History Lessons: What your Week 3 record says about your Playoff Chances, and Why, Win or Lose, BDiddy won't be out of it.
Raffi Lalazarian
So your team is 2-0 and sitting atop the division eh? Feeling pretty confident? You should be. Nothing feels better than starting a season off strong, except for finishing it that way.
Fantasy football is all about wins, and typically, teams will need to get seven in order to have a shot at the postseason. Starting a season with two wins puts teams at an extremely advantageous position, as they will need to win less than half their remaining games for a shot to keep playing in week fourteen. Teams that begin the season with two losses must win more than half moving forward in order to do the same. With bye weeks soon approaching, having an early winning streak can be a nice cushion to make up for some blunders in roster moves that could come as a result of byes crippling teams options. It's a huge advantage.
Just how big of an advantage is beginning the season with three wins as opposed to three losses? In this article, we will examine the history of the AFFL since 2008 and breakdown the odds that a team makes the playoffs according to their record after week three. We'll divide the teams into groups by what their potential record could be following week three and see how those teams have fared in that situation in the past.
The good news is that no team will be completely eliminated from playoff contention as a result of their week three record, but after looking at the charts below, they may be a little depressed. BDiddy, Cobra, Awesomeness, Jaj, and Vosgee, this one's for you.
The Three Win, Zero Loss Club
Atomic Bomba, HBK Shant Michaels, Magnum Sev.i, Prime Time, Grabbers United
Everyone would love to be in this club. The teams that have started with two wins are sitting pretty. All the above teams look like legit contenders for the title, and if history has anything to say about it, if any of these teams goes 3-0, they will have better than a 71% chance of making the playoffs. Atomic Bomba, HBK, and Magnum all can be 3-0 after this week, however, Prime Time plays Grabbers, so one of those teams will be 2-1.
Since the 2008 season, there have been seven teams that have started off the season 3-0, and of those seven, five made the playoffs. Ironically, the two teams that failed to do so were Grabbers in 2009, and HBK in 2010. The only team of the group that has started 3-0 before is the Atomic Bomba. Of the five teams that made the postseason, all finished in the top four, with the majority having eight or nine wins. The high win totals across the board tells us that teams that begin the season with three wins are as good as their record claims, for the most part.
It's interesting to note that despite beginning the season with three wins, only once has a team finished as the #1 or #2 seed (Bomba '11). Also, starting the season three and zero doesn't mean that you can or will win it all. Of all the teams in the chart below, only one won the title that same year (Bomba '11). A hot start does not guarantee championship.
Focusing on the two teams that failed to make the postseason, we can see that they both finished in 7th place, quite possibly missing out on the playoffs because of tie breakers. So even the teams that missed out on playing week fourteen were in the hunt until the end.
We can also note that those failures occurred nearly four seasons ago, and there have been changes to the scoring system since then. The recent trend of a perfect three for three could be the new norm. We shall wait and see.
Should Bomba, HBK, Magnum, Prime Time or Grabbers get to three wins after this week, we can safely say that, by the numbers, three of those teams will certainly be playing week fourteen. Anything can happen (and usually does) so don't start counting your chickens before they hatch, but beginning 3-0 is a great place to be.
The Two Wins, One Loss Club
Hartan, Hangin' & Bangin' as well as above teams.
If you can't win three games, then two games would be the next best thing. The two win teams from the previous group fall into this category along with Hartan and Hangin' who come into week three with one win each. Starting two and one is still a positive for any squad. Heck, just being on the right side of five hundred should be celebrated in fantasy. Does being two and one significantly decrease your odds of making the postseason from the three win group? Let's take a look.
Historically speaking, there have been 32 teams that have started the season with two wins and one loss, and only 11 have failed to make the postseason. That is 65% success rate. When considering that a three win team will have a seventy percent chance to make the postseason, there is hardly a drop off in odds for this group.
Examining the list closer, we can see that the teams that failed to make the postseason after starting 2-1 include current 1-1 teams Hangin' ('08) and Hartan ('10). However, each made the playoffs on two other occasions after starting off with two wins.
The list also includes failures from teams in the potential three win group: Prime Time ('09), and Magnum ('11).
Examining recent trends, we can see that over the past two seasons, only three out of thirteen teams failed to make the postseason. That means 76% of the teams that started 2-1 over the past two years have made the playoffs.
If you can't be in the three and zero club, this is a great group to be in. With a 65% chance of a team making the playoffs after starting 2-1, there is no need to panic for any team that has two wins and a loss. While many teams have shown historically that they can ride a two win record to the top, we cannot ignore the history of those teams in this group that have failed to do so. Hartan, Hangin', Prime, and Magnum all have faced this scenario before. Whether they will again after week three remains to be seen.
The One win, Two Loss Club
Cobra Kai, BDiddy, Jaj Cousteau, Awesomeness, Vosgereechee Gyank, Hartan, Hangin' & Bangin'
Finding yourself on the wrong side of five hundred stinks. So close to even, yet also one game away from a huge hole. The first three weeks of the 2014 season have split the league into two halves; a group of two win teams and group of two loss teams, with only two teams representing the middle class (Hartan and Hangin') at one-and-one.
Since 2008, twenty teams have started the season off with a one and two record. Of those twenty, only nine teams have turned things around and made the playoffs. That equates to a 45% chance that at team with two losses to start the season can climb out of the hole and make it to week fourteen. That is a twenty percent drop off from the above group. Quite significant.
We can find that numerous teams have been in this situation before, and from the above list, Awesomeness, Cobra, BDiddy and Jaj have all climbed out of it in the past. They can use that to keep their confidence high should they find themselves in the same hole again come week four. Awesomeness had perhaps the greatest turn around in AFFL history when he finished in 1st place after starting off 1-2, winning ten straight. Should he lose in week three, he'll be hoping for a similar finish.
Of the nine teams that turned their season around to make the postseason, only twice has a team finished as one of the top two seeds during the regular season, both times by Awesomeness. The majority of the teams that began with two losses ended up finishing between fourth and sixth place. This tells us that while the playoffs are achievable, finishing with a bye is perhaps a little too far out of reach.
It's worth noting that for the past two seasons, only one of seven teams has made the playoffs after starting 1-2 (Hangin' '13). That's only a 15% success rate.
Still, having one win is far better than the alternative: Zero wins. At least the odds are still reasonable that you can have hope. Below you will see that entering week four without a win will present quite the conundrum.
The Zero Win, Three Loss Club
Cobra Kai, BDiddy, Vosgereechee Gyank, Jaj Cousteau, Awesomeness.
To say that this is a bad spot to be in is an understatement. Five teams find themselves with two losses after the first two weeks and on the verge of having the magnanimous task of doing something that has been done only once before.
Since 2008, there have been twelve teams that have started the season with three straight losses, and only once has a team managed to make the playoffs after starting off that way. That's less than a 10% chance. Yikes. Ironically, the team that managed to climb out of the three hole was BDiddy, and they find themselves once again in the same situation. Vosgee, Cobra, Gyank, and Jaj have all started 0-3 at some point in the past and failed to make the postseason. Not good.
What is even more concerning is that aside from BDiddy, no team finished higher than 8th place. Nine of the teams that started the season with three losses finished with a win total of less than five. That means that 75% of the above group of teams will finish the same way.
Recent trends point to the fact that no team in the past three seasons has ever finished higher than 8th place after starting 0-3. Coupled with the recent trends of all other win teams previously mentioned in the article and we could conclude that the league has perhaps gotten more difficult and less forgiving on teams that start slowly. This could be due to shrewd managers who take all the talent off the waiver wire, the lack of available trades, or just bad luck.
The chart above paints a bleak picture for a team that is 0-3. Teams that start this way would not only have to hope that they reach the seven win plateau and have enough points to win any tiebreakers, they would have to get extremely lucky with the schedule and have the rest of the league beat up on each other to even allow for that opportunity to make the playoffs. Not fun.
How big of a week is week 3? Teams that start the season with two or three wins have a 65-70% chance of making the postseason, while those that manage to limp into week four with zero or one win will have no better than a 10-45% chance of playing in week 14. Recent trends paint an even bleaker picture, as only 15% of teams that started 1-2 and 0% of teams that started 0-3 have made the postseason over the past two years.
But this is fantasy football, where anything can happen and usually does. While statistics tell us the odds, they don't tell us about the AFFL karma and how it can change everything. If you don't believe that there is karma in fantasy football, consider this: Last season, there was a team in a fourteen team league that was in dead last, with the lowest points in the league, with a record of 1-5. A trade, some waiver wire pickups, and a whole heck of a lot of karma later, that team found themselves in the semi-finals.
Anything is possible to those that believe.
Good luck in week three Amigos! May 0-3 stay far, far away.