Rivalry Week 2020

 Two posts in one week? It's that time of year.

This one will be quick, as I'm sure you're all deep into draft research and our defending champ is realizing that DeAndre Hopkins is on the Cardinals and there's something called a Clyde Edwards-Helaire. 

Here are the Rivalry Week 2020 matchups, ranked in order of the average Rivalry Points from each team:

1. (tie) Esco vs. Weissbard - 14.0 points - The Halloween Prank Bowl III aka The Paternity Leave Bowl
2. (tie) Bennett vs. Levine - 14.0 points - The Florida Man Bowl II
3. (tie) AGD vs. Billy - 14.0 points - The Where's Marshall? Bowl
4. (tie) Ajay vs. Barnard - 14.0 points - The Madden Runner-Up Bowl
5. Gutman vs. Marco - 13.5 points - The Dad Bowl III aka The Father of Two Bowl
6. Alan vs. Zacherman - 12.5 points - The Chipotle Burrito Bowl
7. Nick vs. Kumpf - 9.5 points - The Tank Bowl

As usual, most of the Rivalries are between people who consider each other rivals, but we had some movement this year with the reintroduction of Nick and the AGD reunion, so I'm surprised to see so much alignment. And Nick, I guarantee that I'll be able to improve my playoff situation by tanking against you this year, but I'll be prohibited from doing so.

Here is the raw data:

Each row is that team's submission, with the rankings multiplied by 10 to give more weight to the higher rated matchups. Looking closer at the individual team numbers, here is the breakdown per team, normalized to the actual ranking they were given and removing the 1 point placeholder for ranking yourself:

1. Barnard - 10.23 (10.46 )
2. Weissbard - 9.38 (9.92)
3. Bennett - 9.31 (8.46)
4. Kumpf - 8.69 (8.38)
5. Gutman - 8.31 (7.46)
6. Alan - 8.23 (6.92)
7. Marco - 8.08 (8.62)
8. Billy - 8.00 (7.31 as BAM)
9. (tie) AGD - 7.62 (8.08 for Belfer, 6.38 for Reap)
10. (tie) Esco - 7.62 (8.23)
11. Levine - 7.54 (6.69)
12. Ajay - 7.38 (8.46)
13. Nick - 6.62 (N/A)
14. Zacherman - 5.00 (6.46)

Random takeaways:

• Barnard has been in "first" place all three years of this process, making him by far the most appealing rival.
• Weissbard has been in "second" place all three years, barely edging third all three times.
• The league gives more "credit" for AGD to Belfer, who's average Rivalry Points are closer to where AGD ended up in their first year back together.
• Ajay had the largest fall this year, from 4th to 12th, and I'm not really sure why.
• People are fucking terrified of Zacherman, who got the lowest score ever by a full 1.23 points.

Schedule will be updated on ESPN prior to the draft thanks to our friends at League Lobster, who still have Alan's Christmas Card in their chat history.