In today Banana standI will give thanks for a hobby and the people in it. I’ll chronicle the crazy high of capping an undefeated FFPC season with a 197-point blowout, and I’ll rehash the unfathomable chain of events that pushed my favorite Main Event team from points champion to total extinction on the margins of a single start/sit decision.
In addition to the paywall, I’ll be using the RotoViz apps and Blair’s advanced matchups tool to break down the four games on Thursday and Friday. Go to the place that interests you most. RV is always and utterly about you, the reader.
Give thanks
- First of all thanks to Ben, Blair and Colm, the guys who made this all worthwhile. The last five years wouldn’t have been the same without you, and honestly, from a fantasy perspective for me, they wouldn’t have existed at all.
- A special thanks to Kevin Szafraniec, who has been as good as he has been productive. His work in 2025 qualifies as one of the best individual writing seasons in RotoViz history, and there have been some extremely talented writers coming through the pipeline.
- As we reach another Thanksgiving, I’m grateful to everyone who has written and consumed our content over the years. It was a diverse and international team from both sides of the page. Much more than the championships, it’s the RV community that has made this all worthwhile.
- But scoring brings joy! Thank you very much Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Jonathan Taylor, Jahmyr GibbsAnd Trey McBride for making his wild, chaotic and sometimes heartbreaking season such a thrilling ride. We are grateful for the points. Congratulations on such fantastic achievements.
The highest highs, the lowest lows
With injuries ending the season or changing the position for many of our favorite players, 2025 has brought its share of heartbreak, but this crazy campaign still has a celebratory feel to it most weeks.
- After a dynasty season that included a magical playoff run, five of our nine FFPC dynasty teams currently have a No. 1 or No. 2 seed with two weeks to go. In the most exciting result of week 12, Blair and I managed to hold off our closest competitors for first place in an epic showdown. The remaining teams include co-managers Bjorn, Monty, Pat and Curtis. I am absolutely grateful for the opportunity to interact with some of the best minds in the dynasty.
- After last season’s four ME championships and seven sprint qualifications in eleven competitions, I was able to expand to seventeen competitions this year. The two most common picks in the first round were Bowers and Nabers, and yet five of those seventeen teams advance directly to the sprint. (Best record and most points advance.) One earned a sweep, three additional scored the most points, and one earned the best record.
- The undefeated Beheaded deserves recreation (solo) is a Gibbs/Smith-Njigba selection with George Pickens comes back in round 4. It got terrible TreVeyon Henderson forward dial.
- Think of the spicy candy (Ben) was an early crew that McBride/Devon Achane and was lucky enough to get Chase Brown in three, Josh Allen in four, and Pickens in five before prices were corrected.
- Islands (Pat and Pete) was an Achane/JSN team that played the CeeDee Lam injury. It caught on Drake Maye and has some nice potential leverage pieces (Jayden Reed, Trey Benson, Oronde Gadsden, RJ Harvey, Bhayshul Tuten). It probably should have won the sweep bonus, but trying to maximize the sprint matchups and breakout stretches left us with a slightly underpowered lineup in Week 12 to squander the W/L title.
- 10 Centuries dead (Ben) landed the McBride/Puka Nacua double and withstood the Jayden Daniels injury, and took over the “value”. AJ Brown in Round 4 after a Week 1 performance that accurately foreshadowed his 2025 travails.
- Grim barbarity of optics (Ben) scored the most points despite a Bowers/Bucky Irving/Taylor starts. Add Pickens, Chris OlafAnd Michael Pittman puts us in an interesting place on the road to the big money component. But as exciting as it is to get a unique lineup through, it’s bittersweet after losing our best team. . .
The lowest of lows
Over the past month, Ben and I have focused almost entirely on getting one team into the Sprint. It’s a Bowers/Taylor/JSN team that also had interesting stretches like Jaylen Waddle And RJ Harvey. It was 1-3 and over 100 points back after four weeks, but by week 8 it was 5-3 and within a points lead. It lost the lead by 0.3 after Week 11, but was still all but guaranteed to make the playoffs, possibly as a No. 2 seed, even if it didn’t take back the points title, as that would (potentially) mean the team ahead of us got the record/points win.
Here is the situation after week 11.
The second and third place teams would play each other, meaning the next order would have to happen before we missed the playoffs.
- PAVA should beat us while we are losing. (Lost 156-131.)
- DC Leed should make up a 20 point spread WHILE losing. (Lost 151-148.)
- Mile High Magic should win. (Won 122-121.)
Even after Sunday’s disaster, which saw Mile High pull out a 122-121 victory, we were still in the lead heading into Monday night. The losing scenario was required Christian McCaffrey to go over 20 AND a perfect thread performance of Rico Dowdlewho had to score between 7.8 and 14.5 points.
Now I would take the CMC for 20, and I would put the majority of Dowdle results in that 8-14 range, so it certainly wasn’t impossible. Just a year ago, around this time, Colm and I took out 45 points Ja’Marr Chase on a Monday night in week 14 to win an ME title and qualify for the sprint, an outcome that was significantly less likely. You can’t have highs without lows.
To be clear, we were clearly in control of our own destiny. Like many squads we had several bye issues and had to pick two of the three Addison, Luther sufferedAnd Colston Loveland.
In retrospect, we should have just benched Addison after McCarthy’s crushing performance a week ago, but from Week 4 to Week 11, Addison had the 12th most air yards per game in all of football.
That’s a tough opportunity profile to bank, while the other volume situations are significantly worse. Unfortunately, the Packers and Vikings had a gentleman’s agreement to set football back 40 years. That development was not unforeseen – it played a role in our thinking in other places – but it was as cruel as it was foolish. (Do the Vikings not want to give McCarthy a chance to make a splash? Do the Packers not want to prepare for the playoffs? Those seem to be the two biggest imperatives for the respective franchises. I have questions.)
Our decision ultimately came down to Burden versus Loveland. Our default was to start Loveland, due to the safety (role more established) and the scoring advantage (TE receptions add up faster), but recent developments have made things a bit more complicated. In Week 11, Burden took an impressive route Olamide Zacheausand barely followed Rome Odunze. Meanwhile, Loveland had fallen behind Cole Farmer both in routes and in goals. If the rhetoric surrounding Burden was correct, Week 12 could be his breakthrough.
The Pass Game Matchup Judge also favored Burden, giving him one of the best scores of the week, while Loveland’s was only adequate.
The rest is of course history. Burden and Loveland drew the same number of goals, but Loveland scored a TD to give him 16.9 points. Last scored a 9.1. The final points margin was . . .
We lost the last play-off spot by 3.6 points. We lost the points crown and direct access to the sprint by 6.5 points. Both were within the ballpark of our start/sit decision. A team that scored 226 fewer points made the playoffs instead.
To be clear, I’m not saying it should be any different. I love the FFPC process for playoff qualification. We only get crazy results like this because head-to-head matters, and head-to-head brings a lot of excitement to the weekly rooting experience. Four of the twelve teams make it to the play-offs. Numbers 3 and 4 can still qualify for the sprint by winning the national title in weeks 13 and 14. It is the perfect format. We had every chance, but we couldn’t get them done by scoring 134 and 125 points in the last two weeks.
I’m pretty devastated that we haven’t done our part.
The highest highs
I don’t think I’ve had an undefeated season in the last 15 years of high-stakes matches. It’s possible, I think, but I can’t remember. It’s a lot easier to score a lot of points. My other three-point champions finished 7-5, 7-5, and finally my highest scoring team 5-6-1.
Going into Week 12, I had an 11-0 Main Event roster that would face the current top scorer in the league on the final weekend. Then this happened.
Gibbs, Smith-Njigba and Pickens kept the team clear and cleared the 34-point spread to claim the sweep bonus.
This has no real meaning other than being fun, but finding the joy in a special season is an important part of compensating for the heartbreaking losses. I’m grateful to have been able to ride with my best regular season team ever, even though it may not have really been the “best.”
NFL Fantasy Matchups – Thanksgiving and Black Friday Games
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