15th Annual FALAFEL Draft Location Madness - The Final Four

 

The Final Four is here and is just as everyone predic...

WAIT! Is That Cleveland's Music?

Taking down the super convenient, and super non-specific Jersey Shore?

Interesting Final Four. Montreal is the outlier and probably the most surprising place we haven't been to yet. The other locations are all ideal for long weekends, with Minny and Cleveland super convenient from an airport perspective and Poconos super not convenient from anywhere. Might be time for one of the Adams to give some Airbnb options?

15th Annual FALAFEL Draft Location Madness - Elite Eight

 

The year of the underdog continues as we lose another 1 and 2 seed. This has to be the largest combined seed total in the Elite Eight that we've ever had. 

But I think this round is midnight for our Cinderellas as we revert back to our norms: 1) Top seeds win this bracket, and 2) We loath crossing the Mississippi River.

Barring some unexpected Nashville nostalgia, or Marco worrying about immigration, I expect to see the 1s and 2s facing off in the Final 4. No idea where we go from there so let's get there ASAP.

15th Annual FALAFEL Draft Location Madness - Sweet Sixteen

 

Upset Special!

Without doing any research, I have to think that 6 upsets is the most we've ever had in a single round. And given that there were three byes, nearly half of our matchups saw the underdog win.

That said, three of the upsets were 4-5, and the biggest shocker was maybe Salt Lake City beating Kansas City? The favorites are all still alive.

Special call out to Key West putting up the worst performance we've ever seen by a 1 seed. I think an  8 seed has won before, but Key West only got more votes than two other locations despite being the top seed in it's region. Well done Bennett.

Reading the tea leaves, a Poconos/Minny/Montreal/Jersey final four seems somewhat imminent. All good options, but maybe there's an underdog out there somewhere.

15th Annual FALAFEL Draft Location Madness - The Bracket

 

Here we go!

Interesting bracket for a few reasons:

1. We have our first set of Byes, for top seeds Poconos, Las Vegas, and the Jersey Shore. Key West is the unlucky 1 seed who has to compete in Round 1, and it gets a formidable opponent in Smashville.

2. The Poconos region has to be the most eclectic set of locations we've ever had, even including the fact that there are only 7 in there. We have rural Pennsylvania, a lake in NY that is somehow inconvenient for everyone other than Barnard (and maybe Frank, who I assume lives in a cave nearby), the theme park capital of central Wisconsin, a German city known for Oktoberfest and Hitler (and it's not Oktoberfest), an absolute monolith in DFW, classic NOLA, and generic Charlotte. 

3. Love seeing in the NFC North battle in Jersey Shore's region.

4. Ithaca vs. Kansas City, KS might be a new low for us in terms of excitement. 

5. I can't wait to hear Levine bitch about how unfair this process is when he didn't even submit votes.

Trade Grade 9 (and Trade Deadline Preview)

 As much as I like this post every year, I'm not going to provide my usual detail this year and will be taking the easy way out in general. Shocking, I know. The Trade Deadline is essentially next week after TNF (3am ET), giving us most of 3 NFL weeks to decide who makes the playoffs outside of Nick, Ajay, and Alan.

But to start, and to make my life easier, I'll grade a real trade instead of providing a mock trade:

Trade 9
Esco receives RJ Harvey, Chimere Dike, and Darren Waller
Gutman receives Zach Charbonnet, Jordan Addison, and Ricky Pearsall

Despite the number of players involved here, I'm honestly not sure who the headliner is. I guess Harvey? Esco is certainly treating him like that. To be fair, I had something like this in the works for mock trades, as Esco trading Charbs/Addy/Pearsall for an Harvey was the most obvious move on the board for the whole league. I wasn't really sure what that package could get beyond Harvey, but this seems about right. Dike replaces some deep bench depth and Waller is most comfortable on the IR or in rehab, so it was basically a 1-for-3 trade. Harvey doesn't seem worth that on his own, but I think both teams made the most of what they could, and if both teams are at full strength, none of these guys probably starts (other than maybe Waller!).

Grades:
Esco: B-
Gutman: B

With a week to go, we damn sure better hit double digit trades. The league is pretty wide open, and some of the sleeping giants (Esco, Levine, Billy) are set to make moves to challenge or replace the early-season pretenders (Gutman, Weissbard, Zacherman). 

Mock Trade 1
Nick receives Marcus Mariota, Troy Franklin, and Tyler Warren
Zacherman receives Matt Stafford, Stefon Diggs, and Dallas Goedert

Mock Trade 2
Ajay receives Chris Olave
Bennett receives D'Andre Swift

Mock Trade 3
Alan receives Josh Jacobs, Emanuel Wilson, and A.J. Brown
Levine receives Breece Hall, Devin Singletary, and Justin Jefferson

Mock Trade 4
AGD receives Alvin Kamara and Quentin Johnston
Billy receives George Kittle

Mock Trade 5
Barnard receives Caleb Williams, Jacory Croskey-Merritt, and Rome Odunze
Weissbard receives Lamar Jackson and Xavier Worthy

Mock Trade 6
Kumpf receives Brian Thomas Jr. and Trey McBride
Marco receives Emeka Egbuka and Travis Kelce

Most of these aren't as fun as usual, but a couple of them (2 and 4) seem like win-wins to me. Let's start trading!