up numbers in there that would take some time to really decipher thoroughly. Well here is another table that shows you the difference in the number of wins that you have.
After digesting all of that, two things stood out to me.
A must win for myself if I want to have any hope of making the playoffs. So far, Chaz and I have split the series with 4 wins each. I have won the past two games against Chaz. In addition, this has usually been a pretty tight game, with 3 of the past 4 being decided by less than 5 points. I am hoping that the Buffalo v NE and the Atlanta v Minnesota games are low scoring games because Chaz has 5 playes in his starting line up in those games, where I only have Kyle Rudolph. Also I better hope that Keenan Allen cools off a bit but he is playing the Browns, so that probably won't happen.
I like my chances this week, so I am going to pick myself in this one. I think that Mike Evans will be very happy to see Jameis back this week and I think that Ingram can put up more points than he did last week. Make that a 3 game win streak over Chaz and a playoff spot if Willis can beat Basil.
The battle for the bye. Who will get shafted with the #5 seed and who will be the champion of the regular season? Majors holds a commanding lead over Trevor, winning 6 out of 8 games against him including a 3 game winning streak. Majors has also scored more than 100 points in the last three games against Trevor. He will need similar production if he wants to coast into the semi's. On the flipside, Trevor has only managed to break the 100 point margin once against Majors, and that was way back in week 2 of the 2011 season. That will probably change this week with Fournette playing the Colts and Davante Adams playing a pathetic Buccaneers secondary.
I am honestly having a hard time deciding who will win this one. Both teams have great players with some pretty good match-ups. I think that I am going to go with Majors due to Melvin playing the Browns, Cousins playing the not so tenacious Dallas D, and Kamara continuing to look like a star.
Please Willis, give me a chance, beat Basil! For Texas! Eh, not really for Texas, it has some really cool cities like Austin and San Antonio but otherwise it's pretty ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. So far, Willis has beaten Basil 3 out of 5 times, including the past two games. In addition, Willis has only failed to score 100 points on Basil twice. This usually is a pretty high scoring matchup with the average total points between the two being 196.1 points. You would expect that from two of the best teams historically. To this week though, Basil will be hoping for some from Abdullah and Darkwa and he better hope that Crowder can continue to rack up the receiving yards. Carson Wentz has been a stud this year, not only in fantasy, but Willis' Jared Goff has been a nice surprise for him. Better hope that Kareem Hunt returns to being the juggernaut that he was at the beginning of the season though.
I am taking Willis in this one because I don't think that Crowder will put up 20 points again, and Basil's other two receivers have some pretty tough match-ups. In addition, Julio is starting to heat up and so is that Falcons offense and Brady and Cooks have found a nice rhythm together. Give me a chance Willis!
Holy crap has the floor just collapsed under Sawyer! Sorry bud, 6-0 to 6-6, that sucks. You should have easily been able to make the playoffs after that start but somehow you are now on the outside looking in. Unfortunately, Ross has always been on the outside, partially due to his tough schedule but mostly due to Dez not producing. Seriously, Dez has yet to have more than 100 yards receiving in a game and only has 4 touchdowns this year. That is not what you want out of a stud receiver. But anyways, these two have each beaten each other twice, with Sawyer taking the last one in week 5 of 2016. So far, the winner has always scored more than 100 points but I don't think that will continue this time with both teams in such bad shape. Who knows though, Cam Jam can run for 100 yards and 2 touchdowns and get Sawyer up over that.
I am going to take Sawyer in this one because I think Cam will have a nice day against a banged up Saints defense and I think that Dez is just going to continue to disappoint Ross. In addition, Howard should have a very productive day against a very friendly 49ers defense.
Jared is on his way to a historically bad season. He has had some bad luck this year with Dak being pretty ordinary, Amari Cooper had an aboslutely brutal start to this season and hasn't gotten much better, and DeMarco Murray has been solid but not great. I would have expected more out of his team this season, but that's fantasy. Hunter has locked up his playoff spot, now he just has to win to keep his bye week. Given the fact that Hunter has beaten Jared 7 out of 8 times, including a 7 game winning streak, and that Jared is having a pretty awful season, it should not be too difficult for Hunter to keep that #2 spot.
I am taking Hunter in this one, but I am really hoping to see Dak throw for 300 yards and 4 touchdowns since Hunter has been so lucky this year. In addition, Jared needs a win but I just don't see it happening, sorry Jared.
As I highlighted earlier, Ean needs a few miracles to happen in order to have a chance at the playoffs and as much as I love to pick out Ean's failures, he has not had that bad of a season this year. Case Keenum has been a nice surprise recently, and Carlos Hyde hasn't gotten hurt which is always a plus. But why do you still have 4 QBs on your roster? You can only play one of them. Still I know that Sam would like to win this game so that he doesn't have to depend on Ross beating Sawyer. Sam and Ean have played each other a total of 11 times, but Ean has only won 4 of those and Sam has won the last 5 games. The last two had to have hurt with Ean putting up 104.92 and 102.06 points and still losing.
I see Sam continuing his winning streak over Ean due to Brady being gold down the stretch and Tyreke Hill is due for another great performance against the Jets. This one could be very close though and will definitely be one to watch.