2016 Points Breakdown
I've heard football analysts say it takes three years for a quarterback to truly get comfortable in the NFL. Whether that is true or not, I am not sure but I do know that everyone in here should be pretty comfortable at all the various standings we track in our league, including this season ending recap that we've been doing for three years. I don't need to present the data or summarize it a ton for you guys so I will try to keep the writing to a minimum and let the numbers speak for themselves. Hopefully you will all get a better idea of how good and/or lucky everyone was this year and use that information to make comments under your breath whenever something doesn't go your way in the playoffs or as one more reason you hated fantasy football this year.
Let's take a league-wide look at how well we scored points and where our points scored ranked compared to the rest of D12 every week.
Let's take a league-wide look at how well we scored points and where our points scored ranked compared to the rest of D12 every week.
You can see where you ranked every week in terms of the points you scored and this pretty much mirrors the weekly point standings that we've been tracking. There are a few things we can conclude:
- Holy fucking shit was Kevin's team awful at scoring fantasy points. He scored the least amount of points seven out of the 13 weeks and went an entire month scoring the least points every week. We were unable to hand out weekly awards this year but Kevin would've received enough Trojan-Enz Boner of the Week Awards to fill up his living room.
- Jerome and Chris were consistently pretty good all year long with only a couple of weeks where they scored in the bottom half of the league.
- Peppel and Fanning could never get any momentum as it's hard to accumulate wins when your team is scoring in the bottom 25% almost every week.
- Castillo turned it on during the second half of the season. Probably not a coincidence that he started scoring more points once LeVeon Bell came back.
Let's now look at the heat map for Points Against. Red means least points against, blue means most points against.
- Kevin was the most fortunate team in terms of points against for the first 9 weeks and if his team wasn't horrific he probably would've gotten a lot of easy wins this year.
- Jordan went up against the top scoring team four weeks this year, which of course is an automatic four losses and can pop a playoff bubble pretty easily.
- Chris finished the regular season on a six game wining streak, which can be largely attributed to Aaron Rodgers' hot hand and the fact that his PA luck shifted from bad to good starting in week 8.
- Playing the top scoring team in the final two weeks made it impossible for J.P. to contend for the regular season title despite his best efforts.
We'll break it down by each owner. The standings below show your actual W-L record in blue along with what your W-L record would've been with the scedule of every other owner in here. Castillo had the easiest overall schedule but that doesn't always mean you would've won the most or even any more games with his schedule than yours. It's definitely more likely but it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes it just depends on if your down week correlated with an opponent's down week. If you see your name at the bottom, it means you kind of got jobbed by the schedule makers and if you're at the top, you played the easiest possible schedule, you lucky SOB.
This table below shows the average amount of teams you scored more points than on a weekly basis.
Let's take a quick look at the average margin of victory and defeat this year.
Average Points For
Average Points Against
And finally, the standings that tell it all and a standings composition that needs to be implemented in all fantasy leagues. This shows your overall W-L record if you played against every team every week.
If it hasn't been beaten into your skull already, this should be the final piece of evidence you need; I am the coolest bro in our league this year. The good news with most of this is that we didn't see a ton of variance between teams that scored a lot of points and the W-L standings, which means there isn't a complete fraud in the playoffs or a sorry sucker that didn't get in because he had a really unfortunate schedule. I hope this provided a small dose of insight into how our season unfolded and more worthless information that you can share with only 13 other humans on planet earth.
2015 Points Breakdown
Last year we took a harder look at the points scored for and against our teams and how that affected our final place in the standings. Everyone seemed to enjoy this and we all like to play the "what if?" game, so I thought we'd take another look at how we scored points this year and how points were scored against us. You can expect some stats and occasional commentary below and we'll try to determine who was lucky, who was good, who was neither, and who was both in 2016.
We'll kick it off by showing a heat map of the points scored for the owners in this league. Red is good, blue is not so good.
We'll kick it off by showing a heat map of the points scored for the owners in this league. Red is good, blue is not so good.
If you were curious how Dave and Jerome started the season so shitty, this should help explain it. Just an atrocious start by both these guys that sent them to the basement quickly where they stayed for quite a while. You can visualize the consistently good teams on this table above and this shows you why Castillo, Peppel, Zach, and Meyer have been the top four teams in our league pretty much since week one. Lot of red for all of those guys. Petty's temperature flowed consistently up and down all year, which probably correlates to the unpredictability of his QB's and D's. Chris was pretty consistently good but did cool off after week 5 a little bit and had some really rough scoring weeks. Corey and Dan started and ended pretty well but were absolutely horrible in the middle of the season. J.P. and Fanning have stayed around the middle most of the year, which is why they never really threatened for any regular season money and were never in much jeopardy of losing a playoff spot. Jordan was all over the board but got good games when he needed them. You can see where Dave started making his playoff push and how Peppel and Chris's bad ending doomed them.
Now let's look at the stuff we cannot control, points scored against our teams.
Now let's look at the stuff we cannot control, points scored against our teams.
This table doesn't show any strong patterns, which of course, makes sense. We mentioned Kevin's strong middle of the season and if you combine this table with the one above, you'll see a lot of red in weeks 5 through 9, which is when he vaulted up our standings. Unfortunately for Petty, the luck gods did not like him at the start or end of the year. You can see how the commish got into the playoffs and those are mainly due to the two cheap wins he got in weeks 12 and 13. The Pep's were lucky and good most of the year and the same can be said for Castillo and Zach, which is why they all finished in our top 3. I remember Dan and Corey getting boned last year with the points against luck and their streak carried over into 2015. Corey and Dan do deserve credit for completing the Triple Crown of Suck, finishing last in wins, points scored, and points against.
Now we'll try to bounce quickly from owner to owner to see what their end of season record would look like if they played with the schedule of every other owner in our league. We'll start with our regular season champ.
Now we'll try to bounce quickly from owner to owner to see what their end of season record would look like if they played with the schedule of every other owner in our league. We'll start with our regular season champ.
These tables are going to tell us a little bit but not a ton about how lucky or good each team was. These are more for fun to see the range of outcomes that could've happened depending on our schedules. The reason J.P.'s schedule woul've been more favorable for Castillo is that J.P.'s opponents didn't score a lot of points on the weeks Castillo didn't score a lot of points, therefore, Castillo would've edged out a couple of tight, ugly wins compared to the other owners. Castillo's schedule seems to be more or less fair for him although it does say something about the randomness of fantasy football that our points and regular season champ would've been scrambling for a playoff spot in the final week of the season if he had Dave's schedule.
The Peppel's were fortunate enough to have the least total points scored against them but that doesn't mean these points against translated to the best possible W-L outcome. Again, this is due to the timing of what weeks your team scores less points than usual and how lucky you would've been to get a cheap victory that week. The Pep's scored the third most points so we can't call them incredibly lucky but their easy schedule might've helped them get an extra win or two compared to others in our league.
Zach is used to outscoring everyone while usually outlucking everyone so 2015 must've been a shock to Suer's system. Zach should be a little chapped that the schedule played out the way it did for him because he easily could've contended for his third straight regular season title if he had a different schedule. Zach did score a lot of points but he also had three brutal weeks and those three weeks did him no favors in the W-L column.
Meyer was one of the few owners that ranked in the top 5 most every week for points scored and even though he didn't have a lot of points against at the end of the season, he never faced a lot of total duds on a weekly basis. This caused him to grind out his wins most weeks and probably got him a loss or two more than he deserved. If Meyer has Peppel's schedule, he wins our league comfortably.
Jordan had our league's least predictable team, which is why his season could've been much worse or much better than it turned out. Jordan could've contended for a regular season title or finished dead fucking last in our league depending on what schedule he had. You'll see that when Jordan was bad, Kevin's opponents were good and visa versa, which could've turned Jordan's season into a sour one pretty quickly.
I give J.P. a lot of shit for being lucky in this league but it's kind of hard to argue with that based on the stats we pump out in this league. J.P. got about the best schedule he could've hoped for as our defending champ usually didn't score a lot or a little points and he probably got one more victory than he deserved. In reality, this means nothing as J.P. probably makes the playoffs in most scenarios but if he had the schedule of Jordan, C&D, Petty, or Meyer, J.P. wouldn't be playing right now.
Much like J.P., Fanning never got too hot or too cold throughout the year, which is why we don't see a ton of range in his possible W-L record, with one exception. The Peppel's favorable schedule would've been particularly pleasing for Jeff as he would've taken home the title if he were so lucky. Fanning has hugged the equator of the points globe all year and in pretty much every scenario would be close to where he actually ended up in 2015.
Jerome was lucky to play a couple of duds late in the year and he wouldn't have gotten in if he had the schedule of the bottom five on the table above. The commish certainly didn't deserve a shot at the top and he wouldn't have gotten one no matter what. Jerome's slow start tried really hard to bury this team but they did come alive after week 7, which saved their season and probably would've done the same with seven other team's schedules this year.
Chris has been bent over a barrel more often than not in this league and the fact that he had the worst possible schedule he could've gotten will make Chris want to crack open a whiskey barrel and drink all of its contents. Any other schedule and Chris gets into the playoffs and with the schedule of Fanning, Suer, and Castillo, Chris at least makes it very interesting on the last week of the season to win a little money. Chris didn't do himself any favors by having four really bad weeks, two of which came in weeks 12 and 13 but you have to feel a little sorry that Chris missed the playoffs based on his schedule and his schedule alone.
Dave had a funny thing happen to him this year as he was either blown out or blowing someone out each week. When he was ice cold at the start of the year, he played a hot team and when Dave was hot, he played a frigid opponent. Seeing Chris at the top of this hypothetical schedule standings doesn't make sense because we just saw that Chris had the worst possible schedule possible for him. Well, that's just how random this can be because whoever Chris was playing that week would've matched up well against Dave and allowed Dave to win the small margin games that we've talked about plenty already. Dave should be pretty fired up that his team played like absolute shit to start the year and he should also be a little pissed that he got the schedule he did this season.
Now that we're talking about the teams that didn't make the playoffs, we can expect to see that the schedule handed to them was usually the worst one. Same goes with Kevin whose rollercoaster ride of scoring didn't sit well with the schedule he had to play this year. Kevin very well could've gotten into the playoffs this year and with 10 other team's schedule, he would've. Kevin probably deserved six or seven losses no matter what but probably also deserved to participate in a little playoff football this year.
Finally, here's our last place team who surprisingly could've had it a little worse this year. Generally, Corey and Dan were terrible at scoring points but they also got the shaft from playing a lot of hot teams, which means with a little better scheduling luck, these guys would've somehow snuck into the playoffs. It's two years running for this team to be the most unlucky in terms of points against and if Santa is listening, these two would really appreciate a little help when it comes to the 2016 D12 schedule.
Let's quickly break down the points scored and points against to see how we all did this year and how that compared to the league average.
Let's quickly break down the points scored and points against to see how we all did this year and how that compared to the league average.
That orange row is where you should aim if you want to have a decent chance at winning each week in our league. We see a pretty large dropoff after Meyer but otherwise, this flows about as evenly as you might expect. For all the talk of luck, this table is reassuring to us as the top four owners on this table represent the top four seeds in our playoffs. It's good to see the top scoring teams get rewarded as such.
Here's the points against.
Here's the points against.
This shows how incredibly unlucky Corey and Dan were and how lucky the Pep's were. Pretty easy for the Pep's to get 9 wins when they have to score 85 points each week. Pretty tough for C&D to get a win when they are constantly playing a team that scores in the triple digits. Much like how we saw the top four team in points represent our 1-4 seeds, this table shows the four eliminated teams atop the bad luck standings for points against. On one hand, we see that scoring points will usually be reflected with a nice spot in the standings just like we see how getting unlucky with the points against can be a pox on your season.
Let's close with a new concept and one that I actually like in terms of truly gauging how we should evaluate the good and bad teams in our league. I took the scores of every game each week this year and bounced them up against each other to see how many teams we would've defeated throughout the season if we played every team every week. For example, in week one if you scored more points than 8 teams that week, your weekly record would've been 8-3-0 that week. I added this up for all 13 weeks to see who truly would've won the most games this year regardless of schedule and the results are below.
Let's close with a new concept and one that I actually like in terms of truly gauging how we should evaluate the good and bad teams in our league. I took the scores of every game each week this year and bounced them up against each other to see how many teams we would've defeated throughout the season if we played every team every week. For example, in week one if you scored more points than 8 teams that week, your weekly record would've been 8-3-0 that week. I added this up for all 13 weeks to see who truly would've won the most games this year regardless of schedule and the results are below.
Mike Castillo is the justified king of the Dirty Dozen this year. I like this Super Mega Mammoth Ultimate Extreme Standings because it strips away the luck of the draw and keeps all owners on the same playing field each week throughout the season. The top four would remain in the same subgroup but Meyer would've gotten a few more wins than Pep and Suer. Chris gets his due here as he would've been better than seven owners on an even playing field and Dan and Corey still would've been our bitches no matter what. Total points scored is a nice gauge to know who is the good and bad teams in this league and we help reward those owners but I also think something like these Super Standings does an even better job.
I hope we all learned a little more about how we could've and should've ended up this year while confirming the theory that high scoring teams usually end up on top and the unlucky points against teams usually miss the playoffs, especially if they don't rank highly in points scored. At least that's what we learned this year. Thanks for taking the plunge on our statistical deep dive and I hope you feel a little more justified when you argue with your friends on how good or bad your fantasy team was this year.
I hope we all learned a little more about how we could've and should've ended up this year while confirming the theory that high scoring teams usually end up on top and the unlucky points against teams usually miss the playoffs, especially if they don't rank highly in points scored. At least that's what we learned this year. Thanks for taking the plunge on our statistical deep dive and I hope you feel a little more justified when you argue with your friends on how good or bad your fantasy team was this year.
2014 Points Breakdown
Thanks to our continued pursuit of the Granger Cup, we are smarter observers of NFL and fantasy football today than we've ever been. We have millions of stats available at our fingertips and the increase in resources has made us understand football a little better than we did when we started this league 14 years ago. Over the years we've gained a better understanding that an owner's win-loss record tells us a story about that owner but certainly doesn't tell the whole story. The amount of points scored is probably the most important thing in building a winning fantasy team but points against is something that can ruin a fantasy season just based on scheduling luck. Due to some historical winning and losing streaks currently alive in the Dirty Dozen, more owners are starting to realize what an important role a person's schedule can play. We've done a nice job of awarding teams that score points and along with the weekly point breakdown in our email's inbox, we can see who is getting lucky and who isn't when we look at our standings. We've got ourselves a pretty intelligent league and it's because we like to look at some next level stats, which we'll do in this D12 post.
What I've attempted to do is to see where each owner would sit in our standings if they had a different schedule than their actual one. I gathered up our weekly scores and compared them to what all the other owners scored that week to see if our win-loss records would be much different. Some of the results were interesting and I'll try to lay it out the best I can with the usual array of spreadsheets and numbers.
For this first section of data, I broke down each owner's points scored per week and displayed how they would've performed with every other owner's schedule up until week 11. I'll break it down owner by owner and offer up a short summary to help everyone understand and digest the numbers we're looking at. We'll start our research by focusing on the commish and what his record would be with everyone else's 2014 schedule.
What I've attempted to do is to see where each owner would sit in our standings if they had a different schedule than their actual one. I gathered up our weekly scores and compared them to what all the other owners scored that week to see if our win-loss records would be much different. Some of the results were interesting and I'll try to lay it out the best I can with the usual array of spreadsheets and numbers.
For this first section of data, I broke down each owner's points scored per week and displayed how they would've performed with every other owner's schedule up until week 11. I'll break it down owner by owner and offer up a short summary to help everyone understand and digest the numbers we're looking at. We'll start our research by focusing on the commish and what his record would be with everyone else's 2014 schedule.
The commish sits at 6-5 right now, which has him in 5th place but he would be higher in this standings if he had anyone else's schedule besides his, Chris's and C&D. You will soon realize that the Pep's have one accommodating schedule and if Jerome had played the Pep's opponents every week, Jerome would be nipping at Zach's heels for first place with a 10-1 record.
Meyer is in third place at 8-3 right now and he, much like the rest of the top three in the standings, have had a fortunate ride so far. If Meyer were as unlucky as Dave or Corey and Dan have been so far this season, he would be on the outside looking in for the playoffs at 4-7 on the year.
Here's Petty, who has endured a tough season in 10th place right now but he'd be 7-4 incredibly if he had the Peppel's schedule. Petty doesn't have a really good team and probably wouldn't be in the playoff hunt regardless but he's also had about the worst possible schedule he could've played against so far.
If a Peppel brother starts bitching about being unlucky in 2014, you should tell him to pound sand. They've had the easiest schedule by quite a bit and they would probably be somewhere between 6th-9th right now with an average schedule. Pretty crazy to think that our current #2 seed would be basically out of the playoff hunt if they had Corey and Dan's schedule. It's results like this that are the reason we pay attention to points scored for and against and why me wasting people's time with research projects about a 12 team fantasy league can be somewhat mind opening.
Dave's team has the second least points and wins in our league, which is why he would probably be looking forward to 2015 no matter whose schedule he had. He would definitely be the weakest playoff contender if he had Granger's and the Pep's schedules, both of which are looking pretty generous every time we look at them.
Castillo's moved up to #2 in points scored in our league so you would imagine that his current 6-5 record would be much better with someone else's schedule. You would be absolutely correct, too. Castillo would find himself ahead of Meyer and the Pep's if he had their schedule and would have an outside chance at the regular season title if he had Jordan's or Zach's schedule.
Chris sits very close to the middle for both points scored and points against, which is why the variation of results for Chris isn't as large as others. Again, Zach's, Peppel's, and Meyer's schedule would have Chris feeling a little better about everything while he'd be almost eliminated with Jerome's or C&D's schedule.
Here is another very interesting result and probably the one owner we are most interested in seeing how he would fair with a different schedule. Zach would still be undefeated with Meyer's schedule and would be have cemented a playoff spot with everyone's schedule besides C&D's. Pretty crazy to see a five game swing that would happen if Zach had the shitty schedule that Corey and Dan do. This is example #782 of how a team goes undefeated for so long. Score a lot of points and get lucky with your schedule than most everyone else.
Here's the other side of the spectrum as we look at our worst team in terms of points and wins. Corey and Dan only have one win so far because they've been pretty unlucky with their players and that luck has infiltrated their schedule as it was the worst possible one they could've gotten. They would've have locked up a playoff spot if they were gifted the Pep's schedule, which would've given them six more victories. That's insane.
J.P. is similar to Chris as he's comfortably in the middle in terms of wins, points for, and points against. It does appear that J.P. is going up against some big scoring teams, especially lately, which is helping drive him down the standings.
I thought Fanning would be an interesting subject based on the fact that he hasn't scored a lot of points but he's currently in 6th place. Turns out he wouldn't be in a much different spot in the standings unless he had Zach's schedule or Corey and Dan's schedule.
And finally, we'll take a look at Jordan who is striving to remain relevant in the 9th position. He would be in better shape with the schedule of seven other owners but the difference isn't huge.
Overall, we know that the Peppel's, Zach, and Granger have had an easier path than most while Dave and especially Corey and Dan have had a brutal one. You probably could've looked at the points scored and points against standings to know this but I still think it's kind of interesting to see exactly what your record would hypothetically be if you had everyone else's 2014 schedule.
We'll now take a broader look at our league with a few tables below. This first table breaks down the average number of teams a particular owner would defeat on a weekly basis. For reference, Zach scores more points than 8.5 owners do each week on average while Corey and Dan would only beat 3 more teams on average based on their points scored.
Overall, we know that the Peppel's, Zach, and Granger have had an easier path than most while Dave and especially Corey and Dan have had a brutal one. You probably could've looked at the points scored and points against standings to know this but I still think it's kind of interesting to see exactly what your record would hypothetically be if you had everyone else's 2014 schedule.
We'll now take a broader look at our league with a few tables below. This first table breaks down the average number of teams a particular owner would defeat on a weekly basis. For reference, Zach scores more points than 8.5 owners do each week on average while Corey and Dan would only beat 3 more teams on average based on their points scored.
This table is pretty dang similar to our points scored standings, which makes sense. Again, I still think it's interesting to see how many teams you would beat each week. You can call Zach lucky if you want but he's more deserving of a win than anyone else is on a weekly basis. You can generally look at Pep's or Fanning's score each week to see if you deserve a win as they're usually outscoring 6 teams and being outscored by 6 each week. Six one, half dozen the other duuuuuuuuuuuude.
Now let's see who has had the most generous schedules on average. This table below acts like a mirror image to the one we just looked at as we're now breaking down how many teams scored less points than the opponent of each owner on average. For reference, the Peppel's opponent is getting outscored by 8.4 other teams on average, which means the Pep's have been fortunate so far.
Now let's see who has had the most generous schedules on average. This table below acts like a mirror image to the one we just looked at as we're now breaking down how many teams scored less points than the opponent of each owner on average. For reference, the Peppel's opponent is getting outscored by 8.4 other teams on average, which means the Pep's have been fortunate so far.
We should all be thankful that we don't have Corey and Dan's opponents each week because they are usually a top 3 scoring team for that week.
Now let's break down the weekly rank of points scored by owners per week. I've done a little heat map to help illustrate our tendencies throughout the year. Red means you were a one of the top scoring teams, blue means you sucked balls.
Now let's break down the weekly rank of points scored by owners per week. I've done a little heat map to help illustrate our tendencies throughout the year. Red means you were a one of the top scoring teams, blue means you sucked balls.
The temperature on Corey and Dan's season plummeted in a hurry after week one. Sure, their schedule has been a nasty S.O.B. but they've also been one of the worst scoring teams every week. They haven't scored 90 or more points since week one, which is astounding. Zach can tell the haters to suck it because he's generally deserving of a win based on his points scored. The commish and Castillo have had a handful of big scoring weeks, which have helped them climb up the standings. Jordan's team is impossible to figure out on a weekly basis and probably hinge on whether or not Tom Brady goes nuts or not.
Now let's do the same but with points against. Blue means you got unlucky that week while red means you're a fortunate son.
Now let's do the same but with points against. Blue means you got unlucky that week while red means you're a fortunate son.
You can see how the commish started 0-3 and that's because he played against hot teams those three weeks. Corey and Dan's heat map looks identical as the points scored as they are getting blistered on both sides. Here we can see how lucky the Pep's have been as they have played one of the three worst teams for five weeks in a row. That's how a 7 game winning streak remains alive. J.P. and Chris have been pretty unlucky lately while Castillo's points against fortunes have turned since week 7. It's been all bad for Dave, mostly bad for Kevin and Fanning, while it's been warm and sunny for Zach and Meyer most of the season.
Let's break down our average points scored per week real quick.
Let's break down our average points scored per week real quick.
You should know most of this info by now so no need for me to ramble. This looks pretty similar to our current standings.
Now to our points against, which helps us get a better idea of why everyone stands where they do.
Now to our points against, which helps us get a better idea of why everyone stands where they do.
An 80 point week is a crappy one usually but it's usually getting the job done for the Peppel's. I'm a little surprised to see Jordan ranked so high as he's pretty low in our standings. This is also where we give Jerome and Fanning some credit for hanging in there with pretty tough schedules.
Now let's combine the points scored and points against to see what the average margin is on a weekly basis.
Now let's combine the points scored and points against to see what the average margin is on a weekly basis.
This should pretty much sum up all that we've been reading so far. Zach is where he's at because he's great at scoring points and is pretty lucky with the points against. His Sunday's are easy, peasy, Japaneesy. The Pep's are doing better than most at scoring points but it's their points against which is why they aren't sweating out prime time games on Sunday or Monday night. It looks like the commish should see brighter days ahead while Meyer and Jordan might be in for a rough ending to the season.
I hope this gives everyone a little more ammo in their chamber when they share a beer an talk D12 football. It's all about fraud protection with a post like this so we can identify owners that aren't who the ESPN standings say they are. There are owners that should be buying you a beer based on their good fortune (Pep's, Z, and Meyer) and those who we should offer to buy the first round for because they've been bitten all season long (Dave, Fanning, Corey, and Dan) In fact, buy Corey and Dan a shot while you're at it. Research like this just reinforces the fact that fantasy football is about 60% of what you do and 40% of what your opponent does on a weekly basis.
I hope this gives everyone a little more ammo in their chamber when they share a beer an talk D12 football. It's all about fraud protection with a post like this so we can identify owners that aren't who the ESPN standings say they are. There are owners that should be buying you a beer based on their good fortune (Pep's, Z, and Meyer) and those who we should offer to buy the first round for because they've been bitten all season long (Dave, Fanning, Corey, and Dan) In fact, buy Corey and Dan a shot while you're at it. Research like this just reinforces the fact that fantasy football is about 60% of what you do and 40% of what your opponent does on a weekly basis.