What I Think at the End of the 2015 Regular Season

Congrats to the Duoviri, Mike, Kevin, Tony P, Rich and Barry for making the championship playoffs this year!  Lots of things for those teams to be proud of this season, so I'll get right to it:

• First congrats go to Barry for squeezing into the playoffs even after a Week 13 loss to Mike.  Barry's Mega-Team experiment may have failed, but he definitely stepped up his waiver wire game this season, eliminating his 3-10 season last year and nailing a playoff spot thanks to a massive point total.  If you think it's wrong that a 5-8 team could make the playoffs, just remember the 5-7 Huskers are going to a bowl game.  Okay, maybe a bad analogy.
• Before I jump into talking about the winners, let me congratulate one of the losers.  Two months ago Berk was sitting on the bad side of a 6-game losing streak with no end in sight.  The basement seemed to be his home.  But a few waiver wire changes and confidence in his lineup paid off big time.  Since week 7, Berk has gone 3-3, but he's acquired enough points and beaten the right teams to finish 4-9 and still have more total team points than playoff teams Tony P. and Rich.  Sadly, it snaps a 6-year playoff appearance streak for Berk.  Hold your head up high, Berk.  That was some really good Fantasy Football play for you this season.
• So, the regular season is over and plenty of records made, all of them impressive and worth highlighting.
• The Duoviri ended up with the EW record for best regular season (12-1) ever, as well as the most total team points scored ever at 1576.91.  Like I said a few weeks ago, the game changes and so the point totals will go up.  I think it will be hard for anybody to beat those two records any time soon.  They also have the longest winning streak (11) in EW history.
• Mike scored the 2nd most total team points in EW history, as well as tied the 6th best season record at (10-3).  Mike is going to make a hard push to repeat as EW champion, continuing his 4-year streak of playoff appearances.  For the guy who once named his team "This is the year," I'm happy to see him doing so well.  Time, effort and patience paying off.
• Kevin is on a 2-year playoff appearance streak and scored the 5th highest total team points in EW history.
• Barry's Mega-Team scored the 9th highest total team points.
• And finally, my 3-10 team ties me for the 4th worst regular season record.  Yay me.
• So, let's look at the 2 championship games to be played this week.  First we'll start with Kevin vs. Tony P:
• Kevin is 0-2 against Tony P. this season.
• Kevin's team scored an average 109.09 points each week compared to Tony's 101.59 points.
• The two of them met in a low-scoring snoozer in Week 10, but I expect this week to be a much higher scoring, closer matchup.
• Tony P. has been in the playoffs 7 times but never made the championship.
• Looking at the player matchups, I think the advantage is definitely in Kevin's favor.  Kevin has been riding the Cam Newton/Panther train all season, and there's a great chance that they will light it up again this weekend against a shitty Atlanta defense.  On top of that, most of Kevin's marquis players are facing poor defenses.  
• I'm giving my nod to Kevin to win, but not forget that Tony P. traditionally has his greatest miracles during the playoffs.
• Moving on to Rich vs. Barry:
• They have split their regular season matchups 1-1, both with high point totals for both teams.
• Rich's team scored an average 102.40 points each week compared to Barry's 104.87 points.
• Rich is on a 3-year playoff appearance streak.  As I said before, this is Barry's first playoff appearance.
• For once, I agree with Yahoo.  This will be a very, very close matchup with both teams scoring in triple digits.  In good FF fashion, I think it will come down who picks the best starting line-up.  Both Rich and Barry have some tough choices to make.  Will Barry start Eifert and hope for a big Bengals game, or start Bortles who seems to be on a roll against a weak Colts defense?  Will Rich take Sneed and Culter off the bench?  Tough calls to make there, guys, and ultimately your fate will depend on them.
• My call?  I'm picking Rich by a nose.

Good luck to the four players in this week's matchups!  Thank you all for playing again this year.  I hope you enjoyed it more than last year.  See you again next week as we look to the semi-finals and the 4 teams who will get paid (assuming everyone pays their dues).