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.