Let’s do this.
Trades
Trade 1: Two teams swapped first round draft picks (Kareem Hunt #8 overall, for Julio Jones #11 overall) to better their rosters at those positions. This was a good example of a win-win trade. Each team got something they needed, for a small price. Both gained in the end.
Advice: This is the trade scenario you should look for – where one team has a shortfall, and you have an available asset to offer. Both teams need to feel they are gaining in one position, without sacrificing another.
Trade 2: Let me tell you this, I’m gonna start at an 11. Then I’m gonna take it to about a 15 real quick! One team doled out their top WR1 (Brandin Cooks) for…I don’t know…an untested, hammed up RB in a two-back set (Corey Clement), and a bye-week WR at best (Nelson Agholor), both from the same team – meaning both going on BYE at the same time leaving empty spots to be filled.
I’m going to open a discussion thread on this one, as I’m curious of everyone’s take on this trade. I see this as a big loss for one team playing in a PPR league who just traded away a WR1 on an NFL team whose QB just broke the all-time passing yards record, and a huge freebie for another team who now has two of the top fifteen WRs in the league. I guess time will tell on this one.
Advice: Announce your willingness to trade someone to the league (i.e., put them on the trading block), before making a deal, and let the offers come in. I guarantee you will receive very reasonable offers this way. Also, don’t accept the first lowball offer (pause) counteroffer, and utilize future draft picks with the option as leverage.
Strength of Schedule (SOS)
The Strength of Schedule looks at the differential between your actual W/L results and the W/L results if you had played each of the other 11 teams in the league that week. Ideally, each of us would be right down the middle, i.e., the top six scores each week would all win their matchups. Unfortunately, the top six results aren’t always matched up against the bottom six results.
Looking at the full data set, Davante’s Inferno looks to have had the easiest schedule to date, but DI hasn’t won any games in the lower 1/3 of the weekly results. DI’s just been bouncing around the middle landing gut shots. To be fair, DI lost a big one in Week 4 to one of only three teams that could have beaten him – ironically against his arch rival in the post GBJ era, Christian’s Brothers.
These two teams have faced each other three times in their last 5 matchups, counting last season. DI is up 2-1 in this 5-week span with a League Championship in tow. And wrote a hit play and directed it, so he’s not sweating it either.
I want to break this down further as Week 6 provided some great examples of wins and losses outside of the top-half/bottom-half metric. This is where the dagger digs the deepest. *You can click in the image below to expand it in to another browser tab.
Grabbing a win or dropping a loss in the meat of the weekly results is expected. But dropping a game after putting up 180+ is a stab in the fucking heart. This has happened six times already this season, and twice in Week 6. Luckily the pain has been evenly spread and no one team has absorbed this damage more than once.
What does this mean? This means that the swings in the SOS results are mostly happening in the middle 1/3 bracket. This means that you don’t need to look for that knockout punch (that huge waiver wire grab, or breakout performance); you just have to grind it out in the middle and exchange body blows to pull out a victory.
Keep profiling your players and their matchups, plan ahead for BYE weeks, and nickel-and-dime your expendable positions (K, DEF, LB) each week in order to gain an advantage inside. That’s when you will pick up wins in the middle.
Post Draft Standings
I like this chart. Not really sure what we can get out of it, but I like it. There’s a slight correlation, but really nothing you can get out of it at this point. I guess the lesser the gap between your number of wins and number of remaining drafted players is an indication that you are doing more with less; or maybe it means you drafted like shit. I’ll work on this one and apply some more factors.
It is clear that almost half the league has already dropped, lost, or traded away 40% or more or their drafted players. Only three teams have retained their original top eight draft picks – only one of which is in the top half of the league standings, proving these results truly are a mixed bag.
League Leaders
QB – Tannehill4President (Jared Goff, 53.95 points, Week 4)
WR – SKOLya’gain (Tyreek Hill, 47.05 points, Week 1)
RB – Reason to Kerrigan (Alvin Kamara, 43.10 points, Week 1)
TE – Christian’s Brothers (Travis Kelce, 29.90 points, Week 2)
K – The Brady Bundchen (Stephen Gostkowski, 22.00 points, Week 6)
DEF – SKOLya’gain (Baltimore, 61.50 points, Week 6)
LB – Whitey Ford’s Team (T.J. Watt, 18.00 points, Week 5)
Single Game – Bagel Time (226.75 points, Week 4)
I’m off to lift weights and drink a couple thousand beers with PJ, Tobin, Squee, Donkeydong Doug, and Matt Damon. The pain begins in Week 8. #TheJuiceReturns
The Lombardi Three 