Week 12 finished with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, perhaps the perfect encapsulation of a hobby that can only deliver joy because it also carries heartbreak. I’m thankful for both.
In today’s Banana Stand, I’ll give thanks for a hobby and the people in it. I’ll detail the crazy high of finishing an undefeated FFPC season with a 197-point outburst, and I’ll rehash the unfathomable chain of events that pushed my favorite Main Event squad from points champion to total extinction by the margin of a single start/sit decision.
Beyond the paywall, I’ll use the RotoViz apps and Blair’s advanced matchups tool to break down the four games on Thursday and Friday. Jump to wherever you have the most interest. RV is always and utmost about you, the reader.
Giving Thanks
- First, thank you to Ben, Blair, and Colm, the guys who have made this all worth it. The last five years wouldn’t have been the same without you, and frankly, from a fantasy perspective for me, they wouldn’t have existed at all.
- A special thank you to Kevin Szafraniec, who has been just as good as he’s been prolific. His work in 2025 qualifies as one of the best individual writing seasons in RotoViz history, and we’ve had some extremely talented writers come through the pipeline.
- As we reach another Thanksgiving, I’m grateful to everyone who has written and consumed our content over the years. It’s been a diverse and international crew from both sides of the page. Much more than the championships, the RV community is what’s made this all worthwhile.
- But scoring helps bring the joy! A hearty thanks to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Jonathan Taylor, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Trey McBride for making his wild, topsy-turvy, occasionally heartbreaking season such a thrill ride. We’re grateful for the points. Congratulations on such fantastic performances.
The Highest Highs, the Lowest Lows
With injuries either ending the season or changing the thesis for many of our favorite players, 2025 has provided its share of heartbreak, but this crazy campaign still has a celebratory feel most weeks.
- Following a dynasty season with a magical playoff run, five of our nine FFPC dynasty teams are currently holding down a No. 1 or No. 2 seed with two weeks left. In the most exciting Week 12 result, Blair and I managed to hold off our closest competitors for the 1-seed in an epic showdown.
Those remaining squads include co-managers Bjorn, Monty, Pat, and Curtis. I’m definitely grateful for the chance to manage with some of the best minds in dynasty. - Following last season’s four ME championships and seven sprint qualifiers in 11 leagues, I was able to expand to 17 leagues this year. The two most frequent first-round picks were Bowers and Nabers, and yet five of those 17 teams move directly into the Sprint. (Best record and most points advance.) One earned a sweep, three additional scored the most points, and one clinched the best record.
- The undefeated Decapitated Deserve Recreation (solo) is a Gibbs/Smith-Njigba roster with George Pickens coming back in Round 4. It got the horrible TreVeyon Henderson pick through.
- Remember the Spicy Candy (Ben) was an early-draft squad that started McBride/DeVon Achane and was lucky enough to get Chase Brown in three, Josh Allen in four, and Pickens in five before prices corrected.
- Islands (Pat and Pete) was an Achane/JSN squad that weathered the CeeDee Lamb injury. It hit on Drake Maye and has some fun potential leverage pieces (Jayden Reed, Trey Benson, Oronde Gadsden, R.J. Harvey, Bhayshul Tuten). It probably should have won the sweep bonus, but in trying to maximize the sprint matchups and breakout pieces, I left us with a slightly underpowered Week 12 lineup to squander the W/L title.
- 10 Centuries Demised (Ben) landed the McBride/Puka Nacua double, weathered the Jayden Daniels injury, and took the “value” on A.J. Brown in Round 4 after a Week 1 outing that accurately foreshadowed his 2025 travails.
- Grim Barbarity of Optics (Ben) scored the most points despite a Bowers/Bucky Irving/Taylor start. Adding Pickens, Chris Olave, and Michael Pittman puts us in an interesting place heading into the big money component. But as exciting as it is to get a unique lineup through, it’s bittersweet after we lost our best team . . .
The Lowest Lows
Over the last month, Ben and I have been focused almost entirely on getting one team into the Sprint. It’s a Bowers/Taylor/JSN squad that also had interesting pieces like Jaylen Waddle and R.J. Harvey. It was 1-3 and more than 100 points back after four weeks, but by Week 8 it was 5-3 and had surged into the points lead. It lost the lead by 0.3 after Week 11 but was still all-but-guaranteed to make the playoffs, potentially as the No. 2 seed even if it didn’t take the points title back, as that would (potentially) mean that the team ahead of us got the record/points sweep.
Here is the situation after Week 11.
The teams in second and third would play each other, which meant that the following sequence would have to occur for us to miss the playoffs.
- PAVA would have to outscore us WHILE losing. (Lost 156-131.)
- DC Leed would have to make up a 20-point stagger WHILE losing. (Lost 151-148.)
- Mile High Magic would have to win. (Won 122-121.)
Even after the Sunday catastrophe, which included Mile High eking out a 122-121 win, we were still in the points lead heading into Monday night. The losing scenario required Christian McCaffrey to go over 20 AND a perfect-thread performance from Rico Dowdle, who needed to score between 7.8 and 14.5 points.
Now I’d take the over on CMC for 20, and I’d put the majority of Dowdle outcomes in that 8-14 range, so it was by no means impossible. Just a year ago at this time, Colm and I got 45 points from Ja’Marr Chase on a Monday night in Week 14 to win an ME title and qualify for the sprint, a result that was significantly less likely. You can’t have the highs without the lows.
To be clear, we obviously controlled our own destiny. Like many squads, we had a variety of bye issues and had to choose two out of three of Addison, Luther Burden, and Colston Loveland.
In retrospect, we should have simply benched Addison after McCarthy’s soul-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 bench, when the other volume situations are substantially worse. Unfortunately, the Packers and Vikings had a gentleman’s agreement to set football back 40 years. That development was not unforeseen — it factored into our thinking in other spots — but it was as brutal as it was silly. (Do the Vikings not want to give McCarthy a chance to make a jump? Do the Packers not want to get ready for the playoffs? Those seem like 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, for the safety (role more established) and scoring advantage (TE receptions add up more quickly), but recent developments complicated matters a bit. In Week 11, Burden took a commanding routes lead on Olamide Zaccheaus, and barely trailed Rome Odunze. Meanwhile, Loveland had slipped behind Cole Kmet in both routes and targets. If the rhetoric surrounding Burden was accurate, Week 12 could be his breakout.
The Passing Game Matchup Rater also preferred Burden, giving him one of the best scores of the week, while Loveland’s was merely adequate.
The rest, of course, is history. Burden and Loveland drew the same number of targets, but Loveland scored a TD, helping him to 16.9 points. Burden scored 9.1. The final points margin came down to . . .
- 1743.15
- 1740.2
- 1736.6
We lost the final playoff spot by 3.6 points. We lost the points crown and direct entry into the sprint by 6.5 points. Both were inside the margin of our start/sit decision. A team that scored 226 fewer points made the playoffs instead.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that it should be any other way. I love the FFPC process for playoff qualification. We get crazy results like this only because head-to-head does matter, and head-to-head injects a lot of excitement into the weekly rooting experience. Four of 12 teams make the playoffs. The 3 and 4 seed can still qualify for the sprint by winning the league title across Weeks 13 and 14. It’s the perfect format. We had every chance, and didn’t get it done by scoring 134 and 125 points over the last two weeks.
I’m just pretty devastated we didn’t do our part.
The Highest Highs
Over the last 15 years of high-stakes contests, I don’t think I’ve had an undefeated season. It’s possible, I guess, but I don’t remember it. It’s a lot easier to score a ton of points. My other three points champions finished 7-5, 7-5, and finally, my highest-scoring team, 5-6-1.
Entering Week 12, I had an 11-0 Main Event squad that would face the league’s current high scorer on the final weekend. Then this happened.
Gibbs, Smith-Njigba, and Pickens kept the team flawless and made up the 34-point stagger to claim the sweep bonus.
There’s no real significance to this, other than it’s fun, but finding the joy in a special season is a key part of balancing out the gut-wrenching losses. I’m grateful to have been along for the ride on my best-ever regular season team, even if it might not have been truly the “best.”
