2018 Week 8 - Schedule is King

It's Sunday morning, and I don't have the time or motivation for an elaborate post. But I did want to get a few thoughts off my chest. As last week's post, and Kirk's comments in last week's smack board, indicates, Kendall has likely already punched his ticket to the postseason with his eighth win. Yado, Joe, and Ben are all looking like likely participants as well. Kirk, sitting at at unbelievable 1-7, has no hope to get in the standard five team playoff field. So it's Jenna or bust for Kirk. Sounds about right.

And now the numbers...

All-Play Table

• No surprise, after the highest scoring Week 8, Ben retains his top position.
• Ryan is currently the outlier here, with a 44.2% All Play rate, but a slot in the playoffs. Paul and Norris will be hoping this changes.
• Russ very solidly in last place.

Points Scored

• Roughly 150 points between Ben and Russ.
• Final four don't even get their points on their columns; what an insult.
• Norris, Rookie, Nathan, and Ryan seem pretty even.

Luck

• I'm starting to run out of things to say about how absurd this table is. Kendall and Kirk are as lucky and unlucky as any two teams have ever been at this point of the season.
• Any other year we'd be talking about how historically lucky Joe has been, but he's overshadowed by the Ks. This time in 2015 Joe had a 2.38 score and was the talk of the town. 2012 had some big numbers too, if you want to go back in time and look into it.
• Last week I discussed how the 17.54 absolute value of luck was mind-boggiling. Well it went up. ALL THE WAY TO 20.0! Again, don't get me wrong: the good teams are good and the bad teams are bad. But the story of 2018 in the CKL is the schedule. I'll get into this more as the weeks go by, because it's worth exploring in detail.

Luck Chart

PUNJI PIT

Hotness

• Big Dick Ben. Hay zoos.
• Not the kinda chart Kirk can afford to be in the bottom third of.
• Half of the current playoff field is in the bottom six.

Jenna

• Speaking of big dicks, watch out Kirk.
• Heath, Corey, Chad, and Russ are nearly out of it. Time is running out on making a run.
• Rookie, Norris, and Nathan are theoretically in striking distance, but it's probably down to Kirk or Paul.

Seeding History

• Boring. Minimal changes, and they're all in the bottom half of the picture.

Improvement

• This shows each teams average over the first four weeks of the season and associated rank.
• Then it shows the averages over weeks five to eight, their rank, and is sorted by the percentage improvement from the first group to the second.
• Kirk---sweating bullets.
• I had no idea Heath had made such a turnaround in points scored until I made this chart.
• Same for Russ and Chad. I guess the takeaway here is when you don't score many points early on, it's easier to improve. The whole "nowhere to go but up" thing.
• The consistently good teams are Ben (six to one), Yado (four to two), and Joe (five to five). I wonder if being consistently good is more important than getting hot at the right time.