And Just Like That, It Was Gone!

The Ryan Reremice did everything they could to put themselves in position to snag a Wild Card spot. They needed a win (check), they needed a really solid performance (check), and they needed the Minotaurs to win (uh oh). Ryan finishes the year at 8-6, 3rd in the Prophet Division, and 16th in the league in pick accuracy.

Josh, on the other hand, had one of his worst seasons. His 52.9% accuracy was a respectable 15th in the league, but ranks along with his 5-9 record as his worst finishes in for-fucking-ever (2008). In fact, this season marks the end of 12-season streak of finishing .500 or better. Ouch.

RYAN WINS, 56-24

The Matt Micropolitans entered Week 14 with a one-game division lead and a chance to repeat for the Mystic Division Championship. Matt trailed Sam by just one correct pick entering the week. Jason played spoiler. Matt’s 6 correct in the loss and Sam’s 8 correct in the win means Samuel will take the division. Still, at 9-5, Matt had a great year. He finished 14th in pick accuracy.

The Jason JeStErS started off super hot. Jason took home Player of the Week in the first two weeks of the season. Jason also claimed a victory without submitting picks, which is fun. But, the second half of the season saw things go off the rails. The 4-3 first half was countered by a 2-5 second half. Jason finished the year with the 25th ranked accuracy at 50.0% on the nose.

JASON WINS, 28-27

Samuel ends up winning here and claiming the Mystic Division championship. Samuel settled in at 9-5 and finished with 55.7% accuracy which was good enough for 11th in the NPL. As the lone rookie, he’s also our Rookie of the Year. He’s playoff bound after this win.

Vince lost a couple of games that would normally be wins (like this one – 7 correct in a loss is rough) and failed to submit twice, so in another timeline this may have been a really solid season (his 28th rank in pick accuracy notwithstanding). He was in the hunt for the division title for most of the season until losing five out of six spoiled that.

SAMUEL WINS, 44-32

NPL Title Belt Match!

The second half of the season started off pretty rocky for Jerry who went into the turn at 6-1. He then dropped three straight and made the Psychic Division really interesting with a surging Brent and Ricky hot on his heels – even Cari was in the thick of things. But, Jerry corrected course and closed out the year with four straight wins to settle in at 10-4 on the year with the 4th best accuracy in the league, allowing him to snag his fifth Division Champion banner (second consecutive in the Psychic Division) and earn a first round bye week.

Brent had a shaky start to the year, starting off 2-4 before rattling off a five game winning streak to get him back in the conversation for potential division winner. In fact, had Brent won this game and beat Jerry by just four picks, he’d be the one raising the banner. Instead, his 76 correct picks (12th in accuracy) at 8-6 is just shy of what was needed for the Wild Card, so no postseason for him.

JERRY WINS, 46-32

Well, unfortunately for Ricky, this was kind of the opposite of what was needed for his (longshot) hopes at the playoffs. A win would have landed him at the 8-6 mark and from there it would have just taken a more solid performance (say, 8 or 9 correct) to get him to the promised land. But it was not meant to be. Ricky had a really nice stretch in the middle of the season going 7-1 over Weeks 3-10, but dropped the last four to miss the playoffs. Ouch.

Cari was hot right out of the gate, winning her first three contests of the year, but regressed to the mean in the middle of the season. Turns out that five correct picks is not going to be enough week in and week out. Still, she won three of the final four contests to avoid a losing season for the first time since 2016. Cari finished the year at 7-7 with an accuracy of 46.15% (29th).

CARI WINS, 28-12

Brandon very nearly swept the Foreteller Division, going 5-1 against his rivals Adam, LeScoot, and Bette. He closed out the year one pick over 50% in accuracy (50.7%, 20th) and finished with a 7-7 record just missing the playoffs thanks mostly to a rough 1-6 stretch in the middle of the season.

Bette dominated the Soothsayer Conference and was the first player in the NPL to earn a playoff spot, snagging the Foreteller Division banner in Week 12. Bette finished 11-3 (1st) and 2nd overall in accuracy (behind Jennifer) putting her in the same breath as Jennifer in Player of the Year talks. She’ll take the first week off in the playoffs as the #1 seed.

BRANDON WINS, 39-30

LeScoot and Adam were very similar this season. They both finished at 5-9 thanks to LeScoot’s win here, both starting 2-5 and finishing 3-4. They finished three picks apart from each other in accuracy with LeScoot (51.9%, 21st) just edging out Adam (50.4%, 24th). And they even split this match-up, one game apiece. So similar, they don’t even need separate breakdowns.

LeSCOOT WINS, 31-28

Miranda had a rough go of things this season after an okay start, splitting the first four games. After that… ouch. She dropped NINE of her last ten games to finish with her worst accuracy and worst record in her 8-year NPL career. She finished with the 31st ranked accuracy (46.4%) thanks in part to three no-shows.

Ethan needed a couple things to happen for him to sneak into the 2021 post-season. He’s done this before, so it only seemed plausible that it would happen again. In this case, he needed to have a nice strong win (nailed it) and needed poor performances from Joel or Brian in a loss. Unfortunately, both Joel and Brian won, which put the Wild Card just out of reach of Ethan at 7-7. Solid season otherwise, finishing t-6th in the NPL in accuracy.

ETHAN WINS, 46-31

Rachel had the best start to the 2021 season, going undefeated until her Week 7 loss to Berkenbile. That kind of derailed what looking like a dominant season. She then dropped five of the next six games and nearly gave the division to Ethan before correcting course with back-to-back wins to close out the year and claim that Augur Division title. She’ll get the week off as the #2 seed in the Clairvoyant Conference playoffs.

Kelly struggled mightily to get picks in; one of the biggest offenders in terms of no-shows. More than half the league pulled no-shows this year, but Kelly managed to do it three times in a four week span, en route to five no-shows on the year. But, Kelly is a solid player when she actually submits, going 5-4 in those games. She still managed to threaten for a Wild Card despite the pick submission issues.

RACHEL WINS, 45-31

Corey was one win away from taking the division and put in a solid showing but ultimately fell short. Like the rest of his division, he finished 6-8 on the year with a pick accuracy that placed him at 18th in the league (54.1%). This loss was the real killer, as he was alive and well coming into the week.

Andrew suffered from the same pick submission issues as Kelly, netting six no-shows on the year. He closes it out at 6-8 with an accuracy of 53.6%, which would have put him at 17th if not for the no-shows. In fact, had he submitted he may have ran away with the division the way he was playing. In the 8 games where he got his picks in, he was 6-2. Six. And. Two. What?! Travis should send Andrew a nice fruit basket or floral bouquet for taking Corey out twice in the last few weeks of the season.

ANDREW WINS, 46-32

Laci didn’t have much of a shot at the playoffs following a pretty big rough patch in the second half of the season. She dropped six of her last eight, which is a shame considering her promising 4-2 start to the year. A win here wouldn’t have done her any favors either as she was already too far out of things considering tiebreakers. Laci finishes 6-8 with a 45.71% accuracy on the year.

Travis needed a favor this week from Andrew, and he got it. Andrew’s win and Travis’s win here moved everyone in the division to 6-8 and Travis was head and shoulders above the rest of the division in pick accuracy (t-6th, 56.4%) and thanks to a strong finish he rallied from a 2-7 record to finish 6-8 and take the division title.

TRAVIS WINS, 35-0

Steven could not get any kind of streak going. His first nine games were LLW-LLW-LLW. He had a couple tough, quality losses on the year, but was middle of the road (17th, 56.2%) in accuracy. He settles in at 5-9 for the year.

Brian narrowly missed the playoffs last year at 7-7, but improved this year to a much better 8-6. It was a neck and neck race with Joel for the Division Championship up until the end, but had things not went to shit from Weeks 6-11 where Brian went 1-5, it may have been a different story. But, he closed out the year with three straight W’s, and finished t-8th in the league in pick accuracy (55.7%).

BRIAN WINS, 28-13

Aside from an early three-game losing streak, Joel never really floundered. It was his division banner from Week 5, essentially, where Joel really warmed up, closing out the season 7-3 from there. Joel was t-2nd in the NPL in pick accuracy with Bette and takes home his second Oracle Division banner.

Chris had a couple weeks that could have gone his way with 6+ correct, but outside of that this was another disappointing campaign. For the third season in a row, the Win-Loss columns either show a 4 or a 10. At 4-10 this year, that marks just one winning record for Chris since the 2013 season. He finished at 22nd in the NPL in pick accuracy at 51.1%.

JOEL WINS, 38-21

Kevin struggled with pick accuracy this year, with six weeks with 4 correct or worse. He did snag a Player of the Week award in Week 5 with 9 correct picks, but his accuracy (51.4%, 19th) was his worst since 2013 (47.1%). He was better in the second half of the year, but only by one win, and finishes at 5-9.

Jennifer was unrivaled through 10 weeks, starting the year 9-1, only dropping one game to her equally talented rival in DaVena. She didn’t have a strong finish, closing out the year 1-3, but lost two of those games via the MM Tiebreaker, so she still played well. She finished in a tie with DaVena for the division lead, but her 1st place pick accuracy was all that was needed to give her the banner and the #1 seed.

JENNIFER WINS, 41-34

Axell started nearly as poor as you can, with 1 correct pick in Week 1. That unfortunately set the standard, and Axell won just 2 of his first 7 games. But, he rallied back closing the year out with a 4-3 finish to improve on his record from last year. His accuracy (52.3%, 23rd) took a bit of a dip, but the record improved by one game to 6-8. Here’s to 7-7 next year!

It’s pretty rare that The Commish finds themselves rooting for a player as the season progresses. He’s got his own picks to worry about. But as Jennifer and DaVena went back and forth at the top of the Sage Division, The Commish couldn’t help but root them on! DaVena finished in the Top 5 in pick accuracy (57.1%) and was one of just four teams with 10+ wins on the year. If not for Jennifer having a better accuracy (by 3 picks!), DaVena would be the #1 seed in the Clairvoyant Conference. What a great year!

DAVENA WINS, 36-21

This game had the most interesting playoff implications so it was flexed to PRIIIIIIIME TIIIIIIIME so we could watch these two duke it out for the Prophet Division championship. With both teams entering the final week standing at 8-5, the winner of this game is the division champ and the loser will determine how the Wild Cards play out.

Both teams took wildly different paths to get to 8-5. Berkenbile started the year 2-4 and then finished strong with a six-game winning streak. Michael, on the other hand, utilized a six-game winning streak early on to start the year 6-2. It was a tough final five weeks, where Michael managed just two wins, failing to secure the division banner.

Berkenbile finishes the year at 9-5 to take the Prophet Division championship, his second in the last three seasons. His pick accuracy of 48.5% placed him all the way down at 27th on the year, the lowest of any playoff team by a mile.

Michael finished t-8th in pick accuracy at 55.7% and his 8-6 record finds him above .500 for the first time since 2018.

In a “the worst case scenario” win for Ryan and Brent, Berkenbile’s victory over Michael here moved the stronger team into the fight for the Wild Card, so that will go to Michael. Had Michael won, however, the remaining Wild Card would have gone to whomever ended the year with more correct picks between Brent and Ryan. Crazy.

BERKENBILE WINS, 37-5