Well, Well, Well... We have a new #1 Seed. OK, I know it's too early to even look at that stuff, but at 2-7 I have the time, right?
Plus, keeping track of this foolishness is kind of my job. If you check the playoffs tab, you'll see that the Holes have climbed to the top, tied with the Bliz at 7-2. But with a win over Paz earlier, they hold the tiebreak. But, as noted, it's too early to get too invested in this, as a lot can (and will) happen over the final five weeks of the season.
The week was unusual as we didn't have a close game. It was a rare Monday night in that the matchups had all but been finalized before the Cards and Cowboys kicked off. So the MFL app on my phone got a night off.
Does anyone have their eyes on the Legends? Second in points scored and 6-1 over their last seven after an 0-2 start. They just lost Tucker Kraft, and I'm not sure what Rico Dowdle (Rico Dowdle!) is doing is sustainable, but hey, James is gonna ride that wave for the foreseeable future. He's gonna owe me a beer if he wins this thing because I'm the guy who tipped him wise to nabbing Rico D.
Seeding and Bleeding... I had a casual discussion last week with an owner about seeding for the playoff teams. The point was made that the best two teams in the same division can lead to one of them being KO'd by the other before they have a chance to meet in the title game. Which is absolutely true.
And because I do enjoy mulling over the league, an actual discussion point gives me something to focus on. So, that discussion led me to think about the following:
The potential KO of a strong second-place team comes up fairly regularly. Last season the Flyers tied for the best record in the league (10-4) and were less than a half-point(!) behind the Bombers for the top scoring total in the league. Lost the bye by less than one single catch over the course of the season and off they went to the #4 seeding. I breezed through the Almanac and found that over the last decade, give or take, there have been four instances where the two best teams by record came from the same division ('24, '23, '19, '13).
I have some core beliefs in how the league does and should work, among them is that 1) we will always have a head-to-head schedule...2) winning your division, however strong or weak it is, should be worth something, and... 3) 'bad luck' i.e. scoring a bunch of points but losing games, can and should be factored into playoff qualifiying.
Sidebar: I realize that the last of those can be problematic; a team with 7 or even 8 wins can get squeezed out by a team with several fewer wins. I got a lot of pushback when we went in that direction a few years ago, so I shelved that idea. PPG is part of tiebreaking, but unless a lot of you have had a change of heart, we won't do the '6th Seed Goes To Highest Point Team' thing again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So, back to the discussion at hand. If there is a way to make the seedings/matchups more fair while still keeping the divisional aspect intact, I'm all ears. And if enough folks want to toss qualifiers into a 'PPG hat' for seeding, I'd put that up for a vote as well. It's food for thought anyway.
Ed Hughes Page Fallout: First of all, I hope someone actually looks at it. LOL Most of this stuff lands in an echo chamber, obviously, but that page deserves a look, not for my writing, but for the memorabilia.
The Rams at Colts program from Hughes' 1954 NFL debut had some :::ahem::: interesting features that I finally got around to scanning. Click on them for the full experience.
The 1950s were, well, different.
"Go! Go! Go! Go!"
Of course, being in commish mode causes waiver bids to go in as claims unless I check a box. And with this new template, I find it much easier to miss that checkbox. I've done it before with the old site, but likely never twice in a decade, never mind twice in one week. Jeez.
Obviously, I can fix it without a lot of work, so it's close to no harm, no foul. But it also shows the world who I'm bidding on (via the emails generated), so I need to do better. LOL, maybe I'm just too old to do this?
Sidebar #2.. Yesterday, I came across a weird anomaly that likely factors into all this. Putting in a bid as owner, I still had to check a box to prevent the bid from going through immediately as a claim. I'm not sure if that's a feature or a bug! I guess it's been that way all along in this new template, and I just never thought about it while using that page. And, yes, I'm still working the wire. Never give up! Never surrender! (Gordon Ramsey be damned)
Random thought... The three division leaders are also the teams in their divisions with the most waiver cash left. What's the significance? You tell me.
This is Terry Stafford, NOT Elvis! A great song nonetheless.
