2009 Regular Season Records & Interesting Facts

+ As of this moment, we at least know the first six draft spots (although Ben owns about half of the picks in the first round) in each round for next year's draft. They are, as follows.....

1. Beatubad
2. First or Last
3. Texas Thundermonkeys
4. Wrong Answer
5. Vince Young
6. I'm a Texan

+ In his second season as a manager in the LOTC, Gavin Espinoza improved his First or Last franchise's sinle-season win total from two in 2008, to three in 2009. I'm not sure there should be such a thing as an 'expansion team slump' in fantasy football, but it seems to be what's happened in this case. Here's to you Gavin. I hope you can at least double your five all-time wins next season.

+ David Onyon's The Undisputed franchise had the biggest improvement from one year to the next, improving his win-total by six games in 2009. The second-greatest improvement this season was Jorge Parrales's Djibouti Crust, which had a four-win increase. Conversely, both Texas Thundermonkeys and Beatubad experienced six-game declines in 2009, and defending champion Wrong Answer declined by five games.

+ Stephen Dinger is probably happy to know that an LOTC all-time record that he owned has no been broken by another manager. Ben Weiss set a new mark for the longest losing streak in a single-season by starting this season 0-10.

+ This is the first time in seven seasons that no manager turned out a double-digit final score. The lowest scoring output of the season was Dinger's 129-point score in his opening-week loss to Aaron Diehl.

+ With Aaron Diehl's Vince Young missing out on the playoffs this season, the league-record for most consecutive seasons in the playoffs stands at three, an achievement held by Vince Young ('06-'08), Texas Thundermonkeys ('03-'05), Djibouti Crust ('03-'05), Tenacious D ('07-09), Deion Found Jesus ('05-'07), and The Undisputed ('04-'06). If Tenacious D make the playoffs in 2010, they will hold the new record of four consecutive seasons. Tenacious D, Djibouti Crust and Texas Thundermonkeys hold the record for the most overall playoff seasons, with five.

+ Wrong Answer is the fourth of six champions to miss the playoffs the year after their championship season. The only two league champions to make the playoffs in their title-defense season are The Undisputed and Vince Young.

+ Speaking of league champions, the LOTC has seen six first-time league champions since its inception in 2003. This year's top-two seeded teams, The Undisputed and The Big Breesy have both previously won a championship. In the four seasons that we have had a bye game in the first round of the playoffs, a bye team has won the championship twice. So history tells us we have a 50% chance of seeing our first repeat champion in league history.

2009 Regular Season Wrap-Up

Well, it was yet another successful regular season of fantasy football in the LOTC, and I'm very grateful to all twelve managers for being active and competitive all season long. In the coming weeks, there will be several updates and news regarding what you can expect in the offseason and next season, including some changes (mostly minor) that will be incorporated into the settings in the future. In the meanwhile, I thought I would recap some of the highlights from the regular season and also take a moment to preview this week's matchups. So without further ado.......

It was highly unlikely. In fact, to my memory, it was the least-likely win-and-in scenario I had ever seen. Jorge Parrales's (yes, me) Djibouti Crust franchise was holding on to a one-game lead over I'm a Texan and Vince Young as we headed into the final week of regular season games. But I was playing The Big Breesy, who would end up earning the #2 seed and first-round bye. The loss was imminent. If Djibouti Crust lost, all I'm a Texan needed was a win, because they had scored 100+ points more throughout the season, giving them the tiebreaker over the Crust. And, if Djibouti Crust and I'm a Texan both happened to lose, Vince Young needed a win AND 40 more points than Djibouti Crust to earn the final playoff spot.

Headed into Monday night's game between Green Bay and Baltimore, Djibouti Crust had clearly lost their game this week, I'm a Texan needed only 32.5 points between Ryan Grant and Derrick Mason (averaging 46 combined ppg to that point) to win their game, and Vince Young had successfully outscored Djibouti Crust by 43 points and held a 52-point lead against Texas Thundermonkeys, who had Aaron Rodgers and Greg Jennings (averaging 69.5 combined ppg to that point) left to play. The Vince Young franchise was eliminated by the first minute in the third quarter, as Aaron Rodgers turned in a spectacular performance. But the real shocker came in the mere 18 points that Ryan Grant and Derrick Mason combined to score for I'm a Texan, giving them the loss and giving Djibouti Crust the final playoff berth.

Djibouti Crust might have scrapped their way into the playoffs, but the magic seems highly unlikely to continue as they take on East division rival and winner, Deion Found Jesus, whom they have already lost to twice this season. Until this 2009 season, Djibouti Crust had enjoyed tremendous success against Deion Found Jesus, having only lost to Robby Grunwald's franchise once in five meetings. But Robby now has an opportunity to even things out at 4-4-0 if he can win one more time against Jorge. This marks the first meeting between thes two teams in the playoffs.

The #4 vs #5 matchup features North division winner Tenacious D and West division runner-up Hybrids, who just played each other last week in the final regular season game. If the results from that game (Hybrids won by 104.5 points) are an indication of what we should expect in this one, Hybrids should easily coast their way into the second-round. This is actually the second meeting between these two teams in the playoffs. The first was last season, in the #4 vs #5 first-round matchup. Hybrids also won that game, but lost in the second round to eventual champion Wrong Answer. My guess is that Ryan Hennesy is looking to make a change to his recent history against Tim/Michelle/David Ferguson.