#gromits

[impetuouswarlock]

“waiting 4 raid/torghast” silly af drafts 

[idiotstats]

I pray that this Google Image search is not the Waddy Cup. Much in the same way I hope that the “A Year in Review” email from CBS isn’t the official recap of the 2019 season because, wow, how many times can we hear Rich won the Super Bowl 103-51? And that Jeff lost the Super Bowl 51-103? Or that Pat’s Nougats had a team in the league, even if it wasn’t mentioned in the CBS recap?

This is why we have the Chief. Yes, congrats to Rich on his second Super Bowl appearance in a row and his first hoisting of the real Waddy Cup since 2012. But let’s be sure to recap a 2018 season by including everyone, shall we?

Rich (11-5)

The United won three of their games by 111 points or more, which is astounding. The United also lost three games by 66 points or more. Rich’s average margin of victory was 56.0, and his average margin of defeat was 51.0, both tops in the league.

Rich’s championship win marks only the second time the GM with the fifth pick won it all.

The United can also bask in the glow of their highest scoring season ever (2,019 points/126 PPG), topping their previous record from 2014 (1,879/117)

Jeff (11-5)

Earlier this season, Chief noted the Cretins were winning despite being outscored by their opponents -- something that happened in 2015 when Jeff won the Super Bowl. By the time the 2018 season ended, though, Jeff had outscored his opponents by 51 points.

The Cretins lost the Super Bowl by 52 points.

Jeff’s eleven wins included some very close games -- four of them cam by a margin of eight points or less.

Ted (10-6)

The Joey Jo-Jos wound up shattering scoring records: 2,257 points for the year, or 141 per game. The old WFL record was 2,108/132.

Last year, the Joey Jo-Jos scored 1,269 points, an average of 79 per game.

In neither of these seasons did Ted win the Super Bowl, continuing a trend that has held since 1997. Probably worth noting that three of his six losses this year were by ten points or less.

John (10-6)

As strong as Ted’s non-championship performance was, the Gromits should be proud of their season too: Four of John’s six losses were by a dozen points or less.

The Gromits had to face the league champion United three times this season. The Gromits won each of those games.

John topped 100 points 14 times this year, which tied the old record (Kurt in ‘98, John in ‘04, Pat in ‘16). Ted did this in all 16 games this year. 

Kurt (8-8)

Anybody notice how the Pirates drubbed the eventual champions in Week 16 by hanging 186 points on the United? That was actually the 14th highest-ever WFL score. (In all, the WFL tallied five of the top 17 performances in 2018.)

This season was the third most prolific in Kurt’s career: 1,883 points/118 PPG has only been outdone in 2013 (1,918/120) and 1998 (2,108/132).

Defense, though, is another story. Allowing 1,930 points, or an average of 121 PPG, is a record worst -- at least, this far in the article.

Pat (7-9)

The stats would say the Nougats were lucky to attain their near-.500 record. Four of their wins came by less than 10 points, and their biggest blowout win was by 35 -- in a year when the average margin of victory was 35.2.

Still, the Nougats had the league’s most dominating week in Week 15, sneaking in their first and only DW before the deadline.

While the Nougats still have the league’s most Super Bowl appearances and wins, Pat has finished exactly 7-9 in five of the last seven seasons.

Jim (4-12)

The No-Names see Kurt’s bad defense and raise it: Jim allowed 2,072 points this season, a 130 PPG average. Coming into this season, the worst defense allowed 1,902 points (Pat in 2014) -- so Jim outdid that by more than 10 points per game.

Jim’s 4-12 record is the second-worst season of his career, only beating out a 1-15 performance in 1999. Interestingly, the No-Names have gone 4-11-1 twice.

The closest games of 2018 were decided by three points. Jim was a winner in such a game (116-113 over John in Week 12) and a loser in such a game (108-15 to Pat, Week 8)

Bob (3-13)

After Week 14, Chief pointed out the Mulligans had the chance to tie the dubious 1-15 league-worst record. Naturally, Bob won out, completing just the third 3-13 season in WFL history (Jeff ‘02, John ‘05)

Despite their record, the Mulligans fought hard down the stretch: Not just winning their last two, but the four games before that were decided by a total of 42 points. All were Mulligans losses, but still.

The Achilles’ heel for the Mulligans was playing teams who had winning records at game time, as Bob went 1-5 in such performances. 

League notes

Four games saw a scoreboard with more than 300 points. Can you spot the anomaly?

330: Ted 220-John 110, Week 2

327: Rich 219-Jim 108, Week 4

319: Ted 228-Pat 91, Week 11

306: Jeff 156-Kurt 150, Week 5

The NFL was scoring at a record pace, but a late-season drop-off led to a teams scoring an average of 23.3 PPG, just under the 23.4 of 2013.

The WFL had no such issues, as teams averaged 115.3 PPG, besting the previous record of 107.5 from two seasons earlier.

We didn’t have a tie game this year, extending our streak to 52 weeks, the longest we’ve gone without a tie since the 1998 expansion. 

There were three times this year when teams put up the same score in the same week -- they just weren’t playing each other.

The league has had 16 tie games since 1998, though John still has never been in one.

[idiotstats]

The Cretins had a seven-point lead heading into Sunday night, but victory seemed elusive: While Jeff still had a QB to go, his opponent Pirates had a QB, an RB, a WR AND a PK starting in this game.

Kurt could have swapped out any of those first three positions for Texans playing on Monday night — but this was more than a fantasy game: It was his Packers, desperately needing a win against the hated Vikings.

With a game so important ... the football gods could do nothing but laugh.

The Packers’ first score came on a Rodgers-to-Adams TD pass, followed by an Aaron Jones TD run. CBS gave the Pirates an 80% chance of victory.

Then the Packers wouldn’t score another TD, let alone move the ball the rest of the night. For a Level 10 insult, Minnesota kicker Dan Bailey missed 47- and 56- yard field goals — the last one worth 8 WFL points — as the Cretins won by eight and the Vikings won by seven. Because that wasn’t painful enough, the Texans would light up the scoreboard Monday, leaving a net 47 points on the Pirates’ bench.

Kurt, and all of his slim playoff hopes, crashed around him.

But he wasn’t alone. John’s Gromits looked in control of their must-win game with a 12-point lead against 2-9 Jim. So the No-Names got 15 points from kicker Somebody (sic) Fairbairn to claim victory in a 116-113 thriller.

Rich won his game over Pat by 14 in the biggest blowout of the week; Ted edged Bob by five in the Game of the Week, surviving his Rams/Chiefs bye.

That means Ted, Rich and Jeff are each 9-3 with a two-game lead and a month of football to go. Ted and Jeff face each other in Week 13. Jeff and Rich square off in Week 14.

The football gods are licking their lips. Someone else’s playoff hopes will come crashing down.

[idiotstats]

A remarkable set of circumstances bring us into Week 11 with four teams tied for first-place. But maybe things aren’t as equal as they appear:

Ted is scoring at a record pace: Averaging 144.1 points per game, he’s a dozen points ahead of a 20-year-old record. But in 1998, Kurt went undefeated, while the Joey Jo-Jos have managed to lose three times in games when they’ve scored either 121 (twice) or, as they did in Week 10, 118 points -- which is their season low. Certainly, a record-setting offense wouldn’t have a let-down to prevent Ted’s first Super Bowl win since 1997, right?

John is averaging 131.5 points per game, right on pace with the existing scoring record. The Gromits’ three losses came in their three worst offensive outputs of the season so far: 105, 110 and 120 points. And two of those losses were by a combined 14 points. The other loss, though, was by an incredible 110-point margin. Which simply can’t happen again ... I mean, certainly, John wouldn’t blow his chance to become the league’s first repeating Super Bowl champ in more than ten years, right?

Rich has given up fewer points than any WFL team this year, allowing an average of 110.5 points per game. (Yes, you read that right -- the best defense allows 110.5 points per game; the average score in all of the WFL last year was 97.4 points) But the United’s losses came with scores of 80 (twice) and 82, the only times they’ve scored in double-digits this year. Take out those games, and Rich is averaging 149.4 points per game. Certainly, Rich won’t lay any more eggs, right?

Jeff is the hottest of the four teams, having won three games in a row. In fact, his most impressive win of the season came last week, a 173-116 shellacking of the No-Names. That 57-point victory puts Jeff’s total points scored at 1196 ... and his points allowed at 1142. Which means that going into Week 10, Jeff had allowed more points than he’d scored, but had still managed a 6-3 record. Sound familiar? Jeff’s proven he’s better at defying logic than anyone ... but certainly, he can’t keep that luck going for the second time in four years, right?

Chief Idiot included Pat’s on the standings chart above, especially in light of  how the Nougats are losing awfully close games -- but Pat has to leapfrog a lot of teams to get into contention, starting with Ted’s squad this week. Still, John-Jeff is understandably Week 11′s Game of the Week. 

[idiotstats]

After his week 5 loss to Jeff -- by a score of 156-150 -- Kurt was on the pity pot. His score would have beaten every other team that week. That’s a crap loss. “That seems to happen a lot to me,” Kurt thought.

And then Chief woke up and said, “Crap Loss should be an Idiotstat.” 

Kurt’s whining may be justified in recent memory -- he had two Crap Losses in 2015, a year when he finished one game out of the Super Bowl. It turns out the Pirates have had three of the league’s last six Crap Losses. But when it comes to losing, he’s not the winner.

Since 1998, the WFL has seen 42 weeks when just one team had the second-highest point total and lost. Bob and Pat took the honor in 7 of those games, followed by Jeff with 6. (Kurt, Jim and Rich each have 5, and Ted has 4.)

But that’s not all. There have been 10 times when TWO teams had the week’s second-highest score: 

Seven of these games were ties (the league’s top two scorers playing each other). Bob figured in five of those Crap Ties. 

The other three times, the teams involved were in different games, and either won or lost.

So all told, there have been 58 occasions where a team with the week’s second-highest point total came away without a win. But the Mulligans have been that team 13 times, which is more than 50% higher than the expected rate. 

John’s Gromits -- who have still never finished in a tie in any game, for the record -- have only had 3 Crap Losses.

If it makes Bob feel any better, he’s had three games where he’s been the victor in a Crap Loss game for someone else. But who has handed out the most Crap Losses to other teams? 

Whiner Kurt, with 12.

[simononradio]

Started our collection of gromits #westonsupermare #gromits (at Weston-super-Mare)

[idiotstats]

With a logjam near the top of the standings, Chief has crunched the numbers and has come to the conclusion: the Gromits are in the Super Bowl.

Chief says that not because first-place John is guaranteed the league’s best record with a Week 16 win, which would seem likely against 2-13 Ted. Even with a loss, the Gromits would win tiebreakers to earn a postseason berth.

But what happens after that? Here’s how Chief sees it:

John is obviously in with a win. His opponent is most easily decided if Rich and Jeff have different outcomes in their respective games this weekend -- Jeff plays 7th-place Kurt, while Rich takes on tied-for-5th Pat. But if Rich and Jeff have the same outcomes in their games -- both win, or both lose -- Jeff earns the berth courtesy of a 2-0 record against the United this season. So, for once in his damn life, Rich can root for Kurt this weekend.

But what if John loses? The Gromits would drop to 11-5, and potentially in a three-way tie for first. (Of course, if there are only two 11-5 teams, then those are your Super Bowl participants.)

That’s where things get fun. The first tie-breaker is head-to-head season record. John lost both his games to Rich this year; Rich lost both his games against Jeff; and Jeff lost both his games against John. So each team is 2-2 against the others.

The second tie-breaker is points scored head-to-head, and that’s where Jeff stands out in these big games: He scored 418 points in his four match-ups against the other two teams, John scored 377, while Rich only tallied 344. So John still makes the Super Bowl in this scenario, albeit behind the technical regular season champion Cretins.

So here’s the skinny for Super Bowl XXVIII: 

John’s in (seeking his first Super Bowl win since 2004); 

Jeff is in with a win (which would mean a rematch of 2015′s Super Bowl);

Rich is in with a win plus a Jeff loss (don’t be nervous) 

[idiotstats]

Granted, he’s only got four guys going right now -- though one of them is a QB, and at 2:20 PM CT, you have to admit a goose egg looks a little weird.