Week 15: Fantasy Playoffs New Vegas

Mutants! Brotherhood! Ghouls?! It’s finally playoff time. Even Jeff Bezos was excited for our fantasy football league. He was so excited that he demanded that the season 2 premiere coincide with the first round of the Fellowship’s playoffs. That’s right! We’re that important. We just couldn’t get the ‘Fallout-ship of the League’ tote bags of the league with official branding made and shipped on time. Anyways, this was a great first round of playoff action… if you were one of the teams winning in one of these blowout matchups. Every matchup dropped a lopsided MEGATON explosion of offense, overpowering the losing, face-melting opponent (except for one lone RPG hero in Detroit who managed to keep things close). So crack open a Nuka-Cola, and let’s break down Week 15 in the Mojave Wasteland!

Playoff Brackets:

Back to our official road to Mordor. Winners and losers have both advanced. Graphics will continue to be updated for the remainder of the playoffs.

Dom made a mistake and had Jimmy & Jess mixed up in the graphic last week. This has been corrected for this week and in ESPN.

RawbPeople vs Bodega Cat vs Spaghetti Mafia

The curse is broken, but the result stayed the same. RawbRaiderPeople tried to hit it big in New Vegas. All he ended up seeing at the craps table was a single point from the 49ers defense and double zeroes from Evan McPherson. The rest of the Rawblins tried to form a new faction, hoping to play like Great Khans, but they ended up playing like Elvis wannabe “Kings” or ghouls, more or less. While Rawb’s Chase and Pollard combo put up some respectable numbers, the Daniel Dimes injury nerfed his once great TE. Believe it or not, after all of the gambling on waivers and lineup adjustments, he still posted the highest point total from the losing teams in the first round winner’s bracket. Meanwhile, we pan to the championship halls of Bodega-land. It’s clear that even a hobbled Josh Jacobs in a bad MU can still draw at least a full house. (There was a definite winner in that trade, huh?) Kittle also chipped in with a strong performance, solidifying his draft capital with a timely performance. Tough matchups aside, this team bends, but it did not break. Indeed, one of these fellas’ names is actually Rob, only it looks like Dom is the REAL CEO of ROBCo. The Mr. House of our league, scoring the second-highest winning bracket points total this week, is poised to potentially house this roster to a championship W. Bodega, now, looks ahead to his rival, chieftain Tom of the beerserker clan, legion of bingers, and Brotherhood of Gibbs followers.

Average Boes vs The Algorithm

Don’t touch that Pip-Boy! I know this is like a tough break for anyone on the sidelines watching the broadcast play out on their wrists, but my personal winners bracket MU of the week has to go to the closest race in terms of margin here. The slim victory here by the machines may as well have been a suckoff of the week. The Mister Handy-Algorithm always knows the right sequence of 1s and 0s to code a path to victory. For an average league manager, though, Bo Nix made things somewhat interesting with an epic Denver win, proving that he’s a competitive winner and fantasy stud QB when it counts. Nix even made Courtland Sutton fantasy relevant! Was the REAL storyline the Detroit Lions defense? That negative 5 points was a power armor suit GIFT to help Trevor invetabily advance like Skynet in a MU next week against Haribo. The rest of Algorithm’s Bud Askins’ backed team dutifully scored their floor, with no real standout and no real lemon on the team. CMC had a low week, and it, of course, was not enough to spell upset. Humanity’s last hope, then, will have to be the optimistic Haribo Lecter. For Handy-Algorithm fans, Kincaid hopes to factor more into the Bills’ offense over Knox to find a higher ceiling for the team. To that I say: c’mon Bills OC, stop using future TE hall of famer Dalton Kincaid as a decoy! The Average-Vault-Boeys thus end their first playoff bid with an underwhelming loss and a thumbs down overall. Nevertheless, they showed above-average fight this year with a roster that ended up punching above their jumpsuit-weight class.

Haribo Lecter vs McConkey Kong

Well, this was a lopsided win. The MUs were all blowouts…although none of them stung quite like this one. Not sure if it helps to mitigate the emotional damage, but Kyle Pitts starting still wouldn't have done much to slow down Abigail's offensive barrage. The doe-eyed Lucy Haribo MacLean took her usual “okey dokey” approach to the game and showed everyone up with the highest score of the week. Even replacement TE Loveland put up a respectable 10 points. Nearly every other big name popped off here, too. The nickname queen strikes again! She’s got a strong stable of WRs and speedy backs (Henderson really ran like a New Vegas Cazador bouncing that run to the outside) to offset a shaky defense and fan girl pick for a kicker. And despite dominating in Deathclaw fashion, Puka’s cramps might be a storyline to watch for the quick turnaround TNF matchup. For next week’s 2023 MU of Lucy versus 2023 champ, it will be tough for the low-ceiling scoring Trevor machines to reach the savant-like Abigail sky-high scores. Lucy’s sky would’ve had even more diamonds in it if JSN hit his ceiling. As it stands, Abigail will have to be content with a first-place overall finish this week at a measly 160.3 points scored. Back to Kong. Pickens cooled off like the Cowboys this December. Chimere was as irrelevant as his name sounds. Despite the struggles, with weeks that were way up and low-scoring weeks sinking way down, the auto draft served the McConkey well! Maybe we could all use some Fallout spectators in a board room at Vault-Tec picking our players for us.

Sacks in the City vs Beerserkers

More beer? The Viking binge drinkers think so! At least that’s what the whole team said. Gibbs had a down week, and Tom’s squad said, “You’ve carried us enough!” Now, we’ll hold and shotgun YOUR beer, Jahmyr! Solid performances all around kept Tom’s team afloat. Doing this much damage, maybe these Vikings looked more like Caesar’s Legion in our wasteland. Drake may not have scored a victory for his Patriots, no, but he sure put up the right numbers for fantasy managers, including Tom. Kyren also stiff-armed Blake away with a Roman phalanx charge. Jake had a low day. Still, he was helped by a solid defense and Houston kicker to ensure an all-around team victory, building momentum ahead of the scheduled rivalry grudge match. While those two factions prep, it was a rough day in the New Vegas casino for Alyssa. Her bet on Colby Parkinson hit big (oddly enough, still only one single point behind Darren Waller of all people). Yet, it was Herbert, Meyers, Jeudy, and Malik combining for under 30 that sent this parlay into the red for our heroine. She won’t join rival Abigail in the final four, unfortunately. It was an up-and-down year for sure. Tee Higgins and Rome Odunze were MIA. Once key members of the Sacks in the Capital City faction, they proved to be too unreliable for a deep run this season. Maybe, however, they’re at least a glimpse into fantasy football WR future ahead of next season.

Detroit Lines vs Philadelphia Smeagles

The closest margin MU of the week goes to Detroit-Philadelphia. Jess had the horses to run with James Cook and Stafford. The Sun God was shining, all over the Rams, as he put winner’s bracket style numbers against Josh. Sam Darnold let the Lines down. His low performance was notable, because if he would’ve just reached his average of 15 points then Detroit would’ve avoided advancing in the Toilet Bowl. Flush. Josh ended up with a great performance, as Jauan Jennings has found his groove with Purdy back under center, and Dalton Schultz made up for Justin Jefferson’s continued slide into Wasteland Glowing Sea mediocrity. Doesn’t matter! Every point counts and even AJ Brown did more than enough to keep the toilet radiation off the Smeagles for this season. Congrats. As for Detroit? She’ll pray that the sun burns brighter and hotter than the lights and flames of Tony’s kitchen in next week’s bout.

Jimmy Da Kid vs LuLu Lemons

If anyone deserves to be Walton Goggins this season, it’s arguably defending champion, LuLu Lemons. Alex was the fourth-ranked team in our Power Rankings, and he had the second-highest scoring output just behind Abigail (our very own Lucy MacLean). In the Mojave Wasteland, this ghoul unleashed a level of violence you don’t normally see from a team eliminated from the playoffs. If only McBridge’s performances from the last two weeks were reversed. Bijan went in so hard that he scored more than Judkins, Ladd, Tet, and Woody…COMBINED. That’s the power of Kirk Cousins. It leads to stud PPR running back performances and a newfound trust in Kyle Pitts. So it’s curtain call for Coop. He was once the golden boy of the silver screen, with two legendary Fellowship performances we’ll always remember. The sun may have set on Lemons as he rides out of the Toilet Bowl bracket, but Jimmy Da Kid’s still in a shootout. It’s high noon next week against the Mafia. Unfortunately, the Kid’s Mahomes’ arrowhead rifle will be out of commission for the rest of the bracket… if ever there was a time for BTJ to do something over 23 points, then NOW would be it.

Reminder: The Movie Chef and Spaghetti Mafia were officially on bye this week in the Toilet Bowl bracket. It sucks to suck. Especially for Tony! His team took a long time to start rolling. My recap writing heart breaks for you, Chef.

We have our matchups for next week. A former second-place finisher, Haribo, looks to upset a former champion in The Algorithm. It’s power PPR back CMC against a high-flying WR duo of JSN and Puka. Then, we look to Dom and Tom in a heavyweight Western Conference grudge match. Looking for his third title overall, which would break a tie with the LuLu Lemons franchise, Bodega Cat rolls in with JT and CeeDee against Tom’s Drake Maye, Jahmyr Gibbs, and a well-balanced roster. Beerserkers looks to avenge a final four loss last year and a devastating loss to the Cat in 2021 (in the first round), where Dom eventually went on to win his first chip. Not only that. The Bodega Cats have made their fifth consecutive final four! That’s the longest streak in Fellowship history. The storylines in this final four write themselves!

On the opposite side of the bracket, we await the coming of our Toilet Bowl holder.

It’s the final four, Fellowship vault dwellers. Break a leg! Okey dokey?

Rob