Super Bowl Preview 2017

#1 Battle Angel (9-4) vs #1 Dirty Birds (8-5)
Both number one seeds in the two conferences took care of business last week, pounding their opponents into submission by scoring over 140+ points each. It’s unlikely Todd Gurley and Cam Newton will go over 40+ each again, but who knows! These were the two highest powered offensive teams in the league -- despite some pre-season doubts putting Angels at #10 in the power rankings -- this year so a shootout on championship Sunday could be coming.

Dirty Birds rushed out of the gates 5-0 before tumbling back to Earth a bit but they’ve been rock solid in recent weeks, and used their first round bye to rest up. A team ravaged by injuries — Odell Beckham Jr, Andrew Luck, rookie Alvin Cook, and many lesser lights — has still been good enough to get to the final game in a weird weird NFL season. The two headed monster of Gurley and LeSean McCoy has been outstanding and while T.Y. Hilton (acquired from Battle Angels pre-draft) has been disappointing, Dez Bryant (another pre-draft acquisition) has been just enough to help the team out.

After that, there’s been a series of pretty weak WRs on the roster, thus the last minute free agent grab of Keelan Cole, who has been red hot on fire the past three weeks. Could Cole be the x-factor here? As for the flex position, Jerick McKinnon will get the chance to shine as there isn’t really a whole lot of options left behind him. At tight end, Hunter Henry is now on IR but Delanie Walker has been better all season anyway. He’ll serve as the safety valve for Philip Rivers, who gets the start over Dak Prescott, who has been boom or bust this season.

As for Battle Angels, they faced a big quarterback decision of their own as they’ve got Newton and Drew Brees on the roster and have split starts between the two of them. Newton has scored 198.1 points for Angels this season, while Brees has scored 190.6. Maybe Vu can play both, one per half? Either way, they’ll have the best TE in the league to toss the rock to in Travis Kelce, who came over pre-draft from Dirty Birds. (Great trade eh?!) Jarvis Landry has been a flat out star this season — acquired pre-draft last year — and he’ll be joined by Jamison Crowder and Mike Wallace, who have been inconsistent but useful. There’s a chance Kelvin Benjamin, Robby Anderson, or old favorite Randall Cobb could show up in the starting lineup, but for now it’s Landry plus Crowder and Wallace. Either way, it’s clear that Angels have a big edge in the receiving department.

The question is what will the running game look like? Is Vu really going with Kerwynn Williams and Theo Riddick as his RB2 and FLEX positions? Could be! It really may not matter here though as likely ROY Alvin Kamara (undrafted by the way, fantasy football is stupid…) has been incredible save one week in WK14 when he left a game due to concussion. Aside from that, Kamara has been just as good as Gurley and could explode for huge fantasy points at any time.

There's a lot on the line for both teams. Dirty Birds could become the first four-time title winner in CTDB history (and second in three years) while Angels haven't added a championship to their trophy room since 2008. Overall, Battle Angels haven’t scored less than 123.9 points since WK7 so they’re likely going to be tough to upset. We predict an easy Angels win, unless something wonky happens.

Note: Let's not forget the pre-draft controversy that exploded and resulted in Dirty Birds having to compensate Angels an extra RD2 pick in 2018. That would be sure adding salt in the wound if they lost, right?!?