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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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**

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.