Written by Cory Puffett
Published January 2, 2025

The 12th season of the AFL is nearly over. Our top two managers faced off this past week to crown the Sabol Bowl XII champion and now our next best managers will draft from a pool of this season's top fantasy players and dual for bragging rights and to decide what this year's Snyder Award winner will have to complete as a punishment for their poor performance.

Next week we will have a long write-up as this year's top performers will be recognized with various awards and shout-outs. I'm very excited to get to that. But first, here is a look back at the three games our four playoff teams completed over the past two weeks.

AFL Playoffs

Our first semifinal matchup featured our regular season champion, Sean Kennedy's Buns of Steel, carrying his 11-4 record into a battle with Anthony Battle's Visionary, who won the AFL's weakest division, the West. It was their second ever postseason meeting. Sean won their 2019 bout by 17 points en route to his first Sabol Bowl title.

Sean entered the bout on a two-game losing skid, barely cracking the top half of the league in scoring in Week 14 before finishing 10th in scoring in the final week of the regular season. Anthony, meanwhile, saw a two-game winning streak come to an end in a narrow Week 15 loss in a meaningless game.

Neither manager got much from their Saturday starters. Najee Harris couldn't crack 5 points in Anthony's lineup while Joe Mixon and Nico Collins did marginally better but still contributed less than 10 points each to Sean's effort.

With each manager featuring a running back in the low 20s, Sean having a solid advantage at quarterback and kicker, and Anthony responding with a nearly identical advantage at defense, the real difference was Justin Jefferson. The Vikings receiver has been solid all year, finishing the regular season barely behind the WR2. He saved his best performance for this matchup, though, giving Sean the matchup's lone 30-point scorer. By the time Monday Night Football rolled around, with Josh Jacobs playing for Sean while the Packers defense took the field for Anthony, the latter may have had a better chance of finding a specific grain of sand on a random one of Earth's beaches than staging a comeback.

It was a bitter end of the season for a manager who has made the most appearances in the AFL playoffs. Six of his seven appearances have ended with a wild card loss while the other resulted in a 17-point defeat at the hands of his younger brother in Sabol Bowl VI.

Our second semifinal was the eighth in AFL history that featured the two highest scoring teams of the wild card round. Brandon Saunders was playing in his AFL-record 10th career postseason contest, riding a 5-game winning streak with his Champion Pukaman Trainer that had helped the defending Sabol Bowl champ return to the playoffs after an 0-3 start to the year.

Stephen April's Darth Ja'MarrMarr, meanwhile, had withstood an inconsistent start to the to lead the AFL in scoring four times over the course of the 15-week regular season, a league high, and had won five of his last six entering the postseason. He had won their lone regular season meeting by less than three-quarters of a point and was hoping his deadly Bengals stack had yet another big week in the tank.

The Burrow-Chase effect was not as strong as in Weeks 10, 11, or 14, but it was plenty strong for this matchup. They offset Brandon's AFC South paring of Anthony Richadson and Brian Thomas while Jahmyr Gibbs did what he needed to do to cover most of Chuba Hubbard's big day.

The clunch touchdowns throughout Sunday afternoon kept Brandon's win probability respectable, and entering Sunday Night Football it actually looked like he might have the advantage with Rico Dowdle and a narrow lead against Brandon Aubrey. Dowdle was coming off of back-to-back games with 120+ scrimage yards. Unfortunately for Brandon, the Buccaneers defensive strength is against the run and Dowdle didn't do nearly enough in the passing game to cover what wound up being an AFL Playoff record 23.80-point night for the Cowboys All-Pro kicker.

Sabol Bowl XII

The two Christmas games were quite one-sided, but not in favor of the manager who actually had players going.

Sean had nearly half of his lineup playing on the rare Wednesday double-header on Netflix. In the early game, Pittsburgh's defense struggled against the Kansas City Chiefs, costing Sean 0.18 points right off the bat. "Negative points for my defense. A playoff tradition," Sean noted in the league chat.

Joe Mixon, Nico Collins, and Rashod Bateman were active for the second half of the twin bill, the three didn't even combine for 15 points, leaving Sean with just 14.49 points with four of his starters already done for the week.

Joe Burrow made the most of his first Sabol Bowl appearance. He and the Miami Dolphins defense each turned in their best fantasy days of the season for Stephen when it mattered most.

Entering Monday Night Football, Brock Purdy was left for Sean while Stephen still had Jahmyr Gibbs to play and a 32.37-point advantage. After Purdy threw for three touchdowns in the first half, things were beginning to look dicey for Stephen, and a touchdown drive to open the second half did little to bring him comfort. Two interceptions later in the half and a 30-yard touchdown run by Gibbs with 3:06 to play took care of business though, lifting Stephen to his second career Sabol Bowl title!

When all was said and done, this was the fourth lowest scoring game in Sabol Bowl history, surprising given the late-game fireworks.

Pro Bowl Preview

Pro Bowl info - include how managers were determined, draft results if already completed, and selected punishments