As The WRBL Turns, S03 E14 (IT'S PLAYOFF TIME!)

The Wisconsin Rapids Bro League

Week 14
Our 3rd semi-official season of blaming Cole Walters for the alarming rate at which bees are dying.

Current Standings
Fisher Division
Team ChowHounds (Darrin Aschebrook) 10-4 W2
Moon's Microdongs (Nick Zurawski) 10-4 W2
SNEEN MACHINE (Tyler Sneen) 7-7 L1
Team Moon (Evan Moon) 1-13 L13

Fassel Division

Bought Not Built (Scott Aschebrook) 11-3 W6

Fuck The Playoff System (Cole Walters) 7-7 W1

TyRod Henke (Andy Todd) 6-8 L2

Team Swanson (Alec Swanson) 4-10 L3

Week Fourteen Final Scores

ASCHEBROOK JR.  135 SNEEN  124

WALTERS  90 MOON  77

ASCHEBROOK SR.  97 TODD  84
ZURAWSKI  145 SWANSON  77

829

Peter Diana - Post-Gazette
Hero of the Week: RB Le'Veon Bell (Bought Not Built)

Heroes of the Week: RB Le'Veon Bell (Aschebrook Jr.), WR Emmanuel Sanders (Zurawski), QB Tom Brady (Todd)

Zeroes of the Week: K Dan Bailey (Todd), WR Dez Bryant (Sneen), The Injury Gods (Mystical Force)

AP/Lynn Sladky
Zero of the Week: Injury Gods (Mystical Force)

Upcoming Week 15 Match-ups & NFL Schedule (in CT)

Winner Duels: #1 Bought Not Built v. #4 Fuck The Playoff System
#2 Team ChowHounds v. #3 Moon's Microdongs
Loser Slap-Fights: #5 SNEEN MACHINE v. #8 Team Moon
#6 TyRod Henke v. #7 Team Swanson

Thursday: Los Angeles @ Seattle 7:25 PM
Saturday(!): Miami @ NY Jets 7:25 PM

Sunday: Chicago @ Green Bay NOON

Jacksonville @ Houston NOON

Cleveland @ Buffalo NOON

Philadelphia @ Baltimore NOON

Tennessee @ Kansas City NOON

Detroit @ NY Giants NOON

Indianapolis @ Minnesota NOON

Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati NOON

New Orleans @ Arizona 3:05 PM

San Francisco @ Atlanta 3:05 PM

New England @ Denver 3:25 PM

Oakland @ San Diego 3:25 PM

Tampa Bay @ Dallas 7:30 PM

Monday: Carolina @ Washington 7:30 PM

Bro...

Originally, I was going to rant about never starting anybody on Thursday Night Football ever again but, fuck that. Week 14 of the 2016 NFL Season will go down as the most stupid-weird fantasy football week of all-time. The following is a list of fantasy-relevant players who barely, if at all, showed up this week...

- Drew Brees (4)

- Ben Roethlisberger (2)

- Derek Carr (4)

- Russell Wilson (4)

- Marcus Mariota (6)

- Dak Prescott (6)

- Philip Rivers (7)
- Spencer Ware (6)
- Jay Ajayi (6)
- Devonta Freeman (3)
- Mark Ingram (2)
- Matt Forte (injury) (0)
- Melvin Gordon (injury) (0)
- Brandon Marshall (6)
- Michael Crabtree (6)
- Amari Cooper (7)
- DeAndre Hopkins (5)
- Jamison Crowder (5)
- Larry Fitzgerald (4)
- Kelvin Benjamin (2)
- Allen Robinson (2)
- Terrelle Pryor (1)
- Dez Bryant (0)
- Donte Moncrief (injury) (0)
- Delanie Walker (5)
- Jimmy Graham (2)
- Jordan Reed (2)
- Cairo Santos (3)
- Dustin Hopkins (2)
- Dan Bailey (0)
- Seattle's Defense (-2)

When you combine all of those players' totals, you get a grand total of 100 points. That's 7 QB's, 6 RB's, 11 WR's, 3 TE's, 3 K's and a defense that were all reasonable options to start that combined to be the fourth best team in the league. The WRBL only has 16 player rosters and this is a list of 31. It's awesome that we waited until Week 15 for the playoffs to begin because what the hell happened this week?

AP Photo/Mike Roemer
Russell Wilson threw five interceptions against the Packers' secondary. No, seriously...

What type of impact did this have on the Bro League in the final week of our regular season? YUUGE IMPACTS. All of the biggest impacts. It was the lowest scoring week of the season and some people had to rely on these performances for playoff seeding. What a time to be alive. After 14 weeks of fantasy funtime, the playoffs are set and it's down to two Aschebrooks, an Ivy Leaguer and Cole Walters. Trap them all in the same room during the playoffs and I smell a sitcom! Unfortunately, this means the end of relevancy for both Sneen and his machine, Alec's Team Swanson (just in time for Alshon Jeffery to return!) and TyRod Henke. Fortunately, this means the end of relevancy for Team Moon, who should lock up his own, newly-named Sacko "Moon Trophy" and then be locked up for not even trying until he could screw over teams with playoff aspirations (see: How he set his lineup against Cole & I).

Cole made the postseason as a result of Ben Roethlisberger's failure to accumulate points for Moon and the Baltimore defense never stood a chance on Monday night despite the Patriots' special teams' best efforts. Of course, Cole couldn't have made it without a little help from his friends. His strongest competition was Tyler Sneen, who was faced with the task of taking on Scott's Bought Not Built and in the highest scoring matchup of the week, it all came down to two kickers. WHO SAYS KICKERS DON'T MATTER??? With New England thinking end zone or bust, Sneen's Stephen Gostkowski was not on the field nearly enough to match Scott's Justin Tucker and his 12 points. Now, plenty of accusations have been made that this was a total chokejob by SNEEN MACHINE but, Scott has Ezekiel Elliott and BENCHED him for Mark Ingram and his two points and I'm sorry but, Scott needs to win every game from here on out based on his superteam roster. Really, the fact that Sneen was even close to winning this is admirable especially considering he scored 24 points more than those 31 fantasy-relevant players I mentioned earlier. Z beat Swanson but, none of it mattered because Scott's dad beat me and the 2 and 3 seeds remained the same. 

Sidenote: If Scott wouldn't have made the Elliott trade, Cole would have lost and Scott would have won by one thanks to the drop-off between Justin Tucker and Dustin Hopkins. 

The end of the regular season is a time for reflection for those of us unlucky enough to miss the postseason. Moon can reflect on his final season in the league, Sneen can reflect on how he went from 3-6 to 7-6 and drink enough to erase that 14th week, Alec can think back to happier times when he drafted A.J. Green and had a really awesome player for 10 weeks and me, well.... I'm thinking about award season. It seems like the awards that were first introduced last year all have obvious winners this season except for one... WRBL Draft Bust of the Year. This is where my much-hyped CONTROVERSIAL THOUGHT comes into play... I'm not saying he won't be nominated (there's still 2 weeks left to play) but, I don't think #1 overall pick Todd Gurley was a bust. Was he disappointing? Oh sure but, so was Reggie Bush in the NFL. All of the hype was there and ultimately, I just ended up with the 9th-highest scoring running back in the league, basically the best RB2 in the league. Considering he was my only source of consistency at the running back position, I never felt bad about owning Gurley nor was I ever frustrated by him after week 2. I benched him in Week 13 (his worst game of the season, 5 points) so, that didn't do me any harm. If you think about how underwhelming he was compared to others at his position well, wide receiver was a far easier position to just pick up a top-20 player at in free agency. For instance, Davante Adams, Emmanuel Sanders, Michael Thomas, Jamison Crowder, Kenny Britt, Terrelle Pryor and Tyrell Williams were all free agents at some point and at RB, only Jordan Howard, Jay Ajayi, Isaiah Crowell and Spencer Ware were top-20 running backs that someone could nab at some point. Ultimately, doesn't a DeAndre Hopkins or an Allen Robinson that gave their owners a false sense of security with wild inconsistency fit the bill of draft bust much better? Plus, it's not like I would've picked him if Cole had the third pick instead of the second pick. After all, he bought me a hot dog for no reason and so I let him have Antonio Brown out of kindness and isn't that what the holiday spirit is all about? 

Kirby Lee - USA TODAY Sports
Also, do you think it's a coincidence that this guy is gone after Gurley finally said something critical of the Ram offense? Todd Gurley will never get the credit he deserves for getting Jeff Fisher fired.

The playoffs begin this Thursday night with a rousing match between Seattle and... oh no... the Los Angeles Rams. Can LA rediscover the magic that Jeff Fisher conjured every time they played Seattle or can not even John Fassel save this trainwreck of a franchise? I'm sure plenty of fantasy playoff games will come down to Saturday night's Matt Moore v. Bryce Petty battle royal. Sunday stars Cleveland still looking for their first win in Buffalo, two 9-4 NFC overachievers playing for 10-4 in the Lions and Giants, the annual Patriots-Broncos game and a second week in a row of the Dallas Cowboys in primetime versus the surging Buccaneers. Carolina and Washington takes place on Monday Night and who knows? Greg Olsen, Kirk Cousins, Robert Kelley or Cam Newton might just end up swinging one of the two WRBL playoff games. Starring in those two WRBL playoff games? a rematch of last year's third-place battle between Aschebrook Sr. and Nick and Cole wins a participation trophy and likely nothing else because Scott is the best and he did not at all pay me to say that.

This "As The WRBL Turns" is brought to you by the Aschebrook and Gurley families.

Scoring Leaders

QB

Aaron Rodgers 284 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Tom Brady 185 (TODD)

Ben Roethlisberger 158 (SWANSON/MOON)

Cam Newton 155 (ASCHEBROOK)

Andrew Luck 120 (SWANSON/ZURAWSKI)

Drew Brees 112 (TODD)

Matt Ryan 112 (ASCHEBROOK)

Jameis Winston 112 (ZURAWSKI/SWANSON)

Carson Palmer 103 (MOON)

Dak Prescott 103 (WALTERS)

Matthew Stafford 103 (WALTERS/SNEEN)

Philip Rivers 86 (ZURAWSKI)

Russell Wilson 78 (SNEEN)

Marcus Mariota 67 (SNEEN)

Kirk Cousins 56 (ZURAWSKI)

Blake Bortles 44 (WALTERS)

Eli Manning 29 (SNEEN)

Andy Dalton 15 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Alex Smith 8 (ZURAWSKI)

RB

David Johnson 328 (ZURAWSKI)

Le'Veon Bell 261 (ASCHEBROOK)

LeSean McCoy 216 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

DeMarco Murray 212 (ASCHEBROOK)

Melvin Gordon 203 (WALTERS)

Devonta Freeman 194 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Lamar Miller 163 (SNEEN)

Ezekiel Elliott 161 (MOON/ASCHEBROOK)

Todd Gurley 147 (TODD)

Jordan Howard 111 (ZURAWSKI/SWANSON)

Latavius Murray 102 (SWANSON)

Frank Gore 101 (ZURAWSKI)

Matt Forte 99 (SWANSON)

C.J. Anderson 96 (WALTERS)

Spencer Ware 95 (TODD/SWANSON)

Christine Michael 90 (SNEEN)

LeGarrette Blount 89 (SWANSON)

Carlos Hyde 89 (SWANSON/SNEEN)

Theo Riddick 89 (SNEEN)

Mark Ingram 87 (ASCHEBROOK)

Duke Johnson Jr. 83 (MOON)

Jay Ajayi 71 (ZURAWSKI)

DeAngelo Williams 64 (ASCHEBROOK)

Doug Martin 63 (WALTERS)

Jonathan Stewart 54 (MOON)

Isaiah Crowell 47 (WALTERS)

Giovani Bernard 37 (SNEEN)

Thomas Rawls 34 (TODD)

Devontae Booker 30 (TODD)

Jacquizz Rodgers 29 (TODD)

Ameer Abdullah 25 (TODD)

Charles Sims 25 (ZURAWSKI)

Darren Sproles 25 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Danny Woodhead 25 (ZURAWSKI)

Eddie Lacy 24 (MOON)
Jeremy Hill 23 (ZURAWSKI)
Robert Kelley 16 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

James White 15 (ASCHEBROOK)

Tevin Coleman 14 (WALTERS)

Ryan Mathews 14 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Jamaal Charles 12 (TODD)
Ty Montgomery 11 (TODD)
Matt Asiata 9 (WALTERS)
DeAndre Washington 9 (TODD)

Charcandrick West 9 (ZURAWSKI)
Rashad Jennings 7 (ZURAWSKI)

Jeremy Langford 7 (WALTERS)

Adrian Peterson 6 (MOON)

Jerick McKinnon 5 (SNEEN)
Chris Ivory 2 (TODD)

WR

Antonio Brown 266 (WALTERS)

Mike Evans 248 (ASCHEBROOK)

Odell Beckham Jr. 236 (SNEEN)

Julio Jones 222 (ASCHEBROOK)

Larry Fitzgerald 208 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

T.Y. Hilton 208 (ZURAWSKI)

Demaryius Thomas 191 (MOON)

Brandin Cooks 182 (WALTERS)

A.J. Green 167 (SWANSON)

Allen Robinson 150 (SWANSON)

DeAndre Hopkins 148 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Amari Cooper 142 (MOON)

Jordy Nelson 126 (TODD)

Dez Bryant 116 (SNEEN)

Brandon Marshall 114 (ZURAWSKI)

Jarvis Landry 113 (TODD)

Emmanuel Sanders 111 (TODD/ZURAWSKI)

Doug Baldwin 94 (MOON)

Alshon Jeffery 89 (SWANSON)

Willie Snead 89 (SNEEN)

Julian Edelman 88 (WALTERS/TODD)

Mike Wallace 84 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

DeSean Jackson 70 (ZURAWSKI/SWANSON)

Tyrell Williams 59 (SWANSON)

Steve Smith Sr. 56 (SNEEN)

Marvin Jones 53 (MOON)

Davante Adams 51 (WALTERS)

Kelvin Benjamin 45 (SWANSON/ZURAWSKI)

Eric Decker 39 (SNEEN)

Randall Cobb 37 (TODD/WALTERS)

Jordan Matthews 37 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Travis Benjamin 36 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Jeremy Maclin 36 (ASCHEBROOK)

Golden Tate 36 (WALTERS)

Michael Crabtree 34 (ASCHEBROOK)

Jamison Crowder 34 (TODD)

Terrelle Pryor 33 (TODD)

Donte Moncrief 32 (ASCHEBROOK SR./TODD)

Corey Coleman 30 (MOON)

Stefon Diggs 30 (TODD)

Michael Thomas 24 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Taylor Gabriel 17 (ASCHEBROOK)

Keenan Allen 12 (ZURAWSKI)

Sammy Watkins 12 (ZURAWSKI)

John Brown 10 (SNEEN)
Sterling Shepard 6 (MOON)
Ted Ginn Jr. 4 (SWANSON)

Quincy Enunwa 3 (SWANSON)

Cameron Meredith 2 (TODD)

TE

Travis Kelce 177 (WALTERS)

Greg Olsen 171 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Delanie Walker 152 (TODD)

Jordan Reed 150 (SNEEN)

Rob Gronkowski 94 (ZURAWSKI)

Jimmy Graham 88 (ASCHEBROOK)

Hunter Henry 60 (TODD/MOON)

Martellus Bennett 59 (SWANSON)

Julius Thomas 53 (MOON)

Antonio Gates 52 (ZURAWSKI)

Jason Witten 48 (ASCHEBROOK/WALTERS/SWANSON)

Tyler Eifert 45 (ASCHEBROOK)

Eric Ebron 40 (SWANSON/ZURAWSKI/TODD)

Coby Fleener 38 (SNEEN)

Dennis Pitta 26 (ASCHEBROOK)

Zach Ertz 22 (SNEEN)

Zach Miller 14 (ZURAWSKI/SWANSON)

Kyle Rudolph 10 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Jared Cook 1 (ASCHEBROOK)

K

Justin Tucker 143 (MOON/ASCHEBROOK)

Adam Vinatieri 120 (ZURAWSKI)

Stephen Gostkowski 103 (SNEEN)

Brandon McManus 91 (TODD)

Mason Crosby 86 (ASCHEBROOK/ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Matt Bryant 69 (SWANSON/WALTERS)

Dan Bailey 65 (WALTERS/SNEEN/TODD)

Matt Prater 62 (WALTERS)

Wil Lutz 48 (MOON)

Graham Gano 45 (SWANSON)

Steven Hauschka 42 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Dustin Hopkins 34 (ASCHEBROOK)

Cairo Santos 19 (SWANSON)

Josh Lambo 7 (WALTERS)

DF

Denver Broncos 133 (ASCHEBROOK SR.)

Minnesota Vikings 90 (TODD/ASCHEBROOK)

Carolina Panthers 88 (SWANSON)

Baltimore Ravens 79 (MOON)

Arizona Cardinals 58 (ASCHEBROOK)

Houston Texans 49 (WALTERS/SNEEN)

New York Giants 49 (ZURAWSKI/SNEEN)

New England Patriots 48 (SNEEN/WALTERS)

Seattle Seahawks 44 (ASCHEBROOK)

Cincinnati Bengals 42 (ZURAWSKI/SWANSON/WALTERS)

Kansas City Chiefs 33 (MOON)

Miami Dolphins 33 (WALTERS/ZURAWSKI)

Pittsburgh Steelers 33 (TODD)

Atlanta Falcons 26 (SNEEN)

Green Bay Packers 23 (SNEEN/WALTERS)

Philadelphia Eagles 21 (TODD)

Chicago Bears 17 (ZURAWSKI/WALTERS)

New York Jets 12 (ZURAWSKI)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 12 (SNEEN)
Dallas Cowboys 9 (SNEEN)

Tennessee Titans 6 (SWANSON)

Detroit Lions 4 (TODD)

Indianapolis Colts 2 (SNEEN)

Hypothetical Standings

Bought Not Built 11-3

Team ChowHounds 11-3

Moon's Microdongs 8-6

SNEEN MACHINE 7-7

Team Swanson 7-7

Fuck The Playoff System 6-8 

TyRod Henke 5-9

Team Moon 1-13