Fantasy League 2013 -- final results

Another season is in the books, and the Awesome Cup is all shined up for its new home. But before the official award ceremony, let’s look back on how the other 10 losers did this year:

Timmy and the Jets (Joel)
Projected finish: 2147.77 pts (5th place)
Actual finish: 1808.72 pts (11th place)
NFL equivalent: Jacksonville Jaguars
Much like the lowly Jags, Joel just couldn’t score any points. Blame his NFC-West-heavy receiving corps. Or QB Matt Ryan. Or bad coaching. Or the new rule changes that make it harder to play defense. Or the economy. Whatever you want, really.

The Maltese Falcons (Bobert)
Projected finish: 2501.33 pts (1st place)
Actual finish: 2039.08 pts (10th place)
NFL equivalent: Houston Texans
Bob’s Super Bowl expectations blew up early, much like the Texans’ season. But he can’t be too upset, since his team’s demise was largely lead by QB Robert Griffin’s sad season. Bad for the Racial Slurs, good for Bob’s Philly rooting interests. Way to take one for the team.

Cheatstrong (ChampMike) 
Projected finish: 2486.41 pts (2nd place)
Actual finish: 2057.89 pts (9th place)
NFL equivalent: Hotlanta Falcons
Geez, did I get any predictions right? Another Super Bowl/ Awesome Cup pre-season favorite goes up in flames. Mike’s problem was mostly apathy, since he clearly didn’t set his roster for weeks. But Andy Reid forgot to coach his team after a 9-0 start, and they still finished strong, right? Wait, they went 2-5 at the end? Damn.

Bad like Congress (Jim)
Projected finish: 2001.03 pts (9th place)
Actual finish: 2082.82 pts (8th place)
NFL equivalent: The House Republicans
Finally, a team finishes around where I thought. I can’t really figure out where things went wrong for Jim, so I can only assume his team decided to take October off without any real plan of how to secure victory. It’s either that or QB Colin Kapernick was a complete let-down this year.

Show me your TDs (Ant)
Projected finish: 1864.55 pts (11th place)
Actual finish: 2108.78 pts (7th place)
NFL equivalent: Cleveland Browns
Not much was expected of the 2011 Awesome Cup champion, so give Anthony credit for what he achieved this year: mediocrity. Like the Browns, Anthony’s squad wasn’t the worst, but was just generally boring. And isn’t that a worse crime than being terrible? At least the really bad Cleveland Indians teams became the basis for “Major League.”

Gettin' Chippy (Jo)
Projected finish: 1999.29 pts (10th place)
Actual finish: 2144.27 pts (6th place)
NFL equivalent: New Jersey Giants
Jo is gonna blame this mediocre finish on QB Tom Brady’s sub-par season, but that’s a cop-out. She had the league’s leading rusher (LeSean McCoy, thank you very much) and a stable of decent TEs. A good coach finds a way to win with that. A bad coach sits around and watches a dopey QB drag the whole team down. Wait, am I talking about Jo or Tom Coughlin?

I mildly like WRs (Paul)
Projected finish: 2146.77 pts (6th place)
Actual finish: 2314.66 pts (5th place)
NFL equivalent: Detroit Lions
Paul’s team stumbled, but like the Lions, you can’t blame his beloved (or mildly beliked) receivers. Brandon Marshall, Demaryius Thomas, Marques Colston, Jarrett Boykin -- if this were a real team, he’d be set. But Adrian Peterson’s off year and his thin RB corps doomed him to a pathetic, objectionable, would-have-been-in-a-different-league’s-playoffs, fifth-place finish.

Blue Collar Killers (Jeff)
Projected finish: 2079.56 pts (8th place)
Actual finish: 2327.88 pts (4th place)
NFL equivalent: Arizona Cardinals
Jeff managed to crack the top five despite making only a single roster move this season. Imagine how he would have finished if he had been trying. Personally, I think what really held him back was having a Dallas RB on his roster. Despite good statistics, those guys always choke down the stretch.

Sheldon Cooper (Dad)
Projected finish: 2200.08 pts (4th place)
Actual finish: 2370.72 pts (3rd place)
NFL equivalent: Chicago Bears
Poor Dad -- he grabs the best fantasy player of the last 30 years (QB Peyton Manning and his insane 520-plus pts) but still only manages a distant third place. Granted, he had no decent wideouts or running backs and had to rely on Denver’s sieve of a defense, but that’s no excuse. This is a league that’s based on offense. That’s why only four of the last 25 teams to average more than 30 points a game have won the Super Bowl.

III-time Champion (Capt. Awesome)
Projected finish: 2321.21 pts (3rd place)
Actual finish: 2457.67 pts (2nd place)
NFL equivalent: Seattle Seahawks
In another year, totaling just shy of 2500 pts would be enough to win the title. Mark that down as another reason why 2013 stunk. I overcame QB Aaron Rodgers’ injury, grabbed QB Nick Foles and the league-leading Seattle D off the wire, and coached my makeshift WR corps of TY Hilton and Wes Welker to near glory. But this league follows “Talledega Nights” rules -- if you’re not first, you’re last -- so I did no better than everyone but the champ. Except, you know, I did way better than most of you.

Kickers Rule (Sam)
Projected finish: 2106.41 pts (7th place)
Actual finish: 2603.94 pts (1st place)
NFL equivalent: Denver Broncos
Both Sam and Denver set new team scoring records this season. But while Denver did it the easy way -- assembling a strong team from undervalued free agents and solid draft picks -- Sam did it the smart way: dumb luck. RBs Jamaal Charles and Matt Forte topped the league, QB Cam Newton piled up the points, the KC defense fell in his lap, and he laughed all the way to the top. Not too bad for someone who could only name about six NFL players at the start of the season.

Congrats, Sam. You name has been etched among the legends of the league.

Thanks again to everyone for participating this year. I'm not sure if you all stick around because you enjoy playing or because you enjoy me making fun of you playing, but either way I appreciate it. Let's do it again in eight months.