Week 12 Power Rankings
The record books were officially SMASHED in Week 12. 📚💥🔨
In the highest scoring week in league history, teams averaged a ridonkulous 131.4 points, breaking the record set in Week 5 of 2021. All but three teams eclipsed our season-long average of 116.8 points with three going for a whopping 160+ points. Two teams scored more than 130 points…and lost. And only one team failed to hit the century mark. Whew.
As the dust settled on the most explosive week in Worst League history, the favorites once again stood tall. With the exception of Beth Ann who played spoiler to Chelsie, every single team owner who was favored in last week’s Playoff Picture won in Week 12:
Erik held off Alex for his record 10th win of the season.
Gray rediscovered Greased Lightnin’ and raced past Samantha.
Brandon avenged his Week 1 loss to Josh in a blowout.
Nick won his second weekly prize, quashing a valiant effort from Geoff.
And Greco out-dueled Jess in a game both deserved to win.
As a result, the playoff race may have shrunk to just eight teams that are still in serious contention with three long shots and Beth Ann still lurking as a spoiler. This week, we’ll break down all of that and more.
But before we do, let’s take a look at the Power Rankings.
After five weeks in sole possession of first place, Gray is suddenly tied with Brandon for the #1 spot.
Is that…Brandon?
Following his explosive Week 12 in which he scored 161.16 points with nearly 60 points from his powerful RB trio of Raheem Mostert, Alvin Kamara and Josh Jacobs, Gray held onto his #1 ranking for the seventh-straight week. BUT…joining him at the top is now Brandon whose not-too-shabby RB triumvirate of Christian McCaffrey, Jahmyr Gibbs and Rachaad White actually led Brandon to outscore Greased Lightnin’ in Week 12. As a result, the two are tied with a .659 TW%, though it should be noted Gray has a nearly 70-point edge in total points so far this season.
Still, after a 3-5 start, Brandon has now won four games in a row and is tied for first atop the Power Rankings, his fourth week this season with at least a share of the top spot. That’s the same number of weeks as Erik who has dominated the standings for most of the season. In fact, those three—Gray, Brandon and Erik—form a top tier all above .600 TW% and have collectively led the Power Rankings every week this season.
As for the rest of the Power Rankings, Samantha, Alex and Nick form a clear second tier, each with a TW% all above .500. Notably, Samantha is the only team in the top half of the Power Rankings with a losing record. On the flip side, both Greco and Josh are interlopers with better real-life records than Samantha, despite residing in the bottom half of the rankings for almost the entire season.
But Power Rankings aside, cold hard wins and losses are what matter. And these are the official standings (with current playoff teams in bold):
10-2: Erik
9-3: Gray
7-5: Brandon, Alex, Josh
6-6: Nick, Greco
5-7: Samantha
4-8: Jess, Chelsie, Geoff
3-9: Beth Ann
If the playoffs were to start today, Erik and Gray would have the first-round bye. Brandon, Alex and Josh would be in. And Nick would get the final playoff spot over Greco thanks to a points tiebreaker.
But what does the Playoff Picture project? Let’s run the simulations! 🤖
Biggest riser: Nick (+31%) | Biggest faller: Samantha (-27%)
It’s the same six teams—Erik, Gray, Brandon, Alex, Josh and Nick.
But that’s not the whole story. Let’s break it down, starting with the locks:
Last week Erik clinched a playoff spot. This week, he clinches a first-round bye, his first since the playoffs expanded to six teams. Rest up and we’ll see you in Week 15! 😴
Gray clinched a playoff spot as well! This will be his ninth career playoff appearance (in 13 seasons), the most of any other team owner. Gray is AU-TO-MA-TIC.
As for the first-round bye, Gray needs one more win to clinch. The only way he could lose it is if he loses both of his final two games (to Greco and Alex), and one of the seven-win teams wins out and catches him in points. Given how far back Alex and Josh are currently, Brandon is realistically the only one that could do it.
Currently, the computer says there’s about a 6% chance that both Gray and Brandon end the season at 9-5. If Brandon can then outscore Gray by 33.86 points per game, he’d steal the final first-round bye in that scenario, however unlikely that may be.
Setting Erik and Gray aside (plus Beth Ann who’s already been eliminated), that leaves nine team owners gunning for four spots. But of those nine, three are serious long shots with less than a 1% chance to make the playoffs. (We’ll get to them eventually.) As a result, I’d say we have six true contenders gunning for four spots. They are Brandon, Alex, Josh, Nick, Samantha and Greco.
To break down their chances, it’s time to scale the Wall of Destiny! 🧗♂️
Team owners that control their own destiny are Brandon, Alex, Josh and Nick. Win out and they’re in.
Let’s go team by team:
Of the 7-5 teams, Brandon is in the best position. Not only does he have the easiest schedule remaining (with games against Beth Ann and Chelsie who are currently 10th and 11th in the Power Rankings), but he’s also second among all teams in points, trailing only Gray. In fact, he’s more than 100 points ahead of every contender except Samantha.
Given those advantages, Brandon likely clinches with one more win. And he might be in anyway. For him to miss, he’d need to lose out, Alex and Josh would each have to win at least one more game, and Nick and Greco would both have to win out. Or if not Greco, then Samantha plus the points. The Wall says there’s just a 1.1% chance of that worst-case scenario happening. See? I can jinx myself too.
Similar to Brandon, Alex needs one more win. But as we noted last week, the schedule is tough. After losing to Erik in Week 12, he now faces Jess and Gray. Were he to lose both of those games, things get precarious. Both Samantha and Nick lead him in points. And Greco is not far behind. If two out of those three can get to seven wins, that could spell trouble for Alex. As a result, this week’s matchup against Jess (Alex’s best chance at a win) looms large.
Josh’s magic number remains nine wins, not eight. He can still make the playoffs, even with seven or eight wins. But to control his own destiny and secure his place, Josh would need to win out. After scoring the fewest points in Week 12, Josh ranks last in points among all six contenders. As a result, eight wins would not guarantee a playoff spot considering that we could potentially have seven 8-win teams with Josh at the back of the pack.
The most likely scenario where Josh misses the playoffs involves Josh losing his final two games while Nick, Greco and/or Samantha tie him in wins and beat him in points. Like Alex, Josh has a tough Week 14 game against Erik. That means this week’s game against Geoff will be crucial. And Geoff—though he’s last in the Power Rankings—has looked feisty with C.J. Stroud looking like an MVP, Najee Harris and Pat Freiermuth playing well now that the Steelers fired Matt Canada, and (don’t look now) but early-season Zack Moss may be back with Jonathan Taylor sidelined. Josh has been one of the luckier team owners this season, but he’ll have to earn it down the stretch.
Nick is the last team owner who controls his own destiny. If he wins out, he’s in (assuming he maintains his 51.46-point edge over Greco). And with Kyren Williams back, he’s looking fierce. But Nick has a tough schedule too, facing Erik and Jess in consecutive weeks. If he goes 1-1 down the stretch, that would give him just seven wins, which opens the door for Samantha, who has more points, to steal the final playoff spot were she to win out.
And if Nick goes 0-2, he’ll be eliminated. That’s because Greco and Samantha play each other in Week 14. So either Greco gets to seven wins. Or at minimum, Samantha ties him with six. Since she has Nick beat in points, Samantha would advance. Bottom line: Nick has to win at least one game and two if he wants to control his own destiny.
Next up is Greco who does not control her own destiny but still has a 98.2% chance of making the playoffs if she can win out. Why not 100%? Because most of the contenders that lead her in the standings (Brandon, Alex and Nick) can beat her in points. And the only one who can’t (Josh) can beat her in wins.
So she’ll need a little help. As we said last week, Greco needs to win out (which includes beating Samantha) to get to eight wins and hope that one of Alex, Josh, Brandon or Nick doesn’t get there. Or if she goes 1-1, she’d need even more losses from her rivals.
Then, there’s Samantha. At 5-7, she’s behind the eight ball, trailing Nick and Greco by one win with just two games to go. And yet, she still has a 39% chance to make the playoffs according to the Playoff Picture. Why? Because she’s got a couple of aces up her sleeve.
First of all, she plays Greco in Week 14. Because of that head-to-head matchup, a win there would allow her to catch Greco. And second, she continues to lead all the other contenders except Brandon in points. If she can win out, she would win a tiebreaker against any other potential seven-win teams. And even at 6-8, she could beat Nick if he loses out. It may seem far-fetched for Samantha to have such reasonable odds, but if Samantha beats Chelsie and Greco (who she leads in the Power Rankings) and Nick loses to Erik (the likely one seed), Samantha is in. In fact, her bye week troubles may be her biggest hurdle in Week 13.
Finally, we come to the long shots—Jess, Chelsie and Geoff.
Even at 4-8, none are technically eliminated. But they would need a lot of help.
Each would need to win out to get to 6-8. Then they’d have to hope for Nick and Greco to lose out. And finally, they’d need Samantha to only win her Week 14 game against Greco. At that point, there would be a big logjam at 6-8 that would include Nick, Greco, Samantha and potentially Jess, Chelsie and Geoff. Yes, it’s possible that we have six 6-8 teams all vying for the final playoff spot.
Then it would come down to the points. Because Samantha is the leader, these long shots would have to catch her. That would take overcoming almost 100 points for Jess, almost 150 points for Chelsie and over 200 points for Geoff. That’s a lot of points in just two games, which is why I think ESPN has eliminated Geoff in the official standings. But I’m not discounting the possibility.
To get a better sense of what their chances are, I re-ran the simulations assuming that each of those three were able to overcome the points deficit.
If Jess wins out and gets the points tiebreaker, she makes the playoffs 9.0% of the time with her overall playoff chances jumping to 1.7%.
If Chelsie wins out and gets the points tiebreaker, she makes the playoffs 11.5% of the time with her overall playoff chances jumping to 1.1%.
If Geoff wins out and gets the points tiebreaker, he makes the playoffs 4.9% of the time with his overall playoff chances jumping to 1.0%.
That’s not insubstantial. They’re going to need to pour on the points, but it would make for an incredible comeback.
Alright, that’s it for Week 12. Just two weeks remain and every game matters. Good luck!
