Week 16 - Regular Season Recap and Analysis

Hello Everyone!

I'm sure you're sick of the excuses but I haven't been able to post due to being really busy with work and personal stuff. I didn't even get to the trade analysis I said would be coming soon. However, I did want to share some cool stuff that I was able to get done for our league.

Also, don't forget that if you're in the consolation bracket, you're playing for a $25 gift card!

Ease of Schedule:

- Here we see that the 2 David's were on opposite sides of the luck spectrum when it came to their schedule.

- Another thing we see is the impact of luck on making the playoffs: All 6 playoff teams had relatively favorable schedules, which helps explain how they earned their postseason berth. 

- One other pattern you'll see as we continue to go through the graphs is that Mike just really had a fairly unlucky year that he may want to forget.

High Scores:

- There's a reason Cho earned a bye. He was the top scoring team in 5 of the 14 regular season weeks, automatically clinching 5 Ws no matter who his opponent would have been.

- The funniest high score has to be Jung's week 14 explosion to ensure David Y stayed out of the playoffs. I think the 130 points were almost 10% of his season points.

- On the right, it's crazy to think that no player repeated as the highest weekly scorer. Most of these scores were capitalized on. However, here's the short list of teams that did not take advantage of the explosion of points with the week, player, manager, who they played instead, and if this miss cost them the W:

     - Week 2, Cousins, Chris, Hurts (27.22), Still got the W

     - Week 3, Achane, Jon, Gibbs (9.5), Still got the W

     - Week 8, Howell, FA

     - Week 11, Lawrence, Jon, R. Wilson (16.46), Still got the W

So in the end, missing out on the best player for that week didn't actually affect any teams' records but may have affected their PF and ultimate ranking.

Player Management

- There's nothing too crazy here other than the fact that the people who got the most percentage of their points from non-drafted players happened to either be people who traded/active on waivers (Simon 42% w/ 67 moves, David K 34% w/ 39 moves, Mike 35% w/ Puka + Gus + Moss +Ferg, Dan 34%) or who had to make a lot of roster moves for injuries/crappy team (Jung 42%, Rich 38%).

- The interesting ones are David Y who participated in a mega-trade but still got most of his points from his original lineup and Chris who got arguably his best player from a trade but just didn't make enough moves (8) to see a big change in percentage.

Lineup Management

This was one of my favorite ones to look at. For anyone who has ever used StatTracker, the optimal points option is a cool but frustrating look into "what could have been." This is a view of basically what could have been for the whole season. 

- The most jarring realization is that Mike could have been 2nd in PF and had 10 wins if he had just been able to choose the right player most weeks. He always had a conundrum between Puka, Nico, Aiyuk, Pittman, and CeeDee at WR, Burrow and Tua at QB, and Moss, Gus, and Pollard at RB. Sometimes, too many options can hamper the ability to make the right decision.

- Paul looks like he was super unlucky as he wasn't that far off between his actual and potential points yet he got 4 wins taken away. Must have been a lot of close losses (I still remember when he lost a potential tie against David K). 

- Most of the playoff teams are also playoff teams because they didn't leave too many points on the bench. The one exception was Jon who, almost fittingly, lost in the playoffs as he benched an explosive CEH for a disappointing Achane.

- Last note: I think it's hilarious that no matter what, even with perfect lineups, Jung and Chris would not have made the playoffs.

Overall Team Strength

One of the best ways to see how good a team actually is (and how lucky/unlucky they are) is to pretend every team plays every other team in a given week. This almost roto-like method takes out the luck as winning a 4 point battle at 60-64 would most likely only give you 1 of the 11 matchups in a given week.

- Once again, we see Mike was super unlucky as he had the 3rd best total win % against the league. Even with sub-optimal lineup choices, he should have made the playoffs if it wasn't for his schedule.

- David Y also falls in this boat as he has the 5th best total wins and comfortably clears the two tied for 6th at 74 wins. David's case was a little too late by Dak as the Cowboys took a while to get rolling.

- This somehow shows Rich as being unlucky but I thin he's lucky that he wasn't last given that he would only have won 31.2% of his games against every team every week.

- Once again, luck played a bit of a role for the playoff team as every team other than Simon's performed better than their total wins would suggest they should.

Good luck to all!

Week 13 - Special Monday Night Watch!

 Apologies for not getting a post before the week but we have a really interesting Monday night game in the works that could affect multiple things. Let's look at what's at stake and predict what's going to happen:

- Chris needs 35.26 points from Evan Engram to knock David Y out of the playoff race. Call me a skeptic, but that's not happening. David Y's playoff story lives on. But it requires a loss from Dan and/or Eric to make it happen. So what's going on in their matchups?

- Dan is up by 9+ and the only thing David K has left is Jacksonville's defense. Now, in most weeks, that's a lot to ask for from a defense but against Browning (not Burrow), this could easily be achieved. Give up maybe 14 points (1 point) combine it with 5 sacks (5 points) and 2 takeaways (4 points) and you're there. David K is also fighting for something as he's still in the race for a bye. If he can win this week, he would be in great position as 2 of the other contestants for a bye (Jon and Simon) play each other next week. So let's say Dan loses here.

- Eric is down by 23.12 points and that's what he'll need Etienne to outscore Ridley by. Now just for context, Etienne has scored over 23.12 twice this year and Ridley has scored under 5 points 4 times this year so it's not necessarily impossible... but I'd call it improbable. Unless Jacksonville says "we're going to milk this clock and get out of here with the dub" and gives the rock to Travis 30+ times resulting in a 150 yard, 3 TD game while Ridley just watches, I think Eric also takes a loss.

So where does that leave us?

There's two races to keep track of here so let's start with the least interesting first:

Race for the Bye

Jon and David K would be 10-3 and on top of the standings. As I mentioned before Jon plays Simon next week for a win and in matchup thanks to Jon's record and Simon's point total.

David K would be win and in next week but he plays Mike, the current favorite to win the consolation bracket. While Mike wouldn't be playing for anything, his players don't know that. David K has an extremely low point total so any tie within the top 4 would not bode well for him. However, if he wins, he would be in.

Cho would be sitting at 9-4 and playing Chris (which should be a win) but he'll need some help to get in. He'd be 2nd in PF after week 13 so he would need to win no matter what. Then he would want Jon to beat Simon and have David K lose. That should be enough to secure the bye. If Simon beats Jon and David K loses, he would need to make sure his PF stays ahead of Jon as they would all be 10-4. If David K wins, he would be rooting for Simon to win in an extremely low scoring game and have his team be the first to score 200+ in a week.

Race for the Playoff Spot

So if everything on Monday night goes according to plan, David Y would be at 6-7 and Dan and Eric would be at 7-6. This gets SUPER interesting because Dan and Eric play each other in week 14. This will be a true win and in situation. Now, if they lose, they would need David Y to stumble to sneak into the playoffs.

David Y gets Jung's left for dead team so if he can win, he should be in due to his high points lead. David Y has been one of the hotter teams because even though he's only gone 2-3 in the last 5 weeks, he's scored over 104 in 4 of them has been explosive, scoring over 130 twice. His team seems to be rounding in to form at just the right time so if he can sneak in, nobody would want to play him.

The most interesting situation would be if Eric and Dan tie in their matchup. They would both be at a 7-6-1 and the best David could do is 7-7 so they would both make the playoffs. Now, with fractional scoring, a tie is almost impossible (although David K and Paul almost had one last week if the Vikings had kicked one more FG) but just something to keep an eye on in week 14.

BUT

For all of this wackiness to happen, today's Monday night game will be crucial. So let's watch with bated breath on how this last week will unfold.

Good luck to all!