Ladies and gentlemen we have reached the pinnacle of fantasy excellence, the most important fantasy football playoff tournament...
EVER!!!!
The race to Menace Bowl III now reaches its final stages as 4 worthy competitors clash for the cash. What is at stake, you ask?
Champion: $200 in stone cold cash...TAX FREE!!!
Runner Up: $50
Division Champions: $25 each
The playoffs are simple. After 14 weeks of regular season action, the two division winners and the two teams with the next best records qualify. It's a one game showdown each week for fantasy superiority. As for everybody else, we (yes, I said "we") are all looking to our draft boards for inspiration...and our rosters to see who we would like to keep. Before we get to our semifinal previews, let's take a look at how the final playoff picture shook out in the match recaps.
In his final game as defending champion, the player formerly known as the Supreme Being went out in style...and nicely played the role of spoiler to boot. Not only did Kent knock off Zach to avenge a 53 point beatdown in week 6, he did more damage to Zach than he possibly could have imagined......
In a game dripping with playoff implications, Tom and JP had lots on the line, but with different levels of urgency. Coming into this match, JP had already clinched a playoff spot, and Tom needed a win (and some help) to clinch the 4th and final playoff position. JP needed a win and some help to slip past Zach into the top spot in the Greene Turtles division. JP obviously felt like his division title was more important than Tom's wild card. JP got double digits scores from his entire roster, including a 33-bomb from Gronkowski (big shock...playing the Redskins), to outlast Tom, who did not do too shabby himself posting 141, but only 4 points from Willis McGahee proved to be the difference. Tom did everything he could to help his cause, but the competition just would not cooperate...
Kent's upset victory pulls him up to 7-7 for the season, which would have been good enough to win the Greene Turtles division last year, but in 2011, 10 wins was the standard, and two teams earned that.
Therefore, with JP winning and Zach taking it on the chin...
JOHN PAUL CHASE IS THE 2011 GREENE TURTLES DIVISION CHAMPION!
This begs several questions going into the playoffs. First, will JP ride this wave of momentum to a championship (making amends for the one that slipped away in 2009). Second, how confident must Ron Mexico feel after losing 3 of 5 to close out the season? Oh, the anticipation is killing me!
Elsewhere, Tom's loss eliminated him from contention for the last playoff spot, meaning that it came down to Jeff or KSo. KSo matched up with Gaz, who had already clinched the Pub Dogs last week, and the big question was whether or not he would rest his players in advance of the playoffs. KSo was most definitely hoping for the latter. Unfortunately, Gaz is not one of those division winners who will just rest on his laurels and coast into the postseason. No, he wanted to assert his dominance and rule over his division with an iron fist. 145 points later, Gaz cruises to a 25 point win and a career best 9-5 record, finishing 2 games clear of the field in the Pub Dogs division. KSo puts up a valiant effort scoring 120, doing everything he could to earn his first ever playoff berth, but it just was not enough. KSo finishes, however, with his best performance in MIISFFL at 7-7, despite his preseason prediction of a last place finish.
That means Jeff controlled his own destiny, and controlled it he did. He was not about to let Patrick Small do to him what he did to Ron Mexico, as a catastrophic loss to the Kinda Also-Rans cost Zach not only the division crown, but the number one overall seed and the scoring title. Jeff records a solid 137-101 win over the worst team in the league, and with the houses of cards falling all around him, earns for himself a playoff berth in the last week of the season for the second year in a row! Jeff always seems to have some flare for the dramatic when it comes to these games, waiting until the last minute to clinch his playoff berths, but this season was different from the last, as last year it took an epic comeback (combined with an epic collapse) for Jeff to sneak into the postseason. This year, Jeff was consistently on that cusp, and with an assertive win in the final week, earned his postseason berth.
Oh yea, there were some other games going on that meant nothing. I lost to Matt and Sean beat Patrick Deegan to complete his fall from grace. In my case, not only do I miss the playoffs for the first time since 2006 (predating MIISFFL), I finish with a sub .500 record for the first time...ever. Oh what could have been had I not decided to leave AP in there with the injured ankle...
In any event, you don't really care about match recaps from teams that did not make the playoffs. However, congrats and thanks are in order to both Sean and Matt for taking their first ever plunges into MIISFFL. I hope you guys had fun playing with us this year, and we most definitely would love to have both of you back for MIISFFL 2012. Special congrats go out to Zach, despite losing the division title on the last day, who qualilfies for the postseason in his first ever trip to the MIISFFL Neverland. Speaking of playoffs...let's take a look at our...
SEMIFINAL PREVIEWS!!!
Semifinal 1:
Bo Knows Tecmo (JP) vs. bomb.com/yourmom (Jeff)
Season results: Jeff def. JP 110-90 (Week 5) and JP def. Jeff 125-112 (Week 12)
All time results: JP leads 4-2
Best playoff finish: JP-Runner Up (2009) Jeff-Semifinalist (2010)
JP makes a return to the postseason after letting one slip away last year, in an epic collapse of epic proportions. Jeff returns to the postseason after taking JP's spot away from him in Week 14 last year. So in a way, this classic MIISFFL rivalry game is a story of redemption and deja vu. JP looks to take from Jeff what Jeff took from him in 2010, and how fitting is it that these two meet in a playoff game to decide it? JP features point-producing machines such as Drew Brees (acquired in a deadline deal) and Rob Gronkowski, who seems to be breaking every tight end scoring record there is. Jeff has always been a consistent point producer, winning the 2010 scoring title to go along with his division title. This season, Jeff has not scored quite as many points, but thanks to superstars Larry Fitzgerald and a resurgent Maurice Jones-Drew, Jeff has been a consistent if not spectacular presence in MIISFFL all season. Jeff looks to justify his last week clinch of the playoff berth, of course with Dr. Jack Shephard coming out of the doghouse to officiate (assisted by Mrs. Abby)
Semifinal #2:
Never Nudes (Gaz) vs. Ron Mexico (Zach)
Season results: Zach def. Gaz 173-125 (Week 2)
All time results: Zach leads 1-0
Best playoff finish: Gaz-Semifinalist (2009) Zach-First postseason appearance
Gaz returns to the playoffs in a surprising run winning 9 of his last 11 games. The official nudist team had essentially been left for dead after a basement bowl loss in Week 3 to the commissioner (who was his playoff superior in 2009). However, ever since then, Gaz has been an offensive machine, scoring 100 points in all but two games the rest of the way. For the first nine weeks of the season, Ron Mexico dominated the league. Shrewd drafting (Run DMC) and some good luck with injuries and opponents' matchups helped Zach race to the top of the heap and stay there all season. Then, McFadden got hurt and the guy who Zach never wanted at the draft ended up killing him more in injury than on the field. Nevertheless, Zach still clinched his playoff spot with a week to go and the only thing really left for him in week 14 was a division title and determining his playoff opponent. Zach blew out Gaz in Week 2 for his first MIISFFL win, but it has been a very long time since that game, and many of the major players for both teams have changed mightily since then. Will the winner of this game be naked, or are we all going on a trip to Mexico? Stay tuned to find out!
That's it for our final regular season mashup and semifinal previews! As always, thanks for following the mashup here at Caputo's Corner as we help YOU get your fake football fix. Oh yes, in case you didn't have enough, there is a "consolation" bracket...the best of the worst as it were. The matchups there are:
Nick-Tom
KSo-Kent
That KSo-Kent matchup would've been lucious had it been worth something more, but we'll leave it at that. Who will advance to Menace Bowl III? Tune in next week to find out!
Regards,
Commissioner (still kickin', even in defeat!)
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