Greco to Face Brandon in Improbable Finals Run
Greco was never supposed to be here.
Not in like a mean way. But in like a how-the-heck-did-she-do-it kind of a way.
No Julio Jones. No Kenny Golladay. No Courtland Sutton. This past week, she played without three of her top four draft picks for the second time in the playoffs. And both times, she won going away. Last week and in a must-win Week 13, she did it without Josh Jacobs too.
In fact, despite the personnel losses, her team has never been better. Greco is averaging 144.3 ppg over her last three games despite getting a combined two out of 12 games from her top four picks. There have only been four other times this season when a team owner has been as hot as Greco is right now—Josh and Beth Ann from Weeks 1-3, Geoff from Weeks 3-5, and Jess from Weeks 11-13. In each case, their performance garnered a feature in this space. We wrote about Josh and Beth Ann’s hot start, Geoff’s ability to pluck winners off the waiver wire, and dubbed Jess’ team the Power Glove. But none did it while contending with the injuries that Greco is currently facing.
But seriously, who else could? Take three of the top four draft picks off any other roster and they’re not in the playoffs. Okay, that basically happened to Nick, but that’s my point—he had the worst season in league history. What’s Brandon without Aaron Jones, Lamar Jackson and A.J. Brown? Or Jess without Tyreek Hill, Davante Adams and Mark Andrews? How would Beth Ann have fared without Dalvin Cook, Adam Thielen and Calvin Ridley. It’s doubtful any of those teams make it to the semifinals, let alone the championship game without those key pieces.
And yet Greco did. Greco?! The team owner who notoriously relies almost entirely on the draft for fantasy production. For her career, Greco gets 92% of scoring from players she drafted, which ranks second in the league, trailing only Beth Ann (96%), a relative newbie whose burgeoning strategy is downright Greco-nian. If you’re a good drafter, that’s a fine approach. But when things go bad, it’s hard to recover.
So how did Greco do it?
It’s not like she’s been super active this year. Once again, during the regular season she got 93% of her scoring from the draft. She only made six acquisitions all season. For reference, I led the league with 57. Only Whitney and Beth Ann had fewer.
Here were her six moves:
10/7: added Teddy Bridgewater, dropped Breshad Perriman
10/15: added Cameron Brate, dropped Courtland Sutton
10/22: added Cowboys D/ST, dropped Cameron Brate
10/22: added Daniel Carlson, dropped N’Keal Harry
11/13: added Marvin Jones, dropped Daniel Carlson
11/14: traded Jamaal Williams, acquired Brandon Aiyuk, Jalen Reagor
For the most part, Greco only makes a move when she needs a replacement for a player that’s on a bye week. Aaron Rodgers’ Week 4 bye motivated Bridgewater. Hunter Henry’s Week 6 bye motivated Cameron Brate. The Colts D/ST and Rodrigo Blankenship’s Week 7 bye motivated the Cowboys D/ST and Daniel Carlson.
In fact, there were only two moves she made all season not motivated solely by a bye week and they both came in Week 10. With Julio Jones on bye and Kenny Golladay and David Montgomery out with injuries, Greco picked up Golladay’s replacement, Marvin Jones. And then came the trade offer—Jamaal Williams for Brandon Aiyuk and Jalen Reagor.
Since I was the one that made the offer, I’ll provide some backstory.
With Clyde Edwards-Helaire struggling and Aaron Jones out with an injury in Weeks 7-8, I was angling to acquire a very effective Jamaal Williams (19.8 ppg in two games without Jones) as a handcuff for the playoffs. With one of the best WR corps in the league, I was looking to trade away some of my WR depth in order to secure the Packers backfield for the rest of the season. Sensing that Greco, who was fairly deep at RB but last in WR scoring, was facing some holes in her lineup, I felt like Brandon Aiyuk, coming off two games of 20.3 ppg, would be a fair exchange.
But it wasn’t an easy sell! In fact, she turned me down in Week 9 (when both Williams and Ayiuk were on the Reserve/COVID-19 list). I had to negotiate and give her a bit of a pitch. With apologies to Greco for sharing publicly now, this is what I texted her:
Aiyuk would be highest-ranked WR on your roster this week. He’s ESPN’s consensus WR26. (Kirk and Jones in the 30s, see below). And he’s a rookie trending up. Was ESPN’s #8 overall WR over his last two games (20.3 ppg). Only missed last week due to “close contact” with COVID+ player and the guy who got the targets Aiyuk would have gotten (Richie James) scored 33.4. Now Aiyuk’s back. Promising rookie in a good role w/ upside for more in playoffs w/ great schedule (Buf, Wsh, @Dal, @Ari).
Then I sent her a link to an article in which Jerry Rice raved about Aiyuk. And threw in Jalen Reagor who had recently returned to health to sweeten the pot. In the end, I think the offer was too good not to pass up. Or maybe I just wore her down. Actually, it was probably the newborn baby that wore her down. Yeah, definitely the baby.
Either way, the deal ended up being a massive success for Greco. Everything I said about Aiyuk turned out to be right and then some in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Neither Deebo Samuel nor George Kittle ever really returned to the lineup for good, leaving Aiyuk as the biggest offensive weapon in San Francisco. According to Mike Clay, he’s been the #2 scoring WR in fantasy over his last five active weeks. And since Greco traded for him, he’s averaged 21.1 ppg in the four games she’s played him. Ridiculous.
Without Aiyuk—without that deal—Greco does not make, let alone advance, in the playoffs. Look no further than her Week 13 six-point win over Gray in which Aiyuk scored 20.5 points. Maybe she starts Melvin Gordon in the flex and makes it in anyway, but he was coming off a game with just 3.1 points, and the previous week she had opted for Christian Kirk in that spot instead. Let’s say she starts Kirk. If that’s the case, she loses to Gray who gets the 2 seed, misses the playoffs, and Josh makes it in instead. Given that hypothetical bracket, Josh probably beats Jess (assuming he starts Curtis Samuel and the Washington D/ST) to advance to the semifinals where he loses to Gray in a close one. Then it’s Gray, not Greco, in the finals—all because of the Brandon Aiyuk deal.
To be clear, that’s a lot of what-ifs. Who knows what moves would have been made on the waiver wire if Josh or Gray had still been active in Weeks 14 and 15, respectively? This is all hypothetical. And a hundred other what-ifs could have changed the season in a million other ways. But there’s no doubt this one trade has secured Greco’s place in the finals.
In fact, that deal now takes centerstage as the team owner Greco and Aiyuk will be facing is the one who traded him away—yours truly. And just as I wrote in that text message, Aiyuk has a tasty matchup with the Cardinals who just allowed Jalen Hurts to throw for 338 yards and 3 TDs against them. As for Jamaal Williams, ironically he was injured in last week’s game and could miss this week’s finale. All of which means we could be entering a potential scenario in which Brandon loses a championship he might have won had he not made the deal with Greco in the first place. The myriad hypotheticals and alternate universes that no doubt exist are positively maddening.
Knowing all that, would I still make the deal again? Yes. Despite how productive Aiyuk has been, I’d have been hard pressed, even now, to pull the trigger and start him over Stefon Diggs, DK Metcalf or A.J. Brown. Even though I haven’t started Jamaal Williams once since I acquired him, I’d still rather have had the insurance policy for Aaron Jones.
I guess, I’d just like for you, dear reader (all three of you who are still reading these recaps even after you’ve been eliminated), to take one thing away from this—don’t be afraid to make a trade. Even with me! Look for deals where both team owners can benefit, where the relative strengths and weaknesses of two teams can balance out and complement one another. It’s clear that it helped lead Brandon and Greco to this year’s championship game.
Which team owner benefited the most?
I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
The Scoreboard
Brandon and Greco upset the top two seeds to advance to the finals.
Greco had her best game of the season in Week 15, defeating Jess 159.32-125.62. She did it by somehow beating the Power Glove at her own game, with Marvin Jones and Brandon Aiyuk outscoring Davante Adams, Tyreek Hill and Cole Beasley 49.5-47.8. Then Greco cleaned up at RB where Josh Jacobs and David Montgomery combined for 49.6 points compared to just 20.8 for Todd Gurley and Devin Singletary. Ultimately, the Power Glove was done in when solid but not spectacular days for her WRs could not make up for her lackluster RBs.
Advancing to the final, Greco will meet Brandon who defeated Beth Ann in the second-closest margin of victory in playoff history—just 1.18 points. (For what it’s worth, the closest margin of victory also belongs to Brandon—a one-point win over Jess in the 2018 championship game.) Beth Ann’s WRs actually outperformed Brandon’s 60.5-50.4 but Brandon held his own at RB and made up the difference at QB where once again Lamar Jackson came up big in the fantasy playoffs, outscoring Russell Wilson by 17.18 points. It all came down to Jarvis Landry and the Browns D/ST on Sunday night. Needing Landry to outscore the Browns by 13.28 points, the Giants offense came up just five yards short of what would have resulted in a Beth Ann victory.
As a result, we say goodbye to the top two seeds in the playoffs—Beth Ann and Jess.
In a sensational sophomore season, Beth Ann scored 179.08 points in the season opener and never looked back. At 10-3, she finished with the best record in the league (just the seventh team in league history with double-digit wins) and led the league with most weeks spent atop the Power Rankings (tied at six with Josh). She also won two weekly prizes and had one of the most balanced teams in the league—the only team owner to rank in the top half of the league in scoring at QB, RB and WR. Though she failed to pick up her first playoff win, she drastically improved her career record and TW%, the latter of which now ranks fifth.
Meanwhile, it was another terrific season for Jess who has not had a losing season since 2013, the second-longest active streak in the league, and has only missed the playoffs twice in the last seven years. Drafting from the 12th spot, she took the unorthodox approach of eschewing RBs, selecting two WRs with her first two picks, which proved to be a successful strategy in our first year of PPR scoring. In fact, Jess finished third in scoring and set the record for most points in a single game with 191.82 in Week 12. Even by her own lofty standards, this was a great year for Jess, her second-best ever in both wins and TW%, trailing only her 2014 championship season.
Both Beth Ann and Jess were deserving of a championship this year but will instead battle it out in this week’s consolation game. Jess will be looking for her fourth top-3 finish while Beth Ann will be competing for her first. They are 1-1 in two career matchups with Beth Ann winning their only previous matchup this year, a low-scoring 86.42-77.12 affair. I expect more points in this win with plenty of pride and a little bit of scratch on the line.
Championship Preview
Greco is the first 6 seed to ever make it to the championship game.
It all comes down to this.
Brandon vs. Greco for all the marbles. At first glance, it may seem like an improbable championship matchup—the fifth-ranked team in the final Power Rankings versus the ninth-ranked team—but these are nevertheless deserving teams. Sure, I’m biased. But remember, Brandon’s was arguably the best of the playoff teams (would have finished second to Josh in the final Power Rankings had he not benched his starters in Week 13), and Greco has the hottest team over the last three weeks.
This is the first time the 6 seed has ever made it to the finals. Granted, we’ve only had a 6 seed since 2018. But Greco is breaking new ground for the underdogs. Either way, Greco or Brandon will become the first team owner without a bye week to win three straight games in the playoffs and claim the championship.
Historically, these are also two of the most successful team owners in playoff history. Brandon leads all team owners in playoff wins (11) and championships (3), but Greco is no slouch herself, ranking third in both. They also rank second in playoff appearances with six each, and between the two of them, Brandon and Greco have 18 total playoff wins. The rest of the league has 24 combined.
Plus, it just wouldn’t be the finals without Brandon or Greco present. In fact, at least one of them has appeared in the finals in seven out of 10 years and at least one has been playing in the final week of the season in all but two. Brandon, in particular, has been on a hot streak of late and has now played in the finals in four of the last five years with what is now five straight top-3 finishes, breaking Gray’s record of four straight from 2013-2016.
The first two champions in league history, Brandon and Greco met for the first and only time in the playoffs in the 2017 championship game. It was a two-week matchup that Brandon won 203-168 to claim his second championship. Now they meet for a rematch three years later with Greco seeking her second championship and Brandon hoping for an unprecedented fourth title.
That’s the matchup. Now let’s preview the two teams we’ll find there.
Greco
7-6, .462 TW%, 116.1 ppg
Coming off two consecutive 3-10 seasons, the only two losing seasons of her career, Greco entered 2020 with the hope of a bounceback year. Given the ninth pick in the draft, her second-lowest pick ever, Greco selected three WRs with her first four picks and all three struggled with injury. Julio Jones (WR39) and Kenny Golladay (WR99) have been in and out of the lineup and Courtland Sutton (WR171) was lost for the season in Week 2.
But the rest of the draft was pretty solid, especially at RB. Second-round pick Josh Jacobs was the 10th RB drafted but is currently RB7. Even better, David Montgomery, taken in the sixth round, is currently RB6 and has been on fire down the stretch, averaging 26.5 ppg over his last four, the highest-scoring RB during that stretch according to Field Yates. Throw in Nyheim Hines (RB17) and Melvin Gordon (RB18), both taken in the middle to late rounds, and you’ve got a recipe for the second-highest scoring team at RB with 40.8 ppg during the regular season. Only Josh was better and he spent both of his first two picks and three of his first five on RBs.
As for the other positions, Greco waited on QB until the seventh round when she wisely selected Aaron Rodgers, the 10th QB drafted who has overachieved his draft position and is currently QB4. Hunter Henry has been solid (TE7), though like most of Greco’s players, even better down the stretch—11.8 ppg over his last six games. And finally, the Colts D/ST (D/ST2) and Rodrigo Blankenship (K5) have helped Greco to the third-most points at those positions during the regular season.
During the season, Greco started hot, going 3-1 and averaging 128.4 ppg over the first four weeks, but really struggled through the middle part of the season. From Weeks 5-9, Greco was lucky to go 2-3, averaging only 102.7 ppg and ranked 10th in TW% during that time. But as winning time neared, Greco heated back up. Since Week 10 and including the playoffs, Greco has gone 4-2 while averaging 128.7 ppg, leading the league in scoring in three out of those six weeks. Key, of course, has been the play of trade acquisition Brandon Aiyuk, who was acquired in the very same week that Greco started her ascent.
Though her performance has been up-and-down this season, the one thing that has been consistent for Greco is her penchant for starting inactive players. Granted, she just had a baby! But Greco has started a total of nine inactive players this season. Nine?! They include:
Week 3: Julio Jones (inactive)
Week 5: No QB, Melvin Gordon (bye), Julio Jones, (inactive) Kenny Golladay (bye)
Week 9: Jamaal Williams (inactive)
Week 11: Kenny Golladay (inactive)
Week 12: Kenny Golladay (inactive)
Week 14: Julio Jones (inactive)
Unsurprisingly, she went 2-4 in those games. Actually, maybe it’s surprising she won even two games without starting a full complement of players, including the first round of the playoffs. In most cases, it’s been a surprise inactive that catches Greco off guard with the only exception being Week 5 when she actually picked up a QB to replace Rodgers but never actually put him in the lineup.
Still an owner that has started an inactive player nine times this season making it to the championship game is bonkers. But she won when she had to, including crucial games in Week 10 and 13 against Alex and Gray, allowing Greco to beat out Josh—the #1 team in the final Power Rankings—for the sixth and final playoff spot. Then she defeated the best of the Legends Division, two nine-win teams in Gray and Jess to advance to the finals for the third time in her career. If she wins, she’ll be just the third multi-time champion of the Worst League, joining Gray and Brandon.
Speaking of Brandon…
Brandon
8-5, .580 TW%, 122.2 ppg
This is Brandon’s seventh straight winning season, dating back to 2014, which is the longest active streak and tied for the longest ever with Greco from 2011-2017. After finishing third last season when he was defeated by eventual champion Gray in the semifinals, Brandon has returned to the championship game for a record fourth time in the last five years. Now he’ll be seeking a fourth championship and possibly his third in four years, dating back to 2017.
Drafting from the fifth position, Brandon whiffed on Clyde Edwards-Helaire (RB13) but lived to tell about it. Despite passing on studs like Dalvin Cook (RB2) and Derrick Henry (RB3), Brandon found his true RB1 in the second round with Aaron Jones (RB5), which helped him finish the regular season slightly below average in scoring at the position where he ranked seventh.
But his real strength all season was unexpectedly at WR. Despite waiting the second-longest to draft a WR, selecting A.J. Brown with the 44th overall pick in the fourth round, Brandon had one of two truly elite WR corps in the league. Drafting five straight WRs from rounds 4-8, Brandon hit on three in Stefon Diggs (WR3), DK Metcalf (WR5) and A.J. Brown (WR14). Along with Jess’ triumvirate of Tyreek Hill, Davante Adams and Justin Jefferson, they are the only two team owners in the league with three Pro Bowl receivers on their roster.
Unlike Greco, Brandon started slow, stumbling to a 1-3 record over his first four weeks, becoming just the sixth 1-3 team to rebound to make the playoffs—a feat Brandon previously accomplished in 2016. But since Week 5, Brandon has been outstanding. He went 7-2 down the stretch and is 9-2 if we include the playoffs. If we throw out Brandon’s Week 13 in which he benched three players to secure the fourth seed, Brandon ranks first in TW% (.705) and second in points (127.9 ppg) over that time.
And in the playoffs, he’s been even better averaging 142.4 ppg with the rise of Lamar Jackson. Though he disappointed for most of the season, Lamar Jackson (QB8) heated up down the stretch, including 34.92 points in the Hanukkah Miracle game from the first round of the playoffs.
During the season, there were no shortage of moves as Brandon led the league in free agent acquisitions (53) and trades (4). But most of those moves ended up being on the margins. Despite acquiring them for depth or insurance purposes, Brandon never started Jamaal Williams, Ryan Tannehill or Mike Williams. Tannehill, in particular, was an interesting acquisition as it came hours before the trade deadline in response to the news that Lamar Jackson had tested positive for COVID-19. Luckily for all involved, Jackson returned to health relatively quickly.
Probably the best deal Brandon made was trading away Salvon Ahmed for T.J. Hockenson—a Pro Bowler in his own right who is currently TE4. That being said, with Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s injury, Brandon is suddenly in need of an RB2 and Ahmed is coming off a game of 21.7 points. And to be honest, as consistent as Hockenson has been, I’m still debating whether or not to start Hockenson or Logan Thomas at TE. Decisions, decisions…
Crazy enough, despite all these moves, Brandon is getting 81% of his scoring this season from players he drafted, a career high. The truth is the best players Brandon has had this season have been the ones he drafted. We’ll see if that continues to be the case in the championship game.
Speaking of which, Brandon engineered his way to the 4 seed in Week 13 where he defeated Erik and Beth Ann in two games that came down to the wire. Against Greco, he’ll need to keep it up. Remember, Greco has led the league in scoring in three of the last six weeks while Brandon led the league in scoring for just the first time in Week 14.
Which leads me to wonder—has a team ever won the championship without winning a weekly prize during the regular season? The answer: yes. It’s happened twice. Most recently, Geoff did it in 2016. And before him, Brandon did it in 2011. Though both times, those two team owners finished as the runner-up in points in a given week multiple times. Brandon has only done that once this season.
The Prediction
The computer predicts Brandon has a 62% chance of winning his fourth championship.
When I’m in the championship game, I’m not going to make a prediction. Don’t want to jinx or pick against myself. So I’ll let the computer speak for me. Due to a better TW% during the regular season, the computer sees my team as the favorite with a 62% chance of winning compared to just 38% for Greco.
But if we look at the ESPN projections, it’s much closer. Remember, Greco’s team has been the highest-scoring team over the last six weeks. I’m still fiddling with my lineup, but the current projections rate Brandon as a very slight favorite with a 52% chance of winning. It really could go either way.
For his career, Brandon is 8-3 against Greco. And if Brandon and Greco had played each other every single week this season, Brandon would have won that 15-game series 9-6. Ironically, these two met in the first game of the season, and now they’ll face each other for the rematch in the last. Greco won their first meeting 141.66-128.0. But some of the names and faces have changed. Marvin Jones, who was in Brandon’s starting lineup in Week 1, is now on Greco’s in Week 16.
Will Brandon win his fourth championship? Or will Greco win her second?
In just a few short days, we’ll know for sure.
