Tag: 2014

Scheduling and Relative Strength

Following on from league schedule chat, I got thinking about the level of luck involved in the schedule and what the chances were of teams getting different amount of wins, considering the number of points they scored each week. It’s important to understand, of course, that just because a team scored a lot of points, it doesn’t mean they could have been consistent winners. If they scored massive amounts in just 3 weeks and at or below average the rest of the season they could look like big time Charlies when actually they were … erm … small time Freddies? Also, some weeks the entire league scored highly so a high score is merely par (weeks 8, 10 and 13 all featured average team scores of 190+), while other weeks the points were low so a high score had the chance to dominate (week 2 had an average score of only 158.7).

The point is that it definitely matters when you score those points, as well as how many of them you score.

So given I have the full weekly scoring available I decided to run some scenarios. In fact, practically every scenario. Sort of. There are some weakness which I am going to acknowledge up front.

So what I did was rank everyone’s score from first to last in the league in each week. From this you can derive the chance of winning in any given week. If you top scored you had a 100% chance of winning. If you were the 5th top scorer you had a 55.55% chance of winning (you could beat 5 teams out of 9 – 5/9 = 55.55%) and thus a 44.44% chance of losing. And so on.

By multiplying your chance of winning in week 1 by your chance of winning in week 2 and so on we can work out the chance of you winning every single game. If we create a list of all possible scenarios (ie every combination of win or lose for every week of the season), we can then work out the likelihood of each scenario. Add up all the scenarios that result in 7 wins and you have the % chance of that outcome.

The caveats:

  1. In week 10 Dyna Hard and Kelkowski had the same score. They didn’t play each other so there was no tie, but this would add a tie into the possible outcomes. This would change the number of scenarios across a 13 week season from 8,192 to 1,594,323. To avoid doing this I have knocked Dyna Hard down by 0.05 points so there’s no tie that week. This means that I slightly under-estimate Dyna Hard’s position in the end results and slightly over-estimate Kelkowski’s, but the difference is minimal.
  2. I have not done this based on feasible schedules that fit with our ‘play your division twice, the other division once’ rules. This is purely done on the basis of how many teams could you beat each week. This means that while it may say a team has a small percentage chance of winning every week or losing every week, this may not actually be the case because that may rely on playing The Sadness or Kelkowski every week.

However, what this does do is provide an analysis of relative strength across the division as well as estimate the role schedule luck played in each team’s performance.

So first off I want to walk you through an example. East Flanders had a 0.13% chance of losing all 13 games in the season. The table below shows the ranking of each weekly points score for the team, the chance of losing in that individual week, and the cumulative chance of losing each week, one after the other:

Score Rank Chance of Losing Cumulative Chance of Losing
Week 1 6 55.56% 55.56%
Week 2 4 33.33% 18.52%
Week 3 10 100.00% 18.52%
Week 4 8 77.78% 14.40%
Week 5 8 77.78% 11.20%
Week 6 7 66.67% 7.47%
Week 7 10 100.00% 7.47%
Week 8 8 77.78% 5.81%
Week 9 9 88.89% 5.16%
Week 10 7 66.67% 3.44%
Week 11 8 77.78% 2.68%
Week 12 2 11.11% 0.30%
Week 13 5 44.44% 0.13%

A decent start and end to the season didn’t cover up a pretty terrible middle.

So doing this for every win/loss combination for every team gives the following table of likely win totals:

Win Expectancy 1

The figures highlighted in bold are the percentage chance the team had of recording the number of victories they actually did record. So Champions of the Sun ended up with 6 wins and there was a 24.75% chance of that happening based on their weekly scores (accepting the caveats listed earlier), while Dyna Hard had just a 9.86% likelihood of getting exactly 5 wins, as they managed across the year.

So for all bar two teams, the chances of ending with the record they ended with was between 22.52% and 29.19%, though only 3 teams ended with the record they were most likely to.

So the next stage is to look at the cumulative win chances – ie adding the percentage chances up as you move along. So each column in the table below shows the chances of winning between zero and n games (n being the number at the top of the column).

Win Expectancy 2

What this is saying is that the higher the cumulative number the luckier you would need to be to get that number of victories, while approximately 50% is where you would expect to be. So in 95.54% of scenarios Here Comes The Brees would win 8 or fewer games and only in 4.46% of scenarios would they win over 8 games. As we can see, there was only a 13.60% chance that Dyna Hard would win 5 or fewer games.

We can also reverse this and produce a table which shows the chances of reaching a minimum number of wins:

Win Expectancy 3

This shows that The Brees had only a 14.66% chance of getting at least the 8 wins they managed, while Dyna Hard were as close to guaranteed as you could reasonably expect to get to hit the 5 wins they did, with over a 96% chance of reaching that level. The Dynasty of Sadness were the second luckiest franchise, with only a 35% chance of getting 5 wins, although they had a better chance of getting 4 wins than East Flanders, while the Champions of the Sun were very lunlucky to register just 6 wins.

So what can we do with all this data? Well, we can use it to create an expected win number. By looking at where the 50% position falls in the above 2 cumulative tables and taking the average of the 2 positions we can see the expected number of wins for each team based on their performance.

Team Expected Wins Exp. Win Rank Actual Wins Diff. % Difference
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 8.59 1 8 -0.59 -4.52%
Dynasore Losers 8.34 2 8 -0.34 -2.61%
DynaForOne Firebirds 7.33 3 7 -0.33 -2.50%
Dyna Hard 7.12 4 5 -2.12 -16.27%
Champions of the Sun 6.89 5 6 -0.89 -6.88%
Tamworth Two 6.43 6 6 -0.43 -3.34%
Dynablaster Bombermen 6.11 7 7 0.89 6.88%
Here Comes The Brees 5.88 8 8 2.12 16.30%
East Flanders Dungeoneers 4.18 9 5 0.82 6.31%
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 4.12 10 5 0.88 6.74%

So most teams were within 1 win of where they would be expected to end up, but Dyna Hard and Here Come The Brees were both over 2 wins difference from what their week to week performance merited.

All told I am pleasantly surprised at how little difference the schedule made for most people. This may be a case of there being so few games it’s harder to separate from the mean, but then again, 20% of the league – a not insignificant proportion – were over 2 games different from their expected level.

What can be said at this point is that we don’t really know if this is a problem or not. Will there always be teams who get very lucky or unlucky or was 2014 an anomaly? Should we look to provide a degree of stabilisation to try to get the best performing teams over the course of the season into the playoffs? Or should we embrace randomness?

Kommish Komment Korner (again)

The fact that the match-ups, in a randomly assigned order, can make a large difference to the outcome of the season – something beyond the control of the GM – seems an unfair punishment (or reward) and if something can be done that removes an element of that, while maintaining the excitement of head-to-head match-ups, my view is it should be included.

What we have is not broken, but there are a few cracks in the facade and it would be nice to address those so that we have a league which is both fun and robust. The magic of the cup will remain, regardless, in the playoff stage. What the regular season should at least try to do is ensure that the best teams end up in the playoffs while the worst teams get the best picks in the draft in order to better themselves and make themselves more competitive. In 2014 the playoffs were 3/4 right in that regard, but it’s not as though the 4th part of that equation was a borderline case. Had Dyna Hard come 5th, just behind Champions of the Sun, the issue wouldn’t have been a talking point (and I realise I am the only one talking about it really so you may not consider it one anyway). But I think it is tough to argue that Dyna Hard merit the first pick of the draft ahead of DoS and East Flanders.

I’m not suggesting a revolution, I’m suggesting evolution. The league is one year old and we knew we wouldn’t get things right the first time. We need to adapt to make the league as good and as fair as possible. I don’t want playoffs to be decided based on all-play or total points or anything. We all put in a lot of time and effort and it is better that we have a system that rewards that time and effort and, where appropriate, skill as best as possible.

This won’t change for 2015 and the above analysis will be repeated after the 2015 season to see how different the league was from actual performance. There will then be a vote sometime in the new year about whether we should change the schedule and/or ranking system for teams. Cases will be made and, whatever the outcome, we will move forward, older and allegedly wiser.

Drafting the 2014 Rookies

OBJ

The 2014 DynaBowl season is in the books and the 2015 rookie draft is just around the corner so now seems like a good time to look back at how the 2014 rookie draft might have gone, had it been a thing and had we known what we know now about the last year’s rookies.

I’m not looking at this from a team need perspective, merely ranking the players in the order that I might have had them on my draft board if I knew then what I know now. Maybe.

1. Odell Beckham Jr – New York Giants/Dynasty of Sadness

The star of the season, the star of the Madden cover for 2015 and the star of Tinder profiles around the world. Probably.

Also, the player most likely to become a super hero.

2. Mike Evans – Tampa Bay Buccaneers/Champions of the Sun

The consensus number 2 rookie last year is the number 2 rookie in this revision. Only he’s behind a different guy this time. He’s very tall, which may help prevent some of the many INTs Jameis Winston is going to try to throw this year.

3. Sammy Watkins – Buffalo Bills/Dyna Hard

Had a more typical rookie WR season, and one which, in normal years, would be considered outstanding. Last year was not a normal year for rookie WRs. If Buffalo ever find someone who can throw a football (or even look like they’ve seen a football before), he could turn out to be very special indeed.

4. Jeremy Hill – Cincinnati Bengals/Dynablaster Bombermen

A weak year for rookie running backs, but Hill overcame the odds and has left the Bengals with a nice decision to make over how best to utilise him and Geovani Bernard.

5. Brandin Cooks – New Orleans Saints/Dynablaster Bombermen

He got injured, yes, but that doesn’t really matter for this. The key was he looked like he belonged and, given his mentality, he’s only likely to improve. May not become an elite guy – he’s too small for that – but if he becomes Randall Cobb 2.0 I’ll be very happy.

6. Kelvin Benjamin – Carolina Panthers/Dynablaster Bombermen

He was basically the only WR the Panthers had last year. Now they have Funchess to play opposite him he won’t attract quite so much attention. However, he drops a few too many balls. Improve that stat and he would leap a few slots.

7. Jordan Matthews – Philadelphia Eagles/Dynablaster Bombermen

The Eagles have slowly removed every other potential WR1 from their books leaving Matthews as the main man. For now. Agholor could change that, but, for now, the leading WR in a Chip Kelly offense is a desirable component.

8. Aaron Donald – St Louis Rams/Here Comes The Brees

The first defensive player on the list and the first of two Rams/Brees rookies. High scoring in his rookie season, finishing 2nd at DT behind Suh. Unlikely to become JJ Watt (which is like saying a member of Coronation Street is unlikely to become Neo from the Matrix) (And I don’t mean unlikely to become Keanu Reeves, I mean actually Neo), but likely to remain a top scoring defensive player for years to come.

9. Carlos Hyde – San Francisco 49ers/Dynablaster Bombermen

Had a time share role with Frank Gore and showed he can be a solid, though not spectacular back. Probably a FF RB2 going forward now that the job is his alone to lose.

10. Tre Mason – St Louis Rams/Here Comes The Brees

On performance last year he might deserve to be a couple of slots higher. After the signing of Gurley in the 2015 rookie draft he might deserve to be a couple of slots lower. For now he can sit here.

11. Jarvis Landry – Miami Dolphins/Tamworth Two

OBJ’s college roommate. The pair practiced one-handed catches together. The Dolphins now have a crowded roster with Stills, Cameron, and the newly signed DeVante Parker, but Landry could play a big role going forward.

12. Charles Sims – Tampa Bay Buccaneers/Here Comes The Brees

Came in as the third man in line but Doug Martin is made of biscuits and the Buccs are thought to be promoting Sims to starter for 2015.

13. Teddy Bridgeater – Minnesota Vikings/Dynasty of Sadness

Terrible pro-day and his hands are too small. Isn’t that the received wisdom? In 2014 he was head and shoulders above the other rookie QBs.

14. Martavis Bryant – Pittsburgh Steelers/Dyna Hard

Solid first season that would be seen a good building block for a rookie WR were it not for every WR above him on this list.

15. Austin Sefarian-Jenkins – Tampa Bay Buccaneers/Dynablaster Bombermen

Tight Ends typically do very little in their first season. ASJ did very little in his first season, but he did a little more than Eric Ebron. He looked more up to speed with the NFL and he was playing with a terrible QB. In 2015, he’ll be playing with a slightly better (though considerably more rapey (allegedly)) QB.

16. Jerrick McKinnon – Minnesota Vikings/Champions of the Sun

Showed some decent glimpses in a time-share role with Matt Asiata and with AP’s role up in the air a chance could be there for the taking. Or he could be Christine Michael in colder climes and never amount to anything.

17. Kyle Fuller – Chicago Bears/Dynasty of Sadness

Had a fast start to his time in the league and managed to be one of the best defensive Bears – a title with much competition. Finished 2nd in CB points for the year. Spectacular arrival.

18. Andre Williams – New York Giants/Dynablaster Bombermen

Adequate.

19. Khalil Mack – Oakland Raiders/Champions of the Sun

Showed enough potential to get Raiders fans very excited. As the team rebuilds, should become the leader on defence and could become something pretty special.

20. Bradley Roby – Denver Broncos/Dynablaster Bombermen

An excellent first season, placing 12th overall in the league for CB points, and behind only Fuller in the rookie positional ratings.

21. Cody Parkey – Philadelphia Eagles/East Flanders Dungeoneers

The first real skill position player to make the list.

2014 DynaBowl Post Season Raw Data

That’s right, the raw data I used for my analysis is available. And it’s available here.

Just download that file and you can do your own analysis. The file gives you raw data for every team for every week, with the players who started and those who didn’t indicated (no IR or Taxi Squad players are included), along with their rank overall, by position and by team each week. There’s loads of stuff you could do. I’ll probably do some more, but I might not share it. Or I might.

If you do some and want to share it, let me know, and I will publish it.

2014 DynaBowl Post Season Performance Analysis – Part 3

So we were about to look at some positional statistics. Let’s start with a nice, simple split, total points by position, starting with the defence:

DT DE LB CB  S  Def Total
Champions of the Sun 40.000 306.500 527.500 157.300 231.300 1262.600
Dyna Hard 88.750 370.150 473.200 153.600 156.800 1242.500
Dynablaster Bombermen 123.450 254.600 418.250 177.300 217.700 1191.300
DynaForOne Firebirds 270.000 172.200 295.600 188.600 134.450 1060.850
Dynasore Losers 63.250 220.250 557.550 115.750 224.900 1181.700
East Flanders Flahutes 177.000 176.000 342.000 174.450 171.950 1041.400
Here Comes The Brees 254.750 123.350 322.000 212.250 257.600 1169.950
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 74.500 278.550 326.500 168.500 241.650 1089.700
Tamworth Two 172.250 195.000 390.500 239.950 183.450 1181.150
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 80.000 151.550 447.000 157.575 160.500 996.625
Grand Total 1343.950 2248.150 4100.100 1745.275 1980.300 11417.775

Now, when looking at these stats, you need to remember the flex options – teams did have the option of starting 1 or 2 DTs and 3 or 4 LBs. For example, in 8 of the 16 weeks, Here Comes The Brees started 2 DTs, while DFO did so in 12 of the 16 weeks, hence these two teams had by far the greatest number of points from this position.

Four teams, Champions of the Sun, Dyna Hard, Dynablaster Bombermen and Dynasore Losers only ever started 1 DT, while two more teams – Kelkowski and Dynasty of Sadness – only started 2 DTs once. We’ll get into the points per starter stats shortly, that was just to put the above numbers in a bit of context. What it does mean, though, is that only Dynablaster managed to get at least 100 points out of starting a solo DT.

So, as a percentage of all points gained by the team, how do the defensive positions break down?

DT DE LB CB  S Def Total
Champions of the Sun 1.34% 10.25% 17.64% 5.26% 7.74% 42.23%
Dyna Hard 3.04% 12.67% 16.19% 5.26% 5.37% 42.52%
Dynablaster Bombermen 4.34% 8.95% 14.70% 6.23% 7.65% 41.87%
DynaForOne Firebirds 8.69% 5.54% 9.52% 6.07% 4.33% 34.15%
Dynasore Losers 2.10% 7.31% 18.51% 3.84% 7.46% 39.22%
East Flanders Flahutes 6.99% 6.95% 13.51% 6.89% 6.79% 41.15%
Here Comes The Brees 9.50% 4.60% 12.01% 7.92% 9.61% 43.63%
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 2.47% 9.23% 10.82% 5.58% 8.01% 36.10%
Tamworth Two 6.13% 6.94% 13.91% 8.55% 6.53% 42.06%
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 3.14% 5.96% 17.57% 6.19% 6.31% 39.17%
Grand Total 4.72% 7.90% 14.41% 6.13% 6.96% 40.12%

It’s pretty clear which teams had the star DEs – Dyna Hard having JJ Watt gave a massive boost at that position. Watt scored 275 points in 16 weeks of the season, leaving 95 to be scored by the second choice DE. There were 4 teams which didn’t average 95 points per DE, so this was good going for the second string player at the position.

All in all, there wasn’t a huge variation in the proportion of points scored by defenses. The low of 34.15% scored by DFO was more a result of the massively high offensive scoring done by the team, likewise the 36.10% put up by Kelkowski. On total defensive points, these teams finished 8th and 7th in the league, 80 and 50 points below the league average (respectively).

So flipping it around then and looking at it on an average points per starter basis, how does it look? First of all, it’s important to remember that regularly starting fewer players at a position *should* lead to a higher average points per game on the basis that the additional flex player who has been overlooked in theory should be less likely to score a high number of points. Should be.

Row Labels DT DE LB CB  S  Def Ave  Overall Ave
Champions of the Sun 2.500 9.578 8.242 4.916 7.228 7.174 8.494
Dyna Hard 5.547 11.567 7.394 4.800 4.900 7.060 8.302
Dynablaster Bombermen 7.716 7.956 6.535 5.541 6.803 6.769 8.083
DynaForOne Firebirds 9.643 5.381 5.796 5.894 4.202 6.062 8.849
Dynasore Losers 3.953 6.883 8.712 3.617 7.028 6.714 8.559
East Flanders Flahutes 9.316 5.500 5.607 5.452 5.373 5.917 7.190
Here Comes The Brees 10.615 3.855 5.750 6.633 8.050 6.647 7.617
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 4.382 8.705 5.183 5.266 7.552 6.191 8.599
Tamworth Two 9.066 6.094 6.402 7.498 5.733 6.711 7.977
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 4.706 4.736 7.095 4.924 5.016 5.663 7.228
Grand Total 7.149 7.025 6.710 5.454 6.188 6.491 8.090

So I’ve included the overall average for some context – that tells you what the aveage player on the 22 man starting line-up scored. As we’d expect, in the vast majority of cases, defensive players score less than average. Watt, Dareus, Suh, McCoy, Quinn, Pierre-Paul and Sen’Derrick Marks are the ones that tip the balance, while Dynasore Losers have an exceptionally strong selection of LBs.

We can look at this as a ratio. In the table below, 100% represents the average score at a position being equal to the average score for the team overall. Over 100% means that position scored above average while below 100% means below average.

DT DE LB CB  S Def Total
Champions of the Sun 29.43% 112.77% 97.04% 57.87% 85.10% 84.46%
Dyna Hard 66.81% 139.33% 89.06% 57.82% 59.02% 85.03%
Dynablaster Bombermen 95.45% 98.43% 80.85% 68.54% 84.16% 83.74%
DynaForOne Firebirds 108.97% 60.81% 65.50% 66.60% 47.48% 68.50%
Dynasore Losers 46.19% 80.41% 101.78% 42.26% 82.11% 78.45%
East Flanders Flahutes 129.57% 76.50% 77.98% 75.83% 74.74% 82.30%
Here Comes The Brees 139.35% 50.60% 75.49% 87.08% 105.68% 87.27%
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 50.96% 101.22% 60.27% 61.23% 87.82% 72.00%
Tamworth Two 113.65% 76.39% 80.25% 94.00% 71.86% 84.13%
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 65.11% 65.52% 98.16% 68.13% 69.39% 78.34%
Grand Total 88.37% 86.85% 82.95% 67.42% 76.50% 80.24%

I didn’t spot before that the Brees safeties also scored over the team average points. Impressive given that no one else’s safeties manage to average more than 88% of an average player’s contribution. Harrison Smith seems to be the main (sole?) reason for that.

This might flag up key areas of weakness. I would not be surprised if Champions of the Sun were chasing a DT in the off-season. To be honest, Max might be better of fielding himself rather than whatever potato was taking the field for him this year. 2.5 points per player per game is by a fair distance the lowest average points per game of any psoition group for any team.

So what about the offensive side of the ball? It tells you to fuck off, it’s that offensive.

QB RB WR TE Off Total 
Champions of the Sun 272.280 569.175 614.850 84.500 1540.805
Dyna Hard 240.440 557.475 611.510 44.925 1454.350
Dynablaster Bombermen 290.420 488.250 540.500 135.700 1454.870
DynaForOne Firebirds 344.500 541.700 646.700 313.900 1846.800
Dynasore Losers 329.640 456.300 644.300 203.300 1633.540
East Flanders Flahutes 308.260 370.175 437.575 170.100 1286.110
Here Comes The Brees 350.560 428.400 333.500 158.400 1270.860
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 273.700 615.300 608.250 237.900 1735.150
Tamworth Two 349.460 438.600 561.850 91.900 1441.810
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 179.240 388.100 681.700 83.800 1332.840
Grand Total 2938.500 4853.475 5680.735 1524.425 14997.135

Lots more flex options available to teams here, with 2 flex positions spread across RB, WR and TE. 3 teams opted for only 1 TE in every game, with the 2 flexes used at the other positions – Dyna Hard, Dynablaster and the Dynasty of Sadness. Two of these teams accounted for the two lowest scores at TE, while the Bombermen were 6th in TE scoring despite only ever fielding one.

Only Kelkowski and DFO didn’t start 4 WR in at least 10 games. Despite this, both managed over 600 points at the position. The points per player information which is to follow will get into this a little more.

At RB, East Flanders started 3 in only 1 of the 16 games, Dynasore in 9 and DFO in 10. Despite this, East FLanders scored more RB points than 5 other teams while Dynasore and DFO clocked in at 4th and 3rd respectively in total RB points.

As a percentage, by position, these split down as follows:

QB RB WR TE Off Total
Champions of the Sun 9.11% 19.04% 20.57% 2.83% 51.54%
Dyna Hard 8.23% 19.08% 20.93% 1.54% 49.77%
Dynablaster Bombermen 10.21% 17.16% 19.00% 4.77% 51.13%
DynaForOne Firebirds 11.09% 17.44% 20.82% 10.11% 59.46%
Dynasore Losers 10.94% 15.15% 21.39% 6.75% 54.22%
East Flanders Flahutes 12.18% 14.63% 17.29% 6.72% 50.82%
Here Comes The Brees 13.07% 15.98% 12.44% 5.91% 47.40%
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 9.07% 20.39% 20.15% 7.88% 57.49%
Tamworth Two 12.45% 15.62% 20.01% 3.27% 51.35%
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 7.04% 15.25% 26.79% 3.29% 52.39%
Grand Total 10.33% 17.05% 19.96% 5.36% 52.70%

You can tell which team had Gronkowski – the one which had TE accounting for over 10% of the team’s total points. He may have started slowly but he clocked up a total of 184 points across the 16 week season, 36 more than Anotonio Gates in second. Oh, and DFO had Gates as well, just for good measure.

Looking at the average points per game per player for offensive players then…

Row Labels QB RB WR TE Off Ave  Overall Ave 
Champions of the Sun 17.018 12.110 9.917 4.447 10.700 8.494
Dyna Hard 15.028 11.614 9.555 2.808 10.100 8.302
Dynablaster Bombermen 18.151 10.172 8.445 8.481 10.103 8.083
DynaForOne Firebirds 21.531 12.898 11.346 10.824 12.825 8.849
Dynasore Losers 20.603 11.129 10.738 7.530 11.344 8.559
East Flanders Flahutes 19.266 11.217 6.837 5.487 8.931 7.190
Here Comes The Brees 21.910 9.313 5.558 7.200 8.825 7.617
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 17.106 13.984 10.862 8.496 12.050 8.599
Tamworth Two 21.841 9.332 8.779 5.406 10.013 7.977
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 11.203 8.085 10.652 5.238 9.256 7.228
Grand Total 18.366 10.931 9.237 6.898 10.415 8.090

Naturally, we’d expect offensive scoring to be much higher. There aren’t many positional groups which end up scoring below the team average. Only two teams manage higher than average with their TEs – the Bombermen and DFO, otherwise it’s the WRs of East Flanders and the Brees that show themselves up as below average.

The other big highlight is the underperformance of the Dynasty of Sadness’ QB, clocking in a full 7 points below the league average QB. To put that in context, 7 points per game equates to 112 points across the year. If you add 112 points on to the 2,544 the Dynasty scored in the 16 weeks of the season, they’d move from 9th top scorers to… oh… 9th. But now only 25 points behind league runners-up Here Comes The Brees in 8th.

QB RB WR TE Off Total
Champions of the Sun 200.35% 142.58% 116.76% 52.36% 125.98%
Dyna Hard 181.01% 139.89% 115.09% 33.82% 121.65%
Dynablaster Bombermen 224.55% 125.84% 104.48% 104.92% 124.99%
DynaForOne Firebirds 243.31% 145.75% 128.21% 122.32% 144.93%
Dynasore Losers 240.71% 130.03% 125.46% 87.97% 132.54%
East Flanders Flahutes 267.97% 156.02% 95.10% 76.32% 124.22%
Here Comes The Brees 287.64% 122.26% 72.97% 94.52% 115.86%
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 198.92% 162.62% 126.31% 98.80% 140.12%
Tamworth Two 273.80% 116.98% 110.05% 67.77% 125.51%
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 154.99% 111.86% 147.36% 72.46% 128.05%
Grand Total 227.03% 135.13% 114.18% 85.27% 128.74%

Those percentages then… they say basically the same kind of thing I was saying above. Dyna Hard and, to a lesser extent, Champions of the Sun may want to look at their TE options going forward.

Special Teams then?

PK PN  ST Total
Champions of the Sun 86.850 99.525 186.375
Dyna Hard 100.100 125.400 225.500
Dynablaster Bombermen 95.150 104.025 199.175
DynaForOne Firebirds 108.150 90.325 198.475
Dynasore Losers 104.250 93.320 197.570
East Flanders Flahutes 124.500 78.750 203.250
Here Comes The Brees 136.500 103.975 240.475
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 107.050 86.475 193.525
Tamworth Two 90.150 94.865 185.015
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 120.450 94.375 214.825
Grand Total 1073.150 971.035 2044.185

I have nothing really to say here.

PK PN ST Total
Champions of the Sun 2.90% 3.33% 6.23%
Dyna Hard 3.43% 4.29% 7.72%
Dynablaster Bombermen 3.34% 3.66% 7.00%
DynaForOne Firebirds 3.48% 2.91% 6.39%
Dynasore Losers 3.46% 3.10% 6.56%
East Flanders Flahutes 4.92% 3.11% 8.03%
Here Comes The Brees 5.09% 3.88% 8.97%
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 3.55% 2.86% 6.41%
Tamworth Two 3.21% 3.38% 6.59%
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 4.73% 3.71% 8.44%
Grand Total 3.77% 3.41% 7.18%

But now… I still have nothing really to say.

Yeah. That’s all you’re getting this time.

2014 DynaBowl Post Season Performance Analysis – Part 1

I’ve been having a look at all the performance data from all meaningful weeks of the DynaBowl season for all players on the main rosters (so not including IR or taxi squads).

It’s not really that meaningful to look at the total points of players not started as some of those will be classified as out, while others will specifically be back-ups (see Jimmy Garropolo) so wouldn’t be expected to score anything.

PLOB isn’t looked at, but is examined on the MFL website in the Power Ranking data. There might be something that can be done with the raw data and I’ll hand that over to anyone else who wants to have a go.

I’m looking at scoring by position groups, consistency of scoring, and high scoring performances that were left on the bench (many of which are just unlucky because they come from players you wouldn’t think of starting – not all of them though). There may be a few other bits and pieces that get included as I follow some loose ends…

So, to start off, a couple of tables of data that have kind of been covered in the awards. All of these are sorted by the full season total points. First up, total points for all positions:

Max Score Min Score Regular Season Total Playoff Total Full Season Total
DynaForOne Firebirds 288.010 125.265 2397.800 708.325 3106.125
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 262.585 136.100 2494.355 524.020 3018.375
Dynasore Losers 245.325 151.545 2478.930 533.880 3012.810
Champions of the Sun 269.140 134.390 2392.665 597.115 2989.780
Dyna Hard 255.375 139.140 2396.135 526.215 2922.350
Dynablaster Bombermen 238.910 140.265 2297.190 548.155 2845.345
Tamworth Two 247.890 126.985 2388.085 419.890 2807.975
Here Comes The Brees 224.050 109.585 2258.885 422.400 2681.285
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 207.300 104.220 2008.795 535.495 2544.290
East Flanders Flahutes 206.280 123.100 2138.915 391.845 2530.760

Next up, the same again, but for offense only:

Max Score Min Score Regular Season Total Playoff Total Full Season Total
DynaForOne Firebirds 150.660 77.480 1435.300 411.500 1846.800
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 145.685 84.050 1405.580 329.570 1735.150
Dynasore Losers 162.430 57.670 1376.835 256.705 1633.540
Champions of the Sun 140.365 64.900 1248.565 292.240 1540.805
Dynablaster Bombermen 126.420 61.940 1177.490 277.380 1454.870
Dyna Hard 134.485 54.440 1214.635 239.715 1454.350
Tamworth Two 136.440 68.200 1188.360 253.450 1441.810
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 134.150 42.845 1035.420 297.420 1332.840
East Flanders Flahutes 120.380 51.050 1083.290 202.820 1286.110
Here Comes The Brees 106.920 51.280 1065.560 205.300 1270.860

Now defence:

Max Score Min Score Regular Season Total Playoff Total Full Season Total
Champions of the Sun 129.250 30.000 1012.150 250.450 1262.600
Dyna Hard 113.500 33.750 1006.150 236.350 1242.500
Dynablaster Bombermen 130.950 47.900 956.200 235.100 1191.300
Dynasore Losers 117.300 54.500 932.650 249.050 1181.700
Tamworth Two 111.300 27.000 1043.150 138.000 1181.150
Here Comes The Brees 124.450 39.850 996.850 173.100 1169.950
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 143.600 36.500 935.950 153.750 1089.700
DynaForOne Firebirds 126.550 26.750 808.350 252.500 1060.850
East Flanders Flahutes 94.250 32.250 871.300 170.100 1041.400
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 84.950 35.000 797.575 199.050 996.625

And finally special teams (punters and kickers only):

Max Score Min Score Regular Season Total Playoff Total Full Season Total
Here Comes The Brees 21.200 9.575 196.475 44.000 240.475
Dyna Hard 21.300 7.900 175.350 50.150 225.500
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 22.725 6.000 175.800 39.025 214.825
East Flanders Flahutes 20.475 1.650 184.325 18.925 203.250
Dynablaster Bombermen 18.225 4.700 163.500 35.675 199.175
DynaForOne Firebirds 18.025 4.000 154.150 44.325 198.475
Dynasore Losers 18.100 3.300 169.445 28.125 197.570
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 19.675 4.900 152.825 40.700 193.525
Champions of the Sun 19.975 3.950 131.950 54.425 186.375
Tamworth Two 18.400 6.940 156.575 28.440 185.015

I’ve not really got anything to say about that. I suppose the key thing is how Neil pulled out all the stops in the playoffs, destroying everything in his path.

What I find interesting, though, is the amount of variation from one week to the next. I mean, we know there’s a fair amount of variation in fantasy football, but only 3 teams had less than 100 points between their max and min scores during the 16 weeks. That seems massive.

So how do we rate consistency? I’m going to bastardise a method of statistical evaluation to try to provide a suitable indicator. What I’ve done is look at each team’s weekly score and take the difference between that and their average score. This number is then squared, which means that the higher the difference from the average, the number generated is exponentially higher.

Make sense? No? OK, an example – in week one DynaForOne scored 125.265 points. The season average was 194.133 so the difference is 68.868. 68.868 squared is 4742.78. That is a high consistency score because the weekly score was a long way from the average score.

Of course, consistency is not always bad. The same calculation for week 16 shows DynaForOne (DFO) have a consistency score of 8812.93. That week DFO scored the highest score of any team in any week of the season.

Funnily enough, these two performance, week 1 and week 16 for DFO, are the 1st and 6th least consistent performances of the season (ie with the greatest variation from the team’s weekly average). DFO also has the 7th least consistent score (week 4, another low score).

What I have done to rank the consistency is take the average of all the weeks consistency ratings and square root them. This gives us a number which probably has little meaning beyond “the lower the number the more consistent the team was over the season”.

Team Max Consistency Score Min Consistency Score Season (Root Ave) Consistency Total Points
East Flanders Flahutes 2314.33 0.20 23.72 2530.76
Dynasore Losers 3251.78 0.85 24.84 3012.81
Dyna Hard 5289.38 0.03 26.60 2922.35
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 5466.62 4.62 28.26 3018.38
Dynablaster Bombermen 3730.27 14.30 29.90 2845.35
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 3002.83 5.39 30.79 2544.29
Here Comes The Brees 3363.46 2.58 30.99 2681.29
Tamworth Two 5240.54 1.90 34.64 2807.98
Champions of the Sun 6769.79 0.86 39.28 2989.78
DynaForOne Firebirds 8812.93 1.67 39.34 3106.13

So what’s the value in consistency? I have no idea. The top two most consistent teams are the least successful and the third most successful (by total points) so it’s difficult to say you do or don’t want to be consistent. The least consistent team won the league.

However, let’s look at DFO more closely. After week 4, DFO only scored below 190 points once. Those first 4 weeks really seemed to come from a different team. Let’s also ignore week 16, because that massive haul of 288 points was a real outlier. So, for weeks 5-15, how consistent was DFO?

For those 11 weeks, this is what those stats look like:

Team Max Consistency Score Min Consistency Score Season (Root Ave) Consistency
DynaForOne Firebirds 1643.38 7.14 17.57

From least consistent to most.

I think the main thing is that if you score a lot of points, it’s really handy if you can do it consistently. Not that it helped Dyna Hard, of course.

So, given we’ve established that it’s pretty meaningless, it’s time to look at it in a bit more depth…

Offensive consistency!

Team Max Consistency Score Min Consistency Score Season (Root Ave) Consistency Total Points
Here Comes The Brees 792.35 1.06 16.83 1270.86
East Flanders Flahutes 1599.85 0.25 17.07 1286.11
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 1386.68 2.18 17.70 1735.15
Champions of the Sun 1941.70 0.00 17.95 1540.81
Dynablaster Bombermen 1259.58 3.50 18.11 1454.87
Tamworth Two 2146.18 5.89 19.80 1441.81
DynaForOne Firebirds 1439.82 0.50 21.41 1846.8
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 2585.47 0.58 22.27 1332.84
Dyna Hard 1899.92 2.38 23.39 1454.35
Dynasore Losers 3640.16 0.08 29.59 1633.54

What I find interesting is that Dynasore Losers and Dyna Hard were 2nd and 3rd in overall consistency but are 9th and 10th in offensive consistency. We’ll look at defensive consistency in a moment, but this suggests (to me) that they will be low there too, and that the overall consistency may be down to chance (mismatching high and low offensive and defensive scoring).

As for DFO… for those 11 weeks, there again jumped to the top of the consistency rankings, though it’s not quite as clear cut…

Team Max Consistency Score Min Consistency Score Season (Root Ave) Consistency
DynaForOne Firebirds 485.20 536.72 16.46

Now to defense!

Team Max Consistency Score Min Consistency Score Season (Root Ave) Consistency Total Points
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 744.69 0.40 13.03 996.625
Dynasore Losers 1887.36 1.94 15.22 1181.7
East Flanders Flahutes 1078.30 14.16 19.78 1041.4
Here Comes The Brees 2634.58 3.53 21.45 1169.95
Tamworth Two 2192.29 0.10 21.95 1181.15
Dyna Hard 1927.76 3.63 22.42 1242.5
DynaForOne Firebirds 3629.69 4.19 22.93 1060.85
Dynablaster Bombermen 3191.54 1.67 22.95 1191.3
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 5699.31 1.94 24.15 1089.7
Champions of the Sun 2533.86 90.49 29.78 1262.6

I was wrong! Dynasore Losers had the second most consistent defence. Well done them. Dyna Hard were mid-table.

And DFO? Again, for those 11 weeks, they shot to the top of the charts…

Team Max Consistency Score Min Consistency Score Season (Root Ave) Consistency
DynaForOne Firebirds 241.03 505.13 12.25

What’s that? Special teams? You want to look at special teams consistency? OK. It’s widely thought of as the most random of all areas, though because it’s only 2 players and not much scoring, the numbers should all be much lower. Let’s see what those numbers say…

Team Max Consistency Score Min Consistency Score Season (Root Ave) Consistency Total Points
Dynablaster Bombermen 60.04 0.03 3.24 199.175
Dynasore Losers 81.87 0.07 3.29 197.57
Dyna Hard 51.93 0.32 3.53 225.5
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 86.46 0.00 3.60 214.825
Tamworth Two 46.74 0.13 3.70 185.015
DynaForOne Firebirds 70.64 0.91 3.71 198.475
Here Comes The Brees 38.07 0.94 4.12 240.475
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 57.45 1.45 4.58 193.525
Champions of the Sun 69.33 0.39 4.87 186.375
East Flanders Flahutes 122.17 0.01 5.07 203.25

I’m not looking at DFO for that 11 week period. It’s meaningless. MEANINGLESS I tell you.

Still, at least the Bombermen finished at the top of one of these…

Now, I promised you a look at scoring by position and high scoring players on the bench… those will follow in a a future post (or posts). This is enough to start with, isn’t it?