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Who needs to March for the madness to start? We've been building up for this moment all year with our GIF of the Week recaps after every game and now it's time to reap the fruits.
The Methodology
We seeded the GIFs based upon three factors: 1) did they win their week?; 2) what was their percentage of the weekly vote?; 3) what were their raw votes?
The 19 weekly winners received the top seeds, further sorted by their raw vote counts.
The remaining GIFs were sorted by the percentage of the weekly votes received, with tiebreakers going to those with more raw votes.
The Result
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We'll be publishing two match-ups every day, starting with the vote for the final seed, with the luxury of getting stomped by Malcolm Butler!
Tale of the Tape
Chandler Jones Bulldoze Loss:
Remember when the season was young and the year was full of hope? This is how Chandler Jones rebounded from an awful Week 1 showing against the Dolphins, with a complete and utter domination of the Minnesota Vikings. He just completely disregards his blocker's attempts and pushes them directly into the line of the ball carrier and forces a takedown.
Jonas Gray is a Machine:
Is it weird that there wasn't a better GIF for Jonas Gray's absolutely HAM day against the Colts back in Week 11? It's because he just enforced his will over Indianapolis' defense until they just stopped caring. They had no response and Gray ran for a first down or a touchdown on 40% of his carries.
Gray had 15 carries where the Patriots needed six or fewer yards for a first down or a touchdown (ex. 2nd and 6). He converted 13 of those attempts. One of his non-conversions was a four yard gain on 2nd and 5 from the Colts eight yard line.
There was just nothing the Colts could do and this game inspired one of the wildest weeks in Patriots history.
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Let's kick it off! Which GIF wins?!