Football Playoffs

It's that time. Time to see if all your regular season wheeling, dealing, and strategy paid off. Congratulations to our #1 Seeds, New England and Minnesota. They got there by vastly different strategies. The Patriots didn't have a single trade deal the entire season. Their owner, Rick, opted to trust the guys he drafted and made savvy Free Agents adds such as seeing the future by picking up Ryan Finley way back in August. Meanwhile, Minnesota started dealing early and often. Aaron, the Head Viking, made 2 ludicrous pre-draft trades with Kansas City and Detroit to leverage his 1st round pick from 23rd overall all the way to the #1 pick so he could select Patrick Mahomes. He then made 7 other trades with as many teams to maintain his Undefeated regular season. Following close behind are our #2 Seeds, Indianapolis and Dallas. The Colts owner, John, was smart enough to draft Ben Roethlisberger's (his 1st round pick) back up, Mason Rudolph, and that insurance paid off Week 2 when Big Ben went down with a season-ending elbow injury. He also, bet against Melvin Gordon ending his hold out early by drafting Austin Eckler. Eckler averaged the Colts 26.26 points a week during Gordon's holdout. The Dallas Cowboys also had a holdout play a key part in their season. Luckily for Wil, his 195.9 pt keeper RB Ezekiel Elliot was able to end his hold out before the season started. Dallas also made an early season in-division QB trade to unite the real life Dallas Big 3 of Dak Prescott, Amari Cooper, and Zeke Elliot. Just missing that ever coveted first-round bye week at the #3 Seeds were a couple of birds. The Baltimore Ravens and Seattle Seahawks both fought through incredibly tough divisions to secure their playoff bids. Raven's owner, Ian, showed complete faith in Mark Ingram going to a new team by keeping him. It paid off with a top-10 performance at RB. His playoff hopes were also helped by a couple of ageless performances from 36 year old Larry Fitzgerald and 37 year old, once retired, Jason Witten. David decided to take his Seahawks in an interesting route by going with WR Adam Thielen in the first round while leaving QBs such as Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, and Josh Allen on the board (The first 2 also made the playoffs). He sold a lot of future draft capital to get here, but he has one of the best teams in terms of getting consistent points from every Starting Roster position.

Rounding out the Division Leader playoff seeds were the NFC South Saints and AFC West Chargers. Denver went all in on his New Orleans players by making sure to have their top 2 RBs, top 2 QBs, and their top WR (who happens to be the top scoring WR too). And don't let his 8-4 regular season fool you, as his division was the 2nd toughest in point separation. Los Angeles Chargers, Leo, showed no fear drafting unproven NFL rookie Kyler Murray, and then almost immediately after that he showed situational insight by trading for newly minted starter Jacoby Brissett. While his RB scoring was hindered greatly by Gordon's 5 week hold out, his top WRs and TEs did more than enough to pick up any slack. Next up are our Wild Card #5 seeds. The Tennessee Titans and Los Angeles Rams clinched their playoffs with great performances in the last few weeks of the season. The Titans were initially owned by now Packers owner, Jason, but I don't think the new owner, Nick, let him down. While Jason may be upset his former team went to the playoffs, I know he's very happy to control his favorite team in this league. Nick's Titans were the definition of a physical team thanks to great weekly performances from the linebacker-sized running back Derrick Henry and dominate ID performances in Jamal Adams, Aaron Donald and Shawn Williams. OG Commish and Rams owner, Elijah stunned a few teams with his unique strategy of going WR-WR with his keepers and going QB-QB with his first 2 picks. His strategy took a few weeks to pay off, but it ultimately resulted him in trading away a QB who later lost his starting job (Dalton), and receiving a top-10 RB (Carson). Looks like the trade paid off big in that without those 132.2 points from Carson, the Rams might have missed playoffs completely. Last, but not least, our playoffs will be rounded out by #6 Seeds, Arizona and Cincinnati. Arizona thrived in a position that many teams faltered, Running Back. Johnson and Johnson (David and Duke, not the Fortune 500 company) didn't crack the top-15 RBs but their consistency combined with the ever reliable Aaron Rodgers proved to be a great core. The Cardinals' owner, Glen, was able to just barely edge out also 7-5 team Philadelphia by a mere 17.3 points. Also securing a playoff seed in Week 12 was the Bengals' owner, Adam. Although his Keeper WR (Green) failed to even make an appearance all season, his keeper and 2nd round pick RBs helped him edge out his Divisional Rival Steelers for this #6 seed. It also must be noted that Adam was the one who took the League Leading QB, Lamar Jackson. Jackson was the 14th QB off the board in our Inaugural Draft, but has outscored all other QBs this season by over 50 points. It's safe to say that drafting prowess not only helped lock up a pivotal roster spot for years to come, but it was also a very key part of him making the playoffs this season.

And without further ado, the 2019 LOEGM Football Inaugural Season Playoff Bracket