Wisconsin Rapids Bro League
Bro...
It's beginning to look a lot like Hoefsmas. The Wisconsin Rapids Bro League's ninth official postseason is set to begin this week, with championship weekend taking place over the Christmas holiday in one of the most poorly scheduled NFL seasons for fantasy football purposes ever. The race for the #1 seed ended this week when LIVE.LAUGH.OLAVE. lived, laughed and benched their namesake en route to an overly dramatic 5.62-point victory over Sparky's Dad Weights and Protein Shakes that have put in all this effort at the fantasy gym just to leave a pretty corpse of a team in the Sacko bracket. Not only did LIVE.LAUGH.OLAVE lead all WRBL teams in regular season points scored but, the third(?)-year Browner had the only team whose reputation preceded them coming into week 14. Yes, despite De'Von Achane's incredible PPT (Points Per Touch) value, not even the stellar Miami rookie could amass 37.26 points during the Monday night doubleheader, keeping I Had COVID-19 at a mediocre 7-7, still enough at the end of the day to fend off Sparky's postseason push (can a 3-game losing streak really be considered a push?). Thanks to that and a shocking single-digit fantasy performance from QB Jalen Hurts, Lord Pretty Flacco Joey miraculously hung on to first in the Shooter McGavin Division and locked up the two-seed in the process. That provided Andy with a much needed sigh of relief as I was the victim of the most electrifying performance of the year from Gave's Electric Orcas. The last-placed Bro somehow avoided ten losses (as did all WRBLers in 2023) despite a truly miserable run of luck that for at least one play during Jake Browning's studly play this week seemingly jinxed every quarterback Gabe owned. Browning temporarily left the Bengals-Colts game with some sort of hand or wrist injury after the Orcas lost Joe Burrow and Kirk Cousins for the season along with Sam Howell taking David Carr-level sack totals thanks to the porous Commander o-line. Alas, not much really shifted in the final week, making this a fairly uneventful regular season by Bro League standards. The table was set for higher drama come the Monday doubleheader but, Saquon Barkley easily smoked my single-digit lead over Gabe, Achane would've needed a heroic performance for Nick to beat Brett when all the heroes were on Brett's side this week, Stefon Diggs limited Cole's potential in a loss to Alec and Hoefs was never going to choke a 130-ish point lead over Walt in the standings to begin with! At the end of this 14-week stretch, I suppose my main summary would be that we all gave it our all, never letting past results dictate our beliefs in future performance and at least we didn't see a Pistons, Spurs, Wizards-type go on any epic losing spells. Onto the playoffs!
Jamie Squire/Getty Images
In a totally upside-down week of results, only Hoefs winning record foretold the week 14 final tally thanks to RB James Cook's best showing of the season.
Will the consistent dominance of LIVE.LAUGH.OLAVE. come to an end with Tyreek Hill perhaps hobbled? Well, any window that may have opened for Nick's hopes was instantly closed when Keenan Allen decided to be declared doubtful for the annoying quick turnaround that a Thursday night game provides. This kills the matchup of WRBL's WR1 and WR3 (WR2 for much of the season until this CeeDee Lamb topped him this week) and Nick's losses of RB Jonathan Taylor, WR Keenan Allen and RB Nick Chubb all the way back in September have him just grateful he's in the postseason. There is a precedent here for overcoming obstacles however and I fully expect Jalen Hurts to bounce back after his first single-digit showing of 2023. Ultimately, the 1 v. 4 seeded matchup certainly previews like a 1 v. 4 should and it's clear which team is which despite Hoefs' RBs Derrick Henry and Alvin Kamara not really delivering the flashy performances they have in previous seasons. The mid match of 2 v. 3 has a 7-7 division champion in Lord Pretty Flacco Joey not trusting the Lord to help RB Jerome Ford but instead inspiring the Browns defense as they take on the mediocre Bears offense. Don't get it twisted though, I am absolutely contemplating playing both sides of the coin here as I currently slot Justin Fields as my QB over Trevor Lawrence facing a tough Raven defense and Kyler Murray versus the even more intimidating 49ers defense. I've been saving the trash talk all season for this week in particular because of course I have to face the Colieveland 96ers! He's only here because I let him have all the Bills and none of the dollar kind either (we haven't paid league dues in years). Tri-City? More like TRY making a basket against Pittsville next time! Too soon? In all seriousness, I hope that game was a fluke much like Cole's entire regular season output up to this point. TRY making the finals against my never ending barrage of quarterbacks and Bijan, Cold Waters!
The Thursday night game reads like an absolute dud that we'll need Kirk Herbstreit to poke Al Michaels awake for after every commercial break (I say "we" like I haven't skipped every TNF game since opening night) because Easton Stick versus the Raiders sounds like some old pre-1700's wartime battle that took place on American soil and not an American football game. Oh cool, three Saturday games starring Jake Browning, Mitchell Trubisky, Gardner Minshew, Nick Mullens and who knows which versions of the Broncos and Lions we're getting. I hate the NFL pushing non-Sunday games worse than the commodification of the holiday season and I've worked retail. By comparison, Sunday Night's Ravens-Jaguars game is intoxicating. Even Monday night's Eagles-Seahawks game is like watching an Oscar contender after bingewatching Madea films all Saturday long. The Bro League playoff bracket has a lot on the line with Nick's Jalen Hurts, Nathaniel's A.J. Brown and Cole's Kenneth Walker all in play. In the Sacko? Well... it's certainly going to be one of the most competitive Sacko tourneys ever with three 5-9 squads coming off wins and Sparky's streaky 6-8 team possibly getting the best of his trio of Packers back in RB Aaron Jones. 8th in scoring hasn't stopped Gabe from taking two "sure, whatever, I guess" wins over Dad Weights during the regular season so you all know that Jaime is heated for revenge. In the other Sacko interdivisional scrum, Alec and Brett split their two times facing one another this season with week 13's 390.74 combined points being the first real sign of the tides shifting for both of these two's trajectories. Alas, it's just the Sacko and nobody who's serious cares about anything that happens here besides the 8th-place finisher next weekend. It's sad that there's seemingly no glitz or glam in finishing sixth instead of seventh but the temporary morale boost is worth the win, take it from somebody that's been down there a few times. Did somebody touch the thermostat or did the intensity of the postseason just turn up the heat because I'm sweating harder than an innocent grandmother listening to the new Sexyy Red album in anticipation for four days full of fantasy football frivolity and fun!
Official WRBL Standings
 |
| Godofredo A. Vasquez/AP Hero of the Week: WR Deebo Samuel (Jordan Addison's Dog) |
WINNER'S BRACKET: #1 Nathaniel Hoefs v. #4 Nick Zurawski AND #2 Andy Todd v. #3 Cole Walters
Scoring Leaders
No comments:
Post a Comment