Entering Week 14, Brandon had already locked up a playoff spot but Eric was the only manager who could potentially take the AFL West title away from him.

It was not to be. Lamar Jackson led all AFL starters with 34.06 points and more than made up for Brandon leaving the Denver Broncos defense on his bench. They would have been the #2 unit in AFL scoring this week with 25.38 points.

Brandon is the 36th manager to win both the Tom Brady and Peyton Manning awards in the same week in the AFL. It is the fourth time the league’s top score has come in the game of the week this season.

In his own career, Brandon now has eight Tom Brady Awards, pulling into a tie with Stephen April one behind Alex Kincaid, and 15 Peyton Manning Awards, passing William Battle for the fifth most all-time.

This season alone, Brandon has appeared in the game of the week seven times and went 6-1 in those games, improving his career mark to 15-18. With this week’s sixth game of the week victory, he breaks Eric’s record of five Peyton Manning Awards earned in the 2019 season while dropping Eric’s season record to 0-2 and his career record to 19-10.

Eric had a chance this week to take over the league’s active lead in consecutive 100-point games, but he left the TE3 andthe K2 on his bench this week. Hunter Henry scored 16.75 points and Greg Zuerlein scored 18 points, snapping his streak at six games. Instead, Brandon is now the league’s active leader with a four-game streak.

Thanks to a particularly putrid performance by Matt Gay, Eric fell behind Brandon at the bottom of our league’s kicker scoring. He has 93.90 points from the position and the two of them are the only managers with fewer than 100 points from kickers this year with just one more week to reach that mark. Last year, all 12 managers scored at least 100 points with their kickers.

With a chance to secure a playoff berth right in front of him, Stephen had yet another disappointing game. His team’s scoring has decreased by between 11 and 15 points each of the last three weeks during a losing streak that now threatens to leave him out of the playoffs after being a major seller in 2022 and then a major buyer in 2023. If I didn’t absolutely need him to win this week for my own playoff hopes, it would be objectively funny if he ultimately misses the playoffs entirely.

It would be objectively funny either way, I suppose. The whole point of objectivity is that my own desires aren’t a factor. I digress.

William was less than five points away from claiming his first Tom Brady Award of the season thanks to several strong performances, none better than David Njoku who went off on Sunday for 24.50 points. It was the second highest tight end total of the week but good enough for 57th on the AFL’s all-time positional leaderboard.

That helped make up for the fact that William made the same mistake I did in my DeMatha faculty league, though there it cost me a playoff spot. William started Tua Tagovailoa in place of Justin Fields, who finished the week as the QB2 with 25.60 points in our league’s scoring.

Still, William snapped his two-game 100-point drought and kept himself alive in the playoff hunt thanks to the win and a few other games going his way.

Meanwhile, Stephen’s 100-point streak ends at 13, tying his career long, after he left the TE4 on his bench as Isaiah Likely scored 16.40 points. Had he been in Stephen’s lineup in Cole Kmet’s place, Stephen still would have lost by 30, but he would’ve scored 104.92 points and set a new career long steak. Instead I’ve got nothing for you, head back to camp, that is Camp Kincaid who he now has to play in Week 15 for the AFL East title.

Stephen needs at least 2.43 points from his defense in Week 15 to avoid being the only manager with fewer than 100 points from defenses this year; that or he needs Sean Kennedy’s defense to lose 12.91 points. Keep in mind, in last year’s wild card round Sean’s defense lost 11.62 points, so it’s not impossible.

In a respectably high-scoring game, offense wasn’t the star of the show. Sure, Anthony got solid outings from Zay Flowers and CeeDee Lamb while Rachaad White and DJ Moore both eclipsed 20 points for Will, but they don’t earn the headlines this week.

The New Orleans Saints defense had a day against the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, scoring 30.84 points for Anthony, which ranks 20th on the AFL’s all-time defensive list. As the top defense of the week, they were one of four players in Anthony’s lineup that turned in a Top 5 positional performance in Week 14. They also helped Anthony maintain his stranglehold on the AFL’s Buddy Ryan Award. Unless Eric Meyer’s defense outscores his by 69.07 points this week, Anthony will win that award this year.

On Will’s side, it was Brandon Aubrey, the Cowboys kicker who has been lights out this season. He’s ready for his ESPN documentary after beginning his career 30-for-30 on field goals! This week he nailed four of them, all from 45 yards or farther and one of them from 60 yards out!

In all, Aubrey scored 24.40 points, repeating as the AFL’s top scoring kicker and ranking #2 on the AFL’s all-time kicker list.

Anthony earned his 15th career Chuck Noll defensive coach of the week award, passing Cory Puffett for the fourth most all-time, while Will recorded his record 21st Scott O’Brien kicker coach of the week, four more than Cory in second place.

Sadly for Will, those 24.40 points weren’t quite enough to get him over the hump despite also having the third and fourth highest scoring players in the matchup. Instead, a week after losing a game by 0.11 points, he loses this one by 1.05 points pending stat corrections.

Though Will’s kicker stole the show for many this week, Anthony’s kicker is also relevant for our league because he earned Ant his ninth career Chuck Knox Award, tying Stephen April for the sixth most in AFL history.

This week, Nick Folk was projected to outscore Jake Elliott, but Anthony went with the Eagles kicker and dropped Folk on Saturday morning. Elliott outscored Folk by just 2.60 points, but that was more than his margin of victory, thus earning him a coaching win.

Facing elimination in both of his leagues this week, Cory needed something to swing his way, and fortunately for him it did in this game. Not only did he post a respectable score, but he had the good fortune of playing the lowest scorer of the week. Cory is now second in scoring and has the fewest points scored against him this year and he still needs a win and help in Week 15 for a playoff berth.

Evan’s week was remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, his 52.00 points is the second lowest team score since 2016 and the ninth lowest score in league history. Second, he did it literally a week after William Battle’s 51.62 points set the bar for post-2016 futility.

This was the third time this year Evan has had the AFL’s lowest team score and it’s his 17th career David Carr Award as he passes Brandon Saunders for the most in league history.

The good news for Evan, who now needs a win and help to clinch a playoff spot, is that William bounced back big time as noted above, so there’s no reason Evan’s team can’t get it together for one last attempt at securing him his third playoff berth in four seasons.

Cory’s offensive leader was Deebo Samuel, who repeated as the AFL’s leading wide receiver with 31.48 points this week. It was a small decrease in output but still enough to earn a spot on the AFL’s wide receiver leaderboard at the #95 spot.

Additionally, though his coaching has been pretty poor all season, Cory does earn honorable mention behind Anthony for this week’s Chuck Knox Award. He led the league with 4.60 coaching points earned after succeeding on his lone coaching risk. He started Jakobi Meyers in his flex spot on Sunday afternoon while Aaron Jones was still questionable but holding a higher projected point total. With Jones ultimately inactive Monday night and Meyers scoring 4.60 points, Cory’s decision paid off.

Entering the final week of the season, Evan has a chance to lock up the Mark Moseley Award. He leads all managers with 149.60 points from kickers. It’s not the strangle hold Anthony Battle has on the Buddy Ryan Award, but he does lead Alex Kincaid and Will Massimini by 9.40 and 11.80 points, respectively.

It sure has been a roller coaster season for Alex. His last six weeks are a perfect inversion of his first six weeks. He’ll hope that inversion doesn’t extend another week as his Week 7 win would become a Week 15 loss.

Alex is the AFL’s only manager who is 5-0 against his division opponents, which is pretty impressive considering he’s 2-7 against the rest of the league, which is why he has to win against Stephen April in Week 15; he’s got zero tiebreakers against managers outside his division.

Despite barely cracking the top six scoring teams in the league, Alex’s squad was one of four that boasted four Top 5 positional performers in Week 14.

Andrew left the real QB4 on his bench as Matthew Stafford turned in a solid, 23.97-point performance against Baltimore’s defense. But at least he has one performance he can hang his hat on as Raheem Mostert, who he traded for a few weeks ago, was the AFL’s leading running back with 24.93 points this week.

With both managers’ playoff situation already determined, Alex having clinched the AFL Central title and Sean eliminated, there wasn’t much to play for here, or was there.

Alex was still playing to secure the AFL’s #1 seed for the playoffs and Sean was playing to avoid the Sacko bracket, which he has already played in five times in his career.

Sean didn’t help his cause much when he left Drake London on his bench. Is there anybody out there who can predict what the Falcons offense will do from week to week? We have a few managers in our league who would love to talk to you, including Sean. London was the real WR2 this week with 25.05 points that went to waste.

Fortunately for him, Alex left the real RB2 on his own bench as Ezekiel Elliott scored 24.31 points on Thursday night. His decision to start Keaton Mitchell instead of Elliott cost him a league-high 16.49 coaching points and the win, earning Alex his seventh career Hue Jackson Award, which ties Will Massimini and Alex Kincaid for the sixth most all-time.

One performance Alex was able to hang his hat on was Evan Engram’s 27.55-point outing as the Jaguars tight end inserted himself at #30 on the AFL’s all-time tight end list. It wasn’t enough to clinch him the AFL’s #1 seed but it was enough to extend his 100-point streak to three games as long as he avoids any stat corrections.

With this win as the league’s #7 scorer for the week, Sean now has three more wins than expected based on Top 6 performances, the luckiest mark in the league this year.

The final Peyton Manning Award of 2023 will go to the AFL East champion as Stephen and Alex each play for their third game of the week victory of the season.

Alex has won the last three meetings in their head-to-head series and has outscored Stephen in two of the last three weeks, albeit by just 0.55 points in Week 12. He will be a significant underdog this week as he literally plays for his playoff life.

A win will clinch Alex a playoff berth as a division champion, but with a loss he will be eliminated because, best case scenario, William Battle also loses his matchup. While Alex would take 2nd in the division with a 2-0 head-to-head record, he has lost to both Eric Meyer and Evan Ash, so if either finishes second in the AFL West, they will get in over him.

Additionally, if Cory Puffett finishes second in the AFL West, since they went 1-1 against each other this year we would go to the points tiebreaker and Cory currently holds a 141.00-point advantage over him.

It should be noted that, while PlayoffComputer considers that tiebreaker lead to be insurmountable for the purposes of its playoff odds calculation and scenario generation, it isn’t entirely unreasonable. The largest differential from the highest to lowest scorer in AFL regular season history came in Week 3 of the 2015 season when Danny Hatcher scored 177.0 points and Cory Puffett scored 39.90 points, a difference of 137.1 points.

Like Alex Kincaid, Brandon has won three straight head-to-head matchups to knot his series against this week’s opponent. With a win and a loss by Alex Mayo, Brandon will clinch the #1 seed in the playoffs and eliminate Cory from contention. He would also hand Cory just the second losing season of his AFL career.

Like Stephen April, Brandon is a pretty heavy favorite heading into this week, which doesn’t bode well for Cory’s playoff chances.

Cory needs to win, and he needs a bit of help. He’ll need Andrew Perez to beat William Battle and he’ll need Stephen April to beat Alex Kincaid.

If Cory wins but William beats Andrew, William will finish second in the AFL East either outright vs Alex or on the division record tiebreaker vs Stephen. William has the H2H over Cory, so he would earn the wild card over him.

If Cory wins and Andrew beats William but Alex beats Stephen, Stephen will finish second in the AFL East and, like William, would earn the wild card on the strength of a head-to-head win back in Week 1 when Cory was the second highest scorer but Stephen led the AFL.

Will doesn’t have much to play for this week. He’s already locked into the Snyder bracket so all he can do is potentially prevent Alex from clinching the AFL’s #1 seed.

If Alex wins or if Brandon Saunders loses, though, Alex will gain that top spot in the playoffs since he beat Brandon by about 4.5 points back in Week 10. Alex won his first meeting with Will in Week 9.

This is an interesting matchup because it could decide second place in the AFL West and give the winner a chance at the AFL’s wild card but it could also be rendered absolutely meaningless if Cory Puffett beats Brandon Saunders. Since Cory has beaten both Eric and Evan in all four of his matchups with them this season, he would claim second in the division over whichever of the two wins this game.

If Brandon beats Cory, though, the opportunity for a wild card berth will open for the winner of this game. Should Evan win, he would also need Andrew Perez to beat William Battle. He beat Stephen April in Week 6 and Alex Kincaid in Week 8, so he takes the head-to-head tiebreaker over either if one of them finishes second in the AFL East, but he can’t go to a tiebreaker with William because he lost their Week 12 meeting.

If Brandon beats Cory and Eric wins, he will need William to beat Andrew or Stephen to beat Alex because he can’t go to a tiebreaker with Stephen, who beat him in Week 2. If Stephen wins, he clinches the AFL East and does not factor into Eric’s wild card hopes.

If Stephen loses, though, Eric would need William to win because William would take second in the AFL East over Stephen on their division record tiebreaker and Eric would get into the playoffs over William on the strength of his Week 8 victory.

Evan has won their last two meetings to take the series lead, including a 46-point whooping back in Week 7.

William has won two in a row against Andrew, including an 11.5-point victory in Week 9. While Andrew is already locked into the Snyder bracket for the sixth straight season, William can still clinch a wild card berth and a chance to become the second manager in AFL history to win back-to-back Sabol Bowls.

To do this, William needs to win and either have Cory Puffett beat Brandon Saunders or have Evan Ash beat Eric Meyer.

As long as he wins, William finished second in the AFL East, either outright over Alex Kincaid or on a tiebreaker with Stephen April. If Cory beats Brandon, he will finish second in the AFL West on a tiebreaker over the winner of Eric and Evan’s matchup and William holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over Cory.

If Brandon beats Cory, though, he needs Evan to win because he holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over Evan but not Eric.

Back in Week 9, Anthony snapped a two-game skid against Sean with a 38-point victory. Entering this week, he’s playing for pride as he’s already clinched a spot in the Snyder bracket of the consolation ladder.

Sean, meanwhile, still has a chance to get out of that bottom bracket with a win if either Alex Kincaid or Cory Puffett lose their matchups. He beat them in Weeks 1 and 2, respectively, to begin the 2023 campaign. If both lose, Alex would fall to that bottom bracket since, as discussed earlier in this preview, they went 1-1 head-to-head this year, but Cory holds a significant lead in the points tiebreaker.