A Football Life:

2022, Week 14 Preview

Written by Cory Puffett
Published December 8, 2022

The fantasy football season truly flies by. We’re already down to the final two weeks of the regular season.

Cory Puffett and Sean Kennedy have both clinched their division titles and while they’ll continue to put out the best lineups they can every week (after all, a Hall of Fame induction could be on the line three years from now) and potentially play spoiler to someone else’s playoff dreams, they’ll be free from stress each of these next two weeks.

The other two playoff spots could be secured this week and so before we get to this week’s game-by-game previews, let’s look at the scenarios that could earn Brandon Saunders and William Battle playoff berths this week and leave Week 15 to simply determine seeding and positioning between the two consolation brackets for the non-playoff teams.

As we discuss these clinching scenarios, keep in mind that there exist scenarios where with Brandon or William could clinch playoff spots due to games ending in a tie, but we are going to ignore that possibility. With our current scoring system including not just decimals to the hundredth but even odd-numbered hundredths of a point, the chances of a tie have become so remote that this preview would become wordier than necessary.

Rest assured, if we do see any ties this week, they’ll be addressed in great detail in next week’s recap.

AFL West Situation-at-a-Glance

As we head into these final two weeks, all four teams remain alive mathematically for the division title. It’s worth noting that, thanks in part to his back-to-back Tom Brady Awards, Anthony now trails Brandon not only by a single game in the standings but by less than a single point in scoring for the season!

Alex Kincaid and Will Massimini are also separated by just one point from each other on the season, but they trail their two counterparts by just north of 200 points on the year!

Let’s take a look at each manager’s road to the playoffs.

Brandon Saunders

We’ll start with the current favorite. Brandon has an 89.3% chance to win this division according to Playoff Computer. If he wins this week and Anthony loses to Alex, he will win the division. If he wins this week and Anthony beats Alex, he’ll either need to win next week or have Anthony lose to avoid going to a tiebreaker scenario, which would come down to points.

If Brandon loses this week, things could get hairier, particularly if Anthony beats Alex. Brandon would almost certainly have to avoid a second loss to keep his playoff hopes alive as we’ll see in some of the scenarios below.

Anthony Battle

Obviously, Brandon has the inside track to the division. So, let’s look at Anthony’s available paths to the playoffs. The easiest would be for him to win out and have Brandon lose both this week against Alex and next week against William. Anthony would take the division outright, no tiebreakers necessary.

If he wins out and Brandon goes 1-1 in the final two weeks, they’ll be tied head-to-head and would both be 4-2 in the division, so we’d go to the points tiebreaker. Anthony would have to outscore Brandon by at least a net 0.46 points over the final two games to clinch.

On the long shot that he outscored Brandon by exactly 0.45 points in that stretch, they’d remain tied and we’d go to the next tiebreaker which is breakdown record. Anthony currently leads that by six games, so as long as he doesn’t lose more than five games of ground, he’d be in the clear. And on the even longer shot that it went to the next tiebreaker, which is total points in the previous five games, each of Anthony’s Tom Brady Awards would be in that count so he’d almost certainly take that one.

Considering, by definition, Anthony would almost certainly have outscored Brandon by that slim margin he needs if he wins out and Brandon loses at least one game, in this scenario, Anthony would win the division.

Alex Kincaid

Between the other two managers, Alex has the better opportunity to win the division. If he beats Brandon this week and then Anthony next week, he’ll finish the season with a 7-8 record, and assuming Will beats Brandon in Week 15, he’ll have the same record as Brandon and either Will or Anthony depending on who wins that matchup this week.

If the three-way tie involves Alex, Brandon and Anthony, all three would be 1-1 against each of the other two so we have to move to our second tiebreaker, which is division record. Alex would be 4-2 in the division while Brandon and Anthony would each be 3-3; Alex would win the division.

Now let’s look at the result if Will beats Anthony this week and Brandon next week while Alex wins both of his games. Now the three-way tie is between Alex, Brandon, and Will. Following the NFL’s three-way tiebreaking procedure of using the best winning percentage in games played among the three teams, Alex would have a 3-1 record against Will and Brandon while Brandon would be 2-2 against Alex and Will and Will would be 1-3 against Alex and Brandon. Alex would win the division.

So as long as Alex wins out and Will beats Brandon in Week 15, Alex will win the AFL West on tiebreakers.

Will Massimini

Finally, let’s take a look at Will’s path. We’ve already established that if he finds himself in a three-way tie with Alex and Brandon, he loses out. The only other way Will finds himself in a tie is for him to beat Anthony this week and Brandon next week, have Alex beat Brandon this week and have Anthony beat Alex in Week 15. That would leave Will, Brandon, and Anthony with identical 7-8 records.

In this scenario, using the same tiebreaking procedure we did in that second scenario for Alex, Will would have a 3-1 record against Brandon and Anthony while Brandon would be 2-2 against Will and Anthony and Anthony would be 1-3 against Will and Brandon. Will would win the division.

The bottom line is that the AFL West is truly up for grabs with all four managers alive.

Wild-Card Situation-at-a-Glance

I recognize that I’m known for lengthy writeups, but even I won’t try to list out all the possible permutations involving the six managers still alive for our league’s wild card spot.

It remains possible for both Brandon and Anthony to get the wild card, for example. Stephen April remains alive by the skin of his teeth and both Alex Mayo and Evan Ash trail the current leader by just a game.

That leader is William Battle, who has not made a playoff appearance since 2018 when he won Sabol Bowl VI over his brother.

While I won’t go through all the paths each of the six have available to them, I will discuss William’s path since he’s the only manager who could clinch that playoff spot this week. For now, we’ll just focus on his paths if he wins this week and deal with the repercussions of a loss if and when that happens.

William Battle

With a win against Eric Meyer, Stephen, Anthony, and Brandon are immediately eliminated from wild card contention regardless of the outcomes of their games.

Let’s say all three of them win (Stephen over Cory Puffett, Anthony over Will Massimini, and Brandon over Alex Kincaid). Stephen would be two games behind William with one game remaining and the same would be the case for Anthony. Brandon would only be one game back, but he’ll either win the division or lose the following week to open the door for Anthony to win the division. Either way, William would no longer be competing with Brandon for that wild card spot.

That leaves Alex Mayo and Evan Ash to consider. William beat Evan in Week 11, so because of his head-to-head advantage, Evan would be eliminated by William’s victory even with a win against Sean Kennedy since the best he could hope for would be a tie with William at the end of the season.

Alex, though, beat William in Week 2, so he would stay alive with a victory.

Bottom line: What William needs to clinch this week is a victory and a loss by Alex Mayo against Andrew Perez. That seems unlikely considering how bad Andrew’s team has been, but we shall see.

Let’s take a look at each game on this week’s slate.

Game of the Week: Anthony Battle vs Will Massimini (-4.5)

Anthony leads all-time series 9-4

This game amounts to a must-win for both these managers. As outlined above, Will’s only path to the playoff includes winning each of his final two games.

While it wasn’t explicitly outlined above in his section, Anthony (6-7) also needs to win this week to make the playoffs. If he loses this game, even if Brandon also loses, he’d need to not only win next week against Alex but would also need Will to beat Brandon and force a three-way tie. That was the last scenario we outlined above, and we saw that Will (5-8) would win the division on the first tiebreaker in that scenario.

Whoever loses this game will be eliminated from the playoffs regardless of the outcome of the matchup between Brandon and Alex. Because of this, we did something unprecedented this week and changed our game of the week designation after originally settling on the matchup between Brandon and Alex.

Current Coaching Risks

Will is expected to start Brandon Aiyuk this week, but with Brock Purdy starting for San Francisco, FleaFlicker prefers Jerry Jeudy (ankle) if he’s active.

Anthony has a pair of coaching risks as things currently stand. He’s starting Julio Jones at wide receiver, but FleaFlicker prefers Brandin Cooks, who has been unable to practice so far this week due to a calf injury. His other risk is starting Jason Myers at kicker instead of Graham Gano.

Sean Kennedy (-24.5) vs Evan Ash

Evan leads all-time series 6-5

Despite having no need to do so, Sean (10-3) didn’t mess around this week and went after a second quarterback on the first day of waivers, picking up Lions quarterback Jared Goff to replace Lamar Jackson while the Baltimore quarterback nurses a PCL injury.

Clearly, Sean is not going to lay down and give Evan (7-6) an easy win with his playoff hopes hanging in the balance. Outside of the injuries we’ve documented over the past few weeks, Evan will be at full strength as the only player of consequence on bye is Allen Lazard who Evan has not started since Week 12 despite consistently being recommended to do so by FleaFlicker projections.

We’ll see what happens over these next five days, but it certainly appears that Evan’s playoff dreams will end in Week 14.

Current Coaching Risks

Evan currently has Zay Jones (questionable – chest) slotted in as his WR2 but, if he plays, Mike Williams (ankle) should replace him according to FleaFlicker.

Sean has no coaching risks based on his current lineup and current FleaFlicker projections.

Cory Puffett (-19.5) vs Stephen April

All-time series tied 3-3

Stephen has just a sliver of hope for things to break his way and net him a playoff berth. Even after earning a lucky win last week, those three unlucky losses in the first three weeks of the season are still hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles.

Following an ankle injury to Kenneth Walker and an oblique injury to Najee Harris that has both running backs questionable for Week 14, Stephen (6-7) is expected to give Cam Akers his first start of the season in the AFL. Akers was a 16th round keeper for Anthony Battle in September. Anthony finally cut him on November 18 and Stephen claimed him off waivers for $6 six days later.

Cory (10-3) has no worries this week with the AFL Central already locked down, but he’ll protect the integrity of the league by giving Stephen as tough as a game as he can. Besides, with the all-time series tied he’d love to take the lead after Stephen knotted it up in Week 7 when he won by just 1.29 points.

To do that, he’ll have to keep an eye on Christian McCaffrey and Jaylen Waddle, who are dealing with knee and leg injuries, respectively.

Current Coaching Risks

Stephen has Dak Prescott and Tyler Boyd in his starting lineup this week, but FleaFlicker prefers Kirk Cousins this week against an often-porous Lions defense and Kenneth Walker, if he plays.

Cory has several coaching risks as things currently stand. FleaFlicker recommends he replace Foster Moreau with Tyler Higbee tonight, Travis Etienne with Keenan Allen, and the San Francisco 49ers defense with the Seattle Seahawks unit.

Brandon Saunders (-32.5) vs Alex Kincaid

All-time series tied 2-2

As we’ve seen, a win and some help from Will can clinch the AFL West for Brandon, so he’ll be glad to see he’s opening the week as a heavy favorite and even more glad if his team lives up to expectations. Last week he opened as a 7.5-point favorite against Anthony and got throttled.

Brandon beat Alex by a narrow 5-point margin back in Week 9. It was one of several games this season where he would have been dead to rights without the combination of Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.

Both managers have a number of players on bye this week who normally are in their starting lineups, so it’s not an ideal situation for either. Brandon (7-6) had to replace Antonio Gibson and the Washington defense in his lineup while Alex (5-8) will be missing David Montgomery and Brian Robinson.

As we approach the weekend, Alex will be keeping an eye on Trevor Lawrence’s toe injury and will hope he’s good to go since he doesn’t yet have a backup at the position. On Brandon’s side, D’Onta Foreman is questionable with a foot injury and Jakobi Meyers was evaluated last week for a head injury and we’re still waiting to see what the result of that was.

Current Coaching Risks

Alex added the Carolina Panthers defense to start this week but there were a few available units on waivers with higher projections for the week, including FleaFlicker’s recommendation: the Las Vegas Raiders.

Brandon has decided to start James Cook this week after a strong Week 13 outing against New England, but FleaFlicker prefers Darius Slayton in that FLEX spot.

William Battle (-16.5) vs Eric Meyer

William leads all-time series 8-5

Last week Eric waited until the five minutes before kickoff to update his lineup and address bye weeks and injuries. We’ll see if he gets those cleared up earlier this week, but so far it’s been radio silence. Michael Pittman and the Atlanta defense are both on bye and are both in his starting lineup as it stands.

On William’s side, D’Andre Swift continues to nurse an ankle injury but looked pretty good last week as he handled double-digit carries for the first time since Week 1.

Eric (4-9) won a low-scoring game back in Week 7, which is one reason William (8-5) hasn’t already locked up the wild card. Now William has to bounce back from last week’s David Carr Award-winning performance.

Current Coaching Risks

Eric should replace Pittman and the Falcons in his starting lineup with DJ Moore and the Cincinnati Bengals based on current FleaFlicker projections. Additionally, the platform suggests starting Greg Joseph at kicker instead of Ryan Succop this week.

William has been rolling with Joshua Palmer in his FLEX for a few weeks now, but this week FleaFlicker thinks Nico Collins will be the better start if his foot injury doesn’t prevent him from playing.

Alex Mayo (-28.5) vs Andrew Perez

Alex leads all-time series 3-1

Our final matchup to talk about isn’t particularly interesting. The first time they met, back in Week 3, Alex had his first bad game of the season and it didn’t matter. He still beat Andrew and it seems highly unlikely the result of their second matchup will be any different.

Alex (7-6) has to replace Chris Olave in his lineup this week, but that’s his only bye week issue. Corey Davis is questionable due to illness, but if he’s inactive Van Jefferson has a similar projection and can jump right up to that starting spot.

Andrew (3-10), meanwhile, has two players on bye with no replacements on his bench and a tight end who is doubtful and who also does not have a replacement on his bench. With the waiver wire looking pretty bare these past couple of weeks, and Sean already snatching up the only available quarterback FleaFlicker seems to think is worthy of a start in our league, Andrew is definitely in some hot water, though that 28.5-point line will come down just a bit if and when he addresses those roster issues.

Current Coaching Risks

Andrew has only one official risk right now, and that is starting Gabe Davis at FLEX instead of Joe Mixon, who is questionable for this week. However, FleaFlicker strongly advises he address issues with other positions with Tyler Huntley at quarterback, Noah Fant at tight end, and the Las Vegas Raiders at defense.

Alex is planning to start Jerick McKinnon at FLEX this week, but FleaFlicker is giving a higher projected point total to Dawson Knox.

Week 14 opens tonight with the Raiders facing the Rams in SoFi Stadium. This will likely be a very one-sided game from a fantasy standpoint as Davante Adams, Josh Jacobs, and perhaps the Raiders defense will probably be the most fantasy-relevant players on display. Good luck to everyone this week!

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