Week 9 Newsletter

Sorry for the late newsletter–I added a pretty significant section that took some time to put together. Let’s get into it!

Weekly Status Update

Current Playoff Seeds

If the playoff seeds were calculated today, here’s who would make the cut.

Seed	Team Name	Criteria
1st	Bling Bling	Division winner with best record*
2nd	Kali Warriors	Division winner with second-best record*
3rd	Tricksters	Division winner with third-best record*
4th	Pegasus	Division winner with worst record*
5th	Total domination	Team with best record among remaining*
6th	Not Lucky	Team with most points for among remaining

*Ties broken by Points For.

Title Belt - New Belt Holder!

Total domination has LOST the title belt to Bling Bling after losing their Week 8 matchup!

Bling Bling will be defending the title from the speed-demons in this week’s upcoming matchup.

Scoring by Division

Rank	Division Name	Points For	Wins	Average PPG
1	Division By Zero	4253.32	15	177.22
2	Cerberus	3764.54	13	156.86
3	The Resistance	4012.50	12	167.19
4	High Flyers	3719.88	8	155.00

Overall Wins by Week

Team	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7	Week 8
Kali Warriors	5-6	11-0	4-7	7-4	9-2	7-4	6-5	10-1
The Death Eaters	4-7	5-6	5-6	5-6	8-3	5-6	8-3	2-9
Red Warriors	0-11	2-9	7-4	0-11	0-11	2-9	1-10	4-7
speed-demons	10-1	3-8	8-3	1-10	3-8	9-2	7-4	5-6
Tricksters	7-4	7-4	3-8	10-1	5-6	11-0	4-7	6-5
Necessary Roughness	2-9	4-7	0-11	6-5	2-9	8-3	11-0	8-3
Bling Bling	8-3	10-1	9-2	11-0	11-0	6-5	5-6	11-0
Not Lucky	9-2	9-2	11-0	2-9	6-5	0-11	10-1	3-8
Detroit Wolverines	1-10	0-11	1-10	8-3	7-4	10-1	9-2	9-2
Pegasus	11-0	6-5	10-1	9-2	4-7	1-10	0-11	1-10
Golden Eagles	6-5	1-10	2-9	3-8	10-1	4-7	2-9	7-4
Winged Hussars	3-8	8-3	6-5	4-7	1-10	3-8	3-8	0-11

Points Leaders

Points For

Rank	Team Name	Points For	Change	Points Behind Lead	Points Behind Next Rank
1	Bling Bling	1511.30	`0`	0.00	0.00
2	Kali Warriors	1417.90	`1`	93.40	93.40
3	Not Lucky	1416.78	`-1`	94.52	1.12
4	Tricksters	1364.38	`0`	146.92	52.40
5	speed-demons	1337.36	`0`	173.94	27.02
6	Detroit Wolverines	1325.24	`2`	186.06	12.12
7	Necessary Roughness	1310.76	`2`	200.54	14.48
8	The Death Eaters	1304.10	`-1`	207.20	6.66
9	Pegasus	1297.20	`-3`	214.10	6.90
10	Golden Eagles	1248.44	`0`	262.86	48.76
11	Winged Hussars	1174.24	`0`	337.06	74.20
12	Red Warriors	1042.54	`0`	468.76	131.70

Pegasus falls three places in Points For after their third consecutive week finishing in the bottom two of scorers. Necessary Roughness and the Detroit Wolverines continue climbing these ranks (and more).

Max Points For

Rank	Team Name	Max PF
1	Not Lucky	1841.04
2	speed-demons	1793.10
3	Detroit Wolverines	1791.56
4	Bling Bling	1788.30
5	Kali Warriors	1778.32
6	Tricksters	1738.08
7	Golden Eagles	1636.22
8	Necessary Roughness	1607.78
9	Winged Hussars	1585.04
10	The Death Eaters	1564.38
11	Pegasus	1552.02
12	Red Warriors	1415.22

Manager Ranking

Rank	Team Name	Points For	Max PF	Manager Grade	Change
1	Bling Bling	1511.30	1788.30	84.51%	1
2	Pegasus	1297.20	1552.02	83.58%	-1
3	The Death Eaters	1304.10	1564.38	83.36%	0
4	Necessary Roughness	1310.76	1607.78	81.53%	0
5	Kali Warriors	1417.90	1778.32	79.73%	0
6	Tricksters	1364.38	1738.08	78.50%	0
7	Not Lucky	1416.78	1841.04	76.96%	0
8	Golden Eagles	1248.44	1636.22	76.30%	0
9	speed-demons	1337.36	1793.10	74.58%	1
10	Winged Hussars	1174.24	1585.04	74.08%	-1
11	Detroit Wolverines	1325.24	1791.56	73.97%	1
12	Red Warriors	1042.54	1415.22	73.67%	-1

Power Rankings

Table

TEAM NAME	RANK	CHANGE	RECORD	OVW	PPG	ROS ROSTER	CONS	OVW L5
Bling Bling	#1	`0`	7-1	71-17	#1, 189ppg	#2	#4	44
Kali Warriors	#2	`0`	5-3	59-29	#2, 177ppg	#1	#2	39
Tricksters	#3	`0`	4-4	53-35	#4, 171ppg	#3	#1	36
Detroit Wolverines	#4	`4`	4-4	45-43	#6, 166ppg	#4	#8	43
The Death Eaters	#5	`0`	5-3	42-46	#8, 163ppg	#6	#5	28
speed-demons	#6	`0`	4-4	46-42	#5, 167ppg	#5	#3	25
Necessary Roughness	#7	`2`	4-4	41-47	#7, 164ppg	#8	#6	35
Not Lucky	#8	`-4`	4-4	50-38	#3, 177ppg	#10	#11	21
Pegasus	#9	`-2`	4-4	42-46	#9, 162ppg	#7	#12	15
Golden Eagles	#10	`0`	3-5	35-53	#10, 156ppg	#9	#10	26
Red Warriors	#11	`1`	3-5	16-72	#12, 130ppg	#12	#9	7
Winged Hussars	#12	`-1`	1-7	28-60	#11, 147ppg	#11	#7	11

Over Time

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Observations

Two significant shake-ups happened after Week 8:

The Detroit Wolverines and Not Lucky switched places, with the Wolverines rocketing up 4 places to #4 and Not Lucky plummeting back down 4 places to #8.
Less dramatically, Necessary Roughness and Pegasus also switched places, with Necessary Roughness climbing 2 places to #7 and Pegasus dropping 2 down to #9.

Adding to that, Not Lucky and Pegasus are the first top-7 team since Week 5 to drop below #7. It’s definitely been a rocky past few weeks for them.

The Red Warriors have managed to barely pull themselves out of the depths of #12–and I mean barely. The difference between the Warriors and the Hussars in terms of the score I calculate to determine PR is very small. They’ve managed this mostly by luck; despite their 130PPG and only getting seven overall wins in the last five weeks, they did manage to defy the odds and get two actual wins in that time frame, putting their record at an improbable 3-5. The Hussars have just barely managed to do worse than them, which at least bodes well for their 2020 draft position!

ROS Roster Rankings Over Time

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Observations

Not Lucky has continued to sink, dropping to their lowest ROS Roster ranking of the season at #10. This largely comes as a result of Ekeler’s diminished performance in the wake of Gordon’s return (despite looking like a much better back for the Chargers), as well as Coleman’s return hurting Breida’s ROS outlook.

Playoff Probabilities - New Segment!

This week I cooked up a script to simulate the rest of the regular season to give a rough idea of everyone’s odds at making a playoff run given their upcoming Weeks 9-13 schedule.

Methodology

I took the upcoming schedule and ran it through a Monte Carlo simulation, simulating 100,000 different regular season outcomes.

It’s not sophisticated; it doesn’t factor in upcoming BYE weeks or consider the different matchups players on each roster have that might produce extraordinary games.

Here’s what it does right now:

Takes each team and computes a truncated mean and standard deviation for their point totals scored throughout the season.
- I’m truncating the scores by removing each team’s lowest and highest score from the mean.
Goes through each week and simulates a matchup by generating a random score for each team in the matchup. This random score is generated assuming a normal distribution and is based on the truncated mean and standard deviation for the team.
After simulating the rest of the season, it calculates the playoff seeding for the results and records them.

Since it doesn’t take future BYE weeks into account that would potentially factor into future upsets, it’s obviously not a perfect simulation. But it does give you an idea for how difficult your coming schedule is.

Probability Table

Ordered by probability.

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	Probability of Playoff Berth
Bling Bling	98.41%	1.42%	0.07%	0.00%	0.10%	0.01%	100.00%
Kali Warriors	1.44%	69.74%	9.86%	0.77%	8.15%	7.37%	97.33%
Not Lucky	0.04%	0.04%	0.00%	0.00%	36.96%	58.02%	95.06%
Tricksters	0.01%	11.59%	53.00%	6.92%	1.96%	9.45%	82.92%
Pegasus	0.00%	2.31%	9.75%	70.58%	0.01%	0.02%	82.67%
The Death Eaters	0.09%	11.58%	5.90%	0.62%	21.57%	0.15%	39.91%
Detroit Wolverines	0.01%	0.01%	0.01%	0.00%	23.77%	16.08%	39.88%
speed-demons	0.00%	1.65%	12.22%	2.69%	3.70%	7.78%	28.04%
Golden Eagles	0.00%	0.08%	0.36%	16.88%	0.02%	0.01%	17.35%
Necessary Roughness	0.00%	1.59%	8.83%	1.49%	3.76%	1.11%	16.79%
Winged Hussars	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.04%	0.00%	0.00%	0.04%
Red Warriors	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%

Week 9 Matchups

Team 1	Team 2
Kali Warriors	Golden Eagles
78.87%	21.13%
Red Warriors	Detroit Wolverines
2.74%	97.27%
The Death Eaters	Pegasus
52.40%	47.60%
Winged Hussars	Tricksters
5.84%	94.17%
speed-demons	Bling Bling
15.07%	84.94%
Necessary Roughness	Not Lucky
34.56%	65.44%

Week 10 Matchups

Team 1	Team 2
Kali Warriors	Detroit Wolverines
57.49%	42.51%
Red Warriors	Bling Bling
0.21%	99.79%
Golden Eagles	The Death Eaters
38.26%	61.74%
Tricksters	Not Lucky
50.88%	49.12%
Winged Hussars	speed-demons
16.76%	83.24%
Necessary Roughness	Pegasus
54.53%	45.47%

Week 11 Matchups

Team 1	Team 2
Kali Warriors	The Death Eaters
77.48%	22.52%
Red Warriors	Not Lucky
2.21%	97.80%
Bling Bling	Detroit Wolverines
75.45%	24.55%
Tricksters	Pegasus
66.43%	33.57%
speed-demons	Necessary Roughness
54.91%	45.10%
Golden Eagles	Winged Hussars
61.00%	39.00%

Week 12 Matchups

Team 1	Team 2
Kali Warriors	Red Warriors
98.70%	1.30%
The Death Eaters	Detroit Wolverines
31.06%	68.94%
speed-demons	Tricksters
34.13%	65.87%
Winged Hussars	Necessary Roughness
21.04%	78.96%
Bling Bling	Not Lucky
74.85%	25.15%
Golden Eagles	Pegasus
44.19%	55.82%

Week 13 Matchups

Team 1	Team 2
Kali Warriors	Bling Bling
30.45%	69.55%
The Death Eaters	Red Warriors
98.08%	1.92%
Tricksters	Necessary Roughness
70.17%	29.84%
Golden Eagles	speed-demons
32.45%	67.55%
Detroit Wolverines	Not Lucky
48.79%	51.21%
Winged Hussars	Pegasus
35.30%	64.70%

Observations

Pegasus is favored to take the High Flyers division, but it’ll be interesting to see how that actually plays out. Their early success is obviously a big factor in their simulated success, so we’ll have to see if they manage to get back on their feet for the home stretch. Looking at their upcoming schedule, the deciding matchup will likely be their face-off against each other in Week 12, assuming they both win against the Hussars (good assumption) and lose their tougher matchups (GE vs. KW and PEG vs. TRIC).
Division by Zero is going to be really interesting to watch. Bling Bling and Not Lucky are both projected to easily make the playoffs, and the Detroit Wolverines aren’t ruled out either–they currently sit at around a 40% chance to make it in via a wild card seed. If they can pull off an upset against the Kali Warriors in Week 10 or against their division rivals in Weeks 11 and 13, that’ll be huge for their chances.

Team-by-Team Breakdown

Bling Bling (1)

Team Name	Record	Division Rank	Overall Wins	Points For	PPG	PPG vs. League AVG
Bling Bling	7-1	1	71-17	1511.30	188.91	24.85

Bling Bling is just unfair. Their Week 8 starting QB was Teddy Bridgewater, a guy who didn’t even start and ended up putting up negative points, and Bling Bling still put up 200+ points and had the highest score for the week–second highest score in the league on the season.

Bling Bling plays the speed-demons this week, and I’m fairly confident it’ll be another W for BB.

Kali Warriors (2)

Team Name	Record	Division Rank	Overall Wins	Points For	PPG	PPG vs. League AVG
Kali Warriors	5-3	1	59-29	1417.90	177.24	13.17

After a decisive victory over the declining Not Lucky, the Kali Warriors are back on top of their division. Total domination is nipping at their heels, but the Warriors have a significant Points For margin ahead of TD. As long as the Warriors can keep up the wins, they should be able to make it out ahead of TD in the division. But fantasy is a cruel mistress, and a couple unfortunate upsets could turn the tables really quickly.

Tricksters (3)

Team Name	Record	Division Rank	Overall Wins	Points For	PPG	PPG vs. League AVG
Tricksters	4-4	1	53-35	1364.38	170.55	6.48

In a fun turn of events, the entire Resistance division is 4-4, and among mediocrity, the Tricksters reign supreme. Theirs is a very fun division to watch–the division title is easily within every member’s grasp. At this point, though, given their performance to date, it’s difficult to see anyone taking the division title over the Tricksters when all is said and done.

This week the Tricksters face an easy matchup against the Winged Hussars, while the speed-demons and Necessary Roughness face much tougher foes: Bling Bling and Not Lucky, respectively. A key upset this week would put either divisional rival in a good position in the race for Resistance glory.

Detroit Wolverines (4)

Team Name	Record	Division Rank	Overall Wins	Points For	PPG	PPG vs. League AVG
Detroit Wolverines	4-4	3	45-43	1325.24	165.66	1.59

What a turnaround for the Wolverines. In weeks 3 and 4, they were ranked dead last and were looking like the worst team in the league. Over the past few weeks they have been dominant, notching up 43 overall wins, which is the second in the league for that time frame.

The unfortunate part for the Wolverines is that their only real hope at a playoff berth is securing a wild card seed. The Division by Zero title is all but secured in the hands of Bling Bling. As they ascend the Points For ranks, that 6th seed is looking more and more attainable, and there is a decent chance that every member of Division by Zero makes it into the playoffs.

Total domination (5)

Team Name	Record	Division Rank	Overall Wins	Points For	PPG	PPG vs. League AVG
Total domination	5-3	2	42-46	1304.10	163.01	-1.05

Total domination’s win streak came to an end in Week 8, as they lost to Bling Bling pretty handily. Bad luck can’t really be blamed for the loss either, as their Week 8 overall win record was a sad 2-9.

This week is looking up for them, though, as they face Pegasus, a team that hasn’t looked formidable since Week 4. However, they’ll need the Golden Eagles to pull out an upset against the Kali Warriors this week if they want to get back on top of the division.

speed-demons (6)

Team Name	Record	Division Rank	Overall Wins	Points For	PPG	PPG vs. League AVG
speed-demons	4-4	2	46-42	1337.36	167.17	3.10

The speed-demons have had a very average season so far, and fortunately for them, so has their division. They’re the most immediate threat to the Tricksters’ divisional lead, and as the trade deadline appears over the horizon, it might be time to decide whether to make a move and commit to contention or to let the chips fall how they may.

Necessary Roughness (7)

Team Name	Record	Division Rank	Overall Wins	Points For	PPG	PPG vs. League AVG
Necessary Roughness	4-4	3	41-47	1310.76	163.85	-0.22

At #7, Necessary Roughness is at their highest point in the power rankings all season.

Their outlook this season is bleak, sitting at a 16.79% chance to make the playoffs. They’ll need to make some key upsets in order to secure the divisional title, so it’s time for them to take stock of their situation and either make moves to better their odds or start looking to the future and crossing their fingers for some lucky breaks.

Not Lucky (8)

Team Name	Record	Division Rank	Overall Wins	Points For	PPG	PPG vs. League AVG
Not Lucky	4-4	2	50-38	1416.78	177.10	13.03

It’s been so up-and-down for Not Lucky this season. At #8, they’re at the lowest point they’ve been so far.

Their overall team performance and points scored on the season puts them in a great position to secure a playoff run, but their consistency as of late has been all over the place. With some crucial BYEs coming up (Fournette, Lockett, etc.), there’s some real worry for Not Lucky moving forward, especially with the Wolverines quickly approaching from behind.

Pegasus (9)

Team Name	Record	Division Rank	Overall Wins	Points For	PPG	PPG vs. League AVG
Pegasus	4-4	1	42-46	1297.20	162.15	-1.91

Pegasus has continued to decline this week, dropping two more places to #9. They have a tenuous hold on their division, but fortunately for them, their division is incredibly weak. They’ve suffered some depth issues with injuries and BYEs, so hopefully the for them the worst has passed. If so, they have a good chance at a playoff berth. How far they get in the playoffs is another matter entirely.

Golden Eagles (10)

Team Name	Record	Division Rank	Overall Wins	Points For	PPG	PPG vs. League AVG
Golden Eagles	3-5	2	35-53	1248.44	156.06	-8.01

The Golden Eagles have an uphill battle to the playoffs. It’s a shallow hill, but it’s uphill nonetheless. They’ve shown flashes of greatness but have been pretty inconsistent. If they hope to secure a playoff berth, they’ll need a few more flashes of greatness.