Chinstrap Ninjas fantasy football contest: Week 17 results, Playoffs Week 1 lineups

Playoffs are here! Reason to be excited: Extra points for everyone. Playoff players receive points for just playing and they get a bonus if they post a lineup every week of the playoffs (including the Pro Bowl).

If you want to make a move for the top, now is the time to start. Check the end of this post for full playoff rules. For now, let’s get to our Week 17 results.

As usual, read on to see what happened in the contest or skip to the comments and post your Playoffs Week 1 lineups — lots of big guns in those games.

The final week of the NFL season was nutty, but it led to a low-scoring affair in our contest.

Only eight teams posted lineups this week, but our overall leader and No. 2 team. The No. 2 team, Dante Bruno, scored six points to close the gap on Team Name Here in the overall race. But it was not enough to take away the regular season title. Congratulations to Team Name Here, who won the regular season title with 83 points. Dante Bruno started Calvin Johnson, our wide receiver runner up, and our top tight end, Rob Gronkowski to bump his overall score up to 74 points.

Cartisimo and Oops Machine each started Gronkowski and scored five points. Krause started Matthew Stafford, our No. 2 quarterback, to score one point and end the league-wide scoring at 17 points.

Chickenheads & Pigeons didn’t score any points, but in a week as unpredictable as Week 17, a lineup that cut against the grain almost across the board was a smart play. Matt Flynn was our top quarterback after all. C & P started Ryan Fitzpatrick, Kendall Hunter, Victor Cruz and Jared Cook.

Dr. Zoidberg also zagged against his colleagues’ choices, starting Eli Manning, LeSean McCoy, Hakeem Nicks and Jason Witten.

Half of the league, including Purple Coconuts, started Cruz this week and five owners started MJD.

NOTE: Purple Coconuts posted his lineup after kickoff, at around 1:11 p.m. Looking at play-by-play, the players he started had not scored a game-opening touchdown or done anything to affect his lineup decision. The players did not score any points in the contest. I don’t think anyone is purposefully trying to game the contest. That said, I cannot check play-by-play accounts for multiple teams every week. Please do not start anyone playing in a game that has already started. Thanks, E.

Top performers in Week 17:

Quarterbacks

You have to think Matt Flynn is going to start for a team somewhere. He excels every time he’s given the chance. Flynn threw for 480 yards and six touchdowns. He scored 39.2 fantasy points. Matthew Stafford threw for 520 yards and five touchdowns and was the runner up with 38.8 points. Not surprisingly, those ridiculous numbers assaulted Flynn’s and Stafford’s personal best records.

Running backs

Ray Rice led all running backs with 31.9 fantasy points. He rushed for 191 yards and two touchdowns. Michael Turner was our running back runner up, scoring 29.2 fantasy points. He rushed for 172 yards and two touchdowns. That 81-yard scoring play that gave the Falcons a 42-0 lead was his longest run of the season and only two yards shorter than his career long.

Wide receivers

Like several player this week, Calvin Johnson decided to have a career game-like performance in the final game of the season. He accumulated a career-high 244 yards on a career-high 11 catches and scored a touchdown to pile up 30.1 fantasy points. And that was only the second best wide receiver performance in Week 17. Jordy Nelson led the WR corps thanks to a three-touchdown (career high), 9-catch (career high), 162-yard (you know the drill) outburst. Nelson finished with 34.2 fantasy points.

Tight ends

Another week, another best-TE-in-the-game day from Rob Gronkowski. Gronkowski caught eight passes for 108 yards and a pair of TDs. He finished with 27.8 fantasy points. This week, his teammate, Aaron Hernandez, made it an all-Patriots show at TE. Hernandez caught seven passes for 138 yards and a touchdown and rushed twice for 26 yards. He scored 22.4 fantasy points.

Week 17 results

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Regular season final standings

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SPECIAL PLAYOFF RULES

These rules won’t take effect until after Week 17′a games are complete, but rest assured that you’ll want to stick around because things are going to get crazy:

Every team that participates after Week 17 (beginning with Playoffs Week 1) will receive five points just for playing every week. Post a lineup in every week of the playoffs through the Super Bowl and get a longevity bonus of five extra points. That means a team that posts a lineup in all four weeks will earn 25 points just for playing. We recognize and reward sticktoitiveness at Chinstrap Ninjas.

Other bonuses:

• 10 bonus points for starting a week’s top overall scorer. (Example: In Week 16 last year, Aaron Rodgers was started by Chickenheads&Pigeons and was the top point scorer. In the playoffs his performance would be worth 15 points, not just five.) This could be a real game-breaking jackpot. However, there will be far fewer players to choose from each week and there will likely be several “hits,” especially once we get to the conference championships and Super Bowl. Should be interesting.
• The Pro Bowl does count toward this competition.
• Last year we awarded one bonus point for Tough-Luck Award winners. This year, Tough-Lucks have been worth one point all season. Since we’ve upped the ante elsewhere, let’s award another point. So, in the playoffs, runners-up are worth two points.
• Of course regular season bonuses still stand, so selecting multiple correct responses will get you the usual bonuses.

Post a lineup for Week 17 in the comments. It’s never to late to join up. Each owner has a chance to score up to 35 points in a week, enough to move into the top-10.

To learn more about the contest, including scoring/lineup rules or to see Week 1′s lineups thread, go to the original post.

Week 1 results, Week 2 lineups

Week 2 results, Week 3 lineups

Week 3 results, Week 4 lineups (with September’s champions)

Week 4 results, Week 5 lineups

Week 5 results, Week 6 lineups

Week 6 results, Week 7 lineups

Week 7 results, Week 8 lineups

Week 8 results, Week 9 lineups (with October’s champion)

Week 9 results, Week 10 lineups

Week 10 results, Week 11 lineups

Week 11 results, Week 12 lineups

Week 13 lineups

Week 12 results (with November’s champion)

Week 13 results, Week 14 lineups

Week 14 results, Week 15 lineups

Week 15 results, Week 16 lineups

Week 16 results, Week 17 lineups (with December’s champion)