WNQ: Can He Be On Time Twice in a Row Edition: Week 3

Boys and girls, you’re in for a treat.

I’ve spent eight or so hours this week crunching numbers and compiling all of the data from our league, from Season 1 to Season 5 Week 3 into one handy excel file for fun reference. I can’t attach a file to the ESPN website but the link here at…

http://ichooseweswelker.blogspot.com/

…should have the file attachment for your viewing pleasure [ED's NOTE: I can't do this. Will email]. What this list includes is:

1. The overall win-loss record of each team compiled from Seasons 1-4

2. A list the best record/place finishing and worst record/place finishing for each team.

3. Points for highs and lows all time for each team, including the historical teams back B.K. (before Kim).

4. League records for Highest Weekly Score, Lowest Weekly Score, Highest/Lowest Points For over a season, and the Highest scoring individual peformances by the top 10 QB/RB/WR/TE/DST/Ks.

5. Season by season breakdowns of who beat who and by how much.

Overall, fascinating stuff if you like data. Boring if you don’t care. Do what you will with it, though I’ll make some commentary on the highlights later in this post.

Takeaway Points

Bob vs. Peter (or, Mike Tyson versus the Starving, Blind Orphans)

Sometimes it’s a shame to waste your best week ever (literally. My previous best week ever was 129 points. I know, I know, I don’t score much) on a dreadful team having a dreadful week.  Starting four Patriots was a dumb move to some, but they scored 63 of my total points…or enough to beat Peter alone. Considering that Peter had Tom Brady, that seems nearly impossible, except for those interceptions he was throwing to anyone who would come close.

I’d also like to say, to all the people I tried to trade with this week: fuck you guys! I tried to trade Wes Welker AND Rob Gronkowski to at least three different people, all of whom more or less laughed in my face at “not wanting your Patriot castoffs.” Well, who’s sorry now, bitches.

And for Peter, as we all know, with each passing week comes a new ACL tear for his remaining players. Bon voyage Kenny Britt! See you next year!

Drew vs. Kyle (or, Dr. Kevorkian and the Mercy Killings)

What a long, sad, woeful season this is turning out to be for Kyle. He has scored 221 points over 3 games, the lowest in the league. He has essentially no one on his team; he can’t even trade! Right now his best players are mark Sanchez (not whom I’d define as a consistent starter) and MJD, who would have been a great #1 back two season ago.  From this point forward I will try my hardest to refer to Kyle’s team as Orthopedic Prep: they might be good for a high school team, but this is the big leagues, son.

Scott vs. Ryan (or, Another One Bites the Dust)

Scott may only be 2-1, but I don’t think there’s any denying who is the best/scariest team in The Baker Division. Averaging over 120 points per game, I defecate myself when I think about playing Scott twice this year.  Ryan Good’s team is pretty decent, but Scott makes him look like a Kim/Jason-type scrub.

Donel vs. Travis (or, The Other Scott Baker)

You’ll notice I said Scott is the undeniable best/scariest team in his division. I didn’t say “league” because of Travis, who, stats wise, is essentially the same team. What Travis has going for him is a plethora of stars. Even with two of his best players sidelined with injuries (Hillis, Austin), he can still start seven players who will break ten points. I would murder small children for any of his four RBs (that’s including an injured Hillis, who would still probably be startable on my team if he lost a leg).

Donel had me fooled for a week. When you’ve got one great week and one bad week, you can assume a team might be pretty good despite a bad game. When you’ve got two terrible weeks and one good weak, you’ve got a team capable of fluke points that otherwise will struggled to cross the 70 points mark in any given game. On the plus side for Donel, Eli was looking pretty good from the bench this week.

Kim vs. Jason (or, And Everything Turns Out Just as I Had Hoped)

I was talking to Travis about this before, but I’ll say it here now: is there any more satisfying joy in life than seeing Jason 0-3? Don’t get me wrong, I love Jason…as a person. In Fantasy Football, he’s Bill Belichick. A good manager, but shifty, brainy, and downright evil. What does he have up his sleeve? What sinister plan is he hatching to lull me into a false sense of security. WHAT MALIFICENCE HAS HE WRAUGHT??!?

So couple my desire to see Jason safely out of the playoff picture (which he most certainly is NOT, despite everything) with my desire to see Kim’s team not suck, and I couldn’t be happier about this week’s outcome. Kim is like the Detroit Lions: rarely very good, but someone I could definitely get behind to pull of an upset, if possible. Now, at 1-1-1 she’s nowhere close to a sure thing, but that tie will do wonders to assure her a lot of tiebreakers. Viva La Fem!

Tidbits O’ Knowledge

Here’s some information I derived from the statistics I’ve been crunching about our League’s history.

Our records are VERY skewed by Season 1, when the scoring system was vastly different and teams routinely scored over 140 points a week. Due to this fact, only three of the top ten scoring weeks occurred after Season 1, and all of them were by Travis, who holds positions #2 (167), #5 (159) and #6 (150).

Karen Kinneman left her mark on our league with the lowest weekly score (27) points, the ninth lowest (45), and the third lowest season points total (1015), all despite score inflation. The only other two teams on the Lowest Seasons Point List during the time of score inflation are the Ryans, Davis (#1, with 921) and Good (#7, with 1082).

I am the Travis of low weekly scores, holding position #3, #5, and #10, despite at my worst never finishing with less than 1100 total season points.

In regards to individual player points, it must first be said that the date only includes from Season 3 on, as Yahoo doesn’t save that information for later viewing. So there goes Brady’s 50 points games in Season 1.

QB played out much as you might expect: the top 10 is filled with Michael Vick (3 times), Tom Brady (2 times), Aaron Rodgers (2 times), and Drew Brees (2 times). The only other QB on the list? Matt Cassel (#10, 32 points).

We might laugh at Kim’s poor records over the years, but here’s something to be impressed with: Kim holds FIVE of the top 10 RB spots, with Darren McFadden at #3 and Chris Johnson at #1, and in a three-way tie with himself at #6.

WR is a LOT more open than RB. There is no WR who appears twice in the top 10. While he probably occurs eight times in the top 20, Andre Johnson only manages a #10 spot on this list.

There is a lesson to be had about TEs: draft Antonio Gates, who holds the top 3 positions

Peter may have a history of mediocrity, but he holds the two best D/ST scores ever, a 39 for the 49ers and a 35 for the Eagles.

The Kicker ranks are much less exciting, mostly because of the 12 way tie at 15 points. There are only six kickers in our league during the past two seasons with over 15 points, the most recent being Dan Bailey this week for Scott, who sits at #1 with 21 points.

Besides Dan Bailey, only four other players this season have made the top 10 lists, and that would be Tom Brady (#6 QB for his Week 1 performance for Peter), Miles Austin (#5 WR for Week 2 for Travis) and Rob Gronkowski (#4 TE) and Wes Welker (#3 WR) both occurring this week for me. Tom Brady and Wes Welker both also appear on the Top 20 Overall individual scores in a tie for 20^th.

Around The League

In this section of Rob’s personal vendetta against the haters, I would like to point out that the five players I tried to trade off this week added up for 99 total points, or enough to beat five teams this week assuming you started no one else.

Spotlight on Transactions

Is Jason learning, or he is just running out of money? That’s the question I asked myself last Wednesday when I saw the draft results.  Jason again had the most expensive pickup, Roy Helu for $6.  But he actually spent only 26% of the money bid on him, beating Peter, Ryan, Donel, Travis, and myself.

Peter, meanwhile, picked up Isaac Redman for $6, for the unenviable amount of 67% of the total biddings, with a two dollar overbid against the only other bidder (that would be me).

Kim picked up Dustin Keller for $6, in a good but not great 54% of the total money bid on him. But given that Donel bid $5, I consider this a win for Kim.

Dropping down the list, all other pick ups were unopposed, meaning we all essentially wasted some cash money on players everyone else thinks are scrubs.

Manager Evaluation: Week 3

Here’s a breakdown of the lost points each of us had from our benches this week.

Rob: 4 (Jermichael Finley over Rob Gronkowski)

Peter: 1 (This is actually only technically a point. If Peter had played Jacoby Ford over Kenny Britt, he would have had Ford score 0 points as opposed to Britt’s -1. A moot point, given Peter’s team is awful)

Drew: 35 (Schaub over Rodgers, Tomlinson and Bush over Gore and Forte, Rice and Thomas over Maclin and Nelson)

Kyle: 20 (Addai over Green-Ellis and Knox over Holmes)

Ryan: 19 (Jacobs, Jones, and Moore over Blount, Tolbert, and Marshall)

Scott: 12 (Flacco over Stafford, Crabtree OR AJ Green over Smith)

Donel: 23 (Manning over Rivers, Chandler over Witten, Woodhead over Williams)

Travis: 0 [PERFECT GAME]

Kim: 12 (Cutler over Ryan, Ryan Grant over Hakeem Nicks at RB/WR)

Jason: 12 (Sproles over Michael Turner)

1) Travis: our second perfect coaching game, you son of a bitch.

2) I have no proof, but given that only 9 times in 2.2 seasons has a TE scored over 20 points in a week, I’m guessing I’m the only person to have two TEs do it at the same time. Anyone want one of these guys?

3) Peter and my game is a good example of how this scoring system works.  Since we have two of the three lowest LBPs this week, it reinforces the rule: Teams with low LBPs who win are well coached, while teams with low LBPs who lost are just terrible.

4) The average margin of victory this week is an astronomical 46.8 points, helped in large part by my 78 point victory and Travis’s 65 point victory. Scott and Ryan had the closest game, 132-104. Yikes. With that ridiculous margin it means that NO team cost themselves the game with their management decisions. The winners of each game were massive haves, while the losers of each were humongous have-nots.

5) Drew takes over the position of most points on the bench with 84 this week, dethroning two-time champion Scott. His bench was the 7^th best team this week. In fact, three teams (Drew, Scott, and Ryan) had benches that would beat either Donel or Peter.

Finally, here are the tallies for LBPs so far on the season:

Travis: 6 [1.0]

Donel: 28 [0.214]

Peter: 30 [0.20]

Kyle: 37 [0.162]

Rob: 38 [0.157]

Jason: 48 [0.125]

Ryan: 51 [0.117]

Drew: 56 [0.107]

Kim: 57 [0.105]

Scott: 58 [0.103]

his represents a general tally for the strength of coaching this year. Low numbers generally mean better coaching while high numbers generally mean worse coaching. This number is NOT supposed to correlate with how good your team is, as a good team can have a terrible coach and still prevail. It is a diagnostic approach to evaluate how skilled each manager is at setting the correct roster. The number in brackets is a factor of how well each manager is doing in comparison to the best manager in the league, which at this point is Travis, taking over for Donel. Currently no one is coaching at higher than a 21.4% proficiency to Travis, who is KILLING us. Scott remains at the bottom, which, given his record, is more a sign of depth than of weakness, though it does mean he has made generally worse coaching decisions than any other team. Also of note: Peter rises from 5 to 3 and I rise from 7 to 5 on the back of good weeks.

Text Messages of the Week!

I left my phone in the hospital on Sunday morning when I was post-call, so I have a very small sample size to choose from…never the less!

Drew: My bench almost outscored my starters! Good thing Bohm’s team shit the bed per usual.

Peter: Annnnnnnnnd Kenny Britt just fumbled because he destroyed his knee. Fantasy is my friend.

Peter: Also, Tom Brady is simultaneously carrying and killing my team right now

Ryan: Did Pete really lose another guy to an ACL tear? UNBELIEVABLE!

One Random Thing

For anyone who ever considered themselves a fan of any sort of trivia, you should check out www.sporcle.com . It’s got ANY type of trivia you can think of. Entertainment/pop culture? Check. Rock songs of the 70s? Check. Identify the Old School NBA Jersey? Check. The best way to waste time in the hospital since facebook.

Wednesday Night Quarterback: Post-Call, and Ahead of Schedule Week 2 Edition

There comes a point in every FF manager’s life where they inevitably become what they hate. The one thing that he or she has railed on for seasons is suddenly the reflection of what their team has become. It’s a sobering reality that fantasy football is cyclical. Sometimes, you’re Scott Baker. Sometimes you’re Kim Vanderzee.

If you had to think of the one fact that I spent the most time harping on last year, what would it be? I’ll give you a hint: the answer is not how unlucky Peter is, how much Kim’s team sucks, or how many transactions Jason makes a year. No, what I spent the year obsessing over was how Kyle’s team could pull off so many wins while being so bad. Kyle’s team only rarely flashed moments of competency; the rest of the season his team was mediocre at best. But when playing Kyle, you could expect your star QB to tear his ACL, your RB to leave the game with a concussion, your WRs to all get migraines, and your Kicker to out himself for the season while trying to tackle a player on a kickoff return. 49-32 Kyle was not an uncommon score. It seemed to me so unjust that teams would keep winning when they don’t deserve it.

Flash forward one year and hey, what do you know! That’s me sitting pretty at 2-0! My points for? A measly 178, or under 90 a game, the 7^th highest our of ten. My points againt, however? Why, that would be 143 points, or just over 70 per game, the lowest of any team by 32 points. That’s right, my schedule is currently 16 points per game easier than anyone elses. Compare this to Scott, the #2 overall point scorer with 235 (27.5 more than me per game) at 1-1 due to an opponent average of 257 (a staggering 128.5 points per game.).  I haven’t broke 100 points yet this season; Scott’s opponents are averaging 130 points. I think it’s blatantly unfair and deviously lucky, but I can’t argue with good fortune. Though I still hate myself.

Here’s another example. What team has had worse late-season luck than Kyle? Kyle has a long history of spectacular seasons being ripped apart by snippy upstarts who have no business being anywhere near his league. Well, Kyle stands currently as the worst scoring team in our league (RIP Peyton), and while not out of contention by any means, in a very deep hole. After all those years of bitching about being the #1 seed who loses to Scott after the bye week, Kyle now has become the annoying cockroach team that simply will not die.

Takeaway Points

Bob vs. Kyle (of, Shame on You, You Poor Sad Sluts)

Two of three worst scores of the week…and by their powers combined, I become a 2-0 team! I pause for your applause.

Any team where your RB struggle to break ten points COMBINED is going to be in a hurt locker, and right now the combination is ROB-SUCKS-NUTZ. I’ve got consistency without flare, thanks to Arian Foster’s hamstring.

That’s really nothing compared to Kyle, who squandered all his money on Peyton Manning and then got marched to the gas chamber by the AutoDraft-Bot-Of-Doom.  His team is not without shining spots, but there are too many players with no fantasy value cluttering his team. WRs, WRs everywhere, but not a ball is caught.

Travis vs. Scott (or, The I Can’t Believe It’s Not Season 1 Bowl)

Stop me if I’m wrong, but I’m temporarily declaring this the highest score of the revised rules era (discounting the anything goes, 6-points per QB TD season).  Travis is a deadly monster. On the flip side, Scott continues to have the deepest bench in the business, but even his squad of all stars is NOT competing with Travis Almighty

The Frum vs. Stay Healthy Gates (or, The Passing of the Torch)

Remember when Jason never lost and Drew’s team was a bottom-feeder? Me neither. Since his dramatic victory last year, Drew’s sort of been on a roll. Since starting 2-5 last season, drew has a 9 game winning streak and has not lost a game since Week 7 of last season (he had a bye week and a tie in the middle) leaving him 12 weeks out from his last loss. That is, for FF at least, remarkable and unheard of.

Jason has a streak of his own going on; he has beaten only one team in 23 weeks that is not Kim or Travis, and that is Scott in Week 6 of Season 4. Against Kim and Travis over that period of time he is 6-2 against Kim and Travis and 1-14 against EVERYONE ELSE. Isn’t that ridiculous? It’s almost more than coincidence. Almost

Ryan vs. Peter (or, The I Bet Peter Can Score Over 100 Points Yet Lose Every Game This Season, Don’t You Agree Fiesta)

And for insult to injury the gods smite Jamaal Charles where she stands. Which was on the sidelines. Turrible.

Donel vs. Kim (or, And Then the Universe Returns To How Things Were Always Meant To Be)

After blazing forth in a moment of small victory (okay, a tie) last week, Kim decides it’s time for a usual meltdown. Donel, after a rare display of pure tomfoolery, smashes in with 128 points while wisely sitting the Chargers D/ST for the Lions (a 26 point swing!)

Bonus points to Kim’s profile picture, however. Whoever this band “Snatch” is, I have to assume they understood what they were “selling” when they arranged an A/B side as “Snatch: All I Want / When I’m Bored.” Truer words have never been spoken.

Tidbits O’ Knowledge

Despite scoring the same amount of points during Week 1, Travis has 74 more points scored than Kim does after the end of Week 2. Travis could have cut his team in half to play Kim twice and been competitive.

Were you Aware?: All of our user tags are some variation of our name (Bob, Bohm, Feva) etc., except Peter, who uses “MHC,” which of course stands for Major Histocompatibility Complex.

Around The League

I made the point clear to a couple of people that I thought this would be the year that people decided to take advantage of trades. With most good players already snatched up before the draft, it seems like teams would make trades to fill the inevitable holes in their roster. Yet this has failed to happen!

1) Despite having two solid QBs and 5 RBs that scored over 10 points last week, Jason has not managed to use that depth to obtain more than one WR capable of scoring over 5 points during a game.

2) Kim is holding onto two Top 10 TEs, 3 Top 15 QBs, and one RB of any particular worth.

3) Scott’s team is good. How much better would it be if he ditched two of his five feasible starting RBs for an Adrian Peterson?

Spotlight on Transactions

Just when I thought I couldn’t make fun of Jason anymore…In comes Free Agent Saturday! After ditching $23 on Wednesday, I figured Jason would play conservative to either a) have a chance to get a player during the last ten weeks of the season or b) have some shame and not allow himself to be played a fool again. I was wrong.

Jason paid 100% of the overall cash offered for Marques Colston ($16) and Chad Henne ($8), with no other bids being placed for either player. This lowers his budget to $53, which is 32 less than his closest big-spender, Ryan Good.  Break out the $2 bids, boys and girls! We’ll have Jason in a corner in no time.

Manager Evaluation: Week 2

Here’s a breakdown of the lost points that each of us had from our benches this week.

Rob: 20 (Santana Moss over Percy Harvin and Rob Gronkowski over Jermichael Finley)

Kyle: 14 (Addai over Pierre Thomas, Santonio Holmes over Mike Williams)

Travis: 1 (Fitzpatrick over Romo)

Scott: 39 (Stafford over Vick, Gonzalez over Gresham, Green over Steve Smith, Tate over James Starks)

Jason: 11 (Cam Newton over Roethlisberger)

Drew: 0 [MAX SCORE]

Peter: 12 (Spiller over Charles, Antonio Brown over Plaxico, Ochocinco over DeSean Jackson)

Ryan: 7 (Brandon Jacobs over Mike Tolbert, Branch over Jennings)

Kim: 14 (Matt Ryan over Jay Cutler, Hakeem Nicks over Braylon Edwards, Greg Olsen over Vernon Davis)

Donel: 2 (Burleson over Roddy White, Woodhead over DeAngelo Williams)

1) First, congrats to Drew for being the first team to max out their score during a given week by making all the right moves

2) Only the Rob-Kyle and Peter-Ryan games were close enough for bench decisions to have played into who would have won the game, but both were close enough that the outcome would not change if the managers on both sidestook their “ideal team” for the week.

3) The average margin of victory this week is 28.8 points. With this information we can extrapolate that any team that had a LBP of over 28.8 (here’s looking at you, Scott) made management decisions that lost them the game. While Scott had no chance of overwhelming Travis’ 150, you have to expect if this week is run repeatedly Scott will come out on top over Travis more often than not if he makes the right moves.

4) No teams were definitively outcoached this week, though Kyle and Peter both made management decisions that lost the game. Scott, Jason, and Kim were outplayed.

5) This is the second week in a row that Scott had 85 points from his bench, a score that would have beaten Kim, Kyle, and myself this week. This is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the more “solid” players Scott has, the fewer solid players the rest of us have. On the downside, Scott was outplayed this week, not outcoached. Scott has a plethora of good players, while Travis has a small amount of great players. Luckily for Travis, you can only play so many players in a week.

Finally, here are the tallies for LBPs so far on the season:

Donel: 5 [1.0]

Travis: 6 [0.833]

Kyle: 17 [0.294]

Drew: 21 [0.238]

Peter: 29 [0.172]

Ryan: 32 [0.156]

Rob: 34 [0.147]

Jason: 36 [0.139]

Kim: 45 [0.111]

Scott: 46 [0.108]

This represents a general tally for the strength of coaching this year. Low numbers generally mean better coaching while high numbers generally mean worse coaching. This number is NOT supposed to correlate with how good your team is, as a good team can have a terrible coach and still prevail. It is a diagnostic approach to evaluate how skilled each manager is at setting the correct roster. The number in brackets is a factor of how well each manager is doing in comparison to the best manager in the league, which at this point is Donel. There is a very small sample size right now, but per this calculation, for example, Scott is coaching at the 11% the proficiency of Donel at this point in the season. But remember, they’re both 1-1.

Text Messages of the Week!

Donel: Guess puberty and manhood is kicking in all at the same time this week for my squad.

Ryan: Poor Kyle. Good thing he already paid.

Special Email of the Week = Peter: My phone has been dead for two days and my charger is a half-hour drive away, but I still need to complaint to someone about having just watched Jamaal Charles hurt his leg flying into the Lion’s mascot.

Ryan: Another week, another torn ACL for Peter’s team. Tom Brady better watch out – he could be next!

Peter: I’d like to blame it on that dick lion mascot. Who is named “Roary” anyway? Clever, Detroit. Real clever.

One Random Thing

Some of you might watch SNL. Some of you may not. Regardless, I highly recommend watching this clip from the Emmy’s where The Lonely Island plays a medley of its hits from the year.  The individual videos from the songs themselves are good, but the real highlight comes at 2:00.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nfJ5F3XLF8

Wednesday Night Quarterback: One Day Behind Week 1 Edition

This is going to be a big year.

Yea, yea, I know. Every year in fantasy football is a big year. During Week 1 the possibilities seem endless, EVERYONE seems to have a legitimate shot at a title. Good players play as expected, rookies rise from the ashes, the waiver wire is full of delightful options, hope springs eternal, etc. etc. It won't be until about week 4 when the depression sets in over 0-4 records, star RB's pulled hamstrings, Jason's total manipulation of free agents, and the inevitable spiral towards defeat at the hands of Scott "Da Mauler" Baker (TM).

But right now, even for the losing teams, there is still so much anticipation of what is to come that even a temporary setback like below-70 point performances in Week 1 can't be taken too seriously. Every team has a bad week! No one's team can be this bad AGAIN, right? Right? Bueller?

Takeaway Points

 Bob vs. Jason (or, The Game of the Week)

As of Monday morning, there was only one game still in question, and it was this one. Jason was up 60-56 with brandon lloyd still to play, but I had Wes Welker, the Patriots D/ST, and their kicker. You all laughed at my putting all of my eggs in one basket, to which I reply, "99 yard TD pass to Wes Welker, bitches." What looked like it would really come down to the line as of the 3rd quarter blew up in the 4th and put me hopelessly ahead. White receivers save the day! It was a moot point, eventually, since Lloyd only managed 8 points, which I had covered regardless of that paticular play. But still!

Travis vs. Kim (or, The One We'll Only Remember Because They Tied)

Remember how I said there was only one game still in question? Well, I assumed Janikowski and McFadden weren't going to combine for 28 points. I was wrong! While I'm not sure what the exact statistics are on the likelihood of a tie occurring, the fact that we have one every goddamn season seems like our league is verging into the realm of the statistically bizarre. To top that off, while Travis' team looks as good as usual, Kim managed a tie despite having her top scoring overall QB, RB, WR, and TE on the bench. She played all of her worst players and got a tie! My hat is off to you, madam.

Ryan vs Kyle (or, The What Life is Like Without Manning Bowl)

I was feeling sorry for myself about Arian Foster having a sore hamstring. "Wah wah wah," I said to myself. "How can such a terrible fate befall someone so kind, virtuous, and well-spoken as me?" God, hearing my cries, reached down from the clouds and snatched me up. "Quit your whining, you puss," God said. "You want to see problems? I'll show you problems." He then sent a lightning bolt out of his finger that struck down in the heart of Indianapolis, right into Peyton Manning's cervical spine. "Suck on those bulging discs, asshole," God replied, before setting me down in downtown Detroit as part of my punishment. Sorry Kyle. Might be a long season. Also, Ryan: no sooner do you swear off all bills players than they decide they're all going to be amazing. Guess God smote you, too.

Scott vs. Peter (or, This Game Really Wasn't This Close)

Peter was down about 60 before the monday night games, and only that furious Tom Brady performance brought him within 30. I have deep concerns about Peter's probability to perform well down the road (because his team ain't half bad), but I'm much more worried about Scott. What a beast! Scott's two WRs + QB outscored both Jason and Donel's entire team. Say what you will about Keepers, Scott, but I will defend it as this: all that momentum you had from last season has continued. Do I smell a resurrected dynasty? 

Drew vs. Donel (or, Separating the Men from the Boys)

Men: Drew. Specifically, Aaron Rodgers, Matt Forte, and the Ravens D/ST. Drew, our fearless champion, has wasted no time declaring, "hey, I won last year. Suck deez nutz."

Boys: Donel. Specifically, everyone, though I guess Phillip Rivers was a'ight. This was, as you'll recall, a rematch of the championship game from last year. I never thought Donel's team was that super-awesome last year, so color me convinced I was right! But seriously, Donel, I give you a Rated A for Awful for this performance. A for awesome for the team name, though. 

Tidbits ‘O Knowledge

I had forgotten this myself. For reference:

The Baker Division (or, The Shiny Lights of Hope) = Scott, Ryan, Rob, Peter, and Kyle

The FF Division (or, Drew of the Sad, Sad Drewettes) = Drew, Kim, Travis, Jason, and Donel.

Drew is actually alone at the top of the Flum/Fever Division, which seems nearly impossible until you remember that Travis and Kim tied. Good news for Drew/Travis/Kim, though, is that the two worst teams in our league right now, Donel and Jason, are both on their schedules twice. Meanwhile, Scott, Ryan, and I only get to beat up on Manningless-Kyle and Peter The Unexpected.

Did anyone see that ESPN crated a "GMC Never Say Never Trophy" today? BLATANT MERCHANDISING. Without permission they decided they'd give Scott an award with a GMC truck on it. Peter must love this. He's the one who harps against ESPN's "Coors 6-Pack of Facts" and the whole "Pace-Picante and Doritos Presents the Fiesta Bowl in Conjunction with Taco Bell" aspect of college football.

Signs That This Year is Simply Last Year, Again

1. I win...without scoring any points. As has become sort of a tradition on my team, we don't really score much. Yea, one player blows up now and then, but in general crossing 100 is a rarity for me. Yet I still tend to have winning records. How is this possible? For some reason, most opponents tend to play down to my level. It doesn't matter how good your team is: when you play me your chance of putting up triple digit points drops inexplicably. I outscored only three teams this week. Luckily, one was Jason.

2. Peter: The Unluckiest Man Alive. I'm going to start calling him "Lucky Peter," much in the same way that movies usually have a "Tiny Tony" to distinguish the monstrous behemoth man: as a source of irony. Peter is the perfect example of a team that plays up to its opponent...but never quite enough to push through. With a loss despite the third highest score of the week, Peter continues his pattern of having a good team that plays only good enough for him to lose while saving face. I'm making a preseason vote for Peter as eventual points leader...at 3-10.

3. Team names: I see we've gotten too old for switching team names. I suppose that was inevitable. I showed one of my co-interns and he laughed. "My Team? That's creative." If he only knew.

Around the League

In trades this week, is anyone surprised that Jason has started his free-agent-auction-cash hemorrhage? $16 for Cam Newton! Sure, Big Ben had a bad game, but let's be realistic. I also noticed that he refrained from the $90 FAA bid this year, a good sign for a) his team this year and b) overall IQ. Ryan Good was not far behind with $15 for Cadillac Williams.

I look to look at trades in terms of how much you paid for the player compared to how many other people were bidding, and how much.

For Cam Newton, Jason spent $16; the next highest bid was Kim at $5. I also bid for him...for $2. That comes out to an overexpenditure of $10 (regardless of waiver wire status I'd say the goal is to ultimately spend one more dollar than anyone else for a player you want to avoid tiebreakers) while offering up 69.5% of the total auction dollars thrown at him. 

In comparison, Ryan spent nearly the same amount of Cadillac Williams, $15. I big $7 on him, making an overexpenditure of $8, similar to Jason's. However, given bids of $5 by Scott, $4 by Peter, and $2 by both Donel and Travis, that means Ryan only offered up 42.9% of the overall cash offered. I interpret this as a better deal, because while they both over-spent greatly, Ryan did so on an overall more desired player. I believe someone can be forgiven for overspending on a highly desired player because you never know when someone is going to throw down $90 for John Kuhn. That overspending becomes a bad decision when you're bidding on a player that no one else even wants. Jason's expenditure still represents a disconnect with what he thinks a player is worth and what the rest of us do.

For a List of remaining FAA $$$:

Peter, Rob, Drew, and Scott: $100

Kyle: $99

Donel: $98

Kim and Travis (tied again!): $97

Ryan Good: $85

Jason: $77

One more bit of stats for you…

A tally I'm keeping of points left on the bench. This is a culmination of the points that a player lost by not starting certain players. Week to Week the numbers are sort of irrelevant, but over the course of the season I'm expecting trends to emerge. AND I WILL STATISTICIZE THOSE TRENDS.

Rob: 14 (Reggie Wayne over Percy Harvin, Reggie Bush over Derrick Ward)

Jason: 25 (Kevin Kolb over Ben Roesthlisberger, Steve Johnson over Mario Manningham and Hines Ward over Rashard Mendenhall (assuming RB/WR)

Scott: 7 (Ben Tate over Felix Jones and James Starks over AP)

Peter: 17 (CJ Spiller over Knowshon Moreno and Plaxico "Gun to Leg" Burress over Mike Sims-Walker)

Travis: 5 (Robert Meachem over Peyton Hillis, assuming flex spot)

Kim: 31 (Jay Cutler over Eli Manning, Cedric Benson over Dwanye Bowe [flex], Dez Bryant over Marques Colston, Greg Olsen over Vernon Davis)

Kyle: 3 (Santonio Holmes over Joseph Addai at flex)

Ryan: 25 (all from one player, Mike Tolbert over LeGarrette Blount)

Drew: 21 (Fred Jackson, Jordy Nelson, and LT over Frank Gore, Jonathan Stewart, and Jeremy Maclin)

Donel: 3 (Danny Woodhead over Chris Johnson and Donald Driver over Vincent Jackson)

A few bits of information can be drawn from these numbers.

1) The teams with the lowest Lost Bench Points (LBPs) are actually the worst teams at this point. Donel, Kyle, and Travis ended up with two losses and a tie despite basically playing all of their best players. The only exception to this is Scott, who played his best player with dazzlings results, though it raises some questions about depth. 

2) Players who lose games with low LBPs got outplayed. Managers who lose games with high LBPs got outcoached. There was nothing Donel was going to do to beat Drew. However, if Kim had played any of four different players she would have come out with a win. Travis's team, by these numbers, is inferior, but this week he outcoached the Fem.

3) The average margin of victory this week is 22 points. With this information we can extrapolate that any team that had a LBP of over 22 and lost made management decisions that lost them the game. I know, I know, Jason could take all 25 of his bench points and still lose to me this week. But statistically speaking if Jason were to make the changes his choices and Week 1 was re-run 100 times, he would come out on top more often than not. 

4) Teams that lost despite LBPs under 22 just have crappier teams than there opponents. With all other things being equal, I EXPECT that team to lose to their opponent again during the season barring any major lineup changes. With these expected numbers Scott WILL beat Peter unless there is a shake up on either team, just as Kyle will lose to Ryan Good over and over without correction.

5) Since these numbers only represent math and not the random nature of football games, none of this is definite. I can't account for random chance. But by these numbers today Jason, Peter, Kyle, and Donel were all outplayed. In a tie, Kim was outcoached.

Also, kudos to Scott's 85 bench points. His bench beat three teams.

Text Messages of the Week!

Peter: I heard Arian Foster is going to have a huge game today. Start him for sure.

Rob: It’s always hard for me when I have to decide which one of my other terrible RBs I need to start

Peter: Foster.

Jason: Shit I hope Wes Welker breaks his testicles.

Rob: I need the dolphins to stop scoring immediately. A TAINT would be nice

Jason: I’m going to punch Wes Welker in the taint

Scott: I need to trade Steve Smith before he descends to Earth.

(pause)

Scott: Want him?

Rob: Nice call drafting Nate Keading, Injured on the first kickoff of the season

Peter: Kicking is a dangerous job, cut him some slack. Not like I was winning against the buzz saw that is Scott, anyway.

Jason: In the words of Ryan Good: Game Blouses.

Rob: Want to trade a player with me?

Kim: Just finished 24-hour call. Will review once I have slept. It’s probably a crooked deal anyway.

One Random Thing

You may have seen the “Pure Michigan” campaign that our past or present state has mounted to desperately try to stem the tide of slow downward spiral into despair. Even if you haven’t, watch this. It reminds me of Scott and Mundy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FJoRxT6B5g