Scumleague Fantasy Football 2014 (Voodoo Dynasty)

[Locke Lamora]

/in

[Locke Lamora]

I guess he is a Seahawks and Lions fan. Never would have guessed from the name. The public drafts are usually a good laugh. Who on earth did he spend his third round pick on? I guess he went Megatron-Stafford but it's then a mystery to me.

[Locke Lamora]

Yeah, that was unfortunate. I wasn't able to get online unexpectedly and I'd pre-ranked players for use in the draft based on the composite projections. I don't really use them as an order to draft, more to avoid being overly influenced by Yahoo's specific ranks. I forced all kickers and D/STs to the do not draft section and I guess the projections just had those QBs at the top of the list. I would have dropped a bunch of them way down if I'd known I'd been autodrafting.

[Locke Lamora]

All of your RB are belong to me..

I do have to love that Locke Lamora somehow ended up with four QBs

Hi guys, I kinda set up my pre-draft rankings on Yahoo for my two drafts outside auction this morning... I'm going to be an autopicker, except with set pre-draft rankings...

Any tips on what to do to avoid not filling in all my positions and not drafting too many QB's? I'm thinking maybe I should remove all my QB's from the list outside the top few such as Rodgers/Manning/Brees, then Brady/Cam, etc.

not sure, never done this before. Worst nightmare is seeing 6 QB's on my roster or something whack. Or all WR's.

Number one is to force all kickers and D/STs to the 'do not draft' list. If you don't do this then Yahoo will make you pick them before filling your bench, even if you rank them at the bottom of the list. You will have to pick them from the waiver wire later but it's way better than Yahoo deciding that you really want Gostkowski in the ninth round. Don't worry about not filling other positions - Yahoo will make sure you have a starting lineup and will skip over other positions to fill the starters first, so it will pick you 3 receivers in the first 7 rounds even if you rank 50 RBs as your top 50.

I would definitely do what you say with QBs. As Yahoo will attempt to fill your starting lineup before filling the bench, I would take anyone outside of the group of QBs you'd be happy starting and force them to the do not draft list too. If you're more interested in drafting a QB early, then I would make sure the ones you want are relatively high and push the lower tier guys down your rankings too. At worst you should probably get two, and that's only if everyone else in the league waits a long time. You won't have to worry about it taking say Manning and Rodgers, because it will not try to fill your bench until it's done with all the other slots.

If you bear these principles in mind then you should be able to rank sensibly to get your team to resemble something approaching a good lineup. Knowing how your draft slot will pan out early and how it fits in with your personal preference for strategy is good too - if you want mostly lottery-ticket RBs on your bench, then make sure there's no way the autopicker can take 5 or 6 receivers unless those RBs are gone first.

[Locke Lamora]

LAMORA!!! I am willing to attend any metaphorical party/wedding of yours!

Any time. Next year remind me to take my own advice

On the topic of grades, Yahoo doesn't care who's on your bench either. I've been in drafts where guys are screwed as soon as any of their RBs or WRs go down because they've taken multiple D/STs and QBs and Yahoo thinks it's amazing. They are also consistently wrong - I've yet to have one that gets within even 2 or 3 games of the actual final record.

[Locke Lamora]

Justifiable. This is not what vetos are for.

[Locke Lamora]

Can I have your team, Bert? Much better than mine.

Well at least Ive got a great D/ST along with a solid WR group.

You know that the D/ST doesn't get rewarded for giving up points, right?

[Locke Lamora]

He doesn't mean that it prevents Stafford from getting points, just that there is a strong link between Johnson having a good game and Stafford having a good game, making it unlikely that he'd make up much ground to his opponent even if Johnson goes nuts, whereas there is no link between Floyd having a good game and Stafford having a good game. If Johnson has 120 yards and two touchdowns (which is probably the kind of game he needs), that's all going on Stafford's line too. In order for Johnson to have a huge game and Stafford to score very low, which would be essential for him to overcome a 40 point deficit, he basically needs Stafford to throw a few picks and have almost no production outside of what he throws to Johnson. What he really needs is for the Lions to be awful and Floyd/Rivers to be great.

Of course, the chance of winning is incredibly slim, so I'd just accept the loss and see how many points Johnson scores for tiebreaker purposes.

[Locke Lamora]

It's always been points against the team, not points against the defense. Think it's been like that in every league I've ever played in. Kind of annoying but I've had players or D/STs get dinged for many things that weren't their fault before. Think of it as the offense becoming special teams after the turnover if you want, but those are the rules.

[Locke Lamora]

Not that I know of, but I don't only play on Yahoo so I might be remembering from other formats. I think it might be possible to change it so it's just when the D is on the field but I'm not a commissioner in football so I can't look.

I think you usually lose a sack if it is deemed as a rushing attempt by the QB. You'd have to watch the play to see why but it looks like Cassel has been credited with an extra rushing attempt, so that's where it's gone.

[Locke Lamora]

Changes like this happen basically every week but it usually doesn't change the outcome, so we don't normally notice. As far as I'm aware, they are all based on official NFL stat corrections, so those will be reflected in the real player/team numbers, yes. The Vikings D/ST will still get the points for the TD. I think the points against range is 28-34 so it wouldn't make a difference either way if it was just 6 they scored as a result - did they not get the extra point on that occasion? I think the reason these things take a few days is because people sit down and watch all the tape, so someone will presumably have determined that Cassel was not trying to throw the ball.

It is super-annoying when it happens like this several days after you think you've won (which is pretty much always when they do these types of minor corrections). I lost a playoff semi by a fraction in League 1 because Randall Cobb 'fumbled', when actually what happened was he lateraled a pass when returning on special teams and the other guy dropped it. Technically the other guy never had possession so Cobb got the fumble even though he did nothing wrong. Some leagues have the option to ignore stat corrections altogether so you know that once the final game of the week ends, the score isn't going to change.

RE: Romo - I think Romo has been a good fantasy QB who gets more critical attention than normal because he's the Cowboys QB, and even though he isn't as good as Manning, Brees etc., he still seems to get held to that kind of expectation, probably partly because he still has the potential to have massive weeks like they do. Of course, he did look awful in a real football sense last week and there are some significant health concerns, so I can see why no-one wants him now.

Every QB will pretty much have had multiple situations where they've disappointed owners. You don't hear much about people not drafting Brees because he killed them in the playoffs last year, or they missed them altogether because of that five-pick game the year before, but he probably killed quite a few seasons those weeks.

[Locke Lamora]

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... k%20cassel

everywhere i look it says ram got 1 sack on cassl. Robert Quinn did it

I found a tweet saying that Cassel just got a pass off before Quinn caught him. However, the play-by-play lists Ogletree and Dunbar as getting a joint sack on Cassel, so I assume that's what got taken away as Quinn doesn't seem to have been credited at all. This suggests that the Ogletree sack was from a mishandled snap, and the stat corrections say that Cassel was also credited with a fumble recovery, so perhaps the snap was fumbled, he never had a chance to pass and Ogletree/Dunbar tackled him as soon as he recovered. I believe in that case, it can't be a sack because he didn't have possession, just a fumble recovery and a tackle.

[Locke Lamora]

It says zero sacks on that player page.

[Locke Lamora]

This is making people less mad than the other trade?

[Locke Lamora]

It made sense to bench Marshall and Jeffery based on the information we had earlier in the day, unless you had someone else going in that game or later you could use. Pretty much all the reports were negative.

[Locke Lamora]

bah; someone trade me a RB for a WR in L1. kthxbye

I have tons of RBs. What's your definition of 'quality'?

[Locke Lamora]

Mith, results for L1 so far:

Week 1
Lamora's Lynch Mob 76.24 -

88.34 Rob's Game Theory
Mask of Zorotter 87.72

- 75.44 Wrath of Romo

Tally Whackers 116.30

- 110.48 Zanarkand Abes
i fucking give up. 53.16 -

79.46 The Wonderbolts

Kmd's Raiders 110.02

- 102.62 Beavers Love Wood

The Moo Cows 125.86

- 95.66 Back in the Show

Week 2

Lamora's Lynch Mob 107.72

- 91.94 Kmd's Raiders
Mask of Zorotter 70.14 -

99.44 Rob's Game Theory

Tally Whackers 85.18

- 71.34 Wrath of Romo

Zanarkand Abes 86.94

- 61.86 The Wonderbolts
i fucking give up. 79.64 -

95.38 Back in the Show

The Moo Cows 65.28 -

83.48 Beavers Love Wood

Week 3
Lamora's Lynch Mob 100.70 -

108.52 Beavers Love Wood

Mask of Zorotter 98.04

- 85.10 Zanarkand Abes

Tally Whackers 103.80

- 76.28 i fucking give up.

Wrath of Romo 92.18

- 76.24 Rob's Game Theory
Kmd's Raiders 76.10 -

92.90 Back in the Show

The Moo Cows 86.12

- 71.66 The Wonderbolts

I think you must know almost all of the names. Peg is the one giving up, and Back in the Show is DDD. I think everyone else is obvious but I can do a full list if you need it.

[Locke Lamora]

still bitter about our division alignment.

Why? One of your divisional opponents has already given up

The Detroit bridge didn't collapse by itself, incidentally - a truck drove into it.

[Locke Lamora]

And it looks like im going to lose with second highest score this week. Perfect

Going to be Khiry Robinson and Jamaal Charles for me down 2.20 against Jimmy Graham and Julian Edelman for LL where we are currently projected to beat any other team by at least 10

Edelman (+4) vs Charles. One of us is going to get screwed. Why can't we play Tally these weeks?

[Locke Lamora]

Holy Jamaal Charles. Talk about a bad week to play Llama. At least it made sure I beat mith in the auction league.

[Locke Lamora]

Dalton is safe? Isn't he usually all over the place? Pretty sure he has had a whole bunch of 25-30 point games as well as single-digit games on numerous occasions during his career, often when you really didn't expect it. The Patriots game last year was a total disappointment for fantasy purposes if I remember rightly. I think Dalton could easily go either way and is by no means safer. I'd start Ryan for sure.

[Locke Lamora]

am very upset that yahoo isn't letting me add to my waiver wire.

Presumably you were too late. Waivers stop at midnight Pacific. They just take a couple of hours to process.

[Locke Lamora]

Yahoo have got some kind of technical problem. They're working on it, apparently.

Lacy isn't having a dissimilar second season to Richardson at this point.

[Locke Lamora]

Projections in general should be ignored. It's an impossible thing to do anyway - realistically they should have an expected range, not a single number, but I expect they know most users just want to see that one figure. For the record, lots of teams do outperform their projections on a weekly basis. ESPN is not better - different, perhaps, but not better. If anything, they are more aggressive in my experience. Individual teams might find that one system is much more effective than another over the course of the season but fantasy football is so random that it won't hold up in a larger sample.

I am fine with not having the flex. As long as the format is clear from the start so you can draft appropriately, I don't think it's really any harder than playing with one. Receivers are arguably easier to find (and there is certainly less competition on waivers for them) and if there is one team that has three or four good starting RBs, I can guarantee there's more than one which is struggling to find a decent RB2, and sometimes an RB1.

[Locke Lamora]

The playing field is level regardless of which format you use. It might be more difficult to fill a WR3 spot with the same calibre of player you would use in a flex spot, but that's not something that only applies to certain teams. If you ended up with no decent WR3 options on a bye week, it has nothing to do with an unfair format. We might as well just have a team full of flex spots if the complaint is that it's too hard to find a useful contributor at a certain position.

[Locke Lamora]

I guess these things are all relative. I agree with Flameaxe that the level of challenge for 3 WRs is good. You have some players to pick from but there aren't so many it feels too easy. I have been in many leagues (especially in baseball) where the choices are much, much worse than the 12-team, 3 WR setup, so I don't feel like it's that bad.

In that context, I meant overperform - you were saying that Yahoo's projections were consistently giving a number that was way too high for your team, and I was saying that I've seen plenty of teams overperform them too. My point is that basically people at ESPN, Yahoo etc. are trying to perform the impossible task of putting a single number on a player's performance for any given week. Even if you were to get the scoreline of an NFL game within a few points, which is pretty difficult in itself, what an individual player will do is based on so many factors that I don't ever expect them to get it correct. A single play can make a projection look completely wrong, especially if it's a touchdown. I think that from a statistical perspective, if you played exclusively by going off certain projections (and played for long enough), you would have more successful start/sit decisions than failures, which ultimately is what they are providing them for - to give owners some context for making start/sit decisions. However, the effect is not large enough for us to be able to notice it on a week-to-week basis and people don't think at the end of the season "well, I made 30 borderline calls based on the projections and 18 were right, so that worked out". Even though there is a large element of luck involved, we have different standards for success in fantasy football to what a professional sports gambler might have, for whom getting 60% of the calls right would be outstanding.

[Locke Lamora]

Warning: wall of L1 results incoming. It's been a while since we did this so I thought I'd better post them. Hascow leads the way overall and in the Central at 7-2, although IS (6-3) is dominating in points scored with over 60 more than any other team, holding the East division lead over Rob, who is also 6-3 along with West leader Tally. Zoraster is the other wildcard contender at 5-4 right now, while there are 4 teams at 4-5, two at 3-6 and my 2-7 team has only just woken up after an awful run.

League 1:

East	Manager	Record	Division	Points
2. Beavers Love Wood	Internet Stranger	6-3-0	2-1-0	952.90
4. Rob's Game Theory	Rob13	6-3-0	2-1-0	873.40
9. Kmd's Raiders	Kmd4390	4-5-0	1-2-0	793.68
12. Lamora's Lynch Mob	LockeLamora	2-7-0	1-2-0	791.68
Central	Manager	Record	Division	Points
1. The Moo Cows	hasdgfas	7-2-0	2-1-0	845.06
5. Mask of Zorotter	zoraster	5-4-0	2-1-0	799.96
6. Back in the Show	Debonair Danny DiPietro	4-5-0	1-2-0	849.84
7. Wrath of Romo	Nero Cain	4-5-0	1-2-0	842.44
West	Manager	Record	Division	Points
3. Tally Whackers	Talitha	6-3-0	3-0-0	890.80
8. Zanarkand Abes	BS2000	4-5-0	1-2-0	816.94
10. my team is a potato	pickemgenius	3-6-0	1-2-0	762.74
11. The Wonderbolts	LlamaFluff	3-6-0	1-2-0	731.68

Week 4 - Final Results

Lamora's Lynch Mob 117.62 - 138.96 The Wonderbolts
Mask of Zorotter 82.62 - 113.6 Beavers Love Wood
Tally Whackers 116.02 - 107.72 Back in the Show
Zanarkand Abes 39.7 - 93.38 my team is a potato
Wrath of Romo 91.48 - 112.58 The Moo Cows
Rob's Game Theory 110.22 - 80.18 Kmd's Raiders

Week 5 - Final Results

Lamora's Lynch Mob 59.84 - 80.64 my team is a potato
Mask of Zorotter 97.54 - 109.06 Back in the Show
Tally Whackers 99.18 - 57.2 The Wonderbolts
Zanarkand Abes 78.28 - 94.06 The Moo Cows
Wrath of Romo 92.02 - 98.22 Kmd's Raiders
Rob's Game Theory 95.94 - 105.64 Beavers Love Wood

Week 6 - Final Results

Lamora's Lynch Mob 80.92 - 89.48 The Moo Cows
Mask of Zorotter 95.94 - 104.4 Tally Whackers
Zanarkand Abes 113.22 - 100.84 Beavers Love Wood
Wrath of Romo 108.26 - 103.54 Back in the Show
Rob's Game Theory 87.6 - 62.84 The Wonderbolts
my team is a potato 111.16 - 115.02 Kmd's Raiders

Week 7 - Final Results

Lamora's Lynch Mob 57.72 - 71.12 Back in the Show
Mask of Zorotter 91.22 - 72.62 The Moo Cows
Tally Whackers 69.76 - 98.9 Kmd's Raiders
Zanarkand Abes 87.12 - 130.34 Wrath of Romo
Rob's Game Theory 97.16 - 83.2 my team is a potato
The Wonderbolts 85.12 - 90.78 Beavers Love Wood

Week 8 - Final Results

Lamora's Lynch Mob 86.54 - 101.52 Mask of Zorotter
Tally Whackers 112.2 - 116.9 Rob's Game Theory
Zanarkand Abes 111.14 - 98.64 Back in the Show
Wrath of Romo 103.46 - 97.94 The Wonderbolts
my team is a potato 117.02 - 107.44 Beavers Love Wood
Kmd's Raiders 68.88 - 88.64 The Moo Cows

Week 9 - Final Results

Lamora's Lynch Mob 104.38 - 77.92 Wrath of Romo
Mask of Zorotter 75.22 - 68.26 my team is a potato
Tally Whackers 83.96 - 110.42 The Moo Cows
Zanarkand Abes 104.96 - 101.56 Rob's Game Theory
Kmd's Raiders 54.42 - 76.64 The Wonderbolts
Back in the Show 75.82 - 139.98 Beavers Love Wood

[Locke Lamora]

I'll do the L1 scores once stat corrections are through.

[Locke Lamora]

Division record is the first tiebreaker for division winners, hence Kublai's ranking above Panzer. The way our seeding rules are set up, the three division winners and the wildcard have to be the top four seeds, so as long as Kublai is winning the division, he will get at least the fourth seed (even if they go all NFC South and everyone has a losing record). If he was to lose next week and drop out of the division lead then he could immediately be the 7th or 8th seed, depending on how T-Bone and Zach get on, as any WC ties are broken by the team with the most points.

[Locke Lamora]

I'm just waiting for someone to give me my own show.

[Locke Lamora]

Yeah, only four teams make the playoffs. You can't get this kind of quality analysis anywhere else, folks.

Why do you want everyone to beat LF specifically, zor?

[Locke Lamora]

That makes more sense. Sounded like you really wanted LF out of L1 for some reason. All four teams currently in the playoffs play each other this week so there will be a chance for you to move up whatever happens, although I guess it's still better if hascow loses as Rob holds a 40-point advantage for the WC over you. I guess WC teams in general need IS to win the East, as no-one really has much of a shot of topping that points total.

[Locke Lamora]

I was going to say if you win out you'll definitely make the playoffs, but the schedule looks screwed up for you guys - you aren't playing your division in the last three games like I am. Don't we normally do in-division twice and everyone else once?

[Locke Lamora]

I only just realised because mine is fine, but it looks like everyone else has at least one out-of-division opponent they're playing twice instead of the divisional matchup they should have, and I think you, Nero, Rob and DDD have two (it's really annoying skipping back and forth but I think I counted right). This is totally going to mess up the tiebreaker.

[Locke Lamora]

Week 12 looks fine, so I think this is the situation:

Week 13 - my matchup with KMD and BS-LF is fine, then we need the following matchups: Mask of Zorotter vs Back in the Show; Tally Whackers vs my team is a potato; Beavers Love Wood vs Rob's Game Theory; The Moo Cows vs Wrath of Romo

Week 14 - my matchup with IS is fine, then we need: KMD's Raiders vs Rob's Game Theory; Back in the Show vs Wrath of Romo; Mask of Zorotter vs The Moo Cows; Tally Whackers vs The Wonderbolts; my team is a potato vs Zanarkand Abes

That would get everyone back on to the two against their division, one against everyone else system. Can we edit the schedule now on Yahoo?

[Locke Lamora]

Thanks Tally - I imagine it is a headache to do for the full season as it was confusing enough just trying to match up everyone correctly for those last two weeks!

[Locke Lamora]

Ok, week 10 results for L1:

Lamora's Lynch Mob 127.90 - 111.18 Tally Whackers
Mask of Zorotter 123.56 - 79.14 The Wonderbolts
Zanarkand Abes 76.64 - 118.52 Kmd's Raiders
Wrath of Romo 83.98 - 117.68 Beavers Love Wood
Rob's Game Theory 91.10 - 77.88 Back in the Show
my team is a potato 126.40 - 60.80 The Moo Cows

A week of no particularly close contests, including three huge blowouts of over 40 points. With no-one better than 7-3 or worse than 3-7, it leaves everyone still technically in contention for the playoffs with four to play, although in a practical sense Llama and I are probably finished even if we win out at 3-7. This week is a big one as first seed (IS) plays fourth (Tally) and second (Rob) plays third (hasdgfas) in the final matchups, giving them a chance to separate themselves and for chasing teams to make up ground on the wildcard before we return to divisional play.

[Locke Lamora]

yeah but you're still in position not to get relegated

That's the dream. Looking better now than it was two weeks ago, for sure.

[Locke Lamora]

Did Vereen lose his starting job or something?

You are familiar with the Patriots' running game, right?

[Locke Lamora]

I've seen both. The commissioner can change it in private leagues. If you go to 'scoring and settings' and look at 'waiver type', it will tell you how it's decided. L1's is 'continual rolling list', which is the version that you described first where the person getting their claim moves to the end of the list, but you can have reverse order of standings and even a version where the last-placed player gets ALL of their claims first rather than just their top priority.

Bert's 50 moves may also not necessarily have been waiver claims, if he's getting a lot of guys in free agency; does seem unlikely that he'd be first overall with that many moves, but possible if everyone's active on waivers. It's obviously incredibly unlikely that the whole waiver order is identical to the standings order, though.

[Locke Lamora]

I welcome any topic suggestions . It really feels like this would be more appropriate in baseball, where I actually win. For the record, I prefer the non-resetting version of waivers because it does have the tendency to severely punish teams that are actually being managed well, especially closer to the playoffs. There are rarely weeks with more than a few great pickups and if your team suffers a bit of bad luck but you've been contending up to that point, you often have no shot of getting any useful backups.

[Locke Lamora]

The rolling list has been standard for MS leagues I've played in before, so I think that's a mistake. Would have thought it goes back to rolling next year. The 3WR, no flex is Yahoo's standard.

[Locke Lamora]

Well, not entirely: you still lead your division by two games despite the five-game losing streak.

[Locke Lamora]

I welcome any topic suggestions .

Hey Locke, what's your analysis on my chances of making the playoffs?

I'm low on information here but I'll run with it. Assuming you lost in week 11 and are 1 game out of first, you still have a reasonable shot. You have a perfect divisional record and two divisional opponents to play who are among the three worst teams in points scored. All comes down to whether you beat Panzer or not, which admittedly is looking less likely if you have lost three starters in Hillman, Bradshaw and Sanders. I'm a Sanders owner too so also hoping he plays in week 12.

Did anyone start Jonas Gray? 43 points is incredible. I picked him up for week 9 but dropped him thinking it was too risky. I guess he still is a risky start.

Sadly he was on my bench. Fortunately I won, or looking at that 43.90 points would be even more painful, although I could have done with them in our relegation battle. I should have known better than to try and use a Cleveland back just because they got carries the week before, but as you say, the Patriots aren't exactly the world's most predictable team either. I thought he looked good on Sunday but there will definitely be weeks where they use him sparingly because Belichick has a different gameplan.

[Locke Lamora]

L1 final results for week 11:

Lamora's Lynch Mob 87.92 - 59.64 Zanarkand Abes
Mask of Zorotter 105.02 - 110.58 Kmd's Raiders
Tally Whackers 58.72 - 86.60 Beavers Love Wood
Wrath of Romo 79.88 - 73.64 my team is a potato
Rob's Game Theory 109.22 - 73.36 The Moo Cows
Back in the Show 84.10 - 128.48 The Wonderbolts

League 1:

East	Manager	Record	Division	Points
1. Beavers Love Wood	Internet Stranger	8-3-0	2-1-0	1157.18
2. Rob's Game Theory	Rob13	8-3-0	2-1-0	1073.72
6. Kmd's Raiders	Kmd4390	6-5-0	1-2-0	1022.78
9. Lamora's Lynch Mob	LockeLamora	4-7-0	1-2-0	1007.50
Central	Manager	Record	Division	Points
3. The Moo Cows	hasdgfas	7-4-0	2-1-0	979.22
5. Mask of Zorotter	zoraster	6-5-0	2-1-0	1028.54
7. Wrath of Romo	Nero Cain	5-6-0	1-2-0	1006.30
8. Back in the Show	Debonair Danny DiPietro	4-7-0	1-2-0	1011.82
West	Manager	Record	Division	Points
4. Tally Whackers	Talitha	6-5-0	3-0-0	1060.70
10. my team is a potato	pickemgenius	4-7-0	1-2-0	962.78
11. Zanarkand Abes	BS2000	4-7-0	1-2-0	953.22
12. The Wonderbolts	LlamaFluff	4-7-0	1-2-0	939.30

All still to play for in both playoff and relegation scenarios. IS almost guaranteed a playoff spot by beating the slumping Tally and likely would need to go 0-3 with other results also going against him to drop out. Rob is the comfortable favourite for the wildcard and still has a good shot to win the division when he faces IS next week, while KMD is mathematically in the hunt but needs a lot to go right in the next three weeks. Tally, as alluded to above, has lost the voodoo power and has slipped to 6-5 after a 6-0 start but still has a two-game cushion. Barring the scenario in which all four teams finish at 6-8, at least one more win is needed to secure that playoff spot so the slump needs to end soon. Meanwhile, the other three teams in the West are all heading for relegation as we move back into divisional play, but also still have a shot at that playoff spot. Zoraster, like the Titans, was crushed by LeVeon Bell late in the game and went from holding the division lead to out of the playoffs. However, if he can win out he is still guaranteed to take the Central, with a crunch week 14 matchup against hasdgfas the potential decider. DDD has a slender lead over me in points scored to keep him out of the relegation zone, while Nero's season could go either way, with a 3-0 run giving him a playoff shot but still very much at risk of going down if he has a losing record.

[Locke Lamora]

L1 update ahead of the first games of week 13:

Week 12 - Final Results

Lamora's Lynch Mob 116.24 - 111.56 Rob's Game Theory
Mask of Zorotter 120.92 - 133.06 Wrath of Romo
Tally Whackers 82.62 - 62.18 Zanarkand Abes
my team is a potato 93.16 - 89.20 The Wonderbolts
Kmd's Raiders 85.44 - 78.30 Beavers Love Wood
The Moo Cows 121.38 - 70.80 Back in the Show

Still no playoff or relegation teams confirmed after week 12.

East Division: KMD got exactly what he needed in week 12 as he defeated IS while Rob lost to me. He now sits one game back of both IS and Rob and can win the division if he wins out and neither IS nor Rob goes 2-0. He does have a huge deficit in points scored so it's unlikely he'd beat either of them for the wildcard on a tiebreaker. Whoever wins in the IS - Rob matchup this week will be guaranteed to make the playoffs in some form, while the loser will almost certainly still be ahead of KMD on points scored but will need a week 14 win to secure the wildcard. I moved out of the relegation spots to drop DDD in but need to keep winning with everything still very close there.

Central Division: Zoraster's luck didn't get any better as he ran into highest-scoring Nero and lost again despite having the third-highest score of the week himself. He now has a very slight chance at the wildcard, needing to not only win out and for the East results to break exactly right, with Rob losing both remaining matchups and KMD dropping this week to me, but to also outscore Rob by almost 40 points. He also needs to win out to take the division, with Nero beating hasdgfas this week to set up that crucial showdown in week 14. To further complicate matters, Nero could beat zor to the division even if he does win out, as Nero is only 10 points behind him and thus has a great chance to overturn that deficit if he wins out too. Both can also still mathematically get relegated but have a solid points advantage over the teams currently in that fight. Hasdgfas just needs a win in either week but is in trouble if he can't manage that as both zor and Nero have the points advantage over him. DDD can avoid relegation with one win, but it would take an 0-2 stretch from me and a 52-point swing in scoring to swap our 8th and 9th places.

West Division: Tally finally snapped the losing streak and now has only one way to drop out of the playoffs: go 0-2 with peg going 2-0, as well as getting outscored by almost 90 points. They face each other this week to determine whether that division will go down to the wire. Peg already has no shot at the wildcard so winning out to tie Tally at 7-7 and win the divisional tiebreaker is the only way to make it, but for now he is still in the relegation places and could easily go down if he does not win both. Llama and BS face each other in what is essentially a 'loser gets relegated' matchup, as they have the two lowest point totals in the league and would need a huge swing to move past any of the other candidates. The winner will still be at high risk of relegation and really needs poor final weeks from myself, peg and DDD to have any chance of escaping.

[Locke Lamora]

Four go down. Last year the top 3 in L2 and champion of L3 joined L1 so I assume we're doing the same.

[Locke Lamora]

That promotion system makes sense. Don't know if mith has decided on one already or not.

I much prefer the balance in 12-teamers, myself. Too much available in free agency in a 10-teamer. I don't see the 12-team format changing in L1 particularly because it's been that way for a while. You also can't do the same divisional setup we have now with 10 teams.

[Locke Lamora]

Poker: regarding Denard Robinson, he was actually a QB in college but I don't think was considered good enough to make the NFL at the position because of accuracy issues. However, because he's such a good athlete and is very fast, teams were interested in drafting him at another offensive position like RB or WR. Although the Jags took him as a RB, they made it clear he was going to be used in a variety of situations and he lined up at both positions in his rookie year (and also had a passing attempt, presumably out of the wildcat). Coming into the year he was listed at WR and in fact carries the RB/WR tag on the team's official site (http://www.jaguars.com/team/roster.html), which I guess is what Yahoo use to determine position eligibility. Fantasy sites tend to have a policy of not changing position designations mid-season and so he will stay that way until next year, when I assume he will end up being a RB only.

Rob: I'd be interested in playing with a different scoring system - have actually been discussing changing the scoring/eliminating kickers altogether with people this year, for instance - but would want to see the modifications before committing. I've been in many baseball leagues where people have tried to add different categories or alter scoring systems and often it does not improve the experience.

[Locke Lamora]

Edit: never mind the numbers, just looked at that again and forgot about the jump from 3 to 1.

Poker: I think ESPN actually do it themselves - I've heard their fantasy guys talk about it for baseball and it sounds like they make their own determination on position before a player has major league service time. You end up getting weird things there too like guys who played a position in the minors briefly still holding the eligibility when they come up.

[Locke Lamora]

It's a 4-way fight with DDD as well. BS is the only one who's essentially guaranteed to go down as he would need to score about 130 more points than me and hope that other results go his way too.

It has been shown that kickers are basically entirely random. I've seen analysis on the accuracy of expert rankings and kicker always comes out as essentially a coin-flip. You can pick them to the degree that players like Gostkowski are more useful than kickers on teams who can't move the ball at all, or kickers who can't kick 50-yarders, but when there are 32 to choose from and only 12 teams, that becomes irrelevant as there are more than enough guys who fulfil both criteria. Gostkowski might finish the year ahead of most of the league because the Patriots score a lot of points but the week-to-week variability is more significant than any other position.

[Locke Lamora]

Yeah, it's not a great place for him, no doubt, but overcoming the points difference is not ridiculous and we could all lose.

[Locke Lamora]

I was never talking about eliminating/changing scoring for kickers here, for the record, so you don't need to worry they're going anywhere. Just something I was talking about with a friend. The point is not that they don't contribute to games but rather that they're so interchangeable and random, yet still make up a significant proportion of scoring, that it seems odd people aren't bothered by it.

[Locke Lamora]

I just think it's more of a challenge when you don't get that flexibility of being able to start any of the three, and that makes it more fun to me. You have to think more carefully about roster construction. WR is also deeper than RB and you get plenty of players emerging at that position too. There are definitely more starting-calibre WRs than RBs.

[Locke Lamora]

Yeah, that's not a high percentage scenario. The kicker setup is similar to what I was thinking about, but shifted upwards to so you didn't score anything below 30 yards, and perhaps incremental increases, at least beyond 50.

The full L1 playoff/relegation scenario, for those interested:

East
IS can no longer win the division despite still being the league's top scorer because KMD has a better divisional record than him and faces Rob this week, rendering a win by IS irrelevant with regard to the division lead. There are therefore only two scenarios that matter:
-Rob wins vs. KMD: Rob wins the division outright and will take the 1 seed.
-Rob loses vs. KMD: KMD wins the division by virtue of better divisional record.

Central
hasdgfas has already clinched and currently holds the 2 seed, but could end up with any seed as he has both the lowest points total of any playoff team and also a shot at having the best record if both he and KMD win.

West
Tally has also clinched and currently holds the 4 seed, but could also end up with any seed, including the 1 seed if hasdgfas loses and KMD wins.

Wildcard
IS is in pole position here with the most points but is now only 26.08 ahead of Rob, meaning that Rob could still beat him to the wildcard even if he loses to KMD by covering that gap. If IS and Rob both win then things will stay as they are with Rob winning the division and IS winning the wildcard. As noted above, zoraster has a mathematical shot but would need a loss from IS and a ludicrous point swing of 98 as well as a victory. KMD could technically end up as the wildcard but would somehow need to outscore IS by 126 while still losing to Rob, which would no doubt have to be one of the highest losing scores in the history of fantasy football.

Relegation
Any of the bottom six teams can technically get relegated but Nero (6-7) has both the best record and the most points, meaning that in practical terms it's almost as unlikely as KMD getting the wildcard. In a similar vein, BS is practically, if not mathematically down with the worst points total and a 4-8 record. That means three of Llama, peg, DDD and myself will go down. I have the same record but a 75+ points advantage over both Llama and peg, with a smaller 37 point advantage over DDD. The remaining - more likely - scenarios are therefore as follows:
-I win (and somehow don't get outscored by at least 78.63): any other results are irrelevant and I stay up.
-Llama wins and both peg and I lose: Llama stays up.
-Peg wins and both Llama and I lose: peg stays up.
-peg and Llama both win but peg scores at minimum Llama's score -9.99 and I lose: peg stays up.
-peg and Llama both win but Llama outscores peg by 10 or more and I lose: Llama stays up.
-DDD wins and scores 36.66 points more than me, and Llama, peg and I all lose: DDD stays up.
-All four of us lose (and again I don't get outscored by at least 78.63): I stay up.

In the highly unlikely but technically possible event that there are any points ties, the team with the highest score in the most recent week wins, so the team playing catchup will always get the advantage.

[Locke Lamora]

It's points for in the wild card, division record only counts for the division lead.

As long as Mason Crosby doesn't outscore Julio by 7 or more, I'll stay up and Rob will be the L1 wild card. If he does, Llama stays up and IS will be the wild card.

[Locke Lamora]

You can choose to do it the NFL way (ie. division winners are the top seeds above the WC regardless of record) if you want to, or conversely just skip divisions altogether and have the teams with the best record regardless of division getting in. I suspect the rationale for including the option that allows the wild card team to be seeded higher is that the wild card is not being compared to the division alone, so some people would feel that using division record to determine the seed doesn't make as much sense as total points scored, which is more reflective of the actual quality of the team. It's a mechanism for making sure that a good team which doesn't perform as well as it should (based on points scored) within their division is nonetheless not penalised in the seedings. Of course, I don't know why they let you customise that but not the divisional lead tiebreakers. We can debate the wisdom of the various systems all day: I'm sure there will be a ton of people saying that the NFL way is stupid when a terrible team with a losing record makes it into the playoffs this year.

I'll post final L1 regular season results and standings shortly.

[Locke Lamora]

Yeah, I agree it doesn't make much sense to have both. All of this is a constant battle between people wanting fantasy to be like the real NFL in that they get to have a head-to-head matchup every week, but not actually liking the randomness that only facing a single player will inevitably produce because unlike the NFL, the performance of your team has nothing to do with the performance of the other team. Personally I agree that you should pick one or the other and as I said, I don't know why Yahoo lets you customise one but not the other. Having said that, this situation in which two teams in the same division both make the playoffs with the same record is the only time this actually looks strange like it does here. I have seen all kinds of things in which people try to eliminate the luck aspect, including the wild card, or even two wild cards, being the top scoring team(s) which does not make the playoffs (regardless of record) or the team which has the best EPE record.

[Locke Lamora]

L1 results for week 14 and final regular season standings:

Lamora's Lynch Mob 125.86 - 102.80 Beavers Love Wood
Mask of Zorotter 89.10 - 90.12 The Moo Cows
Tally Whackers 81.46 - 129.94 The Wonderbolts
Zanarkand Abes 56.84 - 94.58 Q P or OUT?
Wrath of Romo 113.58 - 65.64 Back in the Show
Rob's RB Train Wreck 87.64 - 136.40 Kmd's Raiders

League 1:

East	Manager	Record	Division	Points
2. Rob's RB Train Wreck	Rob13	9-5-0	3-3-0	1412.52
3. Kmd's Raiders	Kmd4390	9-5-0	4-2-0	1361.62
5. Beavers Love Wood	Internet Stranger	8-3-0	2-4-0	1453.76
8. Lamora's Lynch Mob	LockeLamora	6-8-0	3-3-0	1343.64
Central	Manager	Record	Division	Points
1. The Moo Cows	hasdgfas	10-4-0	5-1-0	1293.28
6. Wrath of Romo	Nero Cain	7-7-0	3-3-0	1344.74
7. Mask of Zorotter	zoraster	7-7-0	3-3-0	1342.50
11. Back in the Show	Debonair Danny DiPietro	4-10-0	1-5-0	1246.76
West	Manager	Record	Division	Points
4. Tally Whackers	Talitha	8-6-0	5-1-0	1333.68
9. The Wonderbolts	LlamaFluff	6-8-0	1-2-0	1259.10
10. Q P or OUT?	pickemgenius	6-8-0	1-2-0	1233.74
12. Zanarkand Abes	BS2000	4-10-0	1-2-0	1147.26

The worst-case scenario transpired for top scorer IS over the final three weeks as the Beavers went 0-3 with KMD going 3-0 (and in fact 5-0 over the last five weeks) to not only drop out of the division lead but also the playoffs altogether. There was still a shot going into Monday night with a margin of just over six points in our matchup but the Packers' inability to stop Julio Jones ensured that there was no Crosby-fuelled comeback. Despite a points total ranking in the bottom half of the league, hasdgfas claimed the best record in L1 with a very slender win over zoraster and therefore will be the 1 seed thanks to KMD's huge win over Rob which left them both with a 9-5 record. Cow will face West winner Tally in the playoffs, while Rob and KMD match up again. IS and I repeat that East theme in the consolation bracket with another rematch and it's an all-Central affair in the other matchup as the two .500 teams, Nero and zoraster, face off.

That win over IS ensured that I would stay up on points over Llama, who blew out Tally to make that Monday night game tense, and peg, who easily took care of the last-placed Abes (after they started three players who were out with injury) but fell behind Llama on points scored. DDD slipped to his seventh defeat in a row and will be relegated with those three teams.

[Locke Lamora]

I think if you want to have head-to-head matchups that actually mean something, you have to accept that there are going to be luck-based fluctuations in results that don't always reflect the overall quality of teams in terms of scoring at the end of the season. I expect if we went all the way to the other end of the extreme and just did an EPE league then most people would not like it as much (but perhaps some would prefer that). Somewhere along that spectrum are approaches like the EPE wildcard, which can balance out bad luck effectively but still only for one person, and once you introduce the mechanism you have to ask why you're only taking it so far. I see it like a lot of games or competitions that involves an element of luck, like a dice roll or cards: the better players will have better results over a long period of time, but within any individual season there's the potential for much bigger fluctuations.

[Locke Lamora]

Yahoo pay several people to do that. Like all the major fantasy sites, they have a bunch of people putting out rankings each week and to do that they have to go through the vast majority of, if not all starters. I suspect they have a model to do it too but I doubt it has anything to do with the fact that it would be hard for them to get a person to do it and more to do with the fact that it is far more mathematically sound to employ an approach that is entirely objective and logically consistent from week to week.

To borrow an example from Rob, he thought Kerwynn Williams could easily score 2 or 15 points. How do you put a number on that? How much do you factor in the fact that the Rams D hasn't allowed a touchdown for the previous two weeks (and still hasn't)? What about the Cardinals saying it was still a committee - do you trust the touches? You can go on and on like this. My guess is that the model starts with relatively few pieces of information, such as the player's scoring history, the strength of the opponent's run/pass D (or offence if projecting D/STs) and gives you an expected average point total based on those. Someone will probably manually adjust aspects like playing time in cases where the model doesn't know something, like a player being named the starter or being hurt. It's possible they run the model thousands of times with Williams getting the start in some and being the backup in others, then get an average value from all those runs. 6.90 was a reasonable estimate based on the available information and was not too far off the actual score.

Manziel being ranked above Stafford is probably based on three things: the model thinks the Vikings D/ST is actually pretty good (if Yahoo's matchup strength ratings are reflective of what the model uses, which is also stupid but a different argument); the model knows that Stafford's season average is not very good; and the model knows that in a very limited sample of playing time, Manziel actually put up a relatively large amount of fantasy points because he ran for a TD. This is probably one of those rare scenarios in which a new starter will actually have what looks like quite an aggressive projection because there is at least some evidence of Manziel being able to score points and there is a high level of confidence in the workload. The variance will be huge for a player with so little history.

Generally speaking I suspect the model is slow to adjust to breakout stars because it needs a certain sample size of scoring history to project a high score, whereas it's working from a big sample with established players and isn't going to drop them way down the rankings just because they have 2 or 3 bad weeks; it will be an incremental change. The model probably had Bernard relatively highly projected to start the season and he has five double-digit games, including two over 20 points, so even though he's had 3 disappointing weeks, the model knows that he is still getting touches and won't completely discount his history. Us fantasy players, on the other hand, are often perfectly happy to declare a player a star or drop them in a flash after just a couple of weeks of good/bad performance.

On an entirely different note, mith's new ideas sound like they would be great fun to try.

[Locke Lamora]

They should have gone for it in the fourth at the goal line on fourth down. Seems pretty unlikely that they'd have had another good shot at a touchdown given the way the game went.

[Locke Lamora]

I know, stunning.

[Locke Lamora]

Tally voodoo clearly trumped Cow's good fortune to this point. Looks like you might get a big advantage if the pessimistic reports from the team on Murray are true, KMD.

[Locke Lamora]

Congratulations to Tally, who wins L1 with a 77.16-65.10 win over KMD. Tally survived Andrew Luck's disaster thanks to Mike Wallace, Jonathan Stewart, and the Seahawks D, while KMD's week would have been even worse if it had not been for the seemingly unstoppable Odell Beckham, his only player to outscore their projection. Cow takes third with a comfortable, Randy Bullock-fuelled 87.24-62.82 win over Rob, whose RBs (Ingram and Bernard) were not actually a train wreck, but Demaryius was the only other player making it to double digits.

[Locke Lamora]

I beat Nero 116.34 to 87.08 for fifth and IS beat zoraster 109.22-101.18 to take seventh.