Playoff Round 1

I thought this year was going to be different. But the more things change, apparently, the more they stay the same.

Earl v. Jeremy

Coming into this first round matchup, Jeremy was the highest seeded of the non-bye teams. He had just beaten Earl in week 13 by a score of 116-86, not to mention winning their week 3 matchup 91-78. In fact, Jeremy had outscored Earl in each of the final four weeks of the regular season - by an average of 27 points per game! All signs pointed toward a slam dunk for Jeremy in his first trip to the playoffs in Sports league history. All signs were wrong.

Jeremy had just three players in triple digits this week - QB Russell Wilson (25pts), RB Alex Collins (24pts) and RB Dion Lewis (10pts). RB Mark Ingram (8pts) couldn't take advantage of an increased workload against the Falcons (due to the injury to his teammate Alvin Kamara), WR Tyreek Hill (8pts) couldn't follow up last weeks 38 point performance with another splashy score against the lowly Oakland Defense, WR Mike Evans (2pts) continued to be one the biggest first round busts in recent memory and TE Austin Sefarian-Jenkins (0pts) proved that, despite flashes of greatness earlier in the season, he's still the same old ASJ.

All Earl did, on the other hand, was get his second highest score of the season - despite not really having a legitimate NFL QB on his roster. (Derek Carr started and got 6 points; Josh McCown had -6 on the bench.) But hey, when you have RB Le'Veon Bell (26pts), WR Adam Thielen (21pts) and RB Leonard Fournette (19pts) - who needs a QB anyway?

And so Jeremy's Cinderella story came to a crashing halt while Earl's quest to return to his third place dominance got a major boost.

The Upper Deckers move on to round two where they'll face the #2 seeded Delco Scumbags. In their only regular seasons matchup, Earl won by a score of 136-75. However, when we take a look at the bigger picture, the he outscored Bill just 4 times out of the 14 weeks we've played thus far. So Earl will really need to hope for continued big production from his studs in addition to finding at least a double digit QB (Nick Foles? Really?) to pull off another playoff upset this week. Bill, on the other hand, will just hope to fake it through one more week until he gets RB Ezekiel Elliott back from suspension. (Whether 'Zeke can help him win his first Sports Champion Winner Trophy or his first Third Wheel remains to be seen.)

Andrew v. Tim

Sadly (for Tim), our other playoff matchup also saw another clear favorite fall by the wayside. While Andrew came into this matchup with as the higher seed - Tim had all the momentum on his side. Over the final five games of the regular season, he'd outscored Andrew by an average of 34 points per game - and that was despite a week 11 stinker where the Pandas recorded just 59 points.

Of course, it definitely didn't help Tim's cause when MVP RB Alvin Kamara (2pts) got knocked out of the game and into the concussion protocol just five minutes into his TNF matchup against Atlanta. (In the previous five games, any one of Kamara's scores would've given the TPs more than enough points to take this one home.) And then there's that whole matter of benching the Broncos D (16pts) in favor of the Patriots D (2pts). Because, you know, Tim totally should've been able to predict that Jets QB Josh McCown would give the No Fly Zone a free pass just 2 weeks after decimating the Carolina D while the recently intimidating Pats D would get absolutely crushed by... Jay Cutler - even though they dominated them in their week 12 contest. (Still worthy of the BBB, regardless of the justification.) Not even late season gold RB Jamaal Williams (22pts) or a season high score by WR Dez Bryant (16pts) could pull Tim out of this hole, though.

It seemed like (almost) all of Tim's luck was bad for this matchup... so, of course, (almost) all of Andrew's was good. TE Zach Ertz remained in the league concussion protocol, so Andrew picked up Eagles TE Trey Burton as a fill in. Logically, Burton scored 19 points (one point higher than Ertz's season high) against the 6th best pass defense in the NFL. And, as if that wasn't enough, Dolphins RB Kenyan Drake(20pts) - who just two weeks ago could only manage 9 points against the Pats - dropped 114 rushing yards and 79 receiving yards for a total of 20 points against that same Patriots Defense. Those two players were really all Andrew would need to put away Tim, despite the long odds against him.

Yes, if Jeremy's was a Cinderella story - then Tim's was a Rocky screenplay. After losing the consensus #1 RB in the draft, David Johnson, halfway very first game of the season - he somehow managed to cobble together a 7-5-1 record and stormed into the playoffs on a scoring tear. But it was all for naught as one bad week ended his movie just like Jeremy's story. Andrew, on the other hand, continues his quest (however shakily) to be the first back to back champion since Randy did it in our first and second seasons.

But if Andrew wants to keep his "feel good" story going, he's going to have to go through #1 seed Jared and the Autobots in order to do it. In their only regular season matchup this year, Andrew failed miserably - losing by a score of 36-92. And out of the 14 weeks we've played thus far? Andrew's team has been outscored by Jared's in all but three weeks with season totals of 1049-1278, in favor of Jared. I'd say Andrew is a long shot to pull this one out - but hey, stranger things have happened. <eye roll>

.....

And lastly - I know I said we'd forego talking about the other rubbish matchups in the "post season" here. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Matt, who came into the loser's bracket as the #12 seed, won his first SLA award with a whopping 124 points this week. That means that there are only three teams that will pay full price to play this season, having not won back at least $5 of their entry fee, if nothing changes in the final two weeks: Nick (duh), James (double duh)... and championship "contender" Andrew.

Oh, Sports.