C.R.E.A.M.
There's a thing that happened this week. From what we understand these nerds here lost several Billion dollars in a big-ass cryptocurrency scam. We're not really big crypto guys here at DYM, so we're not 100% clear on all the ins-and-outs but we do know that there are some hilarious sports-adjacent consequences.
But first, just get a load of these fuckin nerds. HA!!!!
Now, it just so happens that this bankrupt crypto company - FTX - had a lot of sponsorship deals throughout American professional sports. Their logo was displayed on MLB umpires' uniforms last year;
Steph Curry, Shohei Otani, and Trevor Lawrence did ads for them; And their most notable celebrity partnerships by far were with Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen. Last year the power couple were announced as "Brand Ambassadors" for FTX, taking an equity stake in the company and investing in their crypto-currency FTT. Nobody knows exactly how much money Brady and Gisele actually put in to the company or how much FTT coins they still owned (some reports are in the hundreds of millions), but this is definitely gonna impact their already very expensive divorce. Of course, if Tom Brady loses a shit load of money this year, that's really good news for all of us, cause it'll behove him to stay fucking retired after this year.
The Bucs are playing like shit and Brady is on a one-year contract. We know that Fox already offered him Troy Aikman's job on a 10-year, $375M deal. That's a lot more than he's making now, so we figure he's gonna be more motivated to make that career change this coming off-season.
Last but not least, the Miami HEAT just played their final game at the soon to be renamed FTX Arena. Check out this press release:
To us, the most fascinating revelation here is that the HEAT's official team name is in all-caps. That's amazing. But obviously if we were them we woulda thrown in some exclamation points and/or emojis too. This way it just kinda looks like an acronym (High Energy Awesome Team? Humans Encounter Aliens Today?? HomoErotic And Tasteful???).
NEW LOOK WHOS HOT?!?!?!?!?!
This week's HEAT INDEX doesn't feel right.
DYM seems to be holding steady with a .98 rating. But we gotta tell you guys, we just posted the lowest score of the week and lost 4 out of the last 5, and it feels ICE COLD. A team having the highest score and lowest score in back-to-back weeks is a rare situation. And it just so happens to expose a couple structural flaws in the WHOS HOT?!? formulae that we've been meaning to address:
1:
Because WHOS HOT?!? uses teams' raw scores as inputs, it fails to account for league-wide scoring fluctuations. For instance - the league average score in week 3 was 100.01. That week Paul's Awesome Team scored 120.48 which was the 2nd highest score of the week and they won. THAT'S GOOD!!! But in week 9 the average score was 116.01. Paul scored 121.86 which was the 4th best score of the week and they lost. THAT'S NOT GOOD!!! Therefore, sometimes, 120>121.
To solve this problem we converted each team's score to a % of the league wide average for the week. So PAT's 120.48 in week 3 is represented as 120.5% (of 100.01) and his 121.86 in week 9 becomes 105.0% (of 116.01) -- see below.
2:
The original formula simply compared the last-3-week's average to the season-long average, making a teams most recent score just as important as their score from three weeks ago. For the most part the original formula worked because it's rare that a team will score twice as many points in week 8 as they did week 9 (like DYM just did). A team like that might be "LUKE WARM" on average despite an obvious downward trend, and in all honesty it'd be hard to argue that they are anything but cold.
So, for WHOS HOT 2.0?!?! the "LAST 3 AVG" is now weighted so that the most recent week's score is worth 50% more than two and three ago (). The weighting pushed Tobin down to third, and DYM down to 10th, which we think is appropriate because they were both so bad last week. On the other hand, Bring it On and PHP appear hotter in the new formula, which also feels right to us. Most other teams weren't impacted too much (even PAT, who had their highest score in 5 weeks, stayed ICE COLD) so we don't think the weighting is too heavy.
Shoutout to the DYM Data Science Department for all their hard work behind the scenes this week!!! Now, without further to do, Defend Your Moves is proud to present - WHOS HOT 2.0?!?!?!?!?!
In the new formulation, most teams got a slightly lower HEAT INDEX because the league average score over the last three weeks is ~3 points higher than the season average. The most notable exception is Polk High Panthers (+.08). PHP is legitimately RED HOT after scoring 162.74 last week. That was the 4th highest raw score of the year league-wide, but at 40.3% above the league average it was the 2nd highest adjusted score overall, and by far the highest of the year for PHP. It was the first time PHP scored above league average since week 1. PHP is still by far the lowest scoring team in this league overall - a team this bad having a week this good is yet another pretty unusual happenstance - and again we think the new formula better represents the objective reality - PHP IS SCORCHING HOT!!!!!!!!!!
FOOD BEEF: EMPANADAS
Patria Cafe, 🇦🇷 Berkeley Heights, NJ
Patria Cafe is a cute little spot nestled into an alley between Springfield Ave and the Berkeley Heights train station. They just opened about a year ago.
The empanadas are lovely. Probably the best looking empanadas we've had so far. The shells were as light and thin as you like but maybe not flaky enough.
They have an impressive variety, including two vegetarian options (mushroom and eggplant). The "Criolla" (steak, eggs, and olives) was a unique taste sensation. The marinated steak filling tasted like wonton meat, and the "Argentina Style" (ground beef and onion) tasted like our thanksgiving stuffing - very satisfying. The wife said: "It's really good; but when I want an empanada, this isn't what I'm looking for."
She doesn't want them in the playoffs, but we both agree they were the better of the two Argentinian offering on the tour.
For next week we found a new Cuban spot in Westfield called Old Havana and we've got very high hopes for it. The Cubans will need to score an 8.5 or better to knock Patria out of the playoff picture.
EMPANADA SCORE: 8
MISS CLEOS PLAYER OF THE WEEK!!!!!!!!!!
TREVOR LAWRENCE u254.5 & u1.5 passing TDs
Miss Cleo's Prop Bet Record: 9-4
AMERICAS GAME OF THE WEEK!!!!!!!!!!
FINGERBANG! vs. DEFEND YOUR MOVES
AGOTW Prediction Record: 4-4
IT'S A MUST-WIN GAME IN WEEK 10!!!!!!!!!!
Back in week five Fingerbang and DYM were tied for first place at 3-1. Since then, both teams lost four out of five games. FB has been the league's lowest scoring team over the last three weeks and DYM is 8th - THAT'S NOT GOOD!!!
They both DESPERATELY need a win this week - a 6th loss would bring them perilously close to playoff elimination.
DYM is looking for a backup QB this week with Lamar on bye. We have Case Keenum on the bench. If Josh Allen doesn't play we'll start Keenum in the REVENGE GAME against Minnesota. If Josh does play then we're going with Jacoby Brissett at Miami. The Dolphins are one of the very best matchups for mobile fantasy QBs, and we don't think Brissett will have as much trouble with the climate since he grew up in South Florida. The HOMECOMING GAME is a pretty underrated fantasy narrative these days, but we think they're actually a lot better than REVENGE GAMES. Everybody loves going back to their old stompin grounds; but for guys like Brissett, that spend most of the year in the fuckin Rust Belt, getting that hot Florida Sunshine on your skin is absolutely invigorating.
We dropped Danny Dimes for Brissett cause Houston is just terrible against the run and basically nobody ever passes the ball on them. Which incidentally means this is gonna be a great matchup for Saquon.
Fingerbang is in a tough spot having already started a very bad Thursday RB to the tune of 1.8 points. We're up by 20 right now, but with Hurts playing on Monday Night no lead is ever gonna feel safe. FB's underwhelming WR corp (Courtland Sutton and Canada's Josh Palmer) both have plus matchups. The Titans secondary is all injured and so are the Chargers WRs. Courtland Sutton is from Houston, but unfortunately the Oilers don't play there anymore.
Prediction: DYM: 121.34
FINGERBANG: 100.93
DEFEND YOUR MOVES WINS!!!!!!!!!!
SPECIAL ED MATCHUPS!!!!!!!!!!
PAULS AWESOME TEAM vs. FISTO KIDDS!!
Justin Fields is the fuckin TRUTH. He might be the fantasy football MVP for the rest of this year. But Paul's playoff run is gonna have to wait one more week cause Amari Cooper is from Miami so he's gonna go OFF!!!
FISTO KIDDS WINS!!!!!!!!!!
POLK HIGH PANTHERS vs. SHARON ERTZ
Sharon Ertz are big favorites according to Yahoo! projections, but Miss Cleo's got Trevor Lawrence UNDERS and Polk High Panthers are BLAZING HOT!!!!!
POLK HIGH PANTHERS WINS!!!!!!!!!!
TOBIN & THE RIPPERS vs. MIRACLE WHIP🫙
Andor is fuckin awesome. Probably the best show of the last few years.
They even brought our girl Bix back a couple weeks ago!!! But we still think it's not really a Star War. There's still no funny robots, not many call-backs to other Star Wars, and no weird aliens - Which is crazy cause Andy Serkis was the main character in the last few episodes but he was a human, no CGI. Serkis crushes it tho. Riveting performance.
TOBIN & THE RIPPERS WINS!!!!!!!!!!
HAMBURGLARS vs. BRING IT ON HOME
Bucs/Seahawks is about to kick off right now in Munich. Hamburglars are still starting Tom Brady for some reason. He fuckin stinks right now, and we can't confirm if he's from Germany.
We really hope he takes that Fox job next year. Since we just watch the Bills (AFC on CBS) and RedZone it's usually pretty easy for us to avoid the Fox studio shows and in-game audio. We'll still probably have to check in on his SiriusXM show but at least we won't have to look at his stupid gaunt no-carb-eating face anymore.
BRING IT ON HOME WINS!!!!!!!!!!
