ooooooohhhhhh Willie Parker… nice start for the Pancakes, that’s for sure.
Willie Parker had a chance to set the single rushing game record, the way he was going.
And the reason he didn’t? Because Cleveland stopped him? No… because Cleveland’s offense was so pathetic, they were so far behind that they didn’t need him on the field.
I’m not happy about it, but I’ll take it.
By the way, the stud of a tight end Kellen Winslow is completely mismanaged in this retarded offensive scheme. You have a guy who can burn linebackers up the seam, open up the running game, pull safeties off the receivers - and what do you do with him? run nothing but 3 yard out routes. Like using a race horse to plow.
You got your big start out of Parker. I have an uphill battle.
I’m toying with starting Marion Barber over Warrick Dunn. He’s projected for more points. Or maybe I should bench Ahman Green.
Did I ever mention how I wish we could start 3 RBs?
That’s my big chance. I feel like for the rest of the lineup, you have a better chance of outscoring your projected score than I do.
Go the safe route and bench both.
I’m still having a really hard decision deciding between Housh and Stallworth, and Addai, MJD, and McAlister.
High scores for last week:
Tazmanian Devils 119.86
Court Jesters 116.12
Exploding Pancakes 93.24
Last Place - Kiros 84.58
Pretty low scoring week overall. Surprising amount of people under 80.
The scores as of the end of the regular season:
*1. Tazmanian Devils 13-0 1450.76 1 -
*2. Chitwood's Penance 11-2 1227.28 2 -
*3. Exploding Pancakes 8-5 1125.58 5 +2
*4. Last Place - Kiros 7-6 1065.00 8 +4
*6. Isotopes 6-7 1047.30 12 +7
*5. The Gridbirds 7-6 1032.06 9 +3
7. Court Jesters 6-7 1013.22 4 -3
8. Holding Out For Bush 5-8 986.38 10 +2
11. Zone Blitz 4-9 980.98 6 -3
9. PurpleHelmedWarriors 5-8 917.66 11 +1
10. The Faceisburgers 5-8 847.40 7 -4
12. Og's Cowboys 1-12 688.22 3 -9
Order of list is in total points, descending. Number in front of the names is the place they finished officially in the league based on record (with points as a tie breaker), star for playoff team. On the right, first is their draft position, and second is their rank relative to where they drafted. For example, I drafted 5th, but finished 3rd, hence, +2.
I only had to move 2 people to resort that list, so the head to head matchup ended up sorting people in a way pretty similar to their overall points, which is good.
Zone Blitz got the biggest shaft, being 9th in points but 11th in record, but… not a huge shaft.
PHW gets the honor of being the only team Og beat, although he came pretty close in a few others.
Congrats to Taz, you bastard, on obviously kicking all of us in the crotch.
I’m going to make up a trophy tailored to me: the highest ranked player who improved relative to his draft position = me! Yes, thank you, thank you.
Isotopes is the most well ranked compare to his draft position at +7. Og the worst, at -9.
5 of us had winning seasons, 7 of us losing. 9 within the 5-8 to 8-5 range.
The highest score achieved was 160.66 by Chitwood in week 9. Unfortunately, I had the honor of being his opponent. I put up a very respectable 105, and he crushed me.
The lowest score was 31.00, posted by Og in week 5, surprisingly with only his kicker not playing.
What makes you think overall finish should map to draft position?
Why not? Having the first pick is considered an advantage, right? Having the second too, not quite so much. And the third, but not quite so much. And so on.
It serpentines around to somewhat offset that, but there’s no way having the 12th and 13th pick offsets the advantage of taking LT, LJ, etc.
If all things were equal, for an enlightened set of players, you’d expect it on average to finish in roughly the order of the draft, right?
I’m not saying it’s anything conclusive, but it’s an interesting stat to me. Drafting last and finishing first is more impressive to me than drafting first and finishing first - not saying that that’s not impressive, just not as much as.
You’re assuming an advantage, but I’m not sure it’s warranted. If fantasy leagues were decided by draft slot every year I’d have quit by now. Obviously in hindsight taking LT with the first pick (for which you have to give credit, as that was by no means a gimme – LT was a consensus #3 pick, not the guy everybody was desperate for) conferred a major advantage this year, but that’s just a function of how he’s performed, not an indictment of the draft scheme. The gamebreaker last year ended up being LJ, and he was a 10th-11th rounder.
First and second round tandems from our draft:
LT/Westbrook
LJ/McGahee
Alexander/Julius Jones
Barber/Bush
Manning/Harrison
Edge/TO
Fitzgerald/Boldin
Rudi Johnson/Holt
Ronnie Brown/Randy Moss
Portis/Cadillac
Steve Smith/Steven Jackson
Jordan/Chad Johnson
I don’t see that those potential duos got weaker as the slot got lower, keeping in mind that every player picked in the second round was available in each of the spots below where he was taken – so everybody in the league could have snapped up Jackson/Westbrook if they’d had a crystal ball.
All in all, I think you’d be hard pressed to demonstrate that any particular slot is universally better than any other. What it ends up coming down to is a lot of luck with regard to injuries and so forth and a little bit of taking advantage of the slot you’re drafting from over the long haul of the draft.
As a couple of additional data points, I’m in two other non-keeper Yahoo leagues. The top four teams in those leagues drafted 6-4-1-10 and 10-5-6-9, respectively.
Fair enough. I just assumed it was generally thought of that drafting earlier was an advantage.
I’m not trying to rob you or Taz of your credit - you both have good teams all the way through and have managed them well, it’s not as if I thought you placing 1 and 2 was automatic.
I guess it reinforced my assumption that the two most powerful players in our league by far were taken with the #1 and #2 pick - and the #3 pick, Alexander, being injured instead of a stud put the #3 drafting team in last place, suggesting that that first pick is crucial (plenty of other reasons he was 12th though, foremost was lack of participation).
In any case, I wasn’t declaring the person who improved most from their draft slot the winner, or anything - I was just throwing it out there as extra information, which I personally found interesting so I thought I’d share.
If I did my math correctly, I just had a crazy good week.
I was struggling over the Addai/McAlister/MJD question. MJD just put up 36.1 points. Think I called that one right. And to think I was gonna start Addai, who got pounded.
Manning 16.53
Harrison 10.1
Parker 29.3
Housh 17.8
Winslow 1.9
MJD 36.1
Scobee 16
Minnesota 16
143.73
Isotopes still has some games to play, but he stands, as I compile these stats:
Romo 0 (not started)
Chad Johnson 10.1 (done)
Lee Evans 13.1 (halftime)
Marion Barber III 0 (not started)
Todd Heap 3.3 (done)
Ahman Green 9.9 (3rd quarter)
John Kasay 9 (done)
Tennessee 5 (done)
50.4
I should have started the JAX defense.
That said, I’ve still got a good shot at this. Rivers still has some time left to pad his stats and Jackson, Wilkins and Muhammad will go tomorrow night, while Kiros only has Torry Holt left.
It’s a 29 point gap right now, which is certainly doable.
They took out both my backs in the third quarter before they could put up insane numbers.
Willie Parker had 31 carries, so that was understandable, but they took MJD out for after 15 even thoug he was running at will 
- understandable, given the game situation, but if they left him in there, he could’ve had 250+ and 3+ TDs.
If my backs would’ve played the whole game, they could’ve had 90 points between them.
Going into the Dallas game:
Chad Johnson 10.1
Lee Evans 15.1
Todd Heap 3.3
Ahman Green 15
John Kasay 9
Tennessee 5
57.5 with Romo and Marion Barber III still to play. Needs 86.23 points between them.
Things are looking good for me. I really thought I was gonna lose this week.
The Gridbirds - 50.46
Last Place - Kiros - 78.92
Exploding Pancakes - 143.82
Isotopes - 54.50
For the benefit of those without StatTracker.
In better news, I put up the highest single-week point total of the season in my money league this week. What? I had a first-round playoff bye, so I’m going to get destroyed by the LT team next week anyways? :smack:
I am cautiously optimistic that Holt + 28.5 will beat Muhammad, Jackson, and Wilkins… but it could really go either way at this point. It’s a reason to watch Monday Night Football, that’s for sure.
(Oh, and… as it turns out, I probably should have started Morris over Houston, but there’s really no way I could have predicted that… what it really comes down to is those stupid bruised ribs on Chester Taylor - check out the MIN rushing stats this week. That’s what was carrying me all season. Ouch.)
Nice to see a monday night game with 4 players and playoff implications. Drama!
In Taz and Chitwood’s imaginary playoff game, Taz scored 79.6 and Chitwood scored 112.76.
It figures - one of the few (only?) weeks I can beat them both, and I didn’t have to play either of them yet. When I’m actually matched up against them, I’ll get 40 points 
I was really worried about this week because Indy’s offense is the core of my team, and not only have they mostly sucked lately, but Jax owns them. Fortunately, everyone but my indy offense stomped ass - and Harrison did a decent job.
Even my kicker and defense helped put up a great weekend, at 16 points each.
I haven’t checked the numbers, but I’ve read that LT’s 29 TDs are more TDs than the entire offense of 17 NFL teams. More than half the league.
I heard that on SportsCenter. Sickening.
Gridbirds is behind for tonight’s game, but definitely still in the running. I could see Wilkins putting up 14. Then it would be Holt + 14 vs Muhammad and Jackson.
Did I mention that Peyton Manning sucks? Drew Brees has now passed him up, as a 10th round pick, in total points.
I mean, Manning has put up pretty decent numbers, but not Manning numbers. And he’s been sucking it up the last few weeks. Except for Addai’s huge day, I’ve been winning in spite of Indy’s offense as often as because of them lately.
Sunday was pretty horrible. If Manning hit his receivers in the chest, they dropped it. If he didn’t, he threw it 10 yards over their head. I’ve never seen the Colts offense so sloppy. Not even the '03 playoff game - when they just got their asses beat up severely, rather than just shot themselves in the foot.
So, now I’ve got to go against Drew Brees next week, against a horrible pass defense. Great. I can only hope that Ind vs Cinci is gonna be a crazy ass 45-38 shootout, which it very well could be.