Vandelay Industries is Champion!

The latex industry is booming!  Vandelay Industries has claimed the 2016 Sacred Sundays championship, knocking off Young Guns 116-97 in a competitive back-and-forth finale!  It all came down to the Monday Night Cowboys-Lions game, where Vandelay had a tight end and kicker playing and Young Guns had a kicker.  Funny how after everything this season, it came down to the two least significant positions (TE and K) to settle it all.  Both teams in the finale brought their best, with Vandelay Industries only having a +3 point improvement possibility from the bench and Young Guns only having a +4 point improvement possibility.  Great game, gentlemen, and congratulations to both of you!

To go along with claiming the grand prize, Vandelay Industries also took the final Weekly High Score Prize of the season, narrowly edging American BadAss and Bubble Craps Bandits by 1 point (116 to 115).  Vandelay had big games from Russell Wilson (36 pts), Lesean McCoy (19 pts), and Antonio Brown (15 pts).  Last season, Joe’s Pats accomplished the same feat of winning both the championship game and the Weekly High Score Prize, so I’m starting to see a trend.  But it was good to see all of the high scores this week (5 teams scored in triple figures), after the last several low scoring weeks.  Week 16 ended up as the highest scoring week of 2016 (977 total points scored), and actually ranks as the 7^th highest scoring week of all time.  For Vandelay Industries, it was their highest scoring week of the season, earning Louis a 2^nd Weekly High Score Prize.  Well done sir!  Way to bring it when it counts!!

Okay, so this week we’ll take a look at the final money tally, unpack a few random odds and ends from this season, and crown the final Best Bench!

Let’s go!

EVERYONE NEEDS MONEY…THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT MONEY

Here is a final tally on prize money:

MONEY TOTAL		Weekly High	Playoffs	Total
1	Louis	$100	$225	$325
2	Jason	$150	$67	$217
3	John	$50	$113	$163
4	Russ	$150	$0	$150
5	Joe	$100	$45	$145
6	Jerry	$75	$0	$75
7	Shawn	$50	$0	$50
8	Jens	$25	$0	$25

Also, bear in mind that all teams (except for Young Guns) get $10 back for the two weeks won by the Midnight Maulers.  I’ll contact each of you separately to see how you would like to receive your winnings, and will get those processed as soon as possible.

ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK #1

Three little old ladies were sitting on a park bench when a man in a trench coat walked over and flashed them!  Two of the little old ladies immediately had a stroke, but the third one didn’t want to touch it.

2016 SEASON TIDBITS

• American BadAss was the highest scoring team (counting all weeks including playoffs), having scored 1,500 points.  Second highest was Joe’s Pats with 1,437 points.  And in third place, if you can believe it, was my Scottish Rebels with 1,392 points.
• The highest scoring undrafted player was Matt Ryan who finished with 311 points, ranking him as the 3^rd highest scoring quarterback (4^th highest overall).
• The top 8 highest scoring non-drafted players were all quarterbacks.  The 9^th highest scoring non-drafted player was a kicker, Matt Bryant.  Bryant ended up as the 2^nd highest scoring kicker in fantasy, only trailing the top kicker, Justin Tucker, by 1 point (171-170).
• From our 2016 draft, 31 players drafted are now no longer on any team, owing to injury and sucking.
• Three players drafted ended up scoring zero points this season:  Josh Gordon (CLE-WR) 10^th round, Tony Romo (DAL-QB) 11^th round, and Connor Barth (NO-K) 14^th round.
• The highest scoring keeper was Aaron Rodgers, who scored 337 points on the season, and was the top scoring player in fantasy.
• The highest individual player game score this season was accomplished by Le’Veon Bell who scored 50 point in Week 14.
• Over the last 5 seasons, the top seeded team has failed to win the championship.  You have to go back to 2011 when the Coors Light Drunk Guys entered the playoffs as the #1 seed and took the title.
• The longest win streak by any team this season was 6, accomplished by American BadAss (Week 8 to Week 13).
• The longest losing streak of the season was 5, accomplished by Scottish Rebels and 14inchDitka both opening the season 0-5.
• The Coors Light Drunk Guys are the first team in history to record back-to-back tie games (Week 6 and Week 7).
• The highest team score in single game this season was 150 points, accomplished by Yahoo! managing the Midnight Maulers in Week 4.
• The largest margin of victory this season was 88 points, accomplished by the Midnight Maulers in Week 4 defeating NextYearUndefeated 150-62.
• The lowest score in a single game this season was 45 points, accomplished by my Scottish Rebels in Week 4.

ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK #2

I have an EpiPen.  My friend gave it to me as he was dying.  It seemed very important to him that I have it.

2017 DRAFT

The draft order for 2017 is set:

1)      14inchDitka – James

2)      Scottish Rebels – Jerry

3)      Bubble Craps Bandits – Timmy

4)      sprouts – Russ

5)      Beautiful Turds – Jens

6)      Coors Light Drunk Guys – Shawn

7)      Joe’s Pats – Joe

8)      American BadAss – Jason

9)      Young Guns – John

10)  Vandelay Industries – Louis

Same rules apply for keepers:  Each team can designate up to two players as keepers from this year’s final roster for next year’s roster.  Players designated as keepers will count as a draft pick in whatever round they were drafted this season.  Players who were keepers in 2016 will count as 1^st round picks in 2017.  Undrafted players will count as 15^th round picks.  If two players are kept who have the same draft value, they will count as a pick in that round and the subsequent round (e.g. two first round keepers will count as 1^st and 2^nd round picks).  The exception to this is if two 15^th round keepers are selected—those will count as 14^th and 15^th round picks.  Rosters will be considered final as of Friday, December 30^th.  I will send out a spreadsheet listing all final rosters, 2016 point totals and 2017 draft values. 

ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK #3

A guy was nailing his interview when the employer said, “Well everything looks great but I see here there was a 7 year gap since your last job—what happened there?”  The guy says, “Oh I went to Yale”.  The employer says, “Oh great!  Well you’re hired, you start Monday.”  Guy:  “Yay!  I got a yob!”

BEST BENCH

This season there were three teams who never received a Best Bench:  14inchDitka, Joe’s Pats and Beautiful Turds.  Nice work to each of you on managing your rosters well.  The final Best Bench of the season is the 2^nd Best Bench for…sprouts!  Russ could have improved by 37 points this week with four roster swaps:  T. Gurley for J. Hill +14, S. Watkins for A. Robinson +10, Rams for Broncos +7 and B. Bortles for M. Ryan +6.

Alas, sixteen weeks of football have come and gone in what feels like an instant.  Many, many thanks to all of you for making this league great year after year.  It is hard to believe we just wrapped up our 13^th season…here’s to 13 more!

 

Wishing you all a safe, prosperous and awesome 2017!!

Ten began and only two remain...

It’s the final showdown!  Vandelay Industries and Young Guns will square off for the 2016 Sacred Sundays Championship.  We had double upsets in the semifinal games, with the 3^rd and 4^th seeds knocking off the 1^st and 2^nd seeds.  Top seed American BadAss had their lowest output of the season, only posting 59 points after coming in averaging 94.7 points per game.  (BadAss' previous low score was 70 points).  Vandelay Industries had a solid 89-point performance led by LeSean McCoy with 31 points and Russell Wilson with 20.  Meanwhile in the other half of the draw, Young Guns managed to hold on to a slight lead over Joe’s Pats pull out a 79-73 victory.  Joe’s Pats had a big game from Ezekial Elliott (26 pts), but the Young Guns countered with a big game from the Miami Defense (24 pts).  Ultimately Kirk Cousins and Jordan Reed couldn’t muster enough of anything on Monday night to save Joe’s Pats.  So there will not be a repeat champion this season, but getting to at least the top four in the title defense season is an impressive feat.  The 2014 champ, Sofa King Back Baby, finished in 9^th place in 2015. 

Neither Vandelay Industries or Young Guns have won a Sacred Sundays title, so one thing we can be assured of is a first time champion!  These teams played each other twice this season and split the games – Young Guns won 88-52 in Week 2 and Vandelay won 74-69 in Week 13 – so there is no clear advantage there.  Through 15 weeks, Vandelay Industries is averaging 83.0 points per game and Young Guns is averaging 77.6 per game, so it looks like this game will be close.  If it should finish in a tie it will be decided in this manner: 

1) Team with the highest scoring QB wins, 

2) Team with the highest scoring RB wins, 

3) Team with the highest scoring WR wins, 

4) If still tied at that point, co-champions will be declared.  (Back in 2010 we did have a tie in the championship game between my Scottish Rebels and sprouts, with my Rebels getting the nod by virtue of Michael Vick outscoring Matt Schaub 20-14).

Before I go any further, I need to congratulate Drew Brees and Brandin Cooks for having a phenomenal Week 15 (scoring a combined 65 points) and leading my Scottish Rebels to my first ‘solo’ Weekly High Score!  Jordan Howard had a solid game adding 17 points and Matt Bryant tacked on 14, ultimately giving me my highest total of the season, 121 points.  I’ve been tweaking my roster all season long and think I finally have it dialed in, so watch out!  Haha!

Just a short write up this week, so all I’ve got left is the Best Bench.

BEST BENCH

Last week Vandelay Industries had a crazy 6-player swap needed to get the Best Bench, and this week they only needed three!  So claiming a second Best Bench in a row is… Vandelay Industries!  The three player swap would have improved Louis’ score by 28… J. Landry for T. Williams (+14), J. Stewart for C. Hyde (+8) and D. Jackson for A. Brown (+6).

Fifteen weeks are done and only one is left.  It all comes down to this.  Best of luck to the two remaining teams!

And Merry Christmas to everyone!

Let the playoffs begin!

2016 playoffs start with a whimper.  Week 14 was the lowest scoring week of the season with only 740 total points scored.  The average weekly points scored this season is 858, so this week was well short.  But it’s still not close to the lowest scoring week of all-time, Week 16 of 2007, when only 644 points were scored. 

So there weren't many points scored in either of the two playoff games this week.  And in a weird coincidence, three of the non-playoff teams outscored all of the playoff teams.  In fact, the combined score of the four non-playoff teams came just 8 points shy of outscoring the combined score of the six playoff teams (366-374).  The Young Guns victory over Beautiful Turds (55-51) goes down as the lowest scoring playoff game ever.  Young Guns moves on to face Joe’s Pats, and Vandelay Industries will take on American BadAss.  In the playoff for 5^th/6^th Shawn and Jens will renew their rivalry as we get treated to another edition of the ‘What Do You Know? Bowl’.  The Turds won the only meeting this year back in Week 2 (98-83), and lead the lifetime series 8-6, but the Drunk Guys still hold the lead in points scored 1,172 to 1,141.

Before going any further, I’ve got to dole out congratulations to sprouts for scoring 114 points and claiming the Week 14 Weekly High Score!!  This is Russ’ third Weekly High Score of the season, tying American BadAss for the most.  In spite of Russ not making it into the playoffs, he is still on his way to being one of the top money winners this season.  This week he had strong performances from Matt Ryan (21 pts), Jeremy Hill (20 pts) and Tyler Eifert (16 pts).  In fact, his only player not to score in double digits was the Denver defense (6 pts).  Excellent work sir!

Now, since we are down to the top four teams, here is a refresher on the playoff prizes and an update on Weekly Prizes won so far:

Champion = $225

Runner-up = $113

3^rd Place = $67

4^th Place = $45

Weekly Prizes:

American BadAss - $150 (Weeks 9, 10, 13)

sprouts - $150 (Weeks 3, 8, 14)

Joe’s Pats - $100 (Weeks 2, 10)

Coors Light Drunk Guys - $50 (Week 5)

Young Guns - $50 (Week 7)

Vandelay Industries - $50 (Week 12)

Beautiful Turds - $25 (Week 6 split)

Scottish Rebels - $25 (Week 6 split)

Onward!

BIG TIME

-Le’Veon Bell, RB – 14inchDitka – 50 pts – Epic performance from Bell… 298 total yards from scrimmage (236 rushing and 62 receiving) to go along with 3 touchdowns.  Over the past 5 weeks, Bell is averaging an astonishing 26.8 points per game.  This 50-point performance ranks as the 3^rd highest score of all-time.  (Jamaal Charles and Doug Martin are tied for the record of most points scored with 54 points.)

-Tom Brady, QB – Bubble Craps Bandits – 29 pts – After a bit of a slow start, Brady came to life and scorched the Ravens for 406 yards and 3 TD’s.  He now ranks as the 16^th QB overall, but remember he was suspended for the first 4 games of the season.  If you look at per game averages from Week 5 on, Brady is averaging 23.1, which is the highest in the league.

-Bilal Powell, RB – Free Agent – 29 pts – Forte left the game with a knee injury after only three plays and Powell filled in handsomely.  In all he finished with 145 yards rushing and 34 yards receiving and had 2 TD’s.

-Carlos Hyde, RB – Vandelay Industries – 28 pts – Hyde had his best production of the season (200 yards, 1 TD) and now ranks as the 12^th best runningback in fantasy.

-Atlanta, DEF – Free Agent – 26 pts – The Falcons were in control of their game with the Rams after only about 7 seconds in when the Rams fumbled the opening kickoff.  (There is no more devastating turnover in football than a fumbled kickoff.)  Falcons went on to win 42-14, but it shouldn’t have even been that close.  They finished the day with 3 sacks, 2 interceptions, 3 fumble recoveries and 2 TD’s.

ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK #1

When Great Britain was part of the Roman Empire, it was ruled by an Emperor.  When Great Britain became a Kingdom, it was ruled by a King.  Now, alas, it’s a country.

COME ON MAN

-Larry Fitzgerald, WR – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 1 pt – Even if your name was Jerry Rice, you’d have 1 point days with a dude named Carson Palmer throwing to you.  That dude sucks.

-Devonta Freeman, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 1 pt – The Falcons ended up resting their starters, but this was still quite the disappointing day for Freeman.  He only rushed 6 times for 6 yards, and had 2 catches for 12 yards.

-Dan Bailey, K – Vandelay Industries – 1 pt – Baily made a single PAT, and missed his only field goal attempt (52 yards).

-Kelvin Benjamin, WR – Beautiful Turds – 1 pt – Benjamin was playing so poorly at one point, he got pulled from the game and didn’t even play in the final two series.

-Mark Ingram, RB – Young Guns – 1 pt – Ingram’s average per carry was double Devonta Freeman this week.  Unfortunately, that only amounted to 14 yards on 7 carries.

-Jimmy Graham, TE – Beautiful Turds – 1 pt – In what should have been an enticing matchup, Graham only managed 1 catch for 16 yards.

-Coby Fleener, TE – 14inchDitka – 0 pts – Tight ends have been an underwhelming bunch all year.  Case in point – Fleener = 1 catch for 6 yards.

-Dez Bryant, WR – Joe’s Pats – -1 pt – Dez should have just stayed home.  His only catch came on the Cowboy’s final drive, which he promptly fumbled giving away the game to the Giants.

WEEKLY POSITIONAL POINT PRODUCTION

All season I have been tracking the points scored by position for active rosters.  As rosters can fluctuate week to week, I wanted to see how many points are actually being scored by each position.  

Here are the results, through Week 14:

Pos	Avg Pts/Wk	Pts/Player
RB	23.8	11.9
WR	18.86	9.43
QB	18.46	18.46
DEF	8.87	8.87
K	8.23	8.23
TE	6.79	6.79

Tight Ends are the lowest scoring position, averaging 1.44 fewer points than Kickers.  Kickers, to their credit, are only 0.6 points behind Defenses and 1.2 points behind individual wide receivers.

Now, when looking at it by a team perspective, here are the highest averages for each position:

Pos	Avg Pts/Wk	Team
QB	22.4	American BadAss
WR	23.4	Young Guns
RB	35.4	American BadAss
TE	8.4	sprouts
K	9.6	Scottish Rebels
DEF	11.2	Beautiful Turds

American BadAss has the highest average points from both QB’s and RB’s.  Kinda explains why his record was 10-3.  And how about my Rebels being the highest average score for freaking kickers…

Here are the average points scored per week by each team:

American BadAss            94.8

Joe's Pats                          89.4

Coors Light Drunk Guys  86.8

Scottish Rebels             84.9

Young Guns                     84.8

sprouts                            83.4

Beautiful Turds             82.8

Vandelay Industries           82.8

14inchDitka                     81.1

Bubble Craps Bandits  79.6

 These scores are remarkably close from the 3^rd ranked team thru the 8^th ranked team, being only separated by 4 points.

ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK #2

A group of engineers are on a boat and are out on a cigarette break.  However, none of them have a lighter.  One engineer gets a great idea and throws a cigarette off the boat.  Suddenly, the whole boat becomes a cigarette lighter.

2017 DRAFT PREPARATION

It is never too early to start looking to next year.  Just a reminder on the rules for keepers (same as always): Each team may designate up to two players from this year’s final roster as keepers for next year’s team.  Keepers will count as a draft pick for whatever round they were selected this year.  Any keepers being re-kept will count as a first round pick.  Any undrafted players will count as a final round pick.  If two players with the same draft value are being kept, they will count as a pick for that round and for the subsequent round (e.g. Two first round keepers will count as a first and second round pick).  The one exception is if two 15^th round players are kept – those will count as 14^th and 15^th round picks.  Now here is the change for next season:  Keepers will not need to be declared until ONE WEEK PRIOR TO THE DRAFT!  This rule was changed prior to this year’s draft and should give everyone more time and information when selecting keepers.  As has been the recent trend, we will target Labor Day Weekend (or close to it) for the draft. 

DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE WAY OUT

Rotoworld posted the most hilarious update regarding the Jeff Fisher firing.  I copy it here verbatim for your enjoyment:

“In a cruel, ironic twist for the NFL’s pre-eminent loser, the firing comes three days before he was set to pass Dan Reeves for the most coaching losses in league history.  Fisher is so inept he can’t even claim the record that’s been his destiny for over a decade.  The firing is perhaps the most justified of the modern era.  Fisher has had five years to turn around a laughingstock franchise, but instead made it an even bigger joke.  Fisher’s team had truly made zero progress on his first year in 2012.  A wanton waster of draft picks and capital, Fisher is clueless on Sundays, fundamentally misunderstanding offense and overseeing a cavalcade of idiotic penalties.  Fisher doesn’t make adjustments, aside from usually dialing up more personal fouls in the second half.  Try as he may, he never came close to “cleaning up” his chronic, myriad, inexcusable mistakes.  No coach, in any sport anywhere in the world, makes more excuses.  Fisher has almost certainly coached his final NFL game.”  mic drop

ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK #3

What is the difference between a garbanzo bean and a chickpea?

Timmy would never pay to have a garbanzo bean on his face.

BEST BENCH

With seven teams not even scoring over 75 points this week, I was expecting to see a lot of points riding the pine.  Surprisingly, there weren’t.  Even more surprisingly, my Scottish Rebels DID NOT have the Best Bench this week!  The Week 14 Best Bench, with a 32-point improvement possibility, goes to… Vandelay Industries!  This is Louis’ second Best Bench this year, and he needed a nearly complete roster swap for this one:  M. Stafford for R. Wilson +11, D. Jackson for A. Brown +9, J. Landry for T. Williams +3, J. Doyle for J. Witten +3, J. Lambo for D. Bailey +3 and Chiefs for Eagles +3.

Could it be?  Only two weeks left of fantasy football?  

American BadAss surges toward the playoffs!

The playoffs are set!  The last eight weeks of play have been a mere formality as back in Week 5 the teams I predicted to qualify for the playoffs were:  Midnight Maulers (now Young Guns), Coors Light Drunk Guys, American BadAss, NextYearTriplets (Jens), Joe’s Pats and Vandelay Industries.  That’s right…for the first time ever I called all six playoff teams after only five weeks of play!  More on this in just a bit..

First, we have to dole out some congratulations to American BadAss for claiming a third Weekly High Score Prize with a league-best 107 points!  Jason had six of eight players post double digits, led by David Johnson (29) and Melvin Gordon (19).  The victory also gave BadAss a 10th win on the season, two more than the next closest team (Vandelay Industries with 8).  This win was also significant because it gave BadAss his 71st regular season win since 2007 which ties the Coors Light Drunk Guys for the most regular season wins during that time.  Well done bro!

So my prognostication skills were dialed in for the league this year… how did the Yahoo! bots do in predicting the outcome of our league following the draft?  Here are the standings predicted by Yahoo! back in September:
1 Young Guns 12-1
2 Vandelay Industries 9-4
3 Joe’s Pats 9-4
4 sprouts 7-5-1
5 American BadAss 7-5-1
6 Scottish Rebels 7-6
7 The Team of Many Names 5-7-1
8 SofaKingTerrible 4-8-1
9 Bubble Craps Bandits 3-10
10 Coors Light Drunk Guys 0-13

Here are the actual standings:
1 American BadAss 10-3-0
2 Joe’s Pats 7-5-1
3 Vandelay Industries 8-5-0
4 Young Guns 7-4-2
5 Coors Light Drunk Guys 6-5-2
6 The Team of Many Names 6-6-1
7 sprouts 6-7-0
8 Bubble Craps Bandits 5-7-1
9 Scottish Rebels 4-9-0
10 SofaKingTerrible 2-10-1

Yahoo! only got four of six playoff teams correct, and whiffed badly on the Coors Light Drunk Guys.  But they did correctly predict tie games for Jens and Sofa King Terrible, so that deserves some credit.

Week 14 will be the first round of the playoffs, where American BadAss and Joe’s Pats will have byes as the division winners.  The other matchups will be Young Guns versus Ready for Playoffs and Coors Light Drunk Guys versus Vandelay Industries.

John and Jens played once this season (Week 11), a game in which Young Guns scored their lowest points ever and lost 79-48.  Shawn and Louis have played twice this season, with each winning once.  (Vandelay prevailed 88-84 in Week 1, and the Drunk Guys prevailed 83-74 in Week 11).  So should be some close matchups in those games.  But remember, everyone is still eligible to win the Weekly High Score Prize so make sure you have your line up set.

In the playoffs there are no tie games.  In any game prior to the championship game, a tie game goes to the higher seeded team.  If there is a tie game in the championship game, it will be decided in this manner:  1) Team with the highest scoring quarterback wins, 2) Team with highest scoring runningback wins, 3) Team with highest scoring wide receiver wins, 4) If still tied at that point, co-champions will be declared.


2017 DRAFT PREP
The first four teams to pick in next year’s draft will be:  #1 - 14inchDikta, #2 – Scottish Rebels, #3 – Bubble Craps Bandits, #4 – sprouts.  Those teams have finished 10th, 9th, 8th and 7th, respectively.  Yahoo! will show matchups for these teams over the next three weeks, but those matchups have no bearing on the final standings.  So James…you are on the clock!


ALL UNWANTEDS
At the beginning of the season I put together a team consisting of undrafted Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens as each of these teams only had 2 players drafted.  The starting roster has been changed around as the season has gone on, due to injuries and performance, but they have had a remarkable amount of success.  Here was the roster for the final week:
QB Matt Ryan Atl - QB 15
WR Mohamed Sanu Atl - WR 2
WR Steve Smith Sr. Bal - WR 5
RB Terrance West Bal - RB 18
RB Tevin Coleman Atl - RB 4
TE Jacob Tamme Atl - TE 0
K Matt Bryant Atl - K 12
DEF Baltimore Bal - DEF 15
TOTAL - 71
The randomly assigned opponent this week was my Scottish Rebels who only managed 69 points, so the All Unwanteds finish with a win.  Amazingly, this team has only scored 947 points on the season (which is 100 points fewer than the lowest scoring team in our league), yet finishes with a record of 8-5!!  This was because the All Unwanteds only had 942 points scored against them, which would be the 2nd lowest total in the league.  You know what I would give for an 8-5 record right now?!  Really goes to show how important matchups are…


 BEST BENCH
It has gone from being funny to just being sad.  No matter the changes I make, my highest scoring players end up on the pine.  For a 6th time this season, Best Bench goes to my Scottish Rebels.  This time I could have improved my total by 32 points with 3 roster moves:  T. Rawls for L. Miller (+21), M. Crabtree for M. Evans (+8), D. Prescott for D. Brees (+3).  In total, I have left 180 points on the bench this season...


Win or go home, from here on out!