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October 30th, 2009 Commish, is there any statistical correlation between those that attended this year’s draft and where those teams are in the standings right now? Hmm, that’s a good question, let’s take a look at what the numbers tell us. We can divide up the teams in our league into four groups, each containing 3 or 4 teams. Perfect sample sizes and distribution for some down and dirty (sanchez) statistical analysis. The first group would be those that attended the draft. Next, those that attempted to come up with legitimate excuses. This includes the birthday boys and those who had various kids sporting events to attend (i.e. soccer and football). Third we’ve got the teams for which geography was an issue, that is, they were too far away to make it to Kevin’s house. Oh and “too far away” means outside of the state of New Jersey, not “I really don’t want to drive down the Garden State Parkway”. Finally we have the group that decided that home was where the heart was and drafted from the chat room without really attempting to explain why they chose to do so. The math breaks down like this:
So you’ll see, the fantasy football gods are obviously smiling down on those who made it a priority to attend the draft as the At The Draft group is winning their games at an almost 74% clip right now and every team is over .500 and contending including our current leader Donnie Football. Or perhaps there was something more sinister going on at Kevin’s house than you’ve all been led to believe? Kev, you did get rid of that pentagram in the living room before Anna got home right? Hopefully the candle wax came off the tiles OK. Joe, did the blood and gore ever wash out of your Speedo? Don, you took care of getting rid of the headless chickens that we sacrificed didn’t you? What a mess that was! I told you we should’ve just gotten a bucket of The Colonel’s Extra Crispy. And no before the conspiracy theorists take this too far (as if I haven’t already), in no way was Don’s metal leg or remote control involved in any of this… Demonic rituals notwithstanding, our analysis goes on further to show that it’s probably better to just stay home and lay low, don’t even attempt to come up with some veiled excuse, no matter how good it sounds at the time. The Just Stayed Home group are all hovering above or just below .500 and collectively have a .575 winning percentage thus far while the Legitimate Excuse group seems to be paying for the collective sin of bailing out with flimsy excuses, pulling up the proverbial rear in our statistical data train, a dismal .339 wining percentage, buoyed by Bruce’s above .500 team. You might recall Bruce was actually committed to coming at one point so the fantasy football gods are cutting him some slack, in other words Bruce is a “statistical anomaly”. Yes, we’ve suspected that all along, but now we finally have proof!... If we need to break this down some more, you’ll find that you’re better off having a birthday a la Neil and Fab (combined 4 – 10 .400) than having to attend a soccer game (1 – 6 .143), or at least a soccer game with Ken that is as we had too small a sample and no control group to compare the soccer game attendants against unless Russ fesses up that he was in England at the time watching Arsenal have a bloody good tilt with jolly ole Manchester United. In both of these cases, I might suggest a better alibi next season if you’re going to miss the draft again. I hear from other leagues that “I had to visit my sick grandmother in the nursing home” is tracking a .425 winning percentage right now. Slightly higher at .486 for those owners who actually have living grandmothers and the number jumps to .512 if those same grandmothers actually start the football season with flu symptoms… Our final group, the Geographically Challenged are more or less statistically neutral, as we might expect, although there’s probably more drill down needed to explain the three identical records and why all those ties show up in this one group, probably something to do with different time zones I’m betting. Living somewhere else away from the geographic center of your fantasy football league is apparently not really frowned upon by the fantasy football gods and they have no real incentive to punish anyone for living in a specific area. Although, you might want to think twice if you live in San Francisco as the day after the 49ers switch QBs from Shaun Hill to Alex Smith a steel cable falls from the Bay Bridge and it’s shut down indefinitely. Coincidence? I think not. Hmmm, maybe this is an attempt to once and for all put an end to the misery that is the Oakland Raiders? Or better yet, I wonder which of the fantasy football deities had Hill on their roster? There’s twelve of those fantasy football god dudes by the way (actually one’s female, but no her name’s not Pam) and they’ve got their own league of course. More on that in a future column… We’ll need to revisit this towards the end of the season to see if these statistical trends hold and if they do, I believe I may finally have some incentive to re-align, and of course, re-name all of our divisions! In the 2010 Rowdy Bowl. the winner of the H1N1 Swine Flu Divison will meet the winner of the playoff game between the I Had A Flat Tire Division first place finisher and The My Car Was In The Shop champion (after they made the playoffs on a tiebreaker with the Dog Ate My Homework winner up based on a higher point total)… October 15th, 2009 Quiz time! Everyone get those #2 pencils out and let’s see how well everyone’s been paying attention during the first five weeks of the season. Heads down, eyes on your own paper… 1. What is Fabrizio’s team name? 2. Which of the following would be a good potential team name for Neil next season? 3. Which of the following Tight Ends will be the next member of Speedo Joe’s team? 4. Which of the following does Rob prefer most? 5. If Redskin’s coach Jim Zorn gets fired mid-season, what would be a good replacement team name for Brian and Thomas? 6. If this season takes the Migliore’s from binder to laptop, what does next season have in store? 7. The name of the leprechaun on the Flinn’s helmet is: 8. All Don’s Guys have what exactly? 9. Now that Jon of “Jon & Kate Plus Eight” fame has been kicked off the show, how does this affect The Commish & Kevin’s team? 10. Which of the following is not a valid excuse for missing the draft? 11. What should Brian B use to Clear The Steel Curtain? 12. The NFL players have recently been wearing pink-tinged equipment for what reason? 13. The Wildcat offense is best run by: 14. Which of the following will result in a 15 yard penalty when playing the Patriots? 15. Which of these Joneses is the Best One that Russ would really have a jones for? 16. Who’s to blame most for Bruce’s poor record despite his high scoring? 17. Which of the following is not one of Pam’s “Da Boyz” 18. Which Dallas receiver scored big in Week 5 after the injury to Roy Williams? 19. Who’s McNext for Marc’s McDead team names? 20. Where will Brett Favre play next? EXTRA CREDIT ESSAY QUESTION: Explain in detail the current thinking in the fashion world that makes the Bronco’s brown and mustard throwback uniforms fashionable and trendy. Additional extra credit for anyone who can makes a plausible compelling argument for those knee high striped socks. And because it was just too hard to resist... Sudoku anyone? October 9th, 2009 Since there hasn't been too much to write about lately, how about we try something a little different? Anyone up for a word search puzzle? Grab a pencil, print this out then head over to your favorite thinking place and find all the rowdy words. Maybe something to do during the commercials of Sunday's games... ALL MY ROWDY FRIENDS WORD SEARCH PUZZLE
Catching up on the last two weeks worth of results...
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