Lurker > ShatteredElysium

It's almost the hypest time of the year. Draft board release time at some point in the next week or so!

Glad I read that before sending my PM. Was going to ask about sending one of my guards to Vikings. But that is redundant now with them getting those guys.

It's ok though as I was going to ask your advice on whether you thought it was a good idea or not anyway

Only read the cliff notes but Corbin to get comeuppance via Slater being the referee seems a possibility

I feel like the tier lists are missing a lot of things that may have been bigger at the time but then fell away as time went on. There were a ton of good SNES RPGs and a handful of Megadrive ones too. The first Suikoden as well in 95 but that seems to have taken off later.

You had stuff like Darkstalkers, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat or even something like Strrets of rage. Maybe something random like Time Crisis does well due to arcades being a bigger thing. Point and click games seemed a lot bigger too. I'd imagine Guybrush would be stronger

Alex Kidd was discussed already but I remember random crap like James Pond, Bubsy, Ristar, Earthworm Jim, Ecco. Theres others too where I can picture them but cant remember the name.

Like I don't know, I feel some characters who would be absolute bottom fodder now may have done well back then. Or maybe I'm just isolating to games me and friends played and thinking they were bigger than they were. I mean obviously stuff like Sonic, Mario and Zelda still does well too

This is ridiculous lol

https://twitter.com/WorldWideWob/status/1069787575735541761?s=20

One of those is collusion which is always banned and the other is not.

Zelda - 56.3%
Mario - 56.7%

Link didn't even stop Jay Solano in a rally!

I totally know guys who have deliberately lost matches to end up on the opposite side of the bracket.

Personally I don't think it's a bad thing unless it fucks someone else over from getting into the playoffs. Like if you losing to them guarantees them in over someone else. At that point I feel you have to field your strongest team. If you losing to them has no implications other than where you place in the playoffs then as a commissioner I'd frown upon it but allow it.

In your example situation I don't think you can do it though since it affects who is in or out. Although I know of some people who would just say that's playing to win

We actually have side pot for highest score each week to discourage it and to encourage eliminated teams to still try

How many matches did Undertsle have to win to win the division? 3? Because just by probability/permuations 5 matches deep versus 3 matches is a very big difference. Even someone 50/50 in every match is down to to 3.125% by the 5th match

TheOneAboveAll posted...

Unless we think Sonic is stronger than eight years ago, though, this does not bode well for him against Zelda. (Unless Pikachu can 55/45 Zelda now, which is believable but highly unlikely.)

I mean just off the Snake > Auron result it looks like he is going to get absolutely smashed.

He did 7% worse on Auron compared to someone who lost to Zelda

My bracket went up in flames when Zelda beat Snake as I had Snake making the final. I also haven't had a single correct match in the losers bracket yet.

Somehow I'm still in the top 20 but I expect I'll drop from the leaderboard in the very likely scenario of Mario > Zelda

Well I'm for sure in the playoffs in one of my money leagues where I was heavily favored to win it until this week. I had Hunt and Conner as my RB's. This is a 16 man league so replacing 1 RB nevermind 2 is nigh on impossible.

I have Spencer Ware and I can shift Aaron Jones from Flex but I think it is highly unlikely I get the Steelers next RB up on waiver claim

I also had to drop Jordan Howard to snag Spencer Ware and he was immediately claimed off waivers.

What I find more jarring is the way games back are displayed

20-4 is first
15-7 is listed as 2nd and 4 games back
17-8 is listed as 3rd and 3.5 games back

Like I understand the logic behind it, it just seems wrong to me.

We can swap 7ths or something. I hope it doesn't come to that and the 1st conveys

Then pray for a shootout which is very possible

For the record, I don't think UCF are a top 4 team this year. The system is just a joke for non P5 teams though and there's nothing they can do to change it. UCF could have scheduled 3 P5 teams and won all 3 games and they still wouldn't have got in.

However, I do think UCF were a top 4 team last season. Obviously Alabama proved their worth in the playoffs last season but pre-playoffs UCF were more worthy than Alabama (who had a worst resume pre-playoffs than UCF did but that was completely ignored because SEC)

Link - 63.5%
Cloud - 54.1%

Draft is tentatively scheduled for a week on Friday right? Dec 14-16th I think you said?

Just checked

Ohio State are 5.5 point favorites
Michigan are 7.5 point favorites
Georgia are 14 point favorites
LSU are 6 point favorites (opened as 4 points but has gone up)

Yeah the Florida/Michigan game I would have preferred they avoid just because it feels like it has happened a lot recently.

I think my main issue with the bowl games is that they just don't tell us much and have sizable favorites in 3 of the 4 matches (I haven't checked but I'd think that Georgia, Michigan and OSU are all decent favorites in those matches?)

UCF/LSU should be a good match but I feel either way it won't tell us much. Whoever wins, the loser will be labelled as not very good. Whereas if we had gotten UCF paired against Georgia, OSU or Michigan and pulled off the upset then I don't feel that would said afterwards.

From the rankings I think I'd have preferred something like this (that still maintains tie-ins)

LSU / Michigan
Florida / Texas
OSU / Washington
Georgia / UCF

Or alternatively if we don't care about tie-ins

OSU / Georgia
UCF / Michigan
LSU / Washington
Florida / Texas

I guess if tie-ins don't matter you would toss Texas out for whoever was 12th. Penn State?

I guess for my moaning, ranking wise Georgia get the biggest shaft in their bowl game.

It's a shame they couldn't send the next in line SEC team to play Texas and have Georgia play UCF or Michigan instead.

Right now I am projected to win but that doesn't account for AJ Green being out in play right now.

Of the 3 teams I need to lose 2 are projected to lose and 1 to win. The 1 projected to win was projected to lose before any game started but his opponent has done terrible

I mean really it seems that this year there seems to be more of a drop off than usual from the top teams to the tier below. There doesn't seem to be many 2 loss teams and a lot of the 3 loss teams seem to have some damning losses rather than just losing to the better teams

Washington are a 3 loss team with a weaker SOS and less impressive wins so yeah I think there's a gulf between OSU and Washington. I think there's a clear gap between all the teams above Washington and themselves not just us. UCF being the clearly debatable one as we don't know how good they are.

Just the same as I think we would get killed by Alabama if they had foolishly put us in the top 4.

Whilst there's no excuse for getting mauled by Purdue in the way we did, I will say our 2 big losses in the last 2 seasons both came against teams entering the game on the back of a sad fan story.

Jesus christ I knew I shouldn't trust AJ Green in a must win game

My first thought when I drafted him was 'I bet he misses important games like he does every season'

TheRock1525 posted...

ShatteredElysium posted...

What the fuck else can they do other than win all their games?

Nothing. They don't deserve to get in the playoffs. Sorry that your soft as hell schedule keeps you out but when you play, what, the 70th hardest schedule? Sorry. You are not playoff material even in an 8 team format.

So what about ND and Clemson's SOS? They weren't much better than UCF's

With a regular seasons worth of 2018 data, lets check out what Rsum S&P+ can tell us. Lets look at Clemson, the No. 2 team in both S&P+ and the CFP rankings, as an example.
Clemson finished the regular season 13-0, challenged only a couple of times and winning its games by an average margin of 31.7 points (30.1 with a 50-point cap on each game).

Have the Tigers played a rigorous schedule? Goodness, no. If the average top-five team by which, I mean literally the average of Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Michigan, and Oklahoma, the top five teams per S&P+ played Clemsons 13 opponents a countless number of times, it would have won about 90 percent of those games.

Thats a strength of schedule that ranks 76th, not amazing but certainly harder than that of any of the other unbeatens.

SOS rankings for college footballs unbeaten teams:
17. Alabama (0.834)
61. Notre Dame (0.888)
76. Clemson (0.901)
83. UCF (0.907)

Clemsons schedule was closer in competition level to UCFs than Alabamas, and by quite a bit. And it was worse than Notre Dames.

TheRock1525 posted...

ShatteredElysium posted...

TheRock1525 posted...

I don't think any of the 5-8 teams could beat Alabama so I don't necessarily see the point in expanding the field unless it finally forces Notre Dame to join a conference.

I'm actually more for expansion for UCF's sake than the other 5-8 teams. I don't think the 3 or 4 team has a chance against Alabama either.

Also it's less about this year and more about the argument that seemingly comes up every year. Take away the subjectivity and make the criteria simpler. Take care of your conference and get your chance.

UCF shouldn't be included because they play a garbage schedule and suck.

They tried to get into the Power 5 and were denied. Schedules are set years in advance and the big teams won't play them. What the fuck else can they do other than win all their games?

UCF will have made more big bowl games than the vast majority of P5 teams so I think saying they suck is disingenuous. Bottom line is in the last 5 seasons they will have a Fiesta Bowl win, a Peach Bowl win and at the very least 1 more NY6 bowl appearance with 3 Top 10 ranking finishes. They are clearly a step ahead of any other G5 team and the vast majority of the P5.

When they went to the NY6 format, that should have gone out of the window though.

TheRock1525 posted...

I don't think any of the 5-8 teams could beat Alabama so I don't necessarily see the point in expanding the field unless it finally forces Notre Dame to join a conference.

I'm actually more for expansion for UCF's sake than the other 5-8 teams. I don't think the 3 or 4 team has a chance against Alabama either.

Also it's less about this year and more about the argument that seemingly comes up every year. Take away the subjectivity and make the criteria simpler. Take care of your conference and get your chance.

Also what I will say is fuck automatic tie-ins for NY6.

Ohio State's reward for just missing out is a game against a weak Pac 12 Champion in Washington? This is the least enthusiastic I have been about a bowl game in as long as I can remember.

Give me a game that possibly shows us something. An OSU-Washington game tells us nothing. Whereas an OSU-Georgia game or an OSU-UCF game at least gives us something of interest. Ditto for whoever UCF gets, it's very likely they give them LSU or Florida or something rather than giving them one of the strongest team available to see how good they are. If they beat LSU or Florida the argument will just be 'Well they weren't very good anyway'

I don't think you can put them in after they lose to Alabama. They effectively lost their play in game. I heard it mentioned on the broadcast yesterday but part of it is also Alabama earned the right to not have to play Georgia again. They beat them on neutral ground already and at the end of the season.

I think the whole system is flawed. As an OSU fan I'm not deluded enough to think we should have made it because you can't lose a Purdue level team by that much and get in regardless of other results. But on the whole only having 4 slots with 5 Power 5 champions and potentially non P5 teams like ND and UCF in the mix, 4 teams just isn't enough.

My 3 biggest gripes are this

1. Notre Dame not having to play a conference title game isn't remotely fair on the other teams if they aren't going to be penalized for it. They play an ACC schedule, they should have had to play Clemson. (If we are sticking with a 4 team playoff)

2. Subjectivity between P5 conference champions shouldn't come into play. A lot of years it's clear cut the pecking order but some years it isn't. You can't have a true champion if conference champs are being left out based on subjectivity.

3. The entire system blows for the G5 teams. You may as well just outright say they are disqualified from the get go. People can complain all they want about UCF's SOS but the bottom line is they are now unbeaten for 2 years. They can only strengthen their schedule so much, if they had played 3 P5 teams out of conference people would have still used their weak in conference schedule against them. And schedules are set so far ahead of time that it's easier said than done to strength their schedule. They also tried to get into a P5 conference only a few years ago and were denied. So what else can they do? I also don't think the American this year was even that far below the ACC or Pac 12 (if at all).

It has to be an 8 team playoff sooner rather than later. 5x P5 Champions and 3 at large teams. Throw in some sort of disclaimer where an unbeaten G5 team gets a spot (but they have to be unbeaten). You can even throw out a P5 champion if they rack up too many losses (say 3?)

The bonus is for the all time standings. It never applies to the current competition

I don't think I could be any less enthusiasthic about playing Washington in the Rose Bowl which I know isn't official but is extremely likely.

I hate the automatic tie-ins. I want to play the best team available which I feel as the 1st or 2nd team out we should get the opportunity to do so. There's clearly a gulf between the top end of the NY6 teams this year and the bottom end.

I want UCF or Georgia not a 3 loss team

Solid Snake - 56.3%
Sephiroth - 54.1%

Trade to announce.

Wildcats Receive
DT Randy Starks (87)

Steelers Receive
49ers 2nd round pick (10th in round)

In the week where I didn't pick, would the Notre Dame pick I had been picking every week actually have worked out? I don't know how much they were favored by over USC

The story I read was that he threw her out of the room because she wouldn't hook up with one of the people with him. At that point she flipped out and called him the n-word causing the whole thing. What isn't said and I imagine is the case is that they likely called her some derogatory terms as part of being kicked out if that truly was the reason she was kicked out.

I think the whole thing is ridiculous. She shouldn't be throwing around the n-word but in an argument is it any worse than what likely got said to her? Obviously I'm assuming here but I don't think it's a stretch to think in that context she would have been called something along the lines of sleeping around a lot / a streetwalker (i'm going to assume gamefaqs would auto-flag the actual words I want to use)

I wish when they released these videos they had sound. Or you know, released the part of the argument outside his damn room which would give us the needed context

I just saw the video and whilst it's bad, it isn't anywhere near as bad as the Ray Rice or Joe Mixon one.

Man what is it about RB's and hitting women.

I really wanted the Magic to trade up for Doncic and I really think we would have done if that trade hadn't been made.

Magic win last night but it was only the Suns. We should hopefully beat the Heat on Tuesday to bring us back to .500. After that we have a defining stretch of games. A lot of road games but no 'scary' teams in there, just a lot of teams sort of in that mid-cluster. If we stay close to .500 we should be a bonafide playoff team

Also the fuck at Spurs being 14th in the West. Same for Rockets being 12th. I know everyone is clustered together so that quickly changes but still surprising.

Whilst looking for trade partners I noticed that the majority of the Top 14 in the draft were weak or below average at that DT/MLB tandem (Bucs who had a retirement at MLB and Hawks being the exception. Bills being an odd in between case of having an elite DT1 but below average supporting cast)

I think rather than it being a DT/MLB issue, it's likely a symptom of a weak defense on the whole that causes ratings drops / lack of development across the board. I know KCF has always said the game is slanted towards Defense and the run game but I didn't think it would be that glaring.

All the successful teams have a strong defense but that's easy to say because they typically have a strong everything. KCF may be able to give examples of stifling defenses and weak offenses being successful.

I'd be interested to know if we have any instances of an elite offense and weak defense succeeding too.

In the league I'm dominating I had Kareem Hunt. I did manage to snag Ware though but I had to drop Howard to do it (was pre Hunt release and Hunt had undroppable status and my league has a 4 RB limit)

In the league where I am a really outside shot to make the playoffs it kinda helps me as a team I need to lose had him. Although they have Conner, Cook and Lewis as their other RB's so it's not as big a hit to them as it could have been

I'm just going to PM people as I guess not everyone reads this topic. Could be that nobody is interested of course!

And hopefully I don't get more than one taker.

AI offer I have is solid, I just would prefer the pick.

Oh you thought you might get an actual xstat read on Ganon after that Link SFF beatdown? Here, have some Bacondorf instead!

Link - 64%
Cloud Strife - 54%

Throwing it out there that DT Randy Starks (87) is still available (DT #22 in the league). I see there are some DT needy teams and I'd be looking for about a 2nd rounder for him. I can trade him to the AI but thought I'd give users a last chance at him before I do that.

Also willing to let OLB Galette (77) go for around a 3rd rounder. That's OLB 63 in the league so a fringe OLB2 but he is only 27.