Postseason Fantasy Football

[Strider]

For everyone involved in the football league through SportingNews.com.

Just because I'm anxious and because it hasn't shown up yet, who's in your lineup?

QB
Brett Favre
Marc Bulger

RB
Edgerrin James
Stephen Jackson

WR
Javon Walker
Ashley Lelie

DEF
San Diego

Ah, who needs defense, anyway? They were cheap, I couldn't pass that up. Your turn.

[RSL]

First of all, I didn't put much effort into this.

QB Mar Bulger
QB Ben Roethlisberger
RB Ahman Green
RB Steven Jackson
WR Isaac Bruce
WR Wayne Chrebet (wtf, I don't remember doing that.. ah well)
D Pittsburg

Hmmm, 3 rams, and chrebet? Yikes.

[The Captain]

Bulger
Pennington

Martin
Bell

Stockley
Lelie

Green Bay.

Looks like both my QB's will be playing another week, but I have a feeling I'll need to change a RB and WR for next week's games.

Take care all.

[Del Murder]

Manning
Pennington

Stokely
Pinkston

Dillon
Jackson

Atlanta

[Del Murder]

Ah, Manning. Worth every penny. Thanks for playing, everyone.

[Strider]

What will you do when the Patriots and Steelers win next weekend?

[Del Murder]

Tell me with a straight face that 4 games out of Manning and Pennington isn't worth 5 out of Brady and Rothlisburger.

[Strider]

I'm just sayin'. You'd have to replace both of your quarterbacks that way.

[Relena Peacecraft]

My Team was...

QB Culpepper
QB Brees
RB Curtis Martin
RB Droughns
WR Burleson
WR Driver
DEF San Diego

Of course, looking at it, I'm going to have to replace several players this week... which means I'll effectively be screwed in later weeks. That's what happens when teams expected to win lose.

[Del Murder]

I'm just sayin'. You'd have to replace both of your quarterbacks that way.
I don't think QB is a position you can afford to skip a week on. I'll use all 4 trades on that if I have to.

[eestlinc]

I bet on Green Bay making a deep playoff run, so my team's not looking so good.

Favre
Pederson (he only costs a half million)

Tomlinson
Jackson (I think everyone used him, because he's so cheap)

Walker
Stokley

Green Bay

So I sucked big time and o well.

[The Captain]

I swapped in Dillon for Bell, Curtis for Lelie, and Atlanta for the Packer's D, and I think either Pennington or Bulger will get one more week, so I'm saving my last three trades for another receiver, running back and QB after this coming round.

Take care all.

[Relena Peacecraft]

For the purposes of fantasizing about what might have been, here's the best possible lineup you could have fielded as of the first week of games:

QB Peyton Manning
QB Daunte Culpepper
RB Tatum Bell
RB LaMont Jordan
WR Reggie Wayne
WR Kevin Curtis
DEF Minnesota

This dream team combination would have set you back only $34.34M, and would have netted you 2740 points, if you somehow had the vision needed to pick this team. This will most probably change as the weeks pass, because the number of trades is limited, unless you feel like buying them. With limited trades, choosing players that last more than week may or may not be more important. As least one of these guys is already out. Some of them are no-name guys I only know of because I did this. Yeesh.

[Del Murder]

All my players won so at the most I'll have to use 5 trades next week. My goal is to have a full lineup from here on out, and I should be able to do that if I manage correctly.

[RSL]

I'll be honest in that I'm not putting all that much effort into this. I didn't realize you could trade later on so I pretty much screwed myself already.

[Agent Proto]

I gave up on it, it's too complicated for me. I hate searching through all the players to find active affordable players.

[Relena Peacecraft]

With another week gone by, the optimal team has changed. Well, not really, because I'm assuming 7 trades, and that's enough to completely change your roster once. So trades only become a problem next week. Anyway, here's that optimal team:

Week 1
QB Daunte Culpepper
QB Peyton Manning
RB Tatum Bell
RB LaMont Jordan
WR Kevin Curtis
WR Reggie Wayne
DEF Minnesota

Week 2
QB Donovan McNabb
QB Michael Vick
RB Corey Dillon
RB Warrick Dunn
WR Kevin Curtis
WR Marcus Robinson
DEF Atlanta

This combination of players would have resulted in 5148 total points, and cost $34.34 million the first week, and $34.25 million the second week. Now, what happens if you aren't allowed any trades? I know our game isn't like that, but it is a common game played. So using this scoring system, here's that optimal team:

QB Marc Bulger
QB Daunte Culpepper
RB Tatum Bell
RB Warrick Dunn
WR Kevin Curtis
WR Reggie Wayne
DEF New York Jets

This team costs $33.12 million, and would have earned you 3774 points so far. As you can see, trades are important. Just wait until later weeks.

[Del Murder]

How do you figure this stuff out Aexo? It's fascinating.

[Relena Peacecraft]

I find this information through the magic of integer programming (a variant of linear programming that requires some or all variables to be integers), the same technique/tool I used to calculate playoff scenarios earlier in the season. For those of you who aren't in the know, and who actually care, you can read an inroduction at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_programming.

The short version is that you either maximize or minimize a given variable based on various mathematical constraints. In this case, I maximize the point value, while constraining the total cost to be under $35 million and having 2 of each position, and 1 defense, etc.

I have very little experience (the first one I did was the playoff scenarios for the fantasy league), so it took me some time to finally figure out a way to write the trade limit constraint in a linear way. Even then, it's kind of hacky, but it does work.

Anyway, I'll be quiet before I blab on about more stuff 3.5 people in the world care about.

[Relena Peacecraft]

Ok, exactly zero of you posted since then, but I find it a little ridiculous to edit a post from a week ago, so I'm going to make a new one. Anyway, the optimized teams as of the Conference Championship games are now in. What crazy secrets do they hold? You'll have to read to find out.



Week 1 Week 2 Week 3
QB Daunte Culpepper Donovan McNabb Donovan McNabb
QB Peyton Manning Ben Roethlisberger Ben Roethlisberger
RB Tatum Bell Corey Dillon Corey Dillon
RB LaMont Jordan Warrick Dunn Warrick Dunn
WR Kevin Curtis Kevin Curtis Kevin Curtis
WR Reggie Wayne Marcus Robinson Deion Branch
DEF Minnesota New England New England


As you can see, 6 trades were made after week 1, and the remaining trade was made after week 2. This combination overall would have been worth 6677 total points. If would have cost $34.34 million in week 1, $33.99 million in week 2, and $34.73 million in week 3. You would have been the envy of millions. But alas, it isn't so.

For those of you who like a challenge, here's the no-trades-allowed team:

QB Daunte Culpepper
QB Marc Bulger
RB Tatum Bell
RB Warrick Dunn
WR Kevin Curtis
WR Reggie Wayne
DEF Philadelphia

This team would cost you $34.01 million, and would net only a lousy 4087 points. For reference, that's just barely more than 300 more than the best team last week. The fact that not a single team that played the first week played the third week really hurts the effort. But oh well, it's in the past now. I'll conclude this little excursion after the Superbowl, though we may not see much change. We'll see.

[RSL]

forgot to update my team, I did. Ah well. This isn't as fun as the regular league, in my opinion.

[eestlinc]

yea, this thing is kinda weird, but interesting. At least I'm beating RSL.

[Del Murder]

See? I don't always win.

[Relena Peacecraft]

With the Superbowl over, we can now find out just how badly we did relative to the optimum team. Of course, since we seem to lack psychics, no one chose this team. No one. in the entire game, spanning lots and lots of people. Pfft.

This the best team you could have possibly fielded for the entire playoff season, assuming you had seven trades to use as needed:



Week 1 Week 2 Weeks 3 & 4
QB Daunte Culpepper Tom Brady Tom Brady
QB Peyton Manning Ben Roethlisberger Ben Roethlisberger
RB Tatum Bell Brian Westbrook Brian Westbrook
RB LaMont Jordan Corey Dillon Corey Dillon
WR Kevin Curtis Kevin Curtis Deion Branch
WR Reggie Wayne Greg Lewis Greg Lewis
DEF Minnesota New England New England


Six trades were made after the first week, and the remaining trade was used after the second week. The same team was used for weeks 3 and 4. This combination would have earned you a total of 8071 points. If would have cost you $34.34 million in week 1, $32.16 million in week 2, and $34.98 million for weeks 3 and 4. But you didn't, and you lost.

For those of you who like a challenge, here's the no-trades-allowed team:

QB Tom Brady
QB Ben Roethlisberger
RB Brian Westbrook
RB Corey Dillon
WR Deion Branch
WR Kevin Curtis
DEF New England

Interestingly, only one of those players even played in week 1. This shows that 3 weeks of Superbowl players is worth a lot more than a great performance by Culpepper in week 1. This team has a cost of $34.98 million, representing just about as close as you could get to the cap. It would have earned you 5133 points, which is good enough for third in our league.

More changed than I anticipated, but it mostly reflected the cumulation of average performances by Superbowl players, who had 3 weeks to play, which was the most anyone played. This made their value higher, and shoved out some of other players. I hope this was marginally interesting for someone. With any luck, I won't have to do any more weird math-related stuff for a few months.

[The Captain]

Great season everyone. Now, just a month or so until baseball!

Take care all.