Year of the QBs + Random Useless Observations

With not many numbers to crunch and not a lot of ideas on how to use the numbers to tell a story, I will just write a lot of little known, even less important random facts about the season so far.

Firstly, I'd like to reiterate ... THIS HAS BEEN THE YEAR OF THE QBs.

Look at these stats:
TOP 9 scorers thus far are all QBs!
Peyton Manning -- 116
Aaron Rodgers -- 98
Drew Brees -- 94
Joe Flacco -- 92
Philip Rivers -- 90
Matt Schaub -- 89
Eli Manning -- 85
Ben Roethlisberger -- 84
Brett Favre -- 80
Tied with Favre is finally a player who isnt a QB (Chris Johnson with 80 points)
Just to drive home the point further ... after Chris Johnson, the next 2 are ALSO QBS!!!!!
Jay Cutler and David Gerrard!
Phew! This did not happen last year. Not even close! It was the RBs who ruled the game last year.

Imagine this, the highest score through the first 4 weeks by a player who is NOT a QB: Chris Johnson with 80 a 36 point differential from Manning.

And the fact that the best WR has only scored 68 points in the first 4 weeks just illustrates that it's not a QB-WR combinations thats been working this year. The throws have gone all around. A lot of different WRs have done OK but it's been QBs who have had an awesome 4 weeks!
Considering average though, the best WR is DeSean Jackson ... with 60 points in 3 weeks, he has scored 20 a week on an average! Kudos!

Best one week performances by position
QB -- 53 points -- week 1 -- Drew Brees -- Devashree
RB -- 56 points -- week 2 -- Chris Johnson -- Devashree
WR -- 31 points -- week 2 -- Andre Johnson -- Vishal
TE -- 29 points -- week 2 -- Dallas Clark -- Murtaza
DE -- 39 points -- week 4 -- San Francisco -- Shilpi/Jimit
K -- 14 points -- week 2 -- Nate Kaeding -- Darshini
week 3 -- Stephen Gostkowski -- Shilpi/Jimit
week 4 -- Robbie Gould -- Meghna


Stupid stat that only I can come up with! :)
Week 1 Highest Scorer -- Darshini -- Current Record 1-3
Week 2 Highest Scorer -- Devashree -- Current Record 2-2
Week 4 Highest Scorer -- Shilpi/Jimit -- Current Record 3-1
Week 3 Highest Scorer -- Murtaza -- Current Record 4-0

Another stupid stat that only I could come up with:
Current weekly average per team: 84.3
Total number of scores that are above average: 24
Total number of scores that are below average: 24
What does that mean? :) Anyone? It means that our mean and median are the same or about the same.

Another very very important observation:
-----------------------------------------
The average may be 84 but to make sure that you win, try and get a score of 90 or higher.
And here is the reason why:
Win - Loss of teams scoring above 100: 9 - 1 (90%)
Win - Loss of teams scoring between 90 and 99: 9 - 2 (81%)
Win - Loss of teams scoring between 80 and 89: 1 - 4 (20%)
Such a sharp drop as soon as you score less than 90! So try and score in the nineties this season to have a great shot at winning.

In case you are wondering, that one player so far who has scored in the 3 digits and still lost -- Shirin. She scored 100 in week 2 and still lost!

Hmmm ... that's it! I know it was really random ... but there are some stats that only make sense after we are doing with 8 or 9 weeks so I cannot do them this early. There weren't any innovative ideas this week either. SO THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW AND ASK ME FOR IT!

Like I said last week, here is the updated standings of head to head matchups now including week 4 as well.
TEAM -- Wins-Losses-Tied
ShilpiJimit--33 11 0
Murtaza------31 13 0
Saumil-------27 16 1
Prashant-----24 20 0
Meghna-------21 21 2
Devashree----21 23 0
Shirin-------20 23 1
Darshini-----20 23 1
Vishal-------20 24 0
Niral--------18 25 1
Valmik-------17 26 1
Ali----------08 35 1


Definitely read Niral's article this week. It should be coming out today as well. Something tells me it's going to be GREAT! All the best!

Cheers,
Murtaza

Couldn't wait Until Thursday

Congratulations to Niral & Valmik on wrapping up their first wins of the season (for all practical purposes)

Niral:
Mendelhall 32 points. Jeff Reed 9 points. Ben 27 points. Your first win.
SHOW SOME LOVE!

Meghna, Darshini & Shirin:
What a wretched start. Losing 3 straight after winning the first one!

Meghna & Shirin:
You know what's worse? Playing against each other almost ensures that one of you will be going 0-4 after a 1-0 start!

Meghna:
I dont think it would have mattered even if Campbell had scored 24 points.

Shirin:
They say coffee isnt good for your system. They were right.

Darshini:
You have a good shot at picking up your second win and stopping your slide. You play Ali and 3 of his players are on Bye.

Shilpi & Jimit:
You guys are the toughest in the league to beat. Not I. Not Saumil.

Valmik:
You score your first win and next week Brees is on Bye. Things are finally looking up.

Devashree:
I swear I don't remember the last time Drew Brees had 0 TD passes in 2 straight games. I guess he's taking a week off to think about it.

Vishal:
Your 3-1 start is very deceiving. Very unlike the 3-1 of Shilpi & Jimit.

Prashant:
Quiet but effective ... as always!

Saumil:
There might be a "Superbowl Hangover" but there sure doesnt seem like there is anything like the "NJ Rookies Champion Hangover"

Murtaza:
How lucky was I to be able to swoop up Steve Smith on a lazy Thursday evening when everyone passed on him during the Wednesday pickups?

Interesting Note:
While Vishal always gets the blame for picking up and dropping too many players, this is what the list of transactions looks like on week 4.

Niral -- 11 pickups
Murtaza -- 10 pickups
Saumil -- 9 pickups
Valmik -- 8 pickups
Vishal -- 7 pickups

No more sullying the good name of Devish. We have a new leader!

Week 4 Prediction...

· * Red Indicated winners

AWAY TEAM	PROJECTED PTS	HOME TEAM	PROJECTED PTS
Apni Toh Vat Lagyi MAMMU	88	Team Chipolopolo	95
DEVISH THE SMASHERS	93	Terra Cotta Blitzerz	64
Salazar Slytherin	61	.... Disorderlys...	85
The TryThrowCatch!	103	End zone diva	98
Knock... UDown	100	Team Puntars	111
my AYYARS	94	Rainbow Catchers	102

Extra Sensory Perception Network (ESPN)

ESPN predictions tend to be one of the biggest factors in decisions regarding FA pickups or setting up the active rosters week after week. A lot of times we are very glad and have no problem when our player performs better than ESPN predicted. But if a lot of our players do not play as well as ESPN predicted, it is often a cause for a lot of heartburn. So Vishal's question is -- just how good are ESPN predictions? Mind you that the data I have is for 3 weeks only. I will revisit this topic again when the season is ending.

3 weeks, 12 teams per week, 14 players per team ... that amounts to 504 players so far on our rosters.

First question - Are ESPN predictions on an average aggressive or conservative? Do they overpredict numbers or underpredict them? What do you think?

Out of the 504, 242 players outperformed or equalled ESPN's predictions. Mind you that also takes into account 26 players who ESPN predicted would not score any points and did not. Some of them were good calls by ESPN I am sure, but a lot of others were either injured or werent playing ... so it is not in that sense a prediction at all if we all knew that they were out of the lineup and would score nothing.

Let us take those 26 players out of the equation --
Out of 478 players, 216 players outscored or equalled ESPN predictions. 262 did not. So 55% of the players underperformed and 45% were consistent or better than ESPN predicted.

The good thing about the stats above is that ESPN neither overpredicts nor underpredicts. Short of being able to tell the future, a 50% over and a 50% lesser is the best result that you hope to achieve. ESPN is close to that with a slight tendency to overpredict.
The bad thing about the stats above is that since it does not tend to overpredict or underpredict, it does not tell us anything more about how to use ESPN's predictions better.

Apart from the number of players going over and under, another important yardstick is by how much? And that would be in my mind more important. Because if ESPN predicted 2 players would score 10 points, and 1 of them scored 9 and the other one scored 11, then it is all good. However if one of them scored 2 and the other one scored 18, then obviously they are doing a terrible job.

Let's look at it in a different way. Again, I am NOT taking into account the 26 players who ESPN predicted would score 0 and did. This brings their
reliability down by a lot... keep that in mind while you soak up these numbers:

Out of the 478 players, 24 players scored exactly equal to what ESPN predicted -- 5%
, 77 players scored within 1 point of what ESPN predicted -- 16%
, 118 players scored within 2 points of what ESPN predicted -- 25%
, 227 players scored within 5 points of what ESPN predicted -- 48%
, 299 players scored within 7 points of what ESPN predicted -- 63%

This means that there is around two-thirds of the players will score around 7 points of what ESPN predicted.
Around half of them will score within the range of plus or minus 5.
And a quarter of them will score within 2 points of their predictions.

But we dont care when our players overperform right? So we just need to know what are the chances they will perform within acceptable limits:

FINE!

Out of 478 players, 216 players scored equal or higher than their predictions -- 45%
, 299 players scored not less than 3 points than their predictions -- 63%

This means that when you pick a player to play in a week, there is a 2/3 chance of him or her scoring within a 3 point grace for you. That cannot be bad.
Also when you pick a player, there is almost a 50% chance he will do as well or better than predicted.

Looking at these numbers, ESPN does do a decent job. They arent bang on most of the times but to me, these are acceptable limits. Let's be honest -- they are trying to predict the future here.

NOW LET'S GET TO THE FUN STUFF

ESPN-SCREWED-ME-AWARD goes to
NIRAL JHAVERI ... On an average per week, Niral's team's total score is 38 points less than what ESPN predicts!!
Close second is Valmik Desai ... 36.33 points less!
Both teams have a 0-3 start. That makes sense. However you'd never guess who was third behind Niral & Valmik on the espn-screwed-me list. A 3-0 guy! Saumil Acharya ... even though his team scores almost 30 points less than advertised, he still has won all 3 games ... KUDOS! Saumil has had a very lucky start to his season for sure.

I-KNOW-MORE-THAN-ESPN-AWARD goes to (only considering active players not benched players)
Ali & Shilpi/Jimit
They are the only ones who have outscored their ESPN predictions overall.

No one team has outscored their ESPN predictions all 3 weeks!

MY-PLAYER-LOVES-ME-BACK Award goes to Shilpi & Jimit -- Peyton Manning has scored 90 points for them this season. More than any other player for any other team. Close second is Drew Brees for Devashree with 87 points.

BTW ... this does seem like the YEAR OF THE QB ... Top 4 point scorers so far have been QBs. 7 out of the top 10 scorers this far have been QBs! 13 out of the top 20 --QBs!!

ESPN doesn't love me award goes to:
Giants D/ST
Nate Kaeding
Nick Folk
Donald Brown
Bears D/ST
Cedric Benson
Ben Roethlisberger
Jets D/ST
Stephen Gostkowski
Percy Harvin
Patriots D/ST

The 11 players below have consistently outscored ESPN predictions in all 3 weeks.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is no player who underperformed espn's predictions all 3 weeks!

And finally, this is something I want to do every week ... in our format of FF, we play head to head. What if everyone played against everyone else every week. What would the win-loss record be?

The standings after week 3:
Team Win-Loss-Tie
-----------------------
Murtaza 24-9-0
ShilpiJimit 22-11-0
Devashree 20-13-0
Meghna 19-13-1
Prashant 19-14-0
Saumil 18-14-1
Darshini 18-15-0
Vishal 16-17-0
Shirin 14-18-1
Valmik 9-23-1
Niral 8-24-1
Ali 8-24-1

Saumil is 6th and still 3-0!!! LOL! That's called good matchups and luck! ;)

Phew! That is it boys and girls!

Remember the BYE weeks start from this week so make sure to keep an eye out for those players on BYE.

Happy Sunday!


P.S.: Thanks to Vishal for this suggestion of dissecting ESPN's predictions. If any of you have any ideas, let me know and thy shall be done!


COMMENT ON COMMENTS:
Thanks Vishal, Shirin, Valmik & Saumil.

Valmik -- Point taken. I know you used exxageration because no one player will ever score or be predicted to score 200 points. However when I looked at the trends for predictions v/s actuals of players predicted to score above 15 and then predictions v/s actuals of those predicted to score less than 15, the trends were quite similar and hence the overall trend was the same too. That is why I omitted that part. Hopefully in the second half when I revisit this, I will definitely look at that too.

Will it be 0-3 or 3-0 in Week 3 ??

Funny thing this fantasy football. Never know what can happen.

Just ask the Disorderlys….Just when there Defense scored 34 points they follow up with -4. Just when they were happy that their opponent has 2 players who are not even playing that week….they loose by a margin of 15 points….

Just ask I-love-Harry-Potter-And-I-Love-Tony-Romo fantasy football owner. She decided to ignore Feku baba and did not start Giants D. If she would have had paid heed, then she would have won by 1 point

That’s ok. The Baba’s will still write and predict. Prove them wrong … So far the record is…

Kaam Dev Baba prediction: 8-4 (wins-loss)

Airy Fairy Hawa Hawaii Prediction : 9- 4 (wins-loss)

I will let Murtu run the stats on some of them.

Here is another installment of prediction. Shuffle your team to prove the baba’s wrong.

AWAY TEAM	ESPN PROJECTED PTS	HOME TEAM	ESPN PROJECTED PTS	Sam Dev Baba (SDB) analysis	Airy Fairy Hawa Hawaii Prediction		Feku baba's…If I were you…
DEVISH THE SMASHERS	95	Apni Toh Vat Lagyi MAMMU	117	All SDB has to say….there is no way we see 0-3 this week	Forte + Fred Jackson > Rogers + Choice + Washington		The roster's for DTS VS Mammu look fine
Salazar Slytherin	90	Team Chipolopolo	105	If Moss starts there is a good chance of an upset here. Mrs Pandya takes down Mr.P. If Moss is ruled out then that’s a big blow and baba picks Chipopo.	.Its strange that between the Pandyas. They have 7 NFC East players. So its best to see which NFC players do well. Romo+F.Jones+Giants > Jacobs + D.Jackson+Cooley+Boss		Feku baba would suggest chipopo to start D.Henderson instead of D.Jackson. Feku baba would also like to suggest Salazar to consider D.Ward instaed of F.Jones (only if Barber is playing)
End zone diva	121	Terra Cotta Blitzerz	64	TCB cant pull another upset and EZD's luck is surely better than Disorderlys…	Total points by all 13 players of EZD is double than TCB		If I were you TCB. I would login. That’s all Feku baba would say
The TryThrowCatch!	96	Knock... UDown	99	SDB disagrees with ESPN. Baba thinks that TTC has more consisten team. Possible perfect start! Lets see if KUD can bring the house down.	DeAngelo + inconsitent McGahee out score the in form Mr.44 points Gore + MJD		Feku baba has nothing to Feko-fy in the TTC and KUD rosters
Team Puntars	107	my AYYARS	122	Despite the clear cut Fav tag. Baba go with Puntars. No team goes 0-3 this week. That’s the motto.	Brady and the little Manning our score the in form young kids Flacco and Ryan		Brady on bench and Chotta chetan a.ka. Little john a.k.a Chota Manning as starter. Feku baba disagrees
.... Disorderlys...	77	Rainbow Catchers	78	This is really close. Baba's are a big phan of RC. SDB thinks RC has a good team. So the going with RC this week (again). Also westbrook is Questionable	QB's galore here. Bade Bhaiya Manning + old kaka Farve out score Cutler + Mr.Interception Delhomme + Dog Lover Vick		Feku baba would start Steve Smith instead of TO. Are you listening RC? Why? Its Simple. Less drama more action.
* Red Indicated winners

Pakistan Naming Convention (PNC)

Wrote something on cricket this week ... dont mind eh!

When Yousuf Youhanna converted to Islam, the name he chose for himself was Mohammad Yousuf. What stuck me was not that he chose to convert to Islam but the fact that his new name's last name was taken from his old name's first name. That struck me as odd.

Thinking about this, I realized that no one abuses the sanctity of first and last names more than people from Islam. I always knew that Islam in itself had a paucity of names. That is why Mohammad is the most common name in the world. It wouldn't surprise me to know if Mohammad was always the most common last name in the world.

So I decided to look at the Pakistan cricket team and tried to see just how widespread this abuse is. Turns out, a lot.

A quick google search gave me the names of the 229 cricketers who have either represented Pakistan in Test Cricket or One-Day cricket.

Out of the 229, as many as 80 cricketers have first names that are also last names of some other Pakistani cricketer. Conversely, as many as 89 players had last names which were first names of some pak cricketer!

All in all, there were 131 cricketers whose either first names matched someone else's last name or last name matched someone else's first name. Thats more than half of them! That means when you come into the Pak side to play circket, there is a more than 50% probability that either your first name is someone else's last name or vice versa!

I know I have used 'first name' and 'last name' more than 10 times in the article so far ... so let's get down to specifics. The crazy in me wanted to form the longest string possible of people whose last names were someone else's first name.

The longest I could go was 13. If any of you can get a longer string, I'd be very interested to look at it.

I started with Asif Masood.
Then I came across Masood Anwar.
That led me to Anwar Khan.
which bought me to Khan Mohammad (LOL!!! I found this name extremely funny ... Khan Mohammed ... can you get anymore generic than that!!)
That brought me to Mohammed Asif
which I found linked to Asif Iqbal
which was similar to Iqbal Qasim
who I hope wasnt related to Qasim Umar
whose last name matched Umar Gul
who I likened to Gul Mohammed
who is kinda like Mohammed Wasim
who is a close match to the cool Wasim Akram
who also shares part of the name with Akram Raza!!

So let's go again
Asif Masood --> Masood Anwar --> Anwar Khan --> Khan Mohammed --> Mohammed Asif --> Asif Iqbal --> Iqbal Qasim --> Qasim Umar --> Umar Gul --> Gul Mohammed --> Mohammed Wasim --> Wasim Akram --> Akram Raza.

Out of the 229 players, 10% of them either had Mohammad as their first name or last name (23). Second most common name is Khan ... But you all knew that already!

Here is what I found surprising ... in all the common names, I couldnt find a single example of 2 players who had their first and last names interchanged. Surprises me for sure. But I am sure that in a small village in Pakistan, there is a cricketing prodigy growing up right now by the name of Mohammed khan! :)

Amen to that!

Listed below are all players whose FIRST names match someone else's LAST name. How many of the below can you find players with matching last names? :) (Might be an exercise only for Saumil & Kelkar)

Shahid Afridi (eg. Haafiz Shahid)
Akhtar Sarfraz
Akram Raza
Ali Naqvi
Anwar Hussain
Anwar Khan
Arif Butt
Ashraf Ali
Asif Iqbal
Farooq Hamid
Fazal Mahmood
Gul Mohammad
Hanif Mohammad
Hasan Raza
Iqbal Qasim
Israr Ali
Javed Miandad
Javed Qadeer
Kabir Khan
Khan Mohammad
Mahmood Hussain
Masood Iqbal
Mohammad Yousuf
Mushtaq Ahmed
Nazar Mohammad
Pervez Mir
Qasim Umar
Rana Naved-ul-Hasan
Rashid Latif
Saeed Anwar
Sajjad Akbar
Sarfraz Nawaz
Sikander Bakht
Sohail Fazal
Umar Gul
Wasim Akram
Wazir Mohammad
Younis Khan
Zahid Ahmed

Bad Newz Bears.

 

Last week the babas went
5-1 in the Kaam Dev Baba
(KDB) prediction prediction and 5-1 in the Airy Fairy Hawa Hawaii Prediction.  Pretty darn good I’d say. Or let’s leave it at
beginners luck.  But what does that mean
for this week? You better hope KDB is wrong (or pray hard to prove him wrong).

 

This week the babas are mortified to agree a lot with ESPN. (damn then what’s
the point of prediction if you are going to agree with ESPN). So to make up for
it we are going to introduce a new Baba….Maharaj Feku baba.  ;everyone stand up and clap>

All Feku baba is going to do is pick the loser predicted by Kaam Dev baba
….Analyze his roster and give suggestions. Also give some last minute start em/
sit em advice. Feku baba gives no disclaimer on the players to start or sit,  So if they screw up feel free to curse the
Baba but if they do well Feku baba is going to call you out and dance all over
your loss. (Pretty F#$% ing narcissistic right! Hell ya. This is football,
Fantasy football. Not a Barbie doll house game)

 

Enough said. So here it goes.

	PROJECTED PTS			PROJECTED PTS	Kaam Dev baba prediction	Sam Dev Baba (SDB) analysis	Airy Fairy Hawa Hawaii Prediction
Team Neil B. Formee	99		The TryThrowCatch!	107	The TryThrowCatch!	The last place team of loserland (0-1) plays the last place team of the winner world (1-0). SDB has to say the RB's of TTC will carry the team.  The ship seems to be sinking on NBF. The last place is safely secured for NBF for week 2	NBF is going down. But the bench is going up. This is one of the cases where the bench out scores TTC. NBF bench will score 60% more than TTC and still NBF losses
Team Chipolopolo	86		Team Puntars	94	Team Puntars	UPSET Alert..Brady vs Rivers. 2 RB strategy  vs 3WR's.   SDB thinks Chipopo take this one. Puntars goes 0-2 for the first time.	Any 2 WR's of Puntars will score twice that of Chipopo.
Terra Cotta Blitzerz	73		.... Disorderlys...	89	.... Disorderlys...	SDB hates to agree with ESPN again. But unless TCB shakes the line up SDB thinks TCB is the second team to go 0-2 this weekend. TCB's team has a lot of Red's in the roster, too many players with O's, D's,Q's. Kinda looks my school report card	Peyton + 'Maro Chokro' Westbrook  = TCB's 2 RB's + 2 WR's
Knock... UDown	115		DEVISH THE SMASHERS	91	Knock u down	Damn. What the bleep. SDB agrees with ESPN again. SDB thinks KUD's overall consitency will beat DTS. DTS has to hope that his WR's have to step up to make an impact. We have another 0-2 team	The 2 WR of DTS kick ass on this one. But dude still loses. 2 WR of DTS >  2 WR of KUD + TE/K.
my AYYARS	113		Hogwarts Gryffindor	104		Matchups. Matchups. That’s all MA has. Turner vs Carolina. Portis vs STL for MA. HG on the other hand….Romo vs Giants D.  K.Smith vs Min.	The RB's of MA are going to rock the week. They will outscore the 2 RB's of HG + the jucy match up of Berrian vs Detroit.
Rainbow Catchers	82		End zone diva	101		UPSET Alert. All SDB has to say Brees is not throwing 6 TD's or Cutler is not throwing 4 INTS. But Peterson can still score 3 TD's. Another 0-2 in the making	Points by Peterson = Points by 2 WR of EZD

 

 

Feku baba's - If I were you ….

Feku baba says…If I were you NBF…. 1. I would hid my face in shame when you loose coz everyone will call you and laugh at you 2. start either Forte/Slaton (despite the match ups against Pit/Tenn)

Feku baba says…If I were you … I would not start Parker. Hes past his prime. Your bench has upcoming players like Hester, Brown who can kick ass.

Feku baba says…If I were you TCB… 1. shuffle a whole lot of players 2. And without fail would have drafted Sprolesif you own LT :-) (Remember the fanasty draft class- Handcuff RB 101)

Feku baba says…If I were you DTS…. 1. Leon washington is explosive and we get points for punts. And let Feku baba remind you that Washington returns punts. Comprende!

Feku baba says…If I were you HG….I would do the following 1: Pray that Tomo can stand on his legs 2. Start Giants D.

Feku baba says…If I were you EZD…..I would start Darren Spoles in place of Addai