Another year in the books, ‘Gangers. Thank you for rolling with the changes, and then the changes to the changes.

In the spirit of looking back, let’s look wayyyy back, shall we? Below you’ll see a recap of League History, expressed in a couple charts.

The first two show Wins Per Regular Season with a color key for playoff appearances and results. For readability sake, the top chart is 2013-2020 Seasons, and the second is 2004-2012.

The third totals all that info and breaks it out several ways. It shows Won-Loss records; how often each team has finished .500 or better; how often each team has had the best record, and how each team has fared in the playoffs.

But first, some highlights:

Top 5 Most Regular-Season Wins, Total, 2004 –

Team	Seasons	Total Wins
Dean	17	133
Andy	17	128
Jim	17	127
Thurm	17	119
Jose	15	111

Top 5 Best Winning Percentages, 2004 –

Team	Seasons	Winning Pct
Dean	17	.591
Greg	10	.570
Andy	17	.569
Jim	17	.564
Jose	15	.558

Top 5 Most Winning (.500+) Seasons, 2004 –

Team	Seasons	Winning Seasons
Dean	17	12
Andy	17	11
Jose	15	10
Jim	17	10
Jeff	17	10

Top 5 Most Playoff Appearances, 2004 –

Team	Seasons	Appearances
Dean	17	13
Andy	17	12
Thurm	17	12
Max	13	11
Jose	15	9
Jim	17	9

Winning Playoff Records by Pct., 2004 –

Team	Seasons	W – L	Pct	Titles
Greg	10	11 – 5	.688	2
Kurt	17	8 – 5	.615	2
Dean	17	15 – 10	.600	3
Doug	12	6 – 4	.600	1
Thurm	17	14 – 10	.583	2
Jim	17	8 – 7	.533	2
Andy	17	12 – 11	.522	1

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Singing his own praises

Christmas came a couple days early this year, ‘Gangers. I sat down to my email this morning and what to my wondering eyes did appear but the gift I’ve been pining for: the gift of Thurm’s gab. So glad he’s no longer biting his tongue, but rather unleashing it on the league. Don’t ever underestimate yourself again, Thurm. It just ain’t U(te).

To answer his question:

Has there ever been a repeat champion? Yes, Virginia. And you’re not going to like the answer. I can’t speak to the league’s 2000 – 03 seasons, but since 2004 only one team has won back-to-back titles, and that team is the Atlanta Juice in 2006 and 2007. Thurm may well recall the 2007 Final, as Juice beat Dollz 176-149 over two weeks. Dean, Thurm and Andy are the only teams to have competed in back-to-back Finals. Dean won in 06 and 07, as noted. Thurm lost in 06 to Juice and then in 07 to S*Heads. Andy lost in 2010 to Juice and in 2011 to Jim.

Those three also have the most playoff appearances since 2004, followed closely by Pain Train. (And bear in mind that Max has played four fewer seasons.) Here is the league playoff history for current Gangers since 2004, ranked by most appearances. I didn’t count this year’s play-in round as a playoff appearance. (* = 2020 result pending)

Team	Playoff Appearances	Quarterfinals Record	Semifinals Record	Title Record
Dean	13	8-5	4-3*	3-1*
Andy	12	8-4	3-5	1-2
Thurm	12	8-4	4-3*	2-2*
Max	11	5-6	2-2*	1-1*
Jim	9	4-5	2-2	2-0
Jose	9	4-5	2-2	1-1
Jeff	8	2-6	1-1	1-0
Tom	8	4-4	0-4	–
Greg	7	5-2	3-1*	1-2*
Kurt	7	3-4	3-0	2-1
Doug	5	3-2	2-1	1-1
Bill	4	1-3	0-1	–
Chris	0	–	–	–
Haydn	0	–	–	–

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Churn, baby, churn!

As Dean recently emailed, “Playoff time and I’m playing only three players that I drafted in the 14 round draft. Go figure.” And so I have. Dean’s point — which echoes one made last year by Greg — got me wondering just how much roster churn we’ve seen this year.

Hopefully the table is self-explanatory, but in case it isn’t:

Column 1 shows how many of your drafted players are still on your roster.

Column 2 shows how many of your Week 1 starters are starting in Week 15.

The remaining columns show how many different players we’ve used at each position. As you can see, Dollz and Pain Train have burned through the most guys, with 35 players used. Buckguys at 20 and S*Heads at 19 have cycled through the least.

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TFW that Playoff spot slips through your hands…

The scheduling gods smiled on us in Week 13, giving us a game between the two teams fighting for the 12th and final playoff spot. It was a play-in game to the play-in round, and it came down not only to the last game of the weekend, but the last drive in the last game.

Katy’s Brother led Fartz by 52 points in the total points standing going into the weekend. A Chris win and he’d be in. Bill had two paths to playoff glory and one to playoff ignominy:

• He’d be in with a win by at least 3: his +25 for the win, Chris’s -25 for the loss, plus 3 to overcome the 52-point deficit
• He’d be in with a win by 2: they’d tie on total points and he would advance because of the head-to-head tiebreaker. (The week 13 game is their only matchup of their year.)
• He could win by 1, fall short of the total points by 1, and miss the playoffs as Chris advanced

Heading into the game, a Tuesday night rescheduled matchup between the Cowboys and Ravens, Fartz led 113 – 107 with Zeke Elliott in his lineup. Katy’s Bro had Amari Cooper in his. At 6:07 in the 4th quarter, with the Ravens up 27-10, Zeke caught a 12-yard pass from Andy Dalton. The ball was spotted at the Ravens 4. Two plays later, the Cowboys were 1st and 10 at the 1, and handed the ball to Zeke on three straight downs. He didn’t get in, and wouldn’t touch the ball again. On 4th down Dalton hit Cooper for the score. It was now Fartz 125, Katy’s Brother 121.

Baltimore recovered the ensuing onside kick, marched down the field and scored. With 2:08 left, the Cowboys got the ball back, and on the first play Dalton hit Cooper for 8 yards. It was now Fartz 125, Katy’s Brother 123. One more Cooper catch for positive yardage would give Chris at least 124 and the playoff spot, even if he lost the game.

Did Cooper make one more catch? Reader, he did not. Dalton targeted him once in the final nine plays, throwing behind him and low. Fartz won the game 125 – 123 and with it the head-to-head tiebreaker that advances him into the Playoffs.

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We’ve made it through 12 weeks now, and while Covid certainly has impacted NFL games (hello, Kendall Hinton! what’s up, RG III?), we’ve yet to see the outright cancellations I thought for sure would happen. I know I’m not the only Gangster to wonder if we could’ve played the season using our traditional format. Indeed, Max stepped up recently to suggest we consider staging some sort of playoffs.

If we were to agree to it, I propose that we do a 12-team playoff with first-round byes for the top four seeds. Seeding is determined by Total Standings through Week 13.

Round One (week 14) is a play-in round for seeds 5 through 12.

Round Two (week 15) are the quarterfinals. The winners of round one games are re-seeded to face the bye teams.

• Bye team 1 faces the first round winner with the lowest score
• Bye 2 faces the first round winner with the 2nd-lowest score
• Bye 3 faces the first round winner with the 3rd-lowest score
• Bye 4 faces the first round winner with the 4th-lowest (highest) score

Round Two winners advance to the semifinals with no re-seeding.

Round Three winners advance to the Final.

Round One/Play-In Losers are invited to join the two non-qualifiers in a 6-team consolation ladder, as in previous years. Ante is $50, winner take-all, most points scored in the final three weeks of the season.

Here is the projected format, with current standings used for seeding:

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Fifty? Fifty!

So you think the parity in our league is just an accident? Hah! My spirit animal is the ghost of Pete Rozelle, who (supposedly) said in an ideal season all teams would finish 8-8. Every preseason, as I lie awake in bed, watching the draft order arrange and re-arrange itself on the ceiling (Queen’s Gambit, anyone?), Pete guides my every move.

If this were the Before Times, I’d be celebrating a year with a remarkable degree of parity. After ten weeks, ten teams are within two games of each other in the won-loss standings.

• At 6-4 are Bama Men, Campton, Hurt Locker and The U.
• At 5-5 are Dollz, Fartz, Hound and OverThinker.
• At 4-6 are Buckguys and Katy’s Brother

Under this year’s standings system, the congestion is nearly as notable. Let’s expand the group to include the 3-7 Pain Train, whose actual scoring is sixth but who’s lugging around 100 points in loss penalties. The top four teams comfortably lead the remaining seven, with about 100 points separating Bama Men from Hurt and Campton, and 172 points separating him from The U. That’s a lot, no doubt.

Team	Actual Points	Won	Lost	Total Points
Bama Men	1178	6	4	1228
Hurt Locker	1083	6	4	1133
Campton	1081	6	4	1131
The U	1005	6	4	1055

Things get considerably closer for the seven other teams. Less than 100 points separate Dollz from Buckguys, and four of the seven trail the team ahead of them by 13 or fewer points.

Team	Actual Points	Won	Lost	Total Points
Dollz	994	5	5	994
Hound	981	5	5	981
Pain	1049	3	7	949
Thinker	940	5	5	940
Fartz	916	5	5	916
Katy’s Bro	961	4	6	911
Buckguys	949	4	6	899

With that much congestion, how does a team separate from the pack? So glad you asked. You’ve got to win, and it really helps if you win against the team ahead of you. Head-to-head wins against your Payoff competition are worth an extra 50 points. Fifty!

To help you plan for those must-win games (!), here’s everyone’s remaining schedule. Current Payoff Teams are highlighted.

• In the next seven weeks, Buckguys and Flight both face three Payoff Teams.
• Bama Men, Dollz, Fartz, Hound, Hurt, Katy’s Brother, S*Heads, The U and Thinker all face four Payoff Teams.
• Campton, Juice and Pain Train each face five Payoff Teams.

There you have it, fellas. Just win those games, throw in another couple victories for good measure, and come Jan. 4 you’ll be collecting your Payoff money. Then you can use that cash to buy a ticket to Atlanta and vote in the runoffs the next day. Happy New Year!

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Just win, baby!

Week 9 wrap

What’s it take to win a game around here? Sometimes your guys have to go all out, sometimes they barely have to show up. You can drop a ton of points on your opponent and still lose; you can barely dent the box score and, ahem, still win.

Here are the top 15 winning scores so far this year:

Rank	Week	Winning Team	Pts
1	7	Hurt Locker	157
2	2	Hurt Locker	156
3	2	Juice	146
4	4	The U	143
5	2	Campton	142
	3	Hound	142
6	1	Bama Men	141
	3	Fartz	141
7	2	Heavy Flight	139
8	1	Hurt Locker	135
9	4	Juice	134
10	7	Katy’s Brother	133
11	5	Heavy Flight	132
12	4	Bama Men	131
	5	Buckguys	131
	6	Campton	131
	6	Pain Train	131
13	1	Bama Men	128
	3	Campton	128
	8	Katy’s Brother	128
14	3	Buckguys	126
	5	Heavy Flight	126
15	7	Buckguys	125

Almost everyone makes that list. Indeed, only three teams didn’t qualify: Dollz, S*Heads and Thinkers. But hats off to those with multiple entries: Bama Men, Buckguys, Campton, Heavy Flight and Hurt Locker all appear three times, and Juice and Katy’s Brother make it twice. Fartz, Hound, Pain Train and The U show up once.

You can go big AND still go home, of course. Here are the Top 15 Losing Scores:

Rank	Week	Losing Team	Points
1	2	Katy’s Brother	137
2	5	Campton	127
3	2	Bama Men	125
	4	Heavy Flight	125
4	5	Bama Men	124
5	3	Dollz	123
6	6	Heavy Flight	120
7	3	Pain Train	117
8	9	Juice	114
9	7	Pain Train	111
10	1	Dollz	108
	8	Pain Train	108
11	6	Thinker	106
12	2	The U	104
13	7	Campton	103
14	3	Campton	102
15	6	Hound	101

Hold on to your stress balls, fellas, because if you think that’s irritating, think about this: Each one of those top 15 losing scores is greater than our Bottom 10 Winning Scores. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, as they say. And you know what else they say?

Rank	Week	Winning Team	Points
1	6	Campton	53
2	8	Thinker	67
3	9	Thinker	80
4	8	Hound	90
5	5	Dollz	91
6	2	Thinker	92
	6	Fartz	92
7	6	Hurt Locker	93
8	2	S*Heads	96
	4	Thinker	96
	5	Hurt Locker	96
	7	Heavy Flight	96
	7	The U	96
9	9	Hound	98
10	5	Juice	100
	9	Buckguys	100

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Week 7 wrap