Written by Cory Puffett
Published December 17, 2019

The seventh season of the AFL has reached its conclusion. Brandon Saunders and Sean Kennedy have made it as far as you can go and will face off next weekend for the title.

Their histories in the AFL, and their roads this season, are very different.

Webster’s may as well put a picture of Brandon in their dictionary next to the word “consistent.” He has won six, seven, or eight games in every regular season in league history, and has gone 8-6 in each of the past three years.

In 2017, his record secured him second place in his division but was not good enough to earn the league’s wild card spot. Last season, though he had the most points scored against him he’s ever had to deal with, he set a team scoring record and again finished above .500 and earned a wild card birth, but lost to eventual champion William Battle in his playoff game.

Now, following another 8-6 season, he drew a tough matchup against Eric Meyer, the league leader on our weekly power rankings for the final six weeks of the season. Eric was coming off his third 12-2 regular season since 2016.

Eric drew a little bit of bad luck in his playoff game as both Dalvin Cook and Chris Godwin, the #2 running back and #2 wide receiver in the AFL this season, left their games with injuries. Perhaps because of those injuries, his team’s optimum point total fell just short of Brandon’s actual point total.

Last year, Eric suffered a similar fate. He scored at least 100 points in every regular season game on the way to a 12-2 season and then failed to score even 90 points in his playoff loss against Anthony Battle.

Speaking of which, Anthony was another playoff returner this season. His team was one of the most inconsistent of the season. The standard deviation of his scores was among the highest in the AFL. He finished top two in scoring five times this season, including four weeks in which he took home the Tom Brady Award as the league’s highest scorer.

But Anthony also had six weeks in which he was one of the four lowest scoring managers in the league. But he was 2-0 in “luck games” and finished the season with an 8-6 record, earning the league’s wild card on a tiebreaker over Evan Ash.

Anthony had to match up against Sean. Like Eric, Sean finished the season 12-2, an incredible run for a manager who has struggled the last few years. Sean played in the AFL’s first two seasons, going 13-13 over those two seasons and losing in the first round of the 2014 playoffs.

He took a step away from fantasy football in 2015 but returned in 2016, taking over a roster that left him little in the way of good keeper options. Sean won just 11 games total in his first three years back before starting the 2019 season on a league record 8-game winning streak.

It was an unlucky break for Anthony, who finished with the second highest point total of the four playoff teams but will have to watch the championship matchup from the outside this year after losing in the title game last year.

This is the fifth time in the AFL’s seven-year history that the second highest scoring team in the playoff round lost their matchup. Of the previous four times this has happened, the winner of that first round contest went on to win the championship three times. Only Will Massimini in 2017 went on to lose in the championship after beating Andrew Perez in the first round.

So now it comes down to Brandon and Sean. Brandon’s last title game appearance came all the way back in 2013, our inaugural season, when he fell to Danny after winning a championship in the final season of our previous, 16-team, league. Sean, meanwhile, has never been in the title game and will look to cap off an amazing season. If he wins, it will be the fourth year in a row that a 12-2 team wins the AFL title.

He will have to get through a second straight week without Mike Evans, who was the AFL’s #3 wide receiver this regular season, falling less than a point shy of the 200-point threshold, but Sean managed to pull out a victory despite his absence last week.

Brandon, meanwhile, saw Evan Engram placed on the Giants’ injured reserve list today, but that won’t matter much to him. Engram hasn’t been in Brandon’s lineup since Week 9 and Rams tight end Tyler Higbee has scored at least 15 points in three straight games and may be one of those fantasy title winners you hear about on Reddit every year.

Lamar Jackson and Mark Ingram will be difficult for Brandon to overcome. No QB/RB combo in the AFL has more points than them since Sean traded for Ingram during the Ravens’ bye week (they have more than 300 points combined since then!).

Before we move on to this season’s award winners, I have to acknowledge Stephen April and Andrew Perez who will face each other this week for the “sacko” title. The loser of that game will not get to select his draft position this offseason and will be left with whatever first round pick none of the other 11 managers want for themselves.

On to this year’s award winners. Eric led all managers with five Peyton Manning Awards, earned for winning the game of the week. Evan, Anthony and Sean each won two games of the week awards while William Battle, Andrew, and Will Massimini each took home one Peyton Manning Award.

The more prestigious Tom Brady Award, earned by leading the league in scoring, went to Anthony four times. Evan, Sean, Eric, and first-year player Alex Kincaid each took home that award twice, while Stephen and Cory Puffett each won it once.

Through seven seasons of play, 96 weeks, Eric leads all AFL managers with 17 career Peyton Manning Awards and has appeared in a league-high 24 games of the week, one more than Anthony, who is tied with Danny with 13 career game of the week victories.

Anthony does have the career lead in Tom Brady Awards with 15 of them, one more than Eric and three more than Evan.

Our coaches of the year are Cory Puffett and Will Massimini. Cory led all AFL coaches with two wins earned based on coaching decisions, while Will netted a league-high 51.56 points from his own coaching risks. On the flip side, William Battle finished the season with a net three coaching loses and Evan Ash cost his team a net 93.16 points over the course of the season by failing on 8 of 13 coaching risks.

Coaches of the Year (wins)

2016 – Will Massimini

2017 – Danny Hatcher

2018 – Stephen April

2019 – Cory Puffett

Coaches of the Year (points)

2016 – Will Massimini

2017 – Cory Puffett

2018 – Anthony Battle

2019 – Will Massimini

As I mentioned last year, I don’t divide offensive coaching awards by position but by discipline. So rather than a QB coach of the year, we have a passing coach of the year. That means that managers with dual threat QBs aren’t expected to win this award, though those quarterbacks will often put their managers in the running for the rushing coach of the year award.

Our passing coach of the year for 2019 is Alex Kincaid. Last year’s passing leader scored 333.1 points from passing, mostly thanks to Patrick Mahomes throwing so many touchdown passes. Thought the touchdowns were down, Patrick Mahomes was still a key contributor to this year’s coach of the year. He started eight games, during which he threw for more than 2000 yards, 14 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. Alex also started Dak Prescott five times (1556 yards, 11 TDs, 4 INTs) and Matt Moore once (267 yards, 2 TDs).

In all, Alex earned 266.78 points from his quarterbacks just from throwing the ball. Mahomes and Prescott each had a rushing touchdown while in Alex’s starting lineup, too.

Passing Coaches of the Year

2013 – Evan Ash

2014 – Sean Kennedy

2015 – Saswat Misra*

2016 – Sean Kennedy

2017 – Anthony Battle

2018 – Adam Perez*

2019 – Alex Kincaid

This year’s rushing coach of the year is Eric Meyer, who repeats from last season. His 566.0 rushing points were almost 90 more than any other manager earned. Most of his points came from an incredible threesome of Dalvin Cook (RB #2), Derrick Henry (RB #3), and Alvin Kamara (RB #14 despite missing two games in our regular season). Cook and Henry each scored 13 touchdowns on the ground this season. Outside of those two, the rest of Eric’s roster totaled just two rushing scores, so they came up huge!

Rushing Coaches of the Year

2013 – Andrew Olsen*

2014 – Danny Hatcher

2015 – Will Massimini

2016 – Will Massimini

2017 – William Battle

2018 – Eric Meyer

2019 – Eric Meyer

Our receiving coach of the year was nearly a threepeat, as well. Danny Hatcher fell just short of 800 points from his receivers thanks to an incredible duo of Michael Thomas and DeAndre Hopkins.

He fell a bit short, though, of Sean Kennedy’s 832.3 receiving points. He had a really solid receiving trio of Mike Evans (WR #3), Allen Robinson (WR #11), and Travis Kelce (TE #1), but that wasn’t nearly enough to top Danny.

Sean won this award thanks in small part to Mark Ingram and his three touchdown catches and in very large part to Austin Ekeler, who totaled 73 catches for 830 yards and 8 touchdowns. If you take away his rushing stats, Ekeler would have tied Keenan Allen as WR #8 this season with 167.5 receiving points!

Receiving Coaches of the Year

2013 – Sean Kennedy

2014 – Evan Ash

2015 – Brandon Saunders

2016 – Brandon Saunders

2017 – Danny Hatcher

2018 – Danny Hatcher

2019 – Sean Kennedy

Our defensive coach of the year goes to the manager who earned the most points from their defensive starters over the course of the season. Will Massimini made up a lot of ground late in the season to try and repeat, but Anthony was just too far ahead thanks to so many great starts by the New England Patriots defense.

Anthony used the Pats eight times over the course of the season, relying on the Ravens for four spot starts and the Bears for two solid games late in the season.

Defensive Coaches of the Year

2013 – Eric Meyer

2014 – Sean Kennedy

2015 – William Battle

2016 – Cory Puffett

2017 – Evan Ash

2018 – Will Massimini

2019 – Anthony Battle

Finally, our kicker award goes to the best kicker streamer. Anthony very nearly swept these two streaming awards, but his brother, despite a rough season overall, took home this hardware without even really streaming the position.

William drafted Harrison Butker in the 13th round of the 2019 AFL draft and used him 13 times over the course of the season, grabbing Matt Prater for a Week 12 spot start on the Chiefs bye week. He totaled 153.3 points at the position, 11 more than anybody else in the AFL this season.

Kicker Coaches of the Year

2013 – Eric Meyer

2014 – Andrew Perez

2015 – Saswat Misra*

2016 – Brandon Saunders

2017 – Evan Ash

2018 – Adam Perez

2019 – William Battle

Congratulations to all of this year’s award winners and good luck to Brandon Saunders and Sean Kennedy as they face off for the 2019 AFL Championship!