A Football Life:

2024, Week 14

Written by Cory Puffett
Published December 12, 2024

It all comes down to one final week of the AFL regular season. After Sean Kennedy and Anthony Battle clinched their respective division titles in Week 13, nobody was able to punch their tickets in Week 14 so both of the remaining two playoff spots remain available entering the final set of matchups.

Stephen April and Alex Kincaid will face off in the de facto AFL Central title game. Stephen won their Week 7 bout by just over six points but with both managers sitting at 9-5, whoever wins will capture the AFL's #2 seed. In the unlikely event of a tie, Stephen's Week 7 win would make him the division champion.

Here are all of the clinching scenarios in Week 15:

Evan Ash has an estimated 7.1% chance of making the playoffs. He needs to beat Cory Puffett and have one of the following happen to punch his ticket:

Stephen April beats Alex Kincaid -AND- Jeffery McDonald ties Brandon Saunders
Alex Kincaid beats Stephen April -AND- Jeffery McDonald ties Brandon Saunders

Jeffery McDonald has an estimated 14.3% chance of making the playoffs. He needs to beat Brandon Saunders and have one of the following happen to punch his ticket:

Stephen April beats Alex Kincaid
Alex Kincaid beats Stephen April -AND- Evan Ash beats Cory Puffett

Brandon Saunders has an estimated 14.3% chance of making the playoffs. He needs to beat Jeffery McDonald and have one of the following happen to punch his ticket:

Stephen April beats Alex Kincaid
Alex Kincaid beats Stephen April -AND- Evan Ash beats Cory Puffett

Alex Kincaid has an estimated 75.2% chance of making the playoffs. He needs to beat or tie Stephen April or have the following happen to punch his ticket:

Jeffery McDonald ties Brandon Saunders -AND- Cory Puffett beats or ties Evan Ash

Stephen April has an estimated 89.1% chance of making the playoffs. He needs to beat or tie Alex Kincaid or have the following happen to punch his ticket:

Cory Puffett beats or ties Evan Ash

At first glance, it seems strange that Jeffery and Brandon will both be rooting for Evan, a manager still in the playoff hunt, against Cory, a manager who has already been eliminated.

The reason for this is because of the way our wild card spot is awarded. According to Rule 10.2, the wild card is "the best team to finish second place in their division during the regular season."

Jeffery and Brandon face each other. The lower will be eliminated and the winner will need some tiebreaker help to punch his ticket to the postseason. If Alex Kincaid loses his game, they both have the head-to-head tiebreaker over him and so the winner gets in. If Alex beats Stephen, Stephen has the tiebreaker over each of them, so they need Evan to win and move into a tie with Stephen. Evan beat Stephen in both of their matchups this year, and so he would take second place in the AFL Central and both Brandon and Jeffery have the tiebreaker over him as they do with Alex.

Meanwhile, Evan's chance for playoff berth might be overstated at the estimated 7.1% generated by PlayoffComputer, considering he can only get in if Jeffery and Brandon tie.

Is all of that convoluated enough for you? Great. Let's quickly look back at the 2024 campaign's penultimate regular season week before we begin the fun!

Game of the Week: Sean Kennedy (124.87) vs Brandon Saunders (140.56)

All-time H2H: Brandon leads series 11-4

In the second highest scoring matchup of the week, Sean and Brandon both had high stakes to play for. Sean was playing to keep alive his hopes for the AFL’s first ever 13-win season while Brandon was fighting for his playoff life in his Sabol Bowl title defense.

Ultimate, the defending AFL champion prevailed, keeping his slim playoff hopes alive thanks to a Monday night comeback led by Chase Brown and Rico Dowdle, who combined for just shy of 40 points in the final NFL matchup of the week.

Sean’s squad boasted the second, third, and fourth highest scorers of the matchup, but it wasn’t enough as he lost by nearly 16 points and will now have to settle for a Week 15 date with Eric Meyer’s Snyder Bowl favorite squad that could earn him the AFL’s eighth 12-win season.

William Battle (116.58) vs Anthony Battle (146.75)

All-time H2H: William leads series 9-8

Cory Puffett (144.09) vs Stephen April (145.92)

All-time H2H: Series tied 5-5

Will Massimini (120.27) vs Alex Mayo (88.46)

All-time H2H: Alex leads series 4-3

Alex Kincaid (88.91) vs Evan Ash (117.99)

All-time H2H: Evan leads series 6-4

Eric Meyer (79.85) vs Jeffery McDonald (95.53)

All-time H2H: Jeffery leads series 2-0

Free Agent All-Stars vs Tom Brady Award Winner

Every week, we take the best possible lineup made of players who were available on waivers in the AFL at the end of the week and compare it to the top scoring team of the week in our league. Included percentages for the Free Agent All-Star players represent the percentage of FleaFlicker leagues in which each the player was rostered as of data gathering (usually Tuesday morning).

Final Score:

Free Agent All-Stars – 128.35

Anthony Battle – 146.75

YTD Tom Brady Award Winner Record: 5-9

IR Report

In our league, any player can be placed on IR regardless of injury designation. Once on IR, the player cannot be moved, dropped, or traded for a minimum of three weeks.

After Week 1, IR placements are retroactive to the prior week as long as the player was already on the team's roster but was not in the starting lineup during that prior week. This means those players will be eligible to come off IR after just a two-week stay.

TAXI Report

In our league, any rookie can be placed on the TAXI squad at any time.

Rookies placed on the TAXI on or before Week 8, who remain there without ever being removed until the end of the Sabol Bowl, are eligible as TAXI Keepers for the following year, so long as they never appeared in a starting lineup prior to Week 8. Each manager is permitted to designate one TAXI Keeper in addition to their Traditional Keeper.

Weekly Manager Awards
How were this week's $10 divvied up? Weekly awards with no financial benefit can also be found here

$4 - Tom Brady Award (Highest Scorer) Anthony Battle #23 in his career (most all-time by 4)

146.75 points Does not rank in Top 100 all-time

$1 - Norm Van Brocklin Award (Top QB) Anthony Battle #17 in his career (t-3rd most all-time)

Josh Allen, 55.02 15th career QB1 week

This was Josh Allen's (and Anthony's) second straight week winning the Norm Van Brocklin Award.

$1 - Adrian Peterson Award (Top RB) Cory Puffett #17 in his career (3rd most all-time)

Zach Charbonnet, 35.41 1st career RB1 week

$1 - Flipper Anderson Award (Top WR) Stephen April #8 in his career

Ja'Marr Chase, 39.18 6th career WR1 week

$1 - Shannon Sharpe Award (Top TE) Jeffery McDonald #2 in his career

George Kittle, 19.10 18th career TE1 week

$1 - Scott O'Brien Award (Top K) Eric Meyer #17 in his career (t-3rd most all-time)

Jason Sanders, 16.80 4th career K1 week

$1 - Chuck Noll Award (Top DEF) Cory Puffett #16 in his career (4th most all-time)

New Orleans Saints, 18.82 5th DEF1 week all-time

This was Cory's second straight week winning the Chuck Noll Award after earning 18.18 points from the Dallas Cowboys in Week 13.

David Carr Award (Lowest Scorer) Eric Meyer #14 in his career (5th most all-time)

#1 Power Ranking Sean Kennedy #21 in his career (3rd most all-time)

#12 Power Ranking Eric Meyer #18 in his career (3rd most all-time)

Coaching Report
Who earned or cost him team the most points or a win based on coaching decisions? Find out here.

Chuck Knox Award (Best Coach) Stephen April #12 in his career (5th most all-time)

Despite earning just 4.50 points this week with his decision to stick with Brandon Aubrey at kicker after adding Will Reichard, who had a higher projection, it was enough to make the difference and earn Stephen a coaching win.

Honorable Mention: Will Massimini earned a league-high 13.80 coaching points by succeeding on his lone coaching risk, starting Darnell Mooney instead of Deebo Samuel.

Hue Jackson Award (Worst Coach) Eric Meyer #8 in his career

Eric failed on both of his coaching risks this week, costing his team 19.73 points and a win to earn his third consecutive Hue Jackson Award. He lost 8.27 points by starting Nick Chubb instead of Jerry Jeudy and another 11.46 points by leaving C.J. Stroud in his lineup on his BYE instead of picking up and starting Derek Carr.

Honorable Mention: Anthony Battle cost his team a league-high 38.29 points by failing on all three of his coaching risks. He lost 10.74 points by picking up Green Bay's defense instead of Seattle's for a spot start, 13.45 points by leaving George Pickens in his lineup after he was ruled out instead of starting Quentin Johnston, and another 14.10 points by picking up Chad Ryland instead of Matthew Wright for a spot start.

Managers took a combined 20 coaching risks this week and were successful on 6. The league's net point differential was -79.52

To date in 2024, the AFL has a .421 success rate on 214 total coaching risks with a -548.47 point differential

Manager Luck Report
Who suffered an unlucky loss or earned a lucky win this week? Who have been the luckiest and unluckiest managers this season? Find out here.

Lucky Wins

Jeffery McDonald 3-8 breakdown (#9 scorer for the week)

Evan Ash 5-6 breakdown (#7 scorer for the week)

Unlucky Losses

Cory Puffett 9-3 breakdown (#3 scorer for the week)

Sean Kennedy 7-4 breakdown (#5 scorer for the week)

Luckiest managers through Week 14 (all-play)

Jeffery McDonald 2.5 wins above expected

Alex Kincaid 1.5 wins above expected

Evan Ash 1.1 wins above expected

Luckiest managers through Week 14 (median scoring)

Jeffery McDonald 3 wins above expected

Alex Kincaid 2 wins above expected

Evan Ash 2 wins above expected

Will Massimini 1 wins above expected

Unluckiest managers through Week 14 (all-play)

William Battle 2.4 wins below expected

Cory Puffett 1.6 wins below expected

Alex Mayo 1.1 wins below expected

Eric Meyer 1.0 wins below expected

Unluckiest managers through Week 14 (median scoring)

William Battle 3 wins below expected

Brandon Saunders 1 wins below expected

Stephen April 1 wins below expected

Eric Meyer 1 wins below expected

Cory Puffett 1 wins below expected

Sean Kennedy 1 wins below expected

Positional Top 100 Leaderboards
These players posted one of the 100 best performances in AFL history within their position groups.

Josh Allen, QB Anthony Battle 55.02 Points (#1 all-time)

Allen broke the previous QB scoring record of 49.00 points, set by Lamar Jackson in Sean Kennedy's lineup in Week 5 of the 2021 season.

Zach Charbonnet, RB Cory Puffett 35.41 Points (#87 all-time)

Ja'Marr Chase, WR Stephen April 39.18 Points (#17 all-time)

Puka Nacua, WR Brandon Saunders 37.35 Points (#26 all-time)

Jordan Addison, WR Anthony Battle 35.20 Points (t-#49 all-time)

Jason Sanders, K Eric Meyer 16.80 Points (t-#90 all-time)

Missed Opportunities
The players riding their managers' benches would have been key contributors.

Anthony Battle left the #2 QB performance of the week on his bench

Sam Darnold, 35.13 Points

Darnold's performance would have just missed a spot on the AFL's quarterback leaderboard, but Anthony got nearly 20 more points by starting the QB1 of the week.

Alex Mayo left the #3 QB performance of the week on his bench

Tua Tagovailoa, 25.98 Points

This is the third week in a row Tagovailoa has been a Top 3 QB while on Alex's bench.

Will Massimini left the #4 TE performance of the week on his bench

Pat Freiermuth, 12.50 Points

Alex Kincaid left the #1 DEF performance of the week on his bench

New York Giants, 19.55 Points

Top 100 Team Scores
These managers' earned one of the 100 highest team scores in AFL history.

None in Week 14

Cory Puffett's 144.09 points ranks 3rd among losing scores in AFL history

Weekly League-wide Point Total
How high- or low-scoring was this week in the context of AFL history?

The AFL scored 1,409.78 points in Week 14

This ranked #28 in league history out of 169 regular season weeks

Scoring Anomalies
Did the second-highest scoring team lose? Or the second-lowest scoring team win? These sorts of anomalies and more are included here.

Sean Kennedy and Brandon Saunders extended their league-leading active streak of 100-point games to 4.

Will Massimini's league-leading active drought of 100-point games ended at 4, a new career long.

Alex Mayo takes over as the active leader with his 3rd straight sub-100-point outing.

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A Football Life:

2024, Week 14

Game of the Week: Sean Kennedy (124.87) vs Brandon Saunders (140.56)

William Battle (116.58) vs Anthony Battle (146.75)

Cory Puffett (144.09) vs Stephen April (145.92)

Will Massimini (120.27) vs Alex Mayo (88.46)

Alex Kincaid (88.91) vs Evan Ash (117.99)

Eric Meyer (79.85) vs Jeffery McDonald (95.53)

Weekly Manager AwardsHow were this week's $10 divvied up? Weekly awards with no financial benefit can also be found here

Coaching ReportWho earned or cost him team the most points or a win based on coaching decisions? Find out here.

Manager Luck ReportWho suffered an unlucky loss or earned a lucky win this week? Who have been the luckiest and unluckiest managers this season? Find out here.

Positional Top 100 LeaderboardsThese players posted one of the 100 best performances in AFL history within their position groups.

Missed OpportunitiesThe players riding their managers' benches would have been key contributors.

Top 100 Team ScoresThese managers' earned one of the 100 highest team scores in AFL history.

Weekly League-wide Point TotalHow high- or low-scoring was this week in the context of AFL history?

Scoring AnomaliesDid the second-highest scoring team lose? Or the second-lowest scoring team win? These sorts of anomalies and more are included here.