Samantha and Jess Deliver Shocking Upsets

Earlier this week, ESPN debuted its latest 30 for 30 documentary, 42 to 1. It’s the story of Buster Douglas, the 29-year-old heavyweight contender, who shocked the world by upsetting the previously undefeated Mike Tyson by knockout in 1990. For those who missed it Tuesday, it’s an incredibly moving piece about the life of Douglas—whose mother passed just days before the fight—and a story about triumph against all odds.

In fact, the odds were quite long as is evidenced by the title of the documentary, which takes its name from the 42:1 odds placed on Douglas before the fight. For those of you who are not degenerate gamblers, that means a $42 bet on Tyson would have netted you just $1 in payout were Tyson to have won. In fact, an oddsmaker in the documentary noted that they received 10 bets of upwards of $160,000 on Tyson for a potential payout of around just $4,000. You would have to be pretty confident to make a bet like that, which just goes to show how dominant Tyson was and how near a certainty his victory was assumed to be.

Of course, that’s not what happened. Douglas, who was considered an easy tune-up for Tyson before an eventual match with Evander Holyfield, withstood an early knockdown in the eighth round. (Previously, no one had survived more than five rounds against Tyson.) He then countered quickly in the ninth before ultimately delivering the knockout sequence in the tenth that sent Tyson scrambling for his mouthpiece.

At the end of the documentary, the Vegas oddsmaker marveled at how unlikely the upset of Tyson over Douglas was compared to any other upset in sports history. He scoffed at the suggestion of the Miracle on Ice. That was 3:1, he said. No, this was unprecedented and would likely never happen again. The odds? 50:1.

Of course, he’s never met the Worst League.

Pictured above, Samantha sends Alex sprawling to the mat in a first-round playoff knockout.

Week 14 Recap

This week, Samantha did her best Buster Douglas impression, knocking out third-seeded but #1 ranked Alex by a score of 97-92. (Yes, it was 97, not 98; there was a stat correction.)

Like Tyson, Alex is a dominant force the likes of which the league has rarely seen. No one has ever scored more points than Alex did this year. These are all old stats, but bear repeating. Alex averaged 114.7 ppg this season, scoring more than 100 points in 11 out of 13 games. Entering last week, he was undefeated in his previous six games including heavyweight matchups with Josh and Brandon in Weeks 12 and 13. In fact, no one had come within 25 points of Alex over that same stretch.

By contrast, no one ever expected Samantha to be here. All season long, she’s been a long shot to make the playoffs. Prior to Week 13, her chances of making the playoffs in our weekly Playoff Picture were never greater than 28%. And like Douglas, Samantha lost a loved one in the days preceding her pivotal matchup. Well, that is if you call your first-round pick a loved one. Which, let’s be honest, who doesn’t? As such, Samantha lost both Odell Beckham Jr. and Emmanuel Sanders for the Week 14 game.

Amari Cooper outscored Alex’s three RBs 39-37.

As she entered the weekend, things weren’t looking great either. The Jaguars D/ST, which she picked up off of waivers, scored just one point on Thursday night. Then on Sunday, she suffered through doughnuts by Isaiah Crowell and Kenny Golladay. Add in David Njoku and those four players combined to score just four points. Not to mention the fact that benching Tom Brady in favor of Lamar Jackson cost her a potential nine additional points.

But Alex’s players, presumably cocky after a season’s worth of easy victories, posted solid yet not spectacular scores. His five starters at RB and WR averaged 12.0 points. His defense and kicker averaged 9.0 points. Both above average. But after a down game for Drew Brees (14 points), Alex was left with a total of just 92 points—his lowest point total since Week 4—which left the door open for…

Amari Freaking Cooper.

The new Cowboys WR scored 39 points on Sunday afternoon, his highest point total of the season and tied with Drew Brees in Week 3 for the most by a single player started by a Worst Leaguer this season. His crucial game-winning TD in overtime, which was tipped by a defender, were the go-ahead points Samantha needed, lifting her to 98.

Alex had one last-ditch attempt to make a comeback on Monday night with Kyle Rudolph, but it was akin to watching Tyson struggle to stand as the referee delivered the ten-count. Though he did have a shot at a late fourth-quarter TD, Rudolph ultimately totaled zero points. After a stat correction, Samantha finished with 97 points. It was good enough for the five-point win.

Putting the Upset in Historical Context

How unlikely was Samantha’s victory? Prior to the game, the computers gave her just a 17% chance to defeat Alex. If we translate that probability into odds, we’d say that Samantha’s odds of upsetting Alex were just 19:4. Granted that’s not nearly as unlikely as 42:1 (or 2.3%), but it’s still a massive upset.

In the table below, we’ve catalogued all 12 playoff upsets in league history. Historically, this one ranks as the second-greatest upset in the playoffs.

This week’s upsets rank second and seventh in playoff history.

Only Brandon’s defeat of Gray in the 2016 semifinals was more unlikely. In that match-up, Brandon was an 11:4 underdog to Gray (the greatest team of all-time by TW%) with just a 15% chance of victory. But thanks to big games from high-upside WRs, namely Tyreek Hill, DeSean Jackson and Maclolm Mitchell, not to mention 26 points from the Falcons D/ST in Week 14, he came away with the win. I’m sure that one still stings for Gray.

Also included in that list is Jess! We have yet to mention her name in this post, but Jess’s Week 14 victory over Josh ranks as the seventh-greatest upset in playoff history and was no less thrilling.

Following questionable decisions to bench Joe Mixon and Julian Edelman, Jess found herself in real trouble despite jumping out to the early lead. That was thanks in part to 27 points for George Kittle, Josh’s recently acquired TE. But she was saved by JuJu Smith-Schuster and the Rams D/ST, the latter of which evened the score on Sunday night at 98 points apiece. Then she watched as Tyler Lockett pushed her over the top on Monday night, helping her to finish with the 104-98 win. It was the first time all season she finished with the highest score of the week. (This time the weekly prize is simply the pride at having advanced.)

Looking Ahead to the Semifinals

So as we enter Week 15 and the semifinals of the playoffs, two of the top-three teams in the final Power Rankings have been eliminated—Alex (1st) and Josh (3rd).

For Alex, who at various times this season I’ve compared to Thanos, Jamie Lee Curtis and now Mike Tyson, it’s a bit ironic that he was done in by some of the same players who helped power him to success. James Conner, who had propelled Alex into super team status, missed the Week 14 game due to an ankle injury. Also, I’d be remiss not to point out that Drew Brees (14 points) finished with seven fewer points in Week 14 than Patrick Mahomes (21). The final margin was five. Or maybe we place the blame on Alex not trusting his #1 defense, which scored an extra nine points on his bench. Or was it TE? Truly Alex’s Achilles heel all season long, Alex finished the regular season 11th in TE scoring, which is also ironic because in the preseason we talked about Alex’s penchant for drafting TEs early. This year, Alex went another way with his draft strategy and was rewarded with a league record in RB scoring (42.1 ppg). Unfortunately, his TE came up with 0 points when he needed him, though I guess Evan Engram did score seven points on the bench. Doh!

Despite the fact that we could place the blame on any or all of these things, I don’t think ascribing blame is the right thing to do. Sometimes, fantasy football is just about dumb luck. Alex’s, as has so often been the case, ran out this week. Regardless, Alex had a great season that will be remembered even if he’s not honored in the Hall of Champions. Hold your head high, commish.

As for Josh, it’s perhaps equally shocking that he will not be moving on. Remember, Josh tied the record this season for most points in a single week with 152 in Week 9. He had a terrific roster featuring the #1 QB, #1 WR, #4 RB and #3 TE, plus three other top-30 players. He pulled off several daring trades, including ones that netted him Patrick Mahomes, George Kittle and Josh Gordon. Ultimately, I think his team just peaked too early. Tevin Coleman has not been the same since Week 9 and neither has James White since the return of Sony Michel and Rex Burkhead. And when Josh was humming, they along with Alvin Kamara were the real strength of this team.

Unfortunately for Josh, his losing streak in the playoffs continues. In fact, Josh has never won a playoff game in three appearances. All time, his playoff record is 0-5, and he’s the only active team owner besides Nick to have never won a playoff game. And Nick may soon earn his first win in his first playoff game later this week.

But of course the losses of Alex and Josh are the remaining team owners’ gain. You might recall last week, those two team owners collectively had a 54% chance of winning the championship. Now those odds get dispersed among the other playoff teams. So this week, I dropped the updated playoff bracket into the computer and crunched the numbers 10,000 times. This is what I got.

Brandon leads all playoff teams with a 44% chance to win the championship.

Brandon’s championship chances saw the biggest jump, increasing from 24% to 44%. As the second-ranked team in the final Power Rankings, he is the only team among the top-3 remaining and the clear favorite to take home the championship with both Alex and Josh eliminated. At one point, it appeared he’d have to go through both of them. Now, he won’t have to face either with his toughest possible remaining opponent being Jess, who was ranked fourth.

Speaking of Jess, she’s second in playoff chances, leapfrogging Nick and increasing her odds by 17%. Despite the fact that Nick is the higher-seeded team, Jess’s game against Josh was actually a more difficult matchup as the computer predicts she is a slight favorite over Nick who has a 21% chance of winning the championship, up 7% from last week. Jess now has the second-best playoff win percentage all-time with a 4-1 lifetime record in the playoffs, her only defeat an 8-point loss to Alex in the 2015 championship game.

And finally, Samantha—the underdog who nobody expected to make it to the playoffs let alone defeat the second-greatest team of all-time in her first season—faces the longest odds and still the toughest road. The computer gives her an 11% chance to win the championship (up significantly from 2% last week), but just a 29% chance to defeat Brandon in Week 15. But let’s face it, if she can beat Alex, she can beat anyone. In fact, her 97 points last week would have been enough to beat either Brandon or Nick in Week 14.

This week, the semifinals’ first matchup will feature the 1-seed Nick vs. 4-seed Jess, though Jess will be favored. All-time Jess is 5-3 against Nick, though Nick won their only previous matchup this season in Week 3 by a score of 97-79. But you can really throw that game out the window as many of the key players (Corey Clement, Golden Tate, Alex Collins, Alfred Morris, Russell Wilson) have changed.

The other semifinal matchup will be between husband and wife, Brandon and Samantha. This is their third time playing each other this season, having split the regular season series 1-1. Brandon won the first game 130-102 in Week 6. Then Samantha got revenge in Week 12 with a crucial 113-107 victory to stay in the playoff race. Though both times both team owners topped 100 points, many of the names have changed in this matchup as well (gone are Kareem Hunt, Will Fuller, Cooper Kupp and Emmanuel Sanders). Winner advances to the championship game. Loser does all the housework until 2019.

That’s it for Week 14. Just two more weeks until we crown a champion. And though your odds may be long, remember—anything can happen in the playoffs. After all, just last week Samantha’s odds of winning the title were 2%. If that sounds familiar, that’s because they’re approximately the same odds Buster Douglas faced against Mike Tyson.

42 to 1.