DFL 2018 Week 17: Dear Season, We Hardly Knew Ya!

17 weeks up and 17 weeks down. That's how we roll.  And as with every last post for the season, we have a new champion. 

Congratulations to Josh for sticking with it week after week to pull in the gold!  But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself?

Pick 'ems:  Phil and Crutch went 3-1, while Mike and Ben-bot pulled in 2-2.  Hard week, in that the only match up that was perfectly called was Ben over Patrick.

So, that leaves the post season picks like this:

Phil:  9-3 (Gold)
Crutch: 9-3 (Gold)
Mike:  8-4 (Bronze)
Ben:  6-6

And the overall looking like this:

Phil:  65 (Gold)
Crutch: 56 (Silver)
Mike:49 (Bronze)
Josh:49 (Bronze)
Ben: 48 (So close!!!!)
Terri:  27  (Not so much)

Well done, Pick 'ems!  This is really the endurance contest part of the league every year (unless you're Ben-bot, then it's just front loaded...)

Lest we forget, here's how the elimination league shaped up this year:
Josh:  Gold (Strike 1 @ week 3)
McClennen:  Silver (Strike 1 @ week 2, Strike 2 @ week 11)
Phil:   Bronze (Strike 1 @ week 1, Strike 2 @ week 9)

And just to sum that ridiculousity up, EVERYONE else was eliminated at week 3.  Well, except for Kyle who was eliminated at 2.

Now, let's get to championship week, shall we?

Josh (5th seed:  70.55) vs. Mike (2nd seed:  65.59).  Damn.  This was an insanely close game.  And really the insult to injury here is that the Skins were shut out by the Eagles.  Had that not happened,  Mike's 2 Washington players might have been able to overcome the difference.  (Of course, who the hell could have foreseen the Pats D racking up 15 points? I mean, we all knew that it was going to be bad, but not THAT bad.)  Josh, on the other hand, had just enough to get through.  So, when the late game came around, Josh was up and Mike had no players left, Josh did the right thing and benched his remaining player.  Well done, sir.  Well done, indeed. 

Ben (3rd seed:  88.23) vs Patrick (1st seed:  43.23).  Ben pulled out all of the stops here. He set his line up and then cut everyone on his bench.  Which was... good for you Ben.  Patrick, on the other hand, just couldn't get things going.  And he was making moves til the very end.  Like, he was the second to last move.  Still, nothing doing.  Ben pulled in this win and caught himself bronze for the effort.

It's still a medal, dammit!

D (8th seed: 83.10) vs Kyle (6th seed: 69.80).  In really the only game that didn't mean anything, both competitors still put up some pretty significant points.  D picked up Winston, who went gang busters, White woke up and Hopkins even had a good game.  Kyle's team road mostly on Luck and Howard, but he didn't really need much more and he might have been able to pull this one off.  (Looks like Brown was a last minute benching, so there's that...) Overall pretty exciting game, and great way to end the season (well, for D at least..... Kyle - hey way to stick with it!).

via GIPHY

Crutch (7th seed:  92.44) vs Phil (4th seed:  43.12).  Ugh....  OK.  Crutch won fair and square.  He put up the most points of anyone in the league this week.  I put up the least this week.  Two of my starters were benched for protection reasons (Dammit), and pretty much everyone on Crutch's team was firing on all cylinders.  So, this pretty much sums up my season.  I lost not 1, but 2 defenses on the waiver wire this week.  And I thought that I was being all smart by picking up one of Ben's benched players.  Motherfucker didn't even play.  So, my season that I was dominating for most of the regular season ends with me being the playoff bitch.  Is this what being on the Cowboys feels like?

The funny thing is that there were LOTS of choices returned for
a GIS of "Romo laying down."

So, that leaves the final standings looking like this:

1. Josh (Gold)
2. Mike (Silver)
3. Ben (Bronze)
4. Patrick
5. D
6. Kyle
7. Crutch
8. Phil (Playoff Bitch)
9. Stephen (King of the Losers)
10. Skoot
11. Terri
12. McClennen

Now, let's get into the fun stuff!  Here's how Yahoo! projected team strength right after the draft:

1. Crutch
2. Stephen
3. Phil
4. D
5. McClennen
6. Kyle
7. Patrick
8. Mike
9. Josh
10. Ben
11. Skoot
12. Terri

How about moves?  This is how many moves each team had:

1. Crutch (40)
2. Josh (38)
3. Phil (36)
4. D (25)
5. Mike (22)
6. Stephen (15)
7. Ben (13)
8. Patrick (12)
9. Kyle (12)
10. McClennen (11)
11. Terri (10)
12. Skoot (5)

Waiver bids?  Holy crap!  We more than double the number of conflicts this season!  Last year, we had 10.  This year, 25.  Last year, we only had multiple intersection, this year 7!  So, it sounds like we're all watching the waiver wire a bit more as the years go by.   Of course, no trades this year... but c'est la vie!

And one final image, should anyone need a nice summary of the season:

This was a hell of a fun year.  It didn't seem like anyone was really running away with the league (except for maybe Patrick for a few weeks at the end, but the week 17 checks and balances seemed ready to kick in, so I wasn't too worried.)  Hope that everyone had a great time!