Monday, December 14, 2015

Skyler's Fantasy Football Semi-Final Facts

Forgive my lame title, I just wanted to include as many S and F words as possible.  That now sounds more vulgar than I meant it.  Oh well, moving on. This week's games are basically over. Chad has an 8 point lead and took out his only remaining player in case of a scenario he score's a lot of negative points.  I doubt Shane Vereen would have scored less than -8, but then again, I had Tony Romo score -5 before he got hurt, so I get the move.  Matt is up 10.5 ish with his kicker left to go.  I think it's even more unlikely that a kicker could score -11 since our league doesn't penalize missed field goals, but if Matt wanted to sit his kicker to be safe, I wouldn't blame him.  Quite frankly, I think if his kicker managed to score 0 real points, and fumble it 6 times, Matt should win the whole thing out of pity.  So next week Matt will play Kyle and Chad will play Skyler (yes, that's me, but if I say Skyler, it makes me think I am bragging less when I pull out facts later on).

Here are some things I looked up that I found interesting for the semi-final matchup next weekend, starting with Kyle and Matt.

  • This is the first time since 2011 that Matt and Kyle made the playoffs.  They actually played each other in the opening round that year, with Kyle winning 169.08 to 159.70 before losing to Rob in the semi-finals by 1.38 points.
  • Every time Kyle makes the playoffs, he makes the semi-finals (beat Matt once, and got the bye this year).
  • This week was Matt's first win in the playoffs.  He lost to Kyle (as previously mentioned) by less than 10 points, and in 2010 he lost to Hukill by less than 6 points.
  • Both teams biggest playoff success has come in the pre-mission era.
    • Matt managed Jordan's team to a championship while Jordan was on his mission.
    • Kyle won the first championship, but we don't actually know who he played, and despite what Chad claims, I'm pretty sure it wasn't Chad.
  • The winner of this game will play in their 1st championship of the modern era.
  • The all time record between Kyle and Matt (including playoffs, but not counting consolation games) is Kyle with 5 wins and Matt with 2 wins -- his last win over Kyle was in 2013.
  • Based on me eye-balling the week 15 matchups, I give the edge to Kyle. 
Now here is some Skyler and Chad information.
  • This is Skyler's 6th straight semi-finals appearance, and this is Chad's 4th.  In all 4 of Chad's semi-finals appearances, he has played Skyler.  He is 2-1 all time in the semi-finals against Skyler.
  • 2011 was the only year Chad didn't even make the playoffs, and in 2010 he lost in the first round to Geoff, who went on to win the championship.
  • The winner of Skyler and Chad will be the first person to ever make 3 championship appearances, as they are both tied at 2 appearances -- as is Hukill.
  • As Chad and Skyler are in the same division, they have a larger number of games played than Matt and Kyle.  Chad leads the playoff games 2-1, and Skyler leads the regular season 9-3, so total it is 10-5 in favor of Skyler.
  • Chad was the first person to go to back to back championships.  If he wins this week, he will have gone to 3 of the last 4.
  • Chad and Skyler are Mormon Eskimo Brothers.
    • The amount of Mormon Eskimo Brothers in this league is semi-disturbing.
  • If Skyler wins, he will be 3 for 6 in the semi-finals which will move him up to a 50% record in the semi-finals.  That would also move Chad down to 50% as he is currently 2 for 3 in the semi-finals.  If Chad wins he will have a semi-final winning percentage of 75, while Skyler would be at 33.
  • Week 15 matchups -- Chad's top guys have a better matchup than Skyler's top guys, but Skyler's ok players have a better matchup than Chad's.  Slight edge to Chad, as I am 100% committed to the reverse jinx here.
Last fact for all 4 teams -- they are all BYU fans.  They could either be so happy after Saturday's game that they forget about fantasy football, or they could be super depressed and compensate by getting overly aggressive with the fantasy matchups.  Anyway, that's it for now.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

One Week Left

So this was a crazy week with a lot of close scores. Here are the current playoff scenarios with 4 of the games final, and the other 2 basically being done.

Kyle will stay in first place after this week.  He will have a one game lead over everyone and even if he loses next week, he should likely get the bye because of his point total.

I move up into second place, and my record is tied with Chad (3rd place) and Trevor (4th place), but I have the tie-breaker on points.  If only one of us win next week, that person will get the other first round bye.  If I win (no matter what Chad or Trevor do) I should get the bye because I have the most points.  If Chad wants the bye, he needs to win, and he either needs me to lose, or he needs to outscore me by a lot.  If Trevor wants the bye, he needs me and Chad to lose, or he needs to outscore us by a lot as well.

If we all lost and TJ won, the four of us would be tied on record, and even if he scored 1000 points more than us next week and had the points for the tie-breaker, he still wouldn't get the first round bye because two people can't get it in the same division.

Rob could also win and tie us on record (in the same scenarios as TJ) but he is significantly behind everyone on points, so he would not get any help from the tie breaker.  Point of this story, Trevor will  win his division.

Assuming Matt or Tyler (as long as Duke Johnson doesn't get less than -4) win this week, Geoff will officially be eliminated from the playoffs.  He has had a good run to get where he is, but he should be done.  I really liked his team at the beginning of the year too --  real bummer.

So Kyle, Skyler, Chad, and Trevor are in, and the last two seeds have 4 teams battling it out the last week.

If TJ and Rob win next week, Matt and Tyler will be eliminated.  The same is also true if Matt and Tyler lose.  If TJ and Rob lose and Matt and Tyler win, they will all be tied at 7 wins.  If that happens, the last two spots would go to TJ and Matt based on tie-breakers.  If Rob wins, TJ loses, and Matt and Tyler win, TJ should have a big enough lead on tie-breakers to keep the 6 seed.  So the best bet for Matt to get in is win and then have Rob lose, and the best bet for Tyler is have both Rob and Matt lose, and then he would also have to outscore Rob by around 15 to get in.

There you have it.  That's all the playoff implications from this week.  So really, the only people who don't have anything to play for are Kyle, Brady, Geoff, Ren, and Jordan, but they are all playing someone who has something to play for.  So every game matters, which is awesome.  That's all for now.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Two Weeks to Go Until the Playoffs

Week 11 is mostly in the books.  We are back to the all important divisional games, and after tonight all of the division winners may be decided.  We will go in order of most likely decided, and then the playoff scenarios.

The South Division:  Trevor will win and Rob will lose this week.  That gives Trevor a two game lead over Rob.  Going off of the projections for tonight, Trevor should also have a 120 point lead in the tie breaker.  So In order for Rob to take the division he would have to win both of his games, Trevor would have to lose both of his games, and Rob would have to outscore Trevor by about 62 per week.  The winning out and losing out could maybe happen, but I definitely don't see him out scoring Trevor by that much in back to back weeks.

The West Division: With Kyle's win and TJ's loss miracle comeback, Kyle should win his division only has a one game lead in his division.  Kyle will have an 80 point lead in the tie breaker of total points though.  Three weeks ago I would have said TJ could be the team to comeback from this, but the injury bug has not been kind to him the last two weeks he somehow won tonight and Jordan's team is terrible.  If they both win next week (week 12), TJ would need to beat Kyle head to head in week 13 by around 80 to win the division.  As long as Kyle wins next week, he should win the division

The North Division: This is the hardest division to look at, and it's not because I did anything important tonight.  I will likely lose lost because Eifert is dumb, but the hard part is what will happen with Brady and Chad's game.  Chad is projected to win by 1.5, but Brady still has a person going right now, so who knows.  If Chad wins, he will have a two game lead over me, but I would still have a 50 point lead on him.  I would need to win out, and he would need to lose out, but outscoring him isn't a big concern since I already have the lead.  Basically Chad needs to lose tonight or I'm mostly hosed.

If Chad were to lose tomorrow, he would only have a one game lead.   We play each other next week, so if he won that matchup he would win the division by having a two game lead.  If I won, it would be tied going into the last week, and anything could happen there.

Now for the wild card playoff spots.  I have a one game lead for the 4 seed and TJ is tied with me record wise, but I have the tie breaker at points, so he has the 5 seed, while Rob has the 6 seed.  He only have a one game lead over Matt and Tyler for that spots.  In terms of point tie breakers though, Matt should have a 90 point lead over Rob, and Rob should only have a 25 point lead over Hukill.  So if Matt can get another win with Rob getting another loss, Matt would move into the 6 seed.  And yes, I am writing off Geoff, Brady, Ren and Jordan.  Though after tonight Geoff will be one game behind Matt and Tyler, and Ren will be 1 game behind Geoff, and hopefully Brady wins and he will also be one game behind Geoff.  Not that he will make the playoffs, but I need him to beat Chad.

Anyway, that is all at the moment about the playoffs.  Other than I really hate Eifert.  Sanu (my guy) scored a TD that was called back, and then Eifert scored like the next play or two. That was around a 14 point swing, and that would have likely got me the win.  Ugh.  Oh well.

**Edits to make up for the fact that TJ came from behind to win after I had written his section and to complain more about Tyler Eifert**

Monday, November 9, 2015

First Recap of the Season...Two and Half Months Late

I haven’t blogged about fantasy football for most of the season.  I’m sure most of you are ok with it, but I know TJ was semi looking forward to it since he became a member of the league this year.  So here is your shout out TJ.  Anyway, I have been slacking because of school. I only have class on Monday and Wednesday, meaning I do homework Sundays and Tuesdays because I believe in procrastination.  Now that playoff implications are getting clearer though, I decided I would blog again.

The first caveat of all of the scenarios that are about to be mentioned, is that there will be no ties.  I don’t think they have happened in our league, and I don’t think they ever will.  That’s the perk of going to two decimals.  The second caveat is that I am working off of the projections, so someone might actually win tonight, but it’s not shown in this writing.

There are 4 tiers of teams based on record.  People can move tiers pretty easily, but here are the current tiers.  The 7-win tier is Chad and Trevor, the 6-win Tier is Kyle, Tyler and me, next tier at 4 or 5 wins is made up of Rob, Tyler, and Matt, and the most likely to miss the playoff tier is Geoff, Brady, Ren and Jordan.

So we are going to start from the bottom up.  The loser of Jordan/Ren (projected to be Jordan) will be eliminated from the playoffs.  In all likelihood neither of them (or Brady) will make the playoffs, but there is the chance that if they win out and things bounce the right way, they could sneak in as a 5-win team that holds tie-breakers over the other 5 win teams.  So Jordan will not be able to catch Chad, Me, Trevor, Kyle, or TJ after tonight’s loss.

Ren and Brady could win out to be 6-7, which would still put them behind Chad, Trevor, the winner of me and TJ in week 10, and then the winner of Kyle and TJ in week 13 in the best case scenario. And they would be tied with the loser of me and TJ, and the loser of Kyle and TJ, and probably Rob and Tyler assuming Rob and Tyler manage to win at least one more game. So while those 3 aren’t eliminated, let’s just agree they aren’t making the playoffs.  If Geoff were to win out, he (in the best case scenario) could end up tied at 7-6, and he would not be able to catch Chad, Trevor, or the winner of Kyle and TJ.  He probably would want those 3 teams to win out which would hurt the teams he is trying to catch.  So while it is possible he could move up into the playoffs, it still isn’t likely.

One of the problems with a potential comeback for any of these teams is that we have five teams who have 6+ wins after 9 weeks.  Going back through the league history, the most 6+ win teams we have ever had at week 9 is four.  In the past 5 years, we have had four 6+ team wins twice, and in the other 3 years, we only had three such teams.  Only one team has had 6+ wins at 9 weeks and still missed the playoffs.  So with 5 of us at that level, there is a chance one of us doesn’t make the playoffs, but it would be for someone like Tyler or Rob who are at 5 wins, and not the lowest tier of teams.

The top two tiers are all teams who have a solid shot at winning their division.  Trevor is up 2 games in his division, Chad is up 1, and Kyle and TJ are tied atop their division, and Tyler is only one game behind them.  If they keep beating up on each other, their division winner will likely not get the bye week in the playoffs, which makes the division race for the North and South a little more important.  Given the 120-point difference between Trevor and Rob (after week 9 is over), Rob’s best bet to win his division is to end up with more wins than Trevor, which means Trevor needs to tank.  If Trevor wins two more games, that will effectively end Rob’s attempt to win the division, unless Rob averages about 30 points per game more than Trevor over the next 4 weeks.

If the predicted scores from tonight happen, I will be 40 points ahead of Chad, but he will be a game ahead of me, so this division race will be close.  At the moment, it’s a little too close to speculate what could happen, though I have to play TJ next week, and Chad plays Matt next week – which favors Chad more than it favors me.


So what have we learned?  Not much that wasn’t likely to be guessed by quickly glancing at the records.  Four weeks is still a long time to go, so making too many guesses this early is hard.  However, the positive to me writing all of this is that I look busy taking notes during my boring classes, so that’s nice.  Hopefully at this point next week, things will be a little clearer, though it’s not likely that they will be.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Draft Recap

That's right, the draft was today, so your social media spam about fantasy football is about to go through the roof.  I decided to use football guys "rate my team" feature to see how everyone was ranked.  I won't say who did the best or the worst, but there were some surprises all around.

North:
Skyler - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=iwL6ESQ283yS
Brady - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=35uxAmD867ZL
Chad - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=Yz7Wc5A7Ivs7
Geoff - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=m5Z5b63bE5pU

South:
Trevor - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=3c4ic2389Mii
Ren - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=pK4U6k9y7252
Rob - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=9m3sp8ktWp8C
Matt - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=9SLjDD25I75K

West:
Tyler - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=P353ZWBy266y
Jordan - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=B8xUDQSA6DSI
TJ - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=haQqH5998467
Kyle - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=c9977jcY922T

We will have to revisit this come playoff time.  Tyler loved pointing out that he was rated to do terrible last year, but still made the playoffs (we'll ignore the part where he was the lowest scorer of the year).  Anyway, it should make for a fun and interesting year.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Why I Love Easter

It has been a long long time since I last blogged.  Basically I stopped blogging to have good luck in fantasy football.  I'm sure most of you were more than fine with me not blogging about fantasy football any more.  I've had a few minor things to blog about since then, but I never got around to it.  The biggest thing I had thought about blogging about was why I loved Christmas, and some of my favorite and least favorite Christmas memories (spoiler alert the MTC Christmas makes up the entire least favorite list) and have that lead into something spiritual.

I'm not much of a spiritual social media guy.  Most of my facebook friends are already LDS, and those that aren't either don't care much about religion, or have lived in Utah most of their lives and probably have heard plenty of LDS stuff.  Either way, the point is I highly doubt anything I say in that regard will do much good.  Then I watched a Christmas video on youtube, and it was the random behind the scenes part that got me into the Christmas spirit, and willing to write a Christmas post.

I mentally worked out a rough draft, but it never got posted (maybe it will next year), though you are about to get some of the content.  My favorite part of Christmas is Christmas Eve when we would get together at my grandparents, sing Christmas songs, go to the nativity scene at the temple, and then come back and listen to Grandpa read Luke 2.  Even when I wasn't in St. George for Christmas Eve, I would read through Luke 2 and imagine it in my Grandpa's voice.

I knew that would be one of the main two parts about the favorite Christmas post, but then something happened -- my grandpa passed away a week before Christmas Eve.  I was pretty broken up over it.  Suddenly my Christmas post didn't matter so much.  Whenever I thought about it, it always turned back to my Grandpa, and I wasn't ready to handle all of that, so I permanently postponed that post.

Well now Easter is here, and Easter has always tied in closely to Christmas for me -- not only because of the Savior, though that is the biggest and most obvious connection, but because of my Grandpa.  Easter was always celebrated by having dutch oven potatoes and chicken with a wide variety of sides down at his farm with all sorts of extended family. It also included Easter Egg hunts, my Grandpa giving tractor rides, and other various activities my Grandpa would put on. Now that Christmas is far enough back and it's Easter, I feel like I can write about my Grandpa without getting as emotional (this post isn't exclusively about him, but I'll make sure he gets one at some point), and his passing has a better tie in to the Easter season than the Christmas season.

While Christmas might be more fun and jolly, I've always thought of Easter as the most important holiday, and that it celebrates the most important day in this history of the world.  There have been plenty of days filled with spiritual significance before and after, but I don't think those other things would matter as much if it wasn't for Easter.  The Savior's birth was obviously very important, His mortal ministry is why we have the New Testament, and His suffering in the Garden of Eden as well as on the cross needed to happen so that we could be cleansed from sin.  Yet I'm not sure any of that would have mattered had it not been for the Resurrection.  The Resurrection was the finishing touches to the Atonement.  Spiritual death was conquered when He suffered and died, but it would have been incomplete without the Resurrection which conquered physical death.

I was lucky enough to visit Jerusalem in 2013.  I don't know if I walked any where the Savior did -- in fact I would wager I likely didn't since Jerusalem has been built and rebuilt upon itself so many times -- but I know the Lord did walk in that city, both before and after His death.  I've been to the two popular sites that could have been the Garden Tomb.  It also could have been some other site that others don't know about.  I don't really need to know where it was to know the important thing about the tomb: that it's empty.

Thanks to that incredible gift of the Atonement, so many things are possible: my favorite being eternal family. Being born in the covenant meant that I would always have my family. Sure, I fought with my brothers as a kid, and rebelled against my parents (mostly missing curfew by a few minutes every weekend and skipping young men's on Tuesday nights -- I know, such a rebel), I always enjoyed knowing that they would be around forever if we lived how we should.  And that includes being able to see my Grandpa and Grandma McArthur again some day. Unfortunately, the list of close family and friends that have passed on will grow as I get older. It's a sad fact, but it's far less sad thanks to the Atonement. 

I hope you all have a wonderful and happy Easter, eating plenty of chocolate and looking for eggs, but I also hope you take the time to remember why we have Easter. One of my favorite lines relating to the Atonement came from one of the church magazines in a story about two kids with disabilities. After one of the kids pointed out they both have disabilities, it was followed with (and I'm paraphrasing a little) "But it's ok, Jesus will make us better one day. Jesus will make everything better."

That is why I love Easter, because it is the day that everything could be made better thanks to the Savior's sacrifice. It makes me think how I will see lost loved ones again. And it helps me understand a little more the line  "Oh, sweet the joy this sentence gives: 'I know that my Redeemer lives!'"