Author: Max Cubberley

MAX’S STAT BLATS! Week 2

League Business Max Stat Blats Stat Attacks No Comments

For this week’s Stat Blat I thought I’d take the subject of my week 2 Stat Blat from last season and expand it.  In Week 2 of the 2015 season I looked at the average points from 2014 and 2015 through two weeks to looks for early indicators of squad improvement and design, as well as looking at potential points on average to see what impact GM selection was having.  I’ll be doing a similar idea this week.  For those of you who might claim I’m only doing this again so I don’t have to think of a new thing to look at, you’re quite right.

Reality Bites

Below is a table of comparisons for average points in weeks 1-2 of 2014, 2015 and 2016, ordered by 2015 finishing order.

Team Name 2015 Standing 2014 Wk2 2015 Wk2 2016 Wk2 POA Diff
Champions 11-2 1-1 (181 poa) 2-0 (192 poa) 1-1 (216 poa) +11/+24
Tamworth 2 7-6 2-0 (185 poa) 1-1 (167 poa) 0-2 (184 poa) -18/+17
Dyna Hard 10-3 0-2 (168 poa) 2-0 (223 poa) 0-2 (176 poa) +55/-47
Kelkowski 6-7 2-0 (212 poa) 0-2 (153 poa) 1-1 (160 poa) -59/+7
Bombermen 6-7 0-2 (168 poa) 0-2 (156 poa) 2-0 (224 poa) -12/+68
Sadness 4-9 0-2 (129 poa) 0-2 (154 poa) 1-1 (174 poa) +25/+20
Losers 6-7 2-0 (175 poa) 1-1 (167 poa) 1-1 (190 poa) -3/+23
Dungeoneers 5-8 1-1 (161 poa) 2-0 (158 poa) 1-1 (171 poa) -3/+13
Breeses 6-7 1-1 (146 poa) 0-2 (152 poa) 1-1 (191 poa) +6/+39
Firebirds 4-9 1-1 (137 poa) 1-1 (181 poa) 2-0 (206 poa) +44/+25

 

The obvious story on the positive side is the Dynablaster Bombermen.  After a disappointing 2015 they’ve come out gangbusters in 2016 with a massive 68 point average performance jump from 2015.  A big part of that has to be their receivers with Brandin Cooks, Kelvin Benjamin and Jordan Matthews all in their 3rd years now and established as the number 1 options on their team.

Behind the B-men there are a cluster of teams showing significant improvement in the 20s range.  The Firebirds have started stronger each year of the Dbowl so far and have been propelled to a 2-0 start by the surprising strength of their defence, averaging 112 points per game, the best in the league.  The Dynasore Losers have also improved on 2015 and have had their strongest start yet, despite being 1-1.  Offensive improvement is key here as the team is averaging 15 points more on offence through 2 games then they did in 2015, much of it contributable to a shift to Carson Palmer at QB and Matt Forte’s huge workload in New York.

The Sadness have shown steady improvement now for two years but when you consider that they still only averaged 174 points this year so far then it’s clear that this is just the continuing story of a team struggling towards mediocrity after an awful initial draft.  Still, improvement is improvement and the team is young.  If they jump 20 points again next year they could find themselves 2-0.  Lastly, the Champions (in every sense of the word) may be 1-1 but have shown improvement again this year.  This may not be a sign that they are in for another dominant year though as they actually started slowly last season.  The second highest average points scored shows that they are still a force to be reckoned with though.

On the other hand, you have to look at Chris Braithwaite’s Dyna Hard With A Vengeance and wonder what went wrong.  They were hugely improved last season but seem to have lost all of that positive gain this year, losing 47 points on average.  As I highlighted in my preview, the running backs are a problem with none of them averaging over 10 points a game but the WRs are struggling too.  Only Antonio Brown is over 20 total points, none of the rest are even close.  The offence is averaging less than 100 points a game.  Only the Firebirds are worse and, unlike Neil’s team, Chris’ defence is not firing on all cylinders.

Interestingly, Chris is the only team to be averaging less points than this time last year.  Every other team is showing improvement.  This doesn’t seem to be a result of scoring changes as it’s actually the offences that are scoring higher than last year’s averages, rather than the defences.  Teams as a whole are averaging 189 points compared to 184 from last season.  Maybe we’re all just getting better at this shit?

Is It Indicative?

Is there really any point to this?  Does performance in the first two weeks of the season actually tell you anything about how a team will do that season?  Below is each team’s Week 2 Average and Season Average.

Team Name 2015 Wk2 Wk2 Rk 2015 Season Season Rk POA Diff
Champions 2-0 (192 poa) 2nd 11-2 (217 poa) 1st +25
Tamworth 2 1-1 (167 poa) 4th 7-6 (189 poa) 3rd +22
Dyna Hard 2-0 (223 poa) 1st 10-3 (199 poa) 2nd -24
Kelkowski 0-2 (153 poa) 9th 6-7 (189 poa) 3rd +36
Bombermen 0-2 (156 poa) 7th 6-7 (183 poa) 4th +27
Sadness 0-2 (154 poa) 8th 4-9 (179 poa) 5th +25
Losers 1-1 (167 poa) 4th 6-7 (176 poa) 7th +9
Dungeoneers 2-0 (158 poa) 6th 5-8 (168 poa) 9th +10
Breeses 0-2 (152 poa) 10th 6-7 (171 poa) 8th +19
Firebirds 1-1 (181 poa) 3rd 4-9 (178 poa) 6th -3

 

The thing that jumps out to me straight away is the reasonably consistent rate of improvement for teams.  5 of the 10 teams improved by 19 to 27 points over the course of the season on average.  This, presumably, is down to a combination of waiver wire pickups and starting lineup adjustment as the stars stashed on your bench in week 1 and 2 start to show.  The biggest risers were Kelkowski.  Looking at their lineups it’s noticeable that players like Blake Bortles, Brandon Marshall (LB), Reggie Nelson and Kwon Alexander weren’t in the starting lineup in week 1 and other big performers like Spencer Ware and Malik Jackson weren’t even on the squad yet.

To me it seems telling that the only team to lose average points (who didn’t start out abnormally hot like DynaHarder) was the Firebirds.  Neil only added 8 players through blind-bid waivers last season.  The four teams who added the most players?  Champions of the Sun (42), DynaHarder (40), Tamworth Two (30) and Kelkowski (28), i.e. the four teams in the playoffs at the end of the season.  Obviously there is a lot more to being successful in the Dynabowl than constantly churning through waiver wire additions but there’s no denying that the right pickups can have a huge effect and, just like the draft, the more tickets you buy to the lottery the more chance you have to come away with a Josh Norman, a Spencer Ware, an Allen Hurns, a Whitney Mercilus or a Willie Snead.

As far as the question of whether week 2 results are indicative or not is concerned, no team except Kelkowski moved more than 3 positions from their Week 2 Ranking to their Season Ranking.  You can improve in your score in the early weeks for sure but the best/luckiest GMs will also be improving so your ability to make up ground on those people is limited.  However, it is definitely possible to stagnate and not improve over the season.  Everyone around you will be getting better and their scores will be getting higher.  You need to do everything you can, whether that’s waiver wire additions, trades or rotating in from your bench wisely, to improve with them.

Weekly Stats

Here are your weekly averages for week 2.

Why do you Blat me up, buttercup?
Why do you Blat me up, buttercup?

Weekly Peter vs Tim Watch

Week 1: Peter (average) 179.68 vs Tim (average) 192.14.  Tim wins.  1-0 to Tim (victory margin 12.46)
Week 2: Peter (average) 184.04 vs Tim (average) 200.91.  Tim wins.  2-0 to Tim (victory margin 16.87)

Season to Date: Peter (average) 181.86 vs Tim (average) 196.53. Tim leads (margin 14.67)

MAX’S STAT BLATS! Week 1

League Business Max Stat Blats Stat Attacks No Comments

The first week of the NFL season is all about overreaction and the jerking of knees.  To honour that I will be looking at everyone’s opening week performances and drawing some wild conclusions about what it means for the season ahead.  In the absence of enough data to actually draw any real conclusions that’ll just have to do for you.

East Flanders Dungeoneers

Hot Take: Keenan Allen is broken!  Quincy Enunwa is the new Brandon Marshall!  Carson Palmer’s about to go full Peter!  I remembered Kevin White plays for the Bears!  Coby Fleener didn’t get Drew Brees a birthday cake!  That’s right, my wild conclusion for Pete’s Dungeoneers is that their receiver group that looked so good on paper in pre-season is actually a stinking turd.  “But Maxuell,” I hear you cry, “The Dungeoneers scored 6.38 points per receiver, which was bad, but the Firebirds were worse at 5.94 points per receiver!”  It’s true, the Dungeoneers were only the second worst team on a points per starter basis this week but the Birds had 7.4 per player on the bench and the Dungeoneers had 5.4.

Srsly? Yes.  Allen is really done and the Bears’ offence looks pretty dire.  Fleener’s situation does not look good either and Pete’s backup TEs don’t look great.  Obviously it’s not as bad as all that.  Cooper is still a stud and Marshall and Floyd will get theirs but I had high hopes for this group that look like they won’t be borne out.

Here Comes The Brees

Hot Take: The Breeses are the best team in Peter (not saying much, I know, see below).  Andrew Luck is back to his gunslingin’ best and even in a week where Doug Martin, Devonta Freeman and Lamar Miller didn’t get into top gear the Breeses’ offence still averaged 11.57 points per starter, good for 2nd in the league.  The defence was in the bottom half of the league as you’d imagine but this team has the raw power to bludgeon other teams to death with the power of their attacking options.

Srsly? Yes.  The Breeses and the Sadness were the best two teams in Peter this week by a comfortable margin.  Looking at the rosters of the 5 teams there’s no doubt that the Brees have the edge in offensive power so as long as their defence can maintain its position of slightly below mediocre then they should be good to go.

Tamworth Two

Hot Take: Tamworth Two will be picking at #1 in the 2017 rookie draft.  T2’s starters in week 1 were uninspiring.  I mean, they’re rolling out 52 year-old Anquan Boldin at WR and a Cleveland RB.  Things look better on the defensive side of the ball but the nerfing of big plays brings the ceiling down on their elite DTs and it’s not hard to see everyone else except Kuechly and Jones hanging T2 out to dry.  This team is very average rather than bad but everyone else has upped their game and Mat are getting left in the dirt.

Srsly? No.  Everything’s very close in Peter to my mind so it’s not impossible but I think T2 have enough quality and Mat and James are good enough GMs that they won’t finish bottom.  Although they have Slatz’ first round pick so they may still end up with the #1 pick in the rookie draft…

The People’s Republic of the 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness

Hot Take: Teddy Tinyhands’ injury will lead the Sadness to the playoffs.  We all know Michael likes to tinker.  He’s never happy with his lineups and his choices and he’s always going backwards and forwards.  This often leads to him getting too clever on his choices and overthinking them.  For that reason, Teddy Bridgewater’s season-ending injury was a very good thing for the Sadness.  Drew Brees is a consistent, top of the line fantasy QB and he was on the bench for the Sadness last season.  Now, unless Mangboob develops inexplicable Brockules man-love, Brees will be starting every game he’s available for and the Sadness will be better for it.  Perhaps the hotter take here is that I think the Detroit RBs will pave the way for a playoff appearance but both Abdullah and Riddick looked great and Mangboob could start both of them in a week and still be confident of results.

Srsly? No.  The Colts looked monumentally bad on Defence in the game against the Lions and Riddick and Abdullah will not get that open that often against many teams.  On the Brees front, I trust him, I just don’t trust Mike.  It’s a three way QBBC with Brockules and Goff when he starts.  Don’t ask me how it makes any sense, I don’t get it either.

Dynasore Losers

Hot Take: The Losers should be in re-building mode.  Look, they low-scored this week, they were third bottom in points scored last season and bottom in potential points.  Their running back corps consists of two 30+ year-old guys and a random assortment of limbs.  His defence looks like it was assembled by accident.  It’s time to get over that deep-seated tradeophobia, ship out some of the top talent and stack picks for the next couple of drafts.  Re-building around Moncrief, Landry and that stable of young QBs is the way forward for the Losers and week 1 proved it.

Srsly? Yes.  The team lacks youth and depth and you’re relying on a very high hit rate in the draft to get out of that if you don’t sell assets and stack picks up.  Free Agency should improve in quality over the next few years so it’s not impossible to rebuild that way but if Slater looked to sell the likes of Wilkerson, Forte and Sanders he could go into the 2017 draft with 10+ good picks and maybe even get back into the first round.

DynaForOne Firebirds

Hot Take: The Firebirds will make it to the Owl again.  A week 1 victory against the reigning champs?  Check.  A monster defensive performance?  Check.  The renaissance of CJ Anderson?  Check.  A dominant offence?  Ch… wait.  Oh.  Lowest scoring offence this week, you say?  Only 5.94 points per starting receiver, you say?  Second worst QB performance after Kirk Cousins, you say?  Oh.  Look, the fact that Neil’s boys put up nearly 200 points and won their matchup despite a poor offensive performance is exactly why I’m backing them.  You think Snead will be on the bench next week?  You forget that the Seahawks offence often starts slow?  Geno Atkins and Ndamukong Suh won’t put up over 40 points every week but they won’t need to.  I can see this team going places.

Srsly? No.  Of course not.  Neil will probably trade away all of his good players for a second tier DE and a 5th round pick.

Dyna Hard With A Vengeance

Hot Take: Braithwaite’s boys will be held back by weak running backs.  So, Gurley is a bust right?  OK, that may be an over-reaction but when the opposing defence can put ten players within 6 yards of the line of scrimmage on 1st and 10 because they know your QB can’t throw it further than that you’re going to be really up against it.  Apart from Gurley Chris is calling on Jamaal Charles (not healthy and coming back to a backfield dominated by Spencer Ware) and Jeremy Langford (just shit and only scoring points because there’s no-one better there yet) to do the business.  The rest of his RBs are long-shot rookies or backups and this could get ugly.  In week 1 they averaged 7.87 points per starter and 2.13 per player left on the bench (of which Shaun Draughn was the top scorer with his 16 yards and 1 vultured TD).  Gurley will have his big weeks but I don’t like any of the rest of these guys to produce consistently.

Srsly? Yes.  The hot take is harsh on Charles who isn’t the kind of player you don’t give a role to when healthy but I do think there will still be a big role for Ware all season long and that caps his ceiling.  Jeremy Langford’s best case scenario is that he keeps the job and continues to churn away his 3-3.5 YPC but any week he doesn’t get in the end zone is likely to be a low scorer.  Chris doesn’t have the TEs to only play 2 TEs and his best bet might be to hope for an injury to Rawls or Ryan Matthews to get Christine Michael or Kenjon Barner involved.

Kelkowski Don’t Play By No DynaRules

Hot Take: Kelkowski have one of the top three defences in the league.  3.58 per starter at DT/DE (7th in the league), 4.06 at CB (worst in the league) and 53.50 points total on defence (worst in the league).  Those stats should tell you everything you need to know to backup the point right?  Look, no-one’s going to pretend this defensive performance from Kelkowski wasn’t disappointing.  I imagine the men (man?) themselves had something to say to their players after the game but the reality is that the majority of this bad performance was down to a low-scoring secondary and a donut from Malik Jackson.  Every secondary in the league can have bad games, the position is very fickle, and Kelkowski have a good group full of potential.  Malik Jackson will start to rack up the points once he adjust fully to playing in Jacksonville and they still have one of the strongest groups of LBs in the league.  They’ll be fine.

Srsly? Yes.  This really is a very talented bunch who just had an off day.  Kelkowski were good in 2014, they were good again in 2015 and they’ll be good again this year.  Someone over there (presumably Ian because it’s almost certainly not Jay) knows what they’re doing.

Champions of the Sun

Hot Take: The Champions of the Sun will go from first to worst in Tim.  It was only a freakish performance from Ben Roethlisberger and DeAngelo Williams that even made this week 1 matchup with the Firebirds respectable.  The Champions scored ok on offence (largely due to the two already mentioned) but their much vaunted defence of last season did not show up at all.  Their 63.18 points was good for 8th worst and the main problem was upfront where their line scored a measly 1.75 points per player.  There was an average of 6.83 points per player on the bench but whether Cubberley has the nous to pick the right players week-on-week is seriously up for debate.

Srsly? Of course not, I’m a hustler baby.  Here comes Owl number 2!

Dynablaster Bombermen

Hot Take: Week 1 was a flash in the pan and the Bombermen will slide back to the pack and miss the playoffs.  The Bombermen were the best team by a country mile in week 1 with a whopping 13.72 points per player on offence (best in the league).  Their receivers racked up 85.8 points, only just missing out on the top 5 receiving performances of all time in the league.  So am I a crazy person?  That all depends on whether you think Melvin Gordon is going to get 2 TDs per fame when the Chargers are always playing catchup.  Or on whether you think Ryan Shazier (questionable for the weekend with a knee injury, again) can play regularly.  Or on whether you think Jordan Matthews is breaking out or if you think he was just up against the Browns.  There are obviously stars on this team (AJ Green, David Johnson, Brandin Cooks, Aaron Donald, Greg Olsen) but I think week 1 was just right place, right time, their QBs are terrible and this kind of performance won’t be repeated every week.

Srsly? No.  Did you see the list of players I wrote down as the stars on the team?!  I even left some out.  The Bombermen are stacked.  They were many people’s favourites to win the Owl in 2015 and week 1 establishes them among the favourites to win it this year.

Weekly Stats

If I remember, I’ll post up a picture of the year’s average stats here when I do a blat.

Nothin' but the stats, ma'am.
Nothin’ but the stats, ma’am.

 

Weekly Peter vs Tim-watch: For two seasons now, Peter has been the Wallace Shawn to Tim’s Andre the Giant but could the tide be turning?  Every Stat Blat I will take a couple of lines to compare Peter vs Tim so we can all keep an eye on the situation.

Week 1: Peter (average) 179.68 vs Tim (average) 192.14.  Tim wins.  1-0 to Tim.

MAX’S STAT BLATS! Pre-Season Tim Preview

Max Stat Blats Previews No Comments

DynaForOne Firebirds

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

101.71 ppg, 9th best in league

QB 21.68 ppg, 1st
RB 24.03 ppg, 9th
WR/TE 43.66 ppg, 7th
SPEC 12.34 ppg, 10th

It was a case of first to worst (in Tim, it’s almost impossible for a Tim team to be worse than most of the teams in Peter) for Neil Hawke and the Firebirds last season. The inaugural champs didn’t lose it at QB though where Rusty Wilson and Big Phil Rivers are one of the best one-two tandems in the league. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and, barring the ever-present spectre of injury, there’s no reason to think that the Firebirds’ QBs won’t be right up there again this year.

So where did it go so wrong then? Step forward CJ Anderson and Marshawn Lynch. Neil’s two big RB threats going into last season both underwhelmed drastically for one reason or another and left the Firebird’s relying on Chris Johnson’s zimmerframe and Frank Gore’s determination to show the young ‘uns how they do back in the day. This season Lynch is retired and Gore and CJ2K are both yet another year older. The Firebirds have added Lynch’s heir presumptive in Seattle, Thomas Rawls, and traded for Eddy Lacy though. Rawls and Lacy both have question marks over them but it’s good to see Hawke recognise the problem and take big steps to resolve it. If CJ Anderson turns up this year and Ryan Matthews stays healthy this could be a very strong group.

The receivers weren’t quite as bad as the RBs but they still weren’t great. How Julio Jones didn’t get injured from the stress of having to carry this entire offence on his back last year I don’t know. Edelman gave him some help before injury ended his season and Hawke pulled Snead from the waiver wire but after those three there’s really nothing to say. Again though, the Firebirds went hard at fixing this position. Vincent Jackson came in free agency and Markus Wheaton in a trade (albeit for a vastly overinflated price for some reason). With Corey Coleman, Tyler Boyd and, particularly, Tajae Sharpe added in the draft there is a good group of young receivers here who can provide this season and hopefully for a while to come. And at TE? Hawke had Gronk last season and he still has him this season. End of story.

Trending up

DEFENCE

75.81 ppg, 8th best in league

DL 28.22 ppg, 2nd
LB 24.90 ppg, 7th
DB 22.69 ppg, 9th

Along with the Tamworth Two, the Firebirds have the best DT tandem in the league and both Geno Atkins and Ndamukong Suh (eventually) produced the numbers last season and are in a position to do it again this year. Unfortunately for Neil he only had one DE that scored over 51 points last season and none that scored over 100. It’s all change on that front this season with only Charles Johnson back. Brandon Graham moves from LB to DE to provide a clear #1 but Johnson is not the guy to rely on and so Neil is left looking askance at Mario Williams and hoping that he can be bothered to turn up and play in Miami when he couldn’t in Buffalo. To be honest though, if Neil just didn’t play a second DE it still wouldn’t be that much worse than last season.

The Firebirds’ LBs were a weak unit last season with injuries to De’Andre Levy and Alec Ogletree cutting down hugely on their ceiling. Behind those two both Lawrence Timmons and Julius Peppers were solid but Derrick Johnson was the only elite performer. This season both Johnson and Timmons are back and Levy is at least Questionable rather than Out. Ogletree looks healthy, Eric Kendricks moves into year two after a promising rookie season and Mark Barron has been moved from S to LB. Last season’s performance should be the floor for this unit going forward.

The real place that Hawke suffered was at DB though, giving away 16 points a week to the best unit in the league. If you got prizes for having the most players to choose from he would probably do very well as he had a whopping 12 DBs on the roster at the end of the season but sometimes less is more, particularly at CB where the Firebirds had 7 players and only one that scored over 90 points. Neil has trimmed down a little for this season (although he still has 10 DBs) and added Janoris Jenkins at CB who scored well last season, although he is in a new spot this year. Patrick Chung is the only addition at S though where Mark Barron’s loss will hurt.

Steady

OVERALL

177.52 ppg, 7th best in league

The Firebirds have strengthened on offence and should be much closer to the middle of the pack this year and with more depth in reserve. On defence, although the LBs got better the DBs got worse and the D line is one injury away from collapse. I think they may still be the worst team in Tim but the performances should be better.

Dynablaster Bombermen

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

103.81 ppg, 7th best in league

QB 17.17 ppg, 7th
RB 25.09 ppg, 8th
WR/TE 47.47 ppg, 4th
SPEC 14.08 ppg, 4th

Many people’s hot tips for the Owl last season ended up mired in mediocrity as their big guns just didn’t quite fire like many of us thought they would. Despite a poor QB performance it was the RBs that really hurt the most though. Going into the season with round 1 re-draft RB Jeremy Hill and hot rookie Melvin Gordon looked good but, in hindsight, we should have seen that the group was shallow and when Hill and Gordon were less than stellar it left the Bombermen’s ground game plodding. This year they have Gordon and Hill still in place, with appropriately tempered expectations, but superstar-on-the-rise David Johnson to back that up too. Surely another bright young thing can’t flop to the floor like a suffocating salmon at the Bombermen?

I skipped over the QB situation up there but it’s worth looking over again. The Bombermen go into the season with 6 QBs rostered as of today, two more than any other team. It’s a sure sign that they don’t think there are guys there to rely upon. Matt Ryan has consistently underwhelmed now to the point where he can only be seen as a backup and that leaves the Bombermen choosing between Kirk Cousins and RG3; both with huge potential but neither is a sure thing. Cousins should be an improvement over Ryan though and RG3 still has the potential for gold dust. The Bombermen will have to be careful not to fall into the Mangboob trap of tinkering too much though and PLOBbing themselves out of a lot of points.

Despite performing the best of the units mentioned already, the Bombermen’s receivers also have to be classified as a disappointment in 2015. Kelvin Benjamin never saw the field, AJ Green didn’t live up to his usual stellar standards, Brandin Cooks took half a season to get going and Jordan Matthews dropped, tipped and fumbled his ceiling away. With the exception of Matthews, all of those guys should be much better this year and the addition of Eric Decker in free agency brings some week-to-week stability to the unit. With the likes of Ty Montgomery, De’Anthony Thomas and Chris Conley backing up though the Bombermen have to hope that their WRs stay healthy. At TE Greg Olsen keeps on rolling and must be considered the #2 fantasy player at his position going forward.

Trending up

DEFENCE

79.38 ppg, 5th best in league

DL 25.09 ppg, 4th
LB 23.17 ppg, 8th
DB 31.12 ppg, 3rd

Looking at the Bombermen’s defence last season you would probably have had it down as average and that is how they performed. Ben Hendy spent big on the D line in the season, bringing in Aaron Donald and it paid off as the line clawed its way up to 4th in the league by the end of the season. The procurement of Donald was just as well really as there was little to speak of outside him one Cameron Wake went down. This season sees Connor Barwin move down to DE and explosive rookie Noah Spence offers some potential at the same spot. You don’t have to imagine much though to see one injury to Donald leaving this unit producing bottom tier numbers.

The LB group wasn’t so much bad as it was lacking an elite talent. Ryan Shazier was the B-men’s top scoring LB and he was LB26 for the season in terms of production. Barwin, Sean Lee and Clay Matthews offered a solid presence but not much of a ceiling. This year the picture is much the same, if not worse with Barwin’s move to DE. Hendy will need to hope that Willie Young’s sack numbers continue to rise and that Clay Matthews’ move back to OLB kicks up his point ceiling. Sean Lee and Elvis Dumervil are fragile presences to rely on though and there is a question about how long Julius Peppers can reasonably keep going at an elite NFL level.

The defensive backs produced well last season and they’re almost entirely all in place still for this season. You wouldn’t want to bet serious money on a group of corners and safeties producing with any consistency but there’s no reason to think that they will be worse so you have to consider this area the strength of the D.

Trending down

OVERALL

183.20 ppg, 5th best in league

Barring another clean sweep of disappointment, the Bombermen have to be better on offence this season. On paper their starting lineup is excellent but I am concerned about the depth behind it. The same could be said of the defence except that, DT and DB excluded, I would say the starting lineup is average. If this team is going to challenge they’re going to need their big names to produce and to stay on the field but I worry that the teams around them have strengthened more than Hendy’s men have.

Champions of the Sun

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

122.17 ppg, best in league

QB 16.52 ppg, 9th
RB 35.13 ppg, 2nd
WR/TE 56.31 ppg, 1st
SPEC 14.21 ppg, 3rd

When you have the best offence in the league, where do you look to improve? Well, the stats would tell you to look at your QBs who averaged out at replacement level for the season. There were a couple of games that Roethlisberger left injured that influences that but Max Cubberley was lucky that Carson Palmer’s poor numbers didn’t come in the regular season as they might have cost him a couple of wins. Will they be better in 2016? Palmer is gone so it really all depends on Ben Roethlisberger’s health. If he plays 16 games then they probably will but if he goes down injured it becomes Joe Flacco or Paxton Lynch calling the shots and things could get ugly.

A triple combination of Latavius Murray, Thomas Rawls and DeAngelo Williams really brought home the bacon for the Champions last season as they scored consistently well through the year to prop up the team. Rawls is gone for the coming season but Murray and the Bell/Williams tandem should still be top performers. Behind them Cubberley would have been hoping Jay Ajayi would provide depth but Arian Foster seems to have taken the starting job in Miami and so he will be relying on the mercurial talents of Shane Vereen or a rookie breakout from Devontae Booker or Keith Marshall to back-up and that’s not ideal.

Breakout seasons from Allen Robinson, Jordan Reed and DeAndre Hopkins led to the Champions’ receivers plowing a furrow through most opposing defences last season, scoring nearly 9 points more per week than the 3rd placed unit. John Brown, Mike Evans, Travis Kelce and the late addition of Eric Decker really reinforced the strength of this group and it’s no surprise that they topped the scoring charts. Cubberley took the somewhat perplexing decision to move Allen Robinson on in the off-season though, ostensibly because he couldn’t afford to renew him, and the loss of Decker also makes this unit weaker. The Champions are gambling on Mike Evans to bounce back and replace Allen Robinson’s production and have also brought in Golden Tate to shore things up. Reed and Kelce are still present at TE in one of the best TE tandems in the league. Expect to see this group fall back to the pack but still be a top producer.

Trending down

DEFENCE

95.05 ppg, best in league

DL 20.68 ppg, 6th
LB 35.89 ppg, 1st
DB 38.48 ppg, 1st

If the offence was the best in the league by a length, the defence was best in the league by a country mile, averaging nearly 12 points per week more than the unit in 2nd. The biggest reason for this was a surprisingly huge production from the DBs. The Champions don’t roster a lot at this position but Reshad Jones and Kurt Coleman were both top 10 safeties and Josh Norman, Adam Jones and Marcus Williams were all top 10 cornerbacks. Every member of that secondary is back this season but the fickle nature of the position means that Cubberley cannot count on that production continuing. Norman is in a new spot, Jones is a year older and Coleman’s supporting cast has diminished. They should still be good but you wouldn’t want to bet on them being the best.

If secondary was the strength of the D then the line was the weakness. Marcell Dareus is a fantasy bust and Robert Quinn played half a season at best, leaving the Champions without their top two earners on the line. Thankfully Cubberley struck gold on the wire with Tom Johnson from Minnesota and a mid-season trade for Olivier Vernon made up for the loss of Quinn. The line should be stronger in 2016. Cubberley drafted three rookie DTs and, although it looks like Tom Johnson will still lead the line into the season, he can hope that by week 9 he may have more options there. At DE though Robert Quinn is back and has been joined by the newly re-classified Khalil Mack. Add Robert Ayers (#8 DE by average weekly points), Olivier Vernon, Calais Campbell, Leonard Williams and a healthy Dante Fowler Jr. to the mix and, frankly, it all looks a bit silly.

In a reverse-Chandler Jones though, the line’s gain is the linebackers’ loss as Khalil Mack’s re-classification leaves the Champions’ #1 LB corps light. Jamie Collins, Navorro Bowman and Anthony Barr are back but Justin Houston may or may not play this year. There is scarily little depth present at this position at the moment and Cubberley will have to look to address that before the season starts otherwise this unit will see a serious drop off.

Trending down

OVERALL

217.21 ppg, best in league

Although both sides of this team are trending down I still think the Champions will be one of the better teams in the league. Cubberley has leveraged some of his potential to repeat to try and build for longevity a bit through the draft and that will see the team drop to the pack but hopefully stay bobbing near the top, hunting for the playoffs.

Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dynarules

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

109.08 ppg, 4th best in league

QB 19.94 ppg, 4th
RB 30.00 ppg, 5th
WR/TE 45.88 ppg, 5th
SPEC 13.25 ppg, 5th

After a slow start to the season that saw Kelkowski start 1-4 they really rallied at the right time and made a strong, late run to the playoffs. Looking at their scores it’s a story of consistency across the board being just top-half in every category. This would seem to tell the tale of an offence with few weaknesses but perhaps lacking in top-end but in fact it was more a case of top-end talent not performing at a top-end level for one reason or another. At RB Mark Ingram only played half a season and Arian Foster managed less than that. DeMarco Murray was trapped in a nightmare and TJ Yeldon was defeated by game script. Despite all of that though they put up good numbers and gave Kelkowski a solid floor every week. This season Murray is in a better spot but Foster a worse. Ingram is still going to be top 5 when fit and TJ Yeldon has gone from being flummoxed by game script to being flummoxed by Chris Ivory. Pretty much status quo at Kelkowski.

QB is a tale of a jaguar. Well, not just a jaguar but El Jaguar. Blake Bortles ascent into the stratosphere of premiere QBs was a thing of beauty and timed to perfection to help Kelkowski as Romo and Kaepernick both finally gave up any pretence of fantasy relevance. This season they have a little more depth behind them but I have my doubts as to whether El Jaguar will get quite the stats he did last year, if only because the Jags may not be losing quite as much, quite as often (I can’t believe I just put that in black and white).

What was a tremendous WR group for Kelkowski in 2014 took a step back last year as Calvin Johnson got older, Julius Thomas went to Jacksonville and Randall Cobb took a step back. Their numbers were saved by Doug Baldwin’s frankly ludicrous second half of 2015 and Ben Watson coming out of leftfield to be a fantasy TE1. This year Megatron and Watson are gone and Kelkowski are relying on Baldwin to continue his form in order to give them a truly top tier WR and Julius Thomas to stay healthy to produce at TE. Unless they do Kelkowski may find themselves lagging behind the field at receiver.

Trending down

DEFENCE

79.66 ppg, 4th best in league

DL 14.82 ppg, 9th
LB 33.81 ppg, 2nd
DB 31.03 ppg, 4th

In drafting Kwon Alexander, Preston Smith and Stephone Anthony, did Kelkowski show themselves as IDP draft geniuses or did they just get lucky? Whichever it was, the trio of rookies produced and, alongside wily vets Brandon Marshall and D’Qwell Jackson, contributed to the 2nd best LB unit in the league. This season they’ve added Jerell Freeman, Dont’a Hightower and Nigel Bradham to strengthen an already powerful unit and should be right up there again.

Kelkowski’s eye for talent seems to apply equally to the secondary too where they had 5 safeties and 3 cornerbacks over 100 points. There has been turnover at CB this off-season but that isn’t necessarily a problem as the position is very volatile. The names Kelkowski have in place offer a lot of potential again and their solid S group from last year is largely intact leaving them with the most strength in depth in the league at this spot.

Where Kelkowski were let down was on the defensive line, a recurring problem for many teams in the league. Everson Griffen did not produce at his 2014 levels and he and Cliff Avril were a pedestrian DE pairing. It was even worse at DT where Malcolm Brown (DT15 but nearly 200 points down on Aaron Donald at #1) was their top scorer. Things look brighter this year with Malik Jackson moving to DT, Jason Pierre Paul having got through an off-season without blowing any more bits of his hands up and Mario Edwards Jr into his second season. The ceiling still looks low on this group but they have a chance to be better than last year.

Steady

OVERALL

188.74 ppg, 3rd best in league

Although they added a lot of strength in depth to the defence I don’t actually see the ceiling being raised a long way and I’m concerned about the depth on the offensive side of the ball. Kelkowski aren’t as bad as their first half of 2015 but they aren’t as good as their second half of 2015 either and I think they could end up pretty middle of the pack in Tim.

DynaHard With A Vengeance

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

115.45 ppg, 2nd best in league

QB 19.08 ppg, 5th
RB 33.91 ppg, 3rd
WR/TE 47.91 ppg, 3rd
SPEC 14.55 ppg, 1st

Embroiled in a two horse race with the Champions of the Sun for the best record in the Dbowl for most of the season, Chris Braithwaite denied the fans the Owl they wanted by choking in the semi-final against the Tamworth Two. DynaHarder were strong all over the roster but it’s at WR where their depth really shone from stars like Antonio Brown and TY Hilton to impact youngsters like Sammy Watkins, Allen Hurns and Tyler Lockett. Their 3rd place finish is perhaps a reflection that a lot of these players are young and a bit inconsistent but more than good enough to put the points up each week. The TE position was a bit of an achilles heel with a bunch of pedestrian options however. Over the summer Chris has engaged “win now” mode, trading away youngsters and picks for Dez Bryant to attempt to move from 3rd to 1st. The Hards have more than enough depth to take the hit though and looks stronger than ever in this department for 2016 although if Martellus Bennett isn’t a big part of the New England offence they may be light at TE again.

A power couple of Jamaal Charles and Todd Gurley made sure that Chris’ RBs held up their end of the bargain too. Jeremy Langford got a welcome boost by Matt Forte’s injury and Alfred Morris proved his usual dependable if unexciting self in Washington. This season the outlook isn’t so rosy. Todd Gurley is still a stud but there are doubts about Jamaal Charles’ role, Jeremy Langford’s competence and Alfred Morris has become a back-up in Dallas, albeit one with a huge ceiling if Ezekiel Elliott goes down. The rest of Chris’ selection consists of questionable rookie picks (Wendell Smallwood, Kenyan Drake) and handcuffs (Charcandrick West and Benny Cunningham). It’s still not difficult to envisage a scenario in which this unit produces at a top level but it’s far from guaranteed.

At QB Chris rode on the back of a good season for Eli Manning for most of the year before making a trade to bring in Tom Brady to prevent the usual post-season choke (not much luck there). Before Brady’s arrival the group was at a low-end QB1 level and that’s probably still where it is. The future looks a little better if Stafford can maintain his form of the second half of last season but Chris may well be looking around again as the trade deadline looms trying to find that extra bit of quality.

Steady

DEFENCE

83.58 ppg, 2nd best in league

DL 27.43 ppg, 3rd
LB 29.76 ppg, 4th
DB 26.39 ppg, 6th

It was a strong effort all round in 2015 from DynaHarder, led by the D-line where the force of nature that is JJ Watt continued to dominate and Ziggy Ansah’s potential started to pay off with a 14.5 sack season. The line was kept from dominating truly by mediocre options at DT with Brandon Williams and Johnathan Hankins and that situation is the same going into 2016. Ansah and Watt are still present too and Sheard and Ninkovich offer decent depth behind. If I had to pick one unit on any team to perform almost identically to last season it would be Chris Braithwaite’s D-Line.

In 2015 injuries to Kiko Alonso, Terrell Suggs and Jadeveon Clowney left the Hards looking a little thin at LB but a trade for Thomas Davis mid-season took care of that and, ably supported by CJ Mosely and Von Miller, the group started to put up good numbers. Those three are all back this season and Deone Bucannon has been re-designated as an LB, giving Braithwaite an excellent starting four. Jadeveon Clowney has the potential to put up big numbers too but beyond those 5 players there’s little else here. It would take a lot of bad luck to unsettle this group in 2016 though.

DynaHarder’s secondary was run-of-the-mill last season and, for 2016, they’ve lost their top 2 safeties with Walter Thurmond no longer on the roster and Bucannon moved to LB. Chris will be hoping to cover that gap with free agent signing Harrison Smith and Thurmond’s replacement in Philly, Rodney McLeod. Smith has top 10 pedigree but time will tell if McLeod or rookie Keanu Neal can step up. At CB Damarious Randall is coming into his 2nd year in Green Bay after a good first season and you know that teams will throw at Delvin Breaux all day long.

Steady

OVERALL

199.03 ppg, 2nd best in league

On both Offence and Defence it looks like more of the same for Chris Braithwaite’s Dyna Hard. Even if his corps of running backs isn’t as robust as last year that’s compensated for by a top-heavy WR unit and a defence that looks as steady as they come as a top-line group. If you were wanting to point to a weakness then you could say that DynaHard may struggle for production at TE week-on-week but, really, they should be able to get by.

MAX’S STAT BLATS! Pre-Season Peter Preview

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It’s nearly time for the new season of football and so it’s time to let the Stat Blats get all up in yo’ bidness and make you feel tingly.  Below is a combination 2015 season review and 2016 season preview for each team in Peter.  Want to know where the Sadness’ QBs ranked last season?  This is your place.  Want to know my opinion on whether the Breeses have improved their woeful linebacker corps?  Come on in friend!

Tamworth Two

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

106.3 points per game (ppg), 5th best in league

QB 18.52 ppg, 6th
RB 32.21 ppg, 4th
WR/TE 43.22 ppg, 8th
SPEC 12.35 ppg, 9th

Looking at the stats it’s clear that sub-par offensive performance was the thing that kept T2 from challenging more closely in the Owl.  When you pay Aaron Rodgers the big bucks you expect better than run-of-the-mill QB numbers but that’s what he put up last season.  There were mitigating factors though and, despite the fact he’s on another roster, they must have their fingers crossed hoping Jordy Nelson will be back in form this season.

RB was the Hogs’ strongest position last season riding the unexpected highs of Chris Ivory and Darren McFadden.  Run DMC is down the Cowboys depth chart now though and Chris Ivory is gone, leaving T2 looking sparse.  Jonathan Stewart is still pootling along and they have the Buffalo backfield sewn up tight but Duke Johnson is not someone I would want to be relying on for my third RB position.

Injuries to Alshon Jeffery and DeVante Parker hit Tamworth hard at WR last season and their 8th placed finish will be some way off what they’d have been hoping for at season start.  The bad news is that I don’t see where it’s improved.  Jarvis Landry, their WR1, is gone, DeVante Parker is, by all accounts, running hot and cold in camp and Demayrius Thomas will be catching balls from the Sanchize.  At TE there is hope for Eric Ebron and Virgil Green but neither are a sure thing for regular production.

Trending down

DEFENCE

82.23 ppg, 3rd best in league

DL 33.02 ppg, 1st
LB 25.83 ppg, 6th
DB 23.38 ppg, 7th

So if your offence isn’t great then how do you get to the final of the Owl?  Great defence.  Defence wins Owls.  The Hogs’ had a dominant line led by Kawann Short and Gerald McCoy, two of the best fantasy DTs in the business.  They’ve lost their best DE, Chandler Jones, to a position switch though and will be relying on the promising Stephon Tuitt and rookie Chris Jones to pick up the slack, a big ask.

The Hogs’ LB corps was a sea of pregnant potential and mediocrity, lifted by the transcendent talents of Luke Kuechly and the hard graft of Paul Posluszny.  The Pos has jumped ship for the coming season but the unexpectedly solid Whitney Mercilus should still produce and Jeremiah Attaouchu is poised to break it big.  Add to that the fact that the D-Line’s loss is the ‘Backer corps’ gain when it comes to Chandler Jones and things should keep ticking along nicely.

The Hogs were let down in the secondary by a poor showing from their safeties.  Kam Chancellor being motivated for a whole season may help but David Amerson will lose snaps at CB to Sean Smith in Oakland so there is a question mark about his ability to repeat last season’s good showing.

Steady

OVERALL

188.52 ppg, 4th best in league

The Hogs should see performance drop from last season.  The defence will still be there or thereabouts but the offence has taken a hit in the loss of Landry and Ivory.  If Aaron Rodgers can play like he’s paid he may make up for it.

Prediction: 6-7, 3rd in Peter

East Flanders Dungeoneers

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

104.17 ppg, 6th best in league

QB 20.97 ppg, 2nd
RB 26.22 ppg, 7th
WR/TE 44.24 ppg, 6th
SPEC 12.74 ppg, 8th

Being definitively the worst team on the Dbowl last season means it makes for slightly surprising reading to see that the Dungeoneers were middle of the pack in offensive terms.  Cam Newton’s rise to superstardom helped buoy the numbers no doubt, racking up the record highest weekly score for a QB in the process, and he should continue to raise his team for the coming season.

The RBs were a mess in East Flanders last year with Justin Forsett and Carlos Hyde both missing considerable time and forcing Pete Conaghan to rely on the likes of Ronnie Hillman and Darren Sproles.  Danny Woodhead was a consistently good performer though who at least made sure to keep Conaghan’s men from complete ignominy week on week.  The Dungeoneers have re-signed Rashad Jennings on a good deal and brought in T2 reject Chris Ivory to strengthen this season but will still rely on Woodhead for production.  A fit season from Carlos Hyde could make a huge difference however.

Amari Cooper, Brandon Marshall and Michael Floyd all put in good showings last season but a lack of depth behind those big names and a horror show at TE kept the Dungeoneers from putting up consistent good scores at receiver.  Things are looking much better this year.  Those three are all still in the fold and have been joined by a fully fit Kevin White and Keenan Allen plus rookie Josh Doctson.  The TEs are no better in terms of personnel but Coby Fleener escaping from Indianapolis to New Orleans hikes his ceiling way up.

Trending up

DEFENCE

63.80 ppg, 9th best in league

DL 15.64 ppg, 8th
LB 27.37 ppg, 5th
DB 20.79 ppg, 10th

If the Dungeoneers offence were surprisingly good for the worst team in the league then that can only mean one thing for the defence.  Look away now, Pete, it’s not pretty!  Tyrone Crawford was the star on the defensive line last year, turning in a top 10 performance.  There is absolutely no depth behind him however though if Sen’Derrick Marks can stay fit and work into the Jacksonville rotation significantly he offers some hope. Kony Ealy flashed his talent last season too and Conaghan will be hoping that the Panthers’ DE can step up to the next level this season.

When you’re only paying two of your LBs more than $3 and one of those two is Paul Worrilow your expectations for the unit are probably reduced.  Pete can be quite happy then with his middle-of-the-pack placing.  Astute signings of tackle machines Melvin Ingram and Malcolm Smith brought a good floor to the team and the likes of KJ Wright and Worrilow produced steady if uninspiring numbers.  The Dungeoneers’ prospects of improvement have been hindered by Shaq Lawson’s injury but the Justin-Houston-shaped hole in Kansas may open the door for Dee Ford and Vontaze Burfict’s suspension may put Paul Dawson in the mix.

What do you do when you have the worst secondary in the league and the top-scoring player in that secondary retires?  Nothing!  Apparently!  That’s not fair, Pete signed rookie safety Karl Joseph.  I’m sure he’ll be a good player down the line but expecting him to replicate Charles Woodson’s numbers in year one is probably asking a bit much.  The Dungeoneers are relying on the fickle nature of the secondary to provide a better result.

Steady

OVERALL

167.97 ppg, 10th best in league

I don’t think the Dungeoneers will finish the season as the worst team in the league again; the offence has the potential to put up top 3 numbers under the right circumstances.  Unfortunately, the defence is still a hot mess and will drag the team down.

Prediction: 5-8, 4th in Peter

The People’s Republic of the 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

102.06 ppg, 8th best in league

QB 14.98 ppg, 10th
RB 19.74 ppg, 10th
WR/TE 54.46 ppg, 2nd
SPEC 12.88 ppg, 6th

Well, if you’re not sure what an unbalanced offence looks like then there you go.  The problems at the QB position for the Sadness were largely self-inflicted as Mangboob’s love for Teddy Tinyhands prevented him from just starting Drew Brees in every game he was available for.  Brees averaged 20.28 points per game, a full 5 more than the Sadness did.  Even if you add in the fact that Teddy averaged 11.5 points in the two weeks Brees missed that is a clear case of overthinking it.  Mangboob should not make the same mistake this year.

Unfortunately, the Sadness’ struggles at RB cannot be blamed on GM tinkering.  It turns out that owning the entire Lions’ backfield is not conducive to fantasy success.  Eddy Lacy’s plummet off a cliff accounts for some of the underperformance here and Mangboob has lost patience with the player, shipping him out to the Firebirds.  He has been replaced by number 1 draft pick Ezekiel Elliott, one of the most hyped fantasy rookie prospects of all time.  Zeke and fellow rookie Kenneth Dixon add some spark to the position and Abdullah and Matt Jones could improve in their second years.  This is a young unit on a young team and should get better year-on-year.

In contrast, the Sadness’ receivers were stellar.  Led by superstar OBJ, even a down season for Dez Bryant couldn’t stop them marching to 2nd place on the receiver rankings.  Eric Decker, Delanie Walker, Golden Tate and, surprisingly, Ted Ginn Jr turned in performance after performance over the season to keep scores high.  This season it’s all change with Dez, Tate and Decker gone but Stefon Diggs, Laquon Treadwell, Michael Thomas and DeSean Jackson come in.  Mangboob is building for the future and while I would expect to see this unit decline this season they look strong for the future and improvement elsewhere should more than make up for it.

Steady

DEFENCE

77.18 ppg, 6th best in league

DL 14.66 ppg, 10th
LB 33.62 ppg, 3rd
DB 28.90 ppg, 5th

The defensive line is the real Achilles heel for a defence that is otherwise strong.  Mangboob has three players there and they are all nearly men.  Michael Brockers is a very good player but with the strength on that Rams’ line his play doesn’t equate to fantasy points.  Linval Joseph and Sharif Floyd are both similarly good players but Tom Johnson’s pass rush exploits on the interior limit their upside.  All are young and Joseph missed a few games with injury so Mangboob can hope for an improvement.  He’ll have to, because he has brought in no extra help for his tackles.  The viewing is even more bleak at Defensive End where no player scored over 80 points.  Sheldon Richardson is a talented idiot but the others are just not elite players.  The drafting of Robert Nkemdiche may help but he enters a crowded situation in Arizona and we will likely not see him emerge until at least 2017.

The linebackers at the Sadness, by contrast, are elite and dominant.  Lavonte David, Telvin Smith and Bobby Wagner are all top level talents on the field and on your fantasy teams and are young enough to provide for a few years yet.  Behind them, Danny Trevathan, Mychal Kendricks and Bruce Irvin feel like players on the cusp of a fantasy boom and with Trevathan and Irvin in new teams this season this year could be the year.

The secondary is a similar situation to T2’s linebackers: an average group of players propelled upwards by one stellar talent.  Tyrann Mathieu scored twice as much as most other members of the Sadness’ secondary last season and the rest were much of a muchness.  Sean Smith comes in this year and Eric Berry is re-signed to a better contract but question marks of Tyrann Mathieu’s health mean that last season’s performance probably remains the ceiling for this bunch.

Steady

OVERALL

179.23 ppg, 6th best in league

I don’t think this season will see much change for the Sadness.  They have lost elite level talent at WR but added a lot of young players and have a deeper pool of players to pick from.  A lot is riding on Zeke Elliott’s shoulders as far as this season is concerned.  If Mangboob decides to start Teddy Bridgewater all season long then all bets are off.

Prediction: 5-8, 5th in Peter

Dynasore Losers

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

99.75 ppg, 10th best in league

QB 16.56 ppg, 8th
RB 28.83 ppg, 6th
WR/TE 39.87 ppg, 10th
SPEC 14.49 ppg, 2nd

Hoo boy, it’s difficult to know where to start with this one.  The Losers’ WRs were a horror show last year.  Jordy Nelson injured, Josh Gordon failing to get reinstated, Emmanuel Sanders feeling the bite of the Peter-collapse, Torrey Smith left hopping mad by Colin Kaepernick and Nelson Agholor leaving everyone wondering what Chip Kelly deemed worth the 20th overall pick about him.  Add to that a wasteland at TE and it’s easy to see how this unit came out bottom in points scoring per game.  That kind of luck should regress back towards the mean this year and almost every player at this position should be better in 2016.  The loss of Larry Fitzgerald is a blow to the weekly floor of the group but Jarvis Landry, the Losers’ big blockbuster summer trade, covers that and more.  The Losers are a candidate to go from worst to first at WR in 2016.

A shallow group at RB left a lot on the shoulders of Adrian Peterson and Matt Forte and it was enough to struggle to mid-table in the RB rankings.  David Slater is relying heavily on rookies Jordan Howard and DeAndre Washington to provide depth for the coming season though.  Dion Lewis is already out, surgery required on his knee, and AP and Forte are getting no younger.  This situation could get very unpleasant, very fast.

If that happens, Slater may look to trade in some of his excess talent at QB.  The group performed poorly last season with Peter Manning’s decline the headline event but this season should be vastly improved.  Andy Dalton is healthy, Jameis Winston is no longer a rookie and Derek Carr is heading into his 3rd year heading an offence going from strength to strength.  Add to that the free agency addition of Carson Palmer and this is a strong group that should be able to comfortably mix and match each week for the best matchups.

Trending up

DEFENCE

75.93 ppg, 7th best in league

DL 23.33 ppg, 5th
LB 20.27 ppg, 9th
DB 32.34 ppg, 3rd

A much-reduced year from Ryan Kerrigan was still the highlight of the LBs at the Losers last year as he was the only player to top 100 points.  David Slater put a lot of work into fixing the offence but this was another place that the Losers were giving points away on a weekly basis.  The free-agency addition of Paul Posluszny, plus the drafting of three rookie LBs shows that Slater recognised this fact and has moved to address it.  The group is still raw and has a lot of question marks but is an improvement over last season, albeit only a small one for this year.

A middle of the pack defensive line remains largely unchanged.  Carlos Dunlap was re-signed to resume a powerful starting tandem at DE but if one goes down then much will depend on 2nd year rusher Danielle Hunter of the Vikings.  Hunter looked excellent in limited snaps in his rookie year and Slater will hope that he can maintain that form into more snaps.

The strongest unit on the Losers’ defence remains largely intact though whether Marcus Peters can perform at the same level in year 2 is questionable.  Some regression to the mean is to be expected (players are rarely consistently at the top of the CB rankings) but the brothers Johnson (Kevin and Trumaine) and Logan Ryan should be able to offer plentiful depth.  At safety Slater will grind his teeth as he hopes for Michael Mitchell of the Steelers to remain steady and clasp his hands in prayer that Tashaun Gipson can recapture his 2014 Cleveland form in Jacksonville.

Steady

OVERALL

175.69 ppg, 8th best in league

Unless the Losers are struck by catastrophic bad luck again this year they should perform better.  The QB and receiver units can hopefully carry the RBs on offence and an improvement from 9th to 7th or so in the LBs would be enough to see the defence able to support.  I expect an improved year but not an Owl year.

Prediction: 7-6, 1st in Peter

Here Comes The Brees

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

111.22 ppg, 3rd best in league

QB 20.20 ppg, 3rd
RB 38.24 ppg, 1st
WR/TE 39.98 ppg, 9th
SPEC 12.81 ppg, 7th

If I’d asked at the start of last season which Dbowl team had the best RBs in the league would you have said the Breeses?  Come on now, don’t lie.  Doug Martin’s renaissance, Devonta Freeman’s explosion and a combination of Lamar Miller and (really) Isaiah Crowell left the team top of the pile.  All four of those players are back this year with the added depth of Charles Sims, Darren Sproles and a healthy Tevin Coleman.  The Breeses are set up nicely to repeat in 2016 and perhaps even improve though a predicted decline for Freeman and Martin after their monster seasons could throw a spanner in the works.

It’s a good job Archer and Sayles’ RBs were such a surprise smash hit because the receivers were a disaster. Injuries for Steve Smith, Breshad Perriman and DeSean Jackson left the team scrambling to field a decent unit and there were too many weeks of Pierre Garcon and Terrance Williams for anything to be salvageable.  Tyler Eifert was a ray of hope at TE, particularly with Zach Ertz providing depth.  The Breeses have gone all out this summer to rectify what is their problem position on offence with a host of bodies run through camp.  The big arrival was Martavis Bryant, right at the tail end of last season, but a year-long suspension buried that.  The new big arrival was Allen Robinson who has, incredibly, yet to get suspended or go on injured reserve for the entire season.  Larry Fitzgerald and Jaelen Strong also arrived and even with the departure of DeSean Jackson the unit looks better.  Phillip Dorsett comes into his 2nd year with a path clear to a starting job, Travis Benjamin lands in a friendly spot in San Diego and JJ Nelson is pushing in Arizona.

Even with Andrew Luck’s injury, the Breeses managed to get good QB production, largely thanks to Tom Brady with occasional spells of Fitzmagic.  Luck is fit this season, Brady is back (albeit suspended for the first 4 games) and Alex Smith is ready to step in in an emergency.  This unit should be top end producer again.

Trending up

DEFENCE

60.20 ppg, 10th best in league

DL 19.02 ppg, 7th
LB 18.39 ppg, 10th
DB 22.79 ppg, 8th

Well, that is ugly reading.  There were very few bright spots for the Breeses on defence after they traded away Aaron Donald.  Fletcher Cox had a breakout season at DE but the Breeses got unlucky mixing and matching between him, Cameron Jordan and Michael Bennett and too often the big points were on the bench.  For the new season though Fletcher Cox has moved to DT, solving that problem.  The Breeses should not PLOB themselves out of his points any longer.  Not least because, at time of writing, they have no other DTs on the roster.  Jordan and Bennett are still in place at DE, backed up by Jaye Howard and new boy DeForest Buckner.  I think we should see this unit move into the top half in the league but if Cox goes down there is (literally) nothing to cover for him.

Sheesh, if you thought the DL reading was bad, take a look at this shower.  In week 10 last season, the Breeses started Karlos Dansby, Daryl Smith, Jelani Jenkins and Derrick Morgan.  Not a collection to inspire fear in the opposition.  I’m not convinced this unit looks any better going into 2016.  Dansby and Pernell McPhee are good starters but 2nd year guys Shaq Thompson and Jordan Hicks are going to have to step up if there is to be any improvement.  It’s still a fairly uninspiring bunch.

At DB the Breeses suffered a blow when they lost Harrison Smith for the year but they got a nice surprise in the performance of DROY Ronald Darby who put up a nice tally.  There’s little to see here beyond that.  Earl Thomas is an amazing real-life safety and an average fantasy one and the rest of the unit were all much of a muchness.  This season the CBs are the same but the Ss get a little influx with the drafting of Von Bell and the signing of Barry Church but the inexplicable decision to drop Harrison Smith (the #1 safety in 2014) means that I can’t say this unit has improved.

Steady

OVERALL

171.42 ppg, 9th best in league

It’s easy to see that the Breeses have improved on offence.  A lot of their guys are starting the season healthier, more experienced or in better situations than last year and strength has been added, particularly to the wide receivers.  I can still see them being hampered by a defence, however, which seems to take a step back for every step it takes forward.  It won’t be the worst in the league again, but it will be a long way from the best.

Prediction: 7-6, 2nd in Peter

Binning the Big Plays: Effect of the New Scoring Changes

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In the 2015 off-season there was a vote on a proposed change to scoring rules designed to reduce the impact of big plays on defensive performance.  All of the changes passed and although the increase in scoring for Passes Defended came in last season, most of the big changes are coming in from this season.  Now that the changes have been made on the MFL site we can look at how the changes would have affected last season’s scoring to help form an opinion on how the value of our players has been affected.

The Changes

Here are the proposed changes as a reminder:

  • Interception return yards reduced from 0.1 per yard to 0.05 per yard. Was effective in the 2015 season.
  • Fumble return yards introduced at 0.05 per yard. Was effective in the 2015 season.
  • Points for a Pass Defended increase from 2 to 3 (for CBs and Ss) and from 1 to 2 (for all other positions). Was effective in the 2015 season.
  • Points for a Forced Fumble or Interception to be reduced from 10 to 6. Effective from the 2016 season.
  • Points for a Solo Tackle to be increased from 0.5 to 0.75. Effective from the 2016 season.

The increase in passes defended scoring was designed to compensate for the loss of Int scoring.  Because the two rules came in for different seasons the effect will actually appear to be a reduction in CB and S scoring because in 2015 they were still scoring INTs at a higher rate while also getting more points for passes defended.

Effect on Rankings

I extracted data from the top 200 IDP scorers with both the new scoring and the old scoring (for weeks 1-16).  Below are the top 30 IDP scorers according to the new rules, alongside their ranking by the old rules.

Name New D Rank Old  Shift
Donald, Aaron STL DT 1 1 0
Short, Kawann CAR DT 2 2 0
Peters, Marcus KCC CB 3 3 0
Watt, J.J. HOU DE 4 5 +1
Jones, Reshad MIA S 5 6 +1
Mathieu, Tyrann ARI S 6 4 -2
Atkins, Geno CIN DT 7 7 0
Suh, Ndamukong MIA DT 8 11 +3
Mack, Khalil OAK LB 9 10 +1
Davis, Thomas CAR LB 10 9 -1
Norman, Josh CAR CB 11 8 -3
David, Lavonte TBB LB 12 17 +5
Smith, Malcolm OAK LB 13 22 +9
Smith, Telvin JAC LB 14 26 +12
Ansah, Ezekiel DET DE 15 14 -1
Dunlap, Carlos CIN DE 16 19 +3
Jenkins, Malcolm PHI S 17 21 +4
Bucannon, Deone ARI S 18 27 +9
Jackson, D’Qwell IND LB 19 32 +13
Johnson, Trumaine STL CB 20 12 -8
Kuechly, Luke CAR LB 21 20 -1
Johnson, Derrick KCC LB 22 31 +9
Jones, Chandler NEP DE 23 16 -7
Wilkerson, Muhammad NYJ DE 24 23 -1
Ingram, Melvin SDC LB 25 28 +3
Coleman, Kurt CAR S 26 15 -11
Collins, Jamie NEP LB 27 18 -9
Posluszny, Paul JAC LB 28 39 +11
Nelson, Reggie CIN S 29 13 -16
Breeland, Bashaud WAS CB 30 25 -5

 

There’s big movement, in ranking terms, here for the likes of Malcolm Smith (97 solo tackles), Telvin Smith (93), Deone Bucannon (85), D’Qwell Jackson (86), Derrick Johnson (87) and Paul Posluszny (99).

All 6 of these players were in the top 10 for solo tackles in the NFL last season along with Navorro Bowman, Reshad Jones, Corey Graham and Malcolm Jenkins.   The impact on Bowman and Graham will be outlined below.  Reshad Jones showed minimal movement due to also having a high number of INTs and Malcolm Jenkins was the same but with FFs.

In terms of reduction, the biggest losers should be DBs (CBs in particular) and edge rushers due to their high INT and FF numbers.  Trumaine Johnson (48 solo tackles, 7 interceptions), Chandler Jones (31 tackles, 4 FFs), Kurt Coleman (55 tackles, 7 INTs), Jamie Collins (46 tackles, 5 FFs, 1 INT) and Reggie Nelson (45 tackles, 8 INTs) were the biggest losers in positional terms.

Johnson, Coleman and Nelson were 3 of the top 5 for interceptions in the league along with Marcus Williams (who also took a big hit, see below) and Marcus Peters (who had 26 passes defended, compared to 14, 9, 17 and 10 for the other 4).  The NFL leaders in forced fumbles were Jamie Collins (impact noted above) and Shaq Barrett of the Broncos, a player whose rank fell from #79 to #100.

Effect on Points

Showing how players rankings changed is useful but what does a drop of 16 ranks for Reggie Nelson actually mean?  What does a jump of 13 ranks for D’Qwell Jackson look like?  What is the overall effect on defensive scoring vs. offensive scoring?

One of the aims of the proposal was to try and not reduce the number of points defensive players scored compared to offensive players.  Devaluing the defence as a whole would be very bad for the league.  The average points change for the top 200 defensive players was an increase of 1 point over the season.  This is good news as it means that, broadly speaking, defensive players are worth as much now as they were and the impact is localized to particular types of players, as was intended.

A drop of 16 ranks for Reggie Nelson translates to a loss of 21 points over the season or 1.3 points per game (the third highest decrease in defensive players).  The increase of 13 ranks for Jackson is an increase of 13.5 points or 0.84 points per game (sixth highest increase in the league).  Although these changes are obviously not insignificant it’s worth noting that only 6 players lost 1 or more points per game and only 1 player gained 1 or more point per game.  Below is a table of the players who gained or lost the most points over the course of the season.  You’ll note many of the same names already mentioned appearing.

Biggest Winners Pts Gained
1 Navorro Bowman 26.75
2 Dre Kirkpatrick 15.25
3 Sean Lee 15
4 CJ Mosley 14
4 Daryl Smith 14
6 D’Qwell Jackson 13.5
6 Corey Graham 13.5
6 Lawrence Timmons 13.5
9 Kevin Minter 13
10 Telvin Smith 12.75
10 Paul Posluzny 12.75
10 Kenny Vaccaro 12.75
10 Stephen Tulloch 12.75

 

Biggest Losers Pts Lost
1 Marcus Williams -24.5
2 Marcus Peters -23
3 Reggie Nelson -21
4 Mike Adams -19.25
5 Josh Norman -16.5
6 Trumaine Johnson -16
7 Kurt Coleman -14.75
8 Darrelle Revis -13.75
9 Jamie Collins -12.5
10 Chandler Jones -12.25

 

Peaks and Troughs

For most players the effect over the course of the season is minimal (149 of the top 200 players shifted by fewer than 8 points over the season) but one of the aims of the scoring was to decrease the variance in the weekly performances too.  Ideally, most players would score the same over the season but have a higher floor and a lower ceiling.  Below is the top 25 individual scores with the new scoring and with the old scoring.  It includes offensive players so we can see whether the changes are evening out the big scores amongst O and D.

2015 2016 Player Week Old Points New Points Shift
1 1 Short, Kawann CAR DT 7 53.5 51 -2.5
2 2 Mack, Khalil OAK LB 14 48.25 45.75 -2.5
3 7 Short, Kawann CAR DT 14 46.5 39.25 -7.25
4 8 Wake, Cameron MIA DE 6 46 39 -7
5 4 Brees, Drew NOS QB 8 44.3 44.3 0
6 3 Donald, Aaron STL DT 14 44.25 45.25 1
7 15 Peters, Marcus KCC CB 15 43.9 36.4 -7.5
8 13 Cox, Fletcher PHI DE 5 43 36.5 -6.5
9 5 Newton, Cam CAR QB 15 41.6 41.6 0
10 49 Norman, Josh CAR CB 4 41 34 -7
11 6 Johnson, David ARI RB 15 40.9 40.9 0
12 * Mathieu, Tyrann ARI S 3 39 32.25 -6.75
13 * Norman, Josh CAR CB 1 38.75 31.75 -7
14 * Newman, Terence MIN CB 10 38.7 31.2 -7.5
15 * Smith, Jacquies TBB DE 2 38.5 31.25 -7.25
16 9 Manning, Eli NYG QB 8 38 38 0
17 10 Rawls, Thomas SEA RB 11 37.5 37.5 0
18 * Lowery, Dwight IND S 3 37.5 29.75 -7.75
19 * Graham, Brandon PHI LB 9 37.5 31.25 -6.25
20 46 Branch, Andre JAC DE 14 37.45 34.45 -3
21 11 Freeman, Devonta ATL RB 3 37.3 37.3 0
22 12 Benjamin, Travis CLE WR 2 37.2 37.2 0
28 13 Williams, DeAngelo 9 36.5 36.5 0
31 16 Newton, Cam CAR QB 13 36.14 36.14 0
32 17 Mariota, Marcus TEN QB 13 35.92 35.92 0
33 18 Cousins, Kirk WAS QB 15 35.86 35.86 0
34 19 Miller, Lamar RB 7 35.6 35.6 0
35 20 McCown, Josh CLE QB 5 35.48 35.48 0

*MFL does not retroactively calculate high scoring weeks after rules changes and I couldn’t be bothered to work out the new rankings for some of the defensive players exactly.  These performances would all be outside of the top 50.

With the old scoring, 5 of the top 20 individual performances were offensive players.  With the new scoring 12 of the top 20 are offensive players.  There is much more of a balance between the two and you have as much chance of a ridiculous game from a QB ruining your day as a huge performance from a defensive player.

Summary

I dunno, I’ve lost the will to live now.  Looks alright to me.

Who Got Screwed?

Come on, this is why we’re here.  Couldn’t have planned it better.

The People’s Republic of the 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness +86.5
Dynablaster Bombermen +50.25
East Flanders Dungeoneers +37.75
DynaForOne Firebirds +37.25
Here Comes The Brees +8.5
Tamworth Two +0.75
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dynarules -9.5
Champions of the Sun -11
Dynaharder -15
Dynasore Losers -47.75

*This only includes any top 200 defenders on your roster because I’m lazy.

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