Ok ok let me get this out of the way now before Tmo starts bitching at me for not paying enough attention to his team. We've officially passed the halfway point of the regular season, and its been quite fun so far (with the exception of my generally uninteresting performance) what with Mike being so terrible (but props to him for commenting on the posts and staying engaged, that's the energy we're looking for here). But yes Tmo currently sits in first place and has an impressive record with one week left before the gut check. But now that we're through the first half, lets take a stroll down memory lane and see how the standings after week 8 have typically correlated to the final standings. I took the top four teams in the standings after week 8 to see how they were doing, and how many made the playoffs from that year. In the chart below, the lines represent the number of wins from the top team and the top 4 teams after week 8, and the bars indicated whether or not that team made the playoffs (filled in gold) or missed (white). So what's to take away from this? Well for starters, if you're currently in the top 4 of the standings, you historically have juussstttt under a 50% chance of making the playoffs at this point. If you're in the top 2 you're almost guaranteed, only three times ever (12.5% of the time) has a team in 1st or 2nd after week 8 not made the playoffs:

Patrick was #2 at 6-2 after Week 8 in 2015, and went 0-7 in the final 7 weeks

Ryan was #2 at 6-2 after Week 8 in 2016, and went 2-5 in the final 7 weeks

Mike was #2 at 11-5 after Week 8 in 2020, and went 3-9 in the final 6 weeks

So yeah, you top teams, just relax. Take a breather, uninstall the app, have a mental health week. Don't fret about "setting your lineup" or "adding players", you're basically good anyways. You owe it to yourselves to just not care about fantasy for a week, you've earned it.

Okay whatever lets get on with it

Gut-Check Previews

#1 Tyler vs #2 Garrett

Tmo and Garrett square off in the second of what will wind up being a three-game series this season (they meet again in week 14) as the top two teams after the round robin play. Tyler is led by his league-best WR corps of Tyreek Hill and AJ Brown (WR1 and WR2 on the year, respectively), but a shaky backfield. Garrett has the opposite problem, with Travis Etienne Jr and Alvin Kamara at RB but an under-performing Cooper Kupp still trying to right the ship for Garrett's receiving depth. Both teams are coming off weaker weeks, though they both managed to secure wins. Tyler can build a 3+ point lead on 2nd place with a win to make the walk to the #1 seed more comfortable, or Garrett can vie to pull into a tie and force a game-3 tiebreaker for the rights to the number 1 seed.

#3 Collin vs #4 TK

Collin had won 4 straight games before getting tripped up last week to climb up to #3 in the standings after a .500 start through 4 weeks. TK is going in the opposite direction, a perfect 8-0 start after week 4 has turned into 10-8 and the nosedive continues after losing to Mike this past week. Collin is led by CMC and Amon-Ra St Brown, both fresh of bye weeks, to try and keep the pressure on the top teams against TK's Patrick Mahomes and his otherwise rag-tag group of thieves. This matchup will also become a three-game series, and with TK taking game 1 we could see another series tiebreaker in Week 13 if Collin stays hot and takes the W this weekend.

#5 Nathan vs #6 Ryan

Ryan, Nathan, and Jake all have 9 points, but both teams have the H2H over Jake and Nathan has the H2H over Ryan, thus the order of the standings. Ryan and Nathan also just played, so this is an immediate rematch of this past weekends game. This game is hugely important due to the positions of these two teams, both within striking distance of a playoff spot. This game and Austin-Jake are also the only two games that were not already scheduled for another matchup later in the season, so this is Ryan's chance to even the series to force the PPG tiebreaker if it came down to it at season's end. Look for Josh Allen vs Josh Jacobs to duke it out for the big win in the Gut Check week.

#7 Jake vs #8 Austin

Coming off a sweet sweet victory, Jake has to turn around and face Austin again right away. Like Nathan-Ryan, this game is also an immediate rematch of the previous week, and like Nathan-Ryan this could tie up the season series, which would currently favor Austin as he has the higher PPG. Austin needs Ja'Marr Chase and Puka Nacua to go step-for-step with Saquon Barkley and Stefon Diggs to make up for Jalen Hurts' bye week, which will also keep DeAndre Swift out of the lineup for Jake. Let's go Austin this will be the last time we play until Week 4 next year.

#9 Mike vs #10 John Luke

I mean is this game even worth talking about? John Luke just bounces back and forth between playing the wrong QB between Tua and Lamar, and Mike is running Sam Howell at QB. Mike's team has actually been doing better recently, with two straight wins and top 5 performances to add 4 points to his 1-13 start. JL has... not been doing better, averaging just 85 PPG over his last 3 games and currently on pace for the worst season performance in the league since 2018. Give me Mike in this one, but don't really take that as a compliment Mike, its more like taking the blind kid over the one-armed kid in a schoolyard fight.

Imperialism Map

Recaps

John Luke 73.98 - Tyler 73.98

JL dude seriously what the hell is wrong with you. Tyler had an awful week and you could only manage 74 points and not even make him sweat?? He's the top team you have to help the LEAGUE out here man smh. Let me say this on record, the entire league should focus on not letting Tyler, Mike, or Austin win the championship. John Luke, your failure to even put up a respectable effort towards that group goal makes me seriously question your loyalty to the cause. Benching the Raiders when they're playing a practice squad? Playing known-underachiever Kyle Pitts over Taysom Hill? Make it make sense JL. Wait but get this yall, John Luke could be eliminated from the playoffs this week. If he falls to -10 below 4th place then he'd need to be literally perfect during the rest of the season and have the 4th place team go 0-for to make it, PLUS he'd need the PPG tiebreaker, which is for all intents and purposes impossible at this point. This has been retroactively removed due to some bad math on my part. You live on, JL.... for now....

Garrett 114.66- Collin 107.12

He is human after all! Collin's been on a tear recently but finally met his match against Garrett after five position players failed to break over 10 points. Joe Burrow looked good, which is promising for Collin long-term, and he was without CMC and Amon-Ra so he was, admittedly, a little hampered, but so was Garrett without Travis Etienne. After my immense shit-talking of Dak over the first 5 weeks, he's averaged 33.4 PPG over his last 3 appearances. Honestly both these teams look fine and save any injuries or serious roster changes they'll probably both contend deeper into the season for playoffs spots, but they'll have to make it past the gut-check first.

Nathan 135.86 - Ryan 113.92

Nate, me and you baby, we're going to climb our way back up there. Who says being 7th or worse after 8 weeks is bad? Nate got three separate 20+ point games from Josh Jacobs, Dalton Schultz, and known great guy Deshaun Watson, and easily landed a top 5 score even without Adam Thielen going off. he also got the challenge of the week with 14 points from Justin Tucker, who is the namesake of the challenge so that's only right. Ryan was just crushed by a 0 spot from Tyler Higbee and only 7.4 from Davante Adams, who failed to break 10 targets for the 2nd straight week. Even just one extra catch from either of them would have given Ryan sole possession of 5th, but fate has landed him into a 3-way tie for it.

Mike 114- TK 92

This feels like a reasonably large upset (#9 beating #4) but as discussed in the game previews, TK has been sliding hard recently and Mike is coming off a league-leading week in scoring. Mike didn't really blow up the scoreboard this week either, so I'm going to call it more of another bump in TKs road than giving Mike too much credit. Especially because he played the Giant's defense??? What were you thinking Mike? Either way, he's seemed to break out of the historically-bad start into just being a regular-bad team in his championship hangover.

Austin 114.18- Jake 166.4

Austin I hope you understand just how deeply and passionately I say this. Go. Fuck. Yourself. WOW does it feel good to go from being a whipping boy to just absolutely man-handling the one person I want to most. Big shoutout to my main man CJ Stroud, who's 54.8 points is the most QB points we have recorded in league history. Another shoutout to Rachaad White, really that Texans-Bucs game was just three hours of joy for me. And of course who could forget Diggs my bb. Here's the thing though, Austin and Jake play a rematch this week, jumping right back into it. My tasty win could either become even tastier or quickly stale out depending on how it goes. Regardless, I don't give a FUCK that Austin still weaseled a top 5 out of this game. He IS the MF that's not real, he's fake af. Hype train leaves the station now boys here we go.