Week 13 Fantasy Recap

This week I played the Carolina Crushers (5-6-1) in a must win game. It's the last game before the playoffs, and I'm not exactly confident that I can lose and still get in.

The Matchup
    I'm 8-4 and in second place in my division (0.5 GB). The Crushers are 3 GB, and are essentially out of playoff contention. My stars are Peyton Manning, Ryan Grant, Randy Moss, and Marques Colston. His are Tony Romo, Adrian Peterson (the good one), Steve Smith, Chad Johnson, and Antonio Gates. At first glance, I might be in trouble in this one.
    The computer projections seem to agree, as the Crushers are favored 110-108. I haven't seen the projections be particularly accurate, but it does show that our teams are fairly evenly matched, and I'm in the position of hoping that my players have better games than his players.

The Bad Decisions

  1. Not starting Adrian Peterson (the bad one) (14 points)
    1. LenDale White (12 points) had a reasonable game, so I don't feel so bad about this decision
  2. Starting Marques Colston (3 points)
    1. I don't feel so bad about this one either, since Dwayne Bowe (5 points) didn't do much better
The Good Decisions
  1. Starting Ryan Grant (21 points)
    1. I was debating whether I should do this ... but he turned in another excellent Thursday performance (perhaps the Packers should play on Thursday more often!)
  2. Starting Justin Fargas (21 points)
    1. Wow ... I didn't see this one coming. But I'll take it!
  3. Starting the Vikings Defense (15 points)
    1. This was a gametime decision for me ... I switched them in for the Giants Defense 30 seconds before the deadline
  4. Starting Peyton Manning (25 points)
    1. It was really nice that Manning held his ground against Romo, keeping me in the game
    2. I'm putting him on here because it's often been a bad decision to play him over Derek Anderson (17 points)
Bad Things That Happened
  1. Tony Romo (26 points) continues to excel
  2. Adrian Peterson (the good one) (24 points) is back
    1. I can't really complain about this one, as he's the best player on my favorite team, and I really want him firing on all cylinders for our playoff push
Good Things That Happened
  1. Antonio Gates (0 points) had an abysmal game (most likely a casualty of The Ladainian Tomlinson Show)
  2. Ahman Green (0 points) started against me ... I don't know what my opponent was thinking here, he left DeShaun Foster (14 points) on the bench
  3. The Texans Defense (1 point) gave up plenty of points to the Titans and didn't do much else ... they sure aren't the Vikings!
  4. The weather in Pittsburgh held Chad Johnson (8 points) to a low score. He definitely could have caught a couple more touchdowns if the field and wind weren't so rough
Interesting Notes
The Result
This game was basically clinched before the Monday Night game, and I ended up winning 117-78. That's a much larger spread than the 2 points that was projected (as I said, those projections aren't often accurate, especially when they project a close one). My 117 was the highest score of the week, narrowly edging out the Woodies, who had 115. The Woodies are the only team ahead of me in my division, and their victory maintains that lead. The BraveGators scored only 82 points this week (they passed me for the overall points lead last week), which narrows the gap quite a bit ... I still lost the points battle by 8 points over the course of a 13 week season.

I believe the playoff system allows 4 teams into the playoffs, either 2 from each division or the 4 with the best record. In either case, I should be in the playoffs, starting next week. I'm looking forward to it, and hoping I can get big games from my big players. I've been counting on it all year, and these guys can't let me down now.

Go Destroyers!!

Posted by Sean Schulte at 2007-12-03 23:07:41

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