NBD - Week 9 Review

Tuesday was Decision Day for America, and I think most of us - with the possible exceptions of Ms. PAC-Man Haller, log-cabin militiaman DeYoung, and maybe Derek and Papkin, whose politics are unknown to me - made what turned out to be the popular (not to mention correct) decision. But while most of America is content to cast their votes every few years, we here in NBD are forced to make much more difficult decisions every week. We scour the wire services, expert advice, and last-minute panicky voices in our heads to decide who to start and sit. Truthfully, most of us probably put more effort and thought into those decisions than we do into who we vote for. And yet, so often we are wrong. With that in mind, I've spent some time going back through the season and analyzing each owner's decisions over the course of this year.

There was a time when Yahoo(!) would tell you your Optimal Line-Up Score at the touch of a button, but they seem to have abandoned that, so I was left to my own devices to go back through each week of games and determine just how much you idiots could have scored if you had only played the right guys. After scouring the scoreboards for hours, I may have made a few mistakes here and there, but I believe I've more or less come to a solid calculation of just how many points each team could have scored every week if they'd played their top scorers. The one potential problem here is that with people picking up breakout players after the Thursday games, we sometimes end up with players on our end-of-week rosters who we did not actually have the option to play. Otherwise, though, I think the numbers are secure:




Total Points Differential (Total Optimal Score - Total Actual Points Scored)

Zombie Lassard 68.8
Finga Sniffs 72.8
Dietz's OG Lonestars 95.12
Woody's Warriors 96.86
Joe's Team 104.64
Burke City Giants 104.66
Replacement Players 105.6
Wild Stallions 119
Stocks in Clarks 132.62
.... 150.98
Brain Crapital 47 156.2
Higgs-Boson 201.76

There are a couple different possible interpretations of this data. You could argue that the top teams on this list have made mostly the right calls every week as to who to sit and start, while the bottom teams have foolishly left their best players on the bench. Or you could argue that the bottom teams have the strongest, deepest teams, and thus have had a lot of strong options to choose from. The truth is probably dependent on your record. .... have left a lot of points on the table, but they're also atop the league standings, so you can't really fault them for those lost opportunities. The Finga Sniffs have left very few points on the table, but they still haven't won many games, so it's safe to assume they're just overall pretty shitty. But with so many teams stuck at the same win-loss record (5-4) at this point of the season, and standings dependent on total points scored, I think we can all agree that those unutilized points could do us some good.

More telling, perhaps, is the number of wins and losses that these unused points have cost us. It's not easy to calculate such a figure, and I'm sure you've all had moments this season when you've thought "If I'd only played _______ this week I'd have won!" but your opponents could probably say the same. With this in mind, I revisited each game of the season to see how our records would have changed if we'd ALL played our optimal line-ups every week.

Win-Loss Differential

Zombie Lassard -2
Replacement Players -2
Wild Stallions -1
Woody's Warriors -1
Higgs-Boson +1
Burke City Giants +1
Brain Crapital 47 +1
Finga Sniffs +1
Stocks in Clarks +2

Here, we can see some of the benefits of making good choices. I have left the fewest points on the table, and it's resulted in two wins over arguably superior teams. Meanwhile, the Wallabees have left the fourth-most points languishing on the bench, and if they (and the rest of us) had played our best teams every week, they'd be a part of the mid-table gridlock fighting for playoff position rather than sitting at 3-6.

With the possibility of making the playoffs still alive for almost all of us, the biggest issue going forward will be how we use this information. Have you learned enough from the first nine weeks to make smart decisions going forward, or will you keep making the same idiotic choices that have you sweating it out now? I can't foretell the future, especially with you morons, so let's focus instead on the recent past. Here are your Week 9 re-caps:

Higgs-Boson (132) over Brain Crapital 47 (75) 
While I don't have access to every single fantasy football league in the world, and while most of the world's fantasy leagues probably don't honor their high scorer with a Classic Jam, I'd be willing to bet that 99% of leagues' high scorers in Week 9 featured Doug Martin (51). Holy shit did this guy go nuts. There's just pretty much no chance of winning when you let a guy run for 251 yards and four touchdowns, and Brain Crapital didn't even come close this week, much like the source of their team name. In honor of Higgs-Boson, who was also the Week 8 High Scorer, this week's Classic Jam is Particle Man, by They Might Be Giants. I doubt Ray's ever heard this song before, but considering that he has a plaque in his home that says "What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?" I suspect he'll like its sentiment. It's been a while since I posted, so I also owe belated Classic Jam honors to Woody's Warriors in Week 7 and Joe's Team in Week 6. Woody, for you I've chosen the Ultimate Warrior theme song. The Ultimate Warrior was my favorite wrestler ever, and I think that my first team name in NBD was actually the Ultimate Warriors. When I was in college I dressed as the Warrior for Halloween one year and played this song on repeat from my frathouse room for about four hours continuously. I went with the Stars & Stripes Warrior face paint. It was fucking awesome. For Joe, I've chosen a song by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, "Johnny Appleseed." This song was the theme song for the short-lived HBO show "John from Cincinnati." I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who ever watched this show, and did so in its entirety during a summer break where I had absolutely nothing else to do. Colly always thought it was funny that I enjoyed it. It's really a pretty decent song, though, and maybe a decent show. I'm not really sure; I was pretty high that whole summer.

Replacement Players (131) over Zombie Lassard (112) 
Amazingly, the Replacement Players nearly matched the Particles' Doug Martin-driven scoring bonanza. While the Zombies put up a valiant effort thanks to streaming-defense pick-up San Diego (25) and Eric Decker's most impressive outing of the year (22), they just couldn't keep up with the Replacements' combined rushing and passing attack. Jay Cutler (20) had one of those games where he reminds you that he can be decent, connecting repeatedly with Brandon Marshall (30). And Adrian Peterson (31) reminded us all that he is still Adrian Fucking Peterson, overshadowing the also-outstanding performance of fellow backfield mate Marshawn Lynch (21). Derek's squad appears to be firing on all cylinders at this point, having won three straight and charging into a tie for second-best record in the league with this victory. 

Woody's Warriors (107) over Finga Sniffs (70) 
I've slacked a bit on maintaining my Points Per Dollar spreadsheet from our draft, but I'm guessing that you'd be hard-pressed to find a big-name combo that has produced less than the Finga Sniffs' Calvin Johnson and Darren McFadden. Back in early September, Manning spent $50 on Megatron, currently 19th(!) in scoring among Wide Receivers, and $30 on DMC, currently 20th among Running Backs. This week's performance only underlined those disappointments, as Calvin notched 129 yards but still no touchdowns (he's got one on the season) and McFadden (2) succumbed to the injury we've all known was coming before really making an impact on fantasy 2012. Sinking to 2-7, the Sniffs may have found themselves done for the season, whereas the Warriors have climbed into the 5-4 standoff involving five of our franchises. No one player was particularly excellent for the Warriors this week, but neither were there any real weak points, with Matt Schaub (19), Randall Cobb (19), Chris Johnson (17), Trent Richardson (14), Matt Bryant (13) and Andre Johnson (12) all posting respectable performances. CJ2K has posted four straight weeks of fantasy relevance now, and with Randall Cobb essentially taking over Greg Jennings' scoring in Green Bay, this Warriors team is suddenly looking like a competitive force in NBD.

.... (98) over Burke City Giants (63) 
Whilst watching the games out on the Upper East Side this Sunday, I opined (after like their fourth take-away touchdown) that there would probably be a strong correlation between fantasy champs and Bears defense owners this season. I'm not sure that any other position in fantasy has a #1 scorer with such a clear-cut advantage over everyone else as the Chicago. And sure enough, the .... that has dominated our league thus far has done so on the shoulders of the Bears, who notched another 27 points this week and led the dot-dots in scoring. And that's not to take anything away from AJ Green (17) and Arian Foster (17), who would be tops at each of their positions if Doug Martin hadn't gone HAM this week. Their efforts were enough to overcome a miserable performance from Eli Manning (4) this week, not that they needed much to overcome the hideous Burke City Giants, who have nearly matched in losses what their stars Matt Ryan (14) and Roddy Wite (12) have posted in real-life wins this season. This team boasts two starters, Cecil Shorts (6) and Andre Roberts (9), who I'd never heard of before this season, could still not pick out of a line-up, and will probably never be fantasy relevant again. 

Dietz's OG Lonestars (96) over Stocks in Clarks Wallabees (89) 
If the Lonestars were going to notch a second win this season, we probably would not have predicted for it to be in a week when five of their players were on a Bye. And yet, as they say, the sun shines on even a faux-Native American's ass some days. The particular asses in question this week belonged to Matt Forte (21) and Peyton Manning (21), who seems to have rounded right back into ass-kicking shape. Like the Americans, the Wallabees chances of winning seem highly dependent on Robert Griffin III (14), and in weeks like this where he is unspectacular, there just isn't enough firepower to do much damage. Michael Turner (16) is still competent, and Reggie Bush (13) has exceeded expectations, but those still aren't game-changers, and at 3-6, the Wallabees need some games to be changed in a serious way if they want to make the playoffs.

Wild Stallions (90) over Joe's Team (88) 
It's unusual to win when two of your wide receivers and your tight end combine for 1.6 points, as the Stallions' Hakeem Nicks, Jordy Nelson, and Jermichael Finley did, but having a negative offensive scorer (Jared Cook, -1.4) and a quarterback who manages only 11 points (Matthew Stafford) is an equally terrible recipe for success. This amazing combination of events led to a low-scoring but tight match-up between DeYoung and Colly, with Deezer eking out the victory. The Stallions have Mikel Leshoure (25) to thank for their narrow triumph, and LeShoure has quietly ranked in the top 7 RB point scorers over the past month. Nicks, meanwhile, has not managed more than six points in a game since returning from injury, and one wonders how long his name recognition will keep him in the Stallions' starting line-up while his performance merits bench status.

That about does it for Week 9. Let us know your biggest decision regret of the season in the Comments section!