Monday, 8:30 PM.
One game back from moot for the 4th and final playoff spot in Smogon League A, solid points scored lead and I'm looking at 140+ this week. Tied with Texas and Huy. Texas already lost, I play Huy next week. All I need is a combined 13 from DeSean Jackson and Jordan Reed for WaterBomb to beat moot, myself just over 9 points from McFadden to beat Stallion, the only person to secure a playoff spot and all but locked up the #1 seed already. Cautiously optimistic.
2:00 left in the game.
Nothing but pain, despair, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The Romo-less Cowboys are as offensively inept as they always are, the Redskins are who we thought they were. Absolutely no relevant fantasy football scoring has occured, unless you're playing one of the kickers. I think they've outscored any combination of
two skill position players in this game, not because they've kicked an ungodly number of field goals but because the offenses have simply been that incompetent. Hopkins even missed two.
1:47 remaining.
Suddenly, Dallas and Washington do what they do best: zany fucking shit at the end of the game that inexplicably leads to a shitton of points scored that shouldn't be. DJax makes one of the most retarded plays of the year by running backwards 20 yards, across the entire width of the field and fumbles it! Dallas manages to not screw it up and McFadden punches in the touchdown!
All it takes is 30 seconds for Dallas to revert to Dallas. Long kickoff return, questionable facemask penalty, and Jackson catches a touchdown pass from 30 yards out! WaterBomb has won, moot is vanquished! Unfortunately, I'm still down by .64 points but Dallas has time to drive themselves. Dallas is also pretty likely to not score and serve me an overtime period where McFadden is all but guaranteed more stats.
0:44 remaining.
Surely McFadden can rush once for 7 yards, right? Dallas has two timeouts and they just need a FG. Maybe catch a quick screen or swing pass to beat one blitz, and ultimately I should still have overtime where he's very likely to get more stats.
Oh boy, the return past the 40. Matt Cassel doesn't actually throw the ball to his running back, whether he's open or not, and the coaching staff has seemingly forgotten that RB is a valid pass-catching position since Dunbar went down (even though McFadden is a good receiver). 20 yards to Dez, two incompletions to Witten and we have a makeable 54-yarder for one of the best kickers in the game. And... it's good. Dallas wins. Yay Dallas. That's my team...
144.80 - 145.54
As a Dallas fan, I've never been more disappointed to see Bailey kick a game-winning 50-yard FG. :(
TL;DR
Now, I'm still not technically out of it yet. Me and Stallion are close enough that a stat correction could legitimately flip the result. Failing that, my play-in scenario next week is fairly improbable but not quite out of the realm of possibility: I beat Huy by 77+, Texas loses again (to #3 seed kd24) or I outscore him by 63, and moot loses again (to #2 seed tad38). Probably not gonna happen but it wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world...
I just needed less than one more point and my play-in scenario was simply "beat Huy."
(Well, and moot doesn't win and outscore me by 80+.) Feels bad man.