Week 10 Power Rankings

So much for everything we thought we knew about the playoff race.

Just last week I wrote that Jess was the favorite to win the Legends Division, that the battle for the final wildcard spot was restricted to a couple of realistic players, that I liked Geoff’s chances to make a comeback with the possible return of Le’Veon Bell, and that Samantha, JT and Trevor were “on the outside looking in.”

Well, what a difference a week makes…

Week 10 saw three huge upsets that have shifted the shape of things down the home stretch. So for this week’s recap, we’re going to get right to it. If you’re missing the usual, long rambling introduction with GIFs and references to obscure movies, allow me to point you to Tuesdays’s post, “For Alex & Geoff, It’s Freaky Friday.” It’s a good one.

Now without further ado, let’s go to the scoreboard.

The Scoreboard

Okay, three big-time upsets. What were they? Here they are in order of increasing significance with their pregame odds of winning (as calculated by TW%) listed in parentheses.

3. Trevor (37%) defeats Jess (63%).

So, not everything I said was complete crap last week. I did identify Trevor as my dark horse team to make the playoffs and he rewarded that faith with an impressive 107-97 victory over Jess. Following the afternoon slate of games, Jess was still projected to win, leading by 97-78. But on Sunday Night Football, fourth-round pick Zach Ertz came up big, posting a season-high 26 points on 2 TDs and 145 yards receiving to push Trevor into the lead for good.

The win came at a pivotal time for Trevor who was treading water this week with a finally healthy Dalvin Cook still on the bench because of his bye week. Now Trevor enters Week 11 with a 4-6 record and a 1-2 punch at RB in Cook and Mark Ingram. With three games left against Gray, Nick and Samantha, a winning season is still very much in the cards for Trevor. Plus, this might have been his toughest test left on the schedule, which he passed without his best player. That bodes well moving forward.

Meanwhile, Jess loses her second straight game after starting 6-1-1 despite reasonably good games from all of her starters. The loss drops her to 6-3-1 and out of the lead for the Legends Division. Luckily for her, the schedule is about to get easier with her next two games against Geoff and Greco. Not only that, but Jess faces Geoff in Week 11 who will be without LeSean McCoy and George Kittle (both on bye), so she should be able to right the ship in short order. But will it be enough to take back the division? Possibly not. And that’s because…

2. Nick (28%) stymies Josh (72%).

Nick took down Josh! That’s right. One week after Josh tied the record for most points in league history with 152 points, he yo-yo’s back down to Earth, scoring just 83 points in Week 11. Specifically, three of Josh’s players who scored a combined 71 points last week in James White, Tevin Coleman and his defense managed just 8 total points this week.

On the other side of the box score, despite Eric Ebron’s 24 points on the bench, Nick still had enough points to take down Josh behind Matt Ryan (20 points), Michael Thomas (19), Chris Godwin (10) and the Chiefs D/ST (12). The unlikely victory suddenly puts Nick back atop the standings in the Legends Division by a half game over Jess and in the driver seat for one of two first-round byes in the playoffs. To get a better idea of how unlikely this was, here’s what I wrote in last week’s Power Rankings in handicapping the race for the Legends Division crown.

“She [Jess] has the easiest possible remaining schedule with games against Trevor, Greco, Geoff and Erik. The first three are very winnable games against teams ranked in the bottom-four of the Power Rankings. Even if she were to just win two of those, it would be difficult for Nick or Alex to catch her. That’s because Nick would have to win three of his last four including defeating either Josh (2nd in TW%) or Brandon (3rd).”

Well, both of those things happened. Jess lost the first of her three “winnable” games and Nick defeated his toughest remaining opponent in Josh. If he wins out, nobody in the Legends Division can catch him. If…

But for Josh, the loss drops him to 5-5 and opens the door for some of the team owners further down in the standings to climb back into the playoff race. And one of those owners took full advantage on Sunday.

1. Samantha (29%) upends Erik (71%).

That owner was Samantha who easily dispatched Erik by a score of 96-60. (Very astute strategy by Samantha of distracting Erik by giving him a tour of Boston this weekend with yours truly.) She got off to a great start on Thursday night with 31 points from Christian McCaffrey (who gets the cover image this week) while Erik suffered -9 points at the hands of his Panthers D/ST.

Quick aside—

It’s been a really bad year for defenses. We’ve already had more negative defensive scores through 10 weeks than we had in the full seasons of six of the past seven years. Only 2014 was worse and we still might beat it. Plus (or should I say minus), the -9 points scored by the Panthers D/ST is tied for the second-fewest by a defense in league history and the worst since Alex had the Falcons D/ST go for -10 in Week 4 of 2014. (He actually tied that game. Could you imagine?)

For Erik, this is—believe it or not—the second time this season he’s had a defense score -9 points. In fact, his defense has failed to put up a positive point total in six out of 10 weeks this year. As a result, he’s actually averaging -0.2 ppg at defense this season, easily the worst mark in league history. It’s one of those rare occurrences where Erik would actually have a better team if he simply did not roster a defense each week.

Now, where was I?

Oh, that’s right—Samantha upset Erik. The win did not come without its costs for Samantha who lost Cooper Kupp to a season-ending ACL injury. But the outcome was still huge because it ties Samantha in the official standings with both Erik and Josh at 5-5. As is it stands now, that is tied for the fifth, sixth and seventh best record in the league. So right where the playoff cutoff will occur.

And it’s not just Samantha that was celebrating this weekend. Now Gray, Trevor and JT are within striking distance, no more than one game back with three games to go. And the best news? Because both Erik and Josh lost, they’ll be battling for two spots, not just one.

Basically, the playoff bubble just got bigger.

The Power Rankings

Alright, let’s get to the Power Rankings. It’s hard to remember a time when the rankings were this stable, but there was almost no movement in this week’s rankings.

The one exception? JT and Nick swapped spots with JT moving up to fifth and Nick falling to seventh in a tightly packed middle tier that also includes Jess.

Speaking of JT, he’s one owner we have not talked about so far this week, but definitely bears mentioning. In Week 10, he improved his record to 4-6 thanks to a 129-83 victory over Geoff. He got a big game from Nick Chubb who scored 32 points (and easily could have grabbed the cover image had I not already featured him in Week 7). But suddenly, the big scoring effort from Week 10 pushes him up the Power Rankings and into the fifth position, which means for the first time since Week 2, we have a new team owner in the all-important top-6. Ironically, division leader Nick is the one who gets pushed out.

And before you dismiss his presence there as noise, I’m here to tell you that JT is actually one of the hottest teams in the league right now. He’s scored 92 points or more in six of of his last seven games and has hit triple digits in four of his last five. In fact, over the last five weeks, JT has gone 3-2 but averaged 111.0 ppg with a true record of 40-13-2, which equates to a TW% of .745. Only Alex has been better over that stretch.

With three games to go, I’m starting to wonder if I should have named JT as my dark horse last week instead of Trevor. He has a more difficult schedule, but unquestionably the more talented (and healthier) team. There’s Andrew Luck who is quietly averaging over 20 ppg. At RB, he’s got Kerryon Johnson and Nick Chubb. His WRs Julio Jones and Keenan Allen are finally playing like Julio Jones and Keenan Allen. And at the flex, he’s got Allen Robinson who is now back, healthy and dropping 25 points for the Bears like it’s no big deal. That spells trouble for his remaining opponents who, wouldn’t you know it, include both Erik and Josh in the closing weeks—the two team owners with whom he’ll be competing for a wildcard spot.

And the cherry on top? JT is now fourth in points scored, ahead of Erik, which could have big implications if and when the tiebreaker inevitably comes into play in Week 13.

Who says the marital boost isn’t real? Hope the honeymoon was nice! I enjoyed seeing those pageviews from Saint Lucia on my Google Analytics.

The Playoff Picture

Now that we have just three weeks left in the regular season, we’re going to be tracking teams as they gradually lock up their positions in the playoffs. When we do, we’ll put a check mark next to teams whose probabilities reach 100% and color their boxes red when they’ve been eliminated. Also, as a reminder the numbers in superscript next to each team owner are the seeds if the playoffs started today.

So far, no one has locked up a playoff spot just yet. But at 8-2, Brandon is tantalizingly close. This week, Brandon defeated Gray 93-70 thanks to a breakout 28-point performance from Aaron Jones, which allowed him to survive the return of Leonard Fournette to Gray’s lineup. Since starting 1-2, Brandon was won seven straight games. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s the exact same thing he did last year. And in fact, he’s had a seven-game winning streak each of the last three years. In Week 11, he’ll attempt to become just the second team to win eight straight games and the first since Gray won nine straight in 2016.

At three games ahead of his next closest division rival with just three games to go, the computer gives Brandon a 99% chance to win the division, something which occurred in all but 132 of 10,000 simulations. Technically, Josh and Erik, both at 5-5, could still catch him if they are able to win out and if Brandon loses all of his remaining games. In that case, the points tiebreaker would go into effect for which Josh currently has a 66-point lead. Meanwhile, Trevor, Geoff and Greco have been mathematically eliminated from winning the Leaders Division.

In the Legends Division, Nick is now in the driver’s seat and is favored to win the division, though it is essentially a toss-up between him (42%) and Jess (38%) with Alex suddenly a very real contender (20%) and charging hard.

Speaking of Alex, he led the scoring in Week 10 with 143 points, his second-straight 140+ point performance and second weekly prize this season. Alex has been solid all season long, but he’s really kicked it into overdrive these last few weeks averaging a disgusting 137.0 ppg over his last three. And this week, he did it with two starters (DeAndre Hopkins, Phillip Lindsay) on bye, more than doubling up Greco who scored just 70 points, dropping her to 2-8. The win lifts Alex to 6-4, which is one game up on the final wildcard spot and within a game of first place in the division.

But from here on out, the road gets very difficult and Alex will be tested. Starting in Week 11, he will have to face off against each of the three teams ranked immediately below him in the standings—Erik in Week 11, Josh in Week 12 and Brandon in Week 13. That’s a murderer’s row. But if he can emerge from the crucible unscathed, he may very well enter the playoffs with a first-round bye.

Finally, the biggest change to the Playoff Picture this week is the increase in odds for many of those teams I characterized last week as on the outside looking in. The biggest risers in playoff chances this week were JT (+16%), Samantha (+15%), Alex (+8%), Nick (+7%) and Trevor (+7%). By far the biggest victims of that change were Erik (-35%) and Josh (-16%). Suddenly, it looks like Brandon, Nick, Jess and Alex are the safe bets to make the playoffs with six teams battling it out for two spots—Josh, Erik, Gray, JT, Samantha and Trevor.

As for our bottom two, Geoff and Greco, they’re not eliminated yet. Mathematically, they are two and three games back of the final wildcard spot with three games to go. So they absolutely cannot afford another loss and must pile on the points because the real challenge for either of these owners is going to be the tiebreaker. At minimum, there’s about a 100-point gap to make up between them and their next closest competitor with three games to go. If I’m Geoff or Greco, I’m rooting hard for the four frontrunners (Brandon, Nick, Jess and Alex) to win all possible matchups against the challengers and playing lots of high-risk, high-upside players and hoping I hit the lottery.

To be clear, it would be unprecedented for either a 3-7 or a 2-8 team to rebound to make a six-team playoff. That’s never happened. (Check our handy chart here to see the playoff odds for each record; make sure to scroll for the six-team playoff.) But there have been some epic comebacks. Nick came back from 1-6 to win his last six and finish 7-6 and would have made a six-team playoff. It’s not 3-7, but Brandon came back from 3-6 in 2012 to win three of his last four and finish 6-7 and also would have made a six-team playoff. If you consider that Geoff was also 3-6 this season, he still has the opportunity to win “three of his last four” like Brandon if he wins out.

Bottom line: Don’t give up! I’ll let you know when you’re eliminated.

Looking Ahead to Week 11

Division leaders will again match up this week two weeks after Brandon and Jess faced off in Week 9. This time, it’s Brandon and Nick when the magic number will be eight. Brandon will be trying to extend his winning streak to eight games while Nick will be trying for his eighth win, which would be a record for him.

Meanwhile, there are lots of high-leverage games with playoff implications among contenders. Those include Alex (6-4) vs. Erik (5-5), Samantha (5-5) vs. Josh (5-5), and Gray (4-5-1) vs. Trevor (4-6). And it’s must-win time for everybody.

Finally, Jess hopes to get back on the winning track in a game against Geoff while JT looks to possibly eliminate Greco from playoff contention.

Oh, and one more thing! The trade deadline is next Wednesday at 12PM ET, so make sure to have any trades completed before that date. It’s your last chance to make your team better.

Three games to go. Let’s get it.