Ahh The Wire. It’s good to be back, folks. I’m in a new apartment but it’s still the same deal as last year; I’ll tell you where you went wrong or right while waiting to watch the weekly wonder that is these world-famous warriors rushing and whirling that wobbly ball all over the goddamn place. It’s been about 2 hours in the making so far and I’ve been listening to the end of Season 12 of Family Guy in the background (Chris dating Jerome’s daughter, Peter and Meg bonding on a college trip, Cleveland coming back to Quahog, Stewie using his time machine to be in a British family). So let’s get this thing going!
First week is such a crap shoot, nobody knows who’s doing what and everyone wants to start the guys they drafted for the most part. Basically this should be pretty short. The only FAAB used in the lead up to opening day was from the host of our podcast, League Talk, Brendan “Beans” Cahill. He spent $3 on the Browns D/ST, who scored 8 points compared to the Steelers’ 22. It wouldn’t have saved his week anyway since he lost by more than 40, so it’s not the worst way to spend your FAAB. We’ll call it Week 1 jitters, but it might have been Zyn.
Literally no one made any moves that would have made or broken their week, the closest was Brent swapping Green Bay’s defense for Denver’s and getting a 7 point swing. If Brent had started GB then he would have only won by 4 points, which would have been the closest margin this week, but that’s just a hypothetical. Abie made a good move by grabbing the legend Pat Freiermuth for a quick 10 points, but he won by 28. We’ll see how he pans out if Abie decides to keep him, basically how fantasy football works. Everyone except him and kickers and defense sat out in The League after being acquired by the various managers, so we’re all playing some wait-and-see as should be expected.
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I think that’s it. I don’t want to write anymore. Since it’s Week 1 there isn’t really any other graphs and stuff to include. Have a nice Friday, listen to the pod when it drops, Go League.
Much apologies for not showing up until after the first NFL Sunday of the year. We’ll have Wires and LeagueStories galore once the season gets into full swing, but at the request of a certain Alabama-based League member, I’m back in action.
Things are going well for me so far, barring a Brandon McManus 30-burger I’ll have my first win of the season despite two goose eggs. Anyway, let’s take a look at the grid up top:
Last year I posted something similar (which you can scroll down to, maybe do a little side-by-side action if you want to see how this season went). I wrote about a few interesting matchup records, so now I’ll let you know how they panned out…
Max 7-2 vs. Jack: This was the most lopsided all-time record at the start of last year, but we all know how my season went last year. I picked up wins in both meetings and started to even things out (7-4). Kris 4-0 vs. Max: Basically, Kris was Tom Brady and Max was the Cowboys (sorry Beans). However, these two split their 2021 games and so the shutout ended (5-1). More on these two later… Abie & Brendan are 4-4: Beans Corp didn’t have the best year, dropping two games to Abie. The CEO hopes to even things out in 2022-23 with his only friend D’Andre Swift (6-4). Jack & Brent are 2-2: Even though Brent took home the belt and the top scoring title, the regular season was mine (3-2). Abie & Kris are 2-2: These guys also played each other only once in Week 10. Looking back at The Wire, Abie picked up The Cowboys Defense for $1 and got 22 points out of it and a 13 point win over the Norse Horse (2-3). Vigs & Ryan are 2-2: This was the only match-up record to stay tied, as the two games were split between these two boys from opposite sides of the Congers train tracks (3-3). Vigs & Max are 3-3: Another situation where only one game was played between these two in 2021, with the edge going to the Bama Butts, who were helped out by Jamal Agnew (remember him?) pitching in around 14 points in a 24 point win (3-4). Max & Brent are 2-2: Brent picked up a commanding 40 point win over Max last year, and it seems that he’ll do just about the same this week, so make it 2-4 (2-3).
Whew. That was fun/interesting, right? Now here are some new storylines to look out for in 2022:
Andrew 6-1 vs. Brent: Brent won their only match-up of ’21 by 1.42, I guess that’s why Vigs makes Brent call him “My Commish”. Cheeky. Jack 6-2 vs. Kris: Lopsided match-up so far, can Kris even the score? Max 6-2 vs. Abie: Lopsided match-up so far, can Abie even the score? Kris 6-3 vs. Andrew: Lopsided match-up so far, can Andrew even the score? Kris & Brent are 4-4: This is a tie-break that Kris NEEDS to win to establish himself as a big player in The League and hopefully get back in to the playoff race. Andrew & Ryan are 3-3: Another tie to look out for, Ryan’s unconventional style goes against all the rules of the Commish and might have him rattled? We’ll see Week 5. Jack & Andrew are 3-3: After tonight, you can ignore this one but I had it down from before so there ya go.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:
So as I mentioned at the beginning, Max asked me to write up a little something about all the times he’s scored 125+ points and still lost. I don’t really want to make a cool graphic because it’d be kind of hard to do with lines and bars and I don’t want to put in the effort right now, so here’s the data table:
OK so I wrote the rest of this article but then it was taking forever to autosave so I tried to refresh and it lost all my shit. Basically Max lost twice a year when scoring 125+, but for the most part he was not the second-highest scorer losing to the top scorer like he thought. Most of these wins were pretty bad, but the 2019 Week 15 playoff loss to Lebron probably stung a little more after coming off a bye week. We’ll add another one for Week 1 2022.
There’s one other League member that can complain about this more though:
Wow. Five times just last year and four losses with 150+ points. You don’t see Kris whining about it though, dude keeps his hand in his pocket just waiting to take that belt. Last year’s semi-finals was a true clash of titans that ended in a devastating way for the Norseman. Then the very next week he had to face my ultimately meaningless barrage of points that in another timeline would have won me a championship. Here’s to hoping we both find our way to the playoffs and Brent doesn’t.
The rest of the League had this happen to them a little less frequently:
Beans: 7 (tied w Max) Brent & Andrew: 6 each Me: 5 Tom, Ryan & Abie: 2 each
Well, that’s about it, again… Football is back baby, I’m gonna go watch the Emmys and Rick and Morty. Bye!
If you’re a die-hard sports fan, there’s nothing you love more than staying abreast of developments in the league, from top to bottom. [Kiu] had a family member that was big into NFL, so set about building them a remarkably cool ladder tracker. The tracker displays the NFL league table with a ten-minute delay, thanks […]
I have no idea why I’m straining to remember these terms and shit from high school/college stats right now. Is it because I’m bored? Am I trying to make up for hardly paying attention to this past week of football? Do I need some time to get The Wire together and I’m stalling? Probably all of the above, but you gotta admit this shit looks pretty cool. Who said we’d never use it in the real world?
Just a few things to notice: As I mentioned in the GroupMe, this year was the highest scoring since 2018. This is further shown in the highest average score at the top of the image, but this regular season also had the second lowest standard deviation of the past four years. That means (according to Google) that the scores stayed a bit closer to the mean score than in other years. Sound to me like The League is getting more competitive… You’ll also notice on the charts the trendlines with the R-squared included right on there. Basically, if you don’t remember or weren’t taught this, R-squared is a measure of predictability. In other words, an R-squared of 1 means that 100% of the population’s variances were predictable based on the inputs or the formula that the data follows. Obviously this is fantasy football, so no formula can really predict the outcome each week, no matter how hard ESPN’s AI or algorithms may try. Anyway, based on the results it seems that this season was the second-least predictable, with the least predictable season also being 2018. A highly competitive League where you never know what will happen? Now that sounds pretty perfect to me 😉
So last time I covered three weeks in one post, now I’m doing two. Maybe next week I’ll do just one. Who knows? The regular season may be it for this MBS mainstay, as I have important playoff things to worry about. We’ll see, but there will definitely be some more retrospective graphs and charts as we wrap things up and I explore the source of my last LeagueStory post: Flourish. Seems like they’ve got what it takes to give dumb guys like me who can’t code the ability to make nice-looking animated data visualization. Isn’t technology wonderful? Anyway, let’s take a look at the past 2 weeks before it’s Sunday again:
From a cursory look at the trusty chart for Week 13, it looks like this is the highest percentage of players dropped due to being on IR or BYE so far. There were also a few players added who were on BYE , including our most expensive McBackup for the second week this year. Our healthy and fearless Commissioner dropped a quarter of his entire FAAB budget for Chuba Chubs, beating out Tommy by a single buck and Kris and Max by A Few Dollars More (shoutout Clint Eastwood I guess). As I mentioned, the Panthers were on a bye week, which means my analyses of dollars spent to points became even more useless than it already was. On the other side of this transaction was Mike Gesicki, who in the span of one week found himself dropped from Thomas and Friends, then picked up by the REAL Thomas (and Friends), and finally dropped again for Foster “Australian for Beer” Moreau, the man who replaced the injured Waller-by (that’s TWO Australia jokes in one sentence, omfg). It’s safe to say that if Mike G got passed around like that this past week, he’d almost certainly have COVID by now.
So the closest game of Week 13 was Ryan vs. Brad, a slim 3.82 points made the difference. Looking back, the chart seems to show that it didn’t have to be this close. Every Wire move made by Brad helped him out by a little bit, and every move Ryan made resulted in negative net points. It just wasn’t enough to make the difference where it mattered. Something similar happened with the match-up between Brent and Thomas (8 points). There wasn’t one move made by Thomas that would have given him the dub, but if he kept Mike G then he would have lost by 3.9 instead of 8. Pretty funny how the losers of both of these close games played each other in an even CLOSER game the next week.
One game that actually had real Wire consequences in Week 13 was Kris vs. Beans. Both teams are trying to save face after some seriously stinky performances for the bulk of the regular season. I think that deep dive I did into Kris’ long-term performance and close win against Ryan in Week 9 (go back and check it out;)) really whipped the reins against the hide of the Norse Horse, because he’s been running like a madman as of late and actually finished with the third most points in the regular season. This ascension has been complemented by two Week 13 moves that undisputedly gave him the win over the Founder of our humble website. First was bidding on Tevin Coleman in auction (first FAAB spent on a Jet this season!) and getting a 9 point return on a $2 investment. Second was somehow knowing that Sony Michel would return to a form not seen since Week 16 of *2018* (100+ yards and a TD). Those 20 points plus Tevin’s 9 truly made the difference, as Kris ended up winning by 24.42. As we know, Beans is focused on next season, so it’s all good.
Aside from Kris’ return on Tevin, the best auction move was made by me by grabbing the Colts Defense for $10 and 16 points. Aside from the superficial $25 loss Andrew took on Chuba, the worst move was Abie dropping $21 on Matt Breida who only scored 1.3 points. Woof. Moving on…
Week 14, it’s like the leap day of football. It’ll be interesting to see how they handle regular season stats from here on out and comparing them to previous 13-week regular seasons. For the second week in a row, the most expensive auction player for the week was on a BYE, this time in the form of me dropping $13 on Kenny Gains. I’d like to think I was looking to future match-ups, which I think the podcast did mention as a guess for why I did that. Next up was Ryan, who spent $9 on Tevin Coleman (one for each point he scored the previous week heheh). What was wrong with Ty Johnson though? Apparently nothing, because he ended up scoring 7.7 after being dropped from Marzy’s Martians. Max really did have decent amount of opportunities to win against his out-of-this-world opponent and just didn’t take them. The cherry on top was when Max picked up Jermar Jefferson after Jamaal Williams went down (not such a bad trade after all I guess) and Jefferson cracked a nice stinky g00se egg all over Max’s Bama Butt. At least this pick-up of KJ Osborn made it a little less embarrassing for the guy that talks about sports for a living.
Lastly, I just want to talk a little about the insanely close game between Thomas and Brad. It was decided by 0.46 points, the second smallest margin in LeagueStory and it was the two rookies, we truly love to see it. I think everyone was heartbroken that Brad ended up on the losing end of that match-up, even Thomas himself. I’m pretty sure he could have lost and still made playoffs, but I’m not gonna check because this column is getting pretty close to rambling (y’all are thinking “close? it’s been all rambling for the past two years!” it’s okay). Why couldn’t Jaylen Guyton get one more reception, even for 0 yards??? We’ll have to ask him when he comes onto the pod. Why couldn’t Beans bid a few more dollars on the Packers D to sabotage Thomas and help out his buddy at the bottom? Why didn’t Brad pick up Money Mac who scored 11 as opposed to Daniel Carlson’s 2? I could go on, but I won’t. Let the old boy get some rest and start working on those jokes.
So there we go! Thank you as always for reading, it’s really appreciated and I always have a fun time writing about you guys and the players you all decide to go with each week. Since this might be the last edition of The Wire for the season (I’ll still be keeping stats and decide to write something if anything significant happens), I’m thinking about creating a feedback survey to see what you guys like and don’t like about the column and how I can improve. Be brutal, I need it. There will be some kind of incentive too, maybe $5 or something for your time. Can’t wait for the playoffs, see y’all there, Go League!
The only team with no FAAB spent on them this whole season, of course, was the Jaguars
Above is a comparison of the current tenants of 149 Sullivan Street in two different years, posted today in order to celebrate my return to the famous apartment following my brief time on the COVID reserve list. I’m just now listening to the pod (and I know I’m quite late again on The Wire) and I forgot about how dominant of a season my man #DaCommish had back in 2019. Looking at the numbers it seems like through 13 weeks, I’ve had higher totals scores and win margins in the current year, but Vigs didn’t pick up his second loss until the last week of the regular season. This makes my 2 game losing streak stand out like an ugly sore thumb, but then again I didn’t lose by almost 80 points. Interestingly our total points were much closer through 12 weeks (I still had a slight edge), but as you can see we had very different performances in Week 13, so that made the true difference up to this point. Will I follow my roommate to the glory of the championship? We’ll find out in time. Thanks for caring!
In the immortal words of Tommy Pickles, “Hold onto your diapies, babies. We’re going in!”
Wow, it’s been quite a while hasn’t it? I forget exactly what kept me from doing Weeks 10 on time, possibly work, but then the obvious Thanksgiving break came up for Week 11 and I suddenly found myself with COVID and nearly three weeks behind on my column. I’m really trying to keep this short as we all ease our way back into the content-sphere and gear up for the final weeks of the regular season. You can see every add and drop that went on for almost a month above, so I’ll just run through the highlights of each week. You can look for your name and see if there’s a green (good job) or a red (bad job) if I don’t mention ya below:
Week 10:
The only notes I took on this week were blunders made by Kris is his battle for relevancy against Abie. In retrospect, this game actually had a pretty big impact, as it keeps Abie in the playoff hunt. If only Kris didn’t drop Hunter Henry (17.7 points) and spend $16 FAAB on OBJ (2.8 points) while dropping the Cowboys Defense (22(!) points), that 13 point win margin would be going the other way, and the Norse Horse’s 165 point performance in Week 12 would have been much scarier for folks like me. I actually just remembered that it was Abie himself who took the Boys D on waivers for one measly FAAB buck and got the 22 points himself, so you really hate to see that if you’re Kris. At least that’s only reopening an emotional wound, and hopefully the physical wound from the surgery has been healing up nicely. Just remember, it’s all a game.
Another huge pick-up happened in this week thanks to New England’s favorite boom-or-bust back, Rhamondre Stevenson (Beans Corp., 25.4 points, I spelled that right on the first try). Upon further inspection of the chart above, you could argue that Beans’ pick-ups of Chris Boswell (12 pts.) and Nyheim Hines (3.9 points) also contributed to part of that 14 point win margin. This is in spite of the dropped Robby Anderson scoring 11.7 to Hines’ almost 4, but I think it was probably for the better that the “Hines Game” prediction didn’t materialize. If he beat Brad by a bigger margin then he might have gone even MORE Hollywood in his celebrations, and the fall from grace in the past week would have been that much harder, which none of us want to see. That being said, not having to worry about the playoffs give you time to crank out some more content 😉
Week 11:
The only game that ended up being remotely close in this week was the Week 1 rematch of Bonez vs. Brad (9.92 margin). Tommy made this game closer by dropping Devonta Freeman (17 points) for Jakobi Meyers (3.5 points), who he then dropped for Bryan Edwards (g00se). In the end, it was the pick-up of good ol’ Tua (17.52) that made the difference for the Bonez on the Night Before Gameday. Brad kept it close with a Rashod Bateman pick-up, but Devonta Freeman was right there. Hindsight is definitely 20-20 and this season should be in Brad’s rearview mirror by now, hope you use that last FAAB dollar on something special buddy.
The next closest game was Vigs vs. Ryan (22.16 margin) and none of the pick-ups made by either team made or braid the match-up, but I want to shout out #DaCommish’s top spender status for this week as a good use of FAAB. He grabbed the 49ers Defense for $8 and they scored 12, which is great day for any defense. Add in some help from Graham Gano and the rest of your team and that’s how you stay in the hunt for the illusive 2 seed.
Week 12:
Thank the gods that barely anything happened this week. The closest game was me vs. Andrew, but it wasn’t thanks to anyone from the waiver wire. My second Cordarrelle-related mistake in a row and my negligence in leaving Jamaal Williams in my IR spot and Dalton Schultz in my starting line-up had me singing “this’ll be the day that I die” like a regular Don McLean, but thankfully my roommate’s team pulled just as bad of a stinker. After DK dropped a gooser to T-Lock’s healthy 11, I decided to pretend I got COVID in order to give Andrew a few days to cool down by himself at the apartment. Let me know when I can come back, I’m starting to miss the city.
Two of the guys I discuss above eeking out a win over someone in Week 10 and 11 ended up playing each other in Week 12, and this was our next closest game with some actual Wire consequences. This was of course Abie vs. Tommy. The battle between two guys with an “ee” sound at the end of their names was won by our Rookie of the Year thanks to two deftly made pick-ups: Dontrell Hilliard (17.8, guess he emulated Derrick Henry by having the same initials, that’s gotta sting extra for Abie now that I think about it) and Evan “Money Mac” McPherson (13). Even though this wasn’t the highest scoring match-up, it seems like it was a battle between two chess masters who I often praise in this column. Be prepared for more fantasy genius out of whichever of these two make it far in the post-season, which could be both of them.
Alright, I’d say that was mostly painless. I’m including some analytics treats below to make up for my lack of depth. These are the follow-ups to my charts from back in Week 6 that show i) how many points each position gets you on average per FAAB buck spent and ii) how your share of the total FAAB dollar pie has changed over the course of the season along with your current % share. You’ll have to zoom in on that second one but be sure that this could possibly help you to figure out how to outwit and outbid your opponents in these next few very crucial weeks. I’m not gonna hold your hand, but all of the strategy you could want is there for the taking if you know where to look.
I’m also including a follow-up/improvement on the chart I posted the other week that showed how many of your auction and add/drop players’ points were started or sat in the past 3 weeks. You oughta know by now, but you want to see more green than yellow under your name. I still can’t believe I started -6 points in the Browns defense in Week 10 and still managed to win. If your name isn’t there, then you haven’t made moves of that type in the past 3 weeks.
This has been The Wire. Thanks for being patient, hope you get some insight out of this crap, and don’t spend it all in one place.
(as of Week 12, but who cares)
Looks like Max’s frantic move-making is finally paying off? Kris still almost definitely has the better ratio, with Brad’s and Vigs’ lookin’ pretty swell too.
In the words of Tom Wambsgans, “Buckle up, fuckleheads!” We had quite the week of close games, which have been discussed ad infinitum in the last few days on the Pod and in the Power Rankings. Obviously, I look at things a little differently and have a trove of stats and charts at my disposal, so get ready to relive the highs and lows of Week 9 and maybe learn something along the way…
Max vs. Brad Background: Aw man, are we pulling for a win from Brad. Not just to keep Stand-Up Watch interesting, but so that his inaugural season in The League isn’t so bad that he doesn’t want to come back next year. Hopefully your dynasty league has been going well and you’re already scheming how to come in and fuck shit up next year when no one suspects it. No one expected me to be good this year, it could happen to anyone. I wonder how many times Max and Brad have met in person, I bet you could count them on one hand, or even one finger, but let me know in the GroupMe because I’m genuinely curious. Let’s see how things were going for both teams in the lead-up to this match-up:
As you can see, Max has just been bouncing on the .500 line like he bounces all over the country to do the news like a regular Michael Thompson (from Rick and Morty). Meanwhile, aside from the Week 1 win which is covered by Max’s chart, Brad has been doing his best James Cameron impression (from South Park). If this week goes a different way, Max will get his first glimpse below that line and Brad may finally find bottom and begin the process of raising the bar.
The Match: Looking at The Wire (new location for this week), it once again comes down to the defenses. Max bid $2 less than Vigs for Steelers D/ST (more on that move’s effect on Vigs later). This makes sense because Max only has $16 FAAB left compared to the $80 held by Da Commish. If Max decided to throw $6 instead and started Pittsburgh (4 pts.) over Las Vegas (8 pts.), things would be much closer. Pair that with Brad not dropping Vikings D/ST (6 pts.) and not buying Boston Scott for $10 and keeping the Eagles (-3) on the sidelines, we have an entirely different outcome. Boston Scott actually missed his projection by 5.6 points, brutal. Another missed projection came from Jordan Love, who fell 5.3 points short. You truly hate to see it, even though the projections largely mean dick. Basically, the saviors for Max were Kirk Cousins (11.24 more points than the dropped Derek Carr) and the Raiders Defense (6 points more than dropped Falcons D), although none of this would have mattered if Max just played Elijah Moore (23.9 pts.). You’ll be hearing that last sentence again later…
Analysis: Since Brad has less data to draw conclusions from, see below for some trend lines from this season:
Despite the loss, this was very promising in terms of getting yourself above that line. I know I forgot the apostrophe, sue me.
Points are also trending up after a couple of shitty weeks. Not quite in the range where you’re gonna win a lot, as we know, but there is definitely some green in your portion of the Bell Curve-type chart that I posted back at the beginning of LeagueStory. See that below:
Wins have been pulled off here, but the odds are against ya 😦
Max has surely had some close games in the past, as seen in this chart:
Beans and I gotta remember that if it’s gonna be close between us and Max then we better have an ace up our sleeve, because these are pretty heartbreaking to see.
We live for the nail-biters here, and even when you’re on the losing end it’s still exciting and great for content. Let’s take a look at the one we had this week:
Kris vs. Vigs Background: What more can I say about this historic match-up that hasn’t already been said? It’s like the Packers and the Bears, the Cowboys and the Giants, the Jets and the Jets (or the Mets and the Mets heheh). Similar to those rivalries and mine with Max for an in-League example, Kris has won a hefty majority of the meetings between the two. It got to the point where Vigs made his team name “Everybody Hates Kris” for a whole season, pretty harsh. Let’s see their historical performances:
As you can see, both teams have seen quite a lot of victory over the year, with Andrew on the upswing and Kris in a bit of a middling stage as of late. The way the season has been going, you could possibly think you knew how this would go down. I don’t think anyone expected the absolute stinker that came out on the other side of Monday.
The Match: You all saw the graph at the top of the column, Kris wins by 0.48. Insanity. The second closest game in the history of The League and the lowest scoring game that had a margin of less than a point. We all know it was the Pat Freiermuth game, a phrase which I can’t imagine being uttered ever again, but did any other pick-ups or drops have a large effect? Surprisingly little moves were made by these two owners this week. As mentioned above, Andrew picked up the Steelers D for $5 and dropped the Broncos who scored 3 points more, it was a smart move on paper but the Broncos are an enigma with that weird undefeated start and surprising plays like this even after losing noted Internet Troll, Von Miller. Basically anything going different could have helped the Tank Engines so I won’t ruminate on it too long. One thing that made a huge difference is the benching of Elijah Moore. I think this has happened to Brad before, but it’s gotta sting leaving that many points on the bench especially when it’s from your own hometown team. Maybe you should have let your “Homerism” kick in there… Kris made a bid for Boston Scott but was $4 short, picking up Patty Points was all he needed though. The only other move he could have made to his roster was starting A-Rob over Juice Landry, which I would have done considering I named my team after Mister Robinson II a few years ago. However, as much as it pains me to say it, Justin Fields is not doing that man any favors.
Analysis: Let’s look back at the past close and low-scoring games from these two gentlemen:
I was shocked how many close games Kris has had, and how many he’s won. This includes a tight win against our Commish in the 2018 playoffs. Maybe that was an inspiration for the team name because I can’t think of anything else it could be based on.
I remember that time I blew out the Norse Horses, doubt I was picked to win on the pod too. Also good to see that Andrew can look back on the fond memories of Week 12 of 2019.
This for sure shows that Vigs is less seasoned when it comes to these nail-biters, despite having more of them in the past 2 years. The win against Alex was one of two games to have a margin of less than 2 in 2020, the other being Me beating Abie (ironic) in Week 7 by 1.48.Once again, my roommate does not normally score little, same way he doesn’t win or lose little. That’s why he’s the commish, he does it big or not at all. We know this. I won’t call attention to the brutal loss he took to Kris in Week 2 of 2019, so don’t even think about looking at that.
Listen, you both know how your seasons are going, and you can take this week as a lesson and get ready for the next time you’ll be butting heads. Whether it’s in the playoffs, the losers bracket, or the 2022 season, I’m sure it’ll be a good one.
A few more thoughts before I go. My match-up with Abie was close and I want to say that I’m sooooo thankful that Abie’s genius Wire moves were put on a bye week or something this week. If it was last year, this would be in the Ugly section (for those who are unaware or forgot, I used to format these things in a “Good, Bad, Ugly” manner. Now I’m trying a whole bunch of stuff. It’s fun!) SO basically Abie dropped the Browns defense who scored 18 and Darnell Mooney who scored 19.1. I won by 12.24, you do the math. He also added Adrian Peterson (one of my first fantasy favorites) on a Monday? I didn’t even know you were allowed to do that!? Let’s see if he can keep turning back the clock or if he’ll have to spend more time with his family, not sure which one would be worse for the rest of us…
Unfortunately, Tua Time is over. Luckily I don’t have to feel so bad because Ryan also spend FAAB on a player who goosed it (Bryan Edwards, $3). Live and learn is what I’m gonna say to wrap it up.
Alright, that’s our show! Hope you liked this little investigative piece, it was something different and with the match-ups and results of this week I felt a deeper dive was in order. You wanted to hear about YOUR match-up more? Should have been more exciting I guess. Maybe next time. Later!!
The Big Chart, in a new spot for this week but still as fun as ever!
Who even cares about this one? I’m gonna rework it at some point
Now this one is interesting because those 23.9 points for Andrew were left on the bench. It even puts him ahead of Kris in total Net Points. This is why I decided to put this next one together:
This is a chart showing Gross Points added to a given team in a given week, and whether those points Started or Sat. I’ll apply it retroactively to this season since I started keeping track of Start/Sits in the middle of last year. Stay tuned!
I’m really gonna try and make this short and sweet because let’s face it, there’s already a ton of content recapping what went down last week and even this week and it’s Friday then, it’s Saturday Sunday WHAT.
In terms of close match-ups, there was only one in Week 8: Kris vs. Brent. As always, it was a good showing from both sides, with Brent edging out the victory. This was thanks in part to Cousin Greg Josephs (12 points) and Joe Burrow ($3, 20.26 points). Kris was actually beat out by one measly FAAB dollar for Ohio’s native son, although Josh Allen’s near-30-burger was pretty much all you can ask for. Still, there’s been situations in the past where someone’s picked up a player that another team needs just to keep their opponent that week from having them. Who’s to say that if Kris outbid the reigning champ, Matt Ryan would be making a start for the Flandrews and only dropped 6 points? We’d be singing quite a different tune, and Joey B wouldn’t be my starter for Week 9. It’d still be Tua Time, a simpler time… Further, Kris made another savvy move by picking up Cole Beasley for an 11 point surplus ($5, 16 points, you know the drill).
We had something fun/rare happen this week that not many people would notice, but I did. If you check out the chart above, there’s one line where the added and dropped player have no color filling their cell. This means this is the first time the added player has been added (MVS) and the first time the dropped player has been dropped (Curtis Samuel). Shout-out to Ryan for that little treat, because the rest of the FAAB moves my guy made were pretty awful. Every player that Ryan shelled out a few bucks for (MVS for $3, Gallup for $2 and Kalif Raymond for $2) threw up a goose egg, either due to injury or just being plain bad. Not sure about the logic of spending money on hurt players when you could get them for free, but my guy’s always got a master plan none of us can see. C.J. Uzomah is definitely somewhat viable as a TD-vulture, but DeVante Parker scored 12.5 compared the the Bengals TE’s 5.3. Better luck with your pick-ups this week, Marz.
Tommy Bonez was the high roller of the week with a modest $13 on Bobby Tonyan. Definitely not the biggest dollars-to-points deficit we’ve seen here (-6.6) and Buffalo pulled out a solid win against Max Trade-room over here, so we’ll take it in stride. This guy’s a contender.
Zero moves by Brad this week, must have been busy getting his Randy Marsh costume together. I appreciated the hell out of that, Tegridy Farms is on par (if not at times better) than South Park and it deserves its respect.
Beanso ALWAYS knows just how much to spend on defenses, he’s like Rain Man in that respect. He can probably do it without even knowing the match-up. I haven’t seen the movie so I’m guess that’s about where the comparisons end, but the 49ers costed $6 and spat out 6 points in return. This was also the most sought-after acquisition of the week, with 3 other teams making offers that didn’t quite cut it. Randall Cobb was a solid grab, David Johnson not so much.
Lastly, I’d like to give a big “fuck you” to reddit user newtya (a Lions fan, like the animal from the circus, what a joke) for sticking his nose in places it doesn’t belong. A different reddit user, AlbuquerqueAardvarks, called me terrible for “confirming that you’re trying to collude with another owner and then using that publicity to push your blog” and I responded with a sarcastic comment. This idiot Lions fans calls me a dick and says “I’m never clicking that link”. Can people not just leave things alone on the internet anymore? That’s another joke for ya. Obviously I didn’t know I was colluding if I’m making a post about it, and then when everyone tells me it’s collusion I’m not lashing out at every single comment (I already did that in the GroupMe discussion), but when you start attacking my character I’ll play along and feed into your anger over whatever it is you’re projecting onto me. As for pushing the blog once I realized I’d get a lot of views on my post, you’re clearly mad you didn’t think of that for whatever little creative thing you’re trying to push. Otherwise, why would you care? I literally say “damn, this is doing numbers”, the most generic jokey shit you put in an edit or reply post, after getting like 5 upvotes and 12 comments, big whoop. You’re looking at it and we’re talking about it, I win.
Goddamn. This has been The Wire, enjoy the weekend folks. Go League.
Must Be Sunday 