I was drafting this reply while Don Draper was replying too evidently, and I have the same questions he does.
I know personally I've had
bouts of success, but certainly wouldn't claim any kind of
consistency. And I'm still in the running in about 1/3 of my 15 leagues; so please understand that this isn't a sour grapes issue.
With no disrespect intended toward anyone, I'm curious how we define "consistently competitive and successful".
A: Overall earnings – and net or gross?
To my knowledge, only gross earnings are posted. And even if net earnings were published, as challenging and commendable an accomplishment it is to cash substantially in the big national events, or in a Diamond, Ultimate or Super league, doing so just a small portion of the time can certainly keep one in the positive for a long time, despite how many other leagues they were in, but didn't cash.
B: Playoff appearances?
At least that's easily identified for us in the overall standings. But how many entries did they have? IOW, what
percentage of their teams actually made the playoffs? And what about all the owners who finished one or two places outside of the playoffs, often missing by just a few points even, as well as often to head-to-head winners who scored substantially fewer points?
C: Average total points scored?
At least this is the overall sum of one's efforts and isn't based upon standings or money earned. And I certainly wouldn't argue against the NFFC's lifetime points leader. Billy IS an excellent player.
Top Weekly Scoring Average, 2004-11
• Billy Wasosky, Richmond, VA, 127.49 (Lifetime Standings Leader)
http://nffc.stats.com/football/nffc/records.asp
That said, total points can be influenced by the caliber of players in leagues. We all know that all it takes is a couple "lesser prepared/involved" owners in a league for that league's top players to outscore another league's top players where the caliber/interest/effort was consistent for all owners. Though, over enough of a sampling size, the cream likely rises to the top, as in Billy's case.
I wouldn't mind seeing a deeper version of this list, maybe top-50 or something similar, perhaps separating into a few different categories even:
• Lifetime
• Past 3 (or 5) years
• Past 10, 25, 50 or 100 league entries. To me, this category could provide the most accurate picture, as the other two categories don't account for the fact that some players only enter one league per year, while others are in 150 and everywhere in between.
D: Average league scoring rank?
Though we don't cash for 3rd or 4th place in 12-team leagues (or 4th/5th in 14-teams), I know I personally feel better when I know that my team was near the top in scoring than when I finish in the bottom of a league. But without cashing, these are no more considered "successful" by our peers than having come in last place - because no one else in the NFFC knows about it beyond the members of each league.
One could argue that, over time, a player who came in 3rd place in points 50 times could be considered more "consistently competitive and successful" than someone who maybe came in 1st or 2nd once (and cashed), but also came in last place 49 times. Hmmm... this has tones of the whole "
Who’s the better QB - Dan Marino or Trent Dilfer?" debate, based on the value of Super Bowl wins.
So what do you think? What most accurately reflects “consistently competitive and successful”? And how many players like this do we have and who are they? Some of this data might very well end up in the NFFC's Hall of Fame at some point. But what about before there is the 10 years of data that the HoF will be based upon? And what about players who may have had quite a bit of success long before completing 10 years? I have a hunch who some of them will be just because I know some of the top players I've competed against, as well as the names I keep seeing in the standings each year. But I also don't know how many other leagues they're in and their "consistency".
Interesting topic.