Week 11

It was all about late finishes and glimmers of victory in this week of football.

Four matches found themselves facing will-they-won't-they situations as Monday approached.

Deebo this way, that way, forwards, backwards

Lockett Down (LCD) and The Brady Bunch (TBB) were almost tied on 90.70 to 90.10. It hung on whether Deebo Samuel could score essentially any positive number -- pretty likely. Funnily enough, at the end of the first quarter, Samuel was sitting on -0.20pts, leaving TBB initially worse off than they started. But then the offense started moving, and of course Bryn's lot finished on a healthy 112.50.

CMC? We may see!

The Red Rifles (RED) were trailing Beginners Luck (BGL) at 116 to 127, but probably still expecting to win. The only man left to play was Christian McCaffrey, who, at a projected 21.31, all but promised to send the Rifles rattling through as usual. He did.

The stinger for Joel and BGL may be that fielding Peoples-Jones in favour of Justin Jefferson would have yielded a one point win. Ouch.

A bird in the hand worth two in the bush? Not if you're a Cheetah! Checkmate.

The Cheetahs (CHE) had a depleted squad this week, lacking such bombs as Tua Tagavailoa and Tyreek Hill (Bye week) and Cooper Kupp (IR). At the end of Sunday, they trailed the all-cards-played Country Road Take Mahomes (CRT) by 86.98 to 118.52, and waited on three of their squad to take the field on Monday night.

The statistician might look at the scorelines and say that while the projection for the Cheetahs was highish, they had a much lower certainty than the cast-concrete points established by CRT.

Well, he'd be wrong. Garoppolo, Hopkins, and Gould all had better-than-expected nights and pulled out a thunderous win.

Trebble, in the post-match interview, offered plaudits to his rival coach:

"I have to say, you've played an outstanding week there my friend. To be missing Tua, Tyreek, and Kupp and still come out with 138 points is very impressive; I'm not even mad that I lost that"

Sun Tzu vs Ted Lasso

TBC were all finished on 111.16, and any hope for the Esquel Collies (ESQ) to catch up from 102.90 lay with Monday Night Cardinals QB, Kyler Murray. Except, oops! Kyler was slated not to play at all - so that predicted 122.05 was looking not-so-possible.

The only hope for Griffiths and the Collies to make good would be to ditch an eligible player, pick up Cardinals backup Colt McCoy, and hope that: A. He could score at least 9pts, and B. That Kyler would be available to pick up again next week.

Her rival in Langlois took one from the ancient Chinese master and decided to win before the battle could take place, booking out McCoy himself with the sole intent of disrupting his opponent.

Around the same time, the commissioner also realised the Collies' need for the above manoeuvre and published it.

Some miscommunication and time differences between competitors resulted in a furore, as the commissioner believed for a time that he originated the tactic. And, as the unintended party took heed, felt that the outcome was unjust and threatened to reverse the transaction. Langlois was briefly ousted from official communication channels while the conflict was settled.

In the end, there was nothing to rectify, as Griffiths, not inclined to ditch Kyler at all, let alone for the week, took no action.

"We're a football team, and I wouldn't do that to one of my players"

She said.

The editor would remind everyone that while Fantasy Football is a "video game" and everything that the app allows is legal, it is also a social game, and some degree of making nice with your flesh-and-blood competitors is required. It's not Squid Game out here.

Also, Joel picked up Deshaun Watson because he didn't know.

Speaking of #EthicsInFootball shall we all just incline our faces to the elephant in the room: that, in all likelihood, if the NFL took a hard stance on banning players who did Violence Against Women and Girls then most teams wouldn't be able to field a 52 man squad.

We potentially all have a gut feeling that the entertainment product we enjoy so much is built on toxic people, who are platformed and well-paid, while their victims have to deal with hearing their names on TV weekly. Let's just sit with that for a while.

To his credit, Joel later dropped Watson from the BGL squad.