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Written by Cory Puffett
Published December 24, 2019
Congratulations to Sean Kennedy, the 2019 AFL champion! He capped off an incredible season in which he started the season 8-0, a league record, and narrowly missed out on leading the league in scoring for the regular season.
This is Sean’s first title and it comes after a long stretch during which he struggled to find his footing in the league. He lost in the semi-final round back in 2014, took a one-year sabbatical in 2015, and then won a combined 11 games from 2016 through 2018.
He finished 2019 tied atop the AFL at 12-2 and he won a coaching award for receiving. His players combined for 832.3 points from receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns.
After his successful regular season, Sean faced quite a challenge in his wild card round game. He’d faced and beaten Anthony Battle twice in the regular season as part of a 6-0 season against his division rivals.
This was only the second time in AFL history that two division rivals faced off in the postseason after one swept the regular season series. History held true to form. William Battle beat Brandon Saunders twice in the regular season and then again in their wild card matchup just a year ago. Sean, likewise, knocked Anthony out of the postseason this year.
It was a tough way to go for Anthony. Christian McCaffrey topped 35 points, nearly earning his sixth career inclusion on our league’s Top 40 leaderboard at the running back position. In all, Anthony scored 143.90 points, the 65th highest point total in league history and the highest losing score ever, beating out Brandon’s 143.1 points in a Week 4 loss in 2018.
If there is any solace for Anthony, his point total in this week’s third place game would not have beaten Sean, so no missing ring for him.
Sean’s winning score of 160.78 points is the 14th highest score in AFL history. Lamar Jackson’s 37.58 points on Thursday night in Week 15 is the 23rd highest quarterback score in league history.
In that wild card matchup, Sean and Anthony combined for 304.68 points. It is the fourth time in AFL history that two opponents combined for more than 300 points and is the third highest combined score we’ve ever seen.
In the other semifinal, Eric Meyer’s 12-2 squad went up against the AFL East’s winner, Brandon, who was looking to avoid last year’s fate and make his first title game appearance since losing the AFL’s inaugural title game to Danny Hatcher in 2013.
A couple injuries to key players in his starting lineup really hurt Eric as both Dalvin Cook and Chris Godwin went down after good starts to their games. Of course, there’s no way to tell whether those injuries cost Eric his game since Brandon got some big point totals out of guys like DeVante Parker, Tyler Higbee, and Joe Mixon, but it certainly didn’t help him.
Brandon survived his tilt with the AFL’s #1 seed and we ended up having one of our most exciting championship games in our seven-year history.
Sean entered Monday night’s tilt between the Packers and the Vikings trailing Brandon by just 1.74 points. Brandon’s entire lineup had played and Sean had only Minnesota’s defense left.
The Vikings were coming off a 31-point outing against the Chargers, but there was no telling what might happen against Aaron Rodgers.
A week after forcing seven turnovers, including four fumble recoveries on five forced fumbles, the Vikings got after it again by picking off one pass and recovering two of Green Bay’s three fumbles.
While Minnesota did lose 0.62 points for giving up 31 yards more than our league’s allowed 352, set at last year’s NFL average, they earned 16 for the rest of their efforts and finished with more than what Sean needed to clinch the AFL’s seventh league title.
By scoring more than 100 points in both the wild card game and the AFL championship, Sean becomes the only manager to score 100 points in every single game he played in a single season. Eric scored at least 100 points in every regular season game in 2018 but fell below that threshold in his wild card loss against Anthony.
Notable Playoff Stats
Lamar Jackson’s 37.58 points in Sean’s wild card victory rank second all-time at the quarterback position in AFL semifinal games. Drew Brees scored 31.08 points for Eric in his loss. That point total ranks fifth in semifinal history.
Christian McCaffrey’s 35.3 points in Anthony’s semifinal loss, though falling just short of a top 40 spot on the all-time running back list, are the fourth most points scored by a running back in an AFL semifinal game.
We have three Top 10 wide receiver semifinal scores from this season. Tyler Lockett scored 22.0 points for Anthony, which rank fourth on the list. Anthony also got 21.4 points from Tyreek Hill (7th) and Brandon got 21.2 points from DeVante Parker (8th).
Among tight ends, Travis Kelce gave Sean 19.7 points, good for third most in semifinal performances, and Tyler Higbee scored 17.1 points for Brandon, good for fourth.
Sean’s 160.78 points in the semifinal are the most ever scored in the round in AFL history, beating Anthony’s 152.5-point total from last season. Anthony’s 143.9 points this year rank third all-time despite the loss.
Brandon finds himself sixth on the list with his 135.14-point performance. Considering scoring had falling off big time down the stretch this year, it’s impressive that this season saw three of the six highest semifinal scores in league history.
Notable Championship Stats
Kicking off with Lamar again, Jackson contributed 41.42 points to Sean’s title efforts, the fourth highest quarterback score in AFL championship history.
DeVante Parker’s 19.6 points for Brandon rank seventh among wide receivers in league championship games.
Both of the tight ends mentioned above also appear on the league’s Top 10 championship performances for their position, as well. Travis Kelce led the duo with 17.4 points (3rd) and Tyler Higbee scored 14.9 points (5th).
Speaking of Travis Kelce, he currently owns four of the 10 best tight end performances in AFL championship game history. And as impressive as it is that Kelce has been on the roster for four teams that have made it to the championship game, it may be even more impressive that his team won in all four instances.
Kelce scored 27.5 points in the 2016 AFL Championship while on Eric’s winning roster. I mentioned this year’s point total already for Sean. He also scored 12.7 points in 2017 and 11.9 points in 2014 while on Danny’s last two championship rosters.
Sean’s 121.40 points in his title win rank sixth all-time in AFL Championship game history, the second lowest winning score ahead of Cory Puffett’s 115.5 points in his 2015 championship victory.
Notable Season Stats
Now that I have finished compiling stats for the season (I will get everything on our league’s Google Drive after Thursday in the event of stat corrections), we can take a look at some of the more remarkable stats for the season.
Quarterbacks
Quarterbacks
As with the last two subheads, we have to start with Lamar Jackson, our league’s first 400-point scorer. Entering this season, Aaron Rodgers held the record for single-season scoring with 367.9 points back in 2016. It took him 15 games to compile those stats.
In 2018, Patrick Mahomes started just 12 games and scored 344.7 points for a then-record (regardless of position) 28.7 points per game. Our overall record for points scored was held by David Johnson, who was paired up with Rodgers on Eric’s 2016 championship roster. Johnson scored 390.7 points in 15 games over the course of that remarkable season, an average of 26.0 points per game.
Lamar Jackson blew all of them out of the water this season. In 15 games, Jackson racked up 439.18 points, averaging 29.3 points per game over the course of the season. He was a Top 5 quarterback 10 times during our 14-week regular season (keep in mind he was on bye one of those weeks) and was the highest scoring playoff quarterback in both the wild card round and in the championship game.
In all, Lamar finished the season with 7 of the Top 20 single-game quarterback scores of 2019, though, surprisingly, his best total is only 5th on that list.
Other quarterbacks to join the Top 40 leaderboard in 2019 are:
6th – Russell Wilson (Brandon) – 325.68 points in 15 games [21.7 ppg]
10th – Deshaun Watson (Cory) – 311.70 points in 13 games [24.0 ppg]
27th – Aaron Rodgers (Stephen April) – 253.10 points in 13 games [19.5 ppg]
33rd – Tom Brady (Andrew Perez) – 228.68 points in 13 games [17.6 ppg]
Though he didn’t quite make the all-time leaderboard, the sixth highest scoring quarterback for 2019, Josh Allen, still had a remarkable season on Evan Ash’s roster. He started just 10 games this season but finished with 207.36 points. He was one of just six quarterbacks this season to start at least six games and average 20 points per start. Three of them are listed above and the other two were Patrick Mahomes (20.5 points per start in 8 games) and Jameis Winston (21.7 points per start in 6 games).
Running Backs
Running Backs
We also have a new record holder at the running back position, both for total points and for points per game. Anthony used his second-round draft pick to keep Christian McCaffrey this season and it paid off big time as Run-CMC averaged 28.2 points per game, nearly two full points per game more than the previous per game record holder, Todd Gurley from last season. McCaffrey’s season total of 394.4 points also broke David Johnson’s record from 2016.
Other running backs to join the Top 40 leaderboard in 2019 are:
13th – Dalvin Cook (Eric) – 288.9 points in 14 games [20.6 ppg]
16th – Derrick Henry (Eric) – 271.6 points in 14 games [19.4 ppg]
19th – Austin Ekeler (Sean) – 260.9 points in 15 games [17.4 ppg]
22nd – Mark Ingram (Will Massimini & Sean) – 249.7 points in 15 games [16.6 ppg]
23rd – Aaron Jones (Evan & Cory) – 247.4 points in 13 games [19.0 ppg]
28th – Ezekiel Elliott (Cory) – 241.0 points in 13 games [18.6 ppg]
33rd – Nick Chubb (Alex Kincaid) – 231.0 points in 13 games [17.8 ppg]
38th – Leonard Fournette (Will) – 223.1 points in 13 games [17.2 ppg]
Of note among the rest of the running backs, Alvin Kamara finished 12th in scoring this season with 175.62 points. He only played in 11 games, however, due to injury. Extrapolating from his per-game average, he was on pace to score 223.5 points over the course of 14 games, taking into considering Eric’s wild-card appearance. That would have bumped him just into the Top 40 ahead of Leonard Fournette.
Wide Receivers
Wide Receivers
We didn’t see quite the same level of success at the wide receiver position, however. Every prior year of the AFL has seen at least one wide receiver score more points than this year’s leader at the position. Chris Godwin started 14 games for Eric this season, compiling 233.2 points, which places him 11th on the all-time list. In fact, Godwin’s 2019 season is just the fifth best wide receiver season in Eric’s team history.
Other wide receivers to join the Top 40 leaderboard in 2019 are:
16th – Michael Thomas (Danny) – 221.4 points in 12 games [18.5 ppg {#1 in 2019}]
30th – Mike Evans (Sean) – 199.2 points in 13 games [15.3 ppg]
33rd – DeAndre Hopkins (Danny) – 197.04 points in 13 games [15.2 ppg]
40th – Amari Cooper (Alex) – 188.4 points in 13 games [14.5 ppg]
Remarkably, not a single wide receiver placed in 15 games in our league this season. In fact, only one playoff team had a wide receiver who didn’t miss at least one game, and that was Tyler Lockett for Anthony.
Though Michael Thomas finishes the season only 16th among wide receivers, there’s a couple things to mention in regards to him. Firstly, Danny forgot to put him back into his starting lineup in Week 10 after the Saints’ bye week. He scored 21.7 points that week, which would have given him a total of 243.1 points, good not just for the most of the season but also for the third most in AFL history.
As it stands, his 18.5 points per game rank third among the Top 40 all-time point scorers at the position, behind only Odell Beckham’s 18.6 points per game in 12 games in 2015 and Antonio Brown’s incredible 19.6 points per game in 12 games in 2014.
Before we move on, DeVante Parker finished the season as a Top 20 fantasy wide receiver in the AFL despite only starting in 6 games. He was WR #11 for the season in the AFL if you include all 16 weeks, but using only games in which players started, he still finished as WR #20 thanks in large part to a couple of big playoff games on Brandon’s roster.
Tight Ends
Tight Ends
Travis Kelce has had a remarkable run. Each of his past five years appear on our Top 40 tight end leaderboard. He was on William’s roster in 2015 and started 11 games, averaging a fraction more than 10 points per game, and currently sits 35th all-time. Then in 2016 he started in 14 games during Eric’s championship campaign, amassing 165.2 points.
Kelce’s points per game increased again in 2017 when he broke Jimmy Graham’s tight end season points record from 2013 by scoring 192.1 points in 15 games while on Danny’s championship roster.
Last year he broke his own record and became the first tight end in league history to reach 200 points when he returned to Eric’s team and scored 226.5 points in 14 games, an average of 16.2 points per game which very nearly broke Graham’s current record of 16.5 points per game in 2013.
Kelce didn’t quite reach that mark this year but he did break 200 points again as he finished with exactly 202 in 15 games on Sean’s championship team.
Kelce was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in 2013, but only appeared in one game and did not even receive a target.
Since 2014, he has started in an AFL playoff game every season. He only played in 9 games in 2014, but he was in Danny’s second title-winning lineup. William lost the championship in 2015 with Kelce in his lineup. Eric won the championship in 2016 with Kelce in his lineup. Danny won the championship in 2017 with Kelce in his lineup. Eric lost in the wild card round in 2018 with Kelce in his lineup. And now Sean has won a title in 2019 with Kelce in his lineup.
There’s a double-edged sword here. There may be a race to draft him next season (it’s highly unlikely Sean keeps him in the first round when he can keep Lamar Jackson in the 10th), but that’s a lot of pressure not to be the first team to miss the playoffs with him on their roster.
Other tight ends to join the Top 40 leaderboard in 2019 are:
20th – Zach Ertz (Cory) – 138.3 points in 12 games [11.5 ppg]
25th – George Kittle (Andrew) – 131.3 points in 12 games [10.9 ppg]
33rd – Mark Andrews (Evan) – 116.4 points in 12 games [9.7 ppg]
As I mentioned DeVante Parker among the notable wide receivers, so I will point out another late-season pickup by Brandon. Tyler Higbee appeared in one mid-season game for Andrew in which he scored just 6.1 points. Brandon picked him up in Week 13 and started him in each of his last four games.
Higbee finished the season with the 8th most points among tight ends in their starts in the AFL, 73.4 points in five games. That’s despite finishing as TE #9 over the course of the entire season under our league’s scoring settings. Brandon picked him up and started him when it counted the most and when he became a big part of LA’s offense. Quite a finish to the season for him.
Cory ended up having two of the top 10 scoring tight ends, as Darren Waller finished 10th in the AFL this season with 63.2 points in 8 starts. Not a particularly good point-per-game average for a guy starting in the flex on a regular basis.
And finally, though there were a handful of goose eggs this season (take, for example, Phillip Lindsay’s official goose egg when Anthony started him during the Broncos’ bye week), William gets the distinction of starting the only player to finish the year without a single point despite appearing in a game.
Ricky Seals-Jones, the Cleveland Browns tight end, started for William in Week 8 when the Browns faced the Patriots and was not even targeted in the game. He did not appear in another AFL game this season.
Miscellaneous
Through seven years of the A Football Life, our fantasy football league named after the Emmy-nominated NFL Films documentary series, we have yet to see twenty 20-point single-game tight end performances in a season. We had 18 of them in 2013 and haven’t even had that many in a season since.
Back in early September, our league drafted a total of 21 quarterbacks, 60 running backs, 65 wide receivers, 19 tight ends, 14 defenses, and 13 kickers.
Over the course of the 2019 season, our twelve managers combined to start a total of 26 different NFL quarterbacks, 61 running backs, 73 wide receivers, 35 tight ends, 30 defenses (only Cincinnati and Miami never had a start, and in fact were never even on a roster during the season), and 31 kickers.
Season Wrap-Up
There will be an offseason rules meeting sometime within the next six weeks. Any suggestions for new rules or anything of that sort should be brought up as soon as possible. Though we can make changes after our offseason rules meeting, I would prefer not to. As a requirement, any changes to be made for next season must be discussed and accepted before the division draft on April 26. Rules discussed after that may not be implemented until the offseason leading into 2021.
Congrats again to Sean on his championship. He is the only manager to date to win both the sacko and the league title, and he did so in back-to-back years. He is the fourth straight sacko winner to finish at least .500 the following season, but literally going from worst to first in 364 days is an incredible accomplishment.
This year’s sacko is Andrew, almost a feat considering he held first place in the AFL East with three weeks left in the regular season. But three straight losses relegated him to the bottom bracket of the consolation ladder and he lost both games in that tournament.
The 2020 Division Draft will take place on Sunday, April 26, with Sean and Brandon choosing their division rivals for next season. Sean will get first selection and his division will be the AFL East while Brandon’s will be the AFL West. The two will kick off the 2020 fantasy season in our season-opening game of the week.
Once the division draft has been completed, we will begin the 2020 Draft Pick Draft, during which managers will select their first round draft spots. The order for selection is:
1. Evan Ash
2. Cory Puffett
3. Alex Kincaid
4. Will Massimini
5. William Battle
6. Danny Hatcher
7. Stephen April
8. Anthony Battle
9. Eric Meyer
10. Brandon Saunders
11. Sean Kennedy
12. Andrew Perez
As noted above, four straight sacko winners have finished with at least 7 wins the following season, so this may be just what Andrew needed. He made it to the AFL championship game in 2016 where he lost to Eric. Then he lost to Will in the wild card game in 2017 and has now finished with just 5 wins in back-to-back seasons. Maybe it’s time for some actual pre-draft preparation next summer.
Thank you to everybody for another terrific season. I hope everybody found FleaFlicker to be an acceptable alternative to ESPN. I felt vindicated in my decision to make the switch after ESPN returned for 2019 with many of their features, including roster summaries, league histories, and trophies, completely gone. But I didn’t really get much of any pushback from the league anyway, so I’m glad it was such a smooth transition for us.
Enjoy the offseason and I hope to have everybody back for an eighth AFL season in 2020!
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