The Assistant Commissioner

Numbers do not lie. 

Lowest weekly score recorded for both the 2014 and 2015 season

 

Power Rankings

1) Brent
He is legit. I am getting tired talking about him, but the guy is out to prove that it was no auto-draft team that won last year.

2) Sean
He is hanging ever so tightly and narrowly to this spot. The improvement year over year for him and Cameron is pretty awesome.

3) Cameron
May be at this spot due to the outrageous numbers he put up this week, but when you can do that to someone, you deserve to be in the conversation.

4) Ben
Brent did not destroy Ben, who put up a decent fight. Ben has had the toughest schedule to date with opponents averaging 109 a game.

5) Scott H

WEEK SEVEN

Biggest gap this year... Thanks in part to Jesse not trying.

Yuhhhh! Wataaaaah! went off! Danngggg boi! 172.7 points. Let me remind you that the all time record is 175.6, set by Steve Jim back in week 13 of last year. This is cray, yo! CRAY CRAY. Wow. Looks like Wataaaaah! actually needed some MillerTime, as in Lamar Miller, who had a ridiculous 44.90 points!!!!! He had just one player score below 10. The best part is that I was on the receiving end of that *_____*. Hats off to Cameron, who will definitely move up in the power rankings. Geez. That's a big win, putting Cameron at 4-3 and very much in the mix.

The nail bitter was between second place Kaeptivating and third place Rolling Gazelems. In Dan's losses he has lost by a combined (meaning I totaled all the margins of his defeats... a sum... I am trying to make a point here with this stat. You can appreciate that right?) 8.08 points. His worst loss - 5.2 in week 1 and is averaging a league low of 2.7. Talk about a game of tenths of points! This was a big bounce back week for Kaep, who got his doors just blown off by the league leading Mustache Salad.

How pitiful is this? C'mon, man. Dude. Just. I don't know. Ugh. I give so much to this league and it just wears on me to see the lack of effort. Moving on...

At least Scott K is trying. He has just been dealt a bad hand.

I haveta, I gotsta talk about the Behemoth Mustache Salad. The guy is bringing it week in and week out. Its like watching Randy Orton RKO peeps! Couple stats: over the last three games he is averaging 127 pts/game. Thats pretty nice. Over the season he is leading with almost 123 pts/game. What a season. And this last win he did it again Ben who is hotter than HOT. Shoot he is HOT HOT HEAT. He is averaging approx. 142 pts/game. This was a big time win for Brent in a week that I thought we may see a rare loss for him. His team is so far and above the rest of everyone we can only hope to catch him on an off night... He is taking his six game winning streak against the unpredictable In Russ We Trust squad.

What will week 8 bring?

This is what a rebound looks like from week 4 - which was still a 105 pt output

It will take a truly special effort to beat Salad. It will take a team that can score big.  Scott H may be able to - he has scored over 120 three times. Ben has done it four times.... No other team in the league has done it multiple times, outside of those already mentioned and... guess... yes, Brent. He has done it five times. The funny thing is we haven't really seen a let down. His biggest let downs were in week 1 and 4, and he still scored over 100.

One team that I had really high hopes for this season was Mokes-a-lot. She just hasn't been able to dial it in and her team has had more let downs that explosions... I don't like regressions and trending downwards.

Rooks

The biggest question coming into this season was, could Brent repeat? The second question after that was, would RGIII last a full season? The third question, was of course, was would the NFL continue to wear pink in support of breast cancer? And then finally, how will the rookies preform? In order to really understand how the rookies are doing we need a benchmark. Our bogie will be the performance of the Rookies last year...  Ben, Brent, Sean. That is quite the lineup, as Brent won the championship and Ben was the Rookie of the year. Sean.... he didn't do so well.

First lets average: last year's rookie's win %, score, margin of victory, margin of loss

Rookies last year through week six
Avg. win % - .500
   - Best record: Ben 4-2
   - Worst record: Sean 2-4
**What I glean from this is that you need start strong. Rarely do teams turn it completely around.

Avg. score - 102
   - Best: Ben 115
   - Worst: Sean 92

Avg. margin win - 22
   - B: Ben 32
   - W: Sean 13
Avg. margin loss - (16)
   - B: Brent (12)
   - W: Ben (24)
**I find it interesting that Ben was blowing people out, but was also blown out in losses. Brent was able to keep things closer in losses, as his margins of loss was about half of Ben's margin of loss.... Brent also had a margin of victory of 22. While Ben was explosive, he was also unpredictable  - his standard deviation in scores over the first six weeks was 20. The swings in scoring was too much for Ben to win it all. While Brent had a standard deviation of 10.

Rookies this year through week six (Jamie, Dan, Scott K)
Avg. win % - .500
   - B: Jamie/Dan 4-2
   - W: Scott K 1-5
**CAPTAIN OBVIOUS ALERT: Jamie and Dan are in a good spot... Scott K, there is no hope for you.

Avg. score - 95
   - B: Dan 103
   - W: Scott K 82

Avg. margin win - 30
   - B: Jamie 32
   - W: Dan 29
**Scott K lone win was a big one in week 1 and basically an outlier.
Avg. margin loss - (15)
   - B: Dan (4)
   - W: Scott (27)
**Despite the low scores (the league only averaged ~99 a game) Dan and Jamie are blowing out teams and they both have been able to keep it close (Jamie losses by ~14 a game).

What does this all really mean? Does it even matter? Am I just wasting time? Yes, yes I am.

• Points are more difficult to come by this year. This is probably due to fact that we added two other managers to the league. 
• Despite the lower scores rookies are winning by a greater margin. 
• The first six week set the tone for the rest of the season and is replicated in the next six weeks, as we will see...

Looking at last year's rookies records AFTER week 7...

Win % - .444
Avg. Score - 99
Avg. margin win - 23
Avg margin loss - (24)

Brent and Ben replicated their win/loss record over the next six games as their first six (3-3 and 4-2), while Sean's got even worse and went 1-5.

Brent had a really crazy outlying week 9 last year, where he scored 172 points... If we will remove this week from the sample size our average score goes down to 95 and margin of victory to 12.

• The ability to win by a decent margin of victory is better indicator of future performance than the score, if that makes sense. You need to be winning big, not just squeaking by. 
• Teams taper off in high scores over the next six weeks- which correlates with the real NFL league's factors such as: fatigue, teams having more time information and film to use to prepare, injury, etc. 
• No team outscored their opponents by more in the weeks 7-12 than 1-6 (this is excluding Brent's massive week 9 win and score)
• You'll most likely get what you got....

So Danny and Jaime will go 4-2 again and will sit at 8-4, a perfect position to make the playoffs...

Power Rankings Revisited

I have got it all wrong. I have to have. I have been thinking about my power rankings and it just doesn't feel right. It was missing something... crucial. Margin in victories. For a team to really stand apart is them crushing other teams. Let's pick on me for a second.

Do you really think my team is that good? I'm 4-2, but I am one of the worst teams scoring and have one of the easiest schedule (see below tables), yet I am in the top five in both yahoo and my joke of a power ranking... PLEASE. That is a sham! It as much of a sham as was Mark May lying to us. Oh, Mark, you thought I forgot?! You friggin liar!

	Top Five Scoring	Worst Five Scoring
1	Brent	Jesse
2	Ben	Scott K
3	Sean	Caleb
4	Dan	Steven
5	Christie	David

	Toughest Schedule	Easiest Schedule
1	John	Jamie
2	Cameron	Dan
3	Scott H	David
4	Jesse	Steven
5	Ben	Sean

Incorporating the margin of victory will surely enhance the power rankings. As a brief reminder, the power rankings includes: average points scored, margin of victory, number of times scored over 100 points, wins, beating projections, and average points against. 

1) Brent

2) Sean

3) Ben 

4) Dan

5) Jamie

As you can see, adding in that margin of victory really shook it up with Ben and Jamie moving up. Is it perfect? No. Hell, no. But I think its helluva lot closer. I'll keep tinkering.

Division Comparison

	High Desert	Sierra
Win %	48%	52%
High Score	129.28	158.52
Average Score	95.50	104.09

Without Jesse: 

	High Desert	Sierra
Win %	56%	52%
High Score	129.28	158.52
Average Score	99.61	104.09

Power Rankings

1) Brent
2) Sean
3) Dan - moved up 3 spots, despite the weak win, but put up a decent score
4) Myself - numbers don't lie, but the equation might suck...
5) Cameron
5) Ben - moved up three spots with the MONSTER win

Biggest drop was Scott, who now sits at #7.

Week 6

This was the second best week overall. Teams averaged almost 103 pts/game this week. A slight increase over last week. The average delta in wins were almost 32 pts/game, which was a significant change over last week. Last week just one team outscored their projected score by 20, this week there was 3. For context the high was Week 3 - there were seven that week. I would say that this week was a bit more normalized as far a overall points scored.

As far as the teams... 

Can anyone stop Brent? Its going to be extremely hard. He has scored over 120 4 x's and has never scored below 100.  He's scored 70 more total points than then next highest... averages 121.20 pts/game... crushing it. We covered the Devonta story in a previous post, but the other shiny tool in this dude's toolbox is his defense (and his QB/WR duo... two x two). The Broncos are legit. They've scored over 18 points in all of their games, but one. Let's see if high scoring, but erratic, Ben can take him down this week.

If Ben could get some consistency he could be really dangerous, as he is the only player in the league to score over 130 2x's and is averaging +48 pts when he wins... he is also averaging -28 in losses... #blowouts

Just as Scott was getting warmed up, he laid a total egg.

I called out Jamie for not using Gates and Hurns. I still believe that Graham isn't going to put up big numbers week in and out, but he did out preform Gates this week by 5. A guy can get it wrong once... It is crazy that Rivers threw for over 500 YARDS and Gates didn't get more of them yards! Ultimately, neither of those guys were the difference maker. I just didn't have enough gas in the tank and I am floundering... When your opponent outscores their projected score by 28 points its going to be tough. Just ask Cameron and Caleb.

John is mounting a comeback of a season - over the last four week he has averaged almost 112 pts/game.

His Name is Devonta Freeman

Standing 5'8" and weighing just over 205 lbs, Devonta Freeman isn't an intimidating man, he's below average for a starting RB in the NFL. He played both his High School and College playing days in Florida. He was a four star High School recruit. It wasn't probably until his Senior year at FSU that you heard of him;, In 2013, he helped the Seminoles win the national championship. But never was he nationally known; he wasn't a Heisman candidate, he wasn't leading the nation in running, he wasn't Tim Tebow, he was just Devonta Freeman. Who, statistically, was the 51st best running in the country, but was Fist-Team All-ACC. I mean, he was good. He was solid, but he wasn't a once in a generation type of guy. His combine was solid and was given a grade of 5.57, which meant he could be an NFL starter. In combine profile it had the ambiguous promise that he, "[He] [c]ould prove to be a better pro than college player." How many guys get that in their writeup?

Ultimately, he was drafted as the 103rd pick in the fourth round by the Falcons. It seemed to be a solid pick up, but nothing revelatory.

Coming into his second year in the NFL he was supposed to be just a part of the running back rotation. I mean, he hadn't scored his first touchdown in his Rookie year until Week 15 against the Saints. It was going to be a running by committee type of offense for the Falcons this year- as has been the trend in NFL recently. He was not going to be the feature back. There was no hype on the guy.

It wasn't until Week 3 of this season that he caught the attention of people, where he had 141 yards rushing and 3 TDs.

The activity surrounding Freeman in our own league is very interesting. He was picked up in the NINTH round by Persian Lives Matter. Which makes total sense as Freeman hadn't really done anything spectacular in his pro career. No one knew he would be the Forsett of this year. How could we? How could Persia?!

Plus, Persia looked like he had a drafted a solid RB crew as he had C.J Anderson, Frank Gore, Ameer Abdulah (I guess?).  Why would you need another dude in backfield taking up a valuable roster spot? So, he dropped him before the first game.

The interesting part here is who Persia dropped him for...Antonio Gates. Perhaps Persia realized (no, he still hasn't) that Jimmy Graham wouldn't have the season he had in Nola? Who knows. Persia will take that reason to his grave.

But Freeman's journey was just getting started. On September 11, Wataaaaah! dropped Roy Helu Jr. for Devonta Freeman. Wataaaaah! sat him, rightfully so (his starters out preformed him) as he scored just five points. Wataaaaah! would beat Mustache Salad in Week 1 as well.

Reports were that Freeman was causing trouble on the roster and Wataaaaah! had zero tolerance for his behavior. He let him go for Terrance Williams, a WR, on Sept 16, just before the Week 2 game. This would look like a smart move as Williams was extremely motivated to be on a team and to be paid. He would score 17.8 pts, helping Wataaaaah! defeat Bayo'wolf by just a tenth of a point. Freeman scored just 12.3 points. Wataaaaah! made a smart move for that week...

I can't really put either Jamie or Cameron in the dog house for their moves. It made sense for what they did. It was rational good managerial decision making. Brent was acting in the same manner when he took Freeman.

In Week 1 Brent had poor results from his DEF and dropped Cleveland for Tavon Austin, as he was probably looking to improve his WRs, and already had a solid DEF on the bench in Denver.

 In Week 2 Tavon didn't do big things, but Mustache hit the panic button as his RBs put up a combined whopping 12 points! This happened with a highly sought after Eddie Lacy and solid RB in Mark Ingram. Side note, he also had Todd Gurley on the bench, who has turned into a monster as well. Feeling the pressue, Brent picked up Freeman who had a solid, but not crazy Week 2 with 12+ points.

In Week 3 Brent showed he was willing to gamble. Facing a tough team in In Russ we Trust, Mustache Salad decided to SIT Mark Ingram and PLAY Devonta Freeman. Ingram would score 16.40 points that week. But Freeman would explode for 38.80 points. Mustache Salad would win by a mere 4.58 points. This pickup would win him the next two games. Without Freeman it is conceivable that Mustache Salad would be 1-4 right now. See below:

Week 3 vs In Russ we Trust - wins by 4.58 points. Freeman scores 38.80 points.
Week 4 vs Bayo'wolf - wins by 9.68 points. Freeman scores 34.40 points.
Week 5 vs Quiddity of Luck - wins by 29.40 points. Freeman scores exactly 29.40.
Week 6 vs Kaeptivating - projected to win. Freeman scores 29.40.

Now, this has been quite a run for Freeman and Mustache. I've said it in the past, and I'll say it again, I can't see Freeman keeping this up. I did however think we wouldn't see it four weeks in a row. The scary thing is the depth that Mustache Salad has at the RB position. Gurley looks very promising, despite the small sample set. Ingram has been Mr. Consistent, putting up 10+ in all of his games but one (he still did 7 points). And Eddie Lacy has yet to really get it going, but we know what he is capable of.

Division Comparison

The margin change was due to the one cross divisional game, Bayo'wolf vs Luchesse's Cousin.

	High Desert	Sierra
Win %	49%	51%
High Score	129.28	158.52
Average Score	94.35	103.99