I know what you mean Coach..I have said the same thing about my league as well....The guy who won our league last season (sadly beat me in the championship) is 4-1 in DIII so far, and his one loss was in Double OT and the other guy played Normal against his Tie.
Someone posted this in our league forum the other day about our league:
# ...Team..................... Players ....Salary .........Top 5 Players Tot
01. Dong Energy............. 15 .......$ 201 680........$ 134 830
02. Uncle Rico All Stars....... 9....... $ 174 032 ........$ 148 015
03. OYOH..................... 15....... $ 170 987.........$ 121 746
04. BYOND.....................14....... $ 168 335.........$ 106 703
05. Bergen OyeKonge........10 .......$ 158 556.........$ 121 064
06. HugeDdoug................7 ........$ 149 482..........$ 141 862
07. Guacs Babes..............12........ $ 147 248.........$ 114 470
08. LambdaLambdaLambda..11....... $ 138 709..........$ 89 650
09. TEAM SABILA.............12........ $ 135 545.........$ 92 446
10. Yayos Team...............10........ $ 122 483.........$ 87 101
11. Kansas Jayhawks ........15....... $ 120 887..........$ 85 775
12. Rays....................... 14........ $ 111 477.........$ 72 274
13. Riveters....................14 ........$ 109 428.........$ 66 745
14. dunmurph!!!...............13........ $ 97 021...........$ 56 284
15. Dream Vision..............11 ........$ 75 816...........$ 47 618
16. Yenkins Bombers..........11....... $ 61 214 ...........$ 32 949
We have guy ranked in the upper 200's, and several of us in the 300's. Its a very tough conference, where even the "easy" teams can beat you if you don't come prepared. Obviously payroll is not the end all example of what makes a good team (For instance, #8 in our league has by far the most explosive offense in our league, and in most of DIV I am sure). That said, we do have hefty payrolls and the teams at the top in terms of payroll are pretty much out of room in terms of taking on more salary. Our TV Contract is just a tad over 70K, which to this point I haven't seen another DIV league with a higher TV contract, which I believe indicates our league has the highest payrolls (that I know of) for DIV. The team at the top that is over 200K, just added 50K recently, so his payroll isn't even fully factoring into our TV Contract. I have added about 40K myself.
My son and my buddy just promoted into DIV as well, and they both are cruising along without hardly breaking a sweat, both 5-0. i am not sure which I would prefer...my league is very active, with competitive games just about every game....whereas my sons league is completely dead, and opponents are very predictable. I love the competition of my league, but at the same time, I could be freaking awesome this season, and still not promote. I could potentially be (not saying I am) one of the top 10 teams in DIV and not promote.
Makes for some frustrations, but also some fun as well!!