Sunday, December 11, 2016

First Round Down

You all suck.  I hate you.

I suppose I should write a real blog post.

This week's games became blowouts pretty quickly.  Sadly for TJ, Kyle's team was terrible, except for Le'Veon Bell.  I'm pretty sure the next time Bell gets high and gets in trouble, Kyle will be legally obligated to pay his fines and bail him out of jail.  The least Kyle could do is buy a Bell jersey

Not be lost in the Bell Bonanza, is the fact that Jordan has finally beat me.  In fairness, we never play each other in the regular season, so there haven't been many opportunities -- this was only the 4th time we played.  All good runs come to an end, and Jordan ended my run.  Actually, he lit me on fire, stomped me out, and then for good measure, spit on the ashes.  I suppose that's what happens when you bet big on the Bucs in the playoffs.

The news of the week is the glorious smack talk between me and Chad.  It was a pity you did not get to behold it.  Jordan can bear witness to the greatness of it all, though.  Some of it may not be suitable for a public audience so I won't post it here.  I did cross a line, and I'm not proud of it.  To insult Chad, I also had to insult BYU and praise Utah.  I apologize to anyone I may have hurt or offended in that ordeal.  It was wrong, and I should never have done it.  The worst part is I don't even get to play Chad next week.

Speaking of next week, it will be Chad against Jordan and Matt against Kyle.  If Jordan and Kyle win, it will be a West Division battle.  On the Chad/Jordan battle, I think Chad has the better team (evidenced by the records) but I think Jordan has the good schedule to pull off the upset -- especially if Julio ends up being healthy.  Though David Johnson could have a Le'Veon Bell type game against the Saints next week.

Matt and Kyle's game should be entertaining as well.  Matt is very heavy on the Cowboys and the Chargers.  The Cowboys will likely be playing angry next week, and against a Bucs team that isn't great.  The Chargers WR could get a lot of targets because they will probably be down to the Raiders, which would help Matt out.  However, I think Kyle will win.  Brees can't have 3 crappy games in a row, can he? After two games with no touchdowns, I imagine Brees will bounce back next week.  Le'Veon will probably be solid again, and Gurley will likely come back down to earth.  He is playing the Seahawks on Thursday night.

My order of who I want to see win the league in reverse order:
5) Kyle -- He is already on the trophy once, I don't want to see a repeat winner.

4) Jordan -- Also already on the trophy once, I don't want to see a repeat winner.  However, I would pick him over Kyle because he only half won his title.  Which leads us to --

3) Matt -- Didn't officially win the league, but he got Jordan his title, so he would kind of be like a repeat winner.  It's like he won somewhere between .25-.33 of a title.

2) Chad -- He is my rival, and I hate him, but he has never won, and he is in the North Division.  I want the trophy to stay in the North.  Plus it's sad that he has never won.  Like ever.  As in he has been to the championship twice and lost both times.  Once to Tyler, who no one respects as a fantasy owner (that's right Hukill insults are allowed too) by less than 5 points after Tyler already threw in the towel and thought he lost.  And Chad also lost to Konner.  The kid we put in the league to have 12 players.  Who started Andy Dalton in the championship.  The only person ever in the league Chad might be taller than.  Chad has lost 3 times in the playoffs to Aitkens.  That must suck.  Owned so much, by one family.  Also, Chad took last place in 2011.  So this would be a great comeback story.  After being a cellar dweller and then finally winning the championship, after your biggest playoff rival was taken out by someone else.  Such an inspiration, like and oscar winning story. I feel like in the movie of our league, I would be played by Matthew McConaughhey, and Chad would be played by Danny DeVito.  Also, I'm open to more suggestions of who plays who in the league movie. I have a few ideas, but whatever.

1) The Asteroid -- An asteroid comes to earth (hits Chad first by the way) and then wipes out all of humanity so no one else wins our league.

Well, that does it for tonight.  So to come full circle, you all suck, and I hate all of you.  I'm going to go wipe my tears and hold on to my fantasy championship rings as I try to sleep tonight.

Sunday, December 4, 2016

One Night, One Playoff Spot to Go.

Our league is loads of fun, so of course the last playoff spot has yet to be decided.  Chad has clinched the number one seed.  For the record, the North Division has been the regular season champion, or had the best regular season, or clinched the number one seed (whatever you want to call it), four years in a row now.  If Kyle loses (more on that later), Skyler would have the second best record, which would put the top two teams in the North Division.  Good thing Skyler doesn't get a bye week.

Speaking of bye weeks,  Kyle had a lead over Matt by just under 30 points.  If Kyle loses tomorrow, Matt will get the bye week because he outscored Matt this week by 33 points.  Those were some awkward sentences, but I think you get the idea.  That's not even the most exciting matchup.  If TJ wins over Kyle, he makes the playoffs.  If he loses, Rob will make the playoffs.  Tomorrow's game all comes down to Frank Gore scoring 6.8 points.  There are plenty of scenarios for that to happen, but it's basically a lock if Gore score's a touchdown.  He has only scored less that 6.8 once this year, and that was last week.  Odds are in TJ's favor, but you never know.  So if TJ wins, the first round match will be Kyle vs TJ, with the winner playing Matt.  If Kyle wins, it will be Rob vs Matt with the winner playing Kyle.  Of course, Brandon Marshall could score 35 and cause Matt to lose, but that's not realistic, so why bring it up?

The other side is pretty boring.  Chad has the bye week, Skyler and Jordan play each other next week for certain.  The Skyler vs Jordan matchup will be the 4th time they have met in the playoffs (which is interesting because they never play in the regular season).  It will be the third time that the winner of that game will move on to play Chad (2012, 2013).  It's like the great Yogi Berra said "It's Deja Vu all over again.  There will be more on this next week, but I just wanted to put it here for now.

Anyway, that's it for now.  Since tomorrow's game doesn't effect me at all, I don't really care all that much what happens.  I mostly hope it comes down to the last drive and that Gore only scores between 6.5-7.1.  I want it to be close and uncomfortable for all 4 guys who will be watching closely tomorrow.

Monday, November 28, 2016

One Week to Go

I will try and be as accurate as possible with the tie-breaker scenarios, but as that requires math with numbers that are still changing, some of the numbers will be off.  None of the outcomes of the games should change, so records will be accurate.

North:
Chad (9-3)
Skyler (8-4)
Brady (6-6)
Geoff (4-8)

South:
Matt (7-5)
Rob (6-6)
Trevor (5-7)
Ren (1-11)

West:
Kyle (8-4)
Jordan (7-5)
TJ (6-6)
Tyler (5-7)

Chad essentially has the #1 seed locked up.  Even if he loses next week, and Kyle and Skyler win, they would have to outscore him by so much that it's very unlikely.  Kyle scored so much this week over Jordan that he appears to have locked up the #2 seed and his division.  Even if he loses next week, and Jordan wins, Jordan would have to outscore him by 60 points to overtake him.  It's obviously not impossible since Kyle outscore Jordan by 75 this week, but I don't think it's likely to swing back that heavily towards Jordan.

Matt has also most likely won his division.  Matt has an 80 point lead over Rob, so Rob would have to win, Matt would have to lose, and Rob would have to outscore Matt by 80 points.  Again, not likely, so I'm saying Matt won the division.  Skyler has also locked up a playoff spot. With only 1 game to go, the only person who can tie/pass him that hasn't likely won his division is Jordan.

Speaking of Jordan, if he wins, he is in.  If he wins and Skyler loses, he can jump up to the 4th seed. If he loses, he could still get in, but it would depend on what the other 6-6 teams do.  If they all lost, he would still get the 5th seed. If they all won, and Jordan lost, TJ would definitely jump him, but Brady and Rob are behind him by 75-90 points -- so it would be hard for them to pass Jordan.

If one of the 6-6 teams wants to guarantee his spot, he needs to win, and have the other two 6-6 teams lose.  TJ is playing Kyle, so I give him a 50% chance to win. Rob is playing Ren, so I give him a 70% chance to win.  Brady plays Skyler and is without his best RB, so I only give him a 40% chance to win.  Obviously, what I think means 0%, so whatever.

Currently, the score difference is TJ is up about 116 over Rob, and Rob is up about 40 points ahead of Brady.  If it weren't for competition in the last week, TJ would have the best chance to make it.  Unfortunately for him Rob has next to a gimmee against Ren.

Well that's it for now.  It should be an interesting last week.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Another Week, Another Playoff Update

I have decided to give a mid-game update on the playoff situation since most of the games have been decided.  The assumptions I am making are that Kyle's last player doesn't score him -3 points, that Trevors two players can score him 3 points, and that Jordan's two players don't score him 50 points.  The Jordan one is possible, but I don't see it happening.  For the sake of this update, I will assume they score him 30 points since it will come up in a tie-breaker scenario.

Here are the new records (again given the above assumptions) by division after this week.

North:
Chad (9-2)
Skyler (7-4)
Brady (6-5)
Geoff (3-8)

South:
Matt (6-5)
Rob (5-6)*
Trevor (5-6)
Ren (1-10)
*Rob is ahead of Trevor of 8 points in real life.  After this week is finalized, it will depend on how much Trevor scores, but Rob could see his lead jump up to 40 points.

West:
Jordan (7-4)* [Again, assuming his 2 players score him 30 more points -- which is higher than the projections]
Kyle (7-4) [Assuming his last player scores 10 points, which is what he is projected to score]
TJ **(5-6)
Tyler (5-6)

*Jordan stays ahead of Kyle about 60 points.  He is currently ahead 40, and this week could see him gain another 10-20.
**TJ pulls ahead of Tyler on the tie-breaker of points, which is about 65 points.

So where does this put us?  The "Geoff could 0.01% make the playoffs" scenario is done. As is the "Chad could miss the playoffs if the planets aligned, and having his baby caused him to drop his whole team" scenario.  The North Division has also locked up the first round bye.  I say it that way because Skyler could still hypothetically catch Chad's record (and outscore him by 150 points the next two weeks), and if that were to happen, no one in the South Division could catch Skyler.  That's not going to happen.  Odds are a little better that Jordan or Kyle could catch him and outscore him by 50 and 100 (respectively) in the next two weeks, but that's still not very good odds.

So unofficially, Chad will be the regular season champ.  I may have thrown up in my mouth a little.  Yuck.

Moving on to the most interesting division, let's look at the West. Jordan plays Kyle next week, and the winner of that game will for sure be in the playoffs.  They won't have necessarily won the division, but they will lock up a playoff spot.  On the flip side, the loser of the TJ vs Tyler game will be eliminated from the playoffs next week.  The winner will still have a hard time to get in, but it will be possible.  Let's say TJ wins next week, and Kyle loses, they would go into their final game against each other, Kyle with a one game lead.  If TJ beat Kyle, they would have the same record, but TJ would most likely be ahead by 30-40 points.  That's looking at too far out, and too much can happen, but you get the idea.

The most interesting game after that is Rob vs Trevor.  They are tied at 5-6, but their playoff implications are still a little bit murky. The winner wouldn't lock in a playoff spot, and the loser would most likely be eliminated, though there is a small chance they could survive.  The most interesting storyline from this division would be if Matt lost to Ren, and Trevor beat Rob, then Matt and Trevor would play for the division championship in the last week.  If Matt beats Ren, he will have essentially locked up the division and the playoffs.

The North Division isn't all that exciting.  Chad has like 99.9% chance to win the division -- he 100% wins it if he beats Skyler this week.  Skyler and Brady are currently ranked 5 and 6, and are the last two teams making the playoffs at the moment.  One of them will at least get one more win since they play each other in the last week.  Again that's looking 2 weeks out, but I'm pretty sure the winner of that game will make the playoffs -- it's not certain though.  If Skyler can beat Chad this week, I'm pretty sure he would be in the playoffs (I realize I'm referring to myself in different ways in this post.  When I say "Skyler", I'm referring to the team, not trying to talk in 3rd person.  When I say "I" or "me", that's the writer/narrator.  I do it that way so if anyone is trying to look at the scenarios, they don't see "I will make the playoffs" and have to change it to "Skyler" in their heads.  Moving on.)

If Brady wins, he will be in a very solid spot to make the playoffs.  If he loses, he will still be ahead of the winner of Trevor/Rob, but behind the winner of TJ/Tyler, which would not be an easy position to be in because Tyler beats him on tie-breaker by 40 points and TJ by about 100.

Anyway, that's it for now.  It's late-ish and I'm watching Star Trek.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Playoff Implications From Week 10

What a week! And by that I mean I won by 1.7.  I suppose in other almost interesting news was Geoff nearly coming back to beat Jordan, and Chad likely locked up the #1 seed.  Ugh, stupid Chad -- he's so stupid.

In playoff news -- what we all knew is officially confirmed, Ren has been eliminated from making the playoffs.  It's been a rough year for Ren -- no one has allowed more than 1300 points besides Ren (1365), and no one has scored less than 1130 except for Ren (1084).  That's the perfect storm of bad luck.  Especially since there were a few people worried about him at the beginning of the year when Forte went bonkers.

Next on the chopping block is Geoff.  There is still a chance that he could sneak into the 6th spot based on tie-breakers.  If he did that, he would be on such a hot streak that he would probably win the whole thing.  Odds are he will be eliminated this week, but you never know.

After Geoff, we could see 3 more teams get eliminated this week.  If all the 4-6 players lose (Rob, Trevor, and TJ), and all of the 6-4 players win (Skyler, Brady, Matt, and Kyle) then Rob, Trevor, and TJ will be eliminated from the playoff race.  Odds of that happening aren't great as Trevor plays Ren (the worst team) and Brady has to play Chad, and Chad has the best team -- stupid Chad.

Speaking of stupid Chad, he is the first to be officially in the playoffs.  At 8-2, with 3 weeks to go -- actually, great news everyone, that's not true!  I just realized there is a tiny chance he misses the playoffs.  If he loses every game, and Tyler, Jordan, and Kyle all got to 8 wins, and Brady and I both beat Geoff, and then if we all pass him on points (he has the lead by more that 50) then he would be out by a tie-breaker.  I don't know what's more likely, Geoff makes it, or Chad misses it, but either way, the odds are incredibly small.

All of the 5 and 6 win teams can't officially clinch a playoff spot, even if all of the 4 win teams get eliminated this week.  Jordan could clinch a spot in the playoffs if all the 4 win teams lost, and if Tyler lost.  Again, it's not likely, but it's possible.

That's it for this week.  I'm sure I will have to reevaluate everything next week when nothing goes according to the above scenarios.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

The Playoff Chase Heats Up

I haven’t written about the league since the draft.  I like to think that my excuse is moving/new job/baby, but really, I just haven’t loved this season.  Not sure why, but it just hasn’t been as fun.  That being said, we are down to the last 4 weeks, people are inching towards the playoffs, and people will want to see some early scenarios/paths to the playoffs.  We are still a ways out, so I can’t cover everything, but this should be helpful.
I went back and looked at historical data of who does and doesn’t make the playoffs based on end-of-year records.  No team that finished at 5-8 or worse never made the playoffs. On the flipside, any team that won at least 8 games made the playoffs.  It gets more interesting when you look at the 7-6 teams and the 6-7 teams.  79% of the teams that go 7-6 make the playoffs.  Only 23% of the 6-7 teams make the playoffs.  So if you want to feel safe, get to 8 wins.  If you want a shot, get to 7.  If you can hope for a miracle with other teams being terrible, maybe 6 wins will be enough – it happened twice in 2011, and once in 2014. A lot of teams are close, so it could happen.
Speaking of teams that are close, we have 3 matchups this week where a 5-4 team plays a 4-5 team.  Throw in Tyler most likely beating Ren, and we could have seven teams who are 5-5 after this week.  If the 5-4 teams all win though, they take a 2 game lead over the 4-5 teams, with only 3 games left.  It will be an interesting week for sure.
The number 1 team (Chad) takes on the number 3 team (Matt) this week.  They are both at least two games ahead of all of their division opponents.  If Chad wins, he has the inside track to the number one seed.  If Matt wins, he will tie Chad on record, but still be behind on points.  What would be fun is for Matt to beat Chad, and Jordan to beat Geoff, and then the top three teams will be 7-3, and they will be fighting for the top two teams that would earn a bye – but none of them are locks to even win their division if the other top teams in their division win.

Basically, all of the above was fluff to say we won’t know anything for sure after this week, but there will be a lot of interesting games that will be pretty important in the long run.  I wouldn’t be surprised if at least 3 spots are up for grabs in the last week.  Anyway, it will be a fun week for just about everyone.

Saturday, August 20, 2016

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

It's the most wonderful time of the year, and I'm not talking about Christmas.  Football season is about to happen, and we just had our fantasy football draft for the year.  As is tradition, I get on here and post links to the rankings of everyone's teams.  I only looked at the one person's rankings (instead of all 4) and and we are all pretty equal according to him, though there is one outlier.  We will see if it plays out that way but without further ado, here are the rankings on likelihood to make the playoffs with great inseason management:

85% -
Rob - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=3SRI2466SwW5

80% -
Jordan - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=IjAc893Z8eA5
Geoff - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=c2WW25x26b24
TJ - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=K4S7pd2H5J7H
Skyler - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=33ju37Crd6Ka
Kyle - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=7Qs5tTL4457v
Tyler - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=RC3wL55VE9i6

75% -
Chad - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=AU2sr4cATpwj
Brady - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=96PVm3hT8dEX

70% -
Matt - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=9BBXDkzH9e7I
Trevor - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=as942885w5z9

55% -
Ren - http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=Ss6ACTm9j58z


I know this isn't as long as most years, but oh well.  Maybe I will write more later, but probably not.  I am running on about 4 hours of sleep, so I may just nap the rest of my day away.