2023 POWER RANKINGS - Week 13
“A few busy weeks” [yada, yada] “Thanksgiving” [yada, yada] “last chance this season” [yada, yada] “rollercoaster” [yada, yada]
Read ‘em and weep.
_____________________________________________________________
1.
Run CMC (10-3) Y! Draft Grade: B-
Week 8 Rank: 4 (+3)
Manager: Nick Gosney
Years in League: 5
Best Finish: Champ (1x - 2019)
Last 5 Games: WWLWW
Playing for: A second title
Still up for grabs: #1 seed
After having dropped Run CMC from their lofty perch atop our rankings last time, Week 10 offered an interesting matchup between Run CMC (our former #1) and Turn down for Watt (the replacement #1).
Nick wasted no time texting me following the 57-point shellacking that ensued:
And you can’t blame him..
But there is a little bit of a University of Alabama vibe going on here. Of Run CMC’s last 4 wins, three have come against the bottom teams in our rankings: a nail-biter against Johnny Baseball, 6.75 point win over Golden Boy, and, last week, a convincing win over the Jets Jets Jets who haven’t won a game since September.
In the meantime, Run CMC lost to Sweet Carolina, who we have ranked at #3. Shouldn’t head-to-head count for something?
Nah, Alabama Run CMC beat #1 Georgia Turn down for Watt so they move up in the rankings.
Run CMC has been the class of the league this year, and his record and Points For back it up.
______________________________________________________________________
2.
ThrowUpThe X (8-5) Y! Draft Grade: B-
Week 8 Rank: 6 (+4)
Manager: RD Gallant
Years in League: 14
Best Finish: Champ (1x - 2013)
Last 5 games: WLLWW
Playing for: 5th championship appearance in 11 years
Still up for grabs: #3 seed
ThrowUpThe X has won 3 of their last 5, and their two losses were both 95+ point outings that ended in nail-biting losses. Not a single dud game over the course of the last 5.
A team that seemed pretty unexciting the first 7 weeks of the season suddenly looks like it has electric energy up and down the roster. And the best part about it is the consistency over the last 6 weeks.
In fact, over their last 6 games, ThrowUpThe X has scored 120+ four times. Which is more than most of the league has done the entire season, and certainly better than any other team (Run CMC included) over that stretch.
They are hot at the right time and could very well be in play for a championship run, where they will hope to win their second Fauxbardi.
______________________________________________________________________
3.
Sweet Carolina (8-5) Y! Draft Grade: D
Week 8 Rank: 3 (-)
Manager: Michael Schultz
Years in League: 3
Best Finish: 3rd (2021)
Last 5 games: WWWWL
Playing for: Their first title
Still up for grabs: N/A (#2 seed is not attainable for Sweet Carolina)
Sweet Carolina capped off a sweet 4-game winning streak with a 140-point smack-down of Pewter Pirates and looked like a team primed for a championship run. And that still holds true, but Week 13’s 76 point outing didn’t do wonders for confidence..especially when a closer look of the winning streak revealed that 3 of the wins came from a relatively low point average (99) and were quite close. The 4-game winning streak could have easily been a 2-2 stretch.
Sweet Carolina has legitimate championship aspirations, but doing so will be much easier if they are able to maintain the #3 seed, which is very much in peril. A loss in Week 14 could result in Sweet Carolina dropping to #4 or #5, which means facing a much higher quality team than Pewter Pirates, who they just beat in Week 12.
There’s great news, though. Sweet Carolina gets Johnny Baseball in Week 14. And that’s about as well as you could wrap up a season.
_____________________________________________________________________
4.
Ruthlessberger (7-6) Y! Draft Grade: A+
Week 8 Rank: 2 (-2)
Manager: Ian Svendsen
Years in League: 7
Best Finish: Champ (1x - 2022)
Last 5 games: LLWLW
Playing for: Back-to-back titles
Still up for grabs: #3 seed
The reigning champs find themselves looking more and more like their namesake. When Roethlisberger was in his prime, you never knew whether he was going to throw 6 TDs or 3 INTs, but you knew it wouldn’t be something in between.
Ruthlessberger’s last 5 point totals: 82, 110, 134, 76, 180
And it should be noted with that 180 points, that Ruthlessberger actually had some players on the bench that outperformed their starters, which could have brought the total closer to 200. Ridiculous.
So much of fantasy football is who is hot the last couple weeks of the season. Ruthlessberger is hoping that Week 13 was a preview of things to come. Keep your eye on their ability to continue getting productivity out of recently-returned RBs James Conner and Kylen Williams as a catalyst for keeping the heat coming.
______________________________________________________________________
5.
Turn down for Watt (10-3) Y! Draft Grade: B Week 8 Rank: 1 (-5)
Manager: Joshuwa Shelton
Years in League: 9
Best Finish: 3rd (2018)
Last 5 games: WLWWW
Playing for: A second podium finish
Still up for grabs: The #1 seed
This is probably ludicrous to drop Turn down for Watt five spots. With 10 wins, they find themselves tied for the league lead in standings and top 5 in Points For. And beyond that, they’ve gone 4-1 in their last five games.
So… what’s the deal?
The recent 4-1 run has been good for the standings and playoff seeding placement, but is a bit of a skewed view. Turn down for Watt has averaged just 94 points per game over that stretch. While the point floor seems to be consistent, the point ceiling seems to have lowered. Turn down for Watt finds themselves hoping for a fantasy breakout at just the right time to make a deep playoff run. *cough, cough* Tyreek.
Turn down for Watt has never made a run to the final game and is hoping to do just that.. Right after hunting down Run CMC for the #1 seed and a shot at facing Johnny Baseball in Round 1.
Good things are very possible for this team, especially given the situation they are standings-wise, but there are other teams hotter right now.
______________________________________________________________________
6.
Golden Boy (5-8) Y! Draft Grade: D- Week 8 Rank: 8 (+1)
Manager: Kyler Stock
Years in League: 2
Best Finish: 6th (2022)
Last 5 games: LWWLW
Playing for: Personal-best finish
Still up for grabs: #6 seed
Golden Boy has pieced together a 3-2 run in their last 5 games, with key wins over Butt Fumble and Johnny Baseball to solidify a playoff spot. Golden Boy also posted two games with over 110 points, showing that there is some pop with this roster that could potentially vault them into the second round if the cards fell right. If Golden Boy is able to manage that, they will wind up with their best finish in the Elite Fantasy League.
What is very interesting is the seeding that can potentially come out of Week 14’s games for Golden Boy. As it stands now, #7 Golden Boy would likely play #2 Turn down for Watt in the first round of the playoffs.
If Golden Boy was to win in week 14, coupled with a loss by Pewter Pirates, they could wind up as the #6 seed and face likely opponent Sweet Carolina.
Who would you rather play? #TankforTurnDown?
______________________________________________________________________
7.
Pewter Pirates (6-7) Y! Draft Grade: A+
Week 8 Rank: 5 (-1)
Manager: Sy Gallimore
Years in League: 15
Best Finish: Champ (2x – 2010, 2020)
Last 5 games: WLWLL
Playing for: The second weekend of the playoffs
Still up for grabs: N/A (#5 seed is not attainable for Pewter Pirates)
As much as it pains me to say, and as silly as it seems when Pat Mahomes and Travis Kelce are on your roster, this is not a championship-caliber team.
Unfortunately, this has turned into a middle-of-the-pack team with no breakout candidates evident to turn the ship around.
The nail in the coffin was Pewter Pirates finally getting a decent all-around performance from the roster and putting up 112 points in Week 12. Unfortunately, Pewter Pirates still lost by 30 to Sweet Carolina.
Pewter Pirates’s best hope is to catch a top seed with a bad game the first week of the playoffs and hope for the second weekend. Outside of that, this season is over.
______________________________________________________________________
8.
Butt Fumble (4-9) Y! Draft Grade: D
Week 8 Rank: 9 (+1)
Manager: Austin Owen
Years in League: 10
Best Finish: Champ (3x – 2016, 2017, 2021)
Last 5 games: LWLWL
Playing for: A playoff cameo
Still up for grabs: #8 seed
We don’t need to sugar coat the struggle that this season has been, but dangit if Butt Fumble didn’t feel like the team that you were just rooting for to make the playoffs somehow, some way. It just wasn’t in the cards… at least… probably?
Butt Fumble is technically still alive in the playoff race, but will need a win, a Johnny Baseball loss, and will need to score 15 more points than Johnny Baseball to move on. The last two in that list seem very possible, but Butt Fumble happened to have a bad draw, and Week 14 poses a matchup against current #1 Run CMC, who has a 20 point projected win coming. Still, the fat lady ain’t sang yet.
It’s just hard when it felt like every game that was within reach ended up being just short. We already discussed Week 8’s bad beat against Pewter Pirates, but that was followed up with Week 10’s game against Turn down for Watt, which looked so promising with CJ Stroud’s 42 point effort. Unfortunately, the rest of the roster scored just 44, and Turn down for Watt got 40 points just from Cleveland’s defense and Cole Kmet on their way to a win. Then in Week 11 if Butt Fumble had just played Devin Singletary they would’ve beaten Golden Boy. Finally, in Week 13, the team just gave up, and rallied a grand total of 55 points against Ruthlessberger… who won by 125 points.
Alas, Butt Fumble wasn’t just the name of the team - it was the theme of the season. And that season will likely come to a close this week.
______________________________________________________________________
9.
Johnny Baseball (5-8) Y! Draft Grade: D
Week 8 Rank: 7 (-2)
Manager: Chad Holcombe
Years in League: 1
Best Finish: N/A
Last 5 games: LWLLL
Playing for: Most wins without setting a lineup?
Still up for grabs: #8 seed
What are we doing here folks. Johnny Baseball has not set a full lineup since Week 5 (which, I might add, is the surest-fire of ways to get kicked from the league). The insanity is, that despite such managerial incompetence, Johnny Baseball has been lucky enough to win a couple of games over that stretch.
Little did we know, but Johnny Baseball’s Week 6 and Week 10 wins would decide the fate for another team in the league.
Despite failing to field an RB in Week 6, Johnny Baseball was fortunate to be playing a struggling Butt Fumble team and stumbled into an 83-75 win. Despite failing to field a DEF in Week 10, Johnny Baseball managed to ride best-performance-of-their-season games from CeeDee Lamb and Brian Robinson (I just want to reiterate this is Brian Robinson, not Bijan Robinson) to a 4-point win over Ruthlessberger.
Those two wins make this final game of the regular season less-exciting than it could be.
Johnny Baseball has a one-game, and 14-point Points For lead on Butt Fumble for the final playoff spot.
Because of Johnny Baseball’s lineup woes, scoring anything close to decent points has been difficult, but as long as Butt Fumble loses in Week 14, Johnny Baseball will be the final representative in the playoff race.
What a travesty.
____________________________________________________________________________
10.
Jets Jets Jets (2-11) Y! Draft Grade: C-
Week 8 Rank: 10 (-)
Manager: Tim Cook
Years in League: 15
Best Finish: Champ (1x - 2015)
Last 5 games: LLLLL
Playing for: Pride
Still up for grabs: N/A (#9 seed is unattainable for Jets Jets Jets(
In what was the silver-lining of their entire season, Week 13 managed to save Jets Jets Jets from becoming the only team in Elite Fantasy League’s 15-year history of never breaking 100-points in a game over the course of a season.
That’s right - Jets Jets Jets scored 103 (almost 104) points in Week 13 against Run CMC, beating their projection by 23 (almost 24) points. And that feels significant, somehow.
Unfortunately, they did that in a 45.5 point loss that ensured this year’s - drumroll, please - John Porta Trophy Winner.
So, even though this season didn’t go as planned, at least something is coming from it. And that also feels significant, somehow.
______________________________________________________________________