Dynabowl 2020 draft – exit survey

The picks are in. And more importantly the survey has been done. Let’s find out who said the meanest things about each other’s drafts!

Pete

Best player: Joe Burrow (pick 29) – 8 votes. A fairly easy call – Pete’s first pick was the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft. Curtis Weaver (pick 49) and Jeff Okudah (pick 60, 3rd overall pick in the NFL draft) each garnered a vote.

Best value: A tie with 2 votes between Curtis Weaver (pick 49), Jeff Okudah (pick 60), Malik Harrison (pick 71), Mykal Walker (pick 83). Damon Arnette and Noah Igbinoghene each got one vote. I can’t work out whether we think Pete got equally good value on all his picks, or equally bad value.

Worst value: Jeff Okudah (pick 60) – 5 votes. Taking the first QB off the board is always going to be a bit controversial. Burrow came in second on 2 votes.

Best name: Sterling Horfricther – 8 votes. Noah Igbinoghene would have been a leading candidate in most draft classes, but didn’t have a shot here.

Comments: “Apart from Burrow and Weaver I’m not sure any of the players will be better than FAs. Burrow was great value though.”; “Really need to include what Pete got for all of his early picks to fully evaluate. I suspect was very little so the rating might be generous”; “Not many picks, not much gained.”; “Late value and the first pick was a QB”

“Very little prep done this year, and it shows.”

“Nobody needs to draft 3 cornerbacks. I mean, you don’t really need to draft any. Unless they are one of about 4 players, they are largely interchangeable and/or random.”; “Tough to rate Pete’s draft due to not coming in early but he got his position of need and then stocked up on defensive prospects. Given that his team has a strong offence already I think there was good strategy at play here.”

Ben

Best player: Tie between Clyde Edwards-Hilaire (pick 1) and Jonathan Taylor (pick 2) – 3 votes. Ceedee Lamb (pick 4) and Isaiah Simmons (pick 12). It can’t be too bad when people can’t decide which is the best player out of the first 4 that you picked.

Best value: Antonio Gandy-Golden (pick 40) – 3 votes. A big week for Gandy-Golden, revealing he beat coronavirus and was a great value pick for Ben. Isaiah Simmons (pick 12) got 2 votes. 5 other players (CEH, Taylor, Gross-Matos, Lamb and Benjamin) each got a vote.

Worst value: Javon Kinlaw (pick 21) – 5 votes. I wholeheartedly agree. Isaiah Simmons completely his trifecta of runner-up spots, picking up 2 votes. Gandy-Golden, Lamb and Trevon Diggs (pick 75) each got 1 vote.

Best name: Antonio Gandy-Golden – 7 votes. I am shocked about the upset over Gross-Matos (2 votes), but I guess I’m a sucker for a rhyming name. Edwards-Hilaire got 1 undeserved vote.

Comments: “Some off the wall picks in the middle of the draft”; “Don’t feel like there’s any real value in this draft, it’s paying sticker price or higher for everyone in the early rounds and then a bunch of low-ish value late round picks”; “Not much ‘value’ per se as all the top picks have come at a premium. But you get your guy. Simmons overvalued there I think.”

“It’s tough to go wrong when you have 3 of the top 4 picks, and Ben managed to avoid any pitfalls. This should be transformational and take a team that’s not really been relevant since year one and turn them into challengers for the next 3 years. If it doesn’t then we know the GM is the problem. I look forward to his success infuriating Slatz.”

“Love the first round, but I think it lost its way in rounds 2 and 3. Good players, bad value.”; “Ben got good value out if his haul. Again you’d need to factor in what he gave up for his picks but I don’t think it was too much”

Goody

Best player: Ross Blacklock (pick 58) – 3 votes. A mixed bag as Deejay Dallas (pick 47) and CJ Henderson (pick 74) also got 2 votes and Darrell Taylor (pick 81), Jordan Love (pick 91) and Ashtyn Davis (pick 101) each got a vote. You could say that this shows he got good players throughout the draft. You could also say that this shows he had shit picks and picked shit players.

Best value: Darrell Taylor (pick 81) takes this home with 3 votes. Ashtyn Davis (pick 101) got 2 votes, though for my money he’s a better real player than fantasy player. Love, Henderson, Blacklock, Dallas and Shaquille Quarterman (pick 111) each got a vote. Again, no consensus.

Worst value: Finally, consensus! Jordan Love takes it home with 5 votes. And Jalen Hurts (pick 69) comes in 2nd with 3 votes. Picking a backup QB to a franchise QB isn’t popular. Ross Blacklock got the remaining vote.

Best name: Shaquille Quarterman – 7 votes. Deejay Dallas got the other 3, but frankly the only thing worse than the quality of players here is the quality of names.

Comments: “I basically like none of these picks – two back up QBs, a bunch of defenders and a guy who has a shot at being the lead RB on a team who like to swap them on a weekly basis, but also the 3rd RB on that team. No draft capital to speak of, but what they had was wasted.”; “Not a lot to work with, but might as well punt on two dubious QBs?”

“Jordan Love to be MVP All Pro.”

“It was fine. I don’t like his plan of taking two long-term backup QBs. Apart from them he got some decent prospects given his utter lack of capital.”; “I haven’t really heard of any of the players goody took”; Love is a terrible pick I’m glad he took, because it meant other players fell an extra slot down. Other than that, he couldn’t do much, not having a pick in the top 4 rounds. If only he could have traded one of his WRs to Pete for a first round pick.”; “It’s hard to rate a worst value pick when Goody only had two picks before the 7th round. I like the Ross Blacklock pick, i had been about to take him. I’m not convinced using two picks on QBs when you have so few is a great idea, even if they were pretty inconsequential picks.”

Geoff

Best player: Tua Tagovailoa (pick 32) – 6 votes. Not bad value to get your best player with your 4th pick (although that might say more about the first 3). His first two picks shared the remaining votes though: Denzel Mims (pick 11) with 3 and Tee Higgins (pick 16) with 1.

Best value: Tee Higgins (pick 16) with 3. Derrick Brown (pick 51) came in second with 2 votes, and Chaisson (pick 37), Gay (pick 36), Josh Kelley (pick 24), Mims (pick 11) and Grant Delpit (pick 66) each got a vote. It seems like there was general praise for how Geoff worked the middle rounds of the draft.

Worst value: Apart from picking Adam Trautman at 34. 4 votes for him. Kelley and Higgins each got 2, with Mims and JaMycal Hasty picking up a vote each.

Best name: Hasty might be bad value, but he’s a great name. 9 votes for him. Willie Gay is an underrated funny name for childish reasons, so he prevented Hasty’s clean sweep.

Comments: “I like both Mims and Higgins but better value at 24. Strnad could be good value.”; “A bit of a meh draft. Trading out of the 1st resulted in more picks but less oooomph”; “Missing out in the first round hurts a little. Mims and Higgins are an interesting pairing.”; “Lots of players, and lots who will likely be good in the nfl, but I’m not convinced they will be great in fantasy. It’s still pretty good, he got the best fantasy TE available, though in a shit year for TEs. There are quite a lot of players here I didn’t really have down as players worth picking when they came off the board, but he complained about being sniped consistently. Maybe there’s another world where he got a truly transcendent draft.”

“A class full of strong names. Getting Derrick Brown where he did was great value.”

“Mike is another who has stacked up plenty of good prospects on both sides. Really, it’s hard to have a bad draft (on first inspection) when you have so many picks so expect these comments to come out for Slatz and Chris too. I like the Tee Higgins pick a lot, Mike could well have got a WR1/2 for many years for a mid-2nd. Adam Trautman is overdrafted there though I think, maybe a round too early.”

Slatz

Best player: a tie between Jerry Jeudy (pick 7) and Chase Young (pick 6). 5 votes each. Not really hard to argue with that.

Best value: Jerry Jeudy runs away with it with 7 votes. Brandon Aiyuk (pick 17), Justin Herbert (pick 46) and Bradlee Anae (pick 100) each got a vote. I assume people ignored what it cost Slatz to trade up to get Jeudy.

Worst value: a (surprising, in my opinion) tie. Chase Young and Herbert (pick 46) each got 3 votes. I would have bet on Young winning this at a canter. Zack Moss (pick 26), Chase Claypool (pick 10), Aiyuk and Donovan Peoples-Jones (pick 63) each got a vote.

Best name: Donovan Peoples-Jones recovers from the ignominy of being an overrated late round pick to win best name, with 5 votes. Jerry Jeudy ran him close with 3 votes and Claypool and Davion Taylor each picked up a vote.

Comments: “He picked a bunch of players around their ADP or later, which is good, but they are pretty much all players I’m not a fan of. But I’m probably wrong. I think Young is great but he’s way overdrafted, especially given that he traded a lot to then get Jeudy.”; “Really good depth across offence and defence. I love the picks of Young and Moss. Some superb value with Jeudy and McFarland”

“Seems pretty good although gave next year’s first to achieve it. No bad picks standing out.”

“Hightower and Anae are strong picks that I was lining up for my next pick when he took them. Moss is a sneaky good pick too, and Jeudy shouldn’t have fallen to him at 7 (or 6, when he also could have taken him). Herbert is a wasted pick in my book though. Not as egregious as Love but I don’t see him being a viable nfl starter over the next three years.”; “I think both of the Steelers were taken a bit too high here so I’ve dinged the overall rating slightly but Slatz’ roster, overall, is stacked now and he did some fantastic work in round 1 to come away with Jeudy at 7 and snag the hands-down best defensive player in the draft. Young may have been a small reach but he was out on his own at the top and when you have a ton more picks coming up in a deep draft it doesn’t matter if you go and get that guy.”

Neil

Best player: AJ Epenesa (pick 53) with 7 votes. Lynn Bowden (pick 44) picked up the other 2. Surprising consensus, when compared to the other guys who didn’t join the draft until late.

Best value: Epenesa again, with 5 votes. Bowden picked up 3 votes and Devin Duvernay (pick 42) picked up 1. Not bad, your first 3 picks each garnering at least 1 “best value” vote.

Worst value: Not all good though, as Duvernay picked up worst value with 3 votes. Bowden picked up 2 votes, as did Jeff Gladney (pick 94). Isaiah Hodgins (pick 64) and Epenesa each picked up a vote.

Best name: A tie, but with early picks again performing well. Lynn Bowden and Duvernay picked up 2 votes each, as did Brycen Hopkins. Gladney and Uche eached picked up a vote, but this is a very poor name class.

Comments: “Not bad given the lack of early picks. Made his highest picks count.”; “I don’t understand the CB picks. He had 4 on the books and took 2 more. They are largely interchangeable and you shouldn’t be spending more than about $5 on 3 of them for the season.”

“Negative points for too many traditional names. Seriously, none of these players were on my list apart from Uche.”

“A lot of good potential contributors and very hard to pick a “worst value” player. Good work with shit capital. He should stop trading away all his picks.”; “I haven’t heard of many of the players past AJ Epenesa so I picked the first one as worst value (this is more of an indictment of me than Neil). I’ve rated the draft pretty low more because I can’t really see what Neil has on his roster to make up for the fact he didn’t have any early round picks.”; “Considering where he started picking, there’s solid value here with a lot of offensive guys who can contribute.”

Benj

Best player: Patrick Queen (pick 10) with 7 votes. Antonio Gibson (pick 20) picked up 2 votes, and Xavier McKinney (pick 50) picked up 1.

Best value: a tie between Queen and McKinney. Gabriel Davis (pick 61) also picked up a vote.

Worst value: Patrick Queen picks up his 3rd win, with 4 votes. The next two picks also challenged, with Gibson and Tyler Johnson (pick 30) each picking up 2 votes. Xavier McKinney and Reggie Begelton (pick 104) each got a vote too.

Best name: Begelton might have only got 1 pick as worst value, but got 8 picks as best name. An amazing achievement for a player who shouldn’t even have been eligible for the draft (he already went undrafted 3 years ago). Troy Dye picked up 2 votes.

Comments: “An okay draft. I don’t think there is many special talents there apart from Queen. Get your guy”; “It’s tough to give a high score when your first pick is an LB and your second is a project RB (even if I like him). But a bunch of good, probably high floor players.”; “I just don’t see a lot of value here – first pick is an overpay for a defender, second is an RB who is not value at RB as he’s a WR and third is a WR who may not play immediately. This is not a draft which helps keep the team on top.”

“Not a fan of Ben’s haul overall. The 10th pick is tough though. Queen is the only pick likely to contribute much”

“I don’t think Johnson is bad value, but I understand why others do. I put him as worst because arguably he could have been got later, but I didn’t have a pick for 20 picks and he’d definitely have been gone by then. I’m largely happy with what I achieved. The fact that a tier of WRs ran out just before my second round pick really frustrated me, but I’m happier with Queen than one of the WRs. I’ve been shit at picking WRs anyway, no doubt whoever I would have taken at 10 would have turned out to be the dud.”

Max

Best player: D’Andre Swift (pick 8) with 6 votes. Michael Pittman (pick 15) and Laviska Shenault (pick 19) each got 2 votes.

Best value: Pittman and Devin Asiasi (pick 38) each got 3 votes. Quintez Cephus (pick 48) got 2 votes – I really like him. Shenault and Keshawn Vaughn (pick 18) each got 1.

Worst value: Devin Asiasi takes this one too, with 3 votes. A controversial choice. Jeremy Chinn and Keshawn Vaughn (pick 18) got 2 votes. Swift, Pittman and Shenault with 1 each.

Best name: Quintez Cephus takes this easily, with 7 votes, Shenault probably suffered from familiarity, only getting 2 votes, and Neville Gallimore, which I think is just a dull name, got 1.

Comments: “Solid draft. Swift so late in the first when a month ago he was a potential #1 overall is an indictment of the Lions, but also great value as they probably aren’t permanently bad either.”; “I like this draft. I love Pittman, Chinn and Asiasi. Some solid picks and a couple of players chosen after others of worst value”

“Max started well with the first 4 picks but then seemed to lose his way. Did he get bored?”

“I like most of the picks here, and he did really well to get two potential starting RBs at good value. Cephus is a really promising sleeper too. The obsession with Patriots at the end was weird though.”; “I said Swift was the worst value, but that’s only because Detroit is where RBs go to die. In theory getting him at 8 is great value. There are lots of people who that I don’t know who they are and I think the same might be true for Max.”

“Even I think I took Asiasi too early. I also don’t know why I have 4 New England offensive players in my draft.”

Ian

Best player: JK Dobbins (pick 5) waltzes home with 8 votes. Kenneth Murray (pick 25) and Antoine Winfield (pick 67) got 1 vote each.

Best value: Logan Wilson (pick 45) with 4 votes takes the crown. Antoine Winfield and Dobbins each picked up 2 votes. Murray and Dezmon Patmon (pick 119) got a vote.

Worst value: Joe Reed (pick 59) and Kenneth Murray (pick 25) each got 3 votes. Murray is a surprise, I really like him and its a more traditional value for a first round LB, given where Simmons and Queen went. Justin Madubuike (pick 56) got 2 votes, and Logan Wilson and Thaddeus Moss (pick 99) got 1 vote.

Best name: A high quality category, but McTelvin Agim saw off the competition with 6 votes. Albert Okwuegbunam picked up 2 votes. Thaddeus Moss and Dezmon Patomn each got a vote.

Comments: “Okay but not spectacular. Would have liked some better players with the midround picks. Logan Wilson could be amazing IMO”; “I usually like Ian’s drafts, but Dobbins doesn’t necessarily help immediately, and then two linebackers to fill out his top 50, makes for an opportunity missed to improve a team which missed the playoffs again last year.”

“I missed not having a 2nd round pick. A lot of talent was selected whilst I was waiting for my 2nd pick. I did okay with what I had but not the most exciting group.”

“There are maybe 3 players here I’d quite like on my roster. I’m not convinced by Murray. Winfield is a great pick though. He also picked a player he refused to name when he announced him, which can’t do much for squad morale.”; “Ian’s done some good work here. I was torn between Wilson and Winfield as best value, both are defensive players that should challenge for his starting spots immediately. Ian will be happy to have JK Dobbins there over Cam Akers too, for my money.”

Chris

Best player: Cam Akers (pick 3) with 5 votes. You’d better hope a high pick is your best player. The next 3 picks also got votes: Justin Jefferson (pick 9) with 3, Jalen Reagor (pick 13) and Henry Ruggs (pick 14) with 1 each.

Best value: Bryan Edwards (pick 35) with 4 votes. Henry Ruggs picked up 2 votes, and Darrynton Evans (pick 33), Akers, Reagor and Jefferson each picked up 1.

Worst value: Cam Akers with 6 votes. I wholeheartedly agree, but just liked having a Rams RB when Gurley had knees, and couldn’t get any value to trade down. KJ Hamler got 3 votes and Henry Ruggs got 1. The correct answer was to leave this blank because all of my picks were great.

Best name: A poor quality category. AJ Dillon won with 4 votes, beating Darrynton Evans’ 2. Reagor, Cole Kmet and Raekwon Davis each picked up votes.

Comments: “Can’t fail to hit on a few receivers”; “As ever, a good draft. I love the Edwards pick there. Less sure of Jefferson quite so high though.”;

“Really good draft. Smashed the WRs. Akers is high at 3 (I prefer Dobbins) but could be Rookie of the year”

“I would have liked to trade down to get Akers slightly later, but I didn’t get sniped for anyone so I’m ok with how it ended up. Very happy with my draft (and lawn).”; “I mean. All the wide receivers. Just when you thought he must be done with them he wasn’t and he took some more. He’ll either end up with loads of value or no viable starters out of it. Hopefully the latter, because that would be hilarious, saving the rest of us from the dregs. I don’t like either the Akers of Ruggs picks. Akers wasn’t good value there at all and Ruggs I don’t think is good full stop.”; “Great draft overall. Chris didn’t have a huge need at defence and knows that our league inexplicably values offensive players much higher than their equivalent defensive players so he is absolutely set to have a good team going forward whilst being able to trade some pieces to draft well in future. My only knock would be that I think, given the quantity of picks he had, he could have traded down from 3rd spot for some future draft capital.”

Overall scores (averages). I’ve just kept these till here to keep you reading.

Ben A: 8.2

Chris: 7.3

Slatz: 7.2

Geoff: 6.2

Max: 6.0

Ian: 5.8

Neil: 5.0

Benj: 4.4

Goody: 4.2

Pete: 4.0

Overall conclusions

Who had the best draft: shockingly, this matches up with the average scores above. Ben A gets 7 votes. Slatz, Neil and Chris each got 1 vote.

Who had the worst draft: A tie, with 3 votes each: Pete, Benj and Goody. Ian also got a vote, so I guess wins most polarising draft.

Suggestions for how to improve the draft in future: “Nope. It’s my favourite weekend of the year”;

“People would announce their picks properly and MFL would allow more characters for comments of players after they’ve been drafted”;

“We should have to get all picks approved by Slatz in order to make sure we draft players at the right time”

“More trades. More high picks for me. More research and preparation for me. More people taking shit QBs and CBs. More rounds. Do it more often – can we have a draft once a month?”;

“I would love to do it in person again at some point if Coronavirus allows.”

Who is Going to Win the 2018 Dynabowl? by Ian Kulkowski (Hint – it’s not me!)

The question everyone is talking about at the moment is who is going to win this year’s Dynabowl?  When Bendy’s poll first appeared on MFL I excitedly scanned through all of the rosters (I do love a good poll) and determined that Max & Mike seemed the strongest.  I plumped for Mike on the basis of Zeke, Hunt & Freeman at RB, and that was that, decision made and I could now move on with my life.

But no.  That was not the case.  My mind was now racing – have I made the right call?  Have I given enough consideration to Defense, or Special Teams for that matter?  I vowed that this unsubstantiated selection simply won’t do and I needed to look deeper in order to be truly happy with my selection.  And so here I’ll run you through my results and determine once and for all who will win the 2018 Dynabowl.  The results might just shock you to the core! (They won’t).

I wanted a simple method of deciding who had the strongest roster (and more importantly starting 22) so I decided to use positional rankings to determine who was strongest at each position and then use that to guess who is best overall.  Once I started I quickly realised this was a pretty pointless exercise but I’m not one to abandon these kind of fruitless ventures so I ploughed on.  I suppose it ultimately did give me and understanding of where everyone’s strengths and weaknesses lie, including my own, which may help in identifying potential trade opportunities.  Which is good especially seen as I’m such a big trader!  It also proved to be useful prep for the upcoming C’Bowl draft, which seen as my C’bowl record is currently second to none could be quite important.

Speaking of which I really need to improve my early round draft record in the C’Bowl.  Here’s my first two pick in each of the 5 years I’ve been part of the league –

Ian’s first chart

How fucking terrible is that!!  Only 2 finished top 10 at their position (one of whom is Gronk! Duh!) and only 2 more top 20!  I even picked Gurley when he was shit!  No wonder I never make the playoffs.  But look out this year as I’m now fully prepared to not repeat the mistakes I’ve made over and over for the last 5 years!

Where was I? Oh yes, Dynabowl rankings.  We’ll start with the Offense as they are much more easily and reliably ranked.  I used fantasypros consensus draft rankings to rank each position then used those classify each player as one of three categories –

  • stud – automatic plug in and play each week
  • starter – remainder of the top ranked players who would be a starter in our league, so top 10 QB’s, top 25 RB’s top 35 WR’s etc.
  • back up – double the number of starters

I’ve ignored everyone else who is rostered as they are either likely to development stashes or just guys you have a crush on and like to have around (hello 2016 Dynabowl winning QB El Jaguar!). So without any further ado let’s get into it…..

Quarterback

Ian’s second chart

I simply ranked teams QB’s by the ranks of their no.1 as we only need to start 1.  So T2 come out on top with A.A.Ron.  According to the rankings there are 3 teams with no starter quality QB’s – Sadness, Bombermen & Losers, with the Losers barely scraping even a back up in Derek Carr.  Although Bendy’s QB crew are all ranked 13-15 (nice grouping) you could easily see 1 of them breaking the top 10, or even 5.  There will certainly be some selection headaches in the weeks to come!

Check out Pete’s QB’s!!  Whooo boy he has the position nailed!!  Surely a trade opportunity here Pete?

Running Back

Ian’s third table

Max and Bendy both have 2 studs at this crucial position so look well set but they are bettered by Mike with a group boasting 3 studs plus one extra starter!  All those years of early picks are beginning to pay off!  Slatz scrapes into playoff contention here with 1 stud backed up by 2 highly ranked starters.

Things don’t look great for me and Bean here with no studs and a few lowly ranked starters.  Some attention is required here.  Meanwhile Chris’s reliance on No.1 ranked RB Gurley (where were you in 2016??) and his strong WR corps is stark as he has only one other RB ranked inside the top 50, and that’s Kenyan Drake!

Wide Receiver

This is Ian’s 4th table

Max & Chris grade highest on WR’s with 2 studs and 2 starters each.  I’ve put Max on top due to him having 2 in the top 4.  Pete is very close also with 2 studs and 2 starters – all those early picks paying off again?!

My deficiency at WR is clear to see with only one starter rostered.  Slatz is not too far ahead although his strategy of playing the long game with Josh Gordon could finally be about to pay off.

Tight End

Ian’s fifth table – how many of these do you think there are?

As with QB’s I’ve pretty much ranked TE’s by the no.1 on each roster as we mostly start only one.  Neil and Max have the only 2 studs which puts them top of the pile (although Neil currently can’t afford Gronk – watch this space). Pete’s young TE’s – whilst exiting – look a little weak here and slatz doesn’t own a single TE ranked in the top 20!

Offense Summary

Overall Max looks to have the strongest offence grading in the top 3 in each position.  A starting line-up of Brady, Bell, Cook, Ajayi, Hopkins, Julio, Tate, Sanders & Kelce should pile on the points week on week.

Mike isn’t far behind with the strongest group of RB’s and very good WR corps.  QB looks to be his weakness although a Rivers / Goff combo is more than capable of delivering.

Pete & Goody/Mat also boast strong offenses with minimal weaknesses which should enable them to push for the payoffs this year.

And what of Chris?  The Reigning champ is strong at WR but will it be enough to make up for his deficiencies elsewhere, especially RB after Gurley (Shakes fist at 2016 Gurley!)

At the other end of the scale my offense looks dire.  The halcyon days of regular playoff appearances appear to be long gone with a long rebuild process required.  Slatz is in a similar position although his RB’s are showing potential to develop into solid group.

Defence

So that’s the easy part done.  Defence is a bit of a different story as there aren’t really the ranks available that represent the depth and scoring in our league to do the same exercise.  After much research I decided the only way to do it was to come up with my own rankings!  To do this I’ve blended together a combination of FFtoday rankings (as these seems the most representative of Dynabowl scoring and have enough depth) and MFL’s own player projections to create a hybrid IDP ranking which definitely provides an undisputable view of who has the strongest D!  So 2 sets of bollocks rankings combined will surely provide a flawless outcome!  That’s the theory (*sigh).

So how does this play out…..

Defensive Tackle

The sixth one. And it’s not the last…

Malik Jackson is the no.1 ranked DT??! What??!  Well that ridicules my ranking system straight away.  What a waste of time!!!!  Seen as it puts me as top ranked I’m going to plough on with this pointless exercise regardless.  With Nose Tackle Damon Harrison also ranked as a starter (jesus what a load of shit) my strength at the position is secure.  I think I’m possibly doing T2 a bit of a disservice putting them below me as their 2 solid starters are clearly the best DT combo in the league.

Pete and Chris have work to do at this position with no DT’s ranked as starters on their roster.

Defensive End

Still going strong at 7 (seven)

DE is clearly Bendy’s position of strength with 2 studs backed up by another starter.  Max isn’t far behind as he also has 2 studs at the position.  Pete & Chris also look to have a good amount of depth at the top of the rankings although maybe some lineup headaches to come.  Once again I have the number ranked player at the position!

Neil sits at the bottom of the pile for DE’s with no starters on his roster and is the only team with a significant need at this positon.

Linebacker

He’s got to be running out of these soon, right?

Mike and Chris sit comfortably atop the LB rankings with 2 studs each plus at least 2 starters to round out their lineups each week.  My group comes next with 1 stud plus a whopping 6 further starts to choose from (trade anyone?!).

Everyone has starters at this position (hard not to when there’s 40 of them!) but Max , Bendy & Pete are the 3 squads without any studs so sit at the bottom of the pile.

Safety

Number Nine. Number Nine. Number Nine.

Now this where it starts to get silly.  Both the rankings and stat projections are pretty much completely pointless when it comes to DB’s so drawing any sort of conclusion from this isn’t much use!  Nevertheless here we are…..

Goody / Mat are locked in at Safety with 2 studs and a starter.  Chris and Pete also look to be in a nice position.

Neil and Slate sit at the bottom with Slate boasting only one guy raked as a backup.

Cornerback

It’s the last one! I promise. 10. 10 of them!

This is just a random set of numbers so I’m not even going to bother commenting.

Defense Summary

What to make of that load of Shit?

Goody / Mat, Chris and me seem to have the strongest overall units.  Goody / Mat have no real weak spots on D whilst Chris only has holes at DT and CB and we know how he loves to create work for Bendy by heavily streaming those positions.  I think some dodgy rankings have bumped me up the list a little!

Max grades in the bottom half at each position besides DE so his strong offence will have to work hard to make up for his deficiencies in the D.  Bendy is in a similar position although slightly above Max in most areas.

So who will win the 2018 Dynabowl???

To be hones after all that I’m none the wiser.  Probably more confused even!!  The way I see there’s a fairly clear split between who’s going to be challenging for the playoffs and who’s battling for that No.1 pick.  The winner as usual will probably be decided by Kickers & Punters.  So in no particular order –

Playoff contenders

  • East Flanders Dungeoneers – Strong on Offense with crazy QB’s depth, Not bad on D but LB and DT look to be issues.
  • Tamworth Two – No obvious are of weakness with a very balanced roster.
  • Dynasty of Sadness – Strong offence despite lack of obvious starter at QB and no major issues on D besides DE.
  • Champions of the Sun – Extremely strong offence but weak in several positions on D.
  • Dyna Hard – RB a real concern but defense looks strong besides DT & CB.

Fighting for No.1 Pick

  • Here Comes the Brees – a lack of real quality on offence will cost them, Defense looks solid.
  • Dynasore Losers – Still very much in rebuild mode, some signs of building nice young roster at RB & LB.
  • DynaForOne Firebirds – Neil’s roster is so thin there’s lots of work to do to make this a competitive squad. I still don’t know how he’s going to get under the cap!
  • Dynabalster Bombermen – A good offence for Bendy despite his selection headache at QB but Defense may not have enough.
  • Kelkowski Don’t Play by No Dyna Rules – Offense is truly awful in need of a complete rebuild! Not bad on D.

Fun Facts About The 2017 Chatterbowl

The following things are all facts of various kinds from the 2017 Chatterbowl, or Chatterbowl history to date.

  • Three of the previous Chatterbowl Winners scored more points in the final than the the two 2017 Finalists scored, put together (112)
  • Every team has now made the playoffs at least once. The last to join the list were Spunky Beans (Ian Kulkowski) and Martysaurus Sex (Jay Kelly)
  • Every score between 39 and 133 (inclusive) has now been scored at least once
  • The three GMs to have scored the most points are David Slater (8289 in 96 games), Ben Hendy (8280 in 95 games) and Dan Sayles (8276 in 96 games) – 13 points covering those top 3
  • The top 4 players for average points per games have not played all 6 seasons to date (Chris Braithwaite, Dan Smith, Pete Conaghan and James Goodson)
  • Dan Sayles has longest playoff streak (and it’s still active), making the playoffs every year from 2013 to 2017 (5)
  • Other top playoff teams (Total/Active Streak in brackets), Ben Hendy (5/4), David Slater (4/0), Mat Ward (4/4)
  • Mat Ward is the only person to have won 6 games against another GM and not lost to them (he is 6-0 vs Dan Sayles, which is quite remarkable given Sayles’ consistency)
  • No one else has more than 4 wins without also suffering a defeat against that GM
  • Ben Hendy has scored a century in the highest percentage of his matches (28.8%, 23/80 – data excludes 2012, which had 12 teams). Second is Ben Archer (28.1%, 9/32), and third are Max Cubberley and James Goodson (27.5%, 22/80)
  • Dan Smith has been on the receiving end of the most centuries (27.1%, 13/48), Jay Kelly is in second (26.3%, 21/80), while third is split between Ben Archer, Chris Braithwaite, Max Cubberley, Pete Conaghan and Phillip Malcolm (25.0%)
  • 2017 had the lowest scoring average of all seasons of the Chatterbowl to date
    • 2012 – 86.26 – 1 week averaging less than 80 points
    • 2013 – 85.34 – 4 weeks
    • 2014 – 83.13 – 4 weeks
    • 2015 – 84.40 – 2 weeks
    • 2016 – 83.08 – 4 weeks
    • 2017 – 78.85 – 12 weeks
  • The average score put up by Chatterbowl teams in every single week in 2017 was lower than the average score in that week in the combined average for the previous 5 years
    • I realise I have phrased this confusingly – take the average score that every team got in week one of the previous 5 seasons – the average in week one 2017 was less than this. The same goes for week two, week three, etc and so on.
  • The total number of centuries scored in 2017 was 18. This compares to 32 in 2013, 26 in 2014, 25 in 2015 and 28 in 2016.
  • Week 9 of 2017 was the first ever week in which no team registered a century
  • 3 teams failed to register a century in any week of the 2017 season (Chris Braithwaite, David Slater, Jamie Blair)
    • This has happened 3 times before – Phillip Malcolm 2013, Chris Braithwaite 2015, Chris Hill 2015
  • Teams that made the playoffs in 2017 outscored teams who didn’t make the playoffs 85.08 to 72.63, a difference of 12.45
    • The only bigger gap was in 2013 – 17.61 – 94.15 to 76.54
    • The third biggest gap on the list was 8.63 in 2015 (88.71 to 80.09)
  • The top 3 scorers in the 2017 Chatterbowl regular season were separated by 5 points – Mat Ward (1186), Ben Hendy (1185), Neil Hawke (1181). These are the 17th, 18th and 19th top Chatterbowl regular season points totals ever recorded.
    • Chris Braithwaite and David Slater hold all of the top 5 spots in that particular table
  • In the 2017 Chatterbowl Final, 6 of the Andover Anteaters failed to achieve double figures. This is the second time this has occurred (Flutie Flakes – 2013)
  • No player for the Andover Anteaters scored more than 17 points in the Chatterbowl final (Ben Roethlisberger). This is the lowest top-scoring player ever (previous lowest top scoring player, Allen Hurns & Texans DST, 22 points, Brett Favre’s Junk Calls, 2015 final)

Historical Chatterbowl Dominance Report

For the longest time I have been searching for a way to measure relative performance across the entire league, and for season against season. Fantasy football performance can’t be directly compared year one year because the source of the point scoring, the NFL, has so much variance. League trends mean points scoring, both in real life and in fantasy leagues, can vary significantly from one year to the next. One season an average team may score a century every other week, the next season an average team scores one only every 6 weeks. A team in the second of those two seasons may totally dominate the league, but their numbers look very ordinary compared to teams in the first season, so how do you compare them and determine the best?

Finally, I think I have a reliable system to compare teams year on year. Let me explain the maths…

In any given week there are 16 scores produced by the teams in the Chatterbowl. These obviously vary, sometimes hugely. The first step of this methodology is to calculate the standard deviation of this collection of 16 scores. Thanks to Microsoft Excel, this is as simple as using the formula =stdev([range of scores]). This will give you a figure which, typically over the past 6 seasons of the Chatterbowl, comes in somewhere between 15 and 25, but occasionally outside this range. The higher the number, the more variability there is across the 16 scores.

To explain, one standard deviation (what is calculated above), is the range above and below the mean that you would expect 68.2% of all scores within that range to fit into. Two standard deviations is used for a lot of statistical models because it equates to approximately 95% of a range, but we don’t need to do that for our purposes. Instead, we go onto step two…

Step two is to take the score of an individual team, subtract the average score that week from it, and then divide the result by the Standard Deviation calculated in step one, above.

This step essentially calculates how many standard deviations away from the mean the given team’s score was that week. If the standard deviation were exactly 20 and a team scored 20 more than the mean then the score calculated would be 1.00. However, if another team scored 10 below the mean, the score calculated would be -0.50. And so on.

In fact, here’s a real world example. In week 1 of the 2017 season the average score was 74.44, while the standard deviation was 20.97. Chris Hill scored lowest, with 43 points, which is 31.44 below the mean, so gives a score of -1.50, while the top score was by Steve Smith at 117. This is 42.56 above the mean and gives a score of 2.03.

Step three is to do this for every week of the season and then take an average of all the weeks. Finally, take the square root of this average and you have a final score or rating. Now, full disclosure here – I do not now recall the reason for doing this, though I am sure someone more statistically sound than I will be able to tell you where this element of the methodology comes from. Honestly though, there is a proper reason for doing this.

I have done this in three different ways – for the regular season, for the playoffs, and for the entire season as a whole, and have done this for each season the Chatterbowl has been running, since 2012. From this there are some interesting scores that have come out. In total there have been 92 seasons completed so far, and the top ten regular season scores are as follows:

 Rank GM & Year Regular Season Score
1 Chris Braithwaite 2014 1.036
2 Mat Ward 2017 0.827
3 Neil Hawke 2017 0.824
4 David Slater 2013 0.821
5 Chris Braithwaite 2013 0.811
6 Ben Hendy 2017 0.809
7 David Slater 2015 0.795
8 Jamie Blair 2015 0.735
9 Chris Braithwaite 2012 0.716
10 Dan Smith 2013 0.685

Some interesting things here:

  • Chris Braithwaite’s 2014 season was astonishingly consistent – during the regular season he was never below zero in his score. However, he truly shat the bed in the playoffs, scoring -0.73 in the first round.
  • None of these teams won the Chatterbowl
  • Three of the top 6 teams came from 2017 which was by far the worst scoring season so far. The average weekly score in 2017 was 78.85 – the previous worst was 83.08 in 2016 while the highest was 86.26 in 2012 (the single 12 team season, which would be expected to have a higher average points total)

The table below gives you the regular season performance of each Chatterbowl winner:

 Rank GM & Year Regular Season Score
11 C – Ben Hendy 2014 0.675
18 C – Max Cubberley 2012 0.614
31 C – David Slater 2016 0.364
36 C – James Goodson 2017 0.348
38 C – Pete Conaghan 2013 0.295
49 C – Ben Hendy 2015 -0.191

The playoffs, unsurprisingly, tend to show slightly better performance from the eventual champions and, with them only having to take 3 games into account, are liable to higher scores overall.

 Rank GM & Year Playoffs Score
1 C – Ben Hendy 2015 1.360
2 C – Ben Hendy 2014 1.300
3 Chris Braithwaite 2012 1.215
4 Dan Smith 2013 1.210
5 Max Cubberley 2015 1.171
6 Jay Kelly 2014 1.021
7 C – David Slater 2016 1.012
8 Jay Kelly 2017 0.947
9 Dan Sayles 2013 0.926
10 Mat Ward 2017 0.924

Of those seasons, only Ben Hendy 2015 and Jay Kelly 2014 had regular season performance worse than zero. The full list of champions is below.

 Rank GM & Year Playoffs Score
1 C – Ben Hendy 2015 1.360
2 C – Ben Hendy 2014 1.300
7 C – David Slater 2016 1.012
11 C – Pete Conaghan 2013 0.923
12 C – Max Cubberley 2012 0.920
22 C – James Goodson 2017 0.681

Next, overall performance for the full season – regular and playoff (including the split):

Rank GM & Year Regular Playoffs Full
1 Chris Braithwaite 2014 1.036 -0.026 0.934
2 Mat Ward 2017 0.827 0.924 0.848
3 David Slater 2013 0.821 0.914 0.839
4 Chris Braithwaite 2012 0.716 1.215 0.832
5 C – Ben Hendy 2014 0.675 1.300 0.829
6 Neil Hawke 2017 0.824 0.816 0.822
7 Dan Smith 2013 0.685 1.210 0.810
8 David Slater 2015 0.795 0.638 0.768
9 Jamie Blair 2015 0.735 0.709 0.730
10 Chris Braithwaite 2013 0.811 -0.346 0.715

And for the Champions alone:

Rank GM & Year Regular Playoffs Full
5 C – Ben Hendy 2014 0.675 1.300 0.829
12 C – Max Cubberley 2012 0.614 0.920 0.681
19 C – Ben Hendy 2015 -0.191 1.360 0.563
23 C – David Slater 2016 0.364 1.012 0.548
28 C – Pete Conaghan 2013 0.295 0.923 0.480
33 C – James Goodson 2017 0.348 0.681 0.430

And finally, while I don’t want to dwell on it, I know you’ll all want to know about the 10 worst seasons ever (2013 was not a good year), so without comment, here they are:

Rank GM & Year Regular Playoffs Full
83 Jay Kelly 2016 -0.775 0.118 -0.697
84 Neil Hawke 2015 -0.733 -0.541 -0.701
85 Jay Kelly 2013 -0.684 -0.970 -0.746
86 Chris Hill 2015 -0.801 -0.624 -0.771
87 Max Cubberley 2016 -0.672 -1.184 -0.794
88 Geoffrey Manboob 2013 -0.916 -0.538 -0.858
89 Philip Malcolm 2013 -0.824 -1.033 -0.867
90 Ben Hendy 2013 -0.850 -1.024 -0.885
91 Philip Malcolm 2014 -0.929 -0.959 -0.935
92 Jamie Blair 2017 -0.940 -1.286 -1.014

Oh, and this data is available here:Chatterbowl Database Download