Yeah I know I said that I was going to do it for Week 14, but I didnt get around to it, I have taken over as OC/DC for my squad and I needed to take care of my team first. But until I get a little more data, I cant really see my changes.
Anyhow lets get this going.
Alpha
Misctanbul Crusaders 14-0
When I saw the money transfer and subsequent chem hit that Misc took on Dec 1st, I thought, hrm they might lose a game, but nope, their bad chem just let the better teams in Alpha not named Misc keep it close. Is it legal that they used their team money to pay for people off their farm team and then released those players? Eh .. there are a lot more dubious things that occur in GLB than that. Anyhow, Misc faces no real challenges the rest of the season and probably not until Round 2 of the playoffs .. so they go 16-0 in their first season and despite the fact that they act stupid, they are clearly smart enough to dominate at GLB. And because I said I would, RE Lee has got only 11/62 (18%) sacks against the expected Alpha playoff teams, or 11/7 (1.6) per game, I also expect the percentage number to go way down the next two games as Misc beats up on Alpha weaker teams. Dont think I forgot Jingles, he has actually been more consistent, even though he doesnt have the big numbers like Lee is, 13/47 (28%) and 13/7 (1.86) have come against Alpha playoff teams, which means that despite playing RE and having overall lower stats, hes actually making plays against the better teams more often. It should also be noted that if you look at the playoff teams that they sacked it looks like this
Team, Lee Sacks, Jingles Sacks, Total
Minsk, 1,1,2
St Pete, 1,5,6 *
Montreal, 3,0,3
Ufa, 0,1,1
Vilnius, 4,3,7 *
Ljubljana, 0,2,2
MCXA, 2,1,3
That clearly shows that 13/24 or 54% of the sacks against 7 playoff teams came against 2 of the teams (29%), or rather that two teams gave up double the average sacks, St. Pete gave up a sack every 6 pass attempts, Vilnius every 5, one might ask what happened there with those OLs.
Minsk Ninjas 12-2
I called the loss to Ufa before Week 10, I said it would be close, it was .. the loss to Misc was well .. pretty gimp actually, Misc ran it 61 times and basically didnt let Minsk have the ball, that being said, had Minsk slowed down their run, they couldnt have played keepaway like that. Anyhow Minsk has an offweek this week and then has a Week 16 game against #4Alpha Montreal, if Montreal were to win that game, it would create a three way tie for 2nd, in which it would come down to points and although St Pete is right now 140 points behind Montreal for the lead, they might jump both Minsk and Montreal into 2nd place because St. Pete has two CPU teams coming up, where they could realistically score 300 in the next two weeks. However, Minsk can end no worse than 4th and they should attempt to run up the score on Washington to ensure that they dont have to play such a hard 1st round game.
St. Petersburg Piranhas 11-3
Outside their Week 2 sackfest that I talked about in the Misc section, St. Pete has been solid against every other Alpha team. As I said above, they have two CPU games coming up and could realistically jump to #2 in Alpha with a Minsk loss, but if Minsk beats Montreal, they stay in 3rd, no matter how many points they score. Thats good news for the most part, because if they stayed in 3rd that would probably mean they get Vilnius in round 1, who they soundly thumped earlier in the season. Also a 2nd or 3rd seed means that they miss Misc until the CCG if they are so lucky to make it that far, but lets not get ahead of ourselves.
Montreal GSPs 11-3
So much for the whole tied for 2nd thing, they have two tough games and need to win both of them AND run up the score to have a chance to keep up with St. Pete and Minsk in score, I cant see them finishing better than where they are now, 4th. If they drop one of their last games, they stay at 4th due to their win over Ufa, if they lost two of them, Ufa jumps them and they STILL have to play Ufa, the only way they can avoid playing Ufa in the first round would be to blow out both Minsk and MCXA .. that doesnt look like it will happen. I wouldnt want to be in their shoes as Ufa can be very good and I would be afraid to have that 1st round game, as I always say, the 4/5 1st round game is the toughest one there is.
Ufa Panthers 10-4
Ufa are the heartattack team of EE Pro .. all their best games are razor close, they dropped one to Ljubljana last week that they probably shouldnt have, especially considering that they shut down the Pregls run and had a +1TO margin. Anyhow, as I said above, their 1st round opponent is pretty much set, they should win their games over Lowell and Kazan easily, but they will get a chance to test their pass defense I suspect and maybe thats a good thing for the playoffs, as thats how they lost the Pregls game.
Vilnius Maulers 9-5
The only Alpha team that was in EE Pro last season that is in the playoffs, a pretty dubious distinction for the lack of quality play in the league the last few seasons Id say. Other than keeping it really close with Misc Im not sure there is a lot to say here, they got beat pretty well by all the other good teams and just squeaked one out against Lowell, who was trying to lose .. or so they said, who knows. Outside of their win over the Pregls, Vilnius hasnt beaten another Alpha playoff team, sure they have 9 wins, but 8 of those are over weak Alpha teams and then one over a CPU Zeta team, Im not terribly impressed. Also, as I said in the Misc section, them giving up a lot of sacks makes me question speed and agility of their OTs, I thought this was a running team, are they trying to be sneaky and surprise people with it? I just am baffled here .. they will probably draw, St. Pete as a 1st round game, unless they lose to MCXA and/or the funny situation with 2nd place doesnt happen. Considering how much St. Pete scored last time, Im not sure Id want that draw, but it looks like the most likely scenario.
Ljubljana Pregls 8-6
Other than their blowout to Misc earlier in the season, this is actually a team that Id fear more than Vilnius, even if they are seeded lower. Their chemistry is still not terribly good and that has probably cost them some games, but they have kept all their games tight and came up with a huge upset last week against Ufa, they have two winnable games to end the season and will likely stay their same seed and play #2, likely Minsk unless the whole wacky thing with points goes down. I think that they have a good shot at getting out of the 1st round no matter who they play, Id call their game the 2nd most competitive of round 1, after the 4/5 bloodbrawl. Im interested to see what will happen there, also because DuffMan's team just stomped a mudhole in mine
of course when you have -5TO margin .. you are likely to lose.
MCXA Cybernationists 8-6
They have two games against good teams coming up and realistically they need to win the game against Vilnius, not because they really need it, they are in the playoffs no matter what, but the fact that this team is so hot and cold that Id want maximum everything heading into the game with Misc. The only way to avoid Misc is win their last two games and jump Vilnius, who would then fall from 6th to 8th with the Pregls moving up to 6th. Im not sure I can see that happening .. MCXA has kept it tight with everyone except for Ufa and St. Pete, I guess then Id assume one should watch out for passing teams when you are MCXA .. Vilnius thinks they want to pass, Montreal knows they can, its going to be a tough two games, but they can keep morale up and have a fighting chance at Misc if they can win in Week 16.
Alpha teams that arent making the playoffs
The Geriatric Couch Potatoes
Well it looks like something is going on over there, but its also kinda late for that. That being said, somehow two weeks ago, they beat Kazan, which shows just how bad Kazan is this season, this team has numerous bad builds, tons of inactives and their best 5 players belong to a guy who up and quit, not good news. They do get another win this season and get 7 wins, but that only says that the 7 teams below them are in even worse shape than they are. However, as I said .. some major moves are being made lately, however a LOT more moves need to be made for this team to be competitive in even a mildly competitive Pro league like EE Pro.
Lowell Bengal Tigers
They are gutting, we all know that, so not much else to say other than it will strengthen the league when they do and please just go CPU before the offseason so that we can get another team up here. More funny still, in their last two games, after they decide to gut, they put in the most competitive performances of the season against decent teams. If they had more firepower and heart, they could have done some damage, but I understand when the time isnt there and the people dont step up to help, its hard to hold out.
Kazan Golden Horde
Also moves are being made here, it looks like dberner decided to really do something about his team after I called him out on it and he got a little offended, thats good, maybe he needed it. Anyhow, not competitive, but they will likely stay up in Pro for the next season and with the new influx of AAA teams unless they get a lot better really fast and dberner brings in a LOT more talent in the offseason to replace all the talent that has been leaving over the past two seasons, they are going to be a target. Also the unbalanced offense thing doesnt really work right now, both Washington and Kazan are sticking to their passing games and losing handily at it and just giving Misc a lot of sacks.
Past that what can I say, the last 5 teams are just really bad, Demon Brigade is CPU, even though psychonaut wants to ride it to the bottom I guess. There are two more CPU teams, then Minsk Koats who have build and talent issues and would just be better off merging with an owner that might be able to use them and improve their builds, same goes for Washington, someone needs to give them build advice and help their players on a good team. I would of course love the talent to stay in the EE Region, but usually talent flows out of our region, its unfortunate but our region just doesnt have a lot of good owners and because not a lot of good owners made teams here, we get stuck with teams like 7 of the bottom 8 hanging around in EE Pro because we just cant get better.
Anyhow lets get this going.
Alpha
Misctanbul Crusaders 14-0
When I saw the money transfer and subsequent chem hit that Misc took on Dec 1st, I thought, hrm they might lose a game, but nope, their bad chem just let the better teams in Alpha not named Misc keep it close. Is it legal that they used their team money to pay for people off their farm team and then released those players? Eh .. there are a lot more dubious things that occur in GLB than that. Anyhow, Misc faces no real challenges the rest of the season and probably not until Round 2 of the playoffs .. so they go 16-0 in their first season and despite the fact that they act stupid, they are clearly smart enough to dominate at GLB. And because I said I would, RE Lee has got only 11/62 (18%) sacks against the expected Alpha playoff teams, or 11/7 (1.6) per game, I also expect the percentage number to go way down the next two games as Misc beats up on Alpha weaker teams. Dont think I forgot Jingles, he has actually been more consistent, even though he doesnt have the big numbers like Lee is, 13/47 (28%) and 13/7 (1.86) have come against Alpha playoff teams, which means that despite playing RE and having overall lower stats, hes actually making plays against the better teams more often. It should also be noted that if you look at the playoff teams that they sacked it looks like this
Team, Lee Sacks, Jingles Sacks, Total
Minsk, 1,1,2
St Pete, 1,5,6 *
Montreal, 3,0,3
Ufa, 0,1,1
Vilnius, 4,3,7 *
Ljubljana, 0,2,2
MCXA, 2,1,3
That clearly shows that 13/24 or 54% of the sacks against 7 playoff teams came against 2 of the teams (29%), or rather that two teams gave up double the average sacks, St. Pete gave up a sack every 6 pass attempts, Vilnius every 5, one might ask what happened there with those OLs.
Minsk Ninjas 12-2
I called the loss to Ufa before Week 10, I said it would be close, it was .. the loss to Misc was well .. pretty gimp actually, Misc ran it 61 times and basically didnt let Minsk have the ball, that being said, had Minsk slowed down their run, they couldnt have played keepaway like that. Anyhow Minsk has an offweek this week and then has a Week 16 game against #4Alpha Montreal, if Montreal were to win that game, it would create a three way tie for 2nd, in which it would come down to points and although St Pete is right now 140 points behind Montreal for the lead, they might jump both Minsk and Montreal into 2nd place because St. Pete has two CPU teams coming up, where they could realistically score 300 in the next two weeks. However, Minsk can end no worse than 4th and they should attempt to run up the score on Washington to ensure that they dont have to play such a hard 1st round game.
St. Petersburg Piranhas 11-3
Outside their Week 2 sackfest that I talked about in the Misc section, St. Pete has been solid against every other Alpha team. As I said above, they have two CPU games coming up and could realistically jump to #2 in Alpha with a Minsk loss, but if Minsk beats Montreal, they stay in 3rd, no matter how many points they score. Thats good news for the most part, because if they stayed in 3rd that would probably mean they get Vilnius in round 1, who they soundly thumped earlier in the season. Also a 2nd or 3rd seed means that they miss Misc until the CCG if they are so lucky to make it that far, but lets not get ahead of ourselves.
Montreal GSPs 11-3
So much for the whole tied for 2nd thing, they have two tough games and need to win both of them AND run up the score to have a chance to keep up with St. Pete and Minsk in score, I cant see them finishing better than where they are now, 4th. If they drop one of their last games, they stay at 4th due to their win over Ufa, if they lost two of them, Ufa jumps them and they STILL have to play Ufa, the only way they can avoid playing Ufa in the first round would be to blow out both Minsk and MCXA .. that doesnt look like it will happen. I wouldnt want to be in their shoes as Ufa can be very good and I would be afraid to have that 1st round game, as I always say, the 4/5 1st round game is the toughest one there is.
Ufa Panthers 10-4
Ufa are the heartattack team of EE Pro .. all their best games are razor close, they dropped one to Ljubljana last week that they probably shouldnt have, especially considering that they shut down the Pregls run and had a +1TO margin. Anyhow, as I said above, their 1st round opponent is pretty much set, they should win their games over Lowell and Kazan easily, but they will get a chance to test their pass defense I suspect and maybe thats a good thing for the playoffs, as thats how they lost the Pregls game.
Vilnius Maulers 9-5
The only Alpha team that was in EE Pro last season that is in the playoffs, a pretty dubious distinction for the lack of quality play in the league the last few seasons Id say. Other than keeping it really close with Misc Im not sure there is a lot to say here, they got beat pretty well by all the other good teams and just squeaked one out against Lowell, who was trying to lose .. or so they said, who knows. Outside of their win over the Pregls, Vilnius hasnt beaten another Alpha playoff team, sure they have 9 wins, but 8 of those are over weak Alpha teams and then one over a CPU Zeta team, Im not terribly impressed. Also, as I said in the Misc section, them giving up a lot of sacks makes me question speed and agility of their OTs, I thought this was a running team, are they trying to be sneaky and surprise people with it? I just am baffled here .. they will probably draw, St. Pete as a 1st round game, unless they lose to MCXA and/or the funny situation with 2nd place doesnt happen. Considering how much St. Pete scored last time, Im not sure Id want that draw, but it looks like the most likely scenario.
Ljubljana Pregls 8-6
Other than their blowout to Misc earlier in the season, this is actually a team that Id fear more than Vilnius, even if they are seeded lower. Their chemistry is still not terribly good and that has probably cost them some games, but they have kept all their games tight and came up with a huge upset last week against Ufa, they have two winnable games to end the season and will likely stay their same seed and play #2, likely Minsk unless the whole wacky thing with points goes down. I think that they have a good shot at getting out of the 1st round no matter who they play, Id call their game the 2nd most competitive of round 1, after the 4/5 bloodbrawl. Im interested to see what will happen there, also because DuffMan's team just stomped a mudhole in mine
of course when you have -5TO margin .. you are likely to lose.MCXA Cybernationists 8-6
They have two games against good teams coming up and realistically they need to win the game against Vilnius, not because they really need it, they are in the playoffs no matter what, but the fact that this team is so hot and cold that Id want maximum everything heading into the game with Misc. The only way to avoid Misc is win their last two games and jump Vilnius, who would then fall from 6th to 8th with the Pregls moving up to 6th. Im not sure I can see that happening .. MCXA has kept it tight with everyone except for Ufa and St. Pete, I guess then Id assume one should watch out for passing teams when you are MCXA .. Vilnius thinks they want to pass, Montreal knows they can, its going to be a tough two games, but they can keep morale up and have a fighting chance at Misc if they can win in Week 16.
Alpha teams that arent making the playoffs
The Geriatric Couch Potatoes
Well it looks like something is going on over there, but its also kinda late for that. That being said, somehow two weeks ago, they beat Kazan, which shows just how bad Kazan is this season, this team has numerous bad builds, tons of inactives and their best 5 players belong to a guy who up and quit, not good news. They do get another win this season and get 7 wins, but that only says that the 7 teams below them are in even worse shape than they are. However, as I said .. some major moves are being made lately, however a LOT more moves need to be made for this team to be competitive in even a mildly competitive Pro league like EE Pro.
Lowell Bengal Tigers
They are gutting, we all know that, so not much else to say other than it will strengthen the league when they do and please just go CPU before the offseason so that we can get another team up here. More funny still, in their last two games, after they decide to gut, they put in the most competitive performances of the season against decent teams. If they had more firepower and heart, they could have done some damage, but I understand when the time isnt there and the people dont step up to help, its hard to hold out.
Kazan Golden Horde
Also moves are being made here, it looks like dberner decided to really do something about his team after I called him out on it and he got a little offended, thats good, maybe he needed it. Anyhow, not competitive, but they will likely stay up in Pro for the next season and with the new influx of AAA teams unless they get a lot better really fast and dberner brings in a LOT more talent in the offseason to replace all the talent that has been leaving over the past two seasons, they are going to be a target. Also the unbalanced offense thing doesnt really work right now, both Washington and Kazan are sticking to their passing games and losing handily at it and just giving Misc a lot of sacks.
Past that what can I say, the last 5 teams are just really bad, Demon Brigade is CPU, even though psychonaut wants to ride it to the bottom I guess. There are two more CPU teams, then Minsk Koats who have build and talent issues and would just be better off merging with an owner that might be able to use them and improve their builds, same goes for Washington, someone needs to give them build advice and help their players on a good team. I would of course love the talent to stay in the EE Region, but usually talent flows out of our region, its unfortunate but our region just doesnt have a lot of good owners and because not a lot of good owners made teams here, we get stuck with teams like 7 of the bottom 8 hanging around in EE Pro because we just cant get better.
If my DT had been in there you never would have gotten so far!
