How to Read the Almanac

A scatter plot where every manager sits on two axes: Luck Δ on the x-axis — your real win % minus your all-play win %, which is what the schedule added or took away, so luckier is further right — and All-Play win % on the y-axis, how often your scores would have won against the whole league, which is how good the team actually was, so better is higher. The cross-hairs are zero luck and a .500 all-play record.

That gives four quadrants: Lucky and Good (top-right, strong scores and a schedule that helped), Unlucky and Good (top-left, strong scores but a record that lags them), Lucky and Bad (bottom-right, weak scores propped up by the schedule), and Unlucky and Bad (bottom-left). Skill and luck, separated.

Before Week 7 of 2026 the matrix plotted Points For against Points Against. Points Against counts a tough opponent the same whether or not it cost you the game, so it measured schedule weight rather than luck; the all-play axes fix that, and every past season is plotted the same way.

What your record would look like if every week you played every other team in the league instead of the one matchup ESPN gave you. If you score the third-highest in week 7, you go 5–2 that week (you beat the five lower scores, you lose to the two higher ones).

Stripping out the schedule lets us compare managers fairly. All-Play % is the most stable measure of who actually played well.

The gap between your real record and your all-play record. If you went 8–6 actual but 5–9 all-play, your Luck Δ is +0.21 — you got 21 percentage points of help from the schedule.

Positive Luck Δ means the schedule did you favors. Negative means it ate you alive. Most seasons land within ±10 points; anything past ±15 is a story.

How many points your starters scored as a percentage of the optimal lineup you could have set with the players on your roster that week. 100% means you nailed it. 85% means you left ~15% of your potential output on the bench.

We also track Bench Points— total points scored by players who never started. The “Worst Lineup Setter” record is the career sum of those forgone points.

One number per manager grading a draft. It blends two ideas: Value over Expected per Game (VoE/G) — did your picks score more points per game than the average return for that draft slot? — and Position Rank Surplus (PRS) — did your picks finish ahead of the other players drafted at their position? The Draft Score is the z-score average of the two, per pick.

Positive = stole value. Negative = reached or got hurt. Sub-4-game injury picks are excluded so a season-ending Achilles in week 1 doesn’t torch the grade.

For every executed trade, we sum what each side’s players scored from the trade week onward. Started surplus only counts points the receiver actually started (no credit for bench-hoarding); total surplus counts every point the player produced. A positive number means you fleeced your opponent on points that mattered.

The “Biggest Fleecings” hall of fame on the Trades page sorts by started surplus when available, total surplus when it isn’t.

Certain fixtures on the schedule carry a name — The Obliterate Bowl, The Collusion Cup, Any Given Sundance, etc. — drawn from the long history of grudges, jokes, and on-the-couch rulings between two managers.

A named matchup gets the “Game of the Week” treatment on /this-week when it’s on the schedule. The full list is below.

For every waiver / free-agent ADD, we sum the player’s points scored from the pickup week onward — regardless of which roster he ended up on later. That credits the manager who spotted the talent first, even if the picker eventually dropped him to someone luckier.

The fairer companion measure, started pickup value, only counts points the picker actually played. FAAB-spent and pickup count round out each manager’s career file.

The average number of points a manager scored in the games they lost. A high number means you keep bringing real points and losing anyway — you got robbed. A low number means your losses were earned: you didn’t score enough.

Counts every game on record, regular season and playoffs. Ties aren’t losses, so they’re excluded.

A tally of the games you played great and lost anyway — every loss in which you scored 120 or more. It isolates the defeats that weren’t your fault: you brought a winning score and drew an opponent who happened to bring more.

Each manager’s single worst beat — the highest-scoring loss they’ve ever absorbed — is listed alongside.

The average score a manager’s opponents hung on them each week. Everyone plays the same league, so the only thing that varies is whoyou happened to draw. A high number means the schedule kept handing you the league’s hot teams; a low one means you got the soft draw.

Regular season only — playoff opponents are seeded, not scheduled.