Playoff Preview

The playoffs are finally upon us!

First a note about the format. This is the first year of playoff expansion in which six teams have made the playoffs instead of the usual two. So rather than have two two-week matchups between four teams over the course of Weeks 14-15 and Weeks 16-17, we will instead have three one-week matchups between six teams over Week 14, Week 15 and Week 16. The top two seeds each receive a one-week bye and no games will be played on Week 17 as the championship will be decided a week earlier than usual. This was done to both accommodate the expansion to six teams while eliminating the unpredictability of Week 17 in which many starters are benched.

Here’s a look at the bracket.

In the first round or quarterfinals, the 5-seed Josh will play the 4-seed Jess in Game 1 while the 6-seed Samantha will play the 3-seed Alex in Game 2. Meanwhile both Nick and Brandon will receive first-round byes as a result of winning their divisions. In the second round or semifinals, Nick will play the winner of Josh vs. Jess while Brandon will play the winner of Samantha vs. Alex. The winners of both those games will then meet in the finals or championship round in Week 16.

Okay, now that we’ve got the bracket down, we can quickly simulate the playoffs 10,000 times as we’ve done with the regular season schedule throughout the year to determine the probability of each team advancing to each subsequent round. Here are those results.

Alex leads all playoff hopefuls with a 38% chance to win the championship.

As you might expect, Alex leads all team owners with a 38% chance to be crowned champion. He also has an 83% chance of advancing to the semifinals by beating Samantha and a 54% chance of defeating Brandon to advance to the finals.

Next in line is Brandon with a 24% chance to win. Then Josh with 16%. Nick has a similar 14% chance. Finally, Jess and Samantha are the biggest long shots with a 7% and 2% chance, respectively.

Perhaps it’s no surprise since we use TW% to simulate the playoffs that the team owners with the greatest probability to win the championship find themselves in almost the exact same order as the final Power Rankings—Alex, Brandon, Josh, Nick, Jess and finally Samantha. The one exception there is Nick and Jess who happened to be flopped. Despite the fact that Jess is one spot higher in the Power Rankings, Nick has the better championship odds. What can I say? It’s good to have the bye week.

Of course, that leads me to wonder how would these probabilities change if instead of using a team’s official record to seed the playoffs, we re-seeded based on TW%. In that case, the seeds would reflect the exact order of the Power Rankings—Alex, Brandon, Josh, Jess, Nick and Samantha. Both Alex and Brandon would receive first-round byes, not Nick. And a couple playoff matchups would change, namely Jess vs. Nick and Josh vs. Samantha in the first round with the winners playing Alex and Brandon, respectively.

By running the simulation with this re-seeded bracket, we get the following probabilities.

In a re-seeded bracket, Alex’s probability increases to 49%.

If you thought Alex was the favorite before, now his championship chances jump drastically from 38% to 49%. Meanwhile, Nick’s chances of taking home the crown drop significantly from 14% in the current bracket to just 5% in the re-seeded bracket. What can I say? It’s good to have the bye week.

To better illustrate the effect of re-seeding, we can calculate the difference between these two tables to see who gets the biggest bump or drop from the official bracket, which does not re-seed teams by TW%.

Nick benefits the most from this year’s playoff bracket.

Here we see that Alex and Josh have dropped two seed lines while Nick has jumped up four seed lines from fifth (where he is in the Power Rankings) to first (where he finds himself seeded in the playoffs). As a result, Nick is no doubt our biggest riser. The direct benefit of that bye is his chances of advancing to the semifinals jump from 48% in a re-seeded bracket to 100% in the current bracket. Consequently, his chances of making the finals jump by 30% as do his overall championship odds by 9%. That’s because not only does he get to play one fewer game, but he avoids Alex until a potential championship game.

Speaking of Alex, the current bracket make things a lot harder for him than if we had re-seeded. Obviously, he has to play one more game. But also, his road gets a lot harder. If we re-seeded, he would have to play either Brandon (the 2-seed) or Josh (the 3-seed) in the championship game, but not both. However, given the way the bracket is currently structured, he could have to beat both #2 and #3 teams in the Power Rankings in consecutive weeks to win the championship.

As for the other team owners, Josh, Jess and Samantha all have more difficult first games now than if we re-seeded, but the schedule generally gets easier for them if they were to advance. For example, Jess’s chances of reaching the finals increase by 7% mainly because Alex is now on the other side of the bracket.

Regardless, this is not an argument to suggest that we should re-seed in the playoffs. The regular season games have to mean something. It’s just meant to suggest that Alex is going to have to earn it a little more this year than usual and that Nick has an easier road to a championship than his Power Ranking suggests he deserves, as do all the team owners on the top half of the bracket (Josh and Jess included).

Alright, now that we’ve looked at the broad strokes, let’s break down the playoffs one team at a time, starting with the long shots and moving to the favorites.

6. Samantha: 1.8%

We start with Samantha—the league newbie who has unexpectedly crashed the playoff party in her rookie season.

For much of the year, it seemed like a long shot Samantha would still be playing come Week 14. Entering Week 9, she was just 3-5 and ranked ninth in the Power Rankings. But in the last five weeks of the season, she caught fire, winning four of her last five games to finish 7-6 overall. Still, during the entire course of the regular season, she never had greater than a 28% probability of making the playoffs in the weekly Playoff Picture. In fact, just last week, her chances were just 15%. To overcome those odds, she had to beat Trevor in Week 13 and hope for Greco to take down Gray, which she did. Now she controls her own destiny.

As for Samantha’s season, she had a real up-and-down year. At times, she would lose games despite big scoring days, twice losing games in which she scored 100 points or more. Then other times, she would win with point totals that ranked in the bottom-half of the league, twice winning games in which she scored 81 points or less. Technically, JT and Erik were more deserving teams of a playoff berth by TW%, but she beat them both fair and square, defeating JT 81-58 in Week 3 and Erik 96-60 in Week 10.

So she earned her way in. And it was no easy road to get here. Weak at RB from the jump, she lost Rex Burkhead, a fifth-round pick, early in the season and has spent most of the year unsuccessfully in search of a replacement. Playing Isaiah Crowell in particular was like a game of whack-a-mole (good for a handful of points in the weeks he was started, but sure to go off in the weeks he was benched). At QB, Tom Brady has been an unexpected disappointment. And at WR, where she has been strongest and deepest all season long, she’s suffered the most injuries, losing Cooper Kupp, Emmanuel Sanders and now Odell Beckham Jr. who will sit out her crucial Week 14 matchup with a bruised quad.

And yet, when things are clicking, Samantha can put up points. Perhaps, that’s by virtue of having a WR-driven team (she leads the league with 29.1 ppg from WRs) as they tend to be the more volatile players, capable of long receptions for TDs on any given play. In fact, Samantha is one of only three owners not named Alex, Brandon or Josh to have won a weekly prize this season, having scored 128 points in Week 5. Her opponent that week? Alex.

And she’s going to need more of that magic as she faces off against Thanos again in the quarterfinals, especially having to play without Odell Beckham Jr. On her roster, she has just two top-5 players at their position (Christian McCaffrey and Harrison Butker). Alex has six! (Drew Brees, James Conner, Davante Adams, DeAndre Hopkins, the Bears D/ST and Will Lutz.) Though granted he will not be playing two of those players (Conner due to injury and the Bears D/ST due to an unfavorable matchup), there’s still a lot of firepower on that roster to overcome.

And if she does beat Alex, Samantha faces an uphill battle the whole way. That’s because she is the only team owner that would potentially have to defeat all three of the top-3 teams in the Power Rankings to claim the championship—Alex, Brandon and Josh. Perhaps as a result, the computer gives her just a 1.8% chance to take home the crown.

But she’s faced worse odds all season long. In Week 4, her chances of making the playoffs were just 0.04%. And she beat those odds. She beat Alex once too in their only matchup. Now, let’s see if she can do it again.

4. Jess: 6.8%

Jess jumped out to a 6-1-1 start and never looked back.

For much of the year, it was not a question of whether she would make the playoffs, but whether it would be her or Nick that would claim the division. Ultimately, time and Alex caught up to her as she closed the year 2-3 over her last five games, including a Week 13 loss to Erik that pushed her down a line in seeding.

No matter. She ended up on the right side of the bracket, facing off against Josh in the quarterfinals, who would technically be a tougher opponent in the first round than if she were to advance to face Nick in the semifinals. Still, she avoids Alex and Brandon—the top two teams in the Power Rankings.

As for her team, it’s a fairly healthy and productive group. David Johnson and Joe Mixon have been disappointing this season at times, whether because of stagnant offenses or injury, but both seem to be trending in the right direction come playoff time. So too are T.Y. Hilton and JuJu Smith-Schuster, both of which have games of 20+ points within the last three weeks. QB has not been a strength, but Phillip Rivers has scored at least 20 points in each of his last three games. But the biggest puzzle piece has been at flex, where Jess actually has a decision to make between three very viable starters in Adrian Peterson (RB12), Julian Edelman (WR39) and Tyler Lockett (WR14), not to mention Golden Tate who had a breakout 16-point game for the Eagles last week.

This is not a dominant team by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s a very solid team. To illustrate that point, Jess doesn’t have a single top-5 player at any of the major skill positions (QB, RB or WR) on her roster. And in fact, she’s the only playoff team that can say that. Even Samantha has Christian McCaffrey (RB4). But she’s also the only playoff team that will be starting a top-20 player at every single position (including TE, D/ST and K) in Week 14. Not even Alex can say that (Jaylen Samuels does not qualify).

The problem is this season has been a high-scoring affair, featuring many explosive scorers each and every week. And Jess has averaged a very steady 94.7 ppg over that time frame, only topping 125 points once. She has no weekly prizes this year. If she had to play every team owner in Week 14, I don’t think it’s likely she’d be the one with the most points come Monday night.

But the good news is, she doesn’t have to play every team owner. She just has to play Josh in Week 14. Then Nick in Week 15. And likely Alex in Week 16. And she’s definitely capable of doing that. For what it’s worth, she’s already beaten Josh and Alex once before.

One more statistic that’s on her side? She’s actually the hottest team owner not named Alex over the last three weeks, averaging 105.7 ppg with a .697 TW% during that time frame.

This is Jess’s third career playoff appearance having previously made the playoffs in 2014 and 2015. In both of those years, she advanced to the championship game, winning it all in 2014. This year, she’ll look to become the league’s second two-time champion.

Perhaps slow and steady will once again win the race.

1. Nick: 13.5%

A playoff preview with Nick—who would have thought we’d live to see the day.

Nick advances to the playoffs for the first time in his career. And he does so in style, coasting to the 1-seed with a 10-3 record as just the fifth team overall and the fourth team owner to achieve double-digit wins. Seriously, congratulations!

Okay, now I’m going to rain on the parade a little bit. Nick was the teensiest bit lucky to be this good this season. He ranks as the luckiest team in the league this year as measured by the difference between a team’s win percentage and their TW%. Though he won over 76% of games this season, he won just 56% of true games. Yes, his record is 10-3. But the team is of the quality of a 7-6 squad.

Speaking of that team, let’s take a look under the hood. It’s got two dominant players (Saquon Barkley and Michael Thomas) and after that a bunch of role players who have played admirably. (Okay, maybe two-and-a-half if you count Eric Ebron.) Tarik Cohen has been up and down, but with Alex Collins on IR, he’ll need to be steadier. So too will whichever WRs flank Michael Thomas. And Nick has quite a few to choose from. There’s the two Bucs WRs, Adam Humphries and Chris Godwin. Or the two former Broncos WRs, Demaryius Thomas and Courtland Sutton, the former of which is now a Texan. And lastly the two Chiefs WRs, Sammy Watkins and Chris Conley, the former of which is nursing an injury.

None of these guys are elite talents. Specifically, none rank within the top-20 at their position, which means they’re all flex considerations. And Nick will need to start two of them. But if he picks the right two, he could continue his winning ways.

The good news for Nick is he has probably the most favorable draw of any team in the playoffs. He has a first-round bye so that automatically advances him to the semifinals. And once there, at worst he would have to play the third-ranked team in the Power Rankings (Josh). That’s a nice path. Of course, once he gets to the championship game, he’ll have to earn it just like everybody else.

But if there’s a road map, perhaps it’s Jess. Her first three years, she was terrible, never sniffing the playoffs. That was until she broke out in a big way in 2014 with a 10-win team that snatched the 1-seed and went on to win the whole thing in her first try. Like her, he’ll just have to win two games to do it.

I actually kinda like his chances.

5. Josh: 15.7%

This is Josh’s third playoff appearance in five years. In fact, Josh is probably the most accomplished team owner to have never won a championship, ranking fourth all-time by TW% ahead of three other former champions (Greco, Jess and Geoff).

For awhile there, it seemed like Josh might not make the playoffs at all. As we identified in this past week’s Power Rankings, Josh was the unluckiest team in the league this year. He’s second in points scored, third in TW%, but was tied for fifth in actual win percentage. Had JT—who was the second-hottest team in the league from Weeks 6-12 leading up to their matchup—defeated him in Week 13, Josh would have missed the playoffs. Heck, if we hadn’t expanded to six teams, Josh would have missed the playoffs.

And that would have been a real travesty. Because Josh truly has a great team. And it’s headlined by the greatest player in fantasy football this season—Patrick Mahomes. Acquired in a trade with Alex for A.J. Green in Week 3, Mahomes is one of those players who can win you a week all by himself. In fact, four times this season Mahomes went for 30+ points. Josh won three of those games, and if he’d had Mahomes for the fourth, he would have won that one too.

Plus, Mahomes is not the only explosive player on Josh’s team. I would say there are two others on this squad with the potential to win a week all by themselves—Alvin Kamara and Tyreek Hill. Both have routinely gone for 30+ points. Those three (Mahomes, Kamara and Hill) all rank within the top-4 at their respective positions.

Then combine those elite talents with steady production from the other positions and you’ve got a recipe for fantasy goodness. To me, the key will be the play of Josh’s two other RBs, James White and Tevin Coleman. When this team was really clicking, it was because that trio of backs (those two plus Kamara) were firing on all cylinders. In Week 9 when Josh tied the record for 152 points in a single week, those three alone combined to score 77.

The problem is that White and especially Coleman have cooled. For White, that’s due in part to the Patriots backfield (including Sony Michel and Rex Burkhead) getting healthier. The volume is just not there in the same way that it was. But for Coleman, while he has slumped, there’s no reason to think he can’t revert to that earlier form.

One other thing that’s troubling for Josh is that he’s spent most of the season trading away assets at WR. First it was A.J. Green for Patrick Mahomes. Then it was Robert Woods for Greg Olsen. And though he flipped Olsen for George Kittle, what he’s left with is a relatively weakened WR2 slot. Josh Gordon has been solid in recent weeks, but has not been as great this season as either of those two have been.

Honestly, I could see this going either way for Josh. He definitely has the firepower (and the health) to contend with Alex. It’s just a matter of whether or not his players show up. Over the last three weeks, his team ranks just sixth in TW% and scoring, averaging 92.7 ppg. He’ll need to do better to advance in the playoffs.

The good news? Josh is on the right side of the bracket. Samantha advancing to the playoffs over Gray was the best thing that could have happened to Josh as it pushed him up a spot into the 5-seed. As a result, he will have the opportunity to play Nick in the semifinals as opposed to Alex if he defeats Jess in the first round. And because Brandon is also on the other side of the bracket, he’d only have to play either Brandon or Alex in the championship game. Not both.

And if it does come to a championship matchup with Alex—though I would regret having to watch from the sidelines—I would look forward to finally seeing them settle the Brees/Mahomes debate once and for all.

2. Brandon: 24.0%

I’m going to be really obnoxious right now and do something that I generally try to avoid and that is to talk directly about my fantasy football team. Apologies in advance for how this will sound. Okay, here goes:

I had a really good team this year!

Entering the last week of the season, I was leading the league in scoring at RB with over 42 ppg from the position, James Conner be damned. In fact, I was on pace to break the record for most points ever scored by RBs in a season. Ultimately, Alex passed me in the final week, but I still wound up third, just behind Alex this year and Gray’s all-time team from 2016. Even still, we’re all separated by just 7 points.

I had two top-5 RBs in Melvin Gordon and Kareem Hunt, plus top-16 RB Aaron Jones. Then at WR, I had team namesake Adam Thielen (WR4), who was drafted in the third-round, but has played like a first-rounder all year long. My biggest weaknesses? WR2 and TE, which I turned into strengths in a series of trades before the deadline, acquiring Brandin Cooks (WR14) and Travis Kelce (TE1). Truly, the only weakness left on my team was at QB and even there I had Deshaun Watson who is known to go for over 30 points from time to time. I was feeling really good about my chances to go after Thanos in the playoffs.

And then the bottom fell out…

Melvin Gordon suffered an MCL sprain in Week 12. And then Kareem Hunt was rendered droppable after evidence of an assault came to light. If I had to start a team this week, it would include Spencer Ware and Justin Jackson or maybe… Dante Pettis? While my team has been strong at the top, its depth is being seriously tested.

The one positive is that I have a first-round bye, which gives Melvin Gordon one more week to get right before a potential showdown with Alex. The problem is that the Chargers play on Thursday night in Week 15, which means a little less time for Gordon to recover from injury.

Will Gordon be ready by Week 15? Can Spencer Ware replace the production of Kareem Hunt? And if not, is there enough firepower on the team elsewhere (Brandin Cooks and Travis Kelce) to make up for those losses at RB? These are the questions that will soon be answered one way or another.

If I can get by Alex and possibly another tough game looming with Josh in the finals, then a repeat championship is possible. It would be the first time a champion has defended their crown and would make me the league’s first three-time champion. Those are some lofty goals, but they are still a long way off.

Unfortunately for Melvin Gordon’s right knee, it may not be long enough.

3. Alex: 38.4%

You know who the favorite is to win this thing. It’s Thanos aka Alex who comes in with a 38.4% chance to win the playoffs according to our computer simulations. Let’s quickly go over why Alex should win championship.

First and foremost, he has the best team. Period. As much as that hurts me to say. This year, he broke the record for most points scored in league history and is averaging 114.7 ppg. And he very nearly broke the record for best team by TW% in league history. Even still, he came in second out of 96 teams. So this is a historically good team.

Why is that? Three reasons:

1. Patrick Mahomes

Alex drafted the #1 overall player in fantasy in the 12th round. And while he hasn’t benefited directly from that pick, opting to trade him to Josh, he got pretty darn good value for him. At the time, it was A.J. Green, the 18th overall pick in the draft. Since that trade, Alex has turned Green into DeAndre Hopkins (WR5), which was a smart move considering Green is now out for the year with an injury. As a reminder, DeAndre Hopkins was a first-round pick, which means Alex turned his 12th-rounder into a first-rounder.

2. James Conner

The pick before Mahomes, Alex selected James Conner, which again turned out to be another devastatingly good pick. And this one Alex held onto. While it seemed for weeks like Conner would eventually turn into a pumpkin when the clock struck midnight, that time never came. Instead, Le’Veon Bell’s holdout turned permanent. And Conner ascended to RB5. So again, if we’re keeping track, that’s an 11th-rounder that was turned into yet another first-round pick.

3. Phillip Lindsay

Last week I called this the best trade of 2018 and I stand by it. Obviously, turning Green into Hopkins was a stroke of good luck considering Green’s season-ending injury. But the Mark Ingram for Lindsay swap was equally beneficial. Lindsay has been terrific lately (21.7 ppg over his last three) and when paired with Conner and Ezekiel Elliott makes for a fearsome trio. As a reminder, Phillip Lindsay was undrafted but acquired for a fifth-round pick (Ingram). Currently, he’s playing like a top-10 RB and is ranked within the top-10 for Week 14. That’s arguably a first-round pick.

So to sum up, Alex has his actual first round pick (Ezekiel Elliott) plus three other first-rounders on his squad (DeAndre Hopkins, James Conner and Phillip Lindsay). That’s four first-round picks on one team. Maybe I’m being generous with Lindsay, but even still, that’s three. No wonder this team is so dominant.

If there’s any justice in this world, Alex should win the championship this season. It would be his second championship following his first title from 2015. But I’m not fully prepared to ready his photo for the Hall of Champions just yet.

Here’s why Alex won’t win the championship this year:

Alex is down one of those first-round picks. James Conner will miss at least Alex’s Week 14 game with Samantha due to an ankle injury and possibly more. Maybe Samuels will step in admirably. Or maybe Stevan Ridley will steal more carries than Alex is hoping. And Alex’s backup to Ridley? That’d be Matt Breida, who is also dealing with a Week 14 injury. Ironically, his backup Jeff Wilson will be slotted into Samantha’s lineup this week. No matter how it plays out for Alex, this is definitely a downgrade.

Then there’s the bracket. It’s not exactly favorable for Alex to have to play three games in three weeks to win the championship. Even though Samantha is a big-time underdog in her matchup this week, she still has a 17% chance to win the game, which is a 17% chance Alex doesn’t even advance to the semifinals. And if he does beat Samantha, there’s a good chance he must still face the two other teams directly beneath him in the Power Rankings who have both won multiple weekly prizes this season.

And finally, even if Alex has the best team on paper and is the clear favorite according to the computer, the best team does not always win. In fact, in seven years, the #1 team in the Power Rankings has only won the championship twice—Jess in 2014 and Brandon last year. In five of seven years, a lesser team has won the championship. And that includes 2016 when Gray’s team, which statistically outperformed Alex’s team this year, lost in the semifinals to Brandon—who for the record that year had the 64th best team all-time (out of 96 teams).

So if the #64 team can beat the #1 team, then certainly any one of these playoff teams could take down Thanos. And if you’re looking for a good sign, the new Avengers trailer was released this weekend.

Now that can’t be a coincidence.