For those who don’t know me outside of being commish to the best damned fantasy football league going, I’ve been a computer programmer at the same healthcare organization for over 25 years. These days I work in finance, helping provide data and reports to decision-makers while trying to make sure I get the math right on my side hustle.
Before switching to my cushy finance job, I worked in IT. I still did a lot of financial work, but part of my job was also studying clinical trends. The stats always fascinated me. You could be guaranteed that at specific times of the year certain procedures would spike, certain patient volumes would increase or decrease, etc. Really fascinating stuff if you’re a numbers dork like me. Anyway, with this knowledge, areas would try to make improvements. Sometimes you could alter a negative trend; other times it was virtually impossible.
We’ve been playing this game long enough to start seeing our own trends in The Terrible Ten. In theory, these really shouldn’t be a thing. Over time, players’ abilities change from year to year, injuries are completely random, rosters are in constant fluctuation after drafting rookies and making trades (not to mention the real-life trades that send players to better or worse situations). So how is it possible that, say, Puff’s Punishers can dominate scoring year in and year out, but fall flat on his face come playoff time? I mean, Josh is sitting on a top-3 QB (Hurts), the overall RB1 (Barkley), a top-2 WR (St Brown), one of the best TE’s of all-time (Kelce), and a pile of other good players, but he still can’t get out of the first round? Oh yeah, that’s right, there’s another trend at play here: Evil Empire is a postseason god, crushing Puffy 166.92 – 119.60 and punching his ticket to the semis, all with an eye on taking home that trophy yet again.
Additional analysis on The Terrible Ten shows us The Analrapists continually defy the odds, winning regular-season games despite being in the bottom half of scoring. Further analysis shows us that despite being The Little Engine That Could for fourteen weeks, the playoffs have not been kind to Ted. Then again, when you’re playing the Raven-powered Growler Prowler, it’s tough to come out on top. LJax and Company did it again for Scott, putting The Analrapists on all fours after a 124.92 – 94.08 beatdown. Fortunately for Ted, his benching of Baker Mayfield’s 28 points wasn’t the difference maker, but the TB QB could still be heard screaming at his team owner when he got news he was the odd-man out this week.
The bottom half of the bracket isn’t immune to patterns. For instance, we had Buzzystinger (no stranger to losing seasons) versus Packer Hater (who continually dazzles me with weak-ass vets that do jackshit on my team) in the semifinals of the Toilet Bowl. And wouldn’t you know it, Alex continued his winning ways post-surrender, crushing Buzzy 138.84 – 77.96. Imagine if The Hater had kept Brown (not so much on Kupp) and played for the ‘ship instead of mailing it in?! The force wasn’t with you on that decision, brother.
And last, there is no larger trend than ZaWood getting whiplash of the cock, periodically increasing blood flow before falling back to flaccitude for awhile, only to boner-up when it no longer matters. I mean, ok, great, he stomped The Walrus 135.18 – 85.10 and has a shot at some extra FAAB for next year…but wouldn’t it be nice to put that Wood to use one of these years?!
So here’s where we’re at:
The semis for The Terrible Ten championship are Evil Empire vs Urban Achievers and Growler Prowler vs QB Farm Team.
The Toilet Bowl (and $15 of extra FAAB) is between Packer Hater and ZaWood.
The battle for 5th place (and the better draft picks) is between The Analrapists and Puff’s Punishers.
Still plenty on the line. Best of luck in Round Two, fellas!
Andy
The Terrible Ten 