Jedi Knights (6-5)The Knights went 12-1 last season and were a strong championship contender but they don’t look nearly as dominant this year. Still, they could crawl their way to a third consecutive division title. Or they could collapse out of the playoff picture altogether since they’re 1-3 in the past month, and have scored sub-40 points twice in that same span. If Jedi goes winless the rest of the way and Another Bad Creation wins out, ABC owns the tie-breaker between these two teams…
The problem recently for Jedi has clearly been the upheaval at quarterback, with Peyton Manning being awful and Ryan Fitzpatrick taking three of the last four starts. The theoretical strong ground game of mid-draft trade addition Marshawn Lynch and Alfred Morris has completely collapsed, and Danny Woodhead has actually been the best best backfield option. It looks like trading away three RD1 and one RD2 for Lynch will hurt Knights for years to come.
The leading scorer on this team is Greg Olsen, who is averaging 12.8 ppg and is #3 on the TE rankings. However, I don’t think anyone wants their tight end to be leading their team in scoring -- unless maybe that tight end is named Gronk. The other receivers here, Emmanuel Sanders and TY Hilton, have both suffered quarterback setbacks in recent weeks, and their future production is up in the air. In short, Jedi Knights is fading but could still sneak into the playoffs with a whimper but certainly not a bang.
Another Bad Creation (4-7)
Unless ABC can win out, they could miss the playoffs altogether. Over in the Moose Knuckle, there are three teams currently ranked better than ABC in the standings so it might have to be division title or bust for Oliver to hit the post-season. Even with a 4-7 record after last year’s 8-5 campaign, this season has to be considered a success because GM Oliver picked up six RD1 picks for the corpses of Marshawn Lynch and LeSean McCoy. Sure, either could bounce back to their former star status but this season has been terrible for both.
Oh yeah, ABC continued the full rebuild by trading Aaron Rodgers away for another five RD1 picks, plus current starter Kirk Cousins. Basically Oliver just pulled a Danny Ainge and moved every old asset for a boundless future. There’s some budding talent on this team too, as young guys like TJ Yeldon, Jeremy Langford, and Stefon Diggs have flashed their potential. Heck, TE Ladarius Green is #3 in ABC’s scoring, although that’s not saying much. (Rodgers still leads this team in scoring, despite being traded away a month ago.) Keepers Joique Bell, Andre Johnson, and Vincent Jackson could all see the boot next off-season in favor of younger, and better, options.
Facing off against two of the worst teams in the league during his final two matchups, Oliver has a chance to make the playoffs if he can win out. Regardless of how 2015 finishes up though, Another Bad Creation is set up for an incredible future with all those draft picks and it looks like they’ll be a team to watch in the upcoming years. What a haul!
Original Salt (3-8)One team headed straight to the Toilet Bowl is Original Salt, who has collapsed to sub 0.500 after putting up a 6-7 campaign last year, just on the verge of respectability. This season they are averaging 54.3 points per game, which is embarrassing to the point of being nearly impossible. (The next worst PF team puts up 80.0 ppg.) Given this fact, it’s almost a miracle the Salties have won one game, much less three. Two of those wins were in the first two weeks of the season, and then they suffered a two month losing streak before WK11’s 71.5 - 31.0 victory over P Funk.
Losing Ben Roethlisberger after WK2 hurt, but it looks like Big Ben has returned to form in recent weeks. He’ll be inserted back into the roster immediately, as Teddy Bridgewater was a low end starting option. Early season fantasy surprise James Jones has come back to life, and there’s a smattering of decent-ish receiving options aboard, with keeper Doug Baldwin and Brandon LaFell doing their best to catch a few passes. Redskins running back Chris Thompson had been filling in for Forte — plus Reggie Bush, who was injured most of the weeks he was in the lineup — but he's been not so good so it'll be nice to have Forte back to action soon. Maybe the returns of Roethlisberger and Forte can help Original Salt pull of an upset in the Toilet Bowl but that would require this team to put A LOT more points on the board than they're used to. 54.3 points per game!?!
Note: Maybe Reno's attention is pointed toward coaching the Mountain House High basketball team. If so, let's cheer them on! Go Mustangs!
P Funk All Stars (2-9)
Last year’s P Funk All Stars finished with two wins, which means Paolo’s team has two shots left to better his 2014 record. While P Funk hasn’t been horrible with their PF, they have faced the second toughest schedule in the league and opponents are averaging 92.8 ppg versus them. Ouch. At least one of this year’s two wins was a stirring WK10 defeat of contender Detroit Players, but that was mostly a moral victory.
Injuries have hurt this team, as DeSean Jackson is just now making his return to the field while Ryan Mathews and Michael Floyd have both missed some games. The good news is that both have performed well, especially Floyd, who has been on fire for the past month pre-injury. Number two overall pick in this year’s draft, Amari Cooper, also looks like the real deal and there’s a chance his Raiders' QB Derek Carr could have emerged as a legit fantasy option — although Joe Flacco has been the starter for P Funk, at least until his torn ACL last week. Running back surprise Dion Lewis has also been lost for the season, meaning P Funk is heading into the Toilet Bowl minus two of their top three scorers. Can Paolo's team make any noise in the losers bracket? I guess we'll just have to wait and see!
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