Ok yall are getting a two for one here. Before we get into the recaps, we have two points of order to take care of first.

Keeper Rules

With a vote of 8-2, we are increasing our keepers to up to two per team, and with a vote of 9-1 we are eliminating the year limit on keepers. However, there was not consensus on doing it for this next draft, so we will still use 1 keeper with the existing restrictions for the 2024 draft. It's only fair to make consensus a requirement because keeper rules really impact decisions made in this season, and rule changes that impact the current season should be unanimously agreed upon this late.

Draft Pick Trades

ith a vote of 9-1, players may be traded for draft picks and FAB funds starting next year. The this year/next year vote was 5-4, so nowhere near a consensus vote to make it applicable for this year. I will update the Rules section of this website after the draft, but for now the current season's rules will stay up there.

However, with a vote of 5-5, democracy has failed us on whether or not we should allow ESPN Undroppable Players to be traded for draft picks. I'm going to table this issue for now and we can discuss later, but I think a potential trade off may be that if we do allow it, we implement a trade deadline, and if we don't allow it we don't use a deadline.

Trade Deadline Considerations

This was NOT something we voted on, but Collin reached out to me (and the rest of you) about a how a trade deadline would work now that we're looking at possibly trading future value like draft picks. Him and I were talking about potentially linking it to playoff elimination, so I went in and did some analysis on when teams were typically eliminated. I broke it into two eras: pre-Top 5 system and post-Top 5 system. Then I looked at, of all the non-playoff teams, what week they were eliminated from the playoffs.
In both cases, it is pretty common to be eliminated 1 week before the end of the season (so what would be Week 14 for us this year). A stark difference in the two eras, however, was that before we implemented the Top5 system, teams were eliminated in the final week of the season quite regularly, over 40% of the time, and only 26% of teams would be eliminated with 2 or more weeks left. Over the past five years, its somewhat rare to make it to the final week before elimination, and 57% of teams are eliminated with 2 or more weeks left. Is this good? Bad? Who's to say. But under our current system, you could expect 2-3 teams to be out with at least two weeks left to play, which could facilitate a lot of movement at the end of the season.

Also, since I know you're all curious, the one person to ever be eliminated with FIVE weeks left was Juan in 2013, who was 0-10 after 10 weeks and 6 games behind 4th place. When my excel spit out 0-10 I had to double check because I was so sure it was a mistake but nope, sure enough, 0-10.

Imperialism Map

Recaps

Tyler 150.2 - Collin 106.04

One of the three games settled by Sunday was Tyler's dismantling of Collin with yet another great score on the week. Tyler has remained poised in a series of matchups against top teams, and he'll have to keep it up next week with #2 Ryan comes to town. As it stands, Tmo's team looks unbeatable. Five players broke 20, led by Tyreek Hill's 30.6, and two more 20+ers were left on the bench without even costing Tmo points. Tyler is firmly in control of 1st place and can clinch a playoff berth as early as next week. Collin had a slower week due to Joe Burrow and De'Von Achane both going out with injuries early. The loss plops Collin right in the middle of a gaggle of 13-9 teams, with another 11-11 team in Austin right behind him and gearing up to face him this weekend. Both these teams are in fine shape, however, as we look forward.

Ryan 153.3 - Garrett 89.56

Two more teams that are in fine shape are Ryan and Garrett, the others in the 13-9 gaggle. But Ryan taking this one gives him a season sweep of Garrett, which could be huge if there's a multi-way tie. Ryan did manage to get the top score payout this week, despite being slightly outpaced in 20+ point games by Tmo, which is also a nice little plus. With the return of James Conner, Ryan's team will only get better. Garrett was plagued with a slow week from Travis Etienne (TLaw took all the points this week) and Cooper Kupp not doing much, and Kenneth Walker going down with injury. But if Alvin Kamara can get hot and Dak keeps putting up good outings, Garrett is still a force to be reckoned with, especially since he gets a breather at a floundering Nathan team next week.

Nathan 98.92 - Mike 138.72

Speaking of floundering Nathan, the man that was in 5th place at 9-9 just two weeks ago has dropped to 9-13 and slipped all the way into 9th place. 6.1 from Josh Jacobs, 4.1 from Tyjae Spears, those are numbers that DK Metcalf can't make up for when he's the only guy grinding out there. This is opposite of brother Mike, who has climbed out of an inconceivable 1-13 start to be perfect in weeks 8-11 and now sits at 9-13. This turnaround is honestly unbelievable, the only logical explanation is that Mike has sold what small sliver of a soul he has left to some sort of evil deity. Let's... let's hope that luck runs out quickly. But seriously if you would have told me after week 7 that John Luke would be eliminated before Mike, I wouldn't be like shocked but I'd be a little surprised.

Austin 112.4 - John Luke 98.36

And let's just talk about John Luke, shall we? You know, I talked a lot of shit about Mike early in this season and while he did deserve it, he also absorbed most of the hate away from a John Luke team that was pretty much just as bad all season. When I ran out of steam for shit-talkery, Mike started climbed and JL hid under the radar a little bit for the smack. Well here you go John Luke, your team is probably the worst team that this group of leaguemates has ever seen. Garrett finished in last place last year, and you would have to be almost perfect over the next four weeks to simply match his performance from last year. But frankly you have only yourself to blame. I'll stand by the claim that Bijan Robinson was a terrible first round pick, and the bright spot on your team (Brian Robinson Jr, obviously) was just a luck grab in the 11th round. John Luke is officially eliminated from the playoffs, and buddy just regroup and try to play spoiler for the rest of the year. Come back next year stronger.

Jake 124.64 - TK 110.38

The only game that really came down to Monday night was Jake vs TK, which was a game of "Can Patrick Mahomes outscore D'Andre Swift by 14?". He could not, as they both scored just under 20, and just like that the roller coaster that is Jake's season continues to... roller. A 30-burger from Saquon Barkley gave Jake the weekly challenge and he climbs into a tie with Austin for 5th, while TK slips right behind the two of them after juuussstttt missing a Top 5 point by 2 points. TK had promising performances from his RB duo of James Cook and Joe Mixon, so if he can straighten out his WR corps he could be in great shape. Jake's team looks well-rounded, but currently sits at the third-least points in the league right now headed into a game vs a red-hot Mike team. TK can rest easy knowing he's playing John Luke this week.