“At the end of the day, we’re all gonna die.” Said neckless, LA Rams Offensive Tackle, Andrew Whitworth, after the most unwatchable, uneventful, uninspiring Super Bowl in modern history. I won’t call it boring. Boring is too easy. Babies are boring. They haven’t travelled and they have no sense of irony. Saying something is boring is putting as little effort into your narrative as those two teams gave last Sunday. That Super Bowl was Virginia Cavalier walk-it-up-the-court basketball. That Super Bowl was the third hour of Monday Night Raw. That Super Bowl was basic bitches instagramming their food.
BigWhit77 is right, in the Tibetan-philosophy, Sylvia Plath-sense; we’re all gonna die, but is it too much to ask for football not to look like that before we go? The only glint of distraction was watching that human steroid, Julian Edelman, go full water-boy for four straight quarters. Surely that ball-hair beard was enough evidence to get him thoroughly drug tested after the game. Let’s not forget, the guy was suspended for four games at the beginning of the season for a failed drug test involving PEDs.
Try to imagine the difference in tone if theoretically a World Series MVP had been popped for PEDs and missed 40 games. You can’t, because it’s not possible. MLB players busted during the season can’t play in the postseason. Baseball drug cheats are met with pitchforks. Football drug cheats are met with shrugs. They aren’t even really considered cheats. To quote the Patriots #1 fan, and bitch-boy for Russians and billionaires: “Sad!” The only consolation will be watching the NFL retract his MVP trophy after they dipstick that cloudy piss. Also, Sylvia Plath was the original Masshole. BigWhit was trolling on a world-class level with that quote.
Yes, one of my lengthier rants, but our season’s final post needs to be sharp, in vogue, and on trend – the three rules of fantasy football league blogs. And my creative writing teacher always said it was good to start with a quote. Where it went from there is a result of the fact that I took creative writing in community college and I stopped paying attention after the first few classes. Luckily, it’s easy to wax poetic about loathing New England sports teams.
To bigger and better things…
Following a two-week layover in the neighbor’s backyard, The Lombardi Three trophy found its way home to the 2018 League Champion, REASON TO KERRIGAN.
RTK paid his dues, drafted well, and put in the work. His squad showed up on game day and routed the competition by more than 47 points. It wasn’t even close. RTK finished his third year with a 10-6 record and averaged 185.75 points through the post season. Congratulations my friend. Welcome to the club. *TL3 Logo has been updated to include seven stars, representing each of our seven seasons.
2018 League Leaders by Position
It’s worth mentioning that two teams, with the exception of WR, owned the 2018 league leaders at each position. One of these teams didn’t even make the playoffs!
- QB – Davante’s Inferno (Patrick Mahomes, 534.90 points)
- RB – Christian’s Brothers (Christian McCaffrey, 381.00 points)
- WR – Whitey Ford’s Team (Davante Adams, 330.60 points)
- TE – Christian’s Brothers (Travis Kelce, 283.40 points)
- K – Davante’s Inferno (Ka’imi Faibairn, 156.00 points)
- DEF – Davante’s Inferno (Chicago Bears, 462.65 points)
- LB – Christian’s Brothers (Darius Leonard, 167.50 points)
Points Table Format
I want to leave everyone with something to think about in the offseason. Going forward we are going to play a Points Table format every four years. The next season being our eighth together, we will be competing in a 12-team playoffs over four weeks (Weeks 13-16) with the top four teams on BYE in Week 13. Tournament bracket will look like the following.
Regular season and playoff standings will be determined by your head-to-head record had you played each team in the league, each week. For example, if you score the most points in the league in Week 1, your Week 1 record would be 11-0, meaning you would have beaten each of the other 11 teams in the league. The next highest scorer would be 10-1, and so on. After 12 weeks, the total of each weekly record determines your playoff standings. Playoff competition returns to the standard head-to-head format.
I’m not sure how the setup or the schedule will look on Yahoo yet, but the weekly matchups wont really matter much as you are competing against everyone in the league each week. Had we done this in 2018, the results would have been vastly different. Especially for those teams that suffered significant bad breaks throughout the season, simply based on the randomness of scheduling, e.g., Christian’s Brothers. CB would have made it to the finals and Reason to Kerrigan wouldn’t have made it out of the first round.
The previous three seasons (2015-2017) were also analyzed based on a Points Table setup. The results were mixed.
2019 Constitutional Amendments
I am implementing the following Constitutional Amendments in 2019 to apply the four-year Points Table format, and implement a protection clause for an issue that we almost encountered this season.
Hear ye, hear ye, as The Lombardi Three Commissioner I enact the following amendments to our Constitution.
19.1 – Four Fists: Every fourth season will be played in a Points Table format. Regular season and playoff standings will be determined by your head-to-head record had you played each team in the league, each week. Playoff competition returns to the standard Head-to-Head format. In the case of a 14-team league, only the top 12 teams make the playoffs.
19.1.1 – ANTISO: When playing under the Points Table format, the $/win payout is removed from the Available Winnings.
19.1.2 – Chocolate Gold: When playing under the Points Table format, the payout for Regular Season Highest True Coach Ranking is replaced with Regular Season 3rd Place Bonus.
19.1.3 – Cobra Kai: When playing under the Points Table format, each team makes the playoffs, therefore there is no Consolation Bracket winner. This automatic position in the draft is removed and the guaranteed draft pick positions shift up.
19.2 – Magnum: At the end of the regular season, if a team scores the most points in the league and fails to qualify for the playoffs based on head-to-head matchups, that team automatically qualifies for the bottom seed in the playoffs, replacing whatever team currently occupies that position.
Again, things to chew on in the offseason. Congrats once more to Reason to Kerrigan. Looking forward to clinking trophies in a couple of weeks on a victory tour through Northern Virginia’s brewscape.
Cheers to everyone this summer. Travel safe.
-The Commish
The Lombardi Three 