Week 1, 2023 - First Time in a Long Time

Hey, you guys remember that Staples commercial from the late 90s?

That’s how I usually feel about Week 1. It’s fantasy football time. Everyone thinks their team is going to be good. Happiness! The most wonderful time of the year!

And then: everything comes crashing down. Man, the NFL really does change a TON every year, doesn’t it?

Aaron Rodgers made it 4 plays in a Jets career that had SO MUCH hype. Four plays! Aside from the fact that I can’t throw a football more than 10 yards in the air (probably), I feel like I could have lasted more plays. (This is likely the same kind of hubris as this guy, but waaaay less sexist.)

I’m guessing many of you in the league thought “hey, my team may not be the best, but it should compete.” And then…

 

Only two teams broke 100 points this week. (More on the history aspect later) The second highest scoring player on the week was a defense (sorry to all your Giants fans. I hope you went to bed early because….damn.)

Jeff Fisher Effect won the first Tidwell of the season, thanks to that Cowboys defensive performance. I’m considering donating the $10 winnings for the week to the Gene and Jerry Jones Family Foundation (not really, they don't need the money). Death Valley Driver got more points from Tyreek Hill, and had he won, I would have suggested he donate the money to the Tyreek Hill Foundation Against Domestic Violence (which does not exist).

It was not a good week for Iron Ryan or Dancin’ Dennis Nedry, as each failed to break 70 points. It’s early, but they both fired some big shots in the FAAB department; I-Ry added Gus Edwards on the heels of the JK Dobbins injury, and DDN added Kyren Williams and Kenneth Gainwell. Gainwell will be immediately as useful as the player he dropped Rashaad Penny was, thanks to an injury.

 

I also appreciate that I-Ry added Dicker the Kicker.

It was an interesting week for the teams not yet mentioned, who scored between 99 and 82.5 points. Luckily for Pedro Pickles (he, of the 82.5), he got matched against DDN.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in Week 2! 

Historic Week 1?

I thought Week 1 was weird from a scoring standpoint. Because it’s what I do, I went back and looked.

Year	Teams over 100 pts Week 1
2014*	3 (8 team league)
2015	6
2016	7
2017	1
2018	6
2019	9 (only Nate missed, with 97)
2020	6
2021	6
2022	5

So definitely a weird Week 1 for scoring. It looks like Week 15 of 2018 was the last time we had so few teams over 100 points. If you remember, that was probably the weirdest scoring week in, like, fantasy history. Pepperidge Farm remembers. So do Kevin and Tim.

I’ll set the over/under on teams getting to 100 in Week 2 at 5.5.

 

Historical Bench

In this weeks’ GroupMe chat – after a week where he picked a LOT of wrong players for his lineup – Utah Falco asked about the bench scoring. Again, I went back and looked. I don’t have historical bench data from the first three years of the league. By the time I started wanting to track the data, ESPN had only made only the starting lineups scores available in the league history. However, I have all the bench data from 2017-2023. Here are the bench totals all-time:

	Bench
Kyle	4,221
Tim	4,132.5
Cusick	3,993
Nate	3,859
Nash	3,757.5
Provost	3,674.5
Pete	3,585
Kevin	3,479.5
Chris	3,261.5
Ryan	3,007

 Note our man Cusick, sitting there in third place. I’d argue he’s the outlier in the top 5, as each of the other managers in the top 5 have winning records all-time. Here are the all-time records:

 

		Win	Loss	Tie	Win %
Tim		86	57	1	0.597
Kevin		77	64	4	0.531
Provost		74	69	2	0.510
Nate		73	69	1	0.510
Nash		74	68	3	0.510
Pete		66	62	0	0.516
Kyle		65	64	0	0.504
Cusick		63	81	1	0.434
Chris		63	82	0	0.434
Ryan		60	83	2	0.414

Notice that Cusick has the third worst record all-time, but the third HIGHEST bench points. Now, making the comparison based on record when there’s 9 years of win-loss data, but only 6 years of total point data doesn’t give a good comparison. So let’s see it based solely on point totals since 2017 (including this past week 1).

Points by STARTERS since 2017

	Starters
Tim	10,731.5
Nash	10,609.5
Nate	10,411.5
Kyle	10,352.5
Pete	10,268.5
Provost	10,185.5
Kevin	10,177.5
Cusick	9,772.5
Chris	9,687.5
Ryan	9,129.5

Points by BENCH since 2017 

	Bench
Kyle	4,221
Tim	4,132.5
Cusick	3,993
Nate	3,859
Nash	3,757.5
Provost	3,674.5
Pete	3,585
Kevin	3,479.5
Chris	3,261.5
Ryan	3,007

Bench points as a percentage of total points since 2017:

	% of Total
Cusick	29.01%
Kyle	28.96%
Tim	27.80%
Nate	27.04%
Provost	26.51%
Nash	26.15%
Pete	25.88%
Kevin	25.48%
Chris	25.19%
Ryan	24.78%

 

What does this all tell us:

In theory, this data tells us that Ryan is statistically the best lineup setter in our league. When dealing with what he’s got on his roster, he gets the most out of his lineup. The problem is: his teams generally suck.

We also notice that the top 4 STARTER point scorers over the sample size (Tim, Nash, Nate, Kyle) are also in the top 5 in BENCH scoring (Tim 2^nd, Nate 4^th, Nash 5^th, Kyle 1^st). So it’s perhaps as much an indicator of a strong roster as it is on lineup setting.

Which leaves us with Cusick: 7^th most points from his starters, but 3^rd most from his bench.

Here’s the total points since 2017: 

	Total
Tim	14,864
Kyle	14,573.5
Nash	14,367
Nate	14,270.5
Provost	13,860
Pete	13,853.5
Cusick	13,765.5
Kevin	13,657
Chris	12,949
Ryan	12,136.5

Of the top 5 in total points since 2017, only ONE does NOT have a championship in that time frame (sorry to point it out, Nash), and two of the top 5 have two titles.

Cusick wanted to say he’s “the best” at something. And, I think I’d agree: given all these factors he’s “the best” as setting a bad lineup.

Here Comes Week 2!

Week 2 is starting right now (seriously, the Eagles and the Vikings are playing as I type this). If the first quarter is any indication, Week 2 might suck as bad as Week 1. Here's hoping it's not.