Written by Cory Puffett
Published November 24, 2020

With Week 11 in the books, everybody in the AFL has faced each of their league mates once and is set for the final divisional round robin as we race toward the playoffs. Before we start Week 12, though, we have to look back at perhaps the wackiest week in AFL history.

We’ll start with last week’s Game of the Week between Stephen April and Brandon Saunders, who entered Week 11 sporting the top two records in the league. It’s well within the realm of possibility that this was an AFL title game preview.

Brandon was coming off his first unlucky loss of the season in Week 10, where he became just the third manager in league history to lose a game with a 10-1 breakdown. This week he finished with a 9-2 breakdown and lost again, as Stephen was the second highest scorer of the week and became the first manager to 10 wins this season and the sixth manager in AFL history to win 10 of the season’s first 11 games.

With the victory, Stephen earned his third career Peyton Manning Award, improving to 3-2 in Game of the Week appearances.

Brandon has had some bad luck when his matchup has been selected as Game of the Week as he is now 6-15 in those matchups. Deshaun Watson contributed 33.86 points, which ranks 80th on the league’s all-time quarterback list, and Brandon finished with 133.46 points, the 9th highest losing score in AFL history. 

That was just the beginning of the bad luck suffered this week. Coming off his eighth career Tom Brady Award, Cory Puffett was looking for another victory this week to improve his chances of making the playoffs. He reached 130 points for the sixth time this season, a mark equaled by Stephen but which nobody else has reached more than three times in 2020.

Travis Kelce scored 22.96 points in the contest, which ranks him 56th on the all-time tight end list in AFL history. In fact, Cory recorded his league-leading second perfect lineup of the season!

It was all for naught, however, as his 132.48 points will only be remembered as the 13th highest losing score in league history. Cory finished with the fourth most points in the league this week, but he was facing Anthony Battle, who led the league with 144.04 points, the 76th most points in a single-game in league history.

Anthony earned his 16th career Tom Brady Award, tied with Eric Meyer for the most in league history. Robert Woods sealed the win for him on Monday night, but a big part of Anthony’s win was the New Orleans Saints defense and their 19.5 points. They earned him defensive coach of the week for the second week in a row!

Our kicker coach of the week is Will Massimini, who got 13.3 points from Atlanta Falcons kicker Younghoe Koo, but it wasn’t enough to help him avoid being the third manager of the week to suffer an unlucky loss. Will finished sixth in the league in scoring this week but was facing Evan Ash, who was one of five managers to reach 130 points this week.

Despite a strong performance from Koo, Will did not have a single position player finish in the Top 5 at their positions this week, which didn’t help his cause. That didn’t have to be the case. He left the #3 running back performance of the week on his bench as Clyde Edwards-Helaire went off on Sunday night for 21.6 points.

Evan, meanwhile, had four offensive players finish among the Top 5 starters at their possessions, including two running backs. He got an important win despite leaving the top defense of the week on his bench as the Cleveland Browns could have contributed 27 points to his effort.

In all, our 12 managers totaled 1,364.18 points in Week 11, which ranks 28th in our league’s 107 weeks of regular season play since 2013. It was our league’s highest scoring week since Week 5.

Through 11 weeks, Alex Mayo remains our frontrunner for defensive coach of the year as he’s earned 158.58 points from the position, nearly 20 points clear of the second highest total. Alex Kincaid remains in last place on the defensive scoring leaderboard with just 68.06 points from the position.

On the kicker side, Stephen took the lead from Evan and is up to 111.0 points from the position. Alex Mayo has slipped to last place in kicker scoring with 78.3 points from the position, a much tighter spread than on the defensive side.

With the three unlucky losses we’ve already mentioned, we also have to take a look as our three lucky wins. Note that there can’t be more than three of each in a week, so this is as much luck as we can see in a 12-team league.

Our luckiest manager was William Battle, who became the 11th manager in AFL history to win a game with a 1-10 breakdown. It’s the second time this season but just the third time since 2017 that the two lowest scoring teams faced off. William’s 19.96-point margin of victory against Sean Kennedy is the second highest margin of victory in those 11 games.

Other lucky victories went to Alex Mayo, who finished the week 9th in scoring, and Eric, who finished the week 7th in scoring but earned his first lucky victory of the season to help offset three unlucky loses earlier this season.

Our coach of the week is Anthony. He earned a league-high 16.62 points and his victory by succeeding on one of his two coaching risks. He did cost his team 1.3 points by starting Jamaal Williams instead of Antonio Brown, but he earned 17.92 points by starting the Saints defense instead of the Chiefs defense. He won his matchup against Cory by 11.56 points.

The Week 11 Hue Jackson Award goes to Alex Kincaid, who cost his team 6.0 points and a win by failing on both of his coaching risks. He lost 1.9 points by starting Jerry Jeudy instead of Marvin Jones and another 4.1 points by trading away Mike Davis and starting James Conner, who he acquired in a separate trade last week, in his place.

Eric earns some recognition for poor coaching this week, as well. He failed on three coaching risks and, in doing, missed out on 12.44 points. He decided to pick up and start Philip Rivers instead of Jared Goff this week, which cost him 2.12 points. He cost his team another 1.22 points by adding and starting the Houston Texans defense and dropping the Detroit Lions. And he cost his team 9.1 points by starting Duke Johnson instead of DeVante Parker.

One other coaching week that’s worth mentioning, simply because of the extremes, was Evan’s. He netted 4.5 points this week by succeeding on one of two coaching risks. On one side, he had the second best move of the week, earning 19 points by starting J.K. Dobbins instead of Marquise Brown, who wound up with a goose egg in Week 11. But Evan also had the second worst move of the week, starting the LA Chargers instead of the Cleveland Browns, which cost him 14.5 points.

In all, our managers took a combined 19 coaching risks in Week 11, down 24 percent from Week 10. We were successful on five of them, which is a pretty bad ratio, but only suffered a net loss of 9.86 points across the AFL.

We now have four managers who, through 11 weeks, have breakdown luck above 1 WAE. Our luckiest manager has been Evan, who sits at 1.9 wins above expected based on breakdown. Stephen is at 1.8 WAE, Alex Mayo is at 1.7 WAE, and William is at 1.3 WAE.

Based on Top 6 performances, Sean and Alex Mayo both have two more wins than expected while Brandon, Stephen, Evan, Alex Kincaid, and William each have one more.

Our unluckiest manager so far has been Cory, and by quite a bit. He is currently at 2.7 wins below expected based on breakdown and a whopping four wins below expected based on his nine Top 6 performances to date.

By breakdown, Eric sits at 2.5 WBE and Andrew Perez at 1.4 WBE. By Top 6 performances, Eric and Will Massimini are both at 2 WBE and Andrew is at 1 WBE.

Stephen has clinched a playoff spot thanks to his victory. With three games to go, he has a three-game lead over Evan in the AFL Central and over Brandon, William, and Alex Mayo in the AFL West. Even if Evan caught him and won the tiebreaker for the division, Stephen’s victories against each of the latter three would give him the wild card spot.

Stephen will face Evan in Week 12’s game of the week as he looks to seal up the division and become the fourth manager in league history to begin a season 11-1.

No other team can clinch a playoff spot this week, though Will can clinch at least a tie for the AFL East if he beats Andrew and Cory loses to Sean this week.

Below is our recap of Week 11 and this week’s power rankings:

Game of the Week: Brandon Saunders at Stephen April

In the second closest game to date this season, the top two teams by record went the distance, down to the wire on Monday Night Football. Stephen became the first manager to reach 10 wins and to clinch a playoff spot this season! One more win down the stretch will clinch him the AFL Central. Meanwhile, Brandon fell back into a three-way tie for the AFL West lead.