The Pre-Season - Hot Parrott Summer
- Thomas
- Jul 21, 2021
- 9 min read
How much has spending most of the offseason in prison affected Jamal Lewis' poor start? - Chris Collinsworth
Hello everyone, time to cram in some summer reading!
It feels like it has been ages since we’ve done football. I dunno, maybe it's just my mind totally erasing any possible memory of sports over the last 365 days or so… but regardless, life goes on, and the flat circle that is time brings us yet another fantasy preseason.
As a refresher, Pat Lockett is your defending champion, finally getting over the hump defeating Brian 170.4 to 130.5 in the title. Pat went 12-1, his lone loss on the year at the hands of the other Pat, in week 3.
Pat’s 12-1 record was almost matched by Brian and Jacob, who both went 11-2, rounding out the league’s “big 3.” Jacob notably recorded all 11 of his wins consecutively, after starting the season 0-2 (thanks, James Robinson!). Brian’s 2 losses also came in consecutive weeks (9, 10). All of their 4 losses occurred within the Big 3 with the two splitting their season series and dropping the matchup with Lockett.
Joe, Charlie, and Nick Leon made up the midfield of the JPFL, Joe being 1 game over the .500 mark, Nick and Chuck both a game under it… This caused the JPFL to have 2 sub .500 teams in the playoffs for the first time ever.
The closest winners bracket game was decided by 13.85 points: Pat L. v Joe in Round 2. Josh Allen dropped a 41 bomb against the Broncos unfortunately too much of his performance also benefitted Diggs.
Most of the playoff drama was reserved for the consolation bracket. PBut and I seemed destined for a Commissioner's Cup toilet bowl (which PBut did lose the next week, just in a meaningless game). I lead Sam by 1.85 while Pat lead his brother by 1.25 entering Monday night, both of us having no players remaining, forced to watch Eric Ebron (Sam) and Tyler Boyd (Nick) catch one of several guaranteed targets in primetime and relegate us to the worst game of the fantasy season (which I would’ve won had it happened). With 3 minutes to go in the first quarter, Tyler Boyd came down from a broken deep pass and hit his head too hard on the turf, concussing himself which caused his removal from the game…
Just 9 minutes of game time later, Eric Ebron goes up for a very Big Ben pass (in triple coverage) and comes down 1) begging for a flag and 2) holding his back.
He would miss the rest of the game… Pat and I would hold out 1 point margins and avoid meeting in a toilet bowl (which I ended up winning the matchup the next week).
Had EITHER player come down with their pass before sustaining the same injury, it would’ve been enough to do us in. A Christmas miracle.
As we all vividly remember, Mike Evans went off for 35 points the next week lifting Nick to his highest score of the season, turning Sam from defending Champ to Parrott Demerit holder (for life technically I mean……)
Also, Chuck dropped Austin Ekeler with an open IR spot but let’s just move on.
It’s officially owner’s meeting week (held July22-25 in VB) so it’s time to fire back up the engine of the Jimmy Parrott Footnugget League and warm up our tires on a nice casual out-lap.
This will be the 7th season of the JPFL and hopefully the best one yet! We’ve got a new owner entering the league, and hopefully, a few other new treats in the coming months, mostly aesthetic things to add to the vibez, but they’ll be fun nonetheless.
Among the potential introductions for the 2021 season: I’m looking to implement “rivalry trophies” a la college football. The idea would be to create 5 matchups (1 per owner) that have some sort of fun theme/common element between opponents and create a trophy for the two owners to compete for annually, with the winner of the head-to-head matchup(s) taking home the cake. The Commissioner’s Cup (which you damn sure bet I’m making now) between myself and PBut would be an example. If you have an idea for a trophy between any two league members, yourself included… feel free to submit those ideas anonymously here:
As always, this is my time of the year to ask you that if you have notifications off for Discord that you simply turn off notification for just the "JPFL Chat" channel and not the entire discord app (or our entire discord). This way you still won't get constant notifications from the discussion in the "JPFL Chat" channel but would still get notifications from the "Announcements" channel. This will allow those of you who don't check discord often to not miss out on LM Notes and then I don't have to text everyone individually about voting things :)
We’ve got a handful of announcements and plenty of things that need your input to begin the season.
Without further ado.
Voting Results
The last piece of league business we handled, way back in February, was winter voting. These were proposals submitted with the season fresh in our mind to make some immediate changes in response to the season (we will continue to do this annually).
The rule changes approved back in the winter were:
- Bench size reduced from 8 to 6 (this does not count IR sports, which will return to regular, non-Covid levels of 2 per team)
This will add 20 players back into free agency which should help to make waivers less thin, particularly at RB
The goal is that whenever you do you need make a dip into the waiver wire for a short term starter that do you have a number of acceptable performances lurking. If the needle gets pushed to far towards 0 or 100 it affects the competitive balance
- Weekly Side Pot sent every Tuesday
- You cannot keep a player in the first round more than once
Trying to open up the number of 1st round studs that are available for drafting each season, this way PBut can finally hit on a 1st round selection
- Waivers vs FAAB was split, we will allow it onto the ballot again for preseason voting but considering the bench size change it may be best to try one thing at a time
- Switching punishment format was 50/50 so we’ll run that back this next round
We honestly might be hitting a sweet spot with the beer mile/calendar proposal
We will still be doing summer rule voting. That way we can cover anything we missed or decide on additional guidelines that come into play as we pass winter rules, also our new owner can have his voice heard.
A New Challenger
The big piece of offseason news you’ve all been waiting for is how the league will be filling the spot coming open with Sam’s retirement. Pat and I are now happy to announce the Oliver Allen is rejoining the league, providing Charlie a partner out west (and boosting our west coast ratings for bigger TV money).
Just look at those eyes, this man is a killer and will be taking no prisoners. Ollie will be taking over Sam’s roster effective immediately. He has also been added to the discord and Ollie emojis are also here for you to welcome him with!
Parrott Demerit Update
We also have an update on our Parrott Demerit holder, Sam Belka. We were waiting to do Sam’s punishments until all involved parties were vaccinated, which was this summer.
Unfortunately, as soon as that window opened, things got shaken up. Sam will be moving out west within the month and due to the time he will be required to spend in the desert of Arizona in advance of his move there, he has decided that he will, unfortunately, be unable to fulfill his Parrott Demerit obligations. That being said, we do have backup plans in motion to get your entertainment squared away…
Calendar Update
The calendar will now feature me and PBut on a “Tom and Pat’s excellent adventure through the calendar year.” For each month we will be visiting (that’s a keyword in the sentence) whatever scene you pick to best represent the month. We’ll be wearing our JPFL gear, traveling through time month by month checking out some wild scenes because “we need to learn the meaning of time to save the League” or some dumb backstory. Have fun, get creative, hopefully, we end up with a fun calendar for next season.
Pat and I are going to have fun with this and get it done quickly so those of you involved please check the calendar planning channel in discord for more details and make decisions soon. Since the calendar is no longer official punishment material, we aren’t going to be hunting down people who don’t submit ideas, you just forfeit yourcreativity to us.
Beer Mile Guesses
Like I laid out above, Sam is not going to be running the beer mile… HOWEVER, Pat Butler didn’t want the league to miss out on the fun so he will be running the beer mile himself at the owner’s meeting on Friday, July 23 just hours after the Olympics hold their opening ceremonies. This will allow us to 1) watch a beer mile and 2) still use our same beer mile prediction format to determine draft order.
As usual, everyone will submit a guess for the TOTAL TIME Pat will take to run the beer mile, from the cracking of the first beer can to the last step crossing the finish line… once again this includes running AND drinking time. Pat will drink 1 beer before running 1/8th mile out, then 1/8th mile back… at which point he will start another beer and then run his next ¼ mile out and back. Previous times were:
Joe – 12:10
Phil – 20:19
Nick – 14:04
I have a feeling Pat will at least “aim” for that 12:10 of Joe but tbh Joe has two regular knees so that’s a toughie.
He will be running along this wonderful stretch of Holly Road in the shadow of the Cavalier hotel:
Weather reports currently call for a high of 85F with a 52% humidity.
Since Pat is running the beer mile himself, he obviously can’t submit a guess that isn’t blind… to avoid self-collusion, PBut will be picking one of our guesses (without knowing the guess) and adding or subtracting some incremental amount of time from it. This way he will still have a “reasonable” guess but will have no idea where he falls on the spectrum of predictions from fast to slow.
The closest prediction will be awarded FIRST CHOICE of draft picks. We will run down the order from there choosing from the remaining snake draft slots to determine the final order.
Since Pat didn’t actually finish in last place, I am not going to make him run the full-fledged gauntlet of whatever diabolical beers our top 4 select (unless the 5 of them broker a deal for Pat to do so). But for the sake of letting simplicity rule, and barring riotous protest otherwise, Pat will run the mile on 4 Bud Lights.
Submit your Beer Mile Predictions here. The deadline will be Friday, 7/23 at NOON EST
Sticking with tradition, the beer mile will be streamed within the discord.
Draft Date Doodle
As always, we need to determine a date to hold our preseason draft. The doodle link is below, just select the 2-hour blocks you are and aren’t available for.
In a money grab that puts our expansion out west (and into Florida, thanks Joe!) to shame, the NFL has added a 17th regular-season game this year and reduced the preseason by 1, down to 3. I don’t know how this will affect starters playing time… usually, the third game is when you play your starters the most and then the final game is entirely for the dudes on the roster bubble… those are the same game now so I think to continue to avoid post draft preseason injuries, it’s just smartest to draft in that week and a half gap the league gives us between the end of the preseason and the start of the RS. We’ll select from those dates for now.
The draft will be online, just like it always is. We will voice/video chat in the discord while making our picks in ClickyDraft.
Submit your availability here, by the end of this month:
Rule Change Proposals
The last piece of the summer meetings is rule changes for the upcoming season. If you have thought of anything new since February this is your chance to toss it out. Any input on rearranging the last place punishment or adjustments to rosters and scoring. We’d love to hear thoughts on roster position limits, keeper cost, and the Parrott Demerit.
We especially need input from people regarding how you want us to handle the NFL adding a week to the season… not that we even have to do anything we just need to decide.
The deadline for proposals will be next Thursday, July 29th. Submit your ideas here, as always, they will be presented to the league anonymously:
Sam’s “Punishment” Ideas
Although Sam isn’t going to be able to do a virtual beer mile or shoot his own calendar, he has offered to “pay his debts” to the league some other way. His immediate offer was to buy people alcohol or something but I'm gonna open up ideas to the league here to see what we can come up with that he’s willing to do.
Keep in mind this will need to be entirely “remote” since Sam will be in Arizona… So it can’t be something that requires one of us to be there, he will have to document things himself if it comes to that. Phoenix does have a WNBA team… Also, keep in mind this is Sam, so please don’t be absolutely ridiculous/cruel with your requests.
I'm not gonna make another submission form to throw at you, any ideas you have for Sam's punishment just toss into the chat until we agree on one.
That’s all for now, see some of you this weekend. Start firing up your mock draft machines, get that league input filled out, and in around 30 days we’ll be drafting! I'll be slowly getting the JPFL website back up to date in the coming months as well.
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