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League Radio, Week 8: The Defending Champ Is Already on Life Support
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# League Radio, Week 8: The Defending Champ Is Already on Life Support
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JACKWelcome back to League Radio, Da League edition, Week 8, I'm Jack Monroe, we are rolling, we got Marcus, Alex, Ben, Nico all here, and gentlemen I am going to start with the headline because there is only one headline. Brodie Dean. Seven and one. Two thousand eight hundred eighty nine points. He is doing it again.
MARCUSHe never stopped doing it. That's the thing people need to understand. Brodie didn't fall off. Brodie got robbed in the playoffs last year and now he is back and he is angrier and his team name is HeHateMe which tells you everything you need to know about his mentality right now.
ALEXI want to push back on robbed. Alec beat him fair and square. Fourteen and seven, made the playoffs, got hot, knocked out the number one seed. That is not robbery. That is fantasy basketball.
BENFor context, Brodie went nineteen and two in the regular season last year. Nineteen and two. That is the most dominant regular season this league has ever seen. He set the record and still didn't win the ring. Alec won the ring. Those are the facts.
NICOThe chat last year when Alec beat Brodie was absolutely unhinged. People were losing their minds. I have never seen a reaction like that in this league.
JACKAnd now we are eight weeks into Season Two and Brodie is right back on top. Seven and one. Gooch is right behind him at seven and one as well, two thousand seven hundred points. We have got a two horse race forming at the top of the standings and it feels exactly like last year.
MARCUSExcept last year ended with Alec holding the trophy. So what does that tell us? It tells us the regular season means nothing. Brodie proved that. You can go nineteen and two and still watch somebody else celebrate.
ALEXAlec is five and three right now. He is the defending champion and he is already two games back. Two games back at Week Eight. That is not where you want to be if you are trying to repeat.
BENHis point total is actually strong though. Two thousand seven hundred sixty two points. He is scoring, the wins just are not matching the output. Which means he has had some tough schedule losses, opponents putting up big numbers against him specifically.
NICOThe schedule thing is real. Alec has drawn some brutal matchups. But five and three is still five and three. Defending champ is not playing like a defending champ right now.
JACKLet's talk about the gap between the top two and everybody else because this is significant. Third place is Alec at five and three. Fourth place is 44Colt at five and three. Then you drop to four and four for Nighthawk and Natebarrett. This league has a clear top tier and then everyone else is just fighting for playoff positioning.
MARCUSGooch at seven and one is the story nobody is talking about enough. Shep and Co., two thousand seven hundred points, this guy has been elite all season and Brodie keeps stealing the conversation. Gooch deserves credit.
ALEXGooch deserves credit but Gooch also finished second in this race last year. Eighteen and three and no ring. So the question is the same question it was last year. Can Gooch actually close? Because the regular season record is great. The regular season record means you get a good seed. It does not mean you win.
BENEighteen and three last year is the second best regular season record in league history behind Brodie's nineteen and two. These two guys have been historically dominant for two straight seasons and between them they have zero championships.
NICOThat is a brutal stat. Zero championships between the two most dominant regular season teams across two seasons of this league. Alec has the only championship. From the three seed.
JACKWhich brings me back to Alec and what five and three really means. Because if you told me before the season that the defending champ would be five and three at Week Eight I would have said that team is in trouble. But knowing it's Alec, knowing what he did last year, I am not ready to write him off.
MARCUSI am not writing him off either but I am circling it on the calendar. He needs to start winning now. You cannot give Brodie and Gooch a runway like this and expect to come back. The playoff field is six teams and right now five and three feels safe but it is not comfortable.
ALEXLet's talk about who is genuinely in trouble. Because below the line is a disaster zone in this league. Michael Hebb at three and five. BigSuge at two and six. Blakeeverroad at two and six. CJ Whitaker at one and seven. One and seven at Week Eight.
BENCJ Whitaker went three and eighteen last year. Three and eighteen. That is one of the worst records in league history. He is one and seven right now. He is on pace to make that look like a good season.
NICOTwo thousand seven points for CJ's Squad and you are one and seven. That means other people are putting up massive numbers against you specifically. That is a scheduling nightmare on top of whatever roster issues you have.
JACKThe team name Ayton on Brodie's Team for blakeeverroad is the most self aware thing in this league and I need a moment to appreciate it. This person named their team after the assets they gave to Brodie. That is accountability through branding.
MARCUSThat is actually respect. You made a bad trade, you own it, you put it in the team name so everyone sees it every week when they check the standings. Two and six, you see the team name, you are reminded why you are two and six. That is growth.
ALEXThat is not growth. That is a participation trophy for self awareness. Blakeeverroad is still two and six. The self awareness has not translated to wins. Four and seventeen last year, two and six now, the trend is not improving.
BENBlakeeverroad across two seasons of this league has a combined record of six and twenty three. Six wins in twenty three games. That is below nine hundred winning percentage. That is historically bad.
NICOSix and twenty three. The chat does not even bother reacting anymore when blakeeverroad loses. It has become expected. Which is almost more brutal than the anger.
JACKLet's pivot to the playoff race because this is where it gets interesting. Six teams make it. Right now your locks are Brodie and Gooch at seven and one. Alec and 44Colt at five and three are very likely in. Then you have Nighthawk and Natebarrett at four and four on the bubble.
MARCUSNighthawk at four and four with twenty two hundred points. Shane Gillis Alexander, great team name, but the production is not matching the name energy. Four and four you are in the playoff hunt but you are not safe. One bad week and the bubble gets very uncomfortable.
ALEXNatebarrett went ten and eleven last year and still made the six team playoff field. He snuck in. And he is doing it again. Four and four, twenty one hundred points, this guy finds a way to be just good enough to qualify and then disappear.
BENCoopa Troopas went ten and eleven last year. The cutoff to make the playoffs was ten wins and Nate hit exactly ten. He is the definition of a playoff floor finder. He figures out the minimum and lands on it.
NICOThe chat calls him a cockroach and I mean that in the most affectionate way. You cannot kill Coopa Troopas. Every week looks like elimination week and somehow they are still there.
JACKBelow the bubble you have Michael Hebb at three and five which is still mathematically very much alive but the path is getting narrower every week. Below that you have BigSuge, blakeeverroad, and CJ in the lottery. Two of those teams are basically already confirmed lottery picks.
MARCUSBigSuge at two and six with twenty one hundred eighty points is interesting to me. The points are there. Two thousand one hundred eighty points for a two and six team means something is going wrong with the schedule alignment. But also two and six is two and six.
ALEXBullet Risacher is a great team name and a terrible record. You cannot eat on team name alone. Two and six is you looking at the 2026 draft lottery and figuring out who you are picking.
BENThe bottom four right now, Hebb, BigSuge, blakeeverroad, CJ, all four of these teams missed the playoffs last year. Hebb, BigSuge, blakeeverroad, CJ were all below the line last season. For three of them this is now a two year pattern of missing the playoffs.
NICOTwo year pattern for three teams in a two year old league. That means they have never made the playoffs. Not once. The league is only two years old and some of these managers have zero playoff appearances.
JACKLet me throw a real hot take on the table before we close this out. Brodie goes seven and one again this year. Maybe he goes the distance, maybe he threatens that nineteen and two record. He is the best manager in this league by every measurable regular season stat. And I think he loses in the playoffs again.
MARCUSBack that up. Why. Give me the reason.
JACKBecause this league has shown us exactly once how it ends and it ended with the three seed beating the one seed. Alec did it and nothing Brodie has done since then changes the underlying truth, which is that anyone in the top six can beat anyone in the top six on a given week. Brodie's regular season dominance does not follow him into elimination games.
MARCUSI disagree completely. Last year was an anomaly. You cannot use one playoff result to build a theory about how an entire manager performs in the postseason. Brodie has one playoff sample. One. That is not a pattern.
ALEXIt is literally the only data we have. In this league. In Da League specifically. The only playoff data we have for Brodie Dean is that he went nineteen and two and got eliminated. That is one hundred percent of the evidence available and it is not good.
BENTo be statistically fair that is a sample size of one playoff run. You need more data to draw conclusions. But the narrative is real regardless of the statistics. The story of this league is that Alec beat Brodie. Every week Brodie wins it reinforces the setup for that story to happen again.
NICOThe chat already has a name for it. They are calling it the Alec Effect. Whenever Brodie looks unbeatable somebody mentions the Alec Effect and everyone remembers that unbeatable is not a real thing in fantasy.
JACKThe Alec Effect. I love it. Defending champion at five and three, already behind, already watching Brodie run away with the regular season, and yet the shadow of what he did last year hangs over this entire league.
MARCUSUntil Brodie wins a championship that shadow does not go away. That is the thing. Brodie has to win. Not make the playoffs, not have the best record, win. And he has not done it yet.
ALEXAnd Gooch has not done it either. Two of the historically dominant teams in this league have combined for zero championships. While Alec, who barely cleared the playoff bar last year, is the only person who has won this thing. The league tells a wild story.
BENSeason Two at Week Eight. Brodie and Gooch are running it back. Alec is chasing. The bottom four are looking at lottery balls. The playoff race for spots three through six is genuinely unsettled. This is a good league.
NICOThe reactions when Brodie clinches the regular season title again are going to be must see. And then the reactions if Alec makes the playoffs from five and three and draws Brodie in the first round are going to break the internet. Da League internet at minimum.
JACKThat is the matchup we are all building toward. That is the rematch. Brodie and Alec in the playoffs. And until that happens or until it does not happen every week of the regular season is just prologue.
MARCUSWrite it down. Put it in the calendar. If those two are on opposite sides of a playoff bracket this league is going to explode.
ALEXFive and three needs to become six and three first. Alec cannot sleep right now. He cannot look at the standings and feel comfortable. Five and three with Brodie and Gooch both at seven and one means you are already behind and you have no margin.
BENWeek Nine matchups will tell us a lot. If Alec drops to five and four while Brodie and Gooch hold serve this race tightens in the wrong direction for the defending champion.
NICOEvery week matters now. The chat feels it. You can feel the season starting to compress. Eight weeks in and the narrative is already locked in. Brodie looks unstoppable. We have seen this before.
JACKWe have seen this before is the most important sentence anyone has said today. We have absolutely seen this before. Seven and one, best team in the league, unbeatable. That is what they said last year and Alec has a championship trophy that disagrees. League Radio, Week Eight, keep watching Da League, we will see you next week.