Written by Cory Puffett
Published November 17, 2020

There’s nothing quite like the game of the week coming down to Monday Night Football. Trailing by nearly 32 points entering Monday’s matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears, Evan Ash needed a miracle.

He had two players yet to play, a wide receiver tandem from the same team. They had combined for at least 32 fantasy points four times already this season, but would be relying on a quarterback that had no Monday night victories in his nine career MNF appearances.

Fleaflicker was probably being generous when it gave Evan a 42-percent chance of victory. The lead story for this week’s write-up was ready to go and there was no way it would be replaced. But then Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson delivered exactly what Evan needed. Thielen scored two touchdowns, Justin Jefferson went over 100 receiving yards for the fourth time in his young career, and the two combined for 35.8 fantasy points.

Despite neither landing among our Top 5 receivers for the week, they helped Evan pull off the comeback in our game of the week, earning Evan his 11th career Peyton Manning Award. Anthony Battle went home stunned as his record dropped to 13-13 in his league-high 26 game of the week appearances.

Evan’s team may be the most inconsistent we’ve ever seen in this or any other fantasy league. Twice he has led the league in scoring and twice he has finished last in the AFL. He has been a Top 6 scorer five times this season and a Bottom 6 scorer five times. His team has scored 100 points six times in ten weeks but has beaten the league’s average score so far this season just three times.

In short, Evan needed this win badly to maintain a realistic shot of making the playoffs. At three games back in the AFC Central with four games remaining, he still has a slim chance to win his division. His more realistic route to the playoffs is via the wild card, which Playoff Computer gives his team a league-high 32.8-percent chance of clinching.

Evan’s game of the week comeback on Monday night stole the spotlight from something that happened for only the third time in AFL history this week. Cory Puffett and Brandon Saunders faced off in a game that featured no Sunday night or Monday night starters and that, more importantly, features the top two scoring teams for the week.

Only one team scored more than the 128.92 points Brandon’s squad put up, and it was the 141.56-point effort by Cory’s previously unlucky team. Granted, Cory’s team has still been unlucky this season, but this week they transferred some of that bad luck to their opponent.

This wasn’t an historic performance by any stretch. Cory’s point total only joins the all-time single-game team score leaderboard tied for #91 and Brandon’s score only ranks 21st among the highest losing scores in league history. Their combined total doesn’t join our list of the highest scoring games in league history. Even the game’s highest scoring player, Alvin Kamara, barely broke into the books as his 32.1 points tie him for 100th on the league’s running back leaderboard.

But it was just the third time ever that a team in the AFL has lost with a 10-1 breakdown. It was a matchup between a manager, Cory, who had lost three times as a Top 6 scorer this season and another manager, Brandon, who had won three times as a Bottom 6 scorer. And with Will Massimini’s first game below 100 points this season, it also featured the two managers with the longest active 100-point game streaks.

Despite not shattering any historical records, this was a notable week for Cory. He earned his 8th career Tom Brady Award. He extended his league-leading active streak of 100-point games to 13, tied for the third longest streak in AFL history. Brandon’s 7-game streak is the second longest active streak in the AFL.

Cory also had five starting players among the Top 5 at their positions on his roster, including two running backs and two wide receivers. He also left the #4 running back performance of the week on his bench as Ronald Jones went for 26.6. While I don’t have the data on hand to say for sure, this very well may be the first time in league history a manager has had five offensive players among the week’s scoring leaders.

In all, scoring was way down this week as our 12 managers totaled just 1,182.68 points. It is the first time since Week 14 of the 2016 season that we averaged fewer than 100 points per team in a week.

Part of the blame goes to William Battle and Will Massimini. William won his game but scored just 83.52 points, the 7th lowest winning score since starting rosters expanded in 2016. Will not only missed triple digits for the first time all season, as I mentioned earlier, but scored just 64.52 points in his loss, the 8th lowest score since 2016.

Part of the blame also goes to all of the strong performances left on benches this week. Anthony left the top QB of the week, Tom Brady, on his bench. Alex Kincaid left the top defense of the week, the Las Vegas Raiders, on his. Cole Beasley and Hunter Henry were the second highest wide receiver and tight end of the week, but were resting on Andrew and Will’s benches, respectively.

But none of this is to say that there were no strong performances this week in the starting lineups. Kicker scoring was way up across the AFL this week and Sean Kennedy led the way with Buffalo Bills kicker Tyler Bass scoring a whopping 19.7 points! Seven of our league’s 12 starting kickers this week scored at least 14 points. Pretty remarkable considering last week we had just two starting kickers reach that mark and in Week 8 we only had one.

Our defensive coach of the week was Anthony, who used the New Orleans Saints for the first time all season. In fact, it was just the fourth time this year the Saints appeared in a starting lineup in the AFL, and they led all starting units with 17.50 points.

Through 10 weeks, Alex Mayo continues to lead the league in defensive scoring with 142.58 points from the position. Alex Kincaid remains in 12th with 59.06 points. On the kicker side, Anthony and Stephen April shared the lead last week but Evan has now taken over with a league-high 107.1 points from the position, one of just two managers who have reached triple digits from their kickers on the year. The lowest kicker total is 70.9 points for Alex Kincaid; not a terrible spread through 10 weeks, all told.

In addition to Brandon’s bad luck of losing with the second highest score of the week and William’s good luck of winning with the fourth lowest score of the week, we had another pair of lucky/unlucky managers. Anthony lost the Game of the Week as the #6 scorer for the week while Alex Mayo won his game as the #8 scorer.

Our coach of the week is William Battle. He earned a league-high 18.5 points and a win by succeeding on both of his coaching risks. He started Gus Edwards instead of DeeJay Dallas for a 4.2-point gain and he earned another 14.3 points by starting the week’s WR1, Marquez Valdes-Scanting, instead of Jonnu Smith in his flex.

Week 10’s Hue Jackson Award goes to Andrew Perez. He cost his team 12.28 points and the win by failing on his lone coaching risk, starting Derek Carr instead of Teddy Bridgewater. It was a rough week for Andrew has his team had the fifth highest optimal score in the AFL but wound up with the second lowest point total of the week.

Honorable mention for the Hue Jackson Award goes to Evan. While he did pull out the win in his matchup, it didn’t have to be so close. He cost his team a league-high 20.36 points by failing on two of three coaching risks. He did earn 3.7 points by starting Gerald Everett instead of Jimmy Graham at tight end, but then he cost his team 5.6 points by starting J.K. Dobbins instead of Jerick McKinnon and another 18.46 points by sticking with Drew Lock over Matthew Stafford, a coaching decision that had earned him 20.28 points just a week ago.

This marked the second time this year that all 12 managers took at least one coaching risk. In all, we took 25 combined coaching risks, a season high and a 47 percent increase from Week 9. The league was successful on 12 of them for a net loss of 9.94 points across the AFL.

Our luckiest managers through Week 10 by breakdown are Stephen (1.7 wins above expected), Evan (1.5 WAE), and Brandon (1.4 WAE). By Top 6 performance, Brandon and Sean both sit at 2 WAE while Stephen, Evan, and both Alex Kincaid and Alex Mayo sit at 1 WAE.

By breakdown, our unluckiest managers are Eric (3.0 wins below expected), Cory (2.0 WBE), and Andrew (1.0 WBE). By Top 6 performances, Eric and Cory both remain at 3 WBE while Will and Andrew are both at 1 WBE.

Eric and Andrew were both eliminated from playoff contention this week but still have their work cut out for them to avoid the sacko. Sean has been eliminated from wild card contention but still has about a 0.2-percent chance of winning the AFL East.

Stephen has the best playoff odds in the league with a 96.5 percent chance of winning the AFL Central and a 98.7 percent chance of making the playoffs. He will clinch his division this week with a win if Evan loses to Will.

Will has a 73.5 percent chance of winning the AFL East and a 75.3 percent chance of making the playoffs. Those chances are down slightly since Cory pulled within a game of him and extended his lead in season scoring.

Brandon currently has a 52 percent chance of winning the AFL West and a 69.8 percent chance of making the playoffs. Those are actually fairly low odds considering he will clinch a playoff spot this week if he can win against Stephen in the game of the week. I guess Playoff Computer doesn’t consider him a likely winner in that matchup.

Week 11 marks the final week of non-divisional play for the 2020 season! After this week, everyone will have played each of their league-mates one time and we’ll move into the final divisional round robin to determine the field for the 2020 AFL playoffs!

Below is our recap of Week 10 and this week’s power rankings:

Game of the Week: Anthony Battle at Evan Ash

Evan pulled off the incredible comeback victory on Monday Night Football, trailing by almost 32 points with two receivers from the same team remaining. Thielen and Jefferson had terrific games and helped lift their team over Anthony to stay firmly in the wild card race.