I’m not sure I understand your concern. You think you’ll do better than me, right? Which is why you said you’d take me up on my offer. But you’re worried you’ll win the consolation bowl. In which case either you think I’ll make the playoffs and you’ll be in the consolation bowl (in which you wouldn’t want to take me up on the offer in the first place), or we’ll both be in the consolation bowl and you’ll win it, in which case my pick will be higher than yours and you’d want it.
Either way I’m not sure I see what you mean about the consolation bowl messing up the bet.
The person who wins the Consolation Bowl gets the 5th pick regardless of record. So if Team A wins the Consolation Bowl and Team B ends up in third (with the 10th pick), that’s a pretty big switch.
That’s why I’ve never taken you up on this offer either. I’ve missed the playoffs the last three years but I’ve made it to the Consolation Bowl every time. I’ve even used that expected higher pick as a chip during trade talks at least once. It’s just not worth it to possibly throw that away.
On another note, did anyone else catch this article about the uselessness of TEs in fantasy at The Ringer?
Oh, I think every year I forget that we have that rule. I don’t think I’ve ever had to deal with it, since I’ve made the playoffs 7 years in a row. Peasant problems. Let them eat cake.
Well, I’ll modify the deal. I’ll swap picks with anyone, with the caveat that whoever finishes higher in the standings has the option to cancel the deal. That way in the unlikely event that you win the consolation bowl while I come in some other place in the consolation bowl, you can just cancel the swap rather than lose your 5th pick. I’ll put that offer out there to anyone.
It’s still a terrible deal because the playoff teams and the consolation bracket teams are so tightly packed.
Last year, I landed in the consolation bracket because I lost to Varlos in Week 13. But if one of my guys puts up slightly better numbers or one of his guys did slightly worse, I would have cruised to the playoffs and the Championship Game. It’s too big of a swing to gamble on a few quarters of football, and it applies to everyone in the top eight.
Another thing to think about is that the Sunbelt has statistically been the weakest division for a few years now, so making this swap with you specifically is an even worse idea.
I think you’re exaggerating what a big gamble it is - if you think your team is better than mine then odds are you’ll finish better than me. Sure, it may not work out that way, but it will more often than not, which is a good bet.
I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that the sunbelt is a weak division - we’ve had the wild card 2 out of the last 3 years. Last year we had the only two 10 win teams (also the 2 top scorers) in the division and our third guy was tied with your division winner.
The Sunbelt had the three lowest Points Against tallies, as well as the sixth. So all of you had an easier route to the playoffs than the other two divisions.
It’s been like this for the last three years. In a year or two (maybe even this year), it’ll swing again to a different division. The Northeast Corridor had the easiest schedule before that, and it was the Midwest during our first few years. It’s just a weird quirk of the schedule.
Surely the amount of points a team scores is more indicative of that team’s likeliness of future success than their points against? Our division had the top 2 point scorers. Just because it worked out that people didn’t score big games against us doesn’t change that we were the two top teams in the league last year.
Our division does have one team that lags behind, and that does affect the points against numbers, but we still have the hardest route to the playoffs, since we have 3 teams that are likely to be playoff contenders.
No. The non-division winning team with the biggest gap between Points For and Points Against ALWAYS wins the Wild Card. Because the Sunbelt is currently the division with the weakest competition (again, this is just a weird quirk because it’s a season-long thing that even includes inter-division games), it is easier for two of those four teams to make the playoffs.
This leaves the rest of us to contend for a division win. Barring a massive collapse, you WILL make the playoffs this year. The teams in the other two divisions have no such guarantee. This year especially, your bet is a very bad proposition for anyone who takes it.
So being the two top scorers in the league had nothing to do with the fact that the league sent two teams to the playoffs? Points scored is the tiebreaker for the wildcard, which means that even if we didn’t beat the wildcard competition by 2-3 games, and just tied them, we’d still go on the merits of having scored the most points.
You admit that the points against was a fluke and may very well change next year. But you’re willing to say I have a free trip to the playoffs because of a fluke last year that’s likely to change, but give no weight to the fact that the #1 scorer in the league is my divisional competition.
If you were a new player entering the league as the 13th team, you would look at the standings and say “huh, Sunbelt has 2 of the highest scoring teams and only 2 players from a division can make the playoffs and that’s if they win the one wildcard, I’m going to pick something other than that division to play in”
Last year it worked out that the higest-scoring team became the Wild Card, but typically the Wild Card comes from the middle of the pack (5th or 6th in overall scoring) because that team was able to pile up enough wins because their Points For/Points Against spread was so huge.
Would you say that having the highest scorer in the league this year in my division is a significant impediment towards me making the playoffs this year? It’s weird when you say I have the easiest road based on something you admit is not predictive going into the future, but ignore a pretty big roadblock in my way.
Not really, no.
You have a very consistent team that will put up a lot of points and your opponents will likely put up very few points (unless that weakness quirk shifts again this year). Therefore, you’ll likely also have a healthy number of wins and should win at least the Wild Card.
What exactly is this weakness quirk, why does it shift, and how do you predict it?
It’s basically just Strength of Schedule. In 2016, the average Points Against per game for teams in each division was…
Northeast 116.93
Midwest 116.51
Sunbelt 107.27
It’s a little difference, but 10 fewer points from your opponent makes winning any given week MUCH easier.
This happens every year, but so far I haven’t figured out how to track the shift or how to predict it.
… Given that our average points for is also higher, that trend would seem to indicate the relative weakness of the other two divisions.
But it’s not…
2016 Points For Average Per Game
Northeast 112.25
Midwest 115.01
Sunbelt 113.45
Again, we have one team that’s behind everyone else. It drags down the average. But it doesn’t eliminate the fact that there are 3 viable playoff contenders, including the two highest scorers last year.
I think it’s your year, Hamlet. Oh, you’ve won before?
I have some other thoughts to post about last season, and how I’m positioned going forward, but I don’t have the time just yet. I think we need to start pushing since the draft is supposed to start later this week and we haven’t had everyone even show up yet. So I’ll get some of the bookkeeping out of the way now.
Here’s my preliminary cut list:
QB Colin Kaepernick (lol)
RB Alex Collins
WR Dorial Green-Beckham
WR Brandon LaFell
TE Ladarius Green
Right now, my cut list is…
QB Robert Griffin III
QB Trevor Siemian
RB Ka’Deem Carey
I’m not sure what that means for the 4th rounder I own from Beef.