Norse Gods

SUPER 16 – Hibernating since winning the Super 16 Championship in 2014’s 4-way championship, the BEARMINATORS relocated to the Vikings for the 2018 season and have been on a campaign of murder and mayhem through the league all year.  Putting one more notch in their battleax, AF#4 WRATH OF ODIN (11-1-0) posted their second highest score of the season as they rolled over the best of the west 1 Eye Til I Die (8-4-0), by a 270-190 score in the Week 12 Game of the Week.  Possibly a preview of what could be a playoff rematch, this one looked like it would be an epic battle as the scores stayed close through the game on Thursday and throughout the day on Sunday until Odin’s hometeam starters took the field Sunday night, came from behind, and obliterated the one eyed bandit with 123 hometeam points, including 55 points from their franchise QB Kirk Cousins who has topped 50 points 4 times this year and topped 25 points in all but one outing.  The win clinches the #1 seed and first round bye for WRATH OF ODIN, while the loss likely relegates 1 Eye to either the #3 or #4 seed where they’ll host a Wild Card team in the first round.

In the early game of week 12’s Thanksgiving Jamboree BIGDOGINTEX (7-5-0) mauled Motor City’s Kitties (5-7-0) by an almost hundred point margin, 228-137, for a win that both eliminates the Kitties from the Wild Card hunt as well as putting the Big Dogs in control of their own playoff destiny for their own Wild Card berth.  The second half of the Thanksgiving double header, though, was the game to see, and this barn burner turned out to be one of the most exciting battles in league history, still undecided as the AF#12 Birds of Prey (8-3-0) lead the AF#11 Who Dat Saints (8-3-0) by just half a point, 178.00-177.50 going into the fantasy overtime of stat corrections.  This was a SimulPlay game that stayed close while these franchise’s parent organizations duked it out in the Superdome, and then remained tight through the day on Sunday until the Who Dats begin to stretch out the slightest of leads.  The Birds came back out on Monday night, hoping to make a comeback and managed only 11 points, but that was all that was needed to close the gap, take a half point lead and force the ‘recount vote’ that is the weekly stat correction period.  It’s worth noting that the Birds lost a linebacker to IR Sunday, when Josh Bynes went down in the second quarter after scoring just 4 points, and that the Who Dats left an empty defensive back slot on their starting roster while Adrian Amos scored 5 points from their bench.

The full playoff picture is still unclear, awaiting the final results from the Birds-Dats game, not the first big game BoP has taken into overtime in their history.  There was Super Bowl VI last year against Arizona, and then some will also remember the game that ended the Birds’ 17 game winning streak vs The Indy-structibles alll the way back in 2015.  The Who Dats can hang their hopes on BoP’s track record of coming out unlucky in these kinds of big games that go to overtime, however, whichever team eventually wins, still cannot claim the S16 South Division title with the two of them so close in the standings and with tiebreakers also so close.  That will ultimately be decided in the Week 13 finale as the Who Dats will be locked into a Thursday night SimulPlay with BIGDOGINTEX and the Birds will get the league’s 7th scoring franchise, Geno’s Jaw Breakers (5-7-0).  The Dallas Dogs will be dangerous, averaging 213 points per game over the last 3 weeks and hungry to lock up their first ever playoff appearance, while the Jaw Breakers are coming off of a hard divisional loss, 172-202 against AF#19 Steel Curtain (8-4-0) who clinched the East Division title with the win.

Whether it’s the league’s Saints or Falcons franchise that ultimately captures the Division, the team that does will have the inside track for the #2 seed and first round bye.  That leaves 1 Eye and Steel Curtain as the likely #3 and #4 seeds, although snagging the #2 is not mathematically impossible for either of the two teams.  That means that either the Birds or the Saints will be entering the playoffs as a Wild Card, and BIGDOGINTEX – even with a week 13 loss – is the leading team for the final, #6 seed.  WTF HOUSTON (6-6-0) and the AF#22 Northern Fins (6-6-0) are the only other teams in a position to compete for that final slot.  Once again, the Super 16 regular season boils down to a very exciting finale as competitors scramble and the post season takes shape.