Week 8 Update

Dufresne

Another week, another win for Eddy, this time over Matt. He maintains a one-game lead over Drew in the standings and a 60-point lead over Lisa for Starling. He also stays on track to break the Dufresne single season wins record.

But he gets no Heineken this week. Dean got top honors to beat Nalu and move into third place. Next week he gets a head-to-head shot at bringing Eddy back to the pack. Another Heineken would go a long way. Meanwhile, Nalu has slipped to last, as it ought to be for the newbie. No one should be allowed to do what Amer did last season.

Speaking of Amer, he is struggling in his title defense, dropping to Russell to remain stuck in sixth.

And Drew just keeps on winning, sneaking out another close one over Jason to stay all alone in second. He's also now alone in second in career Dufresne wins! And to keep the theme going, he has the second-longest win streak in league history, with five and counting. One more and he ties Amer's record. All he has to do is beat... Amer. :)

Montoya

My first ever Montoya Heineken! I needed it to top unlucky loser Hubert, who had the third-highest score of the week.

It still wasn't enough to catch Lisa, who crushed DanFran by 68 to keep her perch. Dan's excuse was that he couldn't check his lineup because he was running a marathon. I guess I've heard worse ones. :) Unfortunately, it cost him 40 points, which wouldn't have helped him against Lisa but would have helped him in the standings.

Scott and Gina had solid wins over Jeremy and Andrew to round out the top half of the standings. Jeremy's struggles continue, but he's still collecting talent (Peyton Manning off waivers? I never thought I'd see the day...), so perhaps he'll be primed for playoffs.

Markinson

I'm double-fisting Heinekens! It was my fourth of the season in Markinson, tying Dean's record from last season, and it helped me move into first place and defy the seeming curse on defending champs this season.

Amer slipped a spot behind me after losing to Dean 78.12 - 78.80! I chatted with Amer immediately after it went final, and he was a hell of a lot more magnanimous than I would have been. Then again, they were the bottom two scorers, so neither deserved to win. :)

Hubert has followed up his four-game losing streak with a matching four-game winning streak and is now just a game out of first. Last season he followed up his four-game losing streak with a six-game winning streak, which merely got him back to respectability. Replicating that run would do a lot more for him this time around.

Scott nipped unlucky loser Jason by five to move them both to 4-4 and a game out of first. Jason was third-highest scorer of the week but still lost his fourth in a row to mirror Hubert's run. He's Bizarro Hubert.

Midseason Randoms

Worst to First?

Eddy and Lisa are both alone in first place, are top two in the Starling race, have a combined seven Heinekens... and both finished in last place in 2007. Hmm, the idea was to reward the top finishers by letting them draft first, but that eighth spot is working out really well so far this year. Eddy is one really good game away from surpassing his end of season point total from last year!

Combined Single Season Records Safe

I have the highest combined point total at the halfway mark, with 1575.64. But I'm not even close to being on pace to break Jason's record 3478.98 points from last year, even though I'm first and second in points in the two leagues.

I'm also tied with Amer and Jason with 8 combined wins, but that's way off the pace of Dean's record 22 wins from last year. That total includes playoffs, so we have 17 remaining games to win 14 just to tie. Not likely. Amazingly, Dean's 22 wins didn't equate to a single trophy. He finished a game back in both Markinson and Dufresne, and lost in the Cup finals.

So far, no one has managed to win a Heineken in both leagues, but Eddy has managed 5 in Dufresne alone. He would need to match that pace just to tie Scott's record 10 Heinekens in a season.

League Single Season Records in Jeopardy

Eddy needs 4 more Heinekens to match Dean's Dufresne season record of 9. Based on his first half, this one's plausibly in reach.

With a 5-3 second half, Eddy would match Dean and Amer's Dufresne record of 11 wins in a season. Very much in reach. If he goes undefeated the rest of the way, he can match Scott's record 13 wins in a premier league season. His 901.92 points puts him just off pace of catching Jason's Dufresne record 1808.74 points in a season. No one is going to touch Scott's premier league record 2059 points from 2006. EVER.

Amer and I each have 3 Heinekens in Markinson, just one shy of Dean's record. One or both of us is going to take that down.

The Defending Champ Clause

Amer is leading champions league, and he may need to hold onto that spot to get back in next year, given his mediocre performance thus far in Dufresne. Worked for me last year, when I finished sixth in Montoya but took DanFran's spot in Markinson to defend my title. Given the tight battles in each premier league this season, you are probably best off rooting for someone in the other league to win Markinson. League pride be damned.

Mr. Consistency

Jason's records and point totals this season:

Dufresne: 4-3, 750.90
Markinson: 4-3, 750.78

The Treble

If Amer holds on in champions league, he'll be the first to claim the career Treble - Markinson Cup, League Championship, and League Cup. He's the only manager so far to claim even two of the three legs of the Treble.

Any manager who achieves a true Treble - Markinson Cup, League Championship, and League Cup in the same season - gets $100 bucks from me.

Strength of Schedule Analysis

In real football, if you had the second-lowest point total in the league but had the second-highest number of wins, it would be obvious that you had a good defense.

But in fantasy football, there's no such thing as defense, so when something like that happens, it's a matter of good luck. So far, Drew has been living a charmed life, standing above four teams that average at least ten more points per game.

But how lucky has he really been? A point total could be weighed down by a couple of really bad outings. If you score 110 points in five games, and 50 points in two games, a record of 5-2 wouldn't be surprising, even though the 650-point total is poor overall. So let's look at Drew's point distribution:

84 - Loss
85 - Win
87 - Loss
70 - Win
116 - Win
79 - Win
105 - Win

In week two, he won with 85 points, beating the one team that scored fewer points. In week four, he did it again! In week six, he played one of only two teams that he could have beaten! Instead of being 2-5 in an average world, he's 5-2 and in second place. Fantasy indeed.

Of course, I know all about being lucky. I won Markinson last year despite finishing basically tied for third in points. I beat Dean by a game in the standings thanks to two wins against him head to head, even though he would have beaten me 10 times in the 14-week season.

To get a quantitative measure of the luck factor this season, I calculated what our super records would be, i.e our records if we played every other team in the league each week. This completely eliminates the lucky matchup factor, since everyone plays everyone. So the Heineken winner would go 7-0 that week, and the last place team would go 0-7. Over seven weeks, the best possible super record would be 49-0.

I also counted the number of times each team finished in the top four for the week, which I'll call quality starts, to borrow from baseball.

Dufresne

44-5 (7) Dunkel Weizen (6-1)
16-33 (2) Darby United (5-2)
27-22 (3) Texas All Stars (4-3)
24-25 (3) Pansies (4-3)
22-27 (3) Manwhore United (3-4)
25-24 (5) Amer United (3-4)
22-27 (3) Tsunami (2-5)
16-33 (2) Millennium Falcons (1-6)

Clearly nothing lucky about Eddy's record. There were only five possible matchups in seven weeks - less than one per week - that could have resulted in losses, and he had a quality start each week. If anything, maybe it's bad luck that he isn't undefeated.

But check out that outlier in second place. :) Drew is tied for worst with Russell in super record and quality starts but has 4 more wins!

Amer looks a bit unlucky, but of his five quality starts, three of those times he was in fourth place, so the luck isn't quite so bad. Still, it looks like he should be 4-3 rather than 3-4.

Montoya

34-15 (5) Collateral Estoppel (5-2)
31-18 (5) FC Hang (4-3)
28-21 (4) Rapscallions (4-3)
24-25 (3) Fantasia Orins (4-3)
24-25 (4) Julius de la Berg (4-3)
30-19 (5) Da Big G (3-4)
17-32 (1) Proper Villains (3-4)
8-41 (1) Whoosh (1-6)

The outlier in this league is Gina, who is stuck in sixth with the same number of wins as Andrew, despite having 4 more quality starts and a much better super record. She also has the third-highest point total in the league. Like Amer, she should probably be at least 4-3. Andrew looks like a bit of an outlier to the upside.

Markinson

33-16 (5) Amer United (5-2)
27-22 (3) FC Hang (4-3)
27-22 (4) Texas All Stars (4-3)
27-22 (5) Fantasia Orins (4-3)
21-28 (3) Manwhore United (3-4)
24-25 (3) Whoosh (3-4)
20-29 (3) Julius de la Berg (3-4)
17-32 (2) Pansies (3-4)

Nothing egregious here. Nothing as egregious as last year's Markinson:

58-40 (9) FC Hang (11-3)
72-26 (11) Pansies (10-4)

Of Dean's 11 quality starts, only one was a fourth place finish. Of my nine quality starts, four were fourth place finishes. What can I say that I already haven't... I got lucky. But I ain't apologizing for it! :)

The Magic Season

Then there's Scott, who tried to leave nothing to chance in 2006. His super record that year? A ridiculous 92-6!!! He had ten Heinekens, but even in the other four weeks, he finished second, second, third, and third. That's beyond silly.

His only loss? In week 14, the final week of the season, when he had the second-highest score of the week but lost by 0.44 freakin' points to Andrew. Unreal. And talk about the worst possible timing to play Andrew, right at the end of the season, when his 140 moves have finally gelled into a team that's almost as good as Hubert's.

I don't think we'll ever see the likes of Fantasia '06 again.

Week 7 Update

Dufresne

Eddy won his fifth Heineken of the season! He took down Amer by 67 points and kept his spot at the top of the standings. He also widened his Starling lead to 70 over Lisa.

Drew doubled up on Nalu to stay alone in second, despite still sitting second-to-last in points. Stay tuned for my mid-season strength of schedule review, which figures out how this happened. :)

Jason recovered from his three-game slide to beat Russell, who lost despite scoring third-highest this week. Some guys (Drew) have all the luck.

Dean is back in the upper half of the standings after beating Matt.

Montoya

Hubert won his second straight Heineken with a solid win over DanFran. He's now back above .500 and at the bottom of a four-way tie for second.

It was a great week for me. I won my third in a row, this one over Jeremy, and the three teams above me all lost, allowing me to slip into second.

Lisa's five-game winning streak came to an agonizing end at the hands of Gina, who eeked out a three-point win. Lisa is still all alone in first place.

Andrew is on a two-game winning streak and still solidly in the mix after taking down Scott. He must think it's the playoffs.

Markinson

I snagged the Heineken to beat league-leading Amer by 81 points and move into second place after all four teams in the upper-half of the standings lost. Not surprisingly, this league is very competitive, with only two games separating first and last.

A note on Amer. He had the bad luck of playing against the Heineken winners in both leagues and lost by a combined 148 points.

Dean handed Jason his third straight loss and kept himself squarely in the mix at 3-4.

Hubert and Matt both won to move up to 3-4 and drop their opponents, Scott and Jeremy, to 3-4.

No one in this league is running away, and no one is dropping out of contention. It should be an intense second half of the season.

Record Watch

Jason passed Dean in career Dufresne points this week, taking the lead by 20. Congrats!

Jason was making a run at the top three in career wins after starting the season a combined 7-1, but he's gone 1-5 since. The top three, Dean, Hubert, and Scott, all have 7 wins on the season. Jason and I are tied for fourth and both have 8 wins.

I took the lead in career Markinson Heinekens with my fifth this week.

Eddy is now tied for third in career Dufresne Heinekens and is on pace to tie Scott's single season record ten Heinekens in 2006 and break Dean's Dufresne season record nine, also in '06.

Hubert is now tied for third in career Heinekens with nine, and he passed Jeremy for second in career Montoya Heinekens after winning the last two.

Some of you have asked to see what the full list looks like for some of the records. This is a copy of the raw sheet I use for keeping track of everything. [Link]

Week 6 Update

Dufresne

Eddy is back to his winning ways, snagging his fourth Heineken of the season to beat Jason in a match-up between 1 and 2. Eddy is also back in the lead for Starling in a back and forth battle with Lisa.

Jason's loss opened the door for Drew to move into second place with a win over Russell. This despite the fact that Drew is seventh in the league in points. Dude knows how to win!

Dean took down Amer to stay within range of a third straight Markinson berth, and Matt did the same with an easy win over Nalu.

Montoya

You can't keep Hubert down. After three straight losses, Hubert took the Heineken in a win over Gina to even his record. He's now only a game back of his rightful spot in second place.

I was Heineken runner-up for the third straight week, beating DanFran to stay in fourth. Can't a brother get a beer? I now trail only Lisa in points.

Lisa won her fifth straight game thanks to a fortunate match-up against Scott, moving her into first place by herself for the first time this season.

At the other end of the standings, Andrew and Jeremy got to watch MNF together as Andrew's guys gave him the come-from-behind victory. Jeremy continues to struggle after last year's dominant performance.

Markinson

Amer is looking good to become the first to win a League Championship, League Cup, and Markinson Cup. He now has a 1-game lead on Jason after beating him heads up, and taking the Heineken to boot. Bad week for Jason in 1 vs. 2 match-ups.

Watch out for Hubert, who has won two in a row after starting the season 0-4. He started 1-6 last year before finishing .500, so he's way ahead of schedule.

Jeremy and Scott both won to stay within two games of Amer. It's up to the reigning champ this week to slow down the wannabe to the crown. :)

Almost to the halfway point of the season!

Week 5 Update

Dufresne

Nalu scored the Heineken (was the Todd/pulled a Monica?) in a solid 30-point win over Russell. It's the first of his career, and it was his way of not leaving things to chance. He has the #2 point total in the league but sits only fifth in the standings, so chance hasn't been kind to him so far.

As one might have expected in a match-up between two guys basically tied in career points coming in, league heavyweights Dean and Jason were only separated by seven this week, with Dean coming out on top. Amer handily took out Matt in the undercard.

But what everyone wanted to know was whether Eddy could keep his perfect start going, and in a great back and forth game (if you have StatTracker, anyway), Drew ended the perfect season with a four-point win. Eddy also fell two points behind Lisa in the Starling race. But he still sits in first place by a game and holds a huge points lead.

Montoya

As Lisa put it, "I'm on a roll!" She notched her 4th straight win, this one over Andrew, and pulled a Monica for the second time this season. She's also doing her best to keep the Starling Cup in Montoya, where it rightfully belongs.

In the first husband/wife match-up in league history, I beat Gina by 20.

This must be the week for heavyweight bouts. The match-up between Scott and Hubert is usually for the top of the standings, but right now they're headed in opposite directions. Scott's 18-point win was his third straight and handed Hubert his third straight loss.

DanFran beat Jer by nine to keep pace with Lisa and Scott in the standings and stay on track for his first ever Markinson. The bottom has fallen out for Jeremy, and his chances for a repeat are likely over.

Markinson

Last week in Montoya, Scott was the Todd, and I was the runner-up that lost to him. This week I paid him back in Markinson, beating him by 33 in a match-up of the top two scorers.

Amer managed a 9-point win over Jeremy, and combined with previously winless Hubert's 13-point win over previously undefeated Jason, Amer now moves into a first-place tie with Jason and leads on points. The two play next week for the outright lead. Any chance you guys could tie? Please?

Matt had the second-lowest point total but still managed an easy win over Dean.

Week 4 Update

Dufresne

Another week, another win for Eddy, who took down Russell to move to 4-0. He also continues to lead for the Starling Cup.

But Eddy couldn't match Scott's four straight Heinekens to start a season. Matt took the beer this week to hand Jason his first loss of the season.

In a match-up of the newbies, Amer got back on track with a solid win over Nalu. So far Nalu hasn't had the rookie impact that Amer had last season, but it's early. His point total is respectable.

Drew had the second-lowest point total of the week but still came out with a win over Dean. He'll need a better effort to take down the league leader next week, but he's gotta feel good to be 2-2.

Montoya

On the flipside, I had the second-highest point total of the week and lost to Scott's 19th career Heineken. I feel pretty crappy about being 1-3.

Gina lost yet another heartbreaker, this time to DanFran, who stays in second place. Gina is still in good position in fourth, but she's just a handful of points from being undefeated.

Lisa had a decent week but could have had a terrible one and still beaten Jeremy's 58 points. Jeremy's a threat to go first to worst.

Andrew tallied his first win of the year, over a struggling Hubert. Guess we know the answer to last week's poll question.

Markinson

Amer got his second Heineken of the season to crush Hubert and keep him winless. But he still can't catch Jason, who stayed undefeated by taking down Matt. Dean got his revenge on me, and Scott easily beat Jeremy.

Dufresne is holding down the top two spots in the standings, but I'm pretty sure I'll come from behind to win, just like last year. Enjoy it while you can, Jason and Amer.

Record Watch

Jason is now less than a point behind Dean in all-time Dufresne points. Seems fitting that after 32 league games, they're practically tied in points (though Dean has four more wins).

Scott passed Hubert on the all-time wins list and now trails only Dean. Scott also added yet another Heineken to his record total, extending his career lead to five.

Longest current win streaks: Four for Jason in Markinson, four for Eddy in Dufresne, and three for Lisa in Montoya. Jason and Eddy are just two away from tying records. Lisa is ten away. :)