Fantasy league 2015 -- final season recap

The games are all ended, the scores have been totaled, the recap headlines are a year behind already and the Awesome Cup has been shined up for its annual glorious presentation. But before we crown our new champion, let’s review how the other 11 losers did in this year’s fantasy football marathon:

May Pay Attention (Paul)
Projected finish: 5th place, 2175.33 pts
Actual finish: 12th place, 1416.97 pts
NFL equivalent: Tennessee Titans
For the second consecutive year, Paul finishes in dead last. His final squad boasted two injured QBs, four injured RBs and a defensive player who hadn’t played since week 8. He scored 166 pts over the last three weeks, which is just a few points ahead of what our top teams usually scored in a single week. But he’s guaranteed a high draft pick next year, so maybe a three-peat can be avoided.

Heap Big Chief Reid (Joel)
Projected finish: 6th place, 2111.54 pts
Actual finish: 11th place, 1468.55 pts
NFL equivalent: San Diego Chargers
Rumor has it that Joel may be considering relocating to Los Angeles in an effort to change his team’s fortune next year, much like his San Diego comparables. While big fat Andy Reid turned around his team’s early season slide to make the playoffs, Heap Big Chief Reid never made it there, slowly sliding further and further as the months drug on. But the good news is that he doesn’t have to root for Jay Cutler and Rashad Jennings any longer.

Blue Collar Killers (Jeff)
Projected finish: 10th place, 1974.72 pts
Actual finish: 10th place, 1629.93 pts
NFL equivalent: San Francisco 49ers
Boom. Nailed that prediction dead-on. A squad boasting Matt Ryan and Dez Bryant should have done better fantasy wise, but both enjoyed disappointing seasons. OK, maybe just I enjoyed that. Jeff’s strategy of only starting one defensive player for the final 10 weeks of the season (costing himself about 50 pts) also played a factor, but you have to admire his bold thinking. It still makes more sense than kicking the ball away in overtime, and the guy who did that is a football genius. Ask any pundit.

Clinton’s Email (Jim)
Projected finish: 9th place, 2001.01 pts
Actual finish: 9th place, 1730.22 pts
NFL equivalent: Cleveland Browns
Double Boom. Second team I placed perfectly in the pre-season. And this also marks the worst collective finish of our Ohio contingent, none of whom made it out of the bottom quarter of the league. Coincidentally, almost one-fourth of Jim’s points came from Tom Brady alone, proving that even he can’t win if you put enough bad players around him. Let’s try that in real life next year, just for fun.

Bethlehem Moravians (Bob)
Projected finish: 1st place, 2366.79 pts
Actual finish: 8th place, 1799.68 pts
NFL equivalent: New York Giants
I’m undeterred in my decision to pick Bob as the pre-season favorite each of the last two years, even though that pressure ultimately destroyed his team. In fact, I’m already on board with Bob as the odds-on favorite to win the league in 2016, given his anticipated draft position and pledge to build next year’s team around Riley Cooper and Demarco Murray. Because that’s a sure sign of a winner...

Eat Drink & D Murray (Capt Awesome)
Projected finish: 3rd place, 2303.33 pts
Actual finish: 7th place, 1884.30 pts
NFL equivalent: Philadelphia Eagles
I blame Sam Bradford for this. With a more reliable QB at the start of the season I would have easily challenged for the league title (provided that QB was Peyton Manning when he threw 55 TDs in 2013) and not had Bradford’s general dopiness infect the rest of my squad. Am I saying Jeremy Hill and Golden Tate would have been Pro Bowl players if they didn’t need to sit near Bradford? Of course not. But am I not saying that? Maybe. I lost my train of thought mid-play here … much like Sam Bradford.

3rd is the new 1st (Sam)
Projected finish: 8th place, 2023.23 pts
Actual finish: 6th place, 1966.87 pts
NFL equivalent: Carolina Panthers, but in 2014, not 2015
Rather confusingly, Sam finished neither third or first but instead sixth. But, most of Sam’s team was confusing this year. How could Aaron Rodgers be so terrible? How could Brandon LaFell and Charcandrick West become viable fantasy players? Who are all these other people that Sam has never heard of? And how did he not end up with the Patriots’ kicker this season, as is his team tradition? They’re the kinds of questions that haunt your offseason … for three minutes.

Cosby’s Sleeper (Mike)
Projected finish: 7th place, 2097.20 pts
Actual finish: 5th place, 1996.87 pts
NFL equivalent: Atlanta Falcons
There were times this season when both the Falcons and Mike’s squad looked like championship contenders. And then there was the end of the season, when both ended up just on the outside of respectability. Mike fell 3.13 pts short of reaching the 2000 pts mark for the season, largely due to his decision to leave Drew Brees on his bench for most of the year. But, unlike the Falcons, at least he doesn’t have to spend the offseason in the cesspool that is Hotlanta.

Yelp for help (Mom Doyle)
Projected finish: 12th place, 1804.54 pts
Actual finish: 4th place, 2007.60 pts
NFL equivalent: Pittsburgh Steelers
Great showing by our rookie coach, who week after week found ways to steal players off the waiver wire before I could get to them (we’ll be changing the waiver rules again next year as a result). Mom snuck over the finish line just out of medal position but over the 2000-pts threshold, which would sneak her into the playoffs if such a thing existed for us but gawd that would be two more weeks of recaps and I’m exhausted already. Even more impressive, she finished near the top despite carrying Demarco Murray’s dead weight all season, and with Eli Manning’s gaping maw staring into her soul. That’s fortitude right there.

1.21 Chip-a-watts (Ant)
Projected finish: 11th place, 1894.99 pts
Actual finish: 3rd place, 2028.20 pts
NFL equivalent: Kansas City Chiefs
You know it’s an odd season when Anthony finishes near the top. Remember 2011, when he won the league and two weeks later we all caught SARS? Not a coincidence. Ant rode Adrian Peterson’s totally-not-doped legs up the charts to a bronze medal finish (again, no medal will be provided) and the admiration of his fellow coaches. Well, maybe not admiration. What’s the word when Jordan Matthews scores a meaningless late TD? Toleration. Yeah, we can totally tolerate him. Sometimes.

Gettin’ Chippy (Jo)
Projected finish: 2nd place, 2366.79 pts
Actual finish: 2nd place, 2189.61 pts
NFL equivalent: Arizona Cardinals
TRIPLE BOOM! Three spots right in my pre-season picks may be a personal record, but since no one has ponied up cash for a league historian yet, we’ll never know. Joanna followed up last year’s fourth-place, missed-1st-by-14-pts finish with an impressive second-place, missed-1st-by-86-points campaign. Most of that was Cam Newton and DeAngelo Williams, but credit is due for her starting Jordan Reed each week without becoming violently ill. Maybe things would have been better if she remembered to set her roster in week 9, maybe she could have won if Andy Reid didn’t underuse Jeremy Maclin, maybe she could have grabbed her first Awesome Cup title. But instead ...

Lake Weed Monsters (Dad)
Projected finish: 4th place, 2265.65 pts
Actual finish: 1st place, 2274.65 pts
NFL equivalent: New England Patriots
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you our very first back-to-back Awesome Cup champion. In the league’s first 13 years, no one managed to repeat titles in consecutive years, but year 14 proved lucky for the reigning victor. And, much like the last team to repeat in the Super Bowl (the Patriots, c’mon, Sam, learn a little football), Dad did it with ruthless, shameless aggression. Rooting for Odell Beckham over the Eagles? Check. Giving up on Russell Wlison early to risk rolling with Blake Bortles? Check. Thoughtlessly tossing aside Eagles players to pick up Patriots? Check. Offering to trade LeSean McCoy to the Bill for nothing of real value in return? Probably, but it was done before he had a chance. But the overall strategy worked, and Dad coasted to another triumph, as his name is again engraved on our league trophy.

It should be noted again for the record that Dad lost in the weekly picks to me. Just saying.

As always, thanks to everyone for taking part this year. We’ll pick it up again in August, as Bob tries to justify his pre-season selection as the team to beat. Until then, go anybody but the Patriots and Maryland Racial Slurs.

Fantasy league 2015 -- week 17 recap

 

A few loose thoughts on the firing of Eagles coach Chip Kelly last week:

** I’m a little surprised it happened, because in recent years the Eagles have made a habit of only getting rid of good talent, not overhyped jerks.
** But I’m not surprised it happened that quickly. Eagles owner Jeff Lurie probably planned on waiting until season’s end, but Kelly forced him to hurry it up and get the play over with.
** Lurie actually offered to let Kelly stay if he just run down one reason why he should keep the job. Instead, Kelly called a pass play behind the line and lost three.
** Rumor is that Kelly tried to trade Lurie during the meeting, but ran out of draft picks to throw in the deal.
** The Eagles were 10-8 in the playoffs under Andy Reid, 2-7 in the postseason under the five other coaches they’ve had since 1983. I don’t have a joke here. Just a lot of angry.

Top performers of the year

QBs
3rd place: Blake Bortles, 383.56 pts -- owned by Dad (undrafted)
2nd place: Tom Brady, 410.74 pts -- owned by Jim (8th QB drafted)
1st place: Cam Newton, 423.86 pts -- owned by Jo (11th QB drafted)
** Rough, rough year in review coming here, folks. Every category except one had an undrafted player among the top three performers for the year, which is unfathomable when you consider that 216 players were drafted. That includes 24 QBs drafted, 22 of whom were worse picks than Bortles.

WRs
3rd place: Brandon Marshall, 220.73 pts -- owned by Sam (19th WR drafted)
2nd place: Julio Jones, 230.80 pts -- owned by Dad (7th WR drafted)
1st place: Antonio Brown, 242.74 pts -- owned by Mom Doyle (1st WR drafted)
** This is the only category where our drafted selections look good, and that’s only if we squint and pretend that 18 other people weren’t taken ahead of Marshall. On the plus side, the top WR picked was the top WR, so...

RBs
3rd place: DeAngelo Williams, 197.50 pts -- owned by Jo (undrafted)
2nd place: Adrian Peterson, 225.03 pts -- owned by Ant (1st RB drafted)
1st place: Devonta Freeman, 247.83 pts -- owned by Dad (38th RB drafted)
** Seriously. 53 RBs were picked up in the draft, 17 in the first two rounds. And all of them but Peterson turned out to be the wrong selections. I’m burning the mock draft boards next year.

TEs
3rd place: Gary Barnidge, 157.13 pts -- owned by me (undrafted)
2nd place: Jordan Reed, 164.47 pts -- owned by Jo (16th TE drafted)
1st place: Rob Gronkowski, 178.80 pts -- owned by Mike (1st TE drafted)
** Another top draftee on top of the board. And after that, all folks waaaay down the chart.

Ks
3rd place: Blair Walsh, 153.00 pts -- owned by Mike (undrafted)
2nd place: Graham Gano, 164.50 pts -- unowned (undrafted)
1st place: Stephen Gostkowski, 171.00 pts -- owned by me (1st K drafted)
** OK, yes, but nobody cares about kickers.

DEFs
3rd place: Kansas City, 191.00 pts -- owned by Mike (10th DEF drafted)
2nd place: Arizona, 189.00 pts -- owned by Jeff (6th DEF drafted)
1st place: Denver, 207.00 pts -- owned by Dad (undrafted)
** Even the defenses were a complete mystery this year. How the Broncos can go from “not considered in the top 15” to “best in the league” is worth a separate Denver steroids investigation.

Ds
3rd place: Lavonte David, 71.00 pts -- owned by Bob (undrafted)
2nd place: Deone Bucannon, 72.00 pts -- unowned (undrafted)
1st place: Reshad Jones, 86.86 pts -- owned by Paul (undrafted)
** Paul’s surprising appearance on this list gives every one of our coaches at least one of the season’s top performers on their squad … except Joel. Tough year, man.


“Worst of the year” edition

5th place: Jimmy Garoppolo, -0.50 pts -- on the wire
4th place: David Johnson, -0.83 pts -- on the wire
3rd place: Chris Harper, -1.66 pts -- on the wire
2nd place: Sean Renfree, -1.96 pts -- on the wire
1st place: Glenn Winston, -2.80 pts -- on the wire

Worth noting here that both Harper and Garoppolo play for the Patriots, so it’s a little extra embarrassing to see the one-time #1 seed in the AFC with two terrible fantasy players. Winston did all his damage on the only carry he had all year, losing 8 yds and fumbling the ball. It’s also what would have happened if Demarco Murray only got one carry this year.


** Looking back at some of the pre-season predictions by the sports experts this season … Sports Illustrated had 12 of their top NFL minds guess the playoffs in September. Ten of them had the Eagles in the playoffs, despite the massive offseason turnover. Six had the Eagles in the NFC championship game. Three had them in the Super Bowl. And three had Chip Kelly as coach of the year. For the record, they were incorrect.

** A report from CBS Sports this week said that one of the factors in Kelly’s firing was the team’s annual holiday party, a treasured tradition of Lurie that the ex-coach forced him to reschedule because it conflicted with his mid-week game preparation. And that would be a terrible reason to can a guy, unless you realize the eggnog would have only helped that awful play calling.

Some may call the Eagles 35-30 victory over the Giants a meaningless victory, since neither team has anything to play for. But that’s an incorrect assessment -- it was, in fact, a terrible, terrible win for the team in green. Consider:

** It dropped them in three spots in the draft. Not a huge deal, but when two division rivals get to pick just ahead of you, it’s gonna sting a little more if they steal a skill player.
** It made the Eagles 2016 schedule a worse. The Giants will now get to play the Rams and the Saints, the third place teams in the NFC South and West. The Eagles get the second place teams instead -- the Falcons and Seahawks.
** It made people think Demarco Murray was good. He had a 54-yard TD run on a broken play by the Giants, and all the sportswriters attributed it to Chip Kelly being gone. For the rest of the game, Murray had 11 runs for 15 yards and a fumble. Nice work, bum.
** It prevented a 10-loss season. Teams that lose 10 games are considered really bad, and in need of dramatic changes. But 7-9 you can blame on unlucky breaks, and say you were just a few scores away from 9-7. This team was awful. It deserved to lose 10.
** It ruined all my “The Eagles still haven’t won this year” jokes. I thought I had those available for the next nine long, long months.


Ah, poor Dallas. Your once promising campaign ended with a last-place finish and your star QB and WR on the injured list. True, your junkard pickup RB still rushed for 387 more yds than Demarco Murray, but the whole season seems like a disappointment. But at least you can always look forward to next year, right? Right? Just look at the optimism of your defensive starters...

Dallas Cowboys starting safety James Edward Wilcox
** As soft cowards caw amid jests, next year will go badly

Oh well, maybe 2017 will be kinder. We can only hope not.


** Back and forth, back and forth Dad and I went in our weekly picks, with neither one of us falling too far off pace in the battle of wills. Until this week, at least. With our totals tied for the year, I brought the hammer down in week 17, sweeping all three games we had different (and flipping on two others I could have also taken). That gives me the title for the year, breaking his three-year run of prognosticating dominance.

I went 161-95 on the season, picking the winner 62.9% of the time. That would put me ahead of every ESPN NFL “expert” on their weekly picks list except for Chris Mortensen, who went 163-93. And he does this for a living.

** Bleacher Report has the Eagles with the 13th pick in the draft selecting Michigan State QB Connor Cook, who just got shut out in the college football playoffs. So, yeah. They don’t have the Eagles taking anyone in round two because ohmigawd we really did trade that for Sam Bradford.

** CBS Sports and Bleacher Report have Antonio Brown as their top fantasy draft pick for next fall so congrats Steelers on your season being ruined next year.

Week 17 standings

The final league standings -- and the presentation of the Awesome Cup -- will take place tomorrow, after all the scores are calculated and finalized. Until then, make no assumptions. Anything can still happen.

Well, except Paul winning.