Week 12 Power Rankings
Tyreek Hill is a cheat code.
On Sunday afternoon, he had 39.5 points… in the first quarter. The first quarter! And by the end of the game, his 57.9 points were, according to ESPN, the seventh-most by a WR in a single game in NFL history, trailing only the likes of guys like Steve Largent and Jerry Rice.
In Worst League history, it’s easily the most points ever scored by an individual player, breaking the record set by Tyler Locket (53.0 points) for Josh back in Week 7. Of course, we all know scores are a little inflated this year by PPR scoring. In fact, Hill’s 57.9 points would have been “only” 44 pre-PPR. But even still, that would have ranked fourth-most in league history, trailing just Aaron Rodgers (45 in 2011), Peyton Manning (46 in 2013) and Doug Martin (51 in 2012), which makes it the most productive day by any standard of scoring that we’ve seen in over seven years.
As we noted in the group chat, Hill’s 57.9 points were more than Nick’s entire roster scored in Week 5 (51.74 points) or Whitney’s totaled in Week 6 (46.56 points). But they’re not alone. Even though it’s a bit of apples to oranges, it’s more points by one player than the scores of 102 other teams in league history, which includes games by every single other team owner including past champions like Gray, Jess, herself, and yours truly. So, sorry for piling on.
As for Hill, the third WR taken in this year’s draft behind Michael Thomas and Julio Jones, he is now WR1 on the season and leads the next closest guy by 31.3 points. That guy? Davante Adams who has been similarly awesome. If Tyreek Hill is a cheat code, Davante Adams is the video game strategy guide that shows you where all the extra lives are hidden. And they’re both on Jess’s roster.
That’s why I’m dubbing this team—the Power Glove. Because when you play Jess, you think you’re in for an ordinary game. But like Lucas Barton in the 1989 cult classic The Wizard, Jess has armed herself with a terrifying power up. For Lucas, it’s the glove. For Jess, it’s the dynamic duo of Hill and Adams (not to mention Justin Jefferson). In a PPR world, the results are potentially devastating. Or in the words of Barton, himself, “ I love Jess’s team. It’s so bad.” (That means good.)
In Week 12, the Power Glove exploded for a record 191.82 points. That breaks the record set by Josh back in Week 7 (183.33), which broke an earlier record Josh set in Week 2 (180.58), which broke the record set by Beth Ann in Week 1 (179.08). In short, it’s been a year. But Jess’s 191.82 points (150 pre-PPR) are now the most in league history, though still two points short by pre-PPR standards. That record still belongs to Josh and Trevor with 152, which makes me wonder if there are still more points to be had. Is 200 possible?
But it wasn’t always this way for the Power Glove. Earlier in the season, with Davante Adams missing part or all of Weeks 2-5 due to a hamstring injury and a bye week, Jess’s team looked as ordinary as a joystick. Here’s what I wrote back in Week 4 when trying to determine which of the 3-1 teams were most likely to miss the playoffs:
The numbers say pretty unequivocally that it’s Jess. While Beth Ann, Gray and Greco all find themselves bunched within that second tier just below Josh, Jess is all the way down in 10th place. With a .364 TW%, Jess has not only shown she has the lowest floor in the league (78.2 points), but she also has the third-lowest ceiling (130.52). Only Nick and Whitney have failed to top that mark. Most troubling, she ranks dead last in the league in scoring, averaging just 110.5 ppg (or 83.8 ppg pre-PPR).
The truth is this is a team that has really struggled at a couple of key positions—QB and RB. Deshaun Watson, the fifth QB taken off the board in this year’s draft, has underperformed (QB13). Only Gray is getting less scoring from QBs. And at RB, she also ranks second-to-last. Remember, Jess was the last owner to draft her first RB, waiting until the 37th pick in the fourth round to grab Todd Gurley—the 18th RB taken. The biggest reason for optimism? Davante Adams. He’s missed two weeks with a hamstring strain. Now he’s got the bye. But when he returns, she’ll have an elite group of pass catchers that includes Adams, Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson and Mark Andrews. If Watson can bounce back and Gurley and Devin Singletary can be serviceable, she could easily make the playoffs. Even going 4-5 down the stretch would probably be enough.
Eight weeks later, those predictions were a little hit-or-miss. So much for Jess missing the playoffs or having a low ceiling. In fact, since Davante Adams’ return in Week 6, Jess has been the best team in the league over the last seven weeks. She ranks second in wins (5), first in TW% (.714) and first in scoring (132.4 ppg) while averaging a ridiculous 66.6 ppg from WR. League average is 39.0 ppg and the next closest over that time frame is Brandon with 51.0 ppg, a full 15 points back. And like Josh who achieved the feat of back-to-back weekly prizes earlier in the season, Jess has now done it in Weeks 11 and 12. The Power Glove is heating up at just the right time.
But my analysis wasn’t all off. I did hint that Davante Adams’ was Jess’ biggest reason for optimism. And while Deshaun Watson struggled early, he’s been great lately with three games of 30+ points since Week 6 and is now QB6. What hasn’t changed are the RBs. Despite all her success, Jess ranks next-to-last in the league in RB scoring since Adams’ return, averaging just 18.0 ppg. Plus, Todd Gurley, her top RB, is now a question mark, having missed Week 12 due to troublesome, lingering knee issues. That position is going to continue to be an Achilles heel for Jess. But in this new era of PPR, maybe RBs aren’t as important as they used to be. Especially when Tyreek Hill can get you 50 on any given Sunday.
Such is the fantastic fantasy existence of the Power Glove.
The Scoreboard
Powered by Jess’ record 191.82 points, this was the most points scored in a single week since Week 3.
Three teams clinched playoff appearances with wins in Week 12.
Leading all scorers, Jess defeated Greco in one of the most consequential matchups of the week. We’ve already focused on Jess who officially clinched her spot by getting to 8-4. So let’s talk about Greco. After winning three consecutive games to get to 6-4, Greco has now lost two straight, scoring less than 105 points in each of the last two weeks. Though she still controls her own destiny (more on that below), she’s only topped the league average (118.2 ppg) once since Week 5 and is 10th in scoring and TW% over that same time frame.
Brandon matched Jess win-for-win to get to 8-4 and clinch his playoff spot by defeating Samantha for the second time this season. Playing without Lamar Jackson who tested positive for COVID-19 just before the trade deadline, Brandon overcame 0.6 points from fill-in Derek Carr thanks to 53.5 combined points from DK Metcalf and A.J. Brown (still less than Tyreek Hill). Meanwhile, as Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins have waned in the last two weeks, so too has Samantha’s team, which has now lost four of her last five games after starting 4-3. Nevertheless, she remains in the hunt as well.
Finally, Erik was the third team to clinch with a 156.2-115.6 win over Whitney thanks to losses for both Samantha and Josh. With 38.5 points from Derrick Henry, Erik had his best game of the season, which was the first time he finished in the top half of the league in scoring since Week 7. The loss snaps Whitney’s two-game win streak but marks the return of Chris Carson to the lineup who looked good despite a modest 13.9 points.
Speaking of Josh, his game with Alex was the nail-biter of the week, which went down to the wire on Monday night. This one was filled with lots of drama and intrigue as Alex forgot to reinsert Josh Allen into his lineup following the bye and as a result managed just 8.06 points from Alex Smith. Nevertheless, big games for Will Fuller (35.1 points) plus returnees Austin Ekeler (23.9) and Deebo Samuel (24.3) were just enough to withstand Antonio Gibson’s career day (36.6 points). Needing just 9.52 points from Tyler Lockett, Josh got just 5.3 as the WR7’s yo-yo season continued. The result helped clinch a spot for Erik and keeps both Alex and Josh in the playoff hunt for the final week.
One more interesting note! Josh would have won this game 110-98 with last year’s scoring settings as Alex held a decisive 37-21 advantage in receptions over Josh, who was until this week ironically this year’s league leader in receptions with 27.1. Now he ranks second, trailing only Gray who averages 27.8.
Speaking of Gray who has already clinched, he lost handily to Geoff 131.08-100.22. The return of Raheem Mostert (who was ironically acquired in a trade with Geoff earlier in the season) was not enough as Geoff fired on all cylinders. Thanks to unlikely heroes like Dallas Goedert (20.5 points) and Wayne Gallman (18.1), the aptly-named Replacements topped 130 points for the second time in the last two weeks. Also, as we noted on the group chat, this is the first time this season that Geoff has won a game where he didn’t have to also win the weekly prize. For Gray, his loss combined with Jess’ win and new points lead means that his division crown is suddenly in danger.
Finally, Beth Ann narrowly edged out Nick 122.4-119.3 despite a subpar outing for Russell Wilson (14.4 points). The Ravens D/ST scored just enough on Wednesday afternoon as the Pittsburgh offense came up 1 point and 65 offensive yards shy of what would have resulted in a second win for Nick. The result is that Beth Ann remains in the driver’s seat for the division lead and, with Gray’s loss, the possible #1 overall seed. Like with Josh and Alex’s game, this result would have also been reversed with pre-PPR scoring, giving Nick a narrow 98-97 victory. Nevertheless, the loss drops Nick to 1-11 where he is now just one more loss away from infamy and the chance to become the first ever 1-12 team.
Power Rankings
Josh regains his position atop the Power Rankings now for the fifth time in 12 weeks.
Despite the loss, Josh’s 134.14 points were just enough to push him past Brandon for the top spot in the Power Rankings. With one week to go in the regular season, that means we are officially in some pretty awkward territory where the #1 team in the final Power Rankings could potentially miss the playoffs.
That leads me to a question that Josh asked in the group chat:
Has a team ever won the season-long points competition and missed the playoffs?
—Josh
The short answer: no.
The team who finished first at the end of the regular season in points has always made the playoffs, including two former champions. But there have been runner-ups that missed.
That includes Brandon in 2012 (93.3 ppg) and Trevor in 2014 (96.1 ppg) who both finished second in scoring but missed the playoffs, though they would have made a six-team playoff had one existed. So it’s not really an apt comparison for what Josh faces this year. In fact, the best finish by a team owner who wouldn’t have made a six-team playoff was Nick in 2012 who finished third in scoring (92.3 ppg) but missed with a 5-8 record. That’s not too dissimilar from Josh’s current 5-7 record.
Josh hasn’t locked up the scoring title yet. But he’s comfortably secured a top-3 finish in points, which means if he does miss the playoffs, he’ll have at least matched Nick—if not surpassed him—for highest-scoring team to miss the playoffs.
And in terms of TW%, Josh could potentially be the first team owner to finish atop the final Power Rankings and still miss the playoffs. That has never happened before. The closest a team has come is fourth place, which was achieved by Geoff (2013), Brandon (2015) and JT (2016) who all missed the playoffs and would have even missed a six-team playoff had one existed back in the day.
And the strangest thing about all of that is this—if the season ended today, Josh would not be in the playoffs. But if the season actually ended today, meaning that the NFL cancelled the rest of the season due to COVID-19, then based on the rules we adopted in the preseason, Josh would actually be declared the champion because of his points lead. Wild!
As for the rest of the Power Rankings, Josh is not the only team owner whose position within the rankings is at odds with his playoff chances. Geoff also finds himself within the top half of the rankings despite being eliminated a week ago. You might recall this is a similar outcome from a year ago when Geoff missed the playoffs at 6-7 despite finishing fifth in the final Power Rankings. For a team owner that suffered through quite a few injuries, it’s no doubt Geoff would have been among the playoff contenders had his team been healthier.
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the rankings, you’ll notice both Erik, who has clinched, and Greco, who would be the 6 seed if the playoffs started today find themselves among the league’s bottom half.
Finally, with a true record of 29-103 (.220 TW%), Nick needs to outscore at least three other team owners in Week 13 to avoid becoming the league’s worst team of all time. That record currently belongs to Geoff who finished 31-111-1 in the Le’Veon Bell holdout season of 2018. As Geoff pointed out in the group chat, the previous title holder was Nick from his 2017 season and, before him, Erik from 2011. Ironically, Nick’s opponent this week is Geoff. Can Geoff—the only team owner to have lost to Nick this season—hand Nick his record 12th loss of the season and, with it, the Worst’s worst championship belt? Or will Nick erase the terrible memory of Christian McCaffrey’s lost season from the record books? Only one more game to find out.
Playoff Picture
Three more teams clinched, leaving just one final playoff spot for five contenders.
It all comes down to this.
With victories for Brandon, Jess and Erik, combined with losses for Josh and Samantha, those first three team owners have all clinched spots in the playoffs. That brings the number of current playoff locks to five, which includes Gray, Beth Ann, Brandon, Jess and Erik.
Congrats to Brandon and Jess, two playoff regulars, who are now returning to the playoffs for the sixth and fifth time, respectively. This is also the third year in a row for Jess and the fifth for Brandon, which breaks the record for most consecutive playoff appearances. As for Erik, this is now his third career playoff appearance, which is seventh-most all time, breaking a tie with three other team owners who have two. This is will be his first playoff appearance since 2017.
That means there’s only one spot left with one week to go. Since Geoff and Nick have already been eliminated, that means there are five teams still in contention—Greco, Josh, Samantha, Alex and Whitney. Given that, there’ll be no Wall of Destiny this week. Instead, let’s simply break down what each team needs to do to make the playoffs.
For Greco, win and she’s in.
Greco controls her own destiny. If the playoffs ended today, she’d be in with a 6-6 record. All the other contenders are 5-7. That means she’s the only one that can get to seven wins. It doesn’t matter how many points she scores or what everyone else does, if she can beat Gray this week, she’ll have locked up the sixth and final playoff spot.
But she’ll have her work cut out for her. While Gray’s team is not as intimidating as its 9-3 record would indicate, Greco will be without Josh Jacobs and Kenny Golladay who are expected to be inactive in Week 13. Can Nyheim Hines muster another one of those 2-TD games? How will Julio Jones perform who was held out of last week’s game with a hamstring injury? Only time will tell.
At the very least, we know Gray will be motivated to win this one as he’s fighting Jess for the division lead (more on that below). And, if I recall correctly, Greco was the one who played spoiler to Gray two years ago in this Week 13 game. This is the perfect opportunity for some revenge. The computer gives Greco a 35% chance to beat Gray and a 41% chance to make the playoffs. That +6% differential exists because Greco could still make the playoffs in a variety of other scenarios. That includes a situation in which Greco, Josh, Samantha and Alex all lose and she maintains her points lead (+108.56) over Whitney.
If Greco does lose, that opens the door for…
Josh needs to win AND for Greco to lose.
Josh’s best chance is to hope Greco loses, which would open the door for a tie at 6-7 for the final playoff spot. Thanks to his sizable points lead (+197.94 on the next-closest contender), a win would then get him the 6 seed. Realistically, there’s no way anyone could catch him in points.
So if you’re Josh, you’re rooting like crazy for Gray. And then you’ve got to do your job and beat Whitney who is averaging a respectable 120.8 ppg over the last three weeks, fourth-most in the league. That’s been largely thanks to her WRs, including Keenan Allen (WR4) and Diontae Johnson (19.8 ppg in his last three), not to mention the return of Chris Carson. And the last time they met, Whitney had her best game of the season with 166.66 points. What will hurt is that she’ll be down three starters in Tom Brady, DJ Moore and Rob Gronkowski, all on bye in Week 13.
Despite the fact that he doesn’t control his own destiny, the computer actually thinks Josh claiming the sixth and final playoff spot is the most likely outcome, giving him a 49% chance. For one, the team he needs to lose is an underdog this week. And of the teams battling for the sixth and final playoff spot, Josh is the most heavily favored to win his game this week both by my computer (75%) and ESPN’s projections (62%).
But if Gray can hold serve over Greco and Whitney does pull off the upset over Josh, that’s where things really get interesting…
Samantha and Alex need to win AND for Greco and Josh to lose.
If Greco and Josh lose, that would open the door for Samantha and Alex. Currently those two are neck-and-neck in points and both ahead of Greco. Here’s the current points standings:
Josh: 1,579.00 points
Samantha: 1,381.06 points (-197.94)
Alex: 1,380.94 points (-0.12)
Greco: 1,366.10 points (-14.84)
Whitney: 1,257.54 points (-108.56)
A loss for Greco opens the door. A loss for Josh removes him from the picture. Then if Samantha or Alex can win, it becomes a points race. Currently, the leader is Samantha but by the slimmest of margins, just 0.12 points after 12 games played. For those keeping track at home, that’s just three yards passing or two yards rushing.
But don’t forget about Greco in that scenario either. Overcoming a deficit of around 15 points is not difficult in a single week. For example, at this time last week, Jess trailed Gray by over 80 points. Now she’s ahead. So Samantha and Alex need to win and then outscore any other 6-7 teams, which could include each other or Greco.
As for the matchups, themselves, Samantha will face Beth Ann who will be motivated to claim one of two first-round byes. And Alex will take on Brandon, who will be hoping to steal that bye from Beth Ann. Those are both difficult matchups but perhaps Alex, who even left himself for dead, has the most compelling prospects considering that his oft-injured team is now suddenly healthy. That includes Austin Ekeler, Michael Thomas and Deebo Samuel. If he can pull off the improbable comeback, this is definitely a team that could make noise in the playoffs.
The computer gives them a 6% and 3% chance, respectively.
Whitney needs to win AND for Greco, Samantha and Alex to lose.
But what about Whitney? You may have left her for dead weeks ago, but she’s still here, Saquon Barkely be damned. I’ve already dedicated some words to explaining why she’s been successful lately, so what does she need to do to make the playoffs?
Well, she needs a lot of help.
Given that she trails Samantha and Alex by 123.52 and 123.4 points, let’s make the safe assumption that she’s not going to catch either of them in a single week. Even Jess couldn’t do that last week and she broke the record for most points in a single week.
That means she needs Greco to lose to open the door. Then she needs both Samantha and Alex to lose. And, oh yeah, she needs to beat Josh, herself, which in some ways is a blessing. Because if she wins, that automatically means Josh loses who she would need to lose anyway due to the points tiebreaker. Better to get two birds with one stone.
If all of that happened, that would leave just her and Greco with the sixth-best records at 6-7. Then it would come down to the points. And that’s where things get really difficult. Whitney currently trails Greco by 108.56 points, which means she’ll need to outscore Greco by at least that many points to get the final playoff spot.
It’s not impossible, but it’s certainly not likely. The most Whitney has outscored Greco this season is by 60.44 points in Week 7. But if you put Whitney’s best score this season (166.66) up against Greco’s worst score (74.70), the margin is 91.96. That’s at least in the ballpark of what would need to happen.
Finally, what about the division winners?
With one week to go, both divisions are still up for grabs.
In the Legends Division, Gray’s loss to Geoff this week means Jess is now one game back of Gray with one game to go. Even better for her, she overtook him in points and now leads a potential tiebreaker by 11.08 points. That means if Gray does lose to Greco and Jess beats Erik, Jess would win the Legends Division and, as a result, get the first-round bye.
That being said, Gray is still favored. Even if he were not able to catch Jess in points, the computer still gives him an 80% chance to win the division with either a win over Greco or a loss for Jess to Erik.
Meanwhile, in the Leaders Division, the situation is similar though slightly different. Like with Gray and Jess, Beth Ann holds a one-game lead over Brandon with one game to go. But unlike Gray, she currently leads her challenger by 35.56 points. That means even if she lost and Brandon won, he would still need to make up around 36 points to steal the division. So far this season, Brandon has never outscored Beth Ann in a given week by more than 26 points, let alone 36.
Because the computer assumes the points tiebreakers remain the same, Brandon is listed as having a <1% chance of winning the division, though his true odds are likely a little higher than that.
(Just because I have a personal vested interest in this probability, I crunched a few more numbers to get closer to the real answer. The computer says there’s a 24% chance that Brandon wins and Beth Ann loses. And if we use their scores from this season to form normal distributions based on the average and standard deviation of their scores, Brandon’s best shot of outscoring Beth Ann by at least 36 points is probably something like a 125-89 outcome. According to the computer, there’s a 5% chance of that happening. Multiply those two together and you get a conditional probability of 1.2%. I’m sure that’s a little off because one event happening probably influences the other, so we’ll say it’s between a 1-5% chance. Not great but not impossible.)
Oh yeah, what about Erik? We didn’t really talk about him.
Besides the two eliminated team owners, Geoff and Nick, who will be battling for pride and the Worst’s worst crown, Erik is really the only team owner with nothing to play for in Week 13. He’s playing Jess, so his game will impact her ability to steal the first-round bye from Gray. But because of his points position, he’s almost assuredly locked into the 4/5 game.
This news couldn’t come at a better time for Erik who was probably hardest hit by the unusual Week 13 byes for the Panthers and Buccaneers. Specifically, he’ll be down 2-3 starters in Chris Godwin, Robby Anderson and Leonard Fournette not to mention D’Andre Swift who is doubtful to play in Week 13.
Looking Ahead to Week 13
With just one more week to go, there’s still so much to play for.
At this time in each of the last two seasons, we had four teams vying for two spots. This year, it’s five teams competing for one. I don’t have the data to back this up, but I can’t remember the last time we had this many teams still in contention in the last week of the regular season. Think about it—only two teams have been eliminated. And they’ll be playing in probably the most compelling matchup of Week 13—the Worst Bowl!
So much is up in the air. For example, in terms of seeding, Jess could realistically end up anywhere from the 1 seed to the 5 seed. Josh could miss the playoffs despite finishing the season atop the final Power Rankings or the season could be theoretically cancelled before Week 13 starts and he could be declared champion. And most dramatic of all, we may not know the outcome until Tuesday night when the Ravens take on the Cowboys.
So with that, I’ll say once more good luck to all of you. We have at least one more week of fantasy football. Enjoy it while you can.
