Guest Blog: Shot Spot Prediction

 (Editor's Note: Today's guest blog is from Mr. First-or-Last Mike Honcho himself, Weissbard.)

A few weeks ago, shot spot seemed like a guarantee for me. A few triumphant wins later and suddenly there's 4 potential shot spotters in play with 3 games left (kumpf, marco, and gutman technically have the same record as Billy but his points scored is so putrid I'm leaving the 3 of them out and only including Billy as the 4-7 team). I'm in the most precarious position, but stranger things have happened (like me having a chef's hat but consistently being a top 3 division draft pick. Maybe you're all just haters)

Potential Shot Spotters:

Weissbard

The current favorite and potential to be the first person in FALAFEL history to repeat as shot spot. 2nd lowest points scored isn't great and I probably have the most difficult schedule remaining with Marco fighting for this playoff life, Alan holding onto his playoff life, and Ajay looking for the bye. Realistically, I need to win 2 of 3 remaining games because even if Barnard or Levine drops a game, my points scored is very, very bad. Maybe historically bad (though Billy is worse and we'll get to that). The jets on a bye means another week of playing McLaughlin (enter a sarah mclachlan sad song joke here) vs Marco and with a loss to Ajay pretty much guaranteed (gg Ajay grats on the playoffs) things aren't looking good for me.

Billy

My best shot at avoiding the shot spot is Billy to lose out. Realistically, the man who skips his wife's birthday every year for the draft will be doing the shots regardless because he's there for a good time. But it would be nice to have it mandated so I can skip out on it. Billy's worst in the league in points scored and 6th in points against including wins with 81 points and 70 points. He plays a hot AGD (we've been calling them this for so long a re-watch of the name origins is well worth it. Also I grabbed dinner with them last week and can confirm they live next door and the baby monitors work in each other's living rooms so they can hang while the babies sleep), and then a struggling Levine and Barndog. For some reason, Levine feels dangerous (in fantasy, not IRL), and barnard seems like an easy win, but Levine is bottom of the barrel for points and Barnard is 7th. I wouldn't be surprised if Billy lost all 3 games but expect my team to do the same (grats again on #1 seed Ajay gg)

Levine

SRL (are those just Steve's initials? Is that a worse team name than "ajay" or "ajayajay") is only 1 game ahead of me for last place and shockingly only 87 points ahead of me in points scored. My team has only scored more than 87 points 3 times this season so that's a pretty insurmountable gap to make up, but the way my season has been going even being in the same realm as my points wise means you're not doing great. Levine has huge shot spot implications the next 2 weeks with games vs Barnard and Billy and then a season finale vs BMO where Mejia will forego any new father duties to insult Levine for the week/maybe golf with him. 1 win should be enough to keep him safe though and he should at least get that.

Barndogs

Lots of hype in mainstream media with Putin Esco pumping up his popularity only for everyone to realize he's only a game ahead of me. A lot can happen in 3 weeks but I think everyone can agree seeing these standings when sorted by points scored is hilarious. "Ok 2nd place is 1st in points scored that sounds about right. 3rd is 4th, seeing a pattern here for the most pa- wtf who is that in 12th place?"

Having the most points against you will do that and I'm sure if Barnard's gambling losses write offs weren't distracting him, he'd be much saltier than usual. A remaining schedule of Levine, Esco, and Billy, should result in 2 wins. But I'm assuming Levine will drop 175 on him, Esco will drop 65 on him as his team scores 64.7, and then Billy and Barnard will tie. Not at halftime though (inside joke, you had to be there to get it)

Final predictions:

Last place - Weissbard

2nd to last but still doing shots anyway - Billy

(Ed: I agree with almost all of this, other than Gutman not being at risk of back to back shot spots himself.)