Whistling Past The Graveyard

 

Alternate Title: "I'd Rather Be Lucky Than Good!"

-Dave McNally (and a few others)

It's pretty easy to ignore your team's issues when you win. But when you win with a half-ass total and a bunch of luck you become aware that a shiny record doesn't mean all that much. I'll leave it at that for now. 

(Editor's Note...I typed that last night when it appeared I would slide by with a score in the low 70s. Turns out some late action made the point moot in my case but it still applies as a general fantasy football axiom. Dave will agree as noted below.)

Stuff: I had an idea as I was walking James' dog the other morning. How about finding out every team's strength of schedule for the remainder of the season? I put together a spreadsheet that averages the Power Rank of each club's remaining opponents. 

The MFL system provides two different Power Rank lists but I stuck with the primary one. (You can see their formula here.)Once upon a time, I had my own PR system that I posted in the Hughes News Stat Sheet. It was back in our TD-only scoring days. I know a couple of factors were wins, scoring above or below the League Average, and a few other variables that I can't remember. I need to go back through my archives and dig that up. 

First of all, here is the Power Rank explainer from MFL (click to enlarge, then hit your back button to return):

And here is the current Strength of Schedule for each team for the rest of 2024 (click to enlarge then hit your back button to return). 

It's not sorted in any order besides being grouped by division. And, to be honest, it probably has no real meaning other than to satisfy my curiosity. Bear in mind that a lot of values used to make the PR are influenced by bye weeks. And it doesn't consider players coming and going from injuries. For example, Chris McCaffery, the #1 pick, will be available for the Rbacks soon, maybe this week (until he has another hangnail 🙄). 

So make of that what you will.

League doings and things like that: Speaking of the Rbacks...they probably had their season saved when the MNF game was tied as regulation time dwindled away last night. They were behind the Heroes but the OT gave Kareem Hunt that chance at a TD and he came through for Dave. Falling to 3-6 would have put a crimp in any shot at the playoffs for that bunch...the wide receiver carnage continues unabated...looks like I should have held on to Cade Otten. He's acting like the second coming of John Mackey. Then again, if the Bucs weren't reduced to recruiting wideouts from the stands he wouldn't be all that.

We again have a bit of separation in a couple of divisions as the Lombardi clubs trailing the Flyers fall a game further back. The Pirates broke their losing streak and they and the Bliz are destined for a battle in the remaining weeks. The Giants are 5-4 and just a game back in the Barenholtz despite being last in points scored. Then again they have had the second fewest points scored against them.

The fewest wins by a defending Hughes champ is four, last 'achieved' by the 2007 Sticks. The Strawmenn have a chance to set the new standard. Somewhere on this computer, I have a copy of Fantasy Pros post-draft League Analyser results which had Padilla's crew third IIRC. Just goes to show ya, well, something... I checked scoring versus last season and this year's average team total points is about five points per team higher. I also noticed that the Legends were leading the league in points thru Week 9 of 2023. Redrafting makes results more volatile year-to-year for sure. 

That's all I got. Here are a few tunes I really enjoy. And a few pics of a cutie!

Ellis does library time when she's here with us on Wednesdays. Last week there was a set of twin boys there, Easton and Weston. I kid you not!

Yes, she wears 4th of July dresses in October.