Thursday, October 7, 2021

Week 4 Recap

WEEK 4 WEEKLY AWARDS

Best Manager

Val of the Greenbowl Packers. He only missed 8.8 points on his bench.

Worst Manager

Yuriy, losing a whopping 52.7 points from his starting lineup. He lost by 4.

Biggest Blowout

DonGodwin’s Underdogs take out Burn With Burrow by a whopping 97.79 points. I like 97.79 because it is the same number both ways. It’s almost Andrew’s whole entire team score. With the emergence of Deebo and the next step DJ Moore has taken, Jake’s team is poised to be dangerous every single week. Take a look at his bench! His bench scored almost as much as Alex’s whole team! Here’s a cool little thing, with the optimum lineup Jake could have added 25.7 more points to this total and had a game over 225. Andrew, I don’t even think you can feel bad. You just got murdered.

Biggest Blowout Part 2

I’m throwing a second game in here because we have another game worth mentioning. Cone’s Brown Streaks left their mark all over Alex’s Football Cream and smooshed them by 95.36 points. That is more than double Alex’s score. Mind you Alex punted his RB slot and did not play Josh Jacobs, but that wouldn’t have helped too much. Live and die by the Tyreek Hill and remember, you should be afraid of him. This also ended Alex’s impressive 3-0 start, much like the Raiders ended theirs – unspectacularly.

Narrow Victory

Rip Lips holds on for dear life as Mike Williams of the Goo Backs cannot muster up a measly 7 points. With a score of 124.72 to 120.52 Rip Lips won by 4.20. Yuriy was likely feeling pretty confident as the game came down the stretch. Mike Williams has been absolutely on fire, and a 7 point game is not even that difficult to get… Until he really needed it. The late Ekeler touchdown was likely the dagger that sealed the deal, and I feel that pain quite deeply myself.

Narrow Victory Part 2

Colt 49’s sneak away with one versus Herbert and the Harris’ with a score of 132.82 to 127.88. A difference of 4.94 points. There were two plays that were of particular damage (especially because the Raiders still lost). The first play was a long 51 yard bomb to Henry Ruggs that the Raiders proceeded to do absolutely nothing with except miss the field goal. The next was the long touchdown run by Ekeler that effectively put the game out of reach for both myself and the Raiders. Oh well, on to Fresno.

Highest Score (And Overachiever)

DonGodwin’s Underdogs with a HUGE 202.86 point week. Over 200 does not happen often. This was 139.3% of their projected total.

Lowest Score (And Underachiever)

Alex’s team the Football Cream went sour with a score of 89.76. This was 73.3% of their projected total.

QB of the Week

Patrick Mahomes of the Colt 49’s with 41.72 pts.

RB of the Week

Cordarelle Patterson of Rip Lips with 34.6 pts.

WR of the Week

Tyreek Hill of the Brown Streaks with 47.6 pts.

TE of the Week

CJ Uzomah with the Free Agents with 26.5 pts.

QB Benchwarmer

Sam Darnold of the Underdogs with 35.54 pts.

RB Benchwarmer

Kenneth Gainwell of the Harris’ with 20.9 pts.

WR Benchwarmer

Marquis Brown of the Brown Streaks with 19.1 pts.

TE Benchwarmer

Dawson Knox of the Burrows with 20.7 points.

POWER RANKINGS

Jake (Previously Ranked 3)
Cone (Previously Ranked 7)
Chris Pender (Previously Ranked 2)
Ory and Daniel (Previously Ranked 5)
Alex Gomez (Previously Ranked 1)
Nic (Previously Ranked 4)
Matt (Previously Ranked 6)
Gary (Previously Ranked 8)
D Smith (Previously Ranked 10)
Yuriy (Previously Ranked 11)
Val (Previously Ranked 9)
Andrew (Previously Ranked 12)

Good luck everybody!

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Week 3 Recap

Just this week I started taking a Professional Development class that specifically deals with handling “secondary traumatic stress disorder” or STSD, or “vicarious trauma.” The idea here is that as a person that deals with people that have had traumatic things happen to them some of that stress is imprinted upon the psyche of the helper and they start to exhibit a similar behavioral change as those that they have helped. The teachings started off with the story of the poor over-stressed counselor hiking on a Caribbean island (super sad) approaching a cliff and wondering aloud how many people jumped off that cliff. It then explains that this is not standard behavior and that most should just think “oh, pretty cliff.”

So that got me thinking about the vicarious trauma I have experienced through fantasy football, and it led me to the reasons that I just spent $11 FAAB on Josh Gordon. Back in 2013 I traded Josh Gordon for Jared Cook (then of the Rams? I think), and ever since then I have chased after his next big season. Ever since then I’ve been prepared for all my players to randomly be suspended due to drinking/drug use. Ever since then I’ve won a championship three times. But I’ve never once felt that feeling of having Josh Gordon on my 2013 roster.

What is the point of all this? Well, the real point is that JOSH GORDON IS BACK BABY. He may have went to the worst team in the AFC West (both in record and in reality), but he’ll learn how to avoid suspension from Tyreek and he has the best hands on that team. League beware.

Champion Records After 3 Weeks

As we established last week, we had no championship team that started off 0-2. That would mean there are no championship teams that started off 0-3. Without ties (and there were none, so no worries) that leaves us with three possibilities: 3-0, 2-1, and 1-2. The cool thing about 9 is it is dividable by 3.

So this is what all that data came to? An exact picture of balance and equivalence that gives us absolutely zero good data. That’s no fun. What is fun is that anyone has an equal chance of winning right now (that is not Val or D-Smith). Val or D-Smith are the two that need to overcome strong odds against them, and if I were them (spoilers: I’m not) I would be making moves and trades to get better rosters. But that’s me. From this point forward it’s like a new season.

WEEKLY AWARDS

Best Manager

Alex of the Football Cream :/. Only missed out on a possible 3.9 points.

Worst Manager

Yuriy of the Goo Backs, losing a whopping 40.2 points from his starting lineup. He still won, but what could have been.

Biggest Blowout

The 5 Yard Fullers beat the Wubba Lubba Andrews by 49 points with a score of 146.24 to 97.24. So if Pender had played no WRs this week, exact same players but the WRs are on the bench, he still would have beat you. Think about that, with all 4 WRs he played, and a few scored okay, he just didn’t need to. This particular week just seemed rough for Andrew with Higgins and Diontae out. Maybe that turns around a bit later.

Narrow Victory

Football Cream squirms his way past Colt 49’s in a relatively low scoring affair, 130.48 to 128.2. Before saying anything, I’d like both of you to watch this play.

Oh what could have been. Instead of having Alex with a 3-0 record he could be 2-1 like the rest of us. Well like some of us. Anyway, what could have been isn’t as important as what was. Alex’ team didn’t do that well outside of Tom Brady, Aaron Jones, and Chase, this was Ory’s shot at proving season dominance and he couldn’t do it. Ory, Daniel, I hope that you learn what you did wrong (after this week).

Highest Score (And Overachiever)

Herbert and the Harris’ scored 177.04, 125.6% of their projection and have the highest score of the season.

Lowest Score (And Underachiever)

Andrew’s team scored 97.24, just 77.1% of their projected score and blew it this week.

QB of the Week

Josh Allen of the Rip Lips with 45.22 pts.

RB of the Week

Najee Harris of Herbert and the Harris’ with 28.2 pts.

WR of the Week

Mike Williams of the Goo Backs with 33.2 pts.

TE of the Week

Dalton Schultz with the Free Agents with 26.0 pts.

QB Benchwarmer

Matt Stafford of the Greenbowl Packers with 37.52 pts.

RB Benchwarmer

Giovani Bernard of the Colt 49’s with 20.1 pts.

WR Benchwarmer

Cole Beasley of Rip Lips with 20.8 pts.

TE Benchwarmer

Zach Ertz of the Auto-Draft Machines with 15.3 pts.

POWER RANKINGS

Alex (Previously ranked 1)
Chris Pender (Previously ranked 4)
Jake Yorke (Previously ranked 2)
Nic (Previously Ranked 5)
Ory and Daniel (Previously Ranked 3)
Matt (Previously Ranked 7)
Cone (Previously Ranked 6)
Gary (Previously Ranked 12)
Val (Previously ranked 8)
D. Smith (Previously Ranked 9)
Yuriy (Previously Ranked 10)
Andrew (Previously Ranked 11)

Good luck this week!

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Week 2 Recap

The second week gives us two data points into the season and potentially provides the blossoming of patterns. Conversely, the second week might just be cover to hide from the first. This week I decided to take a look at champions records after two weeks (which does actually provide a strong statistic), transaction totals per season, and where championship teams drafted non flex position players. Will that information prove useful? Probably not! But is it interesting? You tell me.

Champ Records After Two Weeks Since 2012.

Take a look at that! Mostly even between the two points… But shouldn’t there be three? Discounting ties (of which none had taken place in the first two weeks for champs), there should be 2-0, 1-1, and 0-2. Well you’re reading that right. No championship team has started 0-2. What does that mean for D-Smith and Val? Well it means that if they want to be a champion they need to make For Reals Guys League history. Which, after a measly 9 years, should not be impossible. Someone has to be the first team to do it. There is no significant difference in teams that start 2-0 and teams that start 1-1. 4 vs 5 suggests to me it’s 50/50 with only 9 points of reference.

Transaction Totals

The pie chart below shows the ranks of each champ and how many moves they made in comparison to the rest of the league.

Since these are end of season numbers I can’t really project them out from here over who this makes most likely to win. What I can say is those in the top-half of transactions each year seem more likely to win (5 out of 9), while those in 8^th are significantly overrepresented. Don’t be 8^th this year - that position seems likely to have some regression (unless you really believe there is some magic to being number 8).

This chart I find interesting but not wildly helpful. I like seeing that Val won in 2015 with 7 transactions. That’s a wild outlier. That’s pretty close to a perfect draft. It seems like since the explosion in information available for fantasy football that the transaction frequency has increased. That might mean that we are now making faster decisions on players than we used to. That could also be because we are more experienced and know a dud when it presents itself. I’m not certain of significance here at all, but the numbers are likely to increase with an added week to the season.

Does Draft Round for Certain Positions Matter?

One of my favorite things that I saw while compiling all this was that in 2012 the first round was almost completely QBs. Notable exceptions being Maurice Jones-Drew, Ray Rice, and Arian Foster. That trend stuck for the next year but by 2014 it had completely changed. So the numbers I was most curious about were on the right hand side. Is this the way to plan a perfect draft?! Probably not. But… What if? I looked at those averages and looked at our current draft and found the players drafted in “CHAMPIONSHIP SPOT.”

QBs drafted in the 7^th round:

Tom Brady (Alex)
Justin Herbert (Nic)

TEs drafted in the 6^th round:

Logan Thomas (Andrew)

D/ST drafted in the 13^th round:

Ravens (Dan)
Rams (Andrew)

Following our data then, it appears that Andrew may have had the perfect draft. Looking at his team, we know that this is not true. Now his only problem is the sheer amount of Bengals on his team. Take this information for what you will.

Weekly Awards

This is based upon the same awards that Sleeper gives out each week. Unfortunately ESPN does not, but I can come up with the same answers. These are based on math done by hands so give me a bit of wiggle room on the maths.

Best Manager (Set the best line-up)

Val of the Greenbowl Packers. He could not have possibly scored more points.

Worst Manager (Set the worst line-up)

Matt of the Fly Boyds. He could have scored roughly 42 more points this week.

Biggest Blowout

Colt 49’s 152.72 vs Eff-Town sleazeballs 97.78

Colt 49’s (Ory and Daniel) dismantling of Eff-Town Sleazeballs (Cone) by a whopping 54.94. I can swing this to say, shame that Henry’s gigantic day was wasted. If you removed Henry’s ginormous output, Colt 49’s would have still won by 7.2. It’s not like Cone could have done much here, he left Hollywood on the bench but this is like his one free mistake card.

Narrow Victory

Rip Lips 128.46 vs Auto-Draft Machine 122.96

Rip Lips (Gary) manages to hold off Lamar Jackson and Baltimore’s defense by 5.5 points in a Monday night victory. I wanted to say that Butker was the reason, but he wasn’t. Really the reason that Auto-Draft Machine (D. Smith) lost was because of Baltimore’s inability to stop Patrick Mahomes. Or, to show the fragility of each match, if the Ravens had blocked or stopped Butker’s field goal, then D. Smith would have won with the additional defensive points and the loss of points for Butker. It really can all come down to one play. Better luck next time.

Highest Score (And Overachiever):

Football Cream (Alex) scored 171.34 and overachieved his projections by an additional 35%. A few questions for you, if I may. Do you really think Tom Brady can keep this up, or is this because he started the year off v Dallas and v Atlanta? Did Tyler Lockett use up all of his luck on the first two games of the season? Is Aaron Jones really going to be that guy again? And finally, when will the Jets actually start competing with the Patriots?

Lowest Score (And Underachiever):

Eff-Town Sleazeballs (Cone) scored 97.78, only 69% (Nice) of their projected points scored. And the pendulum swings. Tyreek Hill and Amari Cooper showing the true definition of boom and bust in the first two weeks. When they boom for you, it’s going to be hard to lose, but when they bust, your team looks like this. There are two real surprises as far as I can tell, Dak can suck in a matchup and your best RB was Leonard Fournette. James Robinson is so sad to me right now, he’s such a good player but just being wasted.