2024 Week 9 Dynasty Recap: The Clamp Tightens

We’ve never had a season like this before. We’re heading into the final five games and nine teams are all legitimately playoff eligible, as in they hold the key to their own playoff hopes, they don’t need help from others to stay alive. Ryan, we know you’re the tenth, technically you are still eligible, however, if I did my crazy conspiracy board correctly, then you would be eliminated if Curt wins in week 10. Let’s focus on the here and now though, here are your week 9 results:

Storm Surge 123.60 over Fear Itself 120.90

Picture this: There’s less than 4 minutes left in the Sunday night game. Vikings have a 14-10 lead and they really just need to run down the clock. They’ve already started that, and on this particular first-down play Aaron Jones takes the carry 7 yards giving you (Nathan) the lead. Next play is a run, next is another run, first down. Next play is a run for a loss of a yard, but no big deal, it’s 2^nd and eleven and the clock is under three minutes. But then the Vikings snap the ball, they fake a handoff and you watch as SAM DARNOLD sinks your last hope at winning the division for a fifth straight year by throwing a touchdown pass to put your opponent back on top in the blink of an eye. The division isn’t completely out of reach for Nathan, but he would need to win four games and have Joel lose out in order to get there, and even if that were to happen he could still have to deal with my Space Rangers.

ay_Bilat 132.44 over Space Rangers 129.04

The Chiefs scored with about 4 minutes left in the game last night, putting Trey ~4 points behind me. I put my phone down to go to sleep hoping that there would be nothing exciting happening in those final four minutes, and I woke up to find that it went to overtime, Mahomes just kept throwing to Kelce as they moved down the field and I lost. I should’ve known what was coming when I saw Trey pressing that big yellow Buffalo Wild Wings button. It’s the worst losing a game this close, and it’s even worse when you are the third highest scoring team for the week.

Kade’s Dawgs 117.74 over Fantasy Fairies 90.00

Curt got back on track ending his short 2 game losing skid, and posting over 115 points in back-to-back games for the first time this season. As a bonus, it really was a team effort rather than one guy trying to carry everyone. Curt had all but two players score 11 or more points, and one of the players that didn’t was Chris Olave who had to go to the hospital early in his game after a hit he took. Ryan also lost a player early when A.J. Brown got put down on a shot across the middle. The only thing that kept it from being an execution style mafia hit was a bag over Brown’s head. Poor Jalen Hurts, he’s trying to make a bid for league MVP and the rest of the team isn’t holding up their end of the bargain. (On that note, I’ll add that it appears to be a four man race for MVP: Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry are 1 and 2, Hurts and Saquon Barkley are 3 and 5 and a little ways out but they’ve both had their bye week already).

The Empire 160.10 over NUKEM 128.52

Third highest individual scoring game in league history and The Empire did it in spite of Nacua throwing a punch before Scott Hanson had a chance to say, “7 hours of commercial free football.” Ok, it definitely wasn’t that early, but you get my point. Jackson continued his case for league MVP with his 20.6 point outing, which was only good enough for fourth best on his own team this week! NUKEM, I really thought another Monday night miracle was in the works when I saw the point difference and noticed who each team had left, but all streaks gotta end at some point, and three straight Monday night, come-from-behind wins is a very solid tally. I also know you know how I’m feeling this morning considering you were the fourth highest scorer for the week. Just bad timing for the both of us.

Ferocious Felines 124.90 over Michael Style 91.36

Fred walked across to midfield before the game, grabbed Alex’s hand, looked him dead in the eye, and said, “it’s already over, go home.” And he wasn’t wrong. Now, I wasn’t checking the scores every minute, but I don’t think there was a time that I looked and didn’t see Fred holding the lead. Derrick Henry (25.80) is doing his best to catch Lamar Jackson in the MVP race, and Achane (28.10) is loving having defenses spread out again since Tagovailoa returned to the lineup. Jaxon Smith-Njigba (33.50) took home Player of the Week honors, making this the third straight week that the PotW has been on the losing team. Not a streak you like to see, but what are you going to do when 80% of your team finishes under 10 points.

Here’s a look ahead at next week:

Storm Surge (8-1) vs NUKEM (4-5)

Rob leads the series 1-0, meaning he is the only team to have beaten the Storm Surge, and that win was what started his Monday night miracle streak. The Storm Surge have a comfortable lead as it stands, but they’re still two wins away from locking up the East, so games still matter. For NUKEM, just like every other team in the 6-3 to 4-5 range, every game is a must win for the foreseeable future.

The Empire (6-3) vs Michael Style (5-4)

Alex leads the series 7-5. Given how close the entire West is, winning your division games is of upmost importance if you are Bryar, Alex or Fred. This game in particular, since a win for Bryar would put him firmly in the driver seat (he’d take the lead for the division record tiebreaker, he’d have a two game lead for overall record, and he’s well out in front for points tiebreaker). A win for Alex would put him back on top for the time being, and it would put him one division win away from locking up the division record tiebreaker.

Space Rangers (5-4) vs Kade’s Dawgs (4-5)

I’m up 7-5 in the series. After winning five straight, I’ve now lost two in a row, a win would help get me back on the right track. Curt is the team right on the outside looking in. With points being the tiebreaker for all of the 3-6 seeds, and Curt being pretty firmly behind three of those four seeds, winning is a must. At the very least, scoring lots of points is.

Fear Itself (5-4) vs Fantasy Fairies (0-9)

Nathan leads Ryan 4-1. A stumble by Nathan this week would really hurt, with two of his final four games being against top four scoring teams. Ryan has to win out to have even the slightest of chances at the playoffs, and if he loses two games he guarantees himself the #1 pick, so he’s right in the sweet spot of playing for playoff aspirations and being able to play spoiler without really ruining his #1 pick bid. Ryan is also currently on an 11 game losing streak (all regular season), which puts him 2 games away from tying the longest regular season losing streak, and 4 games away from tying the longest losing streak postseason included.

Ferocious Felines (4-5) vs ay_Bilat (4-5)

Trey leads the series 8-6. This series has had a clean sweep in three of our five seasons. That includes the 2020 (Fred 3-0) and 2021 (Trey 3-0) seasons where they also met in the playoffs. Fred won back in week 1, can he make it 2-0 on the year?

That’s all for this week, good luck to you all in week 10!