Week 17: Your Champion Has Been Crowned

The Fellowship Championships. More prestigious than Wimbledon. More satisfying than holding and skating with the Stanley Cup in your hands. Far more honorable than any Olympic medal ceremony for your country! Yes, you’ve finally arrived. Welcome to the holiest presentation in all of sports…uhm, fantasy football is still a sport. Tell your wives. But which athlete in the Fellowship will get to lift their trophy over their heads and the heads of other managers in our beloved Shire? Who will join the likes of Alex (twice), Kristen WhoDat, Dom (twice), Trevor, and, of course, lest we not forget our Mickey Mouse founding (and expecting) father, Rawb, against a league of six total members in a time before pandemics TikTok. May his Mickey Mouse club watch always glitter with fake gold!

We will also be presenting the Toilet Bowl trophy - which I will mail to the loser or winner, if you’re into that sort of toilet thing. It’s a great trophy to have on your desk or shelf. I can personally vouch for the beauty of this memorable piece of art. That sculpture was done by our illustrious commissioner (who actually journeyed to our homeland in Hobbiton with his wife as we write this - safe travels, fantasy lovebirds ❤️).

Back to the Toilet Bowl! Since the dawn of time, fantasy commish folks in leagues nationwide love to torture all of their adult friends by punishing the lowest of the lowly losing losers. It’s like a consolation bracket punishment. Kick ‘em while they’re down, I say! We have a record book dating back to 2023 (mainly because we had a last-place finishing lemon, Joe Jackrabbits, for so long in those pre-pandemic days). My personal TB award season came in the 2022 season. Now, our beloved Chef Tony or Jimmy Da Kid will join the likes of Katie (last season) or Good Picks Tony (2023).

Without further ado…enjoy the recap, vault dwellers. Finally, stay locked in for a special edition of our end-of-season awards. You and all of the millionaires I worship make this silly online game worthwhile every year!

Haribo Lecter vs Beerserkers

After the admittedly snooze fest of a finale last year (sorry Dom and Alex, but it wasn’t as hype as the marketing made it out to be), we finally get a down to the wire MU that this Fellowship deserves !!!

It all comes to MNF! As it should!

I’m actually writing this part of the draft before I know the winner… that’s how exciting it’s been.

In this corner, we have Tom! The captain of the Beerserkers. Ever the bridesmaid of the regular season, yet never the bride of the postseason. Tom finished third in his very first Fellowship season. It’s been up and down, especially with close wins and losses against his rival, Bodega Cat, but he does the research, and he SETS the lineup to go berserk on his enemies.

In the opposite corner, we have Abigail. Duchess of the Haribo Lecters. This lady can’t be bothered to do her research. She is the lady of nicknames. The bringer of death and pestilence upon the lineups she faces as she confuses AJ Brown pop-offs with “AJ Kappa,” thinking of that one time she overheard Cris Collinsworth say Alvin Kamara’s name while scrolling on her phone. She’s finished 2nd overall to Dom before his back-to-back chip run, and she hungers for gelatinous revenge.

As far as accomplishments this season? The Beerserkers come out a-SWINGING with Drake Maye’s cherry on top of the NFL sundae. He hits 30! A pigskin strike to the Haribos that almost cut deep in the candied necks of her squad… but wait. CJ Stroud steps aside, and a struggling Tyler Shough on the day comes roaring back with 21 pts as the Saints stop some of that bleeding with sugar-y gauze. Haribo’s no stranger to pop-offs and a little bit of lineup luck. Henderson cleared concussion protocol … but what’s this? Our Fallout Lucy’s got a Rhamondre bullet in the chamber instead, and she hits the Beerserkers with a lil’ okey dokey top 5 RB finish! She must have VATS targeting because that was quite the pull of the trigger.

The Beerserkers are reeling back. On the ropes. Gibbs and the rest of the Lions, led by a soff Goff, limp-wicked their way to a bad day that keeps them out of the playoffs. Gibbs only put up 6.5 pts! Ouch ! Haribo tries to capitalize with Etienne in a good MU. He can’t quite find the room with a celiing and he’s stuck on the floor with 11.3 pts. Our potential champs sweat it out together. Tom picks the Giants’ defense and doesn’t start them. Abigail DROPS a popping off Vikings Defense for the bagel of a Titans defense. Tom wins the Kicker battle too, as the reliable Fairborn kicks 10 pts into the box score while Borregales only kicks in PATs this Sunday. Where Ettienne stumbled, however, Parker Washington (former Beerserker, now turncoat) soars with a 19.5 pt finish ahead of Houston’s Higgins for Haribo’s flex spot. No matter. Beerserkers show they’ve got the guns 2! Wan’Dale Robinson and Diggs dual-wielded in the lineup with 22 apiece. Throw in some Feguson and Berserker’s have a 109 to 102 lead. JSN struggled on the day, but he found his PPR floor to keep the Lecters close enough for the potential kill.

On SNF, Coleston Loveland (also a Berserker turncoat) COOKED on a long ball TD, and he put up a top 5 TE performance in an entertaining NFC shootout. What’s this? Daylor Swift, former Haribo Lecter RB of season’s past, lays the smackdown on his former manager with a 21.9 showing, giving Monangai starters the willies. The two balled so hard that on one of the LAST plays of the 4th, Loveland catches a Caleb pass and pitches it to Swift to run extra yards. Nevertheless, an open Swift in the flats can’t draw the eyes of Williams for the game-winning TD. Berserker’s lead 130.94 to 123.22 with Tom using Kyren, or KELLER Williams, another nickname owned former player of the Haribos, against Puka Nacua. The explosive and volatile wideout is fighting for the fantasy record books as he plays for his fourth consecutive game with 150 plus yards receiving. Who will win???

Holy fuck. What an end! Who would’ve thought a player-on-player suck-off on MNF would end this truly historic matchup? Abigail looked poised to win this, even with Matthew Stafford coughing up more turnovers than a Goon coughs up lungs in Amazon Prime’s Fallout. Season 2 is currently exclusively streaming now only on Amazon Prime. Now with ads in the lowest tier! All that was needed was a couple catches and a TD, to seal it with Williams not doing…wait, Blake Corum’s out with an ankle injury? As soon as Blake went out, Williams’ snap count went way, way up in the troubling split backfield for Williams’ owners. The Beerserkers slowly built a large enough lead, while the Rams offense suffered every kind of bad bounce, penalty, mishap, and play miscues you can draw up on a John Madden smart tablet. While Bijan COOKED, Puka owners SHOOK their fists at their television screens. A long bomb TD was called back due to offensive holding at the line of scrimmage. An immaculate one-handed catch? Overturned, as another angle onscreen showed that Puka bobbled the ball, falling out of bounds. While my wife went to bed, I wept for the founding mother of our league. I also cried tears of joy for Tom, the ever-positive fantasy manager and good friend to us all. If there was ever someone that deserved a championship, not only for their research and effort, but for all of the little and big things they do for the league: it’s Tom. That was one hell of a matchup. Congrats to both of you on a tremendous season.

The Movie Chef vs Jimmy Da Kid

In this corner, stinking up the regular season until very recently, we have Tony. The head chef from The Movie Chef, making Cubanos and grilled cheese sandwiches using the finest injured ingredients and underperforming spices. Chef hasn’t said “thank you Chef” in his kitchen a lot this season, as he finished last in the regular season. He still has plenty of flavor left in that skillet though!

In this corner of the kitchen, ready for his big boy meal, we have Jimmy Da Kid. Jimmy’s had a rough start to the 14-man deep league. Having gone with an all-out air attack, he’s felt the pain of Tyreek Hill-like ACL tears and Brian Thomas Jr. busts week after week. With everything on the line, Jimmy’s looking to leave it all out on the field to regroup for next season.

Let’s get this toilet bowl wasteland showdown on the road! Chef comes in with a red-hot Trevor Lawrence, finishing as a top 5 QB, as the Jags have taken off during the second half of the season. He runs a couple in, and Lawrence has himself 23.32 pts to overtake Geno Smith’s Raiders-tanking 7.34 pts in the QB slot.

Don’t sleep on the kid! Breece Hauled in a couple passes and a long garbage time TD run to produce one of his uncommon pop-offs at 22.5 pts. Javonte doesn’t match that, and he underperforms slightly with 11.

What’s this? You think I’m forgetting the MONSTER game from Derrick Henry? Expecting this production normally from the NFL legend, Chef finally gets to say his RB grilled some defense these past two weeks. Henry produced his seventh 200-yard career game ever and ran for 4 TDs this past holiday weekend, showing us all that his Hall of Fame career still has some highlights left.

That … was Tony’s best punch. The rest of his team decided it best to take the holidays off and goon on the toilet. Tracy let his QB do all of the rushing for the Giants. Shaheed continued to perish in the Seahawks offense, running around the field while screaming “go go Inspector gadget play!” Kelce has the better floor than our gadget special teams guy, but couldn’t help the ailing Chiefs in a matchup against first-class Denver. The Ravens and Elliott both combined for 13 pts, and that wasn’t enough against Jimmy’s aggressive Eagles defensive front and a resilient Will Lutz.

So what does Jimmy’s some-kind-of-suicide squad do with the Chef’s xmas gift? Well, Nico Collins sinks this week against a strong Chargers defense. He can’t get to 10 pts for the day. Juwan Johnson continues to be Tyler’s safety net, putting up a respectable 13.5 pts. Aaron Jones also chips in with a TD and 15 pts to upset the Lions. Last, and definitely not least, Christian Watson continues to shine as a Packers bright spot with a nice 22.8 pts on the Ravens. It’s all enough to give Jimmy Da Kid 122.74 pts on the day… with Tony not TOO far behind with 110.32 pts. Our chef is now 11 pts and change away from the toilet bowl. He has to pray to the fantasy gods, Atlanta Falcons, and Drake London to avoid the worst (best) trophy in all of Fellowship.

It all comes down to MNF… again! That’s right both of our MUs won’t be resolved until after the Falcons-Rams game. LFG!!!

Well, that was something, huh? Drake London was active right? He had two targets and he secured one of them for 4 yards, finishing with 1.4 pts. Unbelievable. Couldn’t Bijan hand one of his many, many, many, many, MANY carries Loveland style to London to make this somewhat closer? Sorry, Derrick Henry. I guess no one else on this damnable roster cares about The Movie Chef. Jon Favreau was good before directing The Lion King! At least the Ravens running back gets it.

I feel for you, Tony. Welcome to an illustrious hall of toilet bowl finishers. Let’s hope that even more of our friends can float too with Pennywise. Welcome to Derry.

I’ll still wish both of these managers well. Now, where on EARTH did I put that trophy?

Fellowship MVP:

A true god amongst men. Worth that draft capital and then some. A Playoff hero. You name, they probably were it - our most valuable player in the league

NAME CMC

Who else but Christian? He’s back atop the PPR rankings. He’s scored 400 pts on the season yet again, and while he’s not always flashy like a Gibbs, JT, Bijan, or even a Josh Allen, he brings so much value to your lineup week in and week out. In our Fellowship leagues, he’s helped ice a Chopped Championship, won a third consecutive dynasty chip, and he consistently carried the Algorithm all year into the final four. He averaged over 25 pts a game, which accounted for a lot of Trevor’s weekly average of nearly 117 pts a week. When healthy, you Run-CMC.

Waiver Wire Warrior:

A new hero emerges from the sun-filled hill at Minas Tirith. Grabbing this player off waivers may have saved a season or solidified a contender.

NAME Michael Wilson

Michael Wilson! Marvin Jr., who? Emerging as the team’s next best offensive weapon after McBride, Wilson has had two weeks above 30 pts, and he’s had four top 10 WR finishes. He’s only finished out of the top 25 WRs three out of the last nine weeks, so he’s shown league managers everywhere that he’s a consistent performer. Bodega Cat picked him in week 12 and never looked back as he helped him reach the final four this year. I’m sensing a theme here with these awards…

Bust of Middle Earth:

Absolute crap, the MacSucken of real life people, and a man we should shun from the realm of the fellowship. You won’t win on draft day, but you certainly can lose, and this guy made that a reality.

NAME Brian Thomas Jr.

In the dumps of the toilet bowl, you wouldn’t have to dive too deep to find Brian Thomas Jr floating around. He did miss time Weeks 10-12, but whatever….he sucked! Jimmy Da Kid took him round 1, and all Brian Thomas Jr did was average 10.07 pts a game, finishing 44th overall. Despite being rostered in 89% of leagues, he’s only cracked the top 15 WR rankings TWICE this whole season. Seriously, look at his past weeks if you don’t believe me. What a piece of shit. Why don’t you just go to another team next season, where I know you’ll get drafted in round 6 and then absolutely COOK for that manager and maybe win the league. Don’t call it a comeback.

First Team All Fellowship:

Who was the best of the best? See who were the first team all studs of the realm. Guys want to be them, women want them to be on their fantasy teams.

First Team All Ass:

We’ve seen the best of the crop, but who absolutely sucked ass this year? This is our curated list of pure draft busts and underperforms.

Note: we tried not to include people who were injured, unless the injury was not relevant to how badly they were playing by the time they got hurt

So it’s New Year’s Eve now.

And I know you’re feeling lonely without another week of fantasy football to look forward to. But I can’t expect to just have this recap show up in your inbox, I write that I love you all, and expect that fact to make everything alright.

It doesn’t work that way, right?

Well, how about we try? I love that this league has been going strong every year since 2018. I love how we’re all still friends and sometimes crush Michelob Ultras, dressed in all white, celebrating the ten years of our friend Tony’s beautiful marriage. I love that it takes Alex hours to put in a waiver wire pick in Vietnam time. I love how all of our wives get a crinkle above their noses when they’re looking at us like we’re nuts because we love football too much. I love how Matt Gay is STILL gayer than Will Byers. And I love that you all are the last people I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night…on Discord.

And it’s NOT because I’m lonely. And it’s NOT because it’s New Year’s Eve. I wrote this recap tonight because when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life playing fantasy football with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as SOON as possible.

Rest in peace, Mr. Rob Reiner.

I want to give a special thanks to Dom, our commish. He keeps things running smoothly during the season and during the offseason. Thanks to Tony and Annie for hosting in person last year. Thank you to Tom and commish for all of your hard work week in and week out, writing, editing, and formatting this awesome newsletter. We haven’t missed a week in a while now, and I can’t wait to look back at these memories while we continue to make more. Shout-outs to Dom and his Bodega Cats for a THREE-peat in Fellowship Dynasty. Shaq and Kobe could never. Shout-outs to yours truly for being the third winner of Fellowship CHOPPED after Jimmy Da Kid and Shaurya. It’s not a Mickey Mouse watch, but I’ll gladly take a win!

Lastly… shout-outs to YOU, reader and fantasy manager. You are simply amazing. Wherever you placed in the standings, I appreciate you. GGs and Happy New Year. Have a great 2026. I’ll see you on Discord as I continue to age like skunked prosecco.

Love you all.

Rawb ❤️