Week 16: The Last Man Standing..

...is Rob and the fighting Rob Dogo's -- unless Jordan's kicker has a 40 point game in him tonight.  That would be 8 field goals over 50 yards, or maybe some trick plays and he throws a few TD's.

Rob was lead by Saquon (championship MVP) and his 43.9 points.  Saquon's last two weeks, he combined for 74 points -  the previous 14 weeks he scored about 125 points combined.  Rob also got a great outing from Michael Thomas and Travis Kelce.  The 3 of them combined for 95 of Rob's 154 points.

Jordan was let down by a few people.  Jackson and Ingram ended up having decent games but had they started hot, maybe Jordan would have had a chance.  The big let down was James Conner (championship LVP) though, who scored 3.2 points before going out with injury.

Congratulations to Rob on a well-fought campaign.  In week 9, Rob was in 5th place and had just lost to Skyler who was in second place.  However, that was his last loss of the year, and he went on a winning streak from them on to claim the 2 seed and the bye week, and eventually the championship. Rob is the second team to become a 2-time champion and will get to have the trophy for the next year, once he gets it from Brady. 

Year in Review:

I won't put too much into this for breaking down teams, I will simply link to the pre-season rankings from other sites. https://skyleraitken.blogspot.com/2019/08/2019-draft-review.html  Most of them seemed to be pretty off, but in fairness, we did a lot of trading this year.

Decade in Review:

The regular season team of the decade is the same as previously texted.  Here it is for those that don't remember

Position
QB	Rodgers
RB1	Adrian Peterson
RB2	Frank Gore
WR1	Antonio Brown
WR2	Larry Fitzgerald
Flex	McCoy
TE	Gronk
DST	Ravens
K	Gostkowski

 Rodgers --  Almost always a top QB, his only real competition was Brees and Wilson, but I gave the edge to Rodgers.  This one was probably the closest of the list outside of defense.

Peterson --  Former first-round pick, who was dominant for a long time, and stayed relevant even after he went downhill.

Gore -- never as dominant, but relevant for a long time.  He gets in over the Gurley's and Bell's of the world because it seems fitting to have someone who has been a great RB 2 in the RB 2 slot -- plus the longevity.

Brown --  a first-round pick for a long time, usually the first WR off the board.  Outside of this crazy year, he has always been safe and productive.  His major competition was Julio and Megatron.

Fitzgerald -- a better real-life WR than a fantasy WR these days, he never had the extended peak like Brown, Julio, Megatron, and others, but like Gore, he has been around and relevant for a long time.

McCoy -- basically a combo of Peterson and Gore, he had a few great years and a few years of being a reliable RB 2.  He also had some years where I don't remember him being relevant, but I could be misremembering.

Gronk -- If you have any questions on this, seek counseling, or look at the TE history of scoring in the past years.

Ravens -- Picking a DST was one of the harder picks that I put more time into than I should have.  In the last decade, only 4 teams have been in the top 10 for seven or more years (8 - Patriots, 7 - Ravens, Steelers, and Seahawks). Only 3 teams have been in the top 5 for four years (Bears, Ravens, Texans), and only 4 teams have finished in the top 3 for three years (Ravens, Bears, Seahawks, Broncos).  There have been 9 teams that have finished first overall, Ravens have done it once (the only team to do it twice is the bears)

Gostkowski -- Basically see Gronk, but substituted TE for Kicker.

The championship team of the decade is also the same 

Stafford

Marshawn Lynch

Chris Johnson

Dez Bryant

Julio Jones

Gronk

Brandin Cooks

Hauschka

Chiefs

Stafford - 2 for 2 on championships

Lynch - 2 for 2on championships

Johnson - 1 for 3 on championships

Dez - 2 for 3 on championships

Julio -  2 for 3 on championships

Gronk - 2 for 4 on championships

Cooks - 2 for 2 on championships

Hauschka - 1 for 2 on championships

Chiefs - 2 for 2 on championships

There is no good transition, so I'll just come out and say that Ren has retired, and will need to be replaced. I am working on some ideas, and I will be sending out texts to bounce some of them off of some people.

Great season and great decade everyone.  Let's hope for many more to come.  We can be friends again until late July/early August once we draft.

UHSAA RPI Basketball

I have attempted to make the RPI for boys basketball after making one for football.  Basketball has proven to be much more difficult because of the number of teams and games, so I will no longer be able to publish the results on Power BI.  Instead, I will just give view access to a version of my google spreadsheet.  If too many people access it, it might cause the sheet to crash, or it might cause problems with maxpreps.  If that happens, I will delete the public version, and then find some other way to share my data.

As a disclaimer, I was able to get the football version very accurate to the official version.  I will not be able to do this here for various reasons -- but it should still be close.  I have tested 3A compared to the official data, and it's close enough that 4A, 5A and 6A should be reasonably close. If you would like to reach out and ask specific questions about the changes and accuracy, or any other question in general, feel free to do so.

I am posting the link through my blog so I can try and keep an eye on the numbers and see what happens to the spreadsheet.  I am also doing it as part of version control with my data source.  You don't have to access the sheet through my blog, but it would help me understand how many people are viewing it and when, and the sheet may be outdated if you don't check through the blog.

I will try to update this daily, but no promises.  Thanks for reading, here is the link below.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Mphv_85wPOwqI35CQ8JFZz7dOnn7xonJk8M7xoBOze0/edit?usp=sharing

Edit:

I realized I never explained how to use this sheet.  Most people who view it may think it's mostly nonsense in the front (which is true from a user perspective).  What you will want to do is find the tab for the classification you want to look at '6A Ranking', '5A Ranking', etc, or you can find the specific team you are interested in and look at their score that way.  Looking at the team will show you how everything is calculated and brought together.  Most people likely won't care about that, but you will be able to verify what data/games are being used.

Championship Preview: Jordan vs Rob

This is the league's 10th consecutive year -- a full decade of smack talk, failed trades, late-night waiver wire checks, and playing for the trophy.  This year, we will see our second two-time champion, as both Jordan (2007), and Rob (2017) have previously won championships.  Jordan comes in as the 1 seed, and Rob comes in as the 2 seed. In the first 4 years (2010-2013), one of the top 2 seeds had been upset, and we never got a matchup between the top 2 seeds.  Then for the next 4 years (2014-2017), the championship was always the 1 seed vs the 2 seed.  Last year (2018) both the 1 and 2 seeds were eliminated before the championship, and it was only the 2nd championship matchup without one of the top two seeds (the first time being 2010).

So with the championship this year, five of the ten years will see the 1 vs 2 seed in the championship.  The previous four games have been split 2-2 with the 1 and 2 seed coming away victorious the same number of times.  In the other 3 matchups where 1 of the 2 top seeds made the championship, the top seed always lost -- so the only way the 1 or 2 seed has won the championship is during a 1 vs 2 matchup.

This is Rob's 3rd championship appearance -- he lost to Skyler in 2011, and he beat Brady in 2017.  This is Jordan's 2nd championship appearance, and first since the dark ages -- dark ages that are only passed on by story as there are no digital records of their existence.  Jordan's team last won in 2007 by beating Brady(?) in the championship.  Both teams have been consistent this decade as this is Jordan's 5th final four appearance, while Rob has 4 appearances in the final four.  After this year, Jordan is tied in second for most final four appearances all-time with Chad and Ren.

This will be Jordan and Rob's first time meeting in the playoffs.  Historically, they are 5-5 against each other in the regular season, with Jordan winning the last 2 years to even the series.  Looking at the previous 15 weeks and comparing Jordan and Rob head to head based on this season only, Jordan would have won 9 games, and Rob would have won 6.  Excluding the playoff weeks, Jordan would have won 8-5, yet Rob outscored Jordan by 40 points this season (about 3 points per game).  Jordan has been consistently better than Rob this season, but when Rob outscores Jordan, he really outscores Jordan.  In games where Jordan would have won this season, the margin of victory is 14.55 points.  In games where Rob would have won this season, the margin of victory is 36.38 points.

The current projections have Rob winning by 10 points, but that includes Lamar Jackson only outscoring Philip Rivers by 1.5 points, and Mark Ingram only outscoring Raheem Mostert by 2.2.  If the Ravens end up dominating the Browns (which is very possible), that will be a big area where Jordan can catch Rob.  On the flipside of that, Rob has Barkley who is capable of a 30 point game, 2 of the top 3 WR who can put up 30-40 point games, and Travis Kelce, who can be the most dominant TE in the league.  This game will likely come down to which superstars show up, and Rob has more players with superstar potential, with more chances to put up big numbers.  If Jordan wins, I think it will be by a narrow margin, and if Rob pulls it off, I think it's a blowout.  Based on the matchups for Barkley, Hopkins, and Thomas, I am leaning towards Rob getting the win -- and I'm not saying that just to try and jinx Rob -- I legitimately give Rob a narrow margin, unfortunately. 

P.S. History is on Jordan's side though when it comes to the highest-scoring teams and championship wins.  In our previous 9 years, only 1 team has ever been the highest-scoring team of the season while also winning the championship

Week 15: A Second Two-Time Champion Will Be Born.

For years, I have been able to give people grief about being the only person to have won multiple championships.  Well no more -- Jordan and Rob both won this week in the semi-finals.  They will face each other next week, but more on that later.

Jordan vs Trevor: There was maybe a chance that this was going to be a game, but then Thursday Night Football kicked off, and Lamar Jackson and Mark Ingram II combined for 70 points, and the game was basically over.  It didn't help that Trevor only had one guy score over 20 points, and Jordan and 4 people score over 20.

Ren vs Rob: In the nail-biter of the night (14 points), Rob and Michael Thomas overcame Ren and Alvin Kamara on Monday night.  Ren had another great week from Jameis Winston (40 points), and really good weeks (23 points) from 2 of Davante Triplets (Davante Adams, DaVante Parker, with Devonta Freeman being the black sheep of the family), but it wasn't enough to overcome a season-high output from Saquon, the second-highest from the season from Michael Thomas, a season-high output from Travis Kelce, with quality games from Baker and Hopkins to help him round out his team. 

Awards

Mario Kart Shout Out: Skyler

Highest Scorer of the Week: Jordan won this by a hair over Rob. If anyone has a problem with it, make the playoffs next year. 185 points by people in the consolation bracket doesn't interest me.

Lowest Scorer of the Week: Trevor gets the lowest scorer in the playoffs, and is out of the playoffs because of it.

Luckiest Team of the Week:  Technically this will go to Rob as he is the lowest-scoring winner, but it wasn't really that lucky because he was also the second-highest scorer of the week.

Unluckiest Team of the Week:  Technically this will go to Ren as he is the highest-scoring winner, but it wasn't really that unlucky because he was also the second-lowest scorer of the week.

MVP: Michael Thomas gets the win for Rob this week.

LVPs: Alvin Kamara probably deserves this by himself, but Devonta Freeman definitely contributed by getting his 3rd lowest score of the season.

Game Previews

Jordan vs Rob: Jordan has no players on Thursday night, and 5 players in primetime (including 2 on Saturday night).  Rob has no players on Thursday night, and 5 players in primetime (including 3 on Saturday night.  Rob also has one player on Saturday not during primetime.  They each have one player on Monday night.  So this game could mostly be done by Saturday night depending on who starts.

Good luck to Jordan this week.  He will need it as Rob is likely going to win.  I will try to write a bigger preview later this week, but it's Star Wars week, so we'll see when I get around to it.

Week 14: Somebody Kill Me...(Wedding Singer reference in case anyone is worried)

This is how I feel about my season https://youtu.be/Nfrk2UdEOcQ?t=31

I wouldn't be in the spot if Dalvin Cook weren't amazing and winning me games, but I'm going to blame his injury last week on me missing out on the bye week and then losing this week.

Skyler vs Ren: Ren gets the win this week behind an injured Jameis Winston getting a season-high 42.74 points this week. Devonta Freeman was another player who came in and did work for Ren that led to the win.  Skyler had no LVPs (no one under 5) but he also didn't have a single player break 20 points.

Tommy vs Trevor: Tommy got -4 from his DST, and had two other players get hurt and limit their upside.  It didn't help his case that Trevor also put up 150+ behind a 30+ point player and two 20+ point players.

Awards

Mario Kart Shout Out: Skyler

Highest Scorer of the Week: Trevor by just a hair, and if anyone has a problem with itRob, even though he is on a bye, he made the playoffs.  179 points by people in the consolation bracket doesn't interest me.

Lowest Scorer of the Week: Tommy

Luckiest Team of the Week: Jordan had a really low score, but it doesn't matter because he has a bye.

Unluckiest Team of the Week:  Skyler, because it's not anyone on a bye, or either of the winners, and his game was closer than Tommy's

Game Previews

Ren vs Rob: Ren has 1 on Thursday and 3 on primetime.  Rob has one on primetime.

Trevor vs Jordan: Trevor has 3 on Thursday and 3 on primetime. Jordan has 2 on Thursday night and 1 on primetime.

In order, best of luck next week to Trevor, then Ren, then Jordan, then the apocalypse, and then Rob since he has been working on jinxing me the last 2-3 weeks.

Week 13: Last Call for Playoff Teams

After prewriting most of my post last week, I was afraid I would make a lot of assumptions/mistakes and not fix them.  Turns out that was indeed what happened, so no prewriting this week.  However, I don't want to have to write for several hours tonight, so I will be writing a condensed version tonight.

Due to the Tyler loss, he was eliminated from the playoffs.  Due to the Rob win, he had a shot at securing a bye week.  Due to the Skyler loss, Rob secured his bye week, and Skyler dropped to the 3 seed.  The final playoff standings are (1) Jordan, (2) Rob, (3) Skyler, (4) Tommy, (5) Trevor, and (6) Ren.  That means Jordan will play the winner of Tommy and Trevor, and Rob will play the winner of Skyler and Ren.

Rapid Awards

Mario Kart Shout Out: Brady wins by a narrow margin.

Highest Scorer of the Week: Rob

Lowest Scorer of the Week: TJ -- though he would have tied Trevor with one more QB passing yard.

Luckiest Team of the Week: Ren -- even though he lost, he still made the playoffs

Unluckiest Team of the Week: Tyler -- Ren lost, which opened the door to him making the playoffs, but he couldn't overcome Jordan.  Hooray for being the top seed in the consolation bracket?

MVP: Tom Brady for turning things around and getting Rob the 2 seed.

LVP: The SOB who hurt Dalvin Cook.  I swear I'm not bitter.

Game previews

Skyler vs Ren:  Skyler has one player on Thursday night and three players in primetime.  Ren has no players on Thursday night and two players in primetime.

Trevor vs Tommy: Trevor has no players on Thursday night and one player in primetime. Tommy has no players on Thursday night and one player in primetime.

That is all for my quick recap.  I'm going to cry now.  Good luck to everyone, except Ren, next week.