Playoff Preview, 2012
It’s the playoffs! Thirteen long weeks, building toward this moment, and now the crucial first week to decide which four teams will still be dreaming of glory next week. Let’s take a closer look at the contenders:
When the Yaks clinched their ticket in Week 13 for the second straight year, it continued a notable streak – they’ve made the playoffs every year they’ve been in the league (7 times!), a feat only the Z’s can also claim (by my count, anyway). The Yaks have been a streaky team this year, to be sure. They started off with three losses in four games, then won 3 straight. More worryingly, they have only 1 victory in their past six games, and now they go up against the seemingly invincible Chalice. Nevertheless, in this league the eight seed has had remarkable success, knocking off the number one seed 4 of 6 years, so it sure wouldn’t be a good idea to completely count them out.
At one point in the year, the Stars looked like the best team in the league, climbing all the way up to the number one ranking in weeks 4 and 5. But did they peak too soon? Since week 5, they’ve only won 2 of their final 8 games, including four straight losses to end the regular season. That’s one side of the coin; the other is that the Stars are still the 5th highest scoring team in the league, they were considered the 3rd best team in the league as recently as two weeks ago, and they actually have a higher Yahoo power ranking than their first round opponent, the PAC. So a first round win would probably still be an upset, but maybe not as big of a surprise as the seeding would indicate.
Of all the lower seeded teams, the Z’s have to be considered the most dangerous and the dark horse for the overall title. They faced the toughest schedule in the league this year, and still came out with a six seed. Now, although their scoring has slipped in the second half of the season, they are positioned nicely with some great positional matchups over the next few weeks. Yahoo also thinks highly of this team, placing them just fractions of a point behind second place – which of course happens to be the Geese, their first round matchup. A tough road, but the Z’s just might be able to drive it.
The Mennos have had one of those seasons where they’ve been solidly in the middle of the pack all year. They’ve gotten to this point with a phenomenal season from the defense, as well as a good deal of luck – they are the only team with a negative point differential but a winning record. After fighting through injuries most of the season, it looks like they’re starting to get healthy, which would bode well for the playoff run. Can they up their game over these next three weeks?
Speaking of luck, this year the Schmucks have managed to parlay a great start to the season into 8 wins and the number 4 seed. No team has done more with less this year, as projections have consistently placed the talent level of this team on par with a bubble team rather than the top 4 team they’ve performed as. Not only that, but they’ve managed to draw the lowest scoring playoff team for their first round matchup – a great stroke of fortune for this group of scrappy overachievers.
One of the hottest teams in the league is the Geese, who have won 5 of 7 in the second half of the season with losses only to the SuperPAC and Carnage. This is a team that’s proven it is capable of putting up some monster numbers, and if anyone outside of the top two wins the championship, my money would be on the Geese. It’s unfortunate, then, that they were assigned such a tough draw – their road to the title could conceivably consist of the 3 highest scoring teams (other than themselves at #3) – if the Geese are to win their 2nd title in 4 years, they’ll have definitely earned it the hard way.
While the SuperPAC are probably a true 2, not 1b, it’s clear that they are right in the mix for the title after a fantastic regular season. The PAC have ridden a balanced attack to this point, finding the right combination of big name studs and rising up-and-comers to give themselves a strong showing nearly every week. Is a finals clash with Chalice in the cards? Amazingly, since week 4, these two teams have one total loss – and it was when they played each other in Week 11, with the victory giving the Carnage the number one seed.
After too many years of just showing promise without results, the CPCs finally broke through this year with a brilliant draft and top of the line talent unmatched by any other team. Anchored by a powerful running game (Rice and Peterson), and capped with a surprisingly effective passing game plus the startling greatness of RGIII, the Chalice has only seen their score dip below 100 twice this year. Contrast that with the four teams that missed the playoffs, none of whom even reached triple digits more than twice all season. Not saying it can’t be done (the playoffs have a way of disrupting the best laid plans), but it will take something special to knock these guys from their seemingly inevitable path to a championship.
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