A Football Life, Week 14

We have reached the conclusion of the regular season in season 5 of the AFL. The playoffs are set but before we get to that, let’s recap the final week of the regular season.

Brandon won the game of the week against Anthony. Unfortunately he needed Cory to win and Andrew to lose for his win to catapult him into the playoffs. Both Cory and Andrew won their games and earned playoff births, but Brandon won his third career Peyton Manning Award.

This week’s Tom Brady Award went to Will, who led the league with 168.0 points. That total is the third highest single-week score in league history and the second highest for a regular season contest.

Cory also put up some bit point totals as six of his seven offensive players scored touchdowns and the lone wolf who didn’t was Antonio Brown, who still managed to lead Cory’s team in scoring. His point total of 149.9 points is tied for #15 on the league’s all-time list.

Only one position player made the top 40 list and that was Le’Veon Bell. He gave Andrew a 36.3-point performance, tying him at #16 on the running back list.

On the whole, the league’s 12 teams scored 1348.6 points in week 14, good for the tenth highest scoring week through 68 regular season weeks in league history. It was just the fourth time that the six winning teams averaged at least 130 points.

Our unluckiest coach of the week was Sean, who posted a 6-5 breakdown but was facing Cory. Our luckiest was Brandon, who had just a 4-7 breakdown but was facing Anthony, who had the second lowest point total of the week.

The best coach in week 14 was Brandon, who earned 6.4 points and his victory over Anthony by taking two successful coaching risks, starting Marqise Lee over TY Hilton and Jerrick McKinnon over DeMarco Murray.

The worst coach of the week was Evan, who cost his team 18.8 points by failing on two coaching risks, starting David Njoku over Charles Clay and Sterling Shepard over Demaryius Thomas.

On the season, our unluckiest coach was Adam. He had 2.5 fewer wins than expected based on his season-long breakdown and 3 fewer wins than expected based on the number of times he finished in the top half of the league in scoring.

On the flip side, we had two very lucky coaches. Based on season-long breakdown, Danny won 3.4 more games than expected. Based on the number of times he finished in the top half of the league in scoring, Cory had three more wins than expected.

Coaching has been a trip this season. This year I used ESPN’s weekly projections, as they were at the time games began and lineups locked, to define coaching risks. Our best coach this year was Cory, who had nine successful coaching risks out of 14 for .643 success rate. Overall he cost his team one win but earned his team a total of 32.6 points. He was the only owner who earned points over the course of the entire season.

Andrew, Danny, William, and Brandon each earned their team one win over the course of the season. William actually earned his team two wins this season with coaching decisions but also cost his team a win back in week 3. Danny, meanwhile, had the second best success rate in the league despite losing a cumulative 13.3 points. He had 10 correct decisions on 16 risks.

Our two worst coaches this season were Eric and Viroj. Eric cost his team two wins and 43.4 points this season, going 4 for 11 on coaching risks. Viroj cost his team just one win but a league worst 58.1 points with the lowest success rate in the league. He took the most risks with 20 but only hit on 6 of them for a .300 success rate.

After having four owners reach the plateau in 2016, Will was the only owner in the league with more than 1600 points this season. His final total sits behind only Eric and Anthony’s totals from last year.

Two owners failed to average 100 points per game. Sean managed just 1312.3 points in his 14 games this season. Things get rough when you have just two players on your roster who are in the top 10 at their position for the season.

Looking ahead to the playoffs, the first round will feature Danny against Cory and Will against Andrew. The consolation brackets will determine the order in which owners will select their draft positions next year while the two owners who make it to the championship game will earn the right to select their divisions for next season.

Good luck to everyone over the final two weeks of the season. I’ll be back after the championship game with a playoff recap and a season wrap-up.

Check out the review of Week 14 below:

Standings:

AFL East	Rec	GB	AFL West	Rec	GB
Will Massimini	10-4	--	Andrew Perez	9-5	--
Viroj Suteerawongsa	7-7	3	Cory Puffett	9-5	--
Eric Meyer	7-7	3	Evan Ash	5-9	4
Adam Perez	2-12	8	Sean Kennedy	2-12	7
AFL Central	Rec	GB
Danny Hatcher	12-2	--
Brandon Saunders	8-6	4
William Battle	7-7	5
Anthony Battle	6-8	6

Schedule:

Away	Score	Home	Score
Viroj Suteerawongsa (VS)	99.2	Eric Meyer (EM)	125.0
Anthony Battle (AB)	92.2	Brandon Saunders (BS)	97.3
Danny Hatcher (DH)	124.1	William Battle (WB)	97.0
Andrew Perez (AP1)	117.6	Evan Ash (EA)	81.2
Sean Kennedy (SK)	102.5	Cory Puffett (CP)	149.9
Adam Perez (AP2)	94.6	Will Massimini (WM)	168.0

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

QB	Pts	RB	Pts
1. Ben Roethlisberger, EM	31.0	1. Le’Veon Bell, AP1	36.3
2. Dak Prescott, SK	28.1	2. Jordan Howard, AB	30.3
3. Carson Wentz, WM	28.0	3. Jamaal Williams, WM	28.8
4. Russell Wilson, WB	22.6	4. Todd Gurley II, WB	28.3
5. Matthew Stafford, BS	18.0	5. Alex Collins, AP2	25.4
WR	Pts	TE	Pts
1. DeAndre Hopkins, DH	30.4	1. Trey Burton, WM	21.6
2. Antonio Brown, CP	26.8	2. Jared Cook, AP2	16.0
3. Davante Adams, AP1	25.4	3. Hunter Henry, VS	13.0
4. Michael Thomas, CP	22.7	4. Kyle Rudolph, CP	11.6
5. Jarvis Landry, WM	20.6	5. Travis Kelce, DH	10.9

Game of the Week: Anthony Battle at Brandon Saunders

In the lowest-scoring game of the week, Brandon warded off Anthony thanks to a poor performance by Tom Brady on Monday night. Unfortunately for Brandon, Andrew won his game against Evan to knock Brandon out of the playoffs. Instead Brandon will settle for the top seed in the consolation ladder.