The Stage is Set

Posted on by Commish

The SPFL regular season wrapped up in epic fashion with a couple of pre-playoff games and a couple of scoring bonanzas. In the end, the season standings finished up like this:

  1. Bright 1s (11-3, Matt Foley Division champion)
  2. Bitter Midgets (10-4, Tommy Boy Division champion)
  3. Mayberry Mighty Moops (9-5, TB Division runner up)
  4. Beauty and the Beasts (8-6, MF Division runner up)
  5. AR#5 Auto Picks (8-6, 2026 total points wild card)
  6. Thunder Monkeys (8-6, 1836 total points wild card)

Greased Lightning, after starting the season red hot at 5-0, sputtered down the stretch to finish at .500 with a 7-7 mark and with 1809 points, a mere 27 total points back of the Monkeys. Think about it, less than 2 points per week! Heath’s Heroes also made a run, finishing 7-7, with 1784 points, only 52 points back from sixth place. Last year’s champion, Yesterday’s Corn, had an ugly 4-10 record, but a fairly healthy 1716 total points, including a near 200 point outing in Week 14. The Piranha Brothers, last year’s regular season juggernaut, struggled with some injuries this year and finished 4-10 and with 1670 points. The Turf Turtles and the Ghost of Megatron brought up the rear, with 4-10 marks and 1609 and 1567 total points, respectively.

As such, Playoff Week One will have the Mayberry Mighty Moops hosting the Thunder Monkeys, but the early Yahoo line shows the Monkeys as slim 2 point favorites. In the other wild card, Beauty and the Beasts will host the Auto Picks and Yahoo has the visitors as 19 point favorites at this early stage. The Bright 1s and the Midgets can sit back and relax and enjoy that well earned bye, knowing they are only one victory away from an SPFL Super Bowl berth. To the six of you eliminated, thanks for playing, thanks for competing and I hope you’ll be back next year to give it another run, so be looking for those keeper picks!

Midgets 117 – Auto Picks 109: In what was to be a heavyweight slugfest, these two put up piddly little scores in deciding the Tommy Boy Division championship. The big brother owned Midgets claimed the win, the title, the bye, and helped little brother out so that the Moops could secure that 3 seed over the far superior Auto Picks’ squad. The Midgets survived a injured Demarcus Robinson’s zero points, TE behemoth Brock Bowers’ 8 points, and Amon Ra St Brown’s 10 points, thanks to Jalen Hurts (25) and Jahmyr Gibbs (20). The Auto Picks, losers of two straight games heading into the postseason, may have spent all their energy last week against the Moops and had only Bijan Robinson (22) and the Bucs D (19) to lead the way. Former Moop, Isiah Pacheco wasn’t able to secure the late victory for the Auto Picks.

Beasts 155 — Heroes 130: The other “pre-playoff” playoff game was much more worthy, as Beauty and Her Beasts claimed that runner up wild card, thanks to Justin Jefferson (34) and Rachaad White (26), while the Heroes obviously had a Knute Rockne-like pregame speech with Josh Allen, who put up an amazing 56 point outing to try and help the Heroes overcome some ill-timed bye week blues.

I rode in a Cybertruck a couple of months ago. Gotta say, except for the sheer ugliness and … the pricetag … I would love to have one. So much fun as a midlife crisis mobile. But if it came looking like this … then, I’m really just hung up on the pricetag.

Moops 202 — Lightning 159: The Lightning made a valiant run at that total points wild card, losing a meaningless game when the Moops broke the 200 point barrier, boasting a full double figure lineup, led by JaMarr Chase (47) and Zach Charbonnet (42). The Lightning were led by Isaac Guerendo (28) and trade acquisition Chase Brown (25).

Turtles 135 — Megatron 118: In what might be termed this year’s Toilet Bowl, the Turtles ensured they would not finish in the SPFL basement, while both teams outscored the Midgets and Auto Picks in the headline game. Go figure. Puka Nacua (42) and James Conner (24) led the Turtles while Josh Jacobs (26) and Jaylen Waddle (20) did their best for Megatron.

Corn 196 — 1s 151: The Corn ended their reign in a blaze of glory putting up big points and handing this year’s regular season bully a L, thanks to Jordan Addison (41) and Tyreek Hill (28). The Bright 1s were led by Sam Darnold (38) and Cee Dee Lamb (21).

Saban has been a pleasant surprise to me and McAfee is the perfect fuel to his fire…

Monkeys 113 — Brothers 99: The Monkeys just baaaaaaaarely scored enough points to pick up that sixth place wild card slot, led by Baker Mayfield (22) and Cooper Kupp (20), while the Brothers were led by Davante Adams (25) and Tua Tagavailoa (23).

One little tidbit here and maybe I’m being presumptuous, but if true, it’s why I love this league and my owners so much … the Piranha Brothers have had a not so great year (all due respect intended), injury bug and such, and were pretty much out of the playoff race a couple of weeks ago. However, on Sunday morning, one transaction went through for the Brothers, picking up Gus Edwards. Made sense … Rhamondre Stevenson, the Brothers’ starting RB was on a bye … but when the games kicked off, Stevenson was still in the starting lineup and waiver wire wonder Gus Edwards was on the bench. Why?

Well, this game’s W/L outcome didn’t matter at all, so I can’t be mad about that. The Monkeys needed points, but that was it. So … there are three possible motives for this mystery move:

  1. The Brothers were looking ahead to NEXT YEAR and the possibility of keeping Edwards for a cheap draft pick. (Love this a lot as an owner/commissioner)
  2. The Brothers saw that Edwards could be a “league winner” and didn’t want to give a playoff team a cheap stud RB heading into the postseason (Respect this a lot as an owner/commissioner)
  3. The Brothers slept through kickoff and didn’t know they had successfully acquired Edwards and didn’t really give a flip. (Envy this as a tired grandpa).

Cousins tiktok

I don’t know if this link works. It is a TikTok link so if you’re scared of that, don’t click. You can probably Google it and find it. It’s two minutes of Kirk Cousins greeting Vikings players, coaches, and staff after the game Sunday. You can’t fake that genuine affection. He must be a great guy and I hope he finds his groove in Atlanta for the stretch run.

Whatever the reason, it’s these little nuances that I love to observe and participate in and I hope you all do to. Best of luck to everyone playing this weekend and enjoy some good games!

The Commish