A Football Life, Week 13

Entering our final week of play, two playoff spots are locked up – Danny clinched the AFL Central a few weeks ago and Will has had the AFL East on lock for two weeks. Five teams are in the running for the final two spots.

One of those playoff spots goes to the AFL West division winner. That race has come down Andrew and Cory, who faced off for the second time last week. With his win, Andrew moved into a tie atop the division and is 2-0 now in the head-to-head matchup, so he will clinch the division title with a win against Evan or if Sean beats Cory in Week 14.

Once that division is settled, the other of the two teams currently holds the wild card spot, but there will be competition if either one loses this week. If Cory loses to Sean, Viroj can take the wild card from him by beating Eric since he holds the head-to-head tiebreaker against Cory. If Cory wins and Andrew loses, giving Cory the AFL West title, Brandon or William could take the wild card from Andrew by winning their respective games. Currently, Brandon holds the edge over William based on the third and fourth tiebreakers (points scored and points against) but the two are close enough in both categories that their respective positions are not set in stone.

After a low-scoring week 12, this week ranked 11th all-time through 67 regular season weeks of play. This was thanks in large part to the Kansas City Chiefs offense which produced three top 40 players at their positions despite losing to the Jets.

Alex Smith gave Andrew 38.2 points, the ninth highest single-game total for a quarterback in league history. Tyreek Hill scored 33.5 points in Adam’s second win of the season for the 24th highest single-game total at the wide receiver position. Danny lost for just the second time this season despite Travis Kelce’s 23.4 points, tied for #36 on the single-week list for tight ends.

Andrew led the league with 146.3 points, good for #20 on the single-week team score list. He won the Tom Brady Award and the Peyton Manning Award, his fifth and fourth such awards, respectively. It was the 15th time in league history and fifth time this season that a team won both awards in the same week.

As mentioned, Danny suffered just his second loss of the season, and it was a bit of an unlucky loss. He posted the sixth best score of the week but was facing Brandon who put up the third highest total. As such, we also had a lucky victor in Week 13. Sean had just a 4-7 breakdown with the eighth highest score but was facing our lowest scorer, Evan.

Our top coach of the week was William. He took a coaching risk by ignoring ESPN projections and starting Jermaine Kearse over Jeremy Maclin. While it didn’t change the outcome of his game, he earned 14.1 points with the decision.

Our worst coach of Week 13 was Eric. He went against projections and started Doug Baldwin over Kenyan Drake. Like William, he did not change the outcome of his game with the decision but he did cost his team a league-high 13.0 points. Only Viroj has cost his team more points this season based on coaching decisions than has Eric, and Eric has cost his team a league-high two wins due to failed decisions.

This week Andrew had four players in the top five at their positions, one at each offensive position. Viroj and Adam had three such players each. Evan was the only owner with no such players.

Check out the review of Week 13 below:

Standings:

AFL East	Rec	GB	AFL West	Rec	GB
Will Massimini	9-4	--	Andrew Perez	8-5	--
Viroj Suteerawongsa	7-6	2	Cory Puffett	8-5	--
Eric Meyer	6-7	3	Evan Ash	5-8	3
Adam Perez	2-11	7	Sean Kennedy	2-11	6
AFL Central	Rec	GB
Danny Hatcher	11-2	--
Brandon Saunders	7-6	4
William Battle	7-6	4
Anthony Battle	6-7	5

Schedule:

Away	Score	Home	Score
Will Massimini (WM)	99.1	Viroj Suteerawongsa (VS)	113.2
Adam Perez (AP2)	123.0	Eric Meyer (EM)	103.4
William Battle (WB)	129.1	Anthony Battle (AB)	89.5
Brandon Saunders (BS)	126.4	Danny Hatcher (DH)	111.6
Evan Ash (EA)	83.1	Sean Kennedy (SK)	106.6
Cory Puffett (CP)	107.4	Andrew Perez (AP1)	146.3

Scoring Leaders (Must be starting on a team to qualify):

QB	Pts	RB	Pts
1. Alex Smith, AP1	38.2	1. Le’Veon Bell, AP1	28.5
2. Russell Wilson, WB	25.6	2. Alvin Kamara, BS	28.0
3. Cam Newton, VS	21.6	3. Alex Collins, AP2	24.3
4. Andy Dalton, AP2	19.9	4. Mark Ingram, DH	22.6
5. Ben Roethlisberger, EM	18.9	5. A. Morris, VS & J. Williams, WM	21.4
WR	Pts	TE	Pts
1. Tyreek Hill, AP2	33.5	1. Travis Kelce, DH	23.4
2. Nelson Agholor, AP1	23.6	2. Rob Gronkowski, AP1	19.2
3. A.J. Green, BS	23.2	3. Delanie Walker, AB	14.8
4. Keenan Allen, EM	21.5	4. Kyle Rudolph, CP	11.6
5. Larry Fitzgerald, SK	20.8	5. Hunter Henry, VS	11.6

Game of the Week: Cory Puffett at Andrew Perez

Andrew is the fifth team this year alone to lead the league in scoring while playing in the game of the week. His win gives him a 2-0 head-to-head record against Cory and gives him the edge in the divisional record. A win next week against Evan would secure the AFL West division title and a return trip to the AFL playoffs for Andrew.