As it turned out, the game of the week wasn’t going to decide the AFL West winner regardless of the outcome. If Will had taken the win, Alex Kincaid would have taken the division as a result of his win, which we’ll get to shortly.

All of those crazy possibilities were rendered moot, however, as Brandon snapped his four-game losing streak and clinched his first playoff berth since 2019. I think we can officially say that, regardless of the outcome of his playoff run, he’s gotten his redemption from his historically bad 2021 campaign.

Patrick Mahomes led the way for Brandon this week, as he’s done in now 11 of Brandon’s 15 games this season. This week he scored 35.59 points, the third most among quarterbacks this week and 80th in league history.

Will did everything he could to avoid the Snyder bracket, which he could have done with a victory even if the playoffs were off the table. While it wasn’t enough, he did earn the final Chuck Knox Award of the season by earning a league high 13.05 coaching points by succeeding on both of his risks.

He earned 7.75 points by starting DeAndre Hopkins over Brandon Aiyuk at wide receiver and another 5.30 points by passing on Cairo Santos and instead picking up Cameron Dicker to start at kicker.

Those successes earned Will his ninth career Chuck Knox Award, passing Danny and tying Stephen for fifth all-time.

Cory capped off one of the best seasons in league history with his second Tom Brady Award.

We’ll have to wait and see what his CF (Comparison Factor) score is after stat corrections officially finalize our season scoring, but his breakdown of 117.5-47.5 officially gives him a .712 breakdown percentage. He and Eric each now own two of the five best breakdown percentages in league history.

For the record, Cory owns three of the six best breakdown percentages.

Jalen Hurts was a big part of Cory’s success this year and this week was no exception. The Philly signal-caller had the second highest quarterback score of the week with 37.06 points, which is now tied for the 52nd highest score at the position in AFL history.

Hurts was not the only big scorer for Cory this week. He had five Top 5 positional players this week, the most in the league, including two Top 5 running backs, Derrick Henry and Christian McCaffrey.

Cory ends the year with a five-game streak of scoring at least 100 points, the second longest active streak in the league. His point total for this week ranks 88th in AFL history.

A really strong finish to the season, with a Tom Brady Award in Week 14 and two second-place finishes in the two weeks surrounding it, Alex came up just shy of an AFL West division title and a second straight playoff berth.

The good news for Alex is that he avoided the Snyder bracket and can play for the first pick in our draft order selection process. Since he ended the season with four straight games in triple digits, he can tie the longest streak of his career if he scores at least 100 points in each of his first two games in 2023.

Alex got solid production from his kickers this season, particularly Nick Folk. While he won’t win this year’s kicker coach of the year award, he did win the Week 15 Scott O’Brien Award thanks to Folk’s 14.10 points. It’s his seventh career kicker coach of the week, tying William Battle.

Anthony could have used one of his bench players in his lineup this week. Juwan Johnson, one of two Saints tight ends on his roster, scored 21.70 points as this week’s TE2.

While it didn’t help him get the win or avoid the Snyder bracket, Anthony did earn this week’s Chuck Noll Award as the Eagles had the best point total of any starting defense in the AFL. Their 15.08 points earned him his 12th career defensive coach of the week, allowing him to break a tie with Evan for the fifth most all-time.

The closest game of the week was also the fourth game of 2022 decided by a single point or less, the most we’ve seen since the six such games we had in 2017. It was the 28th game in AFL history to be decided by one point or less.

George Kittle had a big game for Sean with 23.20 points, which ties for the 68th most in a single game by a tight end in league history.

It wasn’t enough, though, as Josh Allen had an even bigger game for Alex. The snow held off for most of Saturday night’s game and the Buffalo quarterback racked up 37.14 points, good for 51st all-time and the top player score of the week.

Both managers left a lot of points on their benches this week. Sean left Rhamondre Stevenson on his bench and, in doing so, earned the ninth Hue Jackson Award of his career, the third most all-time. FleaFlicker recommended Stevenson start over Gus Edwards, and that coaching risk cost Sean 18.96 points, the most in the league and way more than he lost his game by.

Stevenson was the RB4 for the week. Alex, meanwhile, left the TE3 and the DEF1 on his bench. Dawson Knox scored 19.20 points and the Indianapolis Colts scored 29.01 points, but it turned out Alex didn’t need either of them.

Despite the loss and the Hue Jackson Award, Sean will carry his league-leading 100-point streak into the playoffs. He finished the year with six straight games scoring triple digits.

In one of several blowouts this week, Evan got a huge lift from Zay Jones as the Jacksonville wide receiver tallied 32.85 points, good for the 60th highest single-game score all-time from a wide receiver.

That was the most noteworthy performance out of this game. Andrew finished tied for the worst record in the AFL, and he’ll try to avoid the Snyder. Evan, meanwhile, missed out of the playoffs on a tiebreaker and will play in the Butkus bracket of the consolation ladder.

William joins Sean by entering the playoffs coming off a loss. They’ll both hope that Week 15 marks the final loss of their seasons, though only one of them can possibly have that wish come true.

For the second week in a row, Kirk Cousins was the AFL’s QB4 and for the second week in a row he was on Stephen’s bench. This week he scored 29.08 points that went to waste.

Stephen also left the RB5, Tyler Allgeier, and his 24.71 points on his. So that’s two Top 5 positional performances on his bench that he didn’t need, just like Alex Mayo.