teamAlaska (136.58) vs HHH (116.65)
This one had it’s ups and downs as HHH got off to a great start by getting 20 points from G. Kittle in the Thursday night game they also got a solid 15 from M. Pittman on Saturday but teamAlaska and J. Jefferson was almost able to match that scoring as he put up 29 points on Saturday’s game. Going into the Sunday games the Yahoo predictions had them within 1 point of each other. What player or players were going to come up big and for which team. D. Smith for teamAlaska started putting up points and ended with a solid 16.30 however at the half things were looking a little slow for teamAlaska. Then they got the type of performance that wins you championships as T. Lawrence had a ridiculous 2nd half against a good Cowboys defense. Lawrence finished the day with 33.36 points to put teamAlaska up big. HHH needed big games from Burrow / Higgins and Ekeler to have a shot and they actually performed well enough to give them a fighting chance as those 3 combined for 56.25 points. Ekeler was probably the biggest disappointment as even though he did have 13.07 points you expect more from your top overall pick in a playoff game. This did however give HHH a shot. They were down by 21.28 points going into the monday night game with only A. Lazard remaning. HHH coach was so determined to get this win that they decided to go to the Packers game just to have a little conversation with Allen and let him know how many points he needed! Apparently that talk didn’t go super well as Lazard had a whopping 1.35 points and HHH lost by 20!
teamAlaska has been one of the better teams all year. They did slip a bit from Week 9 on but they have now had back to back games where they have looked more like the team we saw through the first 8 weeks of the season. They have as good of a shot as anyone to win this thing and they now will go up against Starrfavrerodg the team that they loss to in Week 9 and who seemingly started their slide I was mentioning! Next week should be fun!
Big Papa (178.67) vs Rapids Plungers (114.89)
Wow! Big Papa hammers Rapids Plungers and puts the remaining teams on notice that they are not going out quietly this year! This was one of the more impressive opening weekend playoff victories that I can remember. I talked about how I didn’t like the WR group for Big Papa and that the game would come down to which non star players step up. I don’t think we need to look much farther then Z. Jones who went out and performed like a true WR1 by putting up 34.45 points for Big Papa! In the playoffs you need guys to step up as we saw last year when Burrow and someone by the name of Amon-Ra St. Brown led DaUnderdog all the way to a championship. Could Z. Jones be that guy this season? I am not sure but for one week this Big Papa team looked like every bit a championship team and they will now go up against the overall #1 team in the league in Bossman who suddenly looks a little more vulnerable with the losses of K. Murray and J. Taylor.
There has been this thing that seems to hang over the heads of some of the top teams and focusing in on Rapids Plungers it was always can they win in the playoffs? They seemed to get that monkey off their back a few years ago in the 2019 season when they won their first championship. Since then though, they have made the playoffs twice and have failed to make it back to the Super Bowl and with this loss move their all time playoff record to 5-15! I am not saying I want to start the “They can’t win in the playoffs” narrative because they unlike many other teams have the a championship next to their name but if this team played 1/2 as good in the playoffs as they do in the regular season they may have 4 or 5 championships by now!
That’s it for this week as we now move on to the Final Four! Great seasons to both HHH and Rapids Plungers and congratulations once again to Big Papa and teamAlaska for moving on!