How's Axe Elf Doing?

Kind of a bye-pocalypse this week for your favorite fantasy football legend. Assuming Keenan Allen is eventually ruled out, I will have a total of 9 active players across all five of my benches–and THIRTY EIGHT injured/inactive/bye week players! On the plus side, I am facing very few difficult lineup decisions this week.

League 1:

League 2:

League 3:

League 4:

League 5:

Now with Damien Harris out too, I have 6 active players across my five benches, and had to pick up and start a few FAs (like Terrace Marshall, DeAndre Carter, Caleb Huntley, and Rashid Shaheed) just to submit full lineups this week. I even have Ben Skowronek playing in one league–where Taysom Hill is starting as my emergency QB2.

This week should be fun…

When you get 174 points from your RBs…

You do understand that you are the only one posting and talking to yourself while taking up space and boring others?

Try thinking of someone other than yourself.

Um, you kind of invalidated your own claim there buddy, but keep up the good work!

Think of it more as an education class on fantasy football, and less as a discussion for you to enter into.

Well, it was a lot more fun than I thought it would be–than it should have been!

League 1: This one was the worst for attrition. We start 13 players, and I have 15 players on my bench and IR, and exactly zero of my bench players were active this week. I even had to start Skowronek, and he scored zero. In fact, I tallied a sum total of 35 points from Marcus Mariota, Deon Jackson, Mike Gesicki, Evan Engram, Marvin Jones and Ben Skowronek. I mean, I suppose if Taysom Hill and Rashid Shaheed go nuts tonight and score about 70 between them, and Lamar Jackson has a quiet night, I may still have a chance, but I’m probably better off assuming this will be a loss, dropping to 5-4.

And that was it for the damage–my other four leagues were all wins!

League 2: Sam Ehlinger was my only QB with Winston out and Daniel Jones on bye; I started Allen Robinson in the Superflex slot! But Justin Jefferson, Stefon Diggs, Tyler Lockett, Travis Etienne, and Cordarrelle Patterson all put in work and lifted this team to the second-highest score in the league this week (next to the Mixon owner) and a healthy 6-3 record.

League 3: Nothing like getting 174 points from your three RBs (Henry, Walker, Etienne). Etienne was my Superflex, with Garoppolo on bye, but since he’s dropping a 60 burger just about every week, I might just leave him there. Still have Olave and Taysom going tonight, but I don’t need them; opponent is done and I’m already up 10. Hello 5-4.

League 4: Mahomes, Jefferson, Henry, Patterson, Goedert… din’t even matter that Doubs made an early exit. I have Baltimore DST going tonight, but again, I don’t need them; opponent is done and I’m up by 50. Should be one of the top 2 scores in the league this week, depending on BAL, and another healthy 6-3 record.

League 5: Well, it wasn’t the highest score in the league this week–in fact, there were only three teams I could have beaten after getting a grand total of 6.52 points from my two QBs (Mariota and PJ Walker)–but I went into Sunday Night Football needing 23.5 points from Derrick Henry, and he gave me 25.5. I’m now up to 3-6 in this sad sack league, after stringing together two consecutive wins.

25-20 overall.

Even after eating the koo-koo Koo score in two leagues on Thursday (it’s always fun to start the week with 1 point from your K), I am currently projected to go 5-0 this week, by a cumulative point spread of 77.65 points across the 5 leagues–an average of more than 15 points per league. That’s like having one extra top 10 player on each of my teams against each of my opponents.

Let’s see how the fantasy gods react to Axe Elf’s apparently insurmountable advantage… Injuries? Monsoon weather? Locusts? …???

They couldn’t let me get to 30-20 on the season THAT easy, could they??

Breaking the 2/3 win percentage is like breaking the sound barrier! I’d better strap in against potentially severe buffeting…

Ok, so I wasn’t really expecting locusts, but I did expect that at least one of these projected losers would rise up and have a monster day against me–and that happened in League 5, the sad sack league (of course).

My team was kind of a mixed bag. My QBs (Mariota and Garoppolo) came in on schedule, earning the same 36 points between them that was projected. Najee Harris also held his own for once, and even though Henry and Etienne came in a combined 20 points under their projection, CeeDee Lamb came in 20 points over his projection so that was a wash. My other 3 WRs also came in a combined 10 points over projections–but I lost Zach Ertz on his first catch. Overall, I still exceeded my projection by 5 points for a nice tidy 138.

Unfortunately, I faced the second-highest scoring team in the league this week, sporting Mahomes and Tua at QB, McLaurin, Peoples-Jones and Darius Slayton, of all people, at WR, Aaron Jones at RB, and even his wire-fodder TE, Foster Moreau, put up 10 more than Ertz, and I lost by 23. At 3-7, whatever faint playoff hopes this team might have still entertained before this loss were pretty much snuffed out. I’m now 3 games out of a playoff berth, with four other teams within 1 game of that last berth, with 5 games to go–so it’s not as statistically unlikely as edmcgon posting something useful, but it’s close.

And then there were the locusts, in League 2–and the fantasy gods were highly calculating in their strike.

As I sat watching my League 2 WRs dominating the PPR leader boards throughout the early games (Justin Jefferson, Stefon Diggs, Amon-Ra and Godwin were literally 4 of the top 5 WRs through most of the early games, and even Lockett scored for me), I am thinking there is NO WAY I can lose this game!

But as Axe Elf was probably the only fantasy owner to start Sam Ehlinger this week (after dumping his remaining $63 FAB on getting him two weeks ago), the fantasy gods could target Axe Elf specifically by making it a surprise to the world that the absolutely-benched-for-the-rest-of-the-season Matt Ryan would actually start for the Colts this week–and apparently, on into the future–instead of Ehlinger. That’s new. Good one, fantasy gods!

So with the zero at SuperFlex, I went into Sunday Night Football needing his SuperFlex, Justin Herbert, to score 12 points or less, and he scored 15, technically giving me a 3 point loss. I ended up with the 3rd-highest score of the week against the 2nd-highest score of the week, but I literally could have replaced Ehlinger with any active player on my bench and gained the 3+ points I would have needed to have the win and the 2nd-highest score of the week. Even if I didn’t find out until 5 minutes before game time, I had Allen Robinson going in the late window who would have done the trick.

So since this one wasn’t on me or my team, but on the chaos with the Colts, I’m counting it as a win, based on my team being the superior team this week. So that takes me to 7-3 on the year in League 2, 3rd place in the standings and 3rd-most points scored, 1 game and 54 points out of the lead in each category.

The other 3 leagues were all easy wins, so I have one other 7-3 team and two 6-4 teams; 4-1 this week and 29-21 overall. That league with Mahomes/Henry/Jefferson almost isn’t even fair. Playoffs on the horizon for 4 of the 5 leagues…

So the one league I don’t own Derrick Henry, I’m playing against him. That’s fair.

On the plus side, with no 2nd QB in that league any more (until Winston, Keenum or Ehlinger start again), and Etienne, Godwin, Lockett and Rachaad White all on bye–AND Clyde Edwards-Helaire looking like the ugly duckling in the Chiefs’ backfield these days, I didn’t have many options for the Superflex slot this week.

So when Randall Cobb was activated tonight, I took a shot and picked him up and started him, waiver wire to lineup (kinda like farm to table). He was projected for 6.96 points and he posted a solid 13.30.

On the down side, the player I dropped for Cobb was Robert Woods, so I gained exactly 0.40 fantasy points for my cleverness.

Might have to take one for the team in that league this week–and let that teach me to allow someone else to draft Henry.

It’s looking like a second consecutive 4-1 week…

League 1: I went up against Joe Burrow, Davante Adams, Amari Cooper, Justin Jefferson and David Montgomery–and I’m currently projected to win by 110 points. It will be a win in any case, as my opponent is done, I have a 78 point lead, and I still have Keenan Allen, Trey McBride, and the Arizona DST to go. That’s how crazy the RB scoring is in this league–and how well Axe Elf drafted to exploit it. Back-to-back wins lift this team to 7-4.

League 2: This was the one league in which I did not own Derrick Henry, but instead, I was playing against him. With Etienne, Lockett, Godwin and even Rachaad White on bye–and no active QB2 to SuperFlex–Chuba Hubbard was forced into action at the position over Clyde Edwards-Helaire, and I was projected for a 16 point loss, even before Henry did his thing on Thursday night. But alas, I didn’t get credit for Patterson’s KR TD, and his lackluster day coupled with Jefferson’s and Diggs’ subpar efforts left even valiant performances by Latavius Murray, Allen Robinson and Randall Cobb short of my opponent, who started Jamaal Williams, Joe Burrow, Chris Olave, and Amari Cooper against me. Those are many of the same players I faced in League 1, but oh what a difference PPR makes; my opponent is currently projected for the top score in the league by some 30 points! I’ll drop to 7-4 here as well.

League 3: This is another run-centric league where my Henry/Taylor centerpiece is really starting to take control, but even though my opponent’s James Conner is projected for 33 points tomorrow night, I currently hold a 72 point lead with Garoppolo to go, behind 106 pts from my RBs, 47 from Mariota, 20 from Taysom Hill at TE, and St. Brown and Olave handling the WR slots responsibly. It’s looking like the 2nd-highest score in the league, and I’m starting to sound like a broken record with another 7-4 record (but this record ain’t broke).

League 4: I have Mahomes and Aiyuk yet to go, but my opponent is done and I’m already up by 11. Glad I picked up the Baltimore defense (17 points) to replace the Eagles’ defense (7 points)… Oh no, not another 7-4 record?!? No, sorry, I’m afraid not. Axe Elf is 8-3 in this league.

League 5: Looks like even the sad sack league is going to take home a W this week, although this is certainly the one that is most in question. I currently hold a 1 point lead with Garoppolo and Keenan Allen to go; my opponent has Mike Williams to go. I like my chances to improve to 4-7, but there’s still some suspense, given Allen’s propensity to play 2 plays and leave–giving Williams more opportunities in the process.

33-22 overall if everything goes as planned in League 5–woohoo, 60% win percentage, here I come!

Well, after the Thanksgiving triple-header, it looked like I was going to roll to an easy 5-0 record this week. But since it’s a law that at least one player has to set a career high or an NFL record when facing Axe Elf, naturally I ended up with a couple of losses. Still in good shape overall, though…

League 1: This team has probably struggled more than it should have, between inopportune bye weeks, injuries and having patience with the transition between Trubisky and Pickett at my QB2 position, but things are starting to look up now after a 3 game winning streak, and I’m sitting in a pretty good position tied for 2nd place at 8-4, currently the 3rd seed out of 4 playoff teams. I won’t catch the undefeated 1st-place team, so I just have to avoid falling to the 4th seed to avoid having to play the undefeated team until the Championship game. I’ve had to weather extended absences from Keenan Allen, Chris Godwin, Marquise Brown, J.K. Dobbins, Gus Edwards and Damien Harris—but Latavius Murray (whom I spent almost half of my $51 FAB to get in October) looks like he’ll be the lead RB for the Broncos the rest of the way, and I’m hopeful of having Allen, Godwin, Edwards and maybe Dobbins all back for the stretch run. I have no FAB left, and 3 games to go; 2 of my remaining opponents are right on my heels at 7-5, but I should be able to put down next week’s 5-7 team without difficulty—after posting the highest score in the league this week, and holding the 4th-most total points on the season.

League 2: Even with Matt Ryan struggling, this team was in first place with the most points scored for most of the first month or so—and then this nonsense happened where Ryan was supposed irrevocably benched for the season and I had to blow my remaining FAB to get Ehlinger, only to have him suck, and then ultimately replaced by Ryan again, whom I had long before dropped. So I was stuck without a Superflex QB—and without any remaining FAB. I managed to do a little overhaul during last week’s waivers, landing QB prospects Mike White, Joe Flacco, and Trevor Siemian (dropping Case Keenum, Sam Ehlinger, and Clyde Edwards-Helaire) on $0 waiver claims behind the smoke of Taylor Heinicke drawing waiver claims from two other teams who had FAB left (he went for $11). So hopefully between those three and Jameis Winston, I can eke out a QB2 for most of the remaining weeks—so far, Mike White is looking like a season-saver, contributing to my second-highest score of the week, and helping to maintain my overall total points dominance (I have also had the most points scored against me of any team in this league). After a sweet win over the former 2nd-place team (I beat Mahomes/Allen/CMC/Taylor with DJones/MWhite/LMurray/RWhite—LOL!), I’m in a three-way tie for third place at 8-4 by record, but hold the 3rd seed out of 4 playoff teams due to total points. My three remaining opponents are all within one win of my team in the standings, so I’m going to need to continue to get strong performances out of my five top-20 WRs in this PPR league (Jefferson, Diggs, Amon-Ra, Godwin, Lockett)—and hope that the QBs and RBs (Etienne, Patterson, Latavius, Rachaad and Chuba) don’t let them down.

League 3: This team seems to have struggled more than it should as well, and this week was no exception, as Jalen Hurts set an NFL record and scored 71 points against me, and I made the error of starting Brandon Aiyuk over Chris Godwin on a hunch this week, which cost me 20 points, and I lost by 10 points. It doesn’t really matter, though, as six teams make the playoffs in this 10-team league, there are currently five teams with my record of 7-5 or better, and the remaining five teams are all tied at 4-8. So none of them can catch us, with 2 games remaining in the regular season here, but one of them will emerge to join us in the playoffs as the 6th seed. I can’t fall to the 6th seed, so I’m hopeful of ascending to the 3rd seed (to stay out of the 1-seed’s bracket), but for that to happen one of the two 8-4 teams will have to lose both games while I win both games. I do play one of them in the next two weeks, along with the last-place team in my division for an easy win. It just sucks that I have such an embarrassment of riches at the RB position in a highly run-centric scoring system, and I can only start 2 of Henry, Taylor, Etienne, Walker, Edwards, DHarris, and formerly Eli Mitchell. I was regularly getting something like 150 points on my bench in this league.

League 4: This league really irritates me. Yes, it had the best record of all my teams at 8-3, I’m tied for first place by record, I’m second in total points scored (-50 or so), and yet nonsense keeps occurring on a regular basis. For instance, the average score in this league is 126 pts per week. 150 is a really good score. I have scored 150+ points in 4 of the last 5 weeks, and I have lost 2 of those contests. This week was a new high for the nonsense, though, as I faced the 9th-place, 3-8 team which had scored more than the league average (126) only one time this season, and that was only 138. I dropped 150 on them this week, but between Josh Jacobs, Miles Sanders, Chris Godwin, Adam Thielen and Dalton Schultz, my hapless opponent threw up a 180. So now I’m in a 4-way tie for first place at 8-4, holding down the second seed and a first round bye for the 6 team playoffs. I’m pretty much a shoo-in, with 2 games to go and a 2 game lead over any of the 3 teams at 6-6 vying for the final 2 playoff berths. However, I do play the new 9th-place team in Week 14, so I should probably be prepared for a loss in that one, too.

League 5: When you look up “not yet mathematically eliminated” in the dictionary, there will be a picture of this team’s avatar. With a second straight victory, this time over the 4th-place team, I lifted my record to 5-7. With three weeks to go, my goal is still to finish over .500—but I will need a lengthy series of highly unlikely events to occur if I am to make the playoffs. I am currently in 7th place, with 3 games to go. I am within 3 games of second place, but even if I won out and they lost out, I’d have to outscore them in those 3 games by some 250 points, so that’s not going to happen. There is a currently a tie for the 3rd/4th playoff spots between two 7-5 teams, but one of them also has over 200 more points than me, so I would have to win out and them lose out to catch them. The other one is probably my best bet to overtake, since I have 20 more points scored than them, so I could catch them if they lose two games while I win out. Great, but the only problem is that I play the 1st place team, the 2nd place team, and the 5th place team over the last 3 weeks—and he literally plays the 8th, 9th, and 10th place teams. The team in 5th place at 6-6 would probably have to lose 2 of their final 3 games as well while I win out—but they play me and the 9th and 10th place teams over the last 3 weeks. The other 5-7 team in 6th place has only 4 more total points than me, but they play the 8th and 9th place teams among their final 3 games. So I’m not holding my breath—on the playoffs OR on finishing over .500—but it’s nice that this sad sack of a team is still in contention (however unlikely) at this point in the season.

So overall I sit at 36-24 (60%), with all five teams still in playoff contention with 2-3 weeks to go (albeit one only mathematically in contention).

Been kinda busy lately, with the holidays in full swing and all, so I never got around to a full update last week. I’ll try to bring you all up to speed this week, so you can sleep better at night without having to worry about Axe Elf’s fantasy teams.

League 1: I thought I might have outsmarted myself in this league for a while. We start 2 DSTs in a 12 team league, and the scoring system has them producing 15-20 points most weeks, so good DSTs were in high demand at the draft. I didn’t really want to carry 3 DSTs all year, so I nabbed Washington and Arizona, partly because I could get each of them for $1 (even though they turned into the #7 and #15 DSTs in this league), but mostly because they didn’t have byes until Weeks 13 and 14, so I was hoping that someone with multiple DSTs and early byes would end up dropping me a bye week DST before Week 13. Unfortunately, the rosters are so deep in this league that no one ever had to drop a DST—so I went into Week 13 with only 1 defense—and lost by 18 points. The Arizona DST averaged 18.5 points per week over the first 12 weeks. I still would have been ok if Derrick Henry hadn’t turned in a clunker, 25 points short of his projection, and Gus Edwards falling 18 points short of his projection could have made the difference too.

So now I am in a five-way tie for 2nd place at 8-5, with fewer total points than four of the other five teams, when only 3 of these teams can make the playoffs—and I have only 1 DST again for Week 14 when I play one of the other 8-5 teams! But that’s not all! My QBs for most of the year have been Marcus Mariota and the PIT QB (Trubisky/Pickett), with Taysom Hill filling in for the PIT QB on their bye—but both Mariota and Hill are on bye in Week 14! And I have none of my $51 FAB left for the season! So I was unable to land Brock Purdy, and picked up the Rams’ Bryce Perkins, just in case Baker Mayfield wasn’t ready to go on Thursday night. But alas, Mayfield “Kurt Warnered” his way to a huge game and I went into Sunday with no QB2 and no DST2. Oh, and did I mention Jonathan Taylor was also on his bye week?

Things only got more exciting when my QB1, Pickett, went down early without a pass attempt, and I received a combined 21 points from both QBs, CeeDee Lamb, Chris Godwin and Daniel Bellinger. My opponent was sporting Russell Wilson, Isiah Pacheco and Chuba Hubbard in their best games of the season—but that’s where his luck ended. He was experiencing a bit of a QB crunch as well, and started John Wolford’s ZERO against me. He also started the Seahawks’ Tony Jones Jr., who basically whiffed on his projected 17 points too—and in the end I walked away with a 27 point victory!

So now there are two of us tied for 2nd at 9-5, with three teams at 8-6, with one week to go before the playoffs. I haven’t clinched yet, but I feel a whole lot better about my chances now than I did going into the Week 14 game. If I win in Week 15, I’m in—but I play the 4th place team also fighting for his life, so it won’t be a cakewalk. If I lose, I can still get in as long as 5th place either scores 39 fewer points than me (which isn’t unreasonable, given that scores range between about 150 and 300 in this league) or loses—and they play the 13-1 first place team, so I feel pretty good about that. Even if I lose and 6th place wins, they can’t catch me in total points, so they’re not a threat to me.

The downside is that it looks like Taysom Hill is going to be my QB2 for the remainder of the season, unless I can land Colt McCoy tonight with a $0 waiver claim. Fortunately, the money in this league is made by the RBs, and it finally looks like I’m going to have the ground game dominance that I drafted to establish—but which has eluded me for most of the season with extended injuries to Damien Williams, Damien Harris, Gus Edwards, and J.K. Dobbins, among the all-too-frequent clunkers by Derrick Henry and Jonathan Taylor. But now the Ravens and Titans should be going all-out on their playoff runs, Damien Harris should benefit if Rhamondre Stevenson is out for any amount of time, and even Latavius Murray has been a useful free agent pickup—so hopefully the Kakorrhaphiophobiaxe can put things together and be the juggernaut they were drafted to be over the last three weeks of the season—even with Taysom Hill at QB2.

I guess I should give a shout-out to my WRs, who aren’t really a valuable position in this league, but with so many of my RBs being injured over the course of the season, it was probably only having top WRs to flex in their stead that allowed me to remain in contention during the dark days. So big thanks to Amon-Ra St. Brown, CeeDee Lamb, Chris Godwin, Marquise Brown, and Keenan Allen (when he’s played) for keeping us hanging in there.

Wow, I don’t think I’ll have as much to write about the other leagues, but I better just post this now and update the rest later, or I’ll scare off those with short attention spans.

League 2: This team has struggled way more than it should have, for being the highest-scoring team in the league from Week 1 onward. After coasting to a 50 point win in Week 13, this week’s game really irritated me. I had a 33 point lead going into Sunday night; he had Josh Palmer and Austin Ekeler. Even with Ekeler’s TD, I was clinging to a slight edge deep into the 4th Q—but Ekeler and Palmer were both being utilized on their final drive, and I was just sure one of them was going to score and beat me. Then I got a breath of life when, still holding a mere 0.2 point lead, it appeared that Justin Herbert fumbled away the snap, which would have sealed the game for me. But no. Herbert recovered his own fumble, and on the next play, he throws a screen pass to Ekeler for a 4 yard loss. PPR scoring, so he gets 0.6 points for that play, and wins by 0.4 points. Bah.

So now I’m in a 3-way tie for 3rd place at 9-5, with 2 more teams breathing down our necks at 8-6, with 1 game to go and only 2 playoff berths up for grabs. So like League 1, I’m in with a win, and likely still in even with a loss. I won’t be caught on total points, so I’ll win any tiebreakers. I just can’t lose and have both of the other 9-5 teams win—but one of them plays the 12-2 first place team, so again, I feel pretty good about my chances.

This team’s success comes from starting 4 of the top 10 WRs every week (Jefferson, Diggs, Amon-Ra, Lockett), with Chris Godwin making a 5th since he’s gotten healthy too, but it’s had problems at QB2, going through Matt Ryan, Sam Ehlinger, and currently, Mike White.

League 3: I had axually clinched a playoff berth in this league prior to Week 13—but then it’s kind of an all-play in this league anyway, with 6 out of 10 teams making the playoffs. I took a loss to the 2nd-place team in Week 13, and then came back with a win in Week 14 to enter the playoffs at 8-6 as the 5th seed, 90 points away from the 4th seed, which I have beaten twice in the regular season by a combined 104 points. (Of course, even if the seeds were reversed, I’d still play the same team.) I’ll be without Mariota and Garoppolo, my main 2 QBs this season, for the playoffs, however, sporting Sam Darnold and Kenny Pickett instead (although I can flex another RB for one of them if necessary). The real points in this league come from the RBs, so again, I’ll need the Henry/Taylor combo to show out in the playoffs to really have a chance (and I can superflex Etienne, Walker, Edwards or DHarris if necessary). Deebo going down should mean good things for Aiyuk, too.

League 4: I had already clinched a playoff berth going into the Week 14 game, so it was a good time for the 9th-place team to bust out the 2nd-highest score of the week on me, but it was still irritating to take a 6-point loss to an inferior team. Like League 2, this team has struggled more than it should have, as the 3rd-highest scoring team in the league, and Week 14 was just another example of that, leaving me at 8-6 on the season. My opening round of the playoffs will bring an opponent that I outscored by 120 points over the course of the season—but who beat me in our one game this season by 17 points after Etienne, CMC and Foreman did a number on me in Week 8. In a half-PPR league, my power trio of Mahomes, Henry and Jefferson will need to stay strong through the playoffs.

League 5: This was the league where I was only mathematically alive for the playoffs even after reeling off three straight wins—and I faced the 12-1 first-place team. Even worse, I had been rolling along with Garoppolo and Mariota at QB; with them both out now, it looks like I’ll be going forward with Darnold and Davis Mills. I put up a valiant effort—buttressed by my pregame pickup and start of Chris Moore in place of Terrace Marshall or Deandre Carter—and my opponent tried to help me out by losing Kyler Murray early and having clunkers from Davante Adams and DeAndre Hopkins—but I still fell 17 points short.

Game over at 6-8, right?

Not so fast, my friends! The dream of finishing above .500 in all my leagues is over, but remarkably, I’m still alive for the 4th playoff berth, even falling to my current 6th place, as 3rd place lost to 2nd place, 4th place lost to 10th place, and 5th place lost to 9th place!

In Week 15, I will need the 7th-place team to beat the 4th-place team (and the 7th-place team has scored 70 more points on the season, but they can’t outscore me by more than 5 points in Week 15 or I’ll surrender the tiebreaker), I’ll need the 10th-place team to beat the 5th-place team (5-9 vs 6-8, although 6-8 has scored some 300 more points on the season), and I’ll need to beat the 3rd-place team (who has scored about 250 more than me on the season).

So it will take a miraculous sweep of 3 massive underdog wins to pull it off, but we just had 2 massive underdog wins this past week–and if all that happens, I’ll finish in a 3-way tie for 4th place, with more total points than the other 2 teams, taking the 4th playoff berth at 7-8!

Having all five of my teams in playoff contention in the last week of the season is an indication that even as his health fails, Axe Elf is still the fantasy football legend that he always has been, with an overall record of 40-30 (57.1%) and 3 regular season games to go.

After watching McCaffrey post a number against me in two separate leagues on Thursday night, and then when the very first thing that happened on Saturday afternoon was that I lost Jonathan Taylor in two different separate leagues—my two most run-centric scoring leagues!—it was looking like I was doomed in four out of five leagues before I had even purchased my first beer and found my seat. But the early portent notwithstanding, things turned out ok—even if perhaps not ideal.

League 1 (Kakorrhaphiophobiaxe): This was the first of the two leagues in which my initial action of the week was losing Jonathan Taylor—stinging all the more with Deon Jackson just sitting there on my bench in case of an emergency such as this! This was on top of losing Mariota, so my QB2 is now Taysom Hill. My QB1, formerly Pickett, was Trubisky this week, and since I couldn’t use Hill as a TE, I had to go to the waiver wire for a second TE to start with Engram, because I couldn’t bear to start Gesicki and his no catches for November track record. (I came up with Jordan Akins, so that could have been worse.) But I always felt that I could get away with trash at QB/TE in this league as long as I could start five solid RBs—my RBs just never stayed healthy (or off bye) long enough to start five of them most weeks! But this week I was able to start (in addition to Taylor) Latavius Murray (63 pts), Derrick Henry (52 pts), J.K. Dobbins (50 pts), and Gus Edwards (15 pts); I got a combined 40 pts from my two DSTs (AZ and WAS), and even Taysom fell a mere 4 pts short of matching his Tua—so even though my Trubisky only scored about half of his Fields, I still posted the second-highest score of the week en route to a playoff-clinching victory. (If I’d had Deon Jackson’s bench points instead of Jonathan Taylor’s starting points, I would have had the highest score of the week.)

So, 12 team league; I finished in 2nd place by record (10-5) and in 3rd place by total points, making the 4-team playoffs as the 2nd seed, beginning in Week 16. If my strong RB corps stays healthy, I feel like I have a pretty good shot at the title, even without Jonathan Taylor. There’s a top-heavy $350/$80/$38 purse waiting after a $39 entry fee.

League 2 (Sons of Overtime): Although I am still sporting the most points scored in this league, I needed a win in Week 15 to secure a playoff berth—and my top-scoring team came through with another weekly high score to insure my postseason appearance. So another 12 team league; I finished in 3rd place by record (10-5) and in 1st place by total points, making the 4-team playoffs as the 3rd seed, beginning in Week 16. I’ll be without Tyler Lockett for the final two games, but as the top-scoring team in the league, I feel like my chances are good for another title in this one. There’s a balanced $150/$100/$50 payout waiting after a $25 entry fee.

League 3 (It’s On Like Ndamukong): This was the other league in which I lost Jonathan Taylor on play 1, and with only one other starting RB in this run-centric scoring, I was unable to make up the deficit. To tell the truth, it wouldn’t have mattered even if Taylor had gotten his projected 44 points—with Stevenson and Cousins combining for 129 points between them against me, I would have been bounced from the first round of the playoffs in this game anyway. I probably didn’t have a strong enough team to take the title in this league (especially after losing both my QBs, Mariota and Garoppolo, down the stretch), but facing a team that I beat twice in the regular season, I was hoping to at least crack the money—but it was not to be.

10 team league, finished 5th in record (8-6) and 7th in total points, making the 6-team playoffs as the 5th seed, losing in Week 15 for a 0-1 playoff record. Won $0 on $25 entry fee.

League 4 (Snake Pigsskin): Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Mahomes-Henry-Jefferson trifecta was good for the highest score in the league again this week, and even with Aiyuk laying an egg and McCaffrey’s early-week effort against me, I will advance to the second round of the playoffs next week.

10 team league, finished 4th in record (8-6) and 3rd in total points, making the 6-team playoffs as the 4th seed, advancing in Week 15 to the semifinals for a 1-0 playoff record, after posting the highest score in the league for the first week of the playoffs. Could there be a third title on the horizon? There’s a $360/$180/$60 payoff up for grabs on a $60 entry fee.

League 5 (Mike Ditka in a Box): Remember what I needed in this league?

On 12/13/2022 at 2:54 PM, AxeElf said:

In Week 15, I will need the 7th-place team to beat the 4th-place team (and the 7th-place team has scored 70 more points on the season, but they can’t outscore me by more than 5 points in Week 15 or I’ll surrender the tiebreaker), I’ll need the 10th-place team to beat the 5th-place team (5-9 vs 6-8, although 6-8 has scored some 300 more points on the season), and I’ll need to beat the 3rd-place team (who has scored about 250 more than me on the season).
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Unbelievably, the 7th-place team did indeed beat the 4th-place team! And the 10th-place team did indeed beat the 5th-place team! But alas, I ran into the 2nd-highest scoring team of the week sporting Josh Allen, Justin Fields and Christian McCaffrey, and so I failed to beat the 3rd-place team, and my late-season push for one of the four playoff berths falls a mere 1 game short after starting the season 1-6. Axually, it’s not ENTIRELY on my team for dropping the ball, as the 7th-place team did in fact outscore my team by more than 5 points in Week 15, so I would have lost the tiebreaker with them even if I had beaten the 3rd-place team—so that helps me sleep better at night—but this team just fell into misadventure and behind the 8 ball in the first month and could never recover.

10 team league, finished 7th in record (6-9) and 7th in total points, missing the 4-team playoffs and winning $0 on a $50 entry fee.

Overall regular season record: 42-31 (58%)

Playoff record so far: 1-1 (50%) with 3 teams still active, all of which were the highest scoring teams in their respective leagues in Week 15, so two weeks to glory!

The three Week 16 games will all be critically important to put me into contention for 1st/2nd place money in the three leagues in which I am still alive ($350/$80, $150/$100, $360/$180). If I lose any of them, I will be fighting for third place money or nothing in Week 17 ($38, $50, $60), so if I have to go 1-1 over the last two weeks, I’d much rather win in Week 16 and lose in Week 17 than vice-versa!

So Week 16 or bust x 3!!!

So if your Championship dreams crashed and burned this past weekend, probably because your drafting and team management skills weren’t up to the level of Axe Elf’s, at least you can still live on vicariously through these detailed accounts of the Legend’s end-game exploits.

League 1: With Mariota out, I’m down to Trubisky/Pickett and Taysom Hill at QB. Jonathan Taylor and Damien Harris are out for me in this highly run-centric scoring system–but fortunately (?) I had been holding Deon Jackson just in case Taylor went down again. I was only going up against a murderer’s row of RBs like Dalvin Cook, Aaron Jones, Joe Mixon, De’Andre Swift, and Zach Moss, with Tee Higgins and TJ Hockenson in supporting roles–and oh, did I mention that my opponent got a combined 56.25 points from his 2 DSTs (SF and NO)!–so what could possibly go wrong?

Taysom Hill was the highest-scoring among the 4 QBs started in this matchup, with 21.80 points. My other QB, Pickett (17.70), also outscored both of his QBs, Ridder (13.10) and Geno (17.65). My four WR/TE positions (Lamb, Amon-Ra, Engram and Akins) held serve against his four (Higgins, Evans, Hockenson, Schultz), 66.30 to 66.70. I only got 27.4 from my 2 DSTs (WAS and AZ), so I’m down about 20 with his five RBs (above) against my five RBs, Henry, Dobbins, Murray, Edwards and Jackson.

Obviously Zach Moss killed Deon Jackson, 19.07 to 1.50, so now I’m down about 37 with 4 RBs to go.

Gus Edwards canceled out Joe Mixon, 27.95 to 27.23–still down 37 with 3 RBs to go.

Neither Dobbins nor Murray set the world on fire, but they did combine for almost 31 points, which bettered my opponent’s combination of Swift and Jones by some 16 points–leaving me down 21 points with Henry vs Dalvin to decide it all.

And Henry showed why he should have been the #1 pick in every draft in the world this past preseason–and why it was an expression of Axe Elf’s genius to draft Henry in a highly run-centric scoring system–as he put up 62.60 big points in this scoring system to scorch Cook’s 21 points.

Axe Elf wins by 20 and advances to the Championship game, with a guaranteed $350/$80 payout ($39 entry fee). Regular season record: 10-5 (2nd) (3rd in total points); playoff record: 1-0. My 256 was not the most points scored in the league this week, however, as the upstart 4th-seed team dropped 284 on the 13-2 #1 seed. So thankfully I was the #2 seed and not the #1 seed–as I not only dodged that bullet, but now I get to play the 4th seed instead of the #1 seed in the Championship game!

I love it when a plan comes together!

League 2: This team has been the frontrunner in total points virtually all season long, due to sporting five top-10 WRs in full-PPR scoring for most of the season (Jefferson, Diggs, Amon-Ra, Lockett, and Godwin, since he got healthy). The RBs have been a patchwork of good PPR RB plays at the right times, but nobody has been a set-and-forget RB for me all season. The position was carried by CEH and Patterson early, then Etienne worked his way into a permanent role, then Latavius Murray contributed in the second half of the season, and I’ve even gotten a few quality starts out of my late draft pick Rachaad White. Daniel Jones carried my QB1 position pretty admirably for most of the season, but QB2 has been a farce of Matt Ryan to blowing all my FAAB on Ehlinger to picking up scraps like Mike White and now this week’s choice of Nick Foles or Zach Wilson.

I went with Wilson, who made me wish I would have started Foles when he earned only 3.78 points on Thursday. (Turns out Foles only earned 5.72, so no big loss.) And I knew I was going to be without Lockett this week, so I didn’t start him–but I didn’t know I would be without Diggs this week as well, until after he posted his 2/26 stat line. So with Diggs and Wilson both dropping deuces, I figure I’m probly done.

That feeling intensified watching my opponent’s score balloon from having both DJs in the Carolina/Detroit game (Moore 20.10, Chark 14.80) and Barkley’s 27.30. But he did get a zero from MVS, Christian Kirk was held in check, and Pollard didn’t exceed his projection, so by mid-afternoon Sunday, I am trailing by 10 points, and we are both projected to score almost exactly 40 more points each–him with Herbert and Hopkins, and me with Latavius Murray and two Bucs–Godwin and White. Murray only posted a 7, putting me 5 points further behind the projection 8-ball. Now I need the two Bucs to outscore Herbert/Hopkins by 15. Yeah, fat chance of that, right?

Well, you saw the games. Hopkins 1.4. Herbert 9.5. Godwin/White 30. Boom. Justice is served–the top 2 seeds in the playoffs advance to the Championship game; me with the most total points and the 2nd-best record, and him with the best record and the 3rd-most points. He did outscore me this week, however; mine was the second-highest score of the week. Hopefully Diggs will post a number next week in a shootout with the Bengals–he’s due for one–and I’ll be back to being the top-scoring team for one more week. On the line will be $150 for 1st or $100 for 2nd ($25 entry).

Regular season record: 10-5 (2nd) (1st in total points); playoff record 1-0. Again, Axe Elf drafted perfectly for the league’s PPR scoring system–this is the only league in which Axe Elf did not pursue Derrick Henry in the draft. He got it done with WRs and a RB patchwork.

League 3: Won my consolation bracket game. Yay. Regular season record: 8-6 (5th) (7th in total points); playoff record: 1-1. I believe the run-centric strategy didn’t work as well in this league because there were a lot fewer starters than in League 1, where I had 3-4 other RBs poised to post good numbers even if Henry or Taylor put up a clunker. In this league, I had great RB depth on the bench (Etienne and Walker, primarily), but I was pretty much locked into starting Taylor and Henry every week, and when they crapped out, the rest of my Mariota/Garoppolo-led squad didn’t have enough firepower to compensate.

League 4: I put up the top score in the league again (for the second straight playoff week), this time by some 40 points as my Mahomes/Henry/Jefferson trifecta continues to dominate the league, each being #1 or #2 in fantasy points at their respective positions. Regular season record: 8-6 (4th) (3rd in total points); playoff record: 2-0. I will advance to play the #1 seed in the Championship game, with $360/$180 on the line ($60 entry).

League 5: Wow. I won my Consolation bracket game, but more importantly, I would have beaten the #1 seed, who suffered from multiple major clunkers this week, had I been able to seize the #4 seed in Week 15. In other words, if this sad sack 6-9 team, which axually finished 7th of 10 teams in both H2H record and total points, had won one more game and scored 23 more points over the course of the season, it would be in the Championship Game next week!

And that was my WORST team this season! Regular season record: 6-9 (7th) (7th in total points); playoff record: 1-0.

And with that, I completed my first undefeated 5-0 week of the season!

Overall Regular Season Record: 42-31 (58%)

Overall Playoff Record: 6-1 (86%)

Overall Record: 48-32 (60%)

Axe Elf–peaking at the right time and making 3 Championship Games in 5 leagues! Winning 3 out of 5 games next week will maintain the 60% overall win rate–and if it includes the right 3 games, it will be worth $860 to me!