Random sh*t told randomly

It's On!

Well, the 2021 playoffs are set. It was an ::ahem:: interesting night watching the Rams and Cardinals. Setting aside the horrendous uniforms that were worn there were a lot of moving parts in terms of our bracket. My main point of interest was seeing if the Pirates could move ahead of the Nationals in scoring for the season and thus knock Dan out of the 'points scored Wildcard slot' and further thus allow my suddenly sad team to get a much needed bye. Until yesterday afternoon I had not considered the fact that the Strawmenn, of all teams, had a shot at sneaking into that points slot. 

That complicated things to the point I pulled out a dry erase board to keep a tally of who was sitting where in the points ranking as the game evolved. It reminded me of a Monday Night game many years ago that featured the Jets versus someone I can't remember, maybe the Dolphins. What I do remember is that I was in a tight late season matchup with Hogan and we each had a Jets receiver. I had Lam Jones and the Heroes had Wesley Walker (it might be the other way around, I dunno). Anyway, I spent the entire evening yelling at Ken O'Brien to "Don't look at HIM, you bum! Look left!!!" and so on and so on. Fantasy football at it's finest.

Last night wasn't quite that intense, mostly because I don't care as much as I did back then. LOL  And I was only trying to avoid a first round game, not trying to make the playoffs. But it was still entertaining. 

When the dust settled six teams made the playoffs including the standard three wildcards. (I'll have more to say about the possible 7-team playoffs in a bit.) Should be an interesting weekend. The Sticks drew the short straw (no pun intended) and are the division champ without a bye. They will face the rather magical Bombers who somehow emerged with a berth (and 8 wins) while finishing eighth in scoring. In the other game the Legends square off against the Pirates in a battle of strong if somewhat inconsistent teams. The Flyers and Giants wait on the sidelines and try to heal up.

Playoff thoughts and stuff I learned (and stuff I screwed up)

When I added the possible seventh playoff spot thing I intended to have a stiputaion that would set a minimum number of wins (six) to go along with the points requirement. I mentioned that in the first draft of the June edition of the Hughes News when I outlined the new season stuff. Of course, in a move that is so 'me', I failed to put it in the 'official' rules. As a result we could have easily had a three-win Strawmenn club as a five seed. That would have been, well, interesting. And (no offense, Mike) would have annoyed the hell out of me since I would have missed a bye (because of a three win team) and likely gotten a first round boot with a lineup featuring Cam Newton and Dontrell Hilliard. LOL!

I doubt I'll carry the possible seventh slot over to next year's simplified league (if there is a next year, I'm 50/50 on the whole thing) but we'll have to see. 

Another quick reminder/explaination... The wildcard teams qualify on record and are then seeded on points. I enter the teams with their seed and the bracket is created automatically based on one assumption...that the first round will go according to seed. In other words,  the system places the 3v6 matchup on the same side as the #2 seed and the 4v5 matchup on the side with the #1 seed. That way, if the higher seeds prevail in the first round, the #1 seed plays the lowest remaining seed. It doesn't always work out that way because there are first round upsets. And we all know through four decades of  experience that the seeds don't always reflect team strength. Sometimes one, two, or even all three wildcards are stronger than one or more division winners. 

But this isn't the NCAA where a bunch of old dudes hold a team beauty contest and finagle tournament seeding. We have a set of guidelines for seeding and they are followed. Once upon a time I intervened in the process after the wildcard games and re-seeded to ensure that #1 team played vs the lowest remaining club but a few seasons back I forgot to do that (nobody noticed!) and I decided that letting the brackets play out as created is for the best going forward. 

And finally...I've turned off eliminated teams' ability to make any roster moves and will continue to do that each week thru the playoffs. There is only one waiver period each week and it's the blind bid session that processes on Wednesday evening. 

Good luck to everyone still playing, especially me. I'm gonna need it!