Warrior General Games

Week 16 turned in a few surprises. I go 3-3 (stupid C-T game) and finish 7-13. Unfortunately, the spreadsheet doesn't extend into the playoffs, but I can make one final projection based on the RPI.

Zeta RPI

Monty Pythons .625
Sevastopol Wolverines .597
Constantinople Romans .589
The Cape Town Cubicles .581
The D-League Home For Underprivileged Children .560
C-Town Hoodlums .544
Rome Raiders .540
The Wheatfield .509
Transylvania Terror .489
Terlingua Javelinas .486
Draguignan Dragons 83 .485
Subotica Scorpions .430
Grodno Titans .428
Columbus Crush .409
Chernobyl Radionuclides .401
Elancourt Templiers .388

As it's been for a while, the Pythons maintain a healthy separation from the remaining teams. The Wolverines made the strongest late season run to put them atop the teams-not-named-Pythons group. Conversely, D-L closed out their last 6 games 3-3, and show all the signs of a 1-and-done playoff. Interestingly, round 1 features 2 games, Romans v. D-L and Cubicles v. Raiders, that are rematches of week 16.

The standings are almost identical to the RPI's. C-T would be the only bottom 4 team I would expect surprises from, but having to face a hot Wolverine squad in round 1 won't help their cause. Based on RPI, all top 4 teams should sweep the first round easily.

Alpha RPI

NISSA Dauphins .605
Chernobyl Meltdowns .603
Kharkiv Thrashers .580
Black Sea Pirates .570
Lisbon Crows .559
Woburn Tanners .546
Transylvania Impalers .511
Tallaght Outlaws .509
Saratov Catrades .485
BERLIN RAIDERS .479
Tskhinvali Rebellion .458
Jax Beach B.O.H.I.C.A .425
Fehérvár Enthroners .421
Sacramento Storm .411
Bohemian Grove Molechs .395
International Players .384

Well well, Lisbon decides to make a statement before heading into the playoffs. Their inconsistency matches D-L in zeta. Both teams were highly ranked in preseason and had very strong starts, only to lose unexpectedly. They might win a game or two in the playoffs, but when they lose, you'll probably hear, "That's about right.. they're good but weren't really elite." NISSA's speed bump into the playoffs costs them the #1 seed makes their road to the finals a little tougher, but their position atop the RPI is no fluke.

In my opinion, a loss like that helps a team a lot. While in real football, you want momentum and morale going into the playoffs, I think the opposite is true here. Losses are the only good way to find holes in your game plan, and that's the real bottom line. Long winning streaks can take away a team's edge. Momentum and morale might make you click your mouse harder from the excitement, but that won't translate to more wins.

From an RPI perspective, the Pirates are expected to pull off an upset, but their last head-to-head matchup against Lisbon suggests otherwise. I don't expect the Thrashers to get far either. The Tanners would be my dark horse pick in Alpha, having played strongly against all the top teams.

I don't think the odds favor a NISSA/Chernobyl and Pythons/Wolverines semi-final. I'd guess there will be at least 1 upset in round 2 for both conferences. Somewhere in the mix of inconsistent underdogs group of Lisbon, Tanners, Romans, and D-L is an Arizona Cardinals team, and I'm predicting we find out after round 2.

Good luck to everyone in the playoffs

cliffs

No, thank you. You´ve done an outsanding job this season with the rankings and i´m sure everyone really appreciates it. I know i do.

That said, can we expect a playoff edition?

Good luck in the playoffs everyone!

Lisbon inconsistent?

Your sheet projected from the outset to go 12-4--we go 13-3. Our losses are to the teams ranked higher than us with one victory over the number 2 seed and we are inconsistent?

Um, seems to me we are "who you thought we were". An inconsistent team would lose to a bottom feeder and the next week knock of Nissa or a team like that. Lisbon played consistent all year--losses were close; big games were close and we blew out who we were supposed to blow out.

I don't think we are one of the "elite" teams, just sayin that we were by no means "inconsistent".


Great job this year by the way. I have enjoyed looking at the rankings from both conferences. Keep it up and yes, let's get some kind of playoff version!

I disagree. It doesn't have to be a clear cut win/loss summary to define consistency, which is the definition you are going by. Look at the actual games.

You started the season strong, winning big and barely losing to the Thrashers. So far so good, and Lisbon looks like a top tier team. Then you just barely beat the Outlaws and Impalers, both 2nd tier teams at best, 1 which depended on luck to even make the playoffs, and Lisbon required last minute scores for both wins. So now Lisbon is a mediocre team who would have lost to barely-playoff-eligible teams if the game were 58 minutes instead of 60. Compare those to NISSA's 33 pt blowout of the Impalers or Chernobyl's 55 pt blowout of the Outlaws.

Then you come back and destroy the Pirates, an arguably better team than the Impalers and Outlaws. So now maybe you guys are pretty good?

Then you lose to the Tanners in a game that was much worse than the score suggests. A Tanners team that lost to NISSA by 38. So now maybe you guys suck?

And of course, the upset against NISSA. So you guys are good again

And while I will hide behind the fact that I know the Zeta teams much better, and can only base Alpha judgments on the numbers, it seems fair to say that I think I've just described "inconsistent" by any definition

I'll make some playoff predictions just for fun, but it would be pretty subjective since I have no spreadsheet to help define spreads and projections. Still, what's the point of playing for the Cubicles if I can't insult a team or 3?

I didn't even realize you were on the cubes. Sweet.

I think having "inconsistent" teams is just a factor of more league balance. The Meltdowns had a few close calls that one or two early mistakes early in a game could easily have us sitting at 12-4 instead of 15-1.

Football is a game of inches. I don't think there is anything wrong with an "inconsistent" label for a team as long as you win when it counts.

Calling the crows inconsistent is 100% accurate in my book. In sports, inconsistency means losing to teams you should beat based on your normal or peak performance lets say. On a talent level the crows should have likely beat both the Thrashers and Tanners. They also had some other suprisingly close games.

Calling you inconsistent isnt a Slam. If anything, it implies you legitimately have a shot to go the distance. Dolphins and Meltdown put themselves into a category of their own via consistent victories over lesser opponents. The Crows have the horsepower to hang and beat the top teams, but due to some errant losses need to be grouped below. Sounds like the definition of inconsistent.

You guys are the sexy pick to take Alpha.

Oh my Alpha tiers:

#1: Meltdown/Dolphins
#2: Crows
#3: Tanners/Pirates/Thrashers

None in particular order. My personal view based on how different teams faced eachother with an emphasis on end of season play. Crows get a bump because of the dolphins game and huge win vs pirates. #3 group all played eachother rediculously close.

Crows' entire Roster has level 1 Streaky, and they all are hot or not during the same games; C/D?
Good luck to everyone and I'm hoping that we perform better against the Crows this time around than last time.

For those who are interested, here is a Performance Ranking which I quickly put together. It weights the Average levels of the Starters by the RPI, giving a heigher weight to lower level teams, to come up with an index to see how your team has performed if you had used only Player levels as the factor for determining expectations.

Team ...AVG OFF ...AVG DEF ...AVG TOT ...RPI ...Performance
NISSA Dauphins ...43.2 ...43.3 ...43.25 ...0.605 ...10.13
Chernobyl Meltdowns... ...36.1 ...35.8 ...35.95 ...0.603 ...14.50
Kharkiv Thrashers ...38.5 ...37.4 ...37.95 ...0.58 ...12.78
Black Sea Pirates ...36.8 ...36.6 ...36.7 ...0.57 ...13.28
Lisbon Crows ...40.5 ...38.4 ...39.45 ...0.559 ...11.48
Woburn Tanners ...36.8 ...36.3 ...36.55 ...0.546 ...12.80
Transylvania Impalers ...36.3 ...36.6 ...36.45 ...0.511 ...12.03
Tallaght Outlaws ...39.9 ...40.4 ...40.15 ...0.509 ...10.10

Saratov Catrades ...31.4 ...30.7 ...31.05 ...0.485 ...14.04

Using this - once can see that the Meltdowns and Catrades are playing better than one would expect, and outlaws and Dauphins are playing worse than one would expect, if Player levels of the Starters was the only consideration. The "Average" Performance Index would be 12.35.. not that any of these numbers mean a lot - but if I was the Catrades, I'd be pretty happy with the season. I know you didn't make the Playoffs - but your performance on the season was great, considering your team's average levels - I expect great things from you guys next season.

chernobyl's high performance rating is easy to explain. They're a well organized slow build team

Yep, I had considered using average creation dates of the Starters as another way to measure expected performance - but decided that it really wasn't worth the effort. If I could quickly download all of the information into spreadsheets - I could have a lot of fun with projections... but the layout isn't very user friendly for such purposes.

While I used the Average "performance index" as a point of comparison - because it is simple... it's not really a very meaningful value... just another way to look at things through a specific lens.

Originally posted by damanwithdamoves
chernobyl's high performance rating is easy to explain. They're a well organized slow build team

well organized my ass

for a bunch of mutants at least

Originally posted by damanwithdamoves
chernobyl's high performance rating is easy to explain. They're a well organized slow build team

lol organized.

Organised !, do you know how long has NBM been on that one painting for !