Both the league’s 3-time champions, the current defending
champion, and this year’s highest scoring team.
What more could you possible ask for from the AldenLeague Semifinals? It’s a powerful foursome, and here’s the
breakdown of this weekend’s matchups:
#1 Most Murderous
(10-3) vs. #5 Andy’s Red Hots (7-6)
All-time postseason series:
1st ever meeting
All-time postseason records: MM (11-6), ARH (3-6)
Last meeting: Andy’s
Red Hots won 162.75-104.74 in 2011’s Consolation Bracket Semifinals.
Yahoo! Projection: Most Murderous wins, 155.47-150.15
Thursday’s Results: ARH: AJ Green – 14.14 pts. MM: Andy Dalton – 14.99
ACQs left: MM:
0. ARH: 1
These two teams are as close as can be. Andy won the AldenLeague scoring title this
year, but Puzan finished 3rd – a close third, in fact, trailing Andy
by less than 3 points. Yahoo! projects a
matchup of 5 points difference. This
could be a tight one. Andy’s used to
tight ones (ooohhhh!), because last week he rode Tom Brady (oooohhhh!) and his
big Monday Night Football performance (46.74 pts) to an incredible comeback 2-point
win vs. the L.A. Ninjas last week. While
Brady has a tough matchup this week vs. San Francisco, Puzan’s QB2 Andy Dalton
didn’t help the cause much by putting up a meager 15 points in his Thusday
night game. Most Murderous teammate QB
Josh Freeman hasn’t hit the 30-point mark in a month. In very atypical Puzan
fashion, Most Murderous is going to rely on their running backs in this
matchup, with Arian Foster projected to be the highest scoring player of either
team in his matchup against Indy. Andy
made a bit of a splash in free agency leading into this game by picking up
Colts WR T.Y. Hilton to replace the injured Percy Harvin. Hilton finds himself among the biggest
starting lineup question of this matchup, as Andy (for the moment) appears to
be going with him over Jacksonville rookie Justin Blackmon, who has faltered in
the past two weeks after putting up two very big weeks previously. All other significant players for both teams
seem healthy and without injury question.
Most Murderous TE Rob Gronkowski was rumored to possibly rejoin practice
this week, but so far that hasn’t happened and a return for the top TE seems
unlikely.
#2 CheektoWojo (10-3)
vs. #3 The Skyns (10-3)
All-time postseason series:
The Skyns leads 1-0, winning 189.22-117.88 in the first round of the
2009 playoffs, the first-ever postseason victory for the franchise.
All-time postseason records: The Skyns (4-6), CheektoWojo (8-5)
Recent History: The teams split their season series, with Adam
winning 150.73-137.63 in Week 4, and Hoskyns returning the favor 153.87-96.56
in Week 10.
Yahoo! Projection: The Skyns wins 161.83-152.78
Thursday’s Results: ARH: CW: Jeremy Maclin – 8.43, Bryce
Brown – 6.43. TS: Jermaine Gresham – 9.00.
ACQs left: CW: 3. TS: 1
Tied at the top of the Cobras Division, CheektoWojo earned
the title based on divisional records and took the week off last week, while
The Skyns shellacked The Risen 190.35-144.47.
That seems like a big score and a clicking team until you look at what
Adam would’ve put up had he played:
199.39 points on the bye. There
would be fireworks here. Perhaps the
biggest question of the matchups is the health of CheektoWojo QB Robert Griffin
III. RG3 has been practicing throughout
the week, which is a good sign, but will the LCL sprain limit his rushing
output? Luckily for Adam, Washington
plays the early 1:00 game on Sunday, leaving him with time to find a
replacement should Griffin not be able to go.
Possible replacement candidates could include some more rookies: Seattle’s
Russell Wilson @ Buffalo or Cleveland’s Brandon Weeden vs. Washington. In other
injury news, The Skyns’s star WR Calvin Johnson has been limited in practice
all week with sore knees, but has scored 15+ points in 6 straight weeks
now. A big part of this game will go
down on the late Sunday Night game, as both of Hoskyns’s QBs face off against
each other when Ben Roethlisberger leads the Steelers into Dallas to take on
Tony Romo and the Cowboys. Early results
weren’t so favorable for CheektoWojo, as RB Bryce Brown laid a 6-point egg vs.
Philly. That being said, Brown laid an
even worse egg last week (1.71 pts), but Adam’s team still fell just short of
hitting the 200-point mark. The biggest
starting lineup question comes at CheektoWojo’s other RB spot, with Steven
Jackson (vs. MIN) currently sitting in the starting slot instead of Shonn
Greene (@ TEN), with their Yahoo! projection numbers giving Greene an
ever-so-slight projected edge. Hoskyns
could toy with putting Anquan Boldin in a WR instead of the erratic Lance Moore,
who has scored 20, 9, 18, and 4 points in his last four games.
