fantasy football and parity
 

Together with 9 other (former) FOFC'ers, I'm playing in a fantasy football league this season that has one of the closest regular season finishes I've ever seen in any game or real sports leagues. We're using the 'traditional' 14 regular season weeks, 2 playoffs weeks system. Scoring and positions are all pretty standard. Here are the standings and schedule going into week 14:

record pt/gm FOFCer
8-5 91.8 Fantastic Flying Froggies
8-5 89.5 Pim
8-5 86.6 BreizhManu
8-5 86.6 Icy
8-5 85.1 [Lobsters]
8-5 81.3 MIJB#19
7-6 81.4 Northwood_dk
7-6 75.5 Dirk
6-7 79.8 [Knights]
6-7 74.5 Critch
two active teams at 2-11

Week 14 schedule:
FFF vs. [Knights]
Pim vs. Icy
BreizhManu vs. Critch
[Lobsters] vs. Dirk
MIJB#19 vs. Northwood_dk
[2-11] vs. [2-11]

As you may notice, two 8-5 teams play head-to-head for one playoff ticket and three of the four others will get in with a win against a 7-6 or worse team. With a bit of luck, the season could see 8 teams with a winning record, or 10 at or above .500.

Anyway, for some reason, the season has shifted towards this close finish, with 6 teams fighting to either get in the playoffs or miss out at 8-6. In past seasons, of course there've been the usual hot/cold streaks for teams based on form/injuries of key players and quick fa pickups, but the current standings have me thinking: is this what it should be like. Bottom line, we'll be pretty sure the league champion will be a 9-5 team, not a 7-7 team that sneaked into the playoffs, or a 12-2 juggernaut...

even more reason for me to be pissed off that I lost this week by just 2 points, and also lost a game in the first couple of weeks by a 0.2 points... grr!