Scoring Records Update for 2016

You may recall that several weeks back, I did an analysis of total points scored in the modern TTFFL.  Well, since I'm currently sitting at my sister-in-law's house in Virginia with nothing to do, I thought I'd update that analysis now that the 2016 season has concluded.  Here we see the point totals for the past 7 TTFFL seasons, with all point totals prior to 2016 adjusted upward by 56 points to adjust for the scoring change which occurred in 2016:

	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Aaron	1014	1122	1044	1029	924	1238	948.7
Adam	1110	1072	1028	1209	1102	1100	1236.6
Dave	1184	1097	1128	1273	1011	1090	1325.7
Jason	1037	1012	1148	1241	1065	852	1045.9
Jody	1164	1229	1077	893	1074	1073	1143.4
Kevin	951	1020	953	1163	1003	1220	1172.2
Levi	N/A	1059	1151	1115	1137	1059	809.6
Merrill	1142	1001	1037	1060	1112	1172	961.5
Mex	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	1092	1125	1150.3
Paul	1127	1089	1084	915	1070	972	1070.6
Pete	1147	1005	947	935	960	1047	1004.1
Taylor	897	1279	1175	1125	1046	985	1115.5

Recall that each season's champion is marked in bold, while the high-scorer for the season is marked in italics.

One thing worth noting here is that 2016 was a historic season in a couple of ways.  For one thing, Levi's season was historically bad.  His 809.6 points --- barely more than 50 per game --- was the lowest in the history of the league, and only the fourth time a team failed to break the 900-point barrier in a season.  It was so bad, in fact, that even if you throw out the 56-point score adjustment for seasons prior to 2016, it still just barely ranks as the second-worst season of the modern era, just ahead of Jason's (non-adjusted) 796 point in 2015.  A splendid display of inertia.

Of course, the thing everyone SHOULD be marveling at and admiring is the amazingly high point total the Amazing Psychotic Ninjas tallied, besting the previous record of 1279 adjusted points Taylor put up in 2011!  Way to go, Ninjas!  It's not a title, of course, but it's still something worth bragging about!! Woo-hoo!  Are those Ninjas something or what?!?  I'm sure they're the heavy favorite to take home the title next year!!!!!ONE!

Apparently No One Will Beat Adam

This was my favorite of all the images which popped up when I Googled 'Suspended Atomnation'

One thing you can say about Adam: he knows when to turn it on.

Out of 16 games played this season, Adam scored 70 points or more in all but 5 of them.  Two of those 5 were his two losses (against YEC in week 6 and Diablos in week 13), two of those were wins against pathetic teams (Trumbore the Younger in week 5 and Trumbore the Elder in week 11), and the last was his week 14 bye.

Week 14 was especially egregious.  That was the week Adam scored a whopping 36.4 points, once again only outscoring the Trumbores.

(By the way, what's up with the Trumbores?  I know they live in Michigan --- are they anywhere near Flint?  Can they blame their crappy 2016 seasons on the water?  Someone help me out here).

ANYWAY --- the point is that Suspended Atomnation shined when it mattered, outscoring nearly every team in the league (any guesses about the TOP scorer championship week?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?) on his way to his first TTFFL title.

His reward?  Other than the $300 first prize and the last pick in next year's draft?  He gets to pick a name and avatar for Levi's team (there's the Trumbores sucking again), who let Jason off the hook in the Toilet Bowl, scoring a measly 31.8 points and leaving no doubt to his claim as worst team in the league.  Congratulations, Leviathans (insert embarrasing name here).

As predicted, Kevin prevailed over Merrill to grab the top pick next year.  And in the consolation matchup, Your Esteemed Commissioner (yes, it was me, okay?!?  *I* scored the most points in championship week, for all the good it did me, what with not being in the championship.  Thanks for rubbing it in!) overcame lackluster play from Rob Kelley and Malcolm Mitchell to grab 3rd place, and the $60 and 10th overall pick that come with it.

I swear, this playoff season has been so frustrating.  What's the point in being a dominant team during the regular season and scoring the most points in the league if you're just going to get turfed out of the playoffs?  Screw that, I'm not ever doing that again.  I'm going back to sneaking into the playoffs with a 6-7-1 record and scoring a pair of improbable upsets to claim the title.  That's WAY more fun.

Look for the usual breakdown of accounting sometime in the next week or so, followed by the usual season in review.  Until then, congratulations again to Adam, and have a happy new year!

Will Jody Please Beat Adam?

No, actually I don't care any more.

This post is going up a bit later than planned, and many of you may think the reason is that I spent all day yesterday sitting around sulking about my semifinals loss.  I wish.  Don't get me wrong; it's been a quite annoying season --- in THREE LEAGUES I was dominant all season, racking up double-digit victories and scoring the most points.  Then in both Battlin' Sweethearts and TTFFL, I lose my first playoff game.

(I actually won the title in the other league I dominated.  And I was in a fourth league where I finished only 7-6, and lost my first playoff game again.  Thanks for asking.)

At least in Battlin' Sweethearts, I got my ass well and truly kicked.  It was far more frustrating here, to get close but not get the cigar.  So I did *some* sulking about the losses, but that's not why I'm a day late posting.  No, sadly, the reason you got radio silence from me yesterday is that I got a flat tire driving home from work, and so I spent 5 lovely hours sitting around a garage sulking about my bad luck trying to get service on my car at 4:30 on a weekday afternoon without an appointment.  It was both a joy and a thrill.

However, I'm sure the only thing you enjoy hearing less than me bitching about my team is the tires on my car.  So instead of discussing that, I'll talk about the teams who are still IN the playoffs.  Oh heck, I'll talk about all of the playoff matchups.

As noted in the title, Team Harbaughs snuck into the finals, and will have the last shot at defeating Adam this season.  Since I no longer have a chance to win the title, I don't care whether Adam wins or loses, other than the fact that the mere existence of his team has been a thorn in my side all season.  That and, oh yeah, if I had gotten the #1 seed I truly deserved, then I would have played the hapless Mex in the semifinals, so I WOULD be in the finals now.  So go to it, Jody!   Rip him a new one!  Make him sorry he'd ever won 11 games in the regular season!

The consolation matchup, of course, features that gracious competitor the Psychotic Ninjas against the hapless Mex.  Given the way my season is turning out, I expect that next week I shall outscore absolutely everyone in the league EXCEPT Mex, who will club me to death in a 123-122.9 slugfest.

Moving on, the battle for next year's top pick is a good one, the 98th matchup this season (or so it seems) between Merrill and Kevin.  Obviously there are bragging rights on the line, but this is a rivalry that will live on into 2017, when Kevin and Merrill can take turns sniping each other in the draft, regardless the outcome of this playoff game.

Polly Prissy Pants will fight Los Diablos for the third overall pick next year, with similar sniping implications.

Things start to get interesting when rounding out the final four --- or I suppose I should say the 'bottom four'.  Aaron defeated Levi to avoid a first-to-worst slide, which is kind of a shame.  His worst-to-first performance from 2014 to 2015 is the stuff of legend; dropping back to the bottom in 2016 would have been a feat for the ages.

To be honest, I was really hoping for an all-Trumbore Toilet Bowl matchup.  Not only would have been a nice family theme for the holidays, but it would have been doubly amusing to see both Pete and Levi fall to the two worst teams in the league.  Unfortunately, Pete managed to win his semifinal matchup, so Levi will be the only Trumbore in the Toilet Bowl, going up against the Stinking Screaming Eagles.

After next week's championship festivities, there will of course be the usual folderol and nonsense, and efforts on my part to pay money to some of you.  But until then, have a happy holiday season, and best wishes to all in their games this weekend.

DST Scoring question

There was a question this week about scoring in the Atlanta/Kansas City game.  Two questions, actually.

The first concerns a KC fake punt on 4th-and-1 from their own 45-yard line in the 3rd quarter.  Long-snapper James Winchester snapped the ball directly to punt protector Albert Wilson, who proceeded to take the ball 55 yards for a touchdown.

The second concerns the game-sealing pick-two runback of a two-point conversion try by Eric Berry near the end of the game.

For both of these plays, the question is: how many points should the Chiefs DST get, and did ESPN score the plays correctly?

First, the fake punt.  The correct scoring for this play is that the DST should get 0 points, and ESPN scored it correctly.  The reasoning is that a fake punt or fake field goal is no different from a team deciding to go for it on fourth down.  In fact, when a team decides to run a fake punt/fake field goal, they have *clearly* decided to go for it on fourth down --- they're just hiding that fact from their opponent.  So even though the punting unit is on the field, scoring a TD on a fake punt (or fake field goal) is no different from the QB throwing a TD on fourth down.  It's still properly scored as points for the offense, not the DST.

(Things get complicated if there's ever a fumble on a punt, or a blocked field goal.  If there's ever a change of possession, then for fantasy purposes BOTH teams are considered DST --- even if Drew Brees throws an interception, and the intercepting player fumbles, and then a Saints WR picks up the fumble and returns it for a score.  In such a scenario, that's scored as a TD for the Saints DST [and the Saints WR, of course], even though their offense is on the field.  The same principle applies for blocked kicks/punts or fumbles of a punt/kickoff return.)

The case of the pick-two is a bit murkier.  Logic tells you that the DST should get 2 points for an interception, and 2 points for the conversion at the end of the return.  However, the NFL does not consider the 'interception' of a 2-point conversion try to be a real interception.  See Matt Ryan's stat line for the game from NFL.com:

The one interception listed here is from the pick-6 Berry returned earlier in the game.  So if the NFL doesn't count an interception of a 2-point conversion attempt as a 'real' interception, then neither does ESPN, and neither will we.

However, the KC DST DOES deserve an additional 2 points, since Berry returned the conversion attempt and scored 2 points for his team (Meachem Rule).  So I will add 2 points to the Chiefs DST for this week, and then I'll try to remember to adjust the league scoring so that such scores are automatically in the future.

Playoffs, Baby!!!

There is a certain poetic justice in my loss to Levi last week.  For one thing, it kept the #1 seed out of my hands.  And it was the ONLY thing keeping the #1 seed out of my hands, since Kubicek managed to hand Adam only his second defeat of the season, thus clearing the way for me to claim my rightful place atop the league, if only . . . .

If only.

Then there's the fact that my biggest trade of the season was sending the dynamic Detroit duo of Matthew Stafford and Marvin Jones over to Levi in exchange for Odell Beckham and Russell Wilson.  That looked like a pretty good trade for me until Week 12, when Wilson ran into the teeth of the mighty Buccaneers defense (who knew?).  And things didn't get better this week, when Wilson and Beckham combined for 16 points, compared to Stafford's 19.9.

I like to think that Levi left an injured Marvin Jones in his lineup just to spite me, to prove that he could beat me with only 8 players.  True, he was probably off drinking beer or something and ignoring his lineup, but I like to THINK he did it to spite me.

Whatever the reason for the outcome, Adam claimed his #1 seed, and I'm stuck with the stupid old #2 seed.  And the rest of the seeds are as follows:

1. Suspended Atomnation
2. Psychotic Ninjas
3. Los Diablos
4. Golden Graham's
5. Team Harbaughs
6. ~ AirMex ~
7. Leviathans
8. Polly Prissy Pants
9. Orion River Horses
10. Merrill's Marauders
11. Screaming Eagles
12. Strike Team

Unlike with the Battlin' Sweethearts League, the ESPN software actually got these seeds correct.  But it doesn't matter, because it's fairly clueless about playoff matchups.  For one thing, it wants to pair up Eagles and Strike Team for a consolation game, and there's nothing I can do to change that.  But trust me when I say that both of those guys have a bye this week.  The result of their 'game' has no impact on anything.

I've rearranged the matchups so that everyone who IS playing a game is matched up against the correct opponent.  At the end of this week, the highest-seeded winner of the playoff teams will play Psychotic Ninjas in the semifinals, and the lowest-seeded winner will play Atomnation.  Similarly, the highest-seeded LOSER of the consolation games will play Strike Team in week 15, and the lowest-seeded LOSER of the consolation games will play Eagles.

And the remaining 4 teams will have a playoff for the top seed, with matchups based on their seeding.  What could be simpler?  However, all of these seed-based week 15 matchups mean that I'll probably have to shuffle things around again after week 14.

Remember, the higher-seeded team is declared the winner in the event of a tie (which is unlikely to happen with the new scoring system, but still).  And also remember that the highest-scoring team wins $15 this week, just like every other week, even if you're on bye.  So set your best lineups, no matter who you play in week 14!

More History --- Scoring Records

Earlier this year, I documented the highest and lowest-scoring games in the modern era of the TTFFL.  Continuing with the theme of historical research, I would now like to present the records for most/fewest points scored in a season in the modern era.  In fact, I'll present total scores for every team for every year of the modern era:

	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Aaron	958	1066	988	973	868	1182	696.8
Adam	1054	1016	972	1153	1046	1044	980.2
Dave	1128	1041	1072	1217	955	1034	1036.3
Jason	981	956	1092	1185	1009	796	772.4
Jody	1108	1175	1021	837	1018	1017	879.6
Kevin	895	964	897	1107	947	1164	886.8
Levi	N/A	1003	1095	1059	1081	1003	640.3
Merrill	1086	945	981	1004	1056	1116	693.1
Mex	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	1036	1069	891.4
Paul	1071	1033	1028	859	1014	916	800.6
Pete	1091	949	891	879	904	991	795.5
Taylor	841	1223	1119	1069	990	929	827.6

.

The top scorer for each season is indicated in italics, and the champion for a given season is in bold.  The totals for this year are incomplete, obviously.

Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, now that we're scoring points for every yard gained and lost, each QB, RB, WR and TE is scoring average of about half a point per game more than they did in previous seasons.  So to make a more accurate comparison, the totals prior to 2016 should be normalized upward by 3.5 points per game, or 56 points per season.  After making that adjustment, the totals look as follows:

	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Aaron	1014	1122	1044	1029	924	1238	696.8
Adam	1110	1072	1028	1209	1102	1100	980.2
Dave	1184	1097	1128	1273	1011	1090	1036.3
Jason	1037	1012	1148	1241	1065	852	772.4
Jody	1164	1229	1077	893	1074	1073	879.6
Kevin	951	1020	953	1163	1003	1220	886.8
Levi	N/A	1059	1151	1115	1137	1059	640.3
Merrill	1142	1001	1037	1060	1112	1172	693.1
Mex	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	1092	1125	891.4
Paul	1127	1089	1084	915	1070	972	800.6
Pete	1147	1005	947	935	960	1047	795.5
Taylor	897	1279	1175	1125	1046	985	827.6

Now, you may think that I'm only posting this because I'm on track to absolutely CRUSH Taylor's current record of 1279 adjusted points in a season.  And you'd be right about that.  But you can also draw some other conclusions from this data.  For example, winning the title in a year when you score the most points is more common than you might think (me in 2013, Aaron last year).  And also, if you can't score at least 1000 points in a season, you're really fairly worthless.  So nanny-nanny boo-boo Jason, Paul, and Taylor from last year.

Obviously I'm only talking about how worthless you are if you failed to score 1000 total points on the adjusted scale.  Everyone can miss in the old scoring system every now and then.  Like in 2014, for example.

Week 13 Playoff Scenarios

Thanks for making this easy for me, guys.

Suspended Atomnation and Psychotic Ninjas have clinched the two week 14 byes.  The only remaining drama here is whether Adam can sneak past Kubicek to hold on to the #1 seed, or whether he'll fall to Kubicek while I polish off Levi, thus grabbing the #1 seed I so rightfully deserve.

Team Harbaughs, Los Diablos and Golden Grahams have all clinched playoff spots, and none of them can get a first-round bye, so the only (*yawn*) drama there is which seeds will go to which teams.

The only real drama of week 13 is determining who will get the final playoff spot.  Mex has so many points that he'll easily clinch with a victory over Jody.  If Mex should lose, however, the #6 seed would go to either Polly Prissy Pants or the River Horses depending on point totals.

Unless, of course, Mex, Taylor and Pete all lose, and Levi casts an evil spell on me to win our matchup, which is the only way the Leviathans can make the playoffs.

However it shakes out, 3 of these 4 teams will miss the playoffs, and will thus join Merrill in a week 14 playoff to try to stay out of the Toilet Bowl bracket.  The Screaming Eagles and Strike Team have already clinched week 14 byes to participate in the Toilet Bowl playoff in weeks 15 and 16.

Also . . . since I've scored really a WHOLE LOT of points already this season, it has motivated me to look back at scoring totals in the Modern Era --- and I'm on pace to absolutely smash the previous scoring record of 1223 points, set by Taylor/Yac Attack in 2011.  Of course, as Taylor has already pointed out to me, the new scoring system we implemented this year increases everyone's total by an average of 3.5 points per game.  But even taking that into account, Adam and I both are going into uncharted territory when it comes to scoring this year.

Would someone please beat Adam, by the way?

For Your Amusement (Or Mine)

I really need to win the lottery, so I can devote more time to this blog.  I know you all love it so much --- hey, maybe you'd agree to make the role of Commissioner a paid position?  My hourly rate is pretty steep, but on the flip side, I could probably manage to post something every single week if I didn't need to work my day job.

Give it some thought.

Anyway, I'm here now, and I just wanted to mention a couple of things I've seen so far this season which amuse me.  For starters, there was Jason in week 9.  Something tells me he wasn't really trying:

At least Jason had the excuse that lots of his players were on bye or injured.  Pete, on the other hand, was just pitiful last week:

Happiness is . . . facing an opponent who is starting THREE Rams wide receivers the week their rookie QB gets his first start.  And it was especially happy for Adam, considering seven other teams in the league would have beaten him last week.

Maybe I haven't mentioned it recently, but WOULD SOMEONE ELSE BEAT ADAM PLEASE?!?

I was also amused when I saw ESPN's preview of my matchup with Aaron this week.  At one point, all of the little red check marks were on my side of the screen.  It's less amusing now that Aaron is winning.

Anyway, let's take a look at how everyone is doing, shall we?  Remember, there are only TWO weeks left in the regular season this year!  I probably should have set the trade deadline to be yesterday instead of next Wednesday.  Oh well, live and learn.

Adam has secured a first-round bye (I'm assuming Kubicek won't outscore him by 126 points over the next two weeks), but needs to match or exceed the Ninjas' win total the next two weeks to clinch the #1 seed.

YEC clinches a first-round bye with one more win, and clinches the #1 seed by winning one more game than Adam.

Kubicek has clinched a playoff spot, and can clinch a first-round bye if he wins both remaining games and YEC loses both remaining games.

Jody clinches a playoff spot with one more win, and even with a pair of losses, he'll make the playoffs unless two out of Taylor, Pete and Levi win out and outscore him significantly.

Then things get interesting.

Erstwhile league-leader Kevin, predictably riding a 5-game losing streak, clinches a playoff spot with a pair of wins, or one win and some luck.  Adding two more losses to the streak is likely to see Kevin battling to stay out of the basement this year.

Taylor, Pete and Levi seem likely to be duking it out for the final playoff spot, and Levi is at a considerable disadvantage, seeing as Taylor and Pete have both outscored him by more than 100 points.  So Levi clearly needs one more win than both Taylor and Pete, otherwise his season is likely over.  Taylor has a 40-point advantage on Pete, so winning out will likely secure the final playoff spot for him.

Mex has a significant points advantage over Taylor, Pete and Levi, so remarkably, he's still in contention for the final playoff spot.  He does need to gain a victory over all three of them, however, which is a long-shot, but not impossible.

Merrill has a theoretical path to the final playoff spot, but it would involve:

• Beating Pete and Kevin.
• Mex losing his final two games.
• Taylor, Pete and Levi all losing both of their remaining games.
• Outscoring Taylor by 161 points, and outscoring Pete by 120.

So I'm going out on a limb here and saying that Merrill won't be participating in the playoffs this year.

And finally, there's Jason and Aaron, and the less said about them the better.  Although I do want to congratulate Aaron for notching his second victory of the season last week --- against Jason, naturally.

Finally, a brief description of the new playoff format.  After 13 weeks, we'll identify the 6 playoff teams and the 6 non-playoff teams.  The playoff matchups for the bottom 6 teams will mirror those of the top 6.  Which is to say, the #11 and #12 seeds will receive a 'bye' into the bottom 4, just like the #1 and #2 seeds receive a bye to the semifinals.

After the first week of playoffs, the #1 and #2 seeds will play the winners of the matchups between the #3 - #6 seeds, and those four teams will play for the title.  The #11 and #12 seeds will play the losers of the matchups between the #7 - #10 seeds, and those four teams will play to avoid last place.

And the LOSERS of the #3 - #6 seeds will go into another bracket along with the WINNERS of the #7 - #10 seeds, and those four teams will play for next year's first overall pick.

Simple, right?

Of Grahams and Marauders

What the hell, we're 6 weeks into a 13-week season, might as well give a league update.

For starters, of course, Kevin has indicated that he wants this saved for posterity, and I'm happy to oblige:

Sorry about week 4, Kevin, when all of my players took the week off and I let Merrill score his one win of the season, otherwise this would be just about perfect for you.  OTOH, if I had won that game, then I would be ahead of you on points, so maybe this is better.  Whatevs.

Yes, that one game is the only thing keeping both me and Merrill from perfect records so far, but even as things are, WHAT THE HELL?!?  I would have to go check league history --- and I'm not going to do that this time, despite how fun it is digging through the archives --- but I don't recall a team EVER starting the year with six straight wins or losses, and this year we have THREE of them (and damn near five).

Well, let's see.  Kevin has definitely had some good games, including breaking the century mark twice, but he's also benefited from some less-than-stellar play on the part of Kubicek and the Trumbore family, none of whom managed to score even 50 points against the Golden Graham's.  Maybe Michigan's water problems extend outside the city of Flint.  As for the 0-6 losers, Aaron has just been plain bad most weeks, averaging less than 55 points per game, while Jason has had some bad weeks and some bad luck, giving up close to 100 points per game, on average.

That's one thing you can say about fantasy football; it's never dull.

It's really too early to get into playoff scenarios, but let's do it anyway (it may well be another 6 weeks before I post anything else).

Obviously the Graham's, Ninjas and Atomnation are sitting pretty, each likely needing only 2 or 3 more wins (if that) to clinch a playoff spot.  Then the 4-2 teams all have the best shot at securing the final 3 playoff spots, although it's almost certain that at least one of them will take a nosedive in the final 7 games.  That leaves open the question of who will be the 1 or 2 teams in the bottom six to make a run.

Could it be the Leviathans?  Quite likely, considering that they're 3-3 even with Doug Martin having sat out for 4 weeks.  How about Mex?  He could make things interesting if Aaron Rodgers and Jamaal Charles start playing like it's 2013.  Pete?  Well, never say never, but Devonta Freeman and Julio Jones are really the only two players on his roster you would call studs.  Merrill?  It doesn't look likely, but you should never count out a team with Cam Newton.

And what about the 0-6 Screaming Eagles and Strike Team?  Are their seasons over?

Yes.  Yes, I'm afraid they are.

This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

History

I swear Taylor asked for this.  Well, most of this, anyway.

As some of you may have noticed, I absolutely CRUSHED it this week, scoring 131.8 points against poor Jason.  And that with Tevin Coleman sitting on my bench.

So earlier today, Taylor sent me the following email:

If you'd only started Coleman, you would have had a really good week.

This evolved into a discussion of high-scoring games, and long story short, I went back through the archives to find the highest-scoring games throughout the modern history of TTFFL (that means the history since we switched to an ESPN-hosted site.  Nothing important happened prior to that, other than the Ninjas' consecutive titles in 2007, 2008, and 2009, which no, I never intend to stop talking about).

So . . . . Here's a list of every single game where a team has scored 100 points or more since 2010:

1. 131.8: Ninjas vs Screaming Eagles, 2016 week 3
2. 121: Yac Attack vs Grahams, 2011 week 2
3. 118: River Horses vs Grahams, 2010 week 10
4. 115: Atomnation vs Marauders, 2010 week 10
5. 113: Ninjas vs Strike Team, 2010 week 16 (consolation game)
6. 112: Screaming Eagles vs Ninjas, 2013 week 1
7. 112: Puttheads vs Diablos, 2011 week 14
8. 110: Strike Team vs Screaming Eagles, 2011 week 1
9. 110: Puttheads vs Diablos, 2011 week 1
10. 109: Air Apparent vs Little Choo Choo, 2013 week 9
11. 108: Harbaughs vs Marauders, 2015 week 3
12. 108: River Horses vs Puttheads, 2010 week 11
13. 107.4: Suspended Atomnation vs Los Diablos, 2016 week 1
14. 106.8: Los Diablos vs AirMex, 2016 week 2
15. 106: Screaming Eagles vs Harbaughs, 2015 week 15
16. 106: Grahams vs Air Apparent, 2014 week 4
17. 106: Yac Attack vs Puttheads, 2011 week 4
18. 104: AirMex vs Marauders, 2014 week 13
19. 104: Strike Team vs Leviathans, 2014 week 8
20. 103: Diablos vs AirMex, 2014 week 6
21. 103: Ninjas vs Diablos, 2012 week 9
22. 101: Moist Spots vs Screaming Eagles, 2015 week 12
23. 101: Ninjas vs Marauders, 2013 week 13
24. 101: Ninjas vs Marauders, 2012 week 8
25. 100.9: Grahams vs Marauders, 2016 week 1
26. 100: Hollow Graham's vs Screaming Eagles, 2014 week 8
27. 100: Atomnation vs Eagles, 2013 week 15
28. 100: Atomnation vs Marauders, 2013 week 4

It's kind of interesting to note that (ahem) the Psychotic Ninjas lead the pack with 5 100+-point performances.  No other owner has more than 4.  Specifically, it shakes out as:

• Ninjas: 5
• Atomnation: 4
• Jody (under various names): 4
• Taylor (under various names): 3
• Aaron (under various names): 3
• River Horses: 2
• Screaming Eagles: 2
• Los Diablos: 2
• Golden Graham's: 2

And Levi and Merrill have NEVER broken the century mark in a game.  Levi at least has the excuse (kind of) that he hasn't been with the league all of those years --- but he only missed 2010, so . . .

Anyway, since I was looking up high-scoring games, I figured I might as well look at low-scoring games as well.  Here are all of the games in which a team failed to score at least 30 points:

1. 29: Graham's vs Leviathans, 2012 week 16
2. 29: River Horses vs Team Datanator (remember him?), 2011 week 8
3. 28: Air Apparent vs Ninjas, 2013 week 7
4. 28: Puttheads vs River Horses, 2012 week 16
5. 28: Suspended Atomnation vs Team Datanator, 2012 week 9
6. 28: Screaming Eagles vs Puttheads, 2010 week 13
7. 28: Yac Attack vs Golden Graham's, 2010 week 8
8. 27: Air Apparent vs Team Harbaughs, 2015 week 16
9. 27: Screaming Eagles vs Moist Spots, 2015 week 3
10. 27: Hollow Graham's vs Leviathans, 2014 week 4
11. 27: River Horses vs Atomnation, 2014 week 4
12. 27: Los Diablos vs Graham's, 2012 week 12
13. 24: Ninjas vs Marauders, 2015 week 2
14. 24: River Horses vs Air Apparent, 2014 week 7
15. 22: Yac Attack vs Screaming Eagles, 2010 week 4
16. 19: Suspended Atomnation vs Screaming Eagles, 2012 week 4
17. 12: River Horses vs Diablos, 2013 week 16 (NOT a Toilet Bowl game, but it damn well should have been)

Breaking it down, here is how often each of the league owners has fallen into this particular chasm of molten suck:

• River Horses: 4
• Taylor (under various names): 4
• Atomnation: 2
• Screaming Eagles: 2
• Jody (under various names): 2
• Ninjas: 1
• Los Diablos: 1
• Golden Graham's: 1

So while Levi and Merrill never achieved the lofty 100+-point threshold, they have also successfully avoided sucking horribly.  Of course, Aaron and Mex have avoided this as well --- although Mex has only been in the league for 2 years of the modern era.  So if you squint hard enough, it kind of looks like Aaron has been the most successful owner, with 3 100+-point games and NO sub-30-point games.

And he also has 2 titles during that time, making him the only owner with multiple titles in the modern era.  So there's that too.

AND FINALLY . . .

During the draft Kubicek wondered whether anyone had every won a league title relying on Lions players.  And the answer is a surprising 'yes'.

In 2010, Jody won the first title of the modern era with Calvin Johnson.  Okay, okay, so obviously Calvin was a stud.

The surprising part is that Pete won the title in 2011 with several Lions on his roster.  He drafted Jahvid Best, Titus Young and Brandon Pettigrew, and added the Lions DST and Nate Burleson along the way.  Titus Young was a complete bust, unsurprisingly, but all of the other Lions played key roles in his season.  Jahvid Best was a productive RB1 until he suffered a career-ending concussion in week 6 --- at which point, Pete successfully robbed me blind in a trade, giving me Best for Marques Colston, who was a key element in his title run.  Brandon Pettigrew and Nate Burleson both made solid if unspectacular contributions at various points during his season.

Lions have not played a critical role in any championship run since then.  In 2012, Strike Team drafted Nate Burleson and started him only once, when he scored 0 points.  In 2013, the Ninjas drafted no Lions but picked up Ryan Broyles off waivers at some point, and started him one time in which he also scored 0 points.  In 2014 Los Diablos took the title without drafting or ever once starting a Lion (big surprise there).  And finally, last year Aaron claimed his second title after drafting Joique Bell.  Bell started two games for the Moist Spots and scored a total of just one point.

So in summary --- Kubicek is right that Lions players have tended to be rather useless recently, but they have not always been useless.

And this year, of course, there's Marvin Jones.  Right, Kubicek?

I swear Taylor asked for this.

Some Negatives of the New Scoring Rule

I'll try to remember to bring this to everyone's attention closer to the start of 2016, but now that we've adopted new scoring rules which award points for every yard passing, rushing and receiving, it's good to keep in mind these negatives as well.  Here are a couple of questions I sent off to ESPN, along with answers:

If an RB rushes for -6 yards (say), will his total be recorded as -0.3 points, or 0 points?

Anthony L replies: In the situation you provided, the RB would have -.3 points

If my QB is sacked for an 8-yard loss, does that deduct 0.4 points from my score?  Or does it count as a passing play, so rushing totals are not affected?

Ryne S replies: Any time a quarterback is sacked it will count as negative rushing yards. For example if you quarterback is sacked for -8 yards you would get -.4 points for this play.

Thank you for attending this edition of ESPN answers your scoring questions.

Big Changes for 2016?

From the Time Machine . . . .

As I write this, Demariyus Thomas just caught his fourth TD of the year, the first offensive TD the Broncos have scored in 25 drives.  Also, it's looking like a damn shame the Ninjas and Golden Graham's didn't make the playoffs, because they are blowing the rest of the league off the map, and might make for a very interesting title game matchup.

Instead, they'll just have to battle for *yawn* the #1 overall pick next year.

But enough complaining about my disappointing finish in 2015.  I'm sure you've heard enough of that already by now.  The focus here is the future, and laying out some (significant!) possible rule changes for 2016.  I'm going to lay out proposals in three areas: Scoring, Playoff Qualifications, and Number of Playoff Teams.

Scoring
This should be simple.  There's been some discussion about keeping score at a finer granularity, for the sake of (mostly) eliminating ties.  While I acknowledge that ties can make things interesting as far as playoff qualifications, I would pretty much love it if we never had another game end in a tie.  My reasons for this are fairly selfish, however --- I just hate it when two or more teams tie for the high score in a week, and I have to split the $15 prize that week.

Anyway, ESPN allows us to keep score by the yard, rather than in increments of 20 or 50 yards, and I think we should, if for no other reason than it's the 21st freaking century (assigning points for every 10, 20, 50 yards, etc. is an artifact of the unreliability of statistics in fantasy football's early days, combined with the need to make it easier on early commissioners to compute point totals).  By the time you read this, there should be a poll up on the league web site.  Voting 'Yes' will change the scoring as follows, effective at the start of the 2016 season:

• 0.02 points for each yard passing
• 0.05 points for each yard rushing or receiving
• All other scoring remains as it is today.

This is the same scoring system we have today, except that now every yard counts --- for passing, rushing and receiving, anyway.  Ideally, we would change things so that all field goals from 1-30 yards count for 3 points, and all other field goals count a 0.1 points per yard --- but unfortunately, ESPN can't handle that level of granularity for field goal scoring.

It has been correctly pointed out that if we adopt this system, every now and then you'll end up losing a game when your QB kneels at the end of a game, thus subtracting a few tenths of a point from your final score.  Just keep in mind that those tenths of a point are points you don't even have in the current system.

So why don't you mosey on over to the league website and cast your vote right now, before you read the rest of my ideas, before you forget?  It's okay, I can wait.

Playoff Qualifications
Every year, someone outscores their record.  Anecdotally, it seems to me that at various times, Jody and Taylor have each scored tons of points while only winning maybe a half-dozen games or so.  This year, Kevin and Merrill each scored in the neighborhood of 1,000 points while wining only 8 and 6 games respectively, and missing the playoffs.  Now, the fact that Merrill is kind of getting screwed this year is definitely an argument in favor of leaving the playoff system exactly as it is.  But if you feel like performance should be rewarded --- even in the case of Merrill --- read on.

There are multiple possible ways to adjust the playoff seeding to make sure performance is rewarded.  My favorite, and the one I think we should consider adopting, is something I'll call the 'zebra' system.

I call it the 'zebra' system because playoff seeding is determined by alternating best won-loss record (with tiebreaker, obviously) with most points.  Under our current 4-team playoff system, it would look like this:

1. #1 seed: Team with the best record at the end of the season.
2. #2 seed: Remaining team with the most points on the season.
3. #3 seed: Remaining team with the best record.
4. #4 seed: Remaining team with the most points.

I've played in a league for the past two seasons which uses this system, and I think it's a nice system.  It guarantees that you make the playoffs if you have one of the two best records OR one of the two highest point totals.  And if you're not in the top 2 for scoring or won-loss record, you really can't complain about missing the playoffs.

An alternate approach is to use something I'll call a 'multi-game' format.  In this system, the playoff seeds would still be determined strictly using won-loss record like we do today, but each team would play twice as many games each week.  In addition to your usual game, you would get an additional win or loss depending on whether your point total was in the top half or bottom half of scores for the week.  The teams with the top 6 scores would get an additional win, while the teams with the bottom 6 scores would get an additional loss.  This way, if you score the second-most points in a week where you lose to the high-point scorer, your record for the week would be 1-1 (and his would be 2-0).  This system helps to insure that your won-loss record more accurately matches how well your team has performed.

This system has a couple of minor drawbacks, however.  I'm pretty sure ESPN isn't set to track the additional wins and losses, which means I'd have to do it on the blog (and you all would need to double-check my work).  The other problem is that we would need to hammer out what 'top 6 scores' and 'bottom 6 scores' mean.  What happens if three teams tie for the 6th-highest score?  Do they all get an additional win, or an additional loss --- or, heaven help us, a tie?  This will be less of a concern if the new scoring rules are adopted, but we still need to have a rule in place just the same.

Number of Playoff Teams
We've already had a vote to keep the number of playoff teams at 4, so maybe this isn't even worth discussing.  But I want to throw out a proposal which I think might be ideal in some ways.

We *could* expand the league to 14 teams.  Finding another couple of owners shouldn't be a problem, especially if we start looking in July (we could probably mine a couple of owners out of Battlin' Sweethearts).  Why is this a good idea?  Mostly because we could then move to a 13-game regular season schedule, in which every team plays every other team once.  It has always bugged me that our current schedule requires us to play some teams twice and all of the others once --- if I happen to get stuck playing a really dominant team twice, I'm at a disadvantage; and on the flip side, if I'm lucky enough to play a pathetic team twice, it gives me an advantage.

And of course, adding 2 more owners increases the size of the prize pool.  In fact, if we decide to go down this path, I'd like to increase league dues to $75 a year, for a prize pool of $1050.  We could award a really nice championship prize with that much money.

So with a 14-team league, there's a level playing field.  A ripple effect of this change, though, is that we move to a 13-game regular season, and so we would pretty much have to put either 6 teams (top two seeds get a first-round bye) or 8 teams in the playoffs.  We would determine playoff seeding using whichever method we decide on (zebra, multi-game, or the current system).

Conclusion
So there you have it.  We're already voting on changing the scoring to be more granular, and we have some things to discuss about playoff qualifications and (potentially) league expansion and the size of the playoff field.

But there's no reason to stop there.  I have at least three other changes I'd like to make, including moving to an auction draft, using blind auction bidding for waivers pickups, and changing the RB/WR flex position to a 'superflex', which could be any offensive position.  And if there's significant support for any of those changes, we can go ahead and hold a vote on it.  But I think these changes are enough to get the discussion going.

2015 End-of-Year Accounting

Happy New Year everyone!  And just about everyone has something to be happy about in the new year, because just about everyone won something in 2015!

Note that I said 'just about' everyone.  See if you can find the odd man out.

• Aaron is the big winner, of course.  In addition to taking the league title, he also scored the most points (or perhaps I should say 'the moist points') in weeks 8 and 12.  This brings his total winnings to $330.  Subtract off $60 for 2016 TTFFL dues, and $50 for 2016 Battlin' Sweethearts dues, and his net is $220. Check mailed 01/08/2016.
• Mex took second place ($120), and scored the most points in week 10 ($15).  So his total winnings are $135.  Subtract $60 for 2016 and his net is $75. Check mailed 01/08/2016.
• Adam took third place, which is good for $60.  He also won week 9 for another $15.  So his net is $75, minus $60 for next year's dues, for $15.  Check mailed 01/25/2016.
• Kubicek actually didn't win anything in this league, but he DID take the title in Battlin' Sweethearts.  After subtracting various 2016 dues, he nets a total of $40.  Check mailed 01/25/2016.
• Jody actually won the most weeks this year, which is a bit surprising, seeing as he ended up playing in the Toilet Bowl.  Just the same, he gets $45 credit toward 2016 since he won weeks 2, 3 and 16.  So he owes $15 before the start of the 2016 season.
• Kevin is close on his brother's heels, winning weeks 4 and 11, and sharing the win (with Levi) for week 6.  So he has a credit of $37.50 toward 2016 dues, and will owe $22.50 before the start of the season.
• Pete won weeks 1 and 13, and so gets a credit of $30 toward 2016 (and still owes $30 for 2016).
• Merrill is in the same position, as he won weeks 7 and 14.  He owes $30 for 2016.
• Taylor may no longer have control of his team's name, but at least he gets a $15 credit for winning week 5.  He owes $45 for 2016.
• Similarly Jason, who won week 15 despite having the league ass-draggingest crappy team, will owe $45 in 2016.
• Levi's only claim to fame is his share of the highest score week 6, when he tied with Kevin.  He will owe $52.50 in 2016.

Everyone double-check your total to make sure I have it right.  Assuming I do, it looks like I need a mailing address for Aaron, Mex, Adam and Kubicek.

The draft order for 2016 is available here.

Please remember that, per league agreement, our draft will be held the night before the kickoff for the season.  I believe this means our draft will occur on Wednesday, September 7 at 8:30 PM EDT!!!

Finally, the next post you see in this space will discuss a list of possible rule changes for 2016.  Look for it to show up here within 24 hours.

Happy New Year, everyone!