Kurt Warner Stat Correction
I am not in the best of moods today. Yes, it is Christmas Eve, and yes I do enjoy a good holiday just like anyone else. But I just had something taken from me. Something I had worked long and hard (that’s what she said) to achieve. It wasn’t technically stolen, but it sure feels like it.
I will give a little background on my frustrations. I am involved in a Yahoo! fantasy football league with 7 of my friends. The final standings in the league were very tight. I managed to will my way to the 2 seed. First to last was separated by only 3 games. It was the closest, standings-wise, our league had ever been. So it felt good to obtain one of the two byes that we had set up. I was at least guaranteed a match-up in the semi-finals. One win away from my first championship game appearance in the league. I was feeling good. My team had been solid all year, and I was ready to get to the next level. Unfortunately for me, things were going to get ugly.
I don’t want to say that I’m the most unlucky person in the world…but I will anyway. I HAVE THE WORST LUCK. So let’s get to it. I was playing in the semi-finals (conference championship, so to speak), and could smell the championship game. The roster I had decided to go with was:
| QB | Kurt Warner…dun dun dun |
| RB | Steven Jackson |
| RB | Jamaal Charles |
| WR | Miles Austin |
| WR | Larry Fitzgerald |
| WR | Roddy White |
| TE | Fred Davis |
| K | David Akers |
| DEF/ST | Baltimore |
I had some pretty good matchups overall. The worst play I had was Roddy White playing opposite of Darrelle Revis. That did turn out pretty bad for me, as Roddy only ended up netting a whopping 5.30 points. (Yes, tenths of a point will come into play in this tale of woe)
Neither of us had a player going in the Thursday Colts/Jaguars game, so it was 0-0 going into Saturday. After Saturday, I was sitting pretty, very pretty. Miles Austin had another great game for me, getting 23.40 points in total, and going over his projected total by about 11 points. On the other hand, my opponent had Drew Brees, Marques Colston, and Garrett Hartley going on Saturday, but combined they only scored 26.93 points, which was about 19 under their combined projected. Yes, I was feeling good. So going into Sunday, I was down 26.93-23.40, but had the huge upper hand.
The 12 o’clock games for me had Warner and Fitzgerald against the Lions (very solid matchup), Roddy White against the Jets (not so good), Steven Jackson against Houston (pretty solid, but I was a little worried about Jackson being banged up), and Jamaal Charles against Cleveland (very good matchup). Long story short, Charles put up 24 points, Jackson put up 14.30 points, Roddy put up 5.30 points, Fitzgerald put up 11.60 points, and Warner ended with 15.57 points (or so I thought).
Sunday afternoon/night games gave me 9 points from David Akers 18 huge points from Baltimore’s defense. So I had a very solid Sunday.
His team also had put up some points. Vincent Jackson had a huge day, as did Greg Jennings, and Adrian Peterson.
After all the Sunday action had commenced, I had roughly a 9 point deficit to overcome. Fred Davis was my last chance to get to that sweet, sweet nectar you can only find in the championship game.
The first half of Monday’s game was abysmal. Davis had nothin. Zip. Zilch. Scratch. It was not looking good. He had also lost control of a potential 20+ yard TD pass towards the end of the first half. I thought for sure I had no chance.
The second half, however, proved to be good to me. One 11 yard pass, and I was getting excited. Then came the coupe de grace for my opponent; an 11 yard TD pass to Davis, which gave me a minuscule lead, but that’s all I needed. Davis tacked on some more points to wind up giving me a 6.14 point victory (136.17 – 130.03). Chicka Chicka Yeah, I was in the championship game. Finally. After finishing second-to-last in the previous season, it felt good, real good. But little did I know that it was far from over.
Yes, I know that there are stat corrections that come out during the following week. But, come on, that’s the last thing on my mind with a solid 6+ point win. They can’t take a TD away, right? There’s no way I can possibly lose. Time to talk some smack. Time to rub it in. Time to bask in the glory of making it. Good thing I didn’t.
Flash forward to Thursday morning, December 24th. I’m sitting around, waiting for Christmas, having just a jolly little time. Well, I am now not one of those people. I am resenting today. I don’t know what to think now. I can’t believe what I have just endured.
I awoke today to about 4 text messages from other managers in my league. All of them talking about stat corrections that involved me. This is a joke, right? I mean, it can’t possibly be enough to take me out of the Championship game.
So I fire up the old computer, and load up our league’s page. And there it is; my name is now crossed off, and dropped into the 3rd place game. My opponent is now in the championship game. Hmmm. Something about that strikethrough of my name just wasn’t sitting right.
I now scan my roster and notice Kurt Warner’s point total looks a little lower than it did for the past 4 days. Ok. What’s going on? Let’s check the stat correction page.
There it is. What will forever be known as THE Kurt Warner stat correction:
“Kurt Warner Pass TD (-5), Kurt Warner Pass Yards (-1).”
Well that would be fine, if we had been playing with the default scoring system and I had a 6.14 point lead. Oh, but no. No, no, no. That would be too forgiving. This stat correction was out for blood. That stat correction wanted me down, and wanted me to stay down. And then kick me a couple times.
In our league a passing touchdown is worth 6 points, and passing yards net 1 point for every 30 yards. So if you whip out your calculator you will find that 6 + (5/30) = 6.16667 points. So 6.17 points. Now if you’d like, you can scan back up and read how much I had won by…I mean how much I was WINNING by. Or I can just tell you that it didn’t end so well for me. After losing 6.17 points from my 136.17 previous total, I was down to a cool 130.00. The final tally, 130.03 – 130.00. Yep, .03 points. I lost by .03 points. In the most epic stat correction ever, I had lost by 3/10 of a rushing yard.
I now sit in the 3rd place game. More like huddled in the corner in the fetal position. The fantasy football gods were up there laughing away.
So enjoy your Christmas everyone. I hope none of you have experienced what I have. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone….except the kid I was playing. After being involved in this disgusting stat correction, I realized am not very good at winning. Even when I do win, I don’t win. The Kurt Warner stat correction has defeated me.
Hallelujah! Holy S**t! Where’s the Tylenol?
***UPDATE***
My consolation: I would have been smoked in the Championship game. All is well.
