Let’s Go Iggles (Paul)
Yahoo ranking: 2056.48 pts, 5th place
My ranking: 1505.01 pts, 12th place
Actual finish: 1594.60 pts, 12th place
NFL equivalent: Houston Texans
Easiest call of the year. Everybody expected the Texans to be bad this year, and they were. I expected Paul to bail out around week 5, and he did. I even predicted his final score within 100 pts, while Yahoo overestimated by almost 500. No need to spend a lot of time on Paul’s roster, because he hasn’t talked to the players since before Thanksgiving. It’s the same strategy Lovie Smith took with his Houston team, and that’s why he was fired this week.
Room Temperature Icers (Sam)
Yahoo ranking: 2032.30 pts, 7th place
My ranking: 2032.21 pts, 5th place
Actual finish: 1705.17 pts, 11th place
NFL equivalent: Carolina Panthers
This was one of my sleeper teams, and it blew up in my face. Justin Jefferson, Mike Evans and Deebo Samuel seemed like an unstoppable receiving corps, and RB Dameon Pierce was great … until both his legs fell off midseason. Relying on QB Matt Stafford looks pretty rough in hindsight too. On the plus side, Sam only finished a stone’s throw out of 9th place, much like the Panthers finished just a hair out of first place in the NFC South. On the minus side, that’s still pretty poor.
Patriots Secret Cam (Joel)
Yahoo ranking: 2005.47 pts, 11th place
My ranking: 1644.98 pts, 11th place
Actual finish: 1711.42 pts, 10th place
NFL equivalent: Atlanta Falcons
I saw this one coming before a game was played, and, again, another score prediction within 5 percent of the actual total. QB Dak Prescott was shaky. RB Damien Harris was weak. WR Cooper Kupp had a huge drop off from 2021. Starting RB Melvin Gordon for the last two months — even after he was cut by the Broncos and no longer playing football, probably wasn't a great coaching strategy either. And TE Travis Kelce … OK, he was still great, I may have guessed that part wrong. But it wasn’t enough to elevate this squad into the single digits.
No One Likes Us We Don’t Care (Bob)
Yahoo ranking: 2177.17 pts, 1st place
My ranking: 1998.76 pts, 7th place
Actual finish: 1753.04 pts, 9th place
NFL equivalent: Indianapolis Colts
Ooooh boy. I really thought Bob’s squad had a chance to make me look bad this year. The professor easily won best team name of the season and had a squad stacked with QB Justin Herbert, RBs Joe Mixon and Alvin Kamara, and two potential pro-Bowl TEs in TJ Hockenson and Dallas Goedert. And after that? Absolutely nothing. Like, “starting players everybody else drafted in the 10th round” nothing. Let that be a lesson to all of you, folks: If you want to win a title, you need depth on your bench. Always have a Nick Foles hiding somewhere.
Murder Hornets (Mike)
Yahoo ranking: 2029.17 pts, 9th place
My ranking: 1884.66 pts, 10th place
Actual finish: 1781.09 pts 8th place
NFL equivalent: Green Bay Packers
Up until the last week of the season, you felt like old Aaron Rogers was gonna find a way to sneak into the playoffs. And even though Mike’s autodraft was dreadful this year, you just felt like he was gonna find a way to sneak into the top of the standings despite his roster’s shortcomings. To his credit, Mike pulled his squad up from dead last on Nov. 1 to the middle of the pack by the end of the year. Still, for title winners like Rogers and Mike, mediocre is just another word for failure.
Crumb Bums (Ant)
Yahoo ranking: 2073.04 pts, 4th place
My ranking: 2202.55 pts, 2nd place
Actual finish: 1927.89 pts, 7th place
NFL equivalent: Arizona Cardinals
I think Anthony was in 6th or 7th place every single week this year. But, in the same way that I don’t want to remember anything about the 2022 Cardinals season, I don’t want to spend time going back to check. Anthony managed to injure his top two RBs (Jonathan Taylor and Javonte Williams) and his top TE (Mark Andrews) before ending QB Kyler Murray’s season early. His top four drafted wideouts all missed time too. And yet, thankfully, his angel of death coaching style didn’t hurt Eagles K Jake Elliot. So at least Ant has his priorities straight.
Blue Collar Killers (Jeff)
Yahoo ranking: 1967.90 pts, 12th place
My ranking: 2101.01 pts, 4th place
Actual finish: 1942.67 pts, 6th place
NFL equivalent: Miami Dolphins
Another “told you so” from me to Yahoo. Jeff’s solid WR corps of Davante Adams, AJ Brown, and DK Metcalf kept him afloat all year, and his RB tandem of Dalvin Cook and Travis Etienne were solid if not spectacular. If his QB (Trey Lance) hadn’t been ripped in half in the second game of the season, maybe Jeff’’s squad could have excelled. But, much like the Dolphins, he snuck into the top half of the league and has a solid base of success to build on next season.
Mailata's Size 18 Shoes (Dad)
Yahoo ranking: 2147.07 pts, 3rd place
My ranking: 1919.18 pts, 9th place
Actual finish: 1960.60 pts, 5th place
NFL equivalent: 2007 New England Patriots
It doesn’t matter what the stats say, Dad’s whole season is called into question because of the cheating scandal in the other league. Did his cheating there elevate his team here? Hard to say. Did deflating footballs and taping other teams’ practices help the Patriots win? Hard to say. But either way, it was a clear violation, and it sullies the entire competitive balance of the league. Dad and Bill Belechick will now be forever linked in the minds of fans everywhere.
More Honey Bunches of Goats (Jonathan)
Yahoo ranking: 2022.08 pts, 10th place
My ranking: 1945.00 pts, 8th place
Actual finish: 2097.37 pts, 4th place
NFL equivalent: Cincinnati Bengals
Fourth place is a great finish for a second-year player, but if we’re being honest, Jonathan should have gotten done better. No one in our fantasy league was hurt more by the canceled Bills/Bengals contest than Jonathan, who lost out on a projected 40-plus points when QB Joe Burrow and WR Stefon Diggs didn’t play. If the game turned into a shootout, both were capable of posting even more, and the boy fell just 53 points short of his second second-place finish. Of course, if RB Miles Sanders hadn’t disappeared for the last month of the season, maybe he would have finished higher too. But, as it is, he can claim dominion over almost everyone else in the league, just not anyone else in his own house.
Champ for Life (Jo)
Yahoo ranking: 2035.14 pts, 6th place
My ranking: 2405.33 pts, 1st place
Actual finish: 2102.71 pts, 3rd place
NFL equivalent: Kansas City Chiefs
Last year’s Awesome Cup champion fails to repeat but posts a respectable third-place finish, giving her a league-record five bronze medals. Over the last three years she has finished 3rd, 1st and 3rd, making her the complementary model of consistency to Andy Reid’s current football team. Both owe their success to QB Patrick Mahomes this year, but Jo also managed to wring a lot of points out of players on messy teams like the Jets (WR Garrett Wilson and RB Breece Hall) and Packers (RB Aaron Jones and WR Allen Lazard) too. And for the second year in a row, she finishes one spot ahead of her son, keeping the next generation in his place for the time being.
JJaw dropping skills (Capt. Awesome)
Yahoo ranking: 2031.25 pts, 8th place
My ranking: 2133.33 pts, 3rd place
Actual finish: 2150.20 pts, 2nd place
NFL equivalent: 2004 Philadelphia Eagles
I was only off 17 points in my pre-season prediction of how my team would do. Less than 1 percent. C’mon, that’s pretty crazy.
Did I mention I drafted the top three rushers on the season (RBs Derrick Henry, Nick Chubb and Josh Jacobs)? And did I mention that if I had drafted running QB Jalen Hurts instead of running QB Lamar Jackson in the fourth round, I would have finished 150 pts higher? I screwed up my QB picks in all four leagues I was in this year, which made for some tough sledding. Still, with an exemplary RB corps and inventive waiver wire strategy, I managed to keep first place within view until late in the season. It’s my 12th podium finish in the 21 years we’ve had the league, which just shows that if you’re dedicated and smart and in control of all of the league’s settings, you can achieve great things.
But, second place is still just first loser, so it’s time to crown our new champion:
Ouch! It Hurts (Mom D)
Yahoo ranking: 2162.30 pts, 2nd place
My ranking: 2022.97 pts, 6th place
Actual finish: 2386.85 pts, 1st place
NFL equivalent: 2023 Philadelphia Eagles
The college football championship was a ridiculous 65-7 blowout, and the race for the Awesome Cup wasn’t really much closer. Mom jumped into first place in week 7 and never let go. Her margin of victory was so big that she could have benched RB Jamaal Williams — the #7 RB on the season — before the first week of games and still won by about 30 points. If she had benched all her players except her kicker the final two weeks of the season, she still would have won by a dozen points.
She drafted the top RB (Austin Eckler), the top K (Justin Tucker), the #2 TE (George Kittle), the #3 QB (Hurts), the #6 RB (Saquon Barkley), the WR steal of the year (DeVonta Smith, drafted 41st, finished 11th), and surrounded them all with other fantasy studs like Williams and WR Terry McLaurin. It was total domination.
It should be noted this is the second year in a row the team that drafted Hurts won our fantasy league. It’s also the first time we’ve had back-to-back women wins in league history, and it’s the first title in eight years of playing for Mom D.
This is usually the moment where I unveil the winner’s name etched onto the front of the Awesome Cup. But, I have sad news to report. After 20 years, there is no room left there for another winner. Even as awesome as the Awesome Cup is, league officials have informed me that the trophy’s structural integrity cannot handle another layer without the whole thing collapsing. Plus, for the Awesome Cup to be truly epic, it must have the same number of rings as the greatest player in the history of the NFL, Eagles S Brian Dawkins (for whom last season — “The Awesome Cup Championship #20 brought to you by NFL Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, the greatest safety of all time” — was named, in case you forgot.)
Therefore, in a break with tradition, Mom D’s name will instead be etched on …
… the other side of the cup. I mean, there’s plenty of room over there. I uploaded another copy here so you can zoom in and see just how much space there is. And doing this buys us 19 more years before we need to worry about where to fit the next set of names. By then, Jonathan should be running the league and it’ll be his problem.
Mom D’s reign of terror officially begins today, and the rest of us have to wait until next September to exact our revenge. Thanks again to everyone for playing and reading and propelling the Eagles to victory this season. Hopefully we’ll be able to enjoy the playoffs, and maybe even get to see a different trophy come to the Philly area.
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