A fortnight ago I pimped out a proposition to protract the regular season program one more week. You may have picked up on the passionate pronouncements throughout the hood proudly promoting, “one more week, one more week!” Most of us were pleased as punch about the proposal.
You should know, there were a few things going on that prompted this quite provocative proffer.
- SKOLya’ and I got tangled up in a semi-retarded family league this year (one of the team names is just HORSES), managed by a mixed salad of midwest mamalukes that have neither played fantasy football before, nor do they convey a strong absorption of the gridiron. (In contrast to us obsessive degenerates, to be fair.) We both discerned, “sure, we’ll jump in to your little crapwagon,” as all indications pointed to this being a bloodbath for a couple of hardened vets such as ourselves. It goes without saying, they made all the mistakes a virgin league like this one would make over their debut season, including scheduling the playoffs all the way through the end of the NFL season in to Week 18 – sacrilege for any weathered institution. While I stayed pretty hands off (belieee’dat), I had slipped in a few salubrious suggestions along the way to shunt any serious setbacks. I recently ceded a critical consultation on the traditional Week 16 finals to avoid the possibility of NFL teams resting star players in the final week of the regular season, and how the NFL’s expansion of the season to 18 weeks in 2021 shifted that logic to the right another week, etc., etc. Shit we all have a significant handle on. Point 1 – we adjusted the season schedule in our other league, henceforth providing some influence over our own situation.
- Point 2 – I received dozens o’ DMs this season either disapproving, deploring, dissenting, lamenting, or repenting over the querulous quality and quantity of exchange proposals from our Trademaster General, Hot Chubb Time Machine. This once refreshing ascension from our traditionally bearish acquisition style, was starting to wear down the populace. I pondered, who better to fuck with right now than the guy who was sitting on the #1 seed and still drilling for oil in our backyards. A poll was posted. This election festered swiftly and harnessed the havoc it was intended to. After a few hours of this, I DM’d most of you separately and disclosed that I wasn’t changing anything at this point in the season, I was just taking a crack at tormenting our tormenter. Hope all involved found it enjoyable!
- Last and final point, Point 3 – I wholeheartedly wanted to play another week of fantasy football this year. If we had garnered enough genuine consensus on the matter, I would have implemented this revision to our structure in season. Cuz’ this shit is going to be corrected next season. Technically, it’s already covered in our own rules.
- 1.3. LEAGUE SCHEDULE – The regular season league schedule of weekly matchups will be randomized by the online platform being utilized to manage the league, unless otherwise noted by the League Commissioner. The total number of weeks played will be one (1) less than the NFL regular season. The number of regular season and playoff weeks played will be based on the league format enacted each season.
The back-and-forth on this pseudo survey did generate some challenges around our tiebreaker rules. Fact is, we don’t really have any. The constitutional language brought forward in our chatroom was specifically about league format, not tiebreakers. All it says is that our standings are based on the weekly head-to-head matchups over the regular season, nothing about what happens if there is a tie in those standings. As you know, Sleeper uses Total Points as a tiebreaker. There is no league setting to adjust that, which is why we did it manually last season. Yes, last year we did manually tweak the playoff standings based on some tiebreaker calculations we whipped up. Problem is, we never implemented that tiebreaker calculation in to our league doctrine and, until this came up again last week, I hadn’t thought about it. However, this tiebreaker calculation will be added to the Constitution in the off season, barring any objections.
Now to the fun part – the what ifs.
CURRENT SLEEPER RANKINGS: Here’s a generic snapshot of the current playoff bracket, with two league veterans set in the finals matchup next week, one of which will be doubling-up on league hardware.
ALT RANKINGS 1: If we had manually calculated tiebreakers and adjusted the standings, like what we did last year, this would have shifted the results slightly. One of our FNGs would be in the finals mix, with no impact to one of our veterans.
ALT RANKINGS 2: Here’s where the salt rubs the wound. Had we gone ahead and played that additional week, the regular season standings actually wouldn’t have changed drastically, and the Regular Season Champion would have retained that title, but that first week of the playoffs (this week) would have dramatically altered where we are at today. The top four seeds would have advanced.
Staffed with a Tier 1 Tight End or not, Bagel Time slides through the playoffs under all three scenarios. Only one of these scenarios has Belichick’s Ballers even in the playoffs, much less in the finals matchup for the second year in a row in line for our first ever back-to-back championship. I guess fortune favors the fortunate.
League Leaders (through Week 15)
QB – Coming Tua ‘Merica (C. Stroud HOU, 56.50 pts, Week 9)
RB – Bagel Time (C. McCaffrey SF, 48.70 pts, Week 4)
WR – Filthydelphia (J. Chase CIN, 52.20 pts, Week 5)
TE – Password Is Taco (T. Kelce SF, 35.90 pts, Week 7)
K – Bagel Time (B. Aubrey DAL, 24.40 pts, Week 14)
DEF – Password Is Taco (Cowboys DAL, 61.40 pts, Week 1)
LB – Password Is Taco (F. Oluokun JAX, 21.90 pts, Week 7)
Single Game High Score – AJ Villain (233.85 pts, Week 3)
HORSES
Lifetime Stats: 5-9
Fan Club President: B. T. McCutcheon
The Lombardi Three 