These are your final standings for the 2020 season! It is crazy that the highest scoring team in the league only got into the playoffs in the last week in large part to their defeat to the Pythons in Week 11. The division titles were won comfortably in the end with the Seahawks and the Eagles having 3 win cushions and the Bandits having a 4 win cushion but if you look at the points for column (and exclude the Bandits and Beavers) there isn’t much between everyone down to the Sandslashers.
Dan really wishes he had that bye week now that it is the high scoring Beavers in the playoffs rather than the Pythons who they beat twice this season, including last week. If the Beavers and Seahawks had played head to head all season, then the Beavers would just edge it 7-6 so it really is anyone’s game to win with the Seahawks pinning their hopes on getting performances out of Swift, Taylor and Waller whilst Tom is looking at DK vs the Jets as a game winner all by itself.
The other wildcard game is between the Fireflies and the Spartans with the season head to head in favour of the Fireflies 7-6 and they are in better form in the second half of the season. The running back position is the point of focus for both teams as they are so unpredictable. Chris traded for Ronald Jones to add to Mike Davis and Raheem Mostert and all three could be the focus for their teams game plans but they could all lose touches and points as the head coaches like to shuffle them each week. At the start of the season, CEH and Jacobs would be a league winning pair for Mike but CEH has had his role reduced in recent weeks and Jacobs has been struggling with the ankle injury. Carson might not need to do much running against the Jets….
Below are some interesting tables if anyone has interest in this sort of thing. The first is all the scores together sorted by points per week (ppw). The RSD is how the scores fluctuated each week, so low scores are consistent teams and red are inconsistent. Due to the fact that there are high scoring weeks and low scoring weeks, I also ranked each teams finish each week and showed how many top 3 and bottom three finishes each had. The Pythons for example had the joint most top 3 finishes but it was the 3 bottom finishes that did it for them. The Sandslashers had 4 top 3 finishes which is better than the playoff Spartans and Eagles.
Green is good, Red is bad
The Buzzsaw: Oxford Seahawks
A good week to pick up your first Buzzsaw of your season, the Seahawks have some momentum going into the wildcard week whilst at the same time embarrassing the local rival Pythons who had the lowest score of the week. Is Corey Davis good now? Is Taylor the lead back that he was drafted as? 200 yards from a tight end that isn’t Kelce or Kittle?
It’s always nice as well to get the Buzzsaw and only have an efficiency rating of 75% as Josh Allen got the better of Russell Wilson in this week and Andy Dalton looks like he can keep the Dallas WRs fantasy relevant, especially Gallup. The trophy was only won by .4 points as the Sandslashers signed off on the season in style.
Gateshead Spartans - 🏆
Chippenham Beavers - 🏆🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆🏆
Flitwick Fireflies - 🏆🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆🏆🏆
Andover Sandslashers - 🏆
Oxford Seahawks - 🏆
Highest Point Scorer - Oxford Seahawks
The Seahawks had three of the top four scorers of the week - Darren Waller, Josh Allen and Corey Davis - just to make sure that they snagged another award. Waller had a career day, 200 yards and 2 TDs against quite frankly the worst team I’ve ever watched in the New York Jets which was so bad that Gregg Williams finally got fired. Corey Davis also had his highest total of the year so far and even though Allen has been outperforming Wilson in recent weeks, those 30 points were left on the bench.
Derek Carr did have a season high game as well for the Leopards but he was another QB who saw the bench.
Wigan Wombats – 🏆
Chippenham Beavers – 🏆🏆🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆🏆
Lurgan Leopards - 🏆
Flitwick Fireflies - 🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆🏆
Andover Sandslashers - 🏆
Oxford Seahawks - 🏆
Unluckiest Loser - Chippenham Beavers
What a streak for the Beavers, yet again they score high but lose and it just doesn’t matter to them but to the Pythons! Win or lose this game and they were into the playoffs but the Pythons needed a Beavers win and with them getting the third highest total of the week, 126.48, it looked like it could happen. Shame that the Sandslashers are on a victory tour and they put up the second highest score of the week, 140.44 points, who didn’t have a single player score less than double digit points.
For the Beavers it was the disappointing performances of Hunter Henry and Michael Pittman that cost them the win, but Taysom Hill is keeping up with Aaron Jones and Dalvin Cook.
Chippenham Beavers - 🏆🏆🏆🏆
Gateshead Spartans - 🏆🏆
Coventry Eagles - 🏆
Andover Sandslashers - 🏆
Wigan Wombat - 🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆🏆
Closest Matchup - Andover Sandslashers
Of course the match up that meant the most in the playoff race was the closest of all of them! Clash of 2nd highest score vs 3rd highest score, the problem was that the drama was taken out of it after the Sunday night games as they were practically tied but Scott had two players left compared to Tom’s one.
Still, to say that Olly’s playoff chances were ruined by a 4 point margin does make it sound more dramatic! I hope that next year we are all at Wembley for a game and Olly just spends the whole time staring at Scott whist Scott and Tom just laugh!
Oxford Seahawks – 🏆🏆
Coventry Eagles – 🏆🏆
Flitwick Fireflies – 🏆🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆
Gateshead Spartans - 🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆
Derby Otters - 🏆
Chippenham Beavers – 🏆
Andover Sandslashers – 🏆
Most Impactful Injury - Gateshead Spartans
I’ve got nothing, even the Spartans emerged without any more injuries this week, hell there is even a slight chance that McCaffrey could play! The Panthers being struck with Covid restrictions is the closest thing I could find but that didn’t happen over the games.
The Seahawks will be worried by Hopkins missing some practices but it looks like he will still play.
Antonio Gibson has a toe injury and could miss week 14 but the bye week means I don’t need him until week 15.
I’m giving it to the Spartans, for tradition and for having to start Tim Patrick in the playoffs who could get 20 points or zero!
Gateshead Spartans – 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
Coventry Eagles – 🏆
Oxford Pythons – 🏆
Chippenham Beavers – 🏆🏆
Lurgan Leopards - 🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆🏆
Hereford Chargers - 🏆
Worst Decision - Lurgan Leopards
Starting Boston Scott feels like the Bandits flexing on the rest of us!
Not many other decisions I can argue with but almost every player could have been replaced for the Leopards and they would have been better score so they get the award!
Chippenham Beavers - 🏆🏆
Gateshead Spartans - 🏆
Andover Sandslashers – 🏆🏆🏆
Lurgan Leopards – 🏆🏆🏆
Oxford Pythons - 🏆🏆
Nottingham Bandits - 🏆
Oxford Seahawks - 🏆