Lamar Flushes Erik, Greco Upsets Gray
It was a Hanukkah miracle.
On Sunday night, trailing by 55.6 points with only two players left to play, Brandon’s prospects of advancing past the first round of the playoffs seemed hopeless.
Though he’d gotten solid games from his pass-catchers, his backfield had disappointed. And his defense had only made things worse, scoring -1 point. Wort of all, his opponent Erik still had one more player left to play. By the time Eric Ebron’s contributions were added Sunday night, Erik’s lead would balloon to 62.6 points. The odds of overcoming that deficit with just two players? About the same chance of spinning a gimel three times in a row. For the gentiles, that’s not good.
Earlier in the day, Derrick Henry had ravaged Brandon’s lineup like King Antiochus desecrating the Temple of Jerusalem. All that was left was Stefon Diggs and Lamar Jackson. At face value, barely enough points to last him one more day in the fantasy playoffs. It seemed the gelt Brandon so desperately coveted would elude him this year.
And then, something magical happened.
Stefon Diggs came alive in the second half against the Steelers, totaling 130 yards with a touchdown on 10 receptions—good for 29.1 points, cutting the lead to 33.5 points. And in the morning, another miracle occurred as a touchdown initially awarded to Erik’s defense was retracted on a stat correction. Suddenly, the lead was just 27.5 points. But the player that would need to overcome that deficit? Lamar Jackson.
Taken midway through the third round, Jackson (QB10) had been a huge disappointment relative to expectations coming off his MVP season. There’s a reason Jackson won the Worst Draft Pick award last week. Despite being the second team owner to draft a QB, Brandon ranked 11th in QB scoring during the regular season, trailing every other team owner except Nick—the worst team of all time. In fact, Jackson had scored 19 points or fewer in over half his games and had only topped 27.5 points (the current margin in his game against Erik) once all season. The prospects of a redemption seemed unlikely.
I’ll admit I lost the faith. Though I remained hopeful, I spent most of Monday performing a post-mortem on my team. I shouldn’t have reached on Clyde Edwards-Helaire, especially with Dalvin Cook and—ahem—Derrick Henry still available. And Lamar Jackson? He was taken three picks ahead of Allen Robinson who had just scored 27.3 points against me. The loss, it seemed, was inevitable.
And then, the game started.
Shortly after I lit the candles on the fifth night of Hanukkah, Lamar Jackson began to light up the scoreboard. He was my own personal Ma’oz Tzur—my Rock for the Ages. Like Judah Maccabee, Jackson hammered the Browns into submission. And in the process, he flattened Erik’s team like a latke. With 6:24 left in the third quarter, Lamar Jackson had scored 27.64 points and pushed me into the lead by the narrowest of margins—just 0.14 points.
And painfully, excruciatingly, that’s where the lead sat for the next 57 minutes of real time. That’s because suddenly, inexplicably, Lamar Jackson was… uh… how do I say this? Lamar Jackson was “cramping.” Security footage from inside the facility caught Jackson hurrying back to the locker room in the fourth quarter for some “treatment.”
Lamar Jackson rushes back to the locker room during the fourth quarter to “relieve” his cramps.
With a lead of just 0.14 points, the result was still in doubt given that even the smallest of stat corrections would almost certainly lead to a change in the outcome. Sure, Brandon was up. But for how long?
And that’s when Lamar Jackson came back into the game. Seemingly refreshed from whatever “ice bath” or “intravenous fluids” he had received, Jackson hurried onto the field to replace his suddenly injured backup for a key fourth down play. An interception or a fumble, even a tackle for loss, would negate Brandon’s lead. Heck, a couple of kneel downs could doom him.
But then…
Lamar Jackson rolled to his right, drawing in the defender, then lofted a beautiful pass to Marquise Brown (another of Brandon’s failed draft picks) who slipped past the defense and jogged untouched into the end zone. No turnover or stat correction was going to combat that.
Final score—Brandon: 151.22. Erik: 143.8.
And so it was that the most improbable of comebacks happened on the 28th day of Kislev in the year 5781 where Brandon had only enough points to last for one more night in the fantasy playoffs but instead scored just enough to last for at least another eight.
As the four Hebrew letters on the dreidel remind us, nes gadol haya sham.
A great miracle happened there.
The Scoreboard
(6) Greco and (4) Brandon advanced to the semifinals with wins over (3) Gray and (5) Erik.
In the first round of the playoffs, Brandon defeated Erik in what will forever be known as “The Hanukkah Miracle” while Greco upset Gray for the second week in a row.
In the first match, Brandon set the record for most points ever scored in the playoffs with 151.22 points, narrowly edging the previous record of 151 points set by Gray in 2015. Of course, scoring is very different now. In a pre-PPR world, Brandon would have scored “just” 111 points this week, which isn’t even in the top 20 of all-time playoff scores. Remember, just last year Samantha set the pre-PPR record for most points in a Week 14 game with 137.
Still, it’s a crushing defeat for Erik who was no slouch in his first playoff game since the 2017 playoffs when he also lost to Brandon in the first round. His 143.8 points (113 pre-PPR; yes, Erik would have won with last year’s scoring settings) were the most ever in a playoff loss and the fourth-most in a loss by pre-PPR standards.
A career 79.2 ppg scorer in the playoffs, Erik had easily the best playoff performance of his career, topping 90 points pre-PPR for the first time ever. As we wrote about last week, Erik had the clear advantage at RB and he pressed it with Derrick Henry scoring 36.2 points. It was the first time Erik lost a game this season in which Henry topped the 20-point mark. It’s hard to blame anyone given that this was Erik’s third-best game of the season, but second-round pick Chris Godwin gets the biggest slice of blame pie for scoring just 4.5 points.
The loss ends a very successful season for Erik. Following what was arguably the worst year of his career, Erik rebounded from 2-11 to go 7-6 and make the playoffs, his first winning season since 2017 and the fifth of his career. While his career playoff record is now 1-4 with his last playoff victory coming in 2012, he’ll look to use this season’s success as a springboard for next season.
As for the other game, Greco defeated Gray 130.7-117.24 despite only starting eight active players. For a team owner like Gray who does everything he can do to put himself in a position to win each and every week, that has to be maddening. But that’s fantasy.
Greco continued a recent torrid stretch that includes scores of 130+ points in three of her last five games. Key in that performance has been the play of David Montgomery who had his third straight game of 24+ points and Brandon Aiyuk with five straight games of 17+. But what’s perhaps most impressive is the fact that she’s doing this without her first-, second-, third- and fourth-round picks (Julio Jones, Josh Jacobs, Kenny Golladay and Courtland Sutton) who have all been injured. Not one of those four was in her lineup in the first round of the playoffs and yet she advances all the same. Greco improves her record against Gray to 7-9 all time including her first win against him in the playoffs in three tries, avenging her loss in the 2013 championship game. This was her first playoff win since beating JT in the first round in 2017.
As for Gray, it’s an abrupt end to a promising championship defense that started with an 8-1 record in the regular season but finishes with losses in four of his last five games, including three in a row. As he has done all season, Travis Kelce carried Gray’s team with 27.6 points. Starting T.Y. Hilton (25.6 points) fresh off the waiver wire was a stroke of genius, not unlike his decision last year to play Ryan Fitzpatrick who scored 30 points in the championship game. But this time, it was not enough as first- and third-round picks Ezekiel Elliott and James Conner combined for just 9.7 points. Despite all of his moves this year, they’re probably the biggest reason why Gray is not advancing.
Though he won nine games, this team definitely overachieved and was not Gray’s most talented. His 88 points (pre-PPR) in the first round were the fewest he’s scored in the playoffs since a Week 17 consolation game against Greco in 2016. It is, however, Gray’s eighth winning season and he remains the second-winningest team in playoff history with a career 8-5 record.
Looking Ahead to the Semifinals
In Week 15, it’s (1) Beth Ann vs. (4) Brandon and (2) Jess vs. (6) Greco.
Greco’s upset over Gray sets up a nearly all-female semifinal featuring Beth Ann, Jess and Greco with Brandon as the only interloper. This is a very competitive quartet with plenty of previous playoff success. Specifically, this group includes three of the top four teams in career playoff wins plus three former champions representing five of the league’s nine titles. And the only reason Beth Ann hasn’t contributed to that success is because this is just her second year in the league.
Given the new playoff bracket, let’s take a look at the updated playoff chances:
Jess edges ahead of Beth Ann and is now a slight favorite to win the championship.
In the first game, (1) Beth Ann will take on (4) Brandon. While it is Beth Ann’s first career playoff game, this will be Brandon’s fifth straight year playing in the semifinals dating back to 2016. These two are 1-1 in two career matchups with Beth Ann winning their Week 4 game earlier this season 111.58-107.52. Though she’s favored and the higher seed, Beth Ann has not topped 130 points since Week 6, something she did four times in her first six games. Meanwhile, Brandon is coming off his highest-scoring game of the season. Of course, in fantasy, that usually just means things are headed for a reversion to the mean, so I expect a close one.
These two teams are very evenly matched and had Brandon started his full complement of players in Week 13, they would have finished 1-and-2 in the final Power Rankings, with Brandon narrowly ahead. Both teams feature MVP-caliber QBs, two top-15 RBs and a trio of WRs all capable of big games. At QB, Russell Wilson has been better all season but Lamar Jackson is hotter. I like Beth Ann’s RBs (Dalvin Cook, Kenyan Drake) more than mine, but favor my WRs (Stefon Diggs, DK Metcalf, A.J. Brown). This one may come down to the kickers and defenses or the individual matchups.
The computer rates Beth Ann a slight favorite with a 53% chance of winning, though ESPN’s projections prefer Brandon at 52%. This is what we call a true toss-up.
In the other game, (2) Jess will face (6) Greco. Jess is 9-5 against Greco all time, including a win over Greco in the semifinals of Jess’ championship season in 2014. You might also recall that Jess set the league record for points by scoring 191.82 points against Greco two weeks ago. I might not have mentioned this at the time, but it was also the biggest margin of victory in league history with Jess winning that game by a whopping 102.38 points.
This time, I don’t expect the margin to be nearly as wide. That’s because Greco is already off to a hot start with 20.4 points from Josh Jacobs in his return to her lineup and a season-high 17.5 points from Hunter Henry on Thursday night. Amazingly, Greco will try to continue to do the impossible and win without Julio Jones or Kenny Golladay who will both be inactive for this game. At least this time it appears they won’t be in Greco’s starting lineup, which means she’ll have a full complement of players to go against the Power Glove.
Speaking of Jess, she’s the hottest team entering the playoffs and has the horses, especially at WR to catch up to Greco. That includes three top-10 WRs in Tyreek Hill, Davante Adams and Justin Jefferson. The RBs are not great. Todd Gurley is averaging 4.0 ppg over his last three and Devin Singletary has hit double figures in just three of his last nine games. But when the WRs are on, nothing else matters.
This is a matchup of strength against strength—Greco’s RBs against Jess’ WRs. It also includes the two team owners who combined to win the last four weekly prizes in the regular season. The computer projects Jess as the favorite with a 63% chance to win based on a superior TW% over the course of the regular season. (Jess finished 3rd, Greco finished 9th.) But ESPN’s projections after Thursday’s game actually project Greco as a slight favorite with a 53% chance to upset Jess and advance to the finals. Neither the 5 nor the 6 seed has ever advanced to the championship game. Greco, with a win, could be the first.
That’s it for Week 14. With just two weeks to go, only four team owners remain. Good luck to all. I’ll see you on the group chat.
