2024 Divisional Round Dynasty Recap: A Handful of Firsts
Storm Surge and The Empire will face off in the championship next week marking the first time each team will have made the title game, granted it’s Storm Surge’s first season, but it still counts. This is also the first postseason we’ve had where the two teams that lost in round 1 ended up outscoring all four teams that remained in it, don’t know about you Alex, but that actually makes me feel worse. This is the 5th time in six seasons that the 1 and 2 seed advance to the championship. It’s very confusing since a bye week doesn’t actually rest your players in fantasy football, and it’s not like Joel and Bryar had the hottest teams coming into the week, Curt was on the longest win streak and Nathan had scored a 140+ in four out of his last five games (no other team could claim that going into this week). So, what is it? We may never know. The full recap is below:
PLAYOFF BRACKET
The Empire 130.88 over Fear Itself 118.36
The Yahoo projections for this game were so far in Nathan’s favor for the entire week including most of Sunday that it seemed impossible for Bryar to win. But a dash of Kyren Williams, a smidge of Cincinnati’s defense, and a whole jar of anti-NacuaAllen, and Bryar found the recipe to get the job done. Josh Allen picked a bad time to have his worst game since week 4, and Nacua seemed extra nervous in his return to Mount Doom, all culminating in Fear Itself’s downfall.
Storm Surge 126.34 over Kade’s Dawgs 78.00
On the field it was a slaughter. This is the biggest blowout in our playoff history. I don’t know how Storm Surge continues to get their opponents’ players to take the week off, but it’s working for them, and you don’t fix it if it ain’t broke. After the slaughter was complete these two long-time friends met at midfield for a hug, and some encouraging words.
5th PLACE GAME
#6 Michael Style 161.18 over #4 Space Rangers 143.48
I was surprised to see Alex’s team explode for their highest point total of the entire season. If they had just edged out their previous high score I would’ve won, but they had to go ahead and use PEDs to get that extra boost. Jonathan Taylor (39.80) may have mixed his PEDs with something else after that performance. A combined 5.1 points between the Patriots’ defense and Brian Robinson Jr. wasn’t enough to slow Alex’s team down. Alex, this is your heads up that everyone not on the defense and not name Brian Robinson will be required to get drug tested tomorrow morning at 10am. I accepted about halfway through the late afternoon games that none of my guys were going to try and match my Bijan-Ford-Chase-Burrow combo. Aubrey and McMillan at least tried on Sunday night, but it was too little, too late. At least they made the loss respectable. This game lands at #4 on the all-time highest scoring games list.
CONSOLATION BRACKET
#8 Ferocious Felines 161.52 over #9 ay_Bilat 147.20
The first appearance in the consolation bracket by each of these two teams and it did not disappoint! It was the highest scoring game of the week, #3 highest scoring game in league history, and it would’ve gotten higher had it not been for injuries to Conner and Lamb. Fred didn’t have a single player score under 10 points, on his way to earning a spot in the consolation championship.
#7 NUKEM 134.42 over #10 Fantasy Fairies 81.44
NUKEM got monster performances from Daniels and Jefferson and a great outing from Sanders to carry them to a victory (those three combined to outscore the Fairies with 83.82 points). Ryan’s team looked like it was going to put up a fight despite the Hurts injury thanks to Brown and Elliott getting them off to a fast start, but his late afternoon lineup fell extremely flat, the only bit of carbonation was Buffalo’s defense. And now he won’t have a chance to redeem himself in the consolation championship (he lost to Simon in it last year).
NEXT UP…
#1 Storm Surge (11-3) vs #2 The Empire (8-6)
Joel won the only matchup between these two back in week 14. Bryar will have Lamar for this go around though. Let’s have a knock-down, drag-out brawl shall we? There’s only ever been one championship where both teams scored big (year 4, Nathan 119.48 over Trey 116.51), every other year has featured one team performing well while the other fell flat. Think you guys can make this the second exciting championship game, or will one of you roll over and play dead?
#3 Fear Itself (9-5) vs #5 Kade’s Dawgs (8-6)
Nathan leads the series 8-5. This is going to feel weird for you Nathan, it’s the first time since year 2 that you won’t be in the championship. But you did play in the third place game that season and you won it, so you won’t be in an unknown land. Curt also has one previous third place game appearance in which he lost to Fred. Who’s going to finish the season on a high note?
#7 NUKEM (7-7) vs #8 Ferocious Felines (6-8)
Rob leads the series 9-5. The last time NUKEM played in the consolation championship they were easily defeated by Fear Itself. So, while Fred looks for his first consolation championship and a 7th place finish, Rob will be looking for redemption.
#9 ay_Bilat (5-9) vs #10 Fantasy Fairies (1-13)
Trey has dominated the start of this series, currently sitting at 3-0. The difference in head-to-head record and each team’s overall winning percentage is vast, but there is one thing they have in common…neither team has finished dead last in a season. One of them is going to now though, so who’s it going to be?
That’s all for this week, good luck to everyone on championship weekend!