Alright fellas, it's Friday morning, I'm off today for Veterans Day (you are, in fact, welcome for my service), and I'm bringing you something that I've been seriously lacking on this year. Some sweet sweet historical stat analysis. I'll tackle that first, then we'll break into the recaps. Fortunately for you guys, I'm doing this before my inevitable loss to Collin when I lose my motivation for the week.

Expected Finish

So I was going through and adding the retired owners' (Juan, Patrick, etc) pages which had me look at a lot of their season results, and I noticed that sometimes low-placing teams could have reasonably good seasons. So I started thinking, how can I measure luck? How can I visualize teams that placed lower than they maybe should have, or placed higher than they really deserved? Gentlemen, I bring you the Difference From Expected Finish (DFEF).

First, I plotted a team's total season points by their finish for the year.

So basically, dots that are closer to the green line represent teams who's final season place was right what you'd expect based on how many points they scored, and they have a low DFEF. Dots that are way above the line placed much higher than they deserved, and vice versa. A team's DFEF was determined based on their actual finish minus the expected finish, calculated by the trend line formula displayed above. From that, I identified three times a team finished greater than 4.5 spots above their expected finish (red circles), and three times a team finished greater than 3.5 spots below their expected finish (blue circles).

The Lucky Ducks

1. John Luke, 2017: This is undoubtedly the most outrageous one on this chart. JL scored the 2nd-fewest in the league with 1,573 points, which is only 104.9 PPG, and finished in 2nd place with a 9-6 record. He'd beat Jake in the first round 120-110, then lost to Mike 132-82 in the championship, the only team he failed to get at least one win against during the regular season. JL's expected finish was 8.0, good for a DFEF of -6.0.
2. Austin, 2013: I distinctly remember this season as an infuriating one. Similar to John Luke's situation above, Austin would go 9-6 with a similar PPG of 105.3 to finish in 3rd, also good for 2nd-fewest in the league that season. He'd go 0-2 in the playoffs, putting up scores of 98 and 42. His expected finish was 7.9, giving him a DFEF of -4.9. The infuriating part of this was that Austin never actually set his lineup.
3. Tyler, 2019: This is a situation where the statistic fails us. Tmo's DFEF this year was -4.6 in a year where he finished in 1st, but he also had the 2nd highest PPG in the league in 2019 behind Ryan. Because of that, I don't think it's fair to call him lucky for this one because the whole league was down on scoring in this season.

The Poor, Huddled Masses

1. Tyler, 2015: Aaannnnddd back to Tmo. In Tyler's only last-place campaign, he scored 1,742 points during a 5-10 effort. Five times have teams made the playoffs with fewer points than that, and it remains the highest points total for a last-place team to this day. Tmo's expected finish was 6.0, so his DFEF in 2015 sets the record at 4.0.
2. Austin, 2021: This doesn't even come close to making up for his 2013 season, but it's something. 2021 saw multiple people break 2,000 points, one of only 3 seasons for that to happen. Austin did finish with the 4th-lowest points scored, and part of his 9th place finish was losing the H2H tiebreaker with Tyler, also at 5-10 on the season, but his expected finish was 5.2, giving him a DFEF of 3.8.
3. Patrick, 2014: This is the saddest one in my opinion. Poor Patrick scored 1,798 points, or 119.9 PPG, which is only just barely under the all-time league average. Despite that, he too fell victim to the 5-10 monster and collected a DFEF of 3.7. Patrick, never one to see much success, actually had a decent team and was punished for it with a 9th place finish.

A Tale Of Expectations

So naturally I want to see people's average DFEF's. From left to right, this is the "unluckiest" to the "luckiest" with sweet young Michael sitting there all insignificant and normal.

See, wasn't that fun? Ok. Back to business.

Actual Newsletter Stuff

This week actually turned out to be a great one. Two games (Garrett-Tmo and Austin-Nathan) were tossups going into MNF, and Collin failed to earn either a win or a Top 5, the first time this season he's come up empty-handed. That allowed Mike to slide into a tie with Collin, who currently has the H2H but they face off again next weekend. With Mike and TK solidly in possession of a Top 5 after Sunday, three more Top 5s were up for grabs between Jake, John Luke, Austin, Nathan, Ryan, Garrett, and Tmo, who were all projected between 115-128 points. With the race amongst the 4th - 7th place teams so close, the wins and Top 5s are crucial.

RIP Collin, knocked out of survivor after I was gassing him up last week. Half the field remains... Who will survive??

The weekly challenge was, admittedly, the weakest of the field this week. Whoever held the highest-ranked QB/RB/WR/TE that wasn't drafted would win the money. It was actually almost a lock to be Taysom Hill (TE6) for John Luke, but JL dropped him on Friday so no one owned him. No one owned the TE7, Tyler Conklin, either. Austin picked up Rhamondre Stevenson (RB8) from waivers, but he was actually drafted by Nathan. But, after Justin Fields (QB6) put up 44 points in his third straight big game, Austin still managed to lock down the challenge win. Mike also earned a payday with the league's top score, his first of the season and the 9th player to earn a payday so far. John Luke is now the only person to have zero return on his investment so far this year.

Playoff Hunt

While no one is officially in or out yet, some people are close. With 5 weeks remaining and 10 points available to earn per player, Collin and Mike can't quite clinch this week, but they can get damn close. Nathan, with one more bad week, could see an official exit as early as Week 11. We'll keep an eye out here moving forward.

100 watch

98 Wins

• Mike
• TK

97 Losses

• Garrett

Recaps

Mike 146.66 - 136.6 John Luke (Game Score: 92.1)

Man John Luke almost made a run for this one. The Commanders rode McLaurin for 128 yards on 8 catches (20.8) to give JL a fighting chance, but the 40 spot from Mahomes and the 30 spot from Christian Kirk held strong to keep Mike ahead. With the win, Mike jumps into a tie for first with Collin (you're welcome), but Mike's road isn't easy. All his remaining opponents are well in the playoff hunt, including the current #1 and #3 teams in Collin (week 12) and TK (week 15).

TK 134.38 - 119.8 Ryan (85.7)

TK, sitting at 5-5 despite the 2nd most points, earned a soldi dub this week off some consistent play from his whole lineup. All players (except Amari Cooper) broke into double digits with Justin Jefferson coming out the star with 35.3 points. Ryan had some good performances too, 20+ from Josh Allen, Davante Adams, and Parris Campbell, but once Jefferson made this catch, we knew it was over.

Tyler 117.8 - 123.04 Garrett (82.9)

Disaster week for Tmo. Trying to retain his playoff position against a weak Garrett team should have been simple enough. But when the clock his 0:00 on MNF, Tmo scored less than Garrett and missed a Top 5 score by 4.7 points. Tyler looks to be in a bit of a bind. If Chase stays down and Kenneth Walker III slows up like he did this week, there isn't a lot Tmo can point to for hope to keep his playoff push alive. Garrett, who's all but lost the shot at the playoff anyways, improves to 10-8 against Tyler all-time, not leaving much room for doubt about who's the superior fantasy player all-time.

Collin 90.9 - 116.26 Jake (65.8)

Call it luck that Cooper Kupp went down, call it timing that Burrow was on bye, we all know that the factor that kept Collin to his lowest points total of the season was nothing short of divine intervention. The universe is willing my team to a championship. Late pickup Trevor Lawrence (24.96) filled in nicely for the injured Kyler Murray, and Aaron Jones and Jeff Wilson Jr combined for 50 points to put this one away for Jake by Sunday night. Collin did have Travis Kelce, the usual suspect, score big, but a weak outing from Cordarrelle and Kupp leaving early for his ankle injury were blows that Collin couldn't recover from.

Austin 122.5 - 109.06 Nathan (65.4)

A sloppy matchup that Nathan could have won with a couple lineup adjustments went Austin's way, and thanks to 24.8 on Monday from Jalen Hurts, Austin snuck into the Top 5 to break away from Tyler and Ryan for sole posession of 4th place. Nathan actually had three players break 20 points, but leaving a fourth in Cole Kmet on the bench in favor of Gerald Everett (4.3) doomed Nathan to his 8th loss of the year. Austin's remaining schedule is no cake walk, after Garrett this weekend he faces Tmo, Mike, TK, and to end the season.... me. I'm setting the record straight here and now that, if I beat Austin in week 15 to knock him out of the playoffs and put myself in, you all will NEVER hear the end of it.