Tag: Whitey Ford’s Team

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2018 TL3 FINALS

The final week of our seventh season is upon us. This time next week, there will be a new champion. A fitting final as our league has, still, never had a #1 or #2 seed win the championship. What can I say? The masses love an underdog, and they have a special fondness for the expiration of their corporate overlord.

This will be the third time in our seven years that the #6 and # 8 seeds faceoff, and the fifth time the #6 seed gets a shot at the title, however, the #6 seeds are 1-3 in the last four title matches.

Reason to Kerrigan (#6) enters the finals on a hot streak averaging 188.30 points per contest. This is tremendous considering our weekly output hit a new low each of the last three weeks. As a league, we hit bottom in Week 15 at a measly 1,703.30 points. This is our lowest output of the last 95 weeks. You’d have to go back to 2012 to find a collective performance this low.

It seems RTK was the only team immune from this lack of production across the league. He blew through the #3 and #2 seeds and set a new single-game WR record in Week 14 when Amari Cooper put up 49.70 points on 10 catches for 217 yards and 3 TDs.

The Brady Bundchen (#8) sneaks in to the finals averaging 148.43 points in the playoffs, and a steady 148.31 through the last seven weeks. He squeaked by the #1 seed in the final one minute and seventeen seconds of Week 14 when Dalvin Cook scored a meaningless, garbage-time TD late Monday night in Minnesota’s loss to Seattle. Davante’s Inferno squandered his third straight #1 spot in the first week of the playoffs putting up his lowest output of the season by more than 16 points. (insert tiny violin)

The Brady’s met the season average in Week 15 to knock out Trouble Hunter (#5), but little did he know that Bagel Time gifted him a boon of Monday night bounty (and laterally jinxed his lady friend) by texting psalms and salutations before the results were in. Bagel Time texts are the fantasy football kiss of death. He voodoo’d and hoodoo’d his own team all season with his bullshit premature digital ejaculations. The way things look, TBB will need some black magic to compete with RTK, so text away Bagel – I’ll send you Brady’s number.

PAYDAY

The League Dues table has been updated to show the current locks on cash. Bagel Time is the only team left with a chance to cash on wins. BYE weeks do not count towards your win %. We set this standard at the conclusion of the 2016 season. See the PAYDAY post.

That said, anywhere from 4 to 11 more wins will be added to the Wins column at the conclusion of Week 16. As we add Wins to the column, this eats away at the % of Remaining for bonuses. I have included what the Playoff Champ Bonus will be based on each potential scenario.

4: Bagel Time loses. The other 4 teams in the playoffs will add a single win to their totals. (Playoff Champion Bonus = $176)

11: Bagel Time wins. We add all 8 of Bagel Time’s wins to the total, plus the other 3 winners in the playoffs add a single win to their totals. (Playoff Champion Bonus = $166)

So, for those of you already in the cash on Wins or a Bonus, you are kinda rooting for Bagel Time to lose. #DrawbridgeUp

NIT

I don’t know what you four are seeing online, but once again, I see no ‘consolation brackets’ via Yahoo. Not really sure what I’m doing wrong here. Either way, I’ve become really proficient at counting and drawing little brackets offline, so here you go. With the results that close in Week 15, Tanny and Filthy will have to sweat it a couple more hours as Stat Corrections trickle in. #PuckerUp

Christian’s Brothers (#9) is one of the best teams in the league and his season has been nothing short of tragic. He is averaging 195.53 points per over the last two weeks, and a league-leading 182.08 over the last six weeks. He’s won 5 straight over this same span and STILL didn’t make the playoffs. Had his schedule been a hair different, he could easily be one game short of perfect on the season and a lock in the playoff finals. This has got to be the biggest calamity, the baddest beat, the utmost misfortune I’ve ever seen go down in all our years of this fantasy fatuity. We have to fix this, and I have an idea how.

Next season will be filled with terms like “rotisserie” and “points table” and “12-team playoffs” and “protection clause.” More to come…

League Leaders (Including Playoffs)

QB – Tannehill4President (Jared Goff, 53.95 points, Week 4)
WR – Reason to Kerrigan (Amari Cooper, 49.70 points, Week 14)
RB – Christian’s Brothers (Christian McCaffrey, 43.70 points, Week 12)
TE – Trouble Hunter (Zach Ertz, 40.50 points, Week 10)
K (TIE) – The Brady Bundchen (Stephen Gostkowski, 22.00 points, Week 6) and Davante’s Inferno (Ka’imi Fairbairn, 22.00 points, Week 15)
DEF – SKOLya’gain (Baltimore, 61.50 points, Week 6)
LB – Reason to Kerrigan (Bobby Wagner, 31.45 points, Week 13)
Single Game – Reason to Kerrigan (234.30 points, Week 8)
Win Streak (TIE) – Davante’s inferno (+5 Weeks 5-9) and Wanted Dez or Alive (+5 Weeks 5-9) and Whitey Ford’s Team (+5 Weeks 10-14)

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Post Week 6 SITREP

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

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Week 3 Gazers

No chicken dinners this year. We had two squads with a glint of fortune going in to the 4:00 games, and Reason to Kerrigan was still full of optimism heading in to the Sunday night matchup, but lost his bid to the promised land when the Lions and Matt Patricia embarrassed the Patriots. Patricia and Belichick did still exchange the customary thanksgiving dinner hug after the game. 

Ball Gazer Results (15 games)

10-5

Reason to Kerrigan

9-6

Davante’s Inferno, Unlockin’ Yo Schtuff

8-7

Bagel Time, SKOLya’gain, Trouble Hunter

7-8

Tannehill4President, Whitey Ford’s Team

6-9

The Brady Bundchen

5-10

Filthadelphia

0-15

Christian’s Brothers, Wanted Dez or Alive

Of note:

  • Only Reason to Kerrigan and The Brady Bundchen correctly picked the Skins over the NFL Officials Packers
  • Whitey Ford’s Team was the only gazer eying the Colts to upset the SB champs in Philly on the day Wentz returns to action – not really sure what the rest of us were so confident about, but…
  • No one in the world, including our little commune, picked the Bills to beat the purple piss out of the Vikings at home – and why am I reading the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle this morning trying to figure this out – and who the hell is Josh Allen (Wyoming?)
  • I’m not naming names, but I can’t believe three of you picked that soggy pile of toilet paper, Eli Manning, and the Giants to win on the road
  • The Brady Bundchen was the only gazer to correctly pick the Titans over the Jags
  • We all got the Chiefs pick right – and with that unregistered sex-offender Garoppolo down, I can already see Kap kneeling on the 49er sideline
  • We all got the Bears pick right – wait, Filthadelphia picked the Cardinals, but it looks like he filled the entire form out wrong (you’re supposed to check the box next to the team you think is going to win)
  • We all got the Lions pick wrong – is it the weak-ass AFC East that keeps us picking the Pats week after week?

Please don’t take management’s drills on participation personally. I’m critical because I care. I’m also really bored with the cloyed week-to-week nature of most of our fantasy football habiliments. So to incentivize us further I offer the following Constitutional amendment to our Ball Gazer rubrics. This new amendment awards participation and provides an alternate opportunity to earn a Bench Swap, outside of the current rule set, for high-performing Ball Gazers. The 70% benchmark is based on getting at least 11 picks correct, on average, over each of the three weeks. This cumulative percentage was only achieved once throughout our tenure (last season by Trouble Hunter), so this is no turkey shoot.

13.5.4 – Sonic Tents:  At the conclusion of Week 3, any team that has not already earned a Bench Swap, but has correctly picked 70% of the winners over the first three weeks of the regular season earns a Bench Swap. All three weeks of Ball Gazer submissions must be accounted for in order to qualify.

A consolidated table of 2018 Results is below. Till next year Gazers…

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First Crack


Ball Gazer Results (first 14 games)

9-4-1

Davante’s Inferno, Reason to Kerrigan

8-5-1

Bagel Time

7-6-1

SKOLya’gain, Trouble Hunter, Whitey Ford’s Team

6-7-1

Unlockin’ Yo Schtuff, The Brady Bundchen

5-8-1

Tannehill4President

0-14

Christian’s Brothers, Filthadelphia, Wanted Dez or Alive

 

Between the Falcons, Saints, and Titans, we were all busted by Miller Time on Sunday. Of note:

  • SKOLya’gain was the only gazer that thought the Bills would win on the road, led by camo-hat humper Sean McDermott, their mayo-salad trio of “country-strong” quarterbacks, and an NFL assembly line of failed wideouts. WTF J?
  • All of us incorrectly picked the Saints over the Bucs. *This upset squashed 182 teams in my Survivor League (approximately 28% of this coalition of degenerate gamblers = $3,640). This game was the surest lock in Vegas. For Fitzpatrick and the Bucs to put up 48 in Week 1 was undeniably absurd. Fitz threw for four TDs and even added a rushing TD to his stat sheet. He was the second leading rusher on the team. The Bucs punted once…one time the entire game. WTF New Orleans?
  • We all correctly picked the Packers to win – duh. A game that will go down as another legendary performance on the resume of the GOAT – Aaron Charles Rodgers. Dude hobbled around on one leg the entire second half and surgically ripped the Bears defense apart. He deserves every penny of his contract, as well as Head Coach Mike McCarthy’s paycheck and the entire Offensive Line’s paychecks. WTF Gutekunst?

 

 

  • The Steelers and Browns tied – which means none of us get credit for it. WTF klutch?

A Tie is not a win. Additionally, this was addressed last season in the league Constitution when we encountered an unscheduled Week 1 BYE in Miami due to weather. History almost repeated itself yesterday with the Titans-Dolphins weather delays. We have already modified the language in the Constitution to defer to a Win % (in lieu of number of wins) if such an instance like postponed games, or a Tie, occurs.

Keep a weather eye out this weekend as Hurricane Flo rolls on to the east coast. Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, and Atlanta are all at home. Should be interesting. If any of those games are postponed, I will update win percentage requirements and send a note out on expectations.

  • I only received 9 out of 12 Week 1 Ball Gazer submissions.

This will be addressed via Constitutional Amendment. At the beginning of the season, we did a roll call to engage owner’s intent and encourage maximum commitment. Do know, that there are a handful of very active fantasy owners chomping at the bit to play in our league. As league commissioner, I already think there is an undesirable level of league vivacity (trades, communication, participation). If this is just another league in your annual fantasy portfolio, that’s cool, but please assess your level of investment. In the meantime, as League Commissioner, I enact the following Constitutional Amendment, applicable at the conclusion of Week 2.

13.5.3 – Spicoli:  No shirt, no shoes, no dice. Any team that does not participate in the previous week’s Ball Gazer submission does not receive the advantage of Amendment 13.5.1 – Shrinking Balls. For the next week’s submission, the previously non-participating team will be obligated to meet the previous week’s win requirements. This penalty will carry over to the final week until participation is realized. Learn it, know it, live it.

Final Notes:

In the spirit of Constitutional Amendments, I realized this year that there are some unspoken rules of the game, that apparently need to be vocalized.

We traditionally drafted on Labor Day weekend over the years to gain maximum insight and avoid any issues with preseason injuries, roster cuts, team trades, etc. Most importantly, to avoid injuries. However, drafting over Labor Day interrupted many owners vacation and travel plans. To address that, we decided to accept some risk and do the draft a week earlier, typically after the conclusion of Preseason Week 3.

Over the years I have played fantasy football, if a drafted player gets injured during preseason play, the team owner has courtesy rights to that player’s backup or handcuff, if and only if that player is still a free agent. This is a civil courtesy we extend to each other, to counter the risk in early drafting, and to keep the league competitive at the start of the season. Once the regular season begins, it is survival of the fittest. Until then, let’s keep this competitive and fair. As League Commissioner I enact the following Constitutional Amendment.

18.1 – Courtesy Flush:  If any drafted player is injured during preseason play, and will miss a significant amount of time (minimum 3 weeks), the owner of the injured player has first right of refusal on that player’s undrafted backup or handcuff. This amendment is void during regular season play.

Til’ Thursday then. Keep your ear to the grindstone and keep an umbrella on you.

-The Commish

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PRE-DRAFT ADMIN & WAFFLES

DRAFT – Draft order is set. Draft is early, so set your alarms. Waffles will be served promptly at 8am.

BALL GAZERS – 2018 Ball Gazer forms are updated. Week 1 is due prior to the start of the Thursday Night Falcons-Eagles game on 9/6.  You have time.

PROFILES – A few teams have changed the carpet and the drapes. It’s an administrative pain in the ass to me, but worth it to see the new team names and custom logos. I better not see one of those stock, yahoo’d colored helmets on our site. Creativity harnesses passion and ownership, which further generates participation and success. Get creative, be successful.

 

Davante’s Inferno

SKOLya’gain

Filthadelphia

(recommended image)

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2018 1st Overall Draft Pick

A multi-layered, combination offline and online random generated selection has been performed under the eye of two veteran franchises. Every team not already guaranteed a spot in the draft was included in the selection process. The winner of the 2018 1st Overall Draft Pick is…

 

Amendola Sent Me

…I mean, Gronk Out With Your Honk Out

……I mean, Mr. Gisele Bundchen

………I mean, The Brady Bundchen

congrats go out to

WHITE WES WELKERS

don’t fuck it up

 

The rest of the order shifts up. Yeah, you still last Bagel.

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Pay Day

The League Dues page has been updated to reflect cash winnings. All winnings have been distributed as of this post. Final league standings, including the NIT results, are outlined below.

I sincerely want to recognize the Lake Hickory Swallops for their season. And not just the NIT blowout and pulling off the cash win. This is a team that scored the third most points in the league, and would have smoked every single one of us in the playoffs. Had he not been up against one of the toughest schedules in the league this year, and pulled off just one or two more wins during the regular season, he would have made the playoffs and dominated all three games. During Weeks 14, 15, and 16, LHS put up 193, 156, and 214, respectively. None of us would have survived that onslaught. Respect.

I will likely forego the usual “League Trophies” post as there is no way to create custom trophies on Yahoo.com. Although, I do recommend you check out the Record Book page on our league site which breaks down the various accolades, points, stats, medals, and what-nots of the season. I really like the Team Points page that outlines the ‘Points From Draft Players’ and the ‘Points From Post-Draft Acquisitions’. This is the data that I wish I had the time to nerd-out on and track closer, as these are the type metrics that we should be engaging.

2017 Single Game League Leaders
QB – Alex Smith (49.30 points in Week 13) – Air Jordy
RB – Todd Gurley II (49.60 points in Week 16) – Lake Hickory Swallops
WR – Julio Jones (50.80 points in Week 12) – Whitey Ford’s Team
TE – Jack Doyle (30.10 points in Week 8) – White Wes Welkers
K – Robbie Gould (24.00 points in Week 15) – Air Jordy
DEF – Baltimore Ravens (61.30 points in Week 6) – Reason to Kerrigan
LB – C. J. Mosley (20.30 points in Week 8) – Schoolya’gain

SEASON HIGH SCORE – Air Jordy (224.40 points in Week 15)
SEASON WIN STREAK –Christian’s Brothers (+7 Weeks 9-15)

Thanks again for your patience with the new league platform on Yahoo and the offline NIT playoff tracking. Stay tuned for one last sunset post on this year’s league champion and the future of The Lombardi Three…

-The Commish

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End of Regular Season 2017

At the conclusion of the Regular Season, we have each played each other once. I have updated our Strength of Schedule and see no real surprises here – same narrative, different weeks. I was hoping to see some of it balance out, but we have deviated even further from the mean. A team’s advantage of +23.7% far exceeds any we have seen throughout our league history. Same goes for a disadvantage of -19.8%. My conclusion after this year’s results, combined with the impoverished health of the NFL and the size of our rosters, is that we can only be competitive as a 10-team league, statistically speaking. Otherwise it’s just random luck.

A potential alternative is to disregard regular season standings and utilize aggregate rankings to measure a team’s performance and determine playoff seeding. Clear evidence already exists that supports this option as we have never had a #1 or #2 seed win the playoffs. We are obviously not structuring this right.

Maybe this year will be different. Christian’s Brothers has hit his stride and is averaging 184.5 points per week over his current 5-game win streak. Maybe this year will be more of the same. Last year’s Regular Season champ, Trouble Hunter, averaged 181.2 over her regular season finale, but came up short in the playoffs and finished 5th on the season. Same fall from grace met Air Jordy in the 2015 and 2014 seasons where he averaged 203.9 and 190.3 per week, respectively, and lost in the first round of each playoff. Lady Luck breaks up with all of us eventually. She clearly had commitment issues.

Regular Season Awards
Regular Season Champion – Christian’s Brothers (20% Bonus)
Regular Season 2nd Place – Bagel Time* (5% Bonus)
Regular Season True Coach Ranking – Schoolya’gain (5% Bonus)

Regular Season True Coach Rankings
The Regular Season True Coach ranking is a carryover from our time on NFL.com. This ranking is tabulated throughout the season and measures your performance across three (3) categories – your point differential* in fantasy points between your starting and ideal lineup each week; how you breakdown weekly if you played all teams each week; and your overall W/L standing. *For our time on Yahoo.com, I replaced point differential with Total Points. It ends up being the same results and the math is much easier. Schoolya’gain finished 1st, 2nd, and 5th, respectively.

Schoolya’gain
Christian’s Brothers
Air Jordy
UnLockin’ Yo Schtuff
Bagel Time*
White Wes Welkers
Trouble Hunter
Lake Hickory Swallops
Whitey Ford’s Team
K-Nasty
Reason to Kerrigan
Tannehill for President
Wanted Dez or Alive
IJamAllDay

Guaranteed to Cash on Wins
Christian’s Brothers
Bagel Time*
Trouble Hunter
UnLockin’ Yo Schtuff

Chance to Cash on Wins (# of Playoff Wins Required)
Schoolya’gain (1)
Whitey Ford’s Team (1)
Air Jordy (2)
White Wes Welkers (2)
Reason to Kerrigan (2)

Only one of the following teams can cash out, and they need to win the Consolation Bracket Playoffs to do so. This will guarantee half their dues back and the #4 pick in next year’s draft. Of course, Wanted Dez or Alive could #RunTheTable and kill all of their chances to cash.

Lake Hickory Swallops (3)
K-Nasty (3)
Tannehill for President (3)
IJamAllDay (3)

Single Game League Leaders (through Week 13)
QB – Alex Smith (49.30 points in Week 13) – Air Jordy
RB – Kareem Hunt (44.60 points in Week 1) – Air Jordy
WR – Julio Jones (50.80 points in Week 12) – Whitey Ford’s Team
TE – Jack Doyle (30.10 points in Week 8) – White Wes Welkers
K – Ryan Succop (21.50 points in Week 6) – IJamAllDay
DEF – Baltimore Ravens (61.30 points in Week 6) – Reason to Kerrigan
LB – C. J. Mosley (20.30 points in Week 8) – Schoolya’gain

SEASON HIGH SCORE – Whitey Ford’s Team (219.5 points in Week 12)
SEASON WIN STREAK – Schoolya’gain (+5 Weeks 6-10) and Christian’s Brothers (+5 Weeks 9-13)

 

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Strength of Schedule

Schoolya’gain flipped the district in Week 10 and unseated that gerrymandering, bench-swappin’ Bagel Time* in order take back the house. And she did it legit, with a Strength of Schedule differential right down the center of the spectrum. She was one of only two teams to survive an upset this week and has averaged 167 points per game over her current, league-leading 5-game win streak.

I have attempted to measure our strength of schedule through Week 10 by comparing each team’s current win percentage to their win percentage if they played every other team in the league each week. This is a very simple method for measuring how hard, or unlucky, your schedule has been and vice versa. I have charted these results below.

I caveat the following analysis not to pick on any teams in particular, but to provide defined examples of how the calculations are derived and demonstrate the unforgiving nature of playing this game from year to year. No matter what you do, sometimes the odds are just stacked against you. Don’t take it personal.

Looking at the EASY (or lucky (however you wish to look at it)) end of the spectrum, Christian’s Brothers, IJamAllDay, Bagel Time, and Trouble Hunter have had the most fortunate matchups to date, respectively.

  • Christian’s Brothers has enjoyed a +19.2% advantage thus far, having been fortunate enough to compete against one of only a few teams who he could have beaten in multiple weeks. In Week 2, ten of the other thirteen teams in the league would have bested Christian Brother’s had they faced him, yet he was fortunate enough to have faced one of the only three teams he could have beaten. This happened again in Week 4 when the odds were even slimmer. Eleven teams in the league would have outscored CB, but again, he faced one of the two teams that couldn’t.
  • IJamAllDay has been able to make the most of a +16.2% advantage, by scoring the least amount of points in the league but still managing a 5-5 record and a potential playoff position in the current standings. Looking at the same weekly scenarios, IJAD had the same luck in Week 6, as he squared off against one of only three teams he could have beaten that week.
  • Bagel Time’s* advantage of 15.4% is negatively inflated by the use of the Bench Swap. Had he taken a loss that week he would be closer to the spectrum at 5.4%. However, he’s not off the hook. In Week 2 BT* had the luxury of playing one of only two teams he could have beaten that week, earning a win after a 124-point effort. Five other teams lost that week and they scored 140 points or more.
  • Ditto Trouble Hunter in Weeks 2 and 8, facing one of the only two teams with a lower score in both matchups. Unfortunately for TH, she hasn’t been able to benefit as much from this luck as she has experienced both ends of the spectrum having lost in Week 9 to one of only four teams who could have beaten her.

Looking at the HARD (or unlucky) end of the spectrum, Air Jordy, Wanted Dez or Alive, Lake Hickory Swallops, K-Nasty and White Wes Welkers have had the most unfortunate matchups to date, respectively.

  • Air Jordy has faced an -18.5% disadvantage thus far. Same story, different results. This started in Week 2 after putting up 170 points (170 points has only been eclipsed 22 times over our 140 scores this season) and losing to one of the only 2 teams with higher outputs. This happened again in Week 10 facing one of only 4 teams with the chops needed to win.
  • A somewhat different scenario has plagued both Wanted Dez or Alive (-17.7% disadvantage) and Lake Hickory Swallops (-14.6% disadvantage) all season. Other than one or two duds, they have both been putting up consistent middle of the road numbers, but continually end up with the short straw when facing the one half of the league that could challenge them. For these guys it’s either been bad luck, or no luck at all.
  • K-Nasty (-11.5% disadvantage) put up great numbers in Weeks 6 and 7, but faced one of the only four teams to beat him in Week 6, and a bottom half matchup in Week 7 driving his strength of schedule differential down. Another middle of the road guy that can’t catch a break.
  • In Weeks 5 and 7, White Wes Welkers (-11.5% disadvantage) would have taken down any one of eight and nine matchups, respectively. These two wins would have been the difference between a 10th place and a 4th place standing. To add insult to injury, these losses were the meat of his league-leading, 5-game losing streak covering Weeks 3 through 7.

With three weeks left in the regular season, maybe these odds will start to balance themselves out as we compete against the remaining teams in the league we haven’t faced yet. A full historical Strength of Schedule will be performed and analyzed against the final standings for each season. Though, the more I dig in to the random, uncontrollable nature of fantasy football, the more I question its value. I fear where this will take me.

Of final note, Week 11 is traditionally our lowest scoring week of the season on average and we are trending that direction. Chart below explains everything.

We have new single-game leaders at QB, TE and LB. All of our top performances came out of Weeks 6 through 8, with the exception of RB, which still hasn’t been broken since Week 1.

Single Game League Leaders (through Week 10)
QB – Russel Wilson (46.60 points in Week 8) – Wanted Dez or Alive
RB – Kareem Hunt (44.60 points in Week 1) – Air Jordy
WR – Amari Cooper (44.00 points in Week 7) – Trouble Hunter
TE – Jack Doyle (30.10 points in Week 8) – White Wes Welkers
K – Ryan Succop (21.50 points in Week 6) – IJamAllDay
DEF – Baltimore Ravens (61.30 points in Week 6) – Reason to Kerrigan
LB – C. J. Mosley (20.30 points in Week 8) – Schoolya’gain

SEASON HIGH SCORE – Wanted Dez or Alive (212.45 points in Week 3)
SEASON WIN STREAK – Schoolya’gain (+5 Weeks 6-10)