LIS, WHIT & THE NFL ⟩ Kolmeteistkümnes nädal. Saja punktiga lutti sõna otseses mõttes

Tahad teada, kui haledalt ma sel nädalal lutti sain? Saja punktiga. Jah, saja kuramuse punktiga. Iial pole nii kehvasti läinud. Kuradi Ansip. Minu mängujuht Brady teenis 11 punkti, kõik wide receiverid ja running backid vahemikus 3-9 (!), tight end George Kittle (San Francisco 49ers) 2 punkti. Ja kuidas läks oponent Great Britain 69ersil? Tänan küsimast, Tampa Bay running back Leonard Fournette 45 punkti, mängujuht Josh Allen (Buffalo Bills) 26, Los Angeles Chargers running back Austin Ekeler 21 punkti ning cherry on top of the turd cake - New England Patriots kicker Nick Folk’ilt 20 fucking punkti. Põlema pange, ausalt. Team Tallinn liigas kuuendal kohal 6 võidu ja 6 kaotusega.

Nagu sellest traumast vähe oleks, jäi Carolina alla Miami Dolphinsile ning seda tulemusega 10-33, Cam Newton saadeti neljandal veerandajal pingile ja üleüldse oli see kõik nii kohutavalt kole, et okse kurgus aina loksus. “We are a team that helps other teams and players set and/or break records,” ütles Whitney kunagi 2017. hooaja paiku ja ma naersin. Enam mitte väga, tõesti igast mängust Carolina vastu on vastaste tiim tervikuna või mõni konkreetne mängija mingisuguse rekordi sooritanud. Seekord säras eriti kirkalt wide receiver Jaylen Waddle.

A career high in receiving yards (137) for Jaylen Waddle in Week 12! @D1__JW

(@CaesarsSports Star of the Week) pic.twitter.com/lLelVIkAHO

— NFL (@NFL) December 1, 2021

And just like that, I’m in 4th place in our fantasy league. Six spots I jumped. Mad impressive. With only two fantasy games left until playoffs it’s wide open for anyone to grab. Only two wins separate 1st place from 9th place. Will be super cool if both Lisette (Team Tallinn) and I make it – right now she’s teetering on the cusp. Once the results of Week 14 are known, fantasy playoffs are like so: in quarterfinals, 4 seed will play 5 seed and 3 seed will play 6 seed; the winners of those games will face the 1 and 2 seed in the semi-finals; and finally the winners of those matchups will play in the championship. Easy peasy. Sidebar: I love that I am the age that I am and that fantasy football takes up such a ridiculous amount of my brain energy. I can tell you one thing – my adult looks nothing like my mom’s adult.

Speaking of playoffs, they are fast approaching in real life football as well. This year for the first time ever, there are 17 NFL games instead of 16 – basically one more game for NFL owners to make money at stadium concessions, for television networks to make money selling ad space, for someone somewhere to charge exorbitant prices for something people don’t need but are forced to buy – you know, all that feel-good capitalism stuff. I’m particularly cynical about this because American football is such a physically grueling game. Every single NFL team is feeling the effects of injuries. For some teams, entire skills positions – running backs, defensive linemen, wide receivers – have been effectively wiped out due to injury. So this one extra game seems low reward, high risk. But I digress. With a Bye-week included, that means there are 18 weeks of regular season, followed by 4 weeks of postseason. Postseason is comprised of Wild Card, Divisional, and Conference Championship games, culminating of course with the almighty Super Bowl. The “Mostly Mediocre Bowl” is what they need to change the name to. Everything is this massive build-up to what is usually the most anticlimactic, lacklustre game ever. True story. Yes there are exceptions, like Super Bowl XXXVIII (38) between my Carolina Panthers and the dirty, lowdown New England Patriots that some tout as the most underrated Super Bowl of all time. Going into Week 13, what I said for fantasy holds true for real games – anything can happen. If playoffs were today, this is what it would look like:

The NFL playoff picture with 6 weeks to go!

(by @Cigna) pic.twitter.com/UFKGEvYGX1

— NFL (@NFL) December 1, 2021

So how do the playoffs work? Seven teams from the American Football Conference (AFC) and 7 teams from the National Football Conference (NFC) will qualify, each vying for a trip to this year’s host stadium, SoFi Stadium (it holds 100,240 people) in Inglewood, California, for Super Bowl LVI (56). The top teams from the 4 divisions of the AFC and NFC – North, South, East, West – qualify automatically and are seeded 1-4, while an additional 6 teams (3 from each conference) also qualify as “Wild Cards” and are seeded 5-7. These teams are the best remaining teams from each conference by regular season record.

The Wild Card round sees 12 teams play 6 games – the 1 seed in each conference gets to skip this round, while the 2-7 seeds battle it out to make it to the Divisional round, which is essentially the quarterfinals. Eight teams make it to Divisionals: the 3 Wild Card winners and the 1 seed. There are 4 games, 2 in each conference. The 1 seed plays the lowest seeded team remaining in the conference, while the other 2 teams face off. The 4 winners of these games will then contend for the NFC and AFC Conference Championships. And then of course from there, the only direction is Super Bowl.

Still watching these plays like. 😮

The top 15 plays from Week 12! pic.twitter.com/PoOD2L25l3

— NFL (@NFL) November 30, 2021

Super Bowliga on üks jama, see on keset ööd ja minu unerežiim on nagu noorel pensionäril kunagi – magama peale Aktuaalset Kaamerat ja ärkamine ao hakul. Režiimist kõrvale kalduma paneks mind küllap Carolina osalemine, aga… Kui septembris ja oktoobris on kõik veel võimalik, siis novembris jõuab üldiselt kohale karm reaalsus ning detsember on kohati lihtsalt enesepiin. Sel nädalal Panthers puhkab (vähemalt ei kaota!), küll aga on põnev matš pidada Carolina kahel konkurendil. Tampa Bay (8-3) mängib Atlanta Falconsi (6-5) vastu, NFC South divisjonis vastavalt esimene ja teine. Atlanta kaotus oleks meeldiv ja annaks Panthersile mingigi väikese lootusekiire.

Fantasy mõttes on mul Tampa Baylt vaja, et Brady söödaks – eelistatult Mike Evansile - kui meeletu ja Atlantalt, et tight end Kyle Pitts saaks üle kahemängulisest punktipõuast. Kerge oht on running back positsioonil, Melvin Gordoni (Denver Broncos) nime ees on kollane Q täht (questionable). Varumees on mul Devin Singletary (Buffalo Bills), kes mängib esmaspäeva õhtul New Englandi vastu ja mingi väga palju sealt ilmselt punkte ei tule. Oh jah. Ikka maru mõru meel, et mitte öelda lootusetus hinges eelmise nädala retsist kaotusest. Kuna minu stupid betid on kõik kaduva teed läinud, ei lubata mul ka õnnemängus osalemisega tuju tõsta. Whitney ütleb, et ta teeb ise, sest tal “on sisetunne”. Nojah siis.

Betting, the cherry on the ice cream sundae. I know a lucky – scratch that – I mean a wise, strategic foreigner who won 75€ on bets this weekend, and that no-luck-involved, wise, strategic foreigner is me. Soooo dangerous this betting thing can be. The rush I get when I find out I win is perhaps a bit too thrilling. Note to self: Consider adding a nice gambling addiction to the mix to keep things “fresh” and “exciting”. So it was two separate bets. I put 3€ on Minnesota Vikings WR Adam Thielen to get 2 or more TDs, which I got back 9 times, 27€. I put another 2€ on Washington Football Team dual threat RB J.D. McKissic to get 2 or more TDs, which I got back 23 times. Yes 23 times, your eyes do not deceive you. This “2 or more touchdowns” category appears to be my calling.

Lis, Whit & The NFL on iganädalane artiklisari Ameerika jalgpallist, muuhulgas tuleb juttu fantasy football liigast, tutvustame NFLi meeskondi ja mängijaid ning teeme panuseid tulemustele - often stupid, sometimes lucky.