It’s two-time champion Matt Neatock going against three-time champion Bob Castrone. We haven’t had this many past championships since 2011 when Bob and I had four combined. It’s going to get good, folks.

BOB VS MATT…BY THE NUMBERS BOB CASTRONEMATT NEATOCK 2014 Win-Loss Record12-3-010-5-0 2014 Scoring Total24,01422,018 2014 Points Per Game1,6011,468 2014 Points Against18,07119,226 2014 1,500-Point Games98 2014 High Scores32 Career Record104-7586-84 Playoff Record15-68-4 Career Points Per Game1,3371,308 Career Playoff Points Per Game1,4211,469 Career 1,500-Point Games Percentage29%25% Career High Scores1611

BOB VS MATT THIS SEASON

Back in week four, these two both sat at 2-1, but neither had really gotten going the way they would later in the season. In fact, Matt had his worst outing against Bob, losing 1,334 – 666, producing just his career third weekly low score.

Of course, this match up will resemble nothing like the one we’ll see this weekend, because both Bob and Matt had a ton of players missing that week. Bob’s Andre Ellington was on a bye, as was Larry Fitzgerald and both Calvin Johnson and Le’Veon Bell were a long way from joining the squad. However, Bob was able to overcome -104 from the Falcons DST, just 24 from Hakeem Nicks and 50 from LeGarrette Blount (wait, he was starting Blount?) thanks to Aaron “Just Relax” Rodgers (446 points), 224 from Lamar Miller and 392 from Antonio Brown.

Matt’s team featured four players who will not be making an appearance this week and based on their week four results, he should be happy about that. Nick Foles scored just 62 points, Cordelle Patterson delivered just 76, Jeremy Maclin had just 114 and the Raiders DST produced 18 points.

BOB VS MATT CAREER

These two have faced off 16 times and have split those games. However, Matt had taken three of the last four match ups until this season. This will be the fifth time these two have faced off twice in a season (the first since 2007). They split those match ups three times, with Matt sweeping Bob in 2005.

BOB VS MATT PLAYOFF HISTORY

Surprisingly these two have met just once in the post-season. Way back in 2007, 5-seed Matt pulled off a minor upset over 3-seed Bob in the semifinals. Matt would go on to defeat Calderon the following week for his first title.

BOB’S 2014…A LOOK BACK

The season started with a weekly low score, as Bob lost to Masterson, 1,375 – 861. Over the next three weeks, he produced three straight wins, although two came against Burrier and Eric, two teams who at the time were sitting near the bottom of my rankings. At this point, only Antonio Brown was truly dominating and considering he hadn’t hit 1,400 points yet, after a month of football, Bob was considered middle-of-the-pack at best.

However, as Aaron Rodgers relaxed, Rob Gronkowski got healthy, Andre Ellington turned into one of the best backs and even Lamar Miller got rolling as the starter in Miami, Bob began to score. He delivered three straight wins, cruising past the 1,500-point mark in all three contest. In week eight, behind 478 points from Antonio Brown and a trio of 300-point games, Bob crushed the defending champ (Calderon), 2,179 – 650, the second greatest ass-kicking in league history. The following week, in the battle for first place, he owned Colby, 1,818 – 1,391. It was his 8th straight win and fifth straight game over 1,500 points. He averaged a stunning 1,788 during that stretch.

Of course, all good things must come to an end and in week 10, Bob tasted defeat for the first time since week one, being upset by Griff, 1,554 – 1,365. In that game, he was without Gronkowski (bye) and Miller (injury) and made the mistake of sitting Fitzgerald (224) for Eric Decker (48). The decision cost him the win.

However, after a solid win over Don in week 11, Bob pulled off a pair of game-changing trades. First, he landed Calvin Johnson (who had been hurt nearly all season) for Tom Brady (who he got via free agency weeks ago) and then he landed Le’Veon Bell for plenty of talent from a desperate Jeff. Yet oddly, despite the additions, Bob pulled out his worst performance since week one, although he still managed to beat Masterson, 1,274 – 980. The win delivered Bob his first top-seed. In the season’s final week, things went the opposite way. He scored big, 2,089, but managed to lose to Burrier, who hit 2,117. The two combined to score a record 4,206 points, as Bob became the first team to score 2,000 and lose.

Heading into the post-season, Bob was sitting pretty as the top seed and scoring champ. He proved his worth in the quarterfinals, riding another 500+ performance from Bell to become the first person in league history to break 2,000 in back-to-back game, ending Calderon’s dream of a repeat, 2,333 – 1,171. The 2,331 points were the third most points scored in a game.

In the semis, he had some tough match ups, but all that managed to do was give his opponent, Griff, false hope. He won easily, 1,512 to 1,306, producing his ninth 1,500-point game of the year. He reaches the title game for the third time in five seasons.

MATT’S 2014…A LOOK BACK

While Matt did have a pair of mugs sitting at his home, it had been a few years since he had scared anyone. In the end of 2013, he had what looked like a damn good team, but he was unable to recover from a rough start, getting his playoff dreams dashed in week 13 against me. However, with a trio of good keepers, 2014 was looking good.

Things got off to a decent start with a not-quite-impressive win over me, 1,286 – 1,079. In week two, he took care of business against the preseason number one team in Robio’s Rankings and defending champ, Calderon. However, those two wins were followed up by two loses to Molly and Bob. The reality was, one month into the season, while Jeremy Maclin and Arian Foster were putting up solid stats, Nick Foles, Eddie Lacy and especially Demaryius Thomas were disappointing and there were some solid holes at WR2 (Cordelle Patterson), TE (Zach Ertz) and DST (a handful of failures).

However, in week five, Lacy and Thomas exploded for 1,036 points and Matt crushed Masterson, 2,275 – 1,271. The following week, it was Thomas, Foster and Rivers making noise (combining for 1,114 points) in an easy win over Burrier. Then, prior to week seven, satisfied with Philip Rivers at QB, Matt shipped Foles, Maclin and a handful of others away for Dez Bryant and some change.

With a hot Foster/Lacy at RB and Thomas/Dez at WR, Matt went ahead and declared himself 2014 champion and he didn’t disappoint, beating both Eric and Griff. He had won four straight, averaging 1,854 points per game. However, like Bob above, right when he was at his hottest, he hit a speed bump. With one starter out due to a bye (Lacy), Matt produced his second weekly low score of the season (just his fourth in his career), losing to Don, 1,141 – 809. He would end up winning three of his last four, but those three wins were against two teams (Robio, Jeff) that missed the playoffs and another (Calderon) who was 11th in scoring at the time. The one loss was to Colby, which cost him a shot at the 2-seed.

Sitting as the three seed, Matt had little problem against a struggling Masterson squad, winning his first post-season game since 2009, 1,471 – 1,099. In the semifinals, Molly delivered no resistance, as she produced the week’s lowest score, while Matt had the high, winning 1,679 – 929.

THE MATCH UPS

QB – Aaron Rodgers (Bob) vs. Philip Rivers or Mark Sanchez (Matt)  Listen, if this was week fifteen and Rodgers was in Buffalo facing the league’s top pass defense, I’d say this was wide open. However, he’s not in Buffalo, he’s in Tampa. While that’s still not a home game in Green Bay, it’s not like the Buccaneers have an actual defense. As for Matt, I assume he goes with Sanchez, simply because the Eagles are in must-win mode against a team (Redskins) that have stopped playing. Still, Sanchez’s best game was 330 points, stats Rodgers typically has before halftime. ADVANTAGE: Bob, by a solid margin

RB1 – Le’Veon Bell (Bob) vs. Arian Foster (Matt)  Normally I’d argue these two are dead even, but Bell has been playing simply out of this world lately. Christ, he had 200+ total yard in three straight games and the last one where he didn’t, he had two scores. He’s averaging 520 fantasy points over the last month, you know, since Bob got him.

Foster hasn’t always stayed healthy, but when he’s played, he’s been pretty damn good. He’s averaging 318 points per game when he does play, which is just 16 points per game less than Bell (that’s just 8 yards rushing). The problem he’ll have moving forward is that the Texans are now starting a third-string quarterback and he’s facing the top-rated run defense in the league…talk about bad timing. ADVANTAGE: Bob 

RB2 – Lamar Miller (Bob) vs. Eddie Lacy (Matt) This was suppose to be Andre Ellington, but he’s out, so Lamar Miller it is. It was Knowshon Moreno’s season-ending injury (Matt owned Moreno at the time) that paved the way for Miller, who hasn’t been great, but he’s certainly been reliable. Able to avoid a bad game when healthy, Miller has come back from his week ten injury and averaged 163 fantasy points per game.

Yet, this is the one spot Matt’s got Bob. After a slow start to the season, Eddie Lacy is one of the league’s best backs. Since week eight, he’s averaging 320 fantasy points per game, more than double what Miller has been averaging and he even has a friendly match up vs. Tampa. ADVANTAGE: Matt and it’s solid. 

WR1 – Antonio Brown (Bob) vs. Demaryius Thomas (Matt)  Pretty much all season long, Brown has been the best receiver in football, at least until Odell Beckham got healthy. He’s had just one bad game all season long (88 fantasy points) and in that one he still managed eight receptions. He’s hit 200 points 12 times all year.

Meanwhile, Thomas got off to a very slow start, averaging just 121 points per game. However, he exploded in his next three averaging 447 PPG. Since then he has settled in as one of the best receivers in the league, eventually producing eight straight 200+ games, before hitting a wall in weeks 13/14. His only issue is that Manning hasn’t looked right in weeks and the Broncos go on the road to face a tough Bengals pass D. ADVANTAGE: Bob…slightly 

WR2 – Calvin Johnson (Bob) vs. Dez Bryant (Matt) Heading into the year, these two were projected in my books as the number one and number two receivers in the NFL. However, Megatron got hurt and didn’t really start to come on until lately, producing 412 and 376 points in week 13 and 14, before digressing last week to the tune of 106 points. Luckily for him, he faces a bad Bears D this week. Meanwhile, Dez Bryant is having his best year (coming off a three touchdown game), although prior to that, he had failed to hit 200 in four of his last six. Both these guys can put up magical numbers, but only Dez sometimes struggles when he’s doubled team, something that can happen if DeMarco Murray is out against the Colts this week. ADVANTAGE: Push

TE – Rob Gronkowski (Bob) vs. Zach Ertz (Matt) Do I need to even write anything here? Gronk is the league’s top tight end, 41 points better than the next best tight end this season (Olsen). He’s scored 1,634 more points this year than Ertz and that’s including the fact he didn’t really get going until week five. Since then he’s averaging 297 points per game. Since that time, Ertz has averaged just 93 points per game. ADVANTAGE: Bob and the advantage could only get larger if Matt decided to start no one at TE

PK – Matt Prater (Bob) vs. Conner Barth (Matt) Since taking over as the starting kicker in Denver, there has been no better kicker in the league (granted, three weeks isn’t much of a window to judge). Anyhow, he’s hit 200, 100 and 200 points in those games. Prater is also a late starter, not joining the Lions until week six. He’s 10th in the league among kickers in points per game and he’s actually gotten better lately as the Lions have improved. He’s hit 100 points in five straight game. ADVANTAGE: Matt…slightly 

DST – Patriots (Bob) vs. Rams (Matt) The Rams DST has been fantastic lately and they’ve actually moved into the top-10 among all D’s after back-to-back 300+ games. They even got a somewhat friendly match up this week against a Giants offense that can turn the ball over, especially in St. Louis. However, defense is all about match ups and while the Patriots defense hasn’t been great (worse than the Rams on the season), they’re facing the Jets and there are only six other offenses in the league you would rather face than the Jets. ADVANTAGE: Bob

DEEP THOUGHTS

This is arguable one of the most impressive match ups this league has ever seen in a title game. Bob and Matt have a combined six All-Robio players, four of which are first team players. Based on the current up-to-date stats, this game features the top rated quarterback, the top tight end, the top kicker, three of the top seven running backs and three of the top seven receivers. Yet, too much of it belongs to one man, which means quite simply, Matt has no fucking chance.

With Aaron Rodgers, Antonio Brown, Le’Veon Bell and Rob Gronkowski, Bob has four current #1 ranked players. Fucking four and that doesn’t include Calvin Johnson and a DST facing the pathetic Jets. His one, maybe weak spot is Lamar Miller, who is 15th in the league among all backs.

Now Matt has talent. His foursome of RB/WR’s features Foster, Lacy, Thomas and Bryant. All four could be the top point getter when this week is all said and done. Hell, throw in his kicker into the mix, since he’s been the best kicker over the last three weeks. The problem for Matt has been and remains, his quarterback and TE.

He can’t hope Bob will have a bad game. It won’t happen. Last week, Castrone had a handful of rough match ups and still produced over 1,500 points. For Matt to pull off the upset, he will need a stunningly good game from his quarterback and he’s going to need all of his stars to produce great games and he’ll need at least one, if not two of them, to pull out one of those “holy shit” 500-point games.

FUN FACT: I’m 6-0 in playoff predictions.

WORTHLESS PREDICTION: 

Bob brings home his fourth championship mug, easily beating Matt 2,272 – 1,548. He’ll crush the all-time scoring record (he’s only 835 points behind it right now) and when it’s all said and done, Bob’s 2014 will pass Matt’s 2009 as the greatest season in Robioland history.