Talk about a statement win. Alex looked like Oak Hill Christian College facing a mediocre North Dakota State team this week.

Stephen’s 127.19-point victory is the largest margin in AFL history, besting the previous record of 120.29 points, which was Cory Puffett’s victory margin in Week 8 last year when he set the AFL’s all-time record with more than 200 points.

Stephen didn’t need nearly that many, but he still turned in the best week of the 2023 season and the 9th highest single-game team total in league history.

The bigger factor in Stephen’s record setting blowout margin was Alex’s performance. This was the first time since starting lineups expanded in 2016 that a team scored fewer than 50 points. In fact, even counting our first three seasons when we had only eight starting lineup spots, Alex’s 47.87 points ranks sixth lowest of all 1,920 team scores in league history!

To be fair to Alex, if he was going to take a week off in a division title game, this would be the one to do it in. The highest optimal score he could have recorded with the players on his roster was just 71.16 points, which still would have made this the second biggest blowout in league history.

Part of the problem was that Christian McCaffrey nearly outscored Alex’s team all by himself. His 41.99 points on Sunday rank 22nd in AFL history among running backs. Meanwhile, five other players in Stephen’s lineup joined CMC as Top 5 positional performers, easily the most in the league.

By leading the league in scoring, Stephen earned his 9th career Tom Brady Award and his third of the year. He ties Alex Kincaid and is one away from being the seventh manager in AFL history with 10 of them.

Since this doubled as the game of the week, Stephen also earned his 7th career Peyton Manning Award and his second of the season. He is now 7-7 in his career and 2-2 this season when playing in the game of the week. Alex falls to 1-1 this year and 3-8 in his career.

This was the 37th time in league history, and the fifth time this season alone, that the Tom Brady and Peyton Manning awards have the same home.

For Alex, this was his 6th career David Carr Award and his second of the year. He ties Stephen and Adam Perez on the AFL’s all-time list.

For a long time we’ve officially recognized the managers with the highest scoring kicker and defense of the week with named awards. This week we introduced awards for the other four positions and awarded them retroactively to all deserving managers through our first 11 seasons of play.

Stephen won two of them this week. The Norm Van Brocklin Award goes to the manager with the highest scoring starting quarterback of the week. This week that was Jared Goff, who scored 32.70 points to earn Stephen his 4th career QB coach of the week award and his third of this season alone. He passes Saswat Misra, ties Danny Hatcher, and is one behind Nolan Soter for his career.

The other positional award Stephen earned this week is the Adrian Peterson Award, presented for CMC’s outing. This is Stephen’s 8th career RB coach of the week award, also his third of 2023, and brings him passed Brandon Saunders and into a tie with Alex Kincaid.

The final award to present from this game is the Chuck Knox Award for the best coaching performance relative to platform projections. Stephen was the only manager who netted positive coaching points this week and he did so by succeeding on both of his coaching risks.

In all, Stephen earned 14.50 coaching points this week. The smaller of the two successes was his decision to start Isaiah Likely at tight end over Cole Kmet, which earned him 5.65 points.

The other 8.85 points came from his decision to start Ja’Marr Chase at wide receiver on Saturday. At the time, his projection would have left him out of the starting lineup, but when Tyreek Hill wound up being inactive on Sunday morning, that decision paid off as he moved DK Metcalf into his lineup, who originally should have been starting over Chase based on projections.

William needed this win, and he needed some help to make into the 2023 AFL Playoffs. He did just that and he got just that.

Things could have gotten a little dicey for him considering Terry McLaurin went off for his biggest game of the year on his bench. You can’t blame William for leaving him out of the lineup considering he hadn’t scored double digits since Week 8, but it’s never fun to see the true WR3 go off on your bench.

Fortunately for William, a couple of other results went his way. First, Andrew dropped Jordan Addison, who should have been in his starting lineup based on projections, and the Vikings rookie receiver had a day with 27.05 points and was the true WR1. The Free Agent All-Stars thank Andrew for helping them keep things competitive against Stephen this week.

More importantly for William, the Bills gave James Cook 27 touches and he turned them into nearly 225 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns, not to mention 11 total first downs! He scored 39.05 points, which ranks 37th in AFL history among starting running backs.

In all, William had four Top 5 positional performers this week, second in the league to Stephen’s six.

Meanwhile, Andrew extended his 100-point drought to two games and finishes the season tied for the longest active drought in the AFL.

Like William, Cory needed this win and some help to make the 2023 AFL Playoffs. While he took care of his part, and Stephen beat Alex Kincaid to help him out, the last leg of his three-horse scenario fell short when William beat Andrew.

Still, Cory will accept taking the series lead against Brandon as a consolation prize as he heads to the Butkus Bracket of the consolation tournament.

The week began with a high and a low for Cory. In the hour leading up to Thursday Night Football, Josh Jacobs was ruled out for the Raiders and Cory made a savvy move to sign Zamir White from free agency. Though he was on waivers, these players are available on a first-come first-served basis on game day.

While White had a solid outing, an even stronger performance went to waste on Cory’s IR as the Raiders defense scored 29.47 points, which would have ranked 27th in AFL history among defenses had they been in his starting lineup.

Fortunately for Cory, he didn’t need them as he turned in his 11th 100-point performance of the season, third in the league only to Stephen’s 14 and Alex Mayo’s 12. It was also Cory’s 10th Top 6 performance of the season, second only to Stephen’s 11.

Cory won this week’s Scott O’Brien Award thanks to Jason Sanders scoring 13.20 points. It is Cory’s first kicker coach of the week award this season but the 18th of his career. That ranks second in the AFL behind Will Massimini’s 21 career O’Brien Awards.

Brandon had a four-game streak of 100-points entering this week, the longest active streak in the AFL. With that snapped, Cory finishes the year tied for the longest active streak with his own four-game stretch.

This was Brandon’s 75th career regular season loss, making him the sixth manager to reach that mark in AFL history.

After starting the season 4-1, Sean Kennedy came frighteningly close to playing in this year’s Snyder Bracket. Thanks to his win and Alex Kincaid’s loss, the two trade places and Sean now gets to play for control of his draft position as he prepares to enjoy two picks in the second round of the 2024 AFL Draft.

Jaylen Waddle had a big week for Sean, scoring 24.55 points to secure Sean this week’s Flipper Anderson Award. It is Sean’s 17th career WR coach of the week award and his third of the season. He ties Evan and Eric for the second most all-time behind Anthony Battle’s 27.

Speaking of Anthony, as good as he’s been in his career at rostering high ceiling wide receivers, he didn’t do such a great job managing his running backs this week. After leaving Josh Jacobs in his lineup on Thursday night and missing the opportunity to put Clyde Edwards-Helaire in his lineup on Sunday, Anthony earns this week’s Hue Jackson Award.

That missed roster move cost him a league-high 19.54 points, earning him his 7th career Hue Jackson Award and his first of the season, just a week after he won the Chuck Knox Award. Anthony passes Stephen and ties Alex Kincaid, Will Massimini, and Alex Mayo for the sixth most Hue Jackson Awards in AFL history.

Congratulations are in order for Sean as he hit a pretty major milestone this week. He became the eighth manager in AFL history, and the sixth fastest, to reach 15,000 career points in the regular season!

In our closest matchup of the week, Alex secured the league’s top seed in the playoffs with his league-high 11th win of the season, simultaneously handing Will his AFL-record 90th career regular season loss.

A big contributor for Alex was the Miami Dolphins defense, which scored 25.68 points to earn Alex his 7th career Chuck Noll Award and his third of the year. He passes Danny and ties Alex Kincaid and Andrew on the league’s career list for defensive coach of the week awards.

It wouldn’t have quite made up the difference, but Will did leave the week’s true QB2 on his bench as Baker Mayfield had a fantastic day for his Bucs up at Lambeau Field. His 30.52 points will be forgotten on Will’s bench.

Alex finishes the year on a four-game streak of 100-point games, joining Cory for the league-lead as this year concludes.

This was another contender for game of the week since it was the only other game featuring two teams with playoff hopes and with neither already in the playoffs. Ultimately, thanks to Cory’s win against Brandon, this game was rendered meaningless in the scope of league history and Eric and Evan will run it back this coming week in the first round of the Butkus Bracket of the consolation tournament.

Still, it wasn’t meaningless for Eric as he evened the head-to-head series after Evan took the lead earlier this season.

It was the second week in a row that Hunter Henry scored 16.75 points and was the true TE3 in the AFL, and for the second week in a row that outing was left on Eric’s bench. At least this time he can feel good about the fact Sam LaPorta was in his lineup. The Lions rookie caught three touchdown passes as part of 27.35-point day.

LaPorta’s performance ranks 32nd in AFL history among tight ends and earns Eric his 13th career Shannon Sharpe Award and his third of the year. Eric has the seventh most TE coach of the week awards in league history.

Evan, meanwhile, joined Cory in lamenting a strong Thursday night performance being left on his bench. For Evan, it was Aidan O’Connell, who finished as the QB4 for the week with 26.48 points. Evan joins Andrew, tied for the longest 100-point drought at two games to conclude the season.

Alex opens as an 8-point favorite as he prepares to make his AFL playoff debut.

The good news for Williams is he won’t really have to worry about too many injuries this week. Jayden Reed hurt his toe on Sunday and will likely open the week with a questionable tag, but if the Commanders stick with Jacoby Brissett this week against the Jets, that could make Terry McLaurin a better option even if Reed plays.

The bigger worry for William will be Arthur Smith’s tendency to play with fantasy managers’ emotions regarding Bijan Robinson. It didn’t matter this past week that the rookie turned in his lowest scoring game of the season (including his 1-carry sick game in Week 7), but another week like that could be catastrophic.

Alex, meanwhile, will have to track Isiah Pacheco’s status all week as the 2nd-year Chiefs running back has missed two straight games with a shoulder injury. He also just lost the Ravens explosive rookie running back Keaton Mitchell, who tore his ACL on Sunday.

One position where William has a decided advantage is at defense. His Bills defense gets a juicy matchup against a Chargers team that just made the Raiders defense look transcendent.

Meanwhile, Alex will have to choose between the Dolphins and the 49ers. Miami faces Dallas, which is coming off a horrendous week and no doubt will look to bounce back in a big way. San Francisco, meanwhile, draws a tough Monday night matchup against Baltimore, which just lost an explosive player but still figures to be a formidable opponent with Lamar Jackson leading the way.

In another matchup between managers who have never met in the postseason, Stephen sure wishes he could bottle up some of those points his team scored in Week 15 and use them toward this game.

Stephen opens as an 11-point favorite, but Brandon could bring that down to just 1 point by going with projections.

With Ja’Marr Chase seeming to be headed toward a doubtful tag for Saturday’s game in Pittsburgh, Stephen will be watching Tyreek Hill’s status earnestly this week.

The NFL’s leading receiver, even after missing Week 15 due to a toe injury, wasn’t missed from Stephen’s lineup in Week 15, but with so many other players on his team displaying inconsistent production over the course of the last couple of months, losing Hill for a second week in a row could prove too much to overcome in the playoffs.

Brandon will have his own receiver to keep tabs on this week as Michael Pittman works his way through the NFL’s concussion protocol. The Colts are saying he is “doing good,” and so there seems to be some optimism he could play this Sunday in Atlanta. If not, Brandon will have his pick of Devin Singletary and Breece Hall to take his place, or he could roll with Nico Collins if the Texans receiver returns from his calf injury this week.