Coaching Sees No Boundaries, Especially In The Fantasy Football Playoffs

Ross D Franklin. Shutterstock Images.

Mike Napoli had a tremendous career in the MLB as a player on the Angels, Rangers, Red Sox, and Indians. He now serves as the First Base Coach for the Chicago Cubs and you can tell that he's fully a coach now. Because he took an undermanned squad and led them to a 1st round fantasy playoff upset of the one of the hottest teams in the league, co-managed by Shane Bieber and Austin Hedges. 

It was a tight contest to coming down to Monday Night with Aaron Jones needing to beat his 15.5 projected points after Napoli got big performances out of Jalen Hurts, Diontae Johnson and Christian Kirk. His strategy of hoarding QBs worked out as well with Bieber and Hedges having to trot out Matt Ryan after losing Kyler Murray for the year less than a week earlier. 

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Strong performances from Christian McCaffrey and the Browns D/ST couldn't overcome the subpar QB play that led the team. Justin Tucker also picked the wrong game to have an off-day as Bieber and Hedges fell by less than six points to Napoli.

The other matchup saw the Cinderella story of Christian Yelich and Jace Peterson face off against one of the top teams in the league, managed by Jake Marisnick. These teams both spent early draft picks in Quarterbacks, but Yelich and Peterson got hurt by Herbert's tough fantasy playoff schedule, while Marisnick got an elite outing from the real QB1, Josh Allen. That 35.14 point difference was really the difference in the match as the rest of it was pretty even. Team Questionable got a terrific day from Dalvin Cook in that historic comeback and David Montgomery proved his worth when they needed him. James Conner also had a strong showing, but it was no match for Saquon Barkley, Travis Kelce, and Josh Allen. Marisnick's team is so stacked, they are a legitimate threat to win it all despite not having a bye. 

They'll move on to play season points leader, Mike Moustakas in the semi-finals while Napoli gets the #1 seed, Wil Myers with a title shot on the line.