I haven't been checking every team in every league that I'm in, so I've been thinking that I won't contend with my B8 squad, but now I'm thinking that my PB value of 80-ish looks pretty good and I might be able to contend.
It seemed to me that there were more teams that were rebuilding this year, rather than contending, and this was reflected in the trade market. This might explain it; teams with 75-82 PB values who will be right in the hunt may have been figuring that'd rebuild because they were 20-30 behind the top guys. Last year that was true, this year you're right there.