Another piece of the puzzle is... This is how we set the Fantasy Game Schedule:
"The schedule was based on 2022’s regular season final standings. The teams that finished with an odd number (Champion, Third, Fifth, etc.) were put in Hat A. The teams that finished with an even number (Runner-up, Fourth, Sixth, etc.) were put in Hat B. Teams from Hat A were randomly selected to play teams from Hat B that were also randomly selected. This way every team will play teams that were at the top, middle, and bottom of the Standings last season."
And, every season, this has worked. No reason why it shouldn't. And, for this 2023 season, for whatever reason, the even teams in 2022 performed disproportionately better than the odd teams during the 2023 season. I bolded the Top 8 teams in the current 2023 season directly below within the 2022 Standings. All are evens. It's just a strange, strange thing. I don't believe this has ever happened before. In other words, FCA, GCC, Matnum, etc. had a really tough schedule. Just worked out this way...
2022 Regular Season Final Standings
1 DU-Fan 8 0 153
2 ohmilax34 8 0 132
3 FCALax 6 2 149
4 PA Talk 6 2 148
5 NC Lax 6 2 101
6 HipandKneeDoc 5 3 122
7 Matnum PI 5 3 101
8 UK Lax 4 4 130
9 NJLaxx11 4 4 95
10 OCanada 4 4 85
11 Lax1 4 4 59
12 Typical Lax Dad 3 5 107
13 GCCLax 3 5 97
14 CalLaxDad 3 5 92
15 GenghiskhanBluejay 3 5 89
16 GreenieLax 2 6 74
17 Maddog 2 6 57
18 Keoni007 2 6 34
19 ChopSticks 1 7 67
20 dfaganlax916 1 7 37 (FarFromGeneva took over.)
2023 Current Regular Season Standings
1 Typical Lax Dad 7 0 137
2 ohmilax34 7 0 119
3 HipandKneeDoc 6 1 144
4 Keoni007 6 1 87
5 UK Lax 5 2 100
6 PA Talk 5 2 83
7 CalLaxDad 4 3 81
8 Farfromgeneva 4 3 80
9 NJLaxx11 4 3 78
10 FCALax 3 4 111
11 OCanada 3 4 96
12 NC Lax 3 4 91
13 Lax1 3 4 82
14 GenghiskhanBluejay 3 4 68
15 Matnum PI 2 5 77
16 DU-Fan 2 5 64
17 ChopSticks 2 5 61
18 GreenieLax 1 6 35
19 GCCLax 0 7 88
20 Maddog 0 7 63