I didn’t get to the Week 13 Power Rankings last week because of the weird NFL scheduling nonsense + I was busy with work, but if it makes you feel better Vaibhav, you would’ve been number 1. I mean after insane performances from Henry/Gibson/Tyreek, how could I have ranked you any lower?
Now that playoffs have started, it’s really easy to forget the journey that each team took to get to their current position. It would be interesting to see some analysis on players taken our rookie draft and the impact they made to our teams. I’ve given them some arbitrary grades here, and you might disagree with my grades, but the point here is to look at the overall trend
Some interesting notes:
- If you took a rookie 1.06 and before, your chances of recouping the value of your pick is extremely high (100%). This kinda intuitively makes sense — you expect the 3 rookie QBs to recoup value immediately and the remaining 3 players are all at the top of their position
- If you took a rookie 1.07 and after, your chances of recouping the value of your pick is still above average (57%). However, potential outlook of all players taken after 1.07 is positive which means that at least you didn’t lose value from making a 1st round selection
- Best picks relative to their value occurred between 1.05–1.08. This doesn’t really mean anything since if these picks were made earlier they wouldn’t have been higher value relative to their pick
It’s hard to extrapolate this data for future picks because there’s a bunch of issues with this analysis
- This draft class could be stronger than previous/future draft classes
- My arbitrary grades could be wrong (I’m too cheap for a PFF subscription)
- I did the analysis in 10 minutes
However in summary, it looks like anyone that made a pick in the 1st round of the 2020 rookie draft will recoup the value of their pick in 1–2 years. Pretty much just making myself feel bad because I don’t have a 2021 1st 😔
Anyways, enough of that. You’re here for the power rankings!
1. 📈Shanahanigans 2.0 (vaibhav@): 9–4 (+1)
The Shanahanigans (god it’s such a tongue twister to type out) would’ve been 1st on this ranking last week had I written it, but fortunately for Vaibhav’s ego he’s still 1st on the list. Gibson’s hurt, Lamar’s making questionable throws, and Tony Pollard is eating into Zeke’s workload, but again and again the Shanahanigans put up numbers each week led by the WR1 and WR2 (Tyreek Hill and Davante Adams). In the past few weeks, Matt Stafford and Kirk Cousins have also been putting up respectable numbers. Although they face a difficult bracket, Vaibhav’s team is prepared for any matchup
2. 📉Tuahanagins (leoxia@): 10–3 (-1)
Jeez, this team is so frustrating. One week they’re putting up 72 and the next week they’re dropping 138. Luckily for the Tuahanagins, the win against Sugma Jeffys this week was much needed for both Leo and Rahul. It helped secure the #1 seed for the Tuahanagins and also locked in the 3rd overall pick for the Jeffys. We’re kinda nervous about the boom/bust nature of the team, but the much needed Bye week helps secure the 2 spot on the power rankings
3. 📈What’s Dalvin cooking? (ishanshah@): 9–4 (+2)
The Dalvin’s tough win to eliminate Dustin from the playoffs shows the resilience of this team. Without Christian McCaffrey, the Dalvin’s put up a whopping 134 points this week to launch himself to 3rd on the rankings. He faces a tough bracket with a match-up against Ryan and then Vaibhav, but if there’s any team to overcome adversity it would be Ishan’s. Our only concern is with Derek Carr’s volatility. If Carr plays well he can easily remain in the 130 pts/week range, but if he doesn’t he drops to ~100 pts/week which makes him an easy target for other wild card teams
4. Team emwang44 (emwang44@): 9–4 (-)
Next year, I’m going to force people to name their teams something creative. Emma held onto Taysom Hill (for how long?) and now she finally has a stud to put up points at the QB position. I’m not reading too much into the Week 13 match-up score (144 pts) though. 31% of those points came from a ridiculous Darren Waller week where he dropped 45 points (so mean!). Before then, Waller was averaging around 11.8 ppg. If we remove this outlier week, we could assume on average Emma’s team only puts up 110 pts this week, making her the 8th highest scoring team in week 13
5. 📉Name Machine Broke (ryanvasquez@): 8–5 (-2)
The big news this week — IT’S JALEN HURTS SZN. Yeah, sorry Ryan. Name Machine Broke was the 11th highest scoring team in week 13, but we assume he *sorta* returns to the mean in his playoff matchup. For one, Clyde didn’t play (thanks a lot Andy Reid) and two, Wentz got benched halfway through the Eagles game. The first is fixable, the second.. not so much. When you’re facing a potent team like the Dalvin’s in the first round of the playoffs, you need your QBs. It’ll be interesting to see Ryan’s offseason strategy given his championship hopes are slowly slipping away
6. Wandering Albatross’ (papa_brandly@): 8–5 (-)
Does the Wandering Albatross’ just get worse each week? Sorry, that was mean.. but kinda true? In week 13, Josh Allen and Travis Kelce combined put up 54% of his total points. Granted both players are having incredible seasons, but the diversity of the points scored is a huge concern. If one of those players doesn’t perform in a single week, we could be looking at the end of the Albatross’ championship dreams. The Albatross’ went an undefeated 6–0 to start the season and then followed it up with 2–5 to finish it. They go up against a red hot Team emwang44 next week and if the Albatross’ aren’t careful, they’ll end up placing 5th or 6th in the league
7. Team dhttn (dhttn@): 7–6 (-)
That Alvin Kamara trade Dustin made earlier this year was a *huge* gamble. Luckily for him, he has a change to recoup one of the 2021 1sts he traded away by winning an easy consolation bracket. While Taysom Hill robs Kamara of some of his workload, we still expect Kamara to be a huge difference maker for Dustin to secure the toilet bowl championship. His biggest competition may come in the form of the Jeffy’s in Week 15 or potentially heysteven in a Week 16 championship match-up
8. 📈 Sugma jeffys (vikingsrcool@): 5–8 (+1)
The Jeffys are sitting in a prime spot right now. Their loss in week 13 secured a top 3 pick for them AND the 126 points they put up show that they could secure the toilet bowl pick as well. Justin Jefferson is on pace to be one of the greatest dynasty WRs we’ve ever seen and many in the dynasty community are already crowning him the dynasty WR1 (sorry AJB, Tyreek, Davante). If Rahul has average to solid QB play in these consolations, his team will be a force to be reckoned with
9. 📉Team heysteven (heysteven@): 5–8(-1)
Honestly a pretty awful loss this week. It’s less so *losing* to Read, and more so not having startable RBs to replace Fournette and Conner. Heysteven’s RB situation will likely be the largest focus in this next year’s draft. With the 1.04 position locked up, we’re expecting to see Steven draft a stud RB in either Travis Etienne or Najee Harris. It’s still possible he has a shot at the toilet bowl, but it’ll be a long and hard path to get there. He’ll need to beat Read (a team he just lost to) and then potentially a dangerous Dustin/Rahul squad in Week 17.
10. 📈The Hanigan Footbirds (read@): 1–12 (+2)
We’re all rooting for him actually. I said he might finish 0–13 and I’m glad he proved me wrong. I mean, we still need to take his success with a grain of salt (good job Baker), but securing a win + securing the Trevor Lawerence lottery is grounds for improving his power ranking standing. The Footbirds actually have a really strong WR core with Michael Thomas, Stefon Diggs, and Tee Higgins. With his two first round selections in 2021, we could easily see the Footbirds jump into the top half of the power rankings by drafting Trevor Lawerence and a high end running back
11. Gimme the Damn L (AbhiG15@): 1–12 (-)
He really was so close to taking down Brandly and really we were all cheering for Logan Thomas this week. Unfortunately, you can’t consistently win in this league without a solid second QB. While he does have a shot at the toilet bowl, it’s a slim one. That’s okay though, because he owns 5 draft picks in the top 25. If he can find starters with 2–3 of those picks, he’ll very soon be back in the playoff race
12. 📉Team akashanavarathan (akashanavarathan@): 6–7 (-2)
You can’t consistently win in this league without a solid second QB. How about no QBs? Dak gets hurt, now Haskins gets benched, now Tua takes over, now Tua’s hurt, now Burrow’s hurt, now I’ll drop Mike Glennon for Ryan Finley, now Glennon’s starting, now Rahul picked up Mike Glennon, now Ryan picked up Brandon Allen, now Tua’s starting again.
I mean I kinda imagine his QB situation like this:
Don’t let his record deceive you. He’s consistently scoring around the same amount of points as Read and Abhi (which is very telling about how important QBs are). Because of that, the last spot on the power rankings is well deserved
