2021 Season is ON!!

 

The 2021 season will mark the 18th season for Sacred Sundays!  And not only that, this season will be the 5th in a row with the same 10 owners!  Pretty impressive!

Every team has played 52 regular season games over the last four seasons, with the winningest team being Timmy’s Attack of Mahomes who have a record of 33-17-2.  Tim-tim also has scored the most points of any team with 4,806.  Rob (Vandelay Industries) and James (Sofa King Something) tie for second best record, 31-21, and have scored 4,664 points (2nd most) and 4,586 points (5th most) respectively.

In terms of championships, Joe’s Pats has the most with 2 (back-to-back in 2017-2018), followed by one each for Longshanks (2019) and Attack of Mahomes (2020).  For top four finishes, Attack of Mahomes is the only team to finish in the top four each of the last four seasons (1 championship, 2 runner-ups and 1 third).  Longshanks has second most with 3 (1 championship and 2 4ths), and Joe’s Pats (2 championships) and Sofa King (2 thirds) each have two.  The only team to not have a top four finish in the last four seasons is Big Sack.  What do you know, Jens?!?  Come on, you got this!  Nowhere to go but up!

Here are the full standings for the last four seasons:

Scoring records for Sacred Sundays have pretty much been set in the last four seasons with the each of the top three scores of all-time occurring in just the last 3 years.  (Sprouts scored 154 in Week 3-2019, American BadAss scored 158 in Week 10-2018, and Attack of Mahomes holds the all-time record with 160 points scored in Week 10-2019.)  Two of the highest scoring weeks have occurred in recent years as well, with the 2nd highest point total, 1,002, occurring in 2018 (Week 6), and the highest scoring week ever, 1,034 points, occurring last season in Week 2.  Additionally, two of the top three largest margins of victory have occurred recently, with the 3rd highest margin (96 points) from Week 12-2020 when Sofa King American defeated American BadAss 140-44, and the highest margin of 99 points from Week 10-2019 when Attack of Mahomes defeated Big Sack 160-61.  Lastly, the highest individual player score of all-time occurred just last season…Week 16 2020, Alvin Kamara had 155 rushing yards, 17 receiving yards and 6 TDs(!!) to finish with 55 fantasy points.  

2021 DRAFT

For the second season in a row every NFL team had at least one player drafted...this season every team had at least two.  Five teams had duos drafted:  New Orleans, NY Giants, Chicago, Houston and the NY Jets.  The All Unwanteds should be strong this season.  The NFL team with the most players drafted was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with 9 players picked!  (Apparently I’m a Bucs fan now as I accounted for three of those.)  The LA Rams had 8 players drafted, and Kansas City and San Francisco each had 7.  

• Wide receivers were the most popular position picked (49) followed by running backs (44).  
• For the most position picks, Young Guns led the way with 7 wide receivers picked, followed by Attack of Mahomes and Big Sack No TD’s who each picked 6 wide receivers.  Sprouts drafted the most running backs (6), and four teams picked 5.
• Three teams only drafted one quarterback. (Young Guns, sprouts and Attack of Mahomes).
• Three teams selected a backup defense. (Coors Light Drunk Guys, American BadAss and Sofa King American)
• Only one team drafted a backup kicker.  (Coors Light Drunk Guys)

YAHOO! PREDICTIONS

The Yahoo! bots compile a draft grade, season prediction and full write up for each team after the draft.  I’ve been tracking the results since 2018, and it would appear that really the only worthwhile pieces of data to come out of these are the trash talking comments:

“Entering the draft with the No. 1 overall pick, expectations were high for Big Sack No TDs. But those expectations faded instantly after they drafted…”

“Despite earning the No. 5 overall pick, Young Guns drafted a roster that may struggle to earn wins. Opponents could enjoy overwhelming them regularly, as this team is projected to finish 10th in Sacred Sundays.”

“CL Drunk Guys was handed a solid draft position, and they fumbled it away.”

“Selecting in the second half of the first round (No. 6 overall), Joe's Pats can attribute this mediocre performance to their late draft position.”

As far as the regular season predictions, in 2018, 2019 and 2020 the team predicted by Yahoo! to finish with the best record actually finished no better than 6th.  The team predicted to finish with the worst record finished 9th last year, 8th in 2019 and 1st in 2018.  Champions in 2018, 2019 and 2020 were ranked 4th, 4th and 5th, respectively.

Looking at playoff qualification predictions, the top six prediction teams have qualified for the playoffs 72.2% of the time across the last three seasons.  Yahoo! correctly predicted 4 playoff teams in 2018, 5 in 2019 and 4 in 2020.  

Here are the 2021 Yahoo! predictions and grades:

• Note 1: This is the first time a team has been predicted to have an undefeated record.
• Note 2: The Sacred Sundays record for the most points in a season is 1,312, yet Yahoo! has all teams smashing that record this year.
• Note 3: Yahoo! graded the CL Drunk Guys with the lowest grade of a C- in spite of the fact that all picks were autopicks.  Way to go Yahoo!

The 2021 season is ready to go!  Make sure you’ve got your roster set!!

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?!?!?

Me after getting an A+ from Yahoo...