I’ve had to rewrite this intro a few times as the playoff possibilities have been scrambling my brains!
The race for the number 1 seed stalled as both the Bandits and the Eagles lost but the Seahawks closed the gap to a single game. The Bandits would need to lose both games against the Wombats and the Spartans to lose their bye week as their points for are far superior to either the Eagles or the Seahawks.
The other bye place will be interesting as the PF are very close (Seahawks currently edge it by 7) and the Seahawks have the easier remaining games (7-15 vs 11-11). My Eagles have a little less pressure as their playoff spot is secured because even if I lose out and the Fireflies take the division title, the Beavers or Spartans can’t overtake for a Best Record Spot.
So two out of six places are taken and the third is the Seahawks’ unless they lose both of their matches and the Beavers win both of theirs. That would tie the records and the Beavers currently have a 193 PF advantage. The Beavers are also the highest scoring team in the league, so a playoff place is all but locked up, just a matter of whether it is division winning, best remaining record or highest remaining scorer.
The Fireflies are still in the division contention but also have the edge in the Best record places as it is a battle between them, the Beavers and the Spartans, with them all being within a game of each other. The week 12 match up for the Fireflies are the Chargers and a very likely win there (Sorry Jason), the Spartans would need to hope for a week 13 miracle with the Fireflies losing and they beat the Bandits and outscoring the Fireflies by 44 points (which is exactly what they did in week 2).
For the Pythons , results don’t matter anymore, it’s just about scoring enough points to stay ahead of the Spartans. Despite having two less wins, the Pythons are in the playoffs and the Spartans are not so the Pythons in the next two weeks just need to be outscored by less than 70 compared to the Spartans to make the playoffs. Week 6 and week 7 were the weeks that truly separate these two as the Pythons outscored the Spartans by 125 points and Chris has only managed to claw back 5 points since.
The Otters have an outside chance of making the playoffs still as they are 83 points behind the Pythons and 13 points behind the Spartans, but with the steadiest scoring in the league this season, the odds of two buzzsaws in a row are very slim.
For the Wombats and Leopards it is that time of the season where none of it matters, winning won’t increase the likelihood of the playoffs and losing won’t improve draft position drastically. It’s the feeling every fan of Big Sam managed club knows about when he has gotten them enough points to stay up, the job is done so just turn up and don’t get injured.
In a weird way maybe both the Sandslashers and the Chargers are hoping that the Sandslashers finish bottom of the standings. The Chargers don’t own their pick it would be nice for them to have not traded the first overall pick and the Sandslashers do own their own pick so would get to take advantage of the finish. Of course, coming last does mean the johnny…
The Buzzsaw: Flitwick Fireflies
Hold up now, is this a formerly Hamza-owned team winning the Buzzsaw for the second time this season? The only team in the Midlands to have won it this season?
Every single player that started for the Fireflies scored double digit points, only Keenan Allen was in the top ten point scorers of the week, the efficiency rating was 98.4%. This feels like a statement win by Mike and it puts him in a great position for the playoff push and run.
Gateshead Spartans - 🏆
Chippenham Beavers - 🏆🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆🏆
Flitwick Fireflies - 🏆🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆🏆
Andover Sandslashers - 🏆
Highest Point Scorer - Andover Sandslashers
Remember when starting a player against the New England defense was a terrible decision? Well not so much anymore as Deshaun Watson has his second best fantasy game of the season and is the highest point scorer of the week with 31.36 points. Not enough for a win for Scott and the Sandslashers but enough to have some dignity in defeat to the Spartans who had the second highest scoring player in Adam Thielen. It looked like Thielen would not be available for week 12 due to a positive covid test but retests have come back negative.
Third for the week was Justin Herbert and is there anyone who doesn’t enjoy watching Herbert play? I just wish he hadn’t had that hair cut, is it true that he let one of the coaches do it?
Wigan Wombats – 🏆
Chippenham Beavers – 🏆🏆🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆🏆
Lurgan Leopards - 🏆
Flitwick Fireflies - 🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆
Andover Sandslashers - 🏆
Unluckiest Loser - Nottingham Bandits
The secured bye week was there for the taking and the Bandits did manage to put up a great score of 133.88 points but they were up against the completely unpredictable Beavers (see graph below)
Are you facing week 6 Beavers who only managed 66 points or same team that two week later put up 163? The Bandits, unfortunately for them, got the good Beavers who put up the second best score of the week against the Bandits third best score and to make matters worse, a team somehow won with a score of 65 and a margin of 15 points!!!! You are probably sick of me saying this week after week, but luck is such a crucial part of this game.
Chippenham Beavers - 🏆🏆
Gateshead Spartans - 🏆🏆
Coventry Eagles - 🏆
Andover Sandslashers - 🏆
Wigan Wombat - 🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆🏆
Closest Matchup - Chippenham Beavers
It now seems that every week the matchup that sees the unluckiest loser also sees the winner of the closest matchup. Last week it was 0.08 and this week the margin was a “much bigger” 0.5 points in the Beavers vs Bandits match up. It’s crazy how the smallest of difference on a play can swing a result like this as once again as single extra reception is the difference between two teams and as you will see in the worst decision section, making line up choices by listening to the latest injury news or the order in which the games are played can also be the difference between victory and defeat.
Oxford Seahawks – 🏆🏆
Coventry Eagles – 🏆🏆
Flitwick Fireflies – 🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆
Gateshead Spartans - 🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆
Derby Otters - 🏆
Chippenham Beavers – 🏆
Most Impactful Injury - Hereford Chargers
Obviously the worst injury in the NFL was Joe Borrow tearing every ligament in his knee but for the Chargers this means he joins Jimmy G on IR and they have to pick up Mullens to actually have a starting QB in week 12. That’s three QBs on IR for them now but it is probably going to have a bigger fantasy impact on the receivers for the Bengals as the Boyd for the Sandslashers, Green for the Leopards and Higgins for the Wombats will all see a downgrade to Finley or whoever is the starter.
The Leopards also suffer the loss of Rex Burkhead for the season but Sanders and Gordon should be able to carry them to mid table whist Julio Jones suffered yet another niggly injury to keep my Eagles line up on edge.
It was a pretty quiet week in terms of injuries so I’ll send this one over to the Chargers.
Gateshead Spartans – 🏆🏆🏆🏆
Coventry Eagles – 🏆
Oxford Pythons – 🏆
Chippenham Beavers – 🏆
Lurgan Leopards - 🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆🏆
Hereford Chargers - 🏆
Worst Decision - Nottingham Bandits
My Eagles had a bad, bad week but a couple of different decisions and I’d have the number one spot and the Seahawks would be in a real fight for their division. Both Matt Ryan and Carson Wentz had shockers but if I’d played Wentz and TY Hilton over Ryan and Crowder, the 11.5 point deficit would have been overcome.
Scott fell into the Ronald Jones trap who once again followed a great game with a bad one and starting JK Dobbins instead would have gotten the win over the Spartans. To be completely fair, Dobbins has been pretty bad himself in recent weeks and the injury to Perine gave Gore and unexpected boost. At least it wasn’t Luton over Watson!
Salvon Ahmed over Chris Godwin? It was a high risk / high reward move by the Bandits and maybe understandable with the Buccs playing on Monday but the injury was to Godwin’s finger not something like a hamstring and he had the injury the week before. Considering the margin of defeat for the Bandits and the opportunity to all but seal the number one spot, this was a wrong decision.
Chippenham Beavers - 🏆🏆
Gateshead Spartans - 🏆
Andover Sandslashers – 🏆🏆🏆
Lurgan Leopards – 🏆🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆