Fantasy league 2021 -- final season recap

It’s always difficult to say goodbye to a fantasy season, especially one as special as “The Awesome Cup Championship #20 brought to you by NFL Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, the greatest safety of all time.” But the NFL’s decision to add another game, then rig the final game of the season to go into overtime, gave us as much regular season football as any normal person can handle. So, as is tradition, it is time to crown our glorious champion, right after we recognize the 11 losers left in her wake:

Clever Team Name (Paul)
Yahoo ranking: 2330.84 pts, 2nd place
My ranking: 2000.01 pts, 8th place
Actual finish: 1365.09 pts, 12th place
NFL equivalent: Jacksonville Jaguars

Pretty sure Paul was kidnapped by a foriegn government sometime in mid-October, because we haven’t heard from him since. I’m not sure it would have mattered much, though. QB Russell Wilson was a disappointment for most of the year, RB Christian McCaffery was a top-pick injury bust for the season in a row, and TE Darren Waller killed my two other fantasy teams along with Paul’s. On the plus side, if Paul is serving prison time overseas, they probably have soccer on, so he’ll be paying attention to that.

Not That Four Seasons (Ant)
Yahoo ranking: 2019.67 pts, 12th place
My ranking: 2019.67 pts, 6th place
Actual finish: 1899.12 pts, 11th place
NFL equivalent: New Jersey Giants

Oh boy. Much like Antonio Brown going from a top WR to a shirtless fool in the end zone, this team went from bad to really bad quickly. As recently as early December, Anthony’s team was in 8th place and looking up at the top half of the standings. Then QB Lamar Jackson got hurt, WR Courtland Sutton disappeared completely, and RB Javonte Williams stopped scoring too. Ant’s team failed to top 85 pts three times in the last four weeks, much like the Giants failed to score more than 10 points in any of their last four games. Unlike Brown’s meltdown, at least Ant managed to keep his clothes on (as far as we know…)

Patriots Secret Cam (Joel)
Yahoo ranking: 2166.32 pts, 10th place
My ranking: 1996.05 pts, 9th place
Actual finish: 1911.57 pts, 10th place
NFL equivalent: Seattle Seahawks

Ignoring my preseason prediction, I’m not sure how Joel’s team ended up down this low. QB Tom Brady was solid. RB Joe Mixon was a top-three rusher. TE Dalton Schultz was top three at his position too. And after that … well … OK, I see what happened here. Joel only had one wideout in the top 35 (Keenan Allen) and only one RB in the top 45 (Mixon). Gotta field a whole team, not just a couple of stars. Seattle found that out the hard way this year.

It’s All Hurts (Dad)
Yahoo ranking: 2400.24 pts, 1st place
My ranking: 1703.03 pts, 12th place
Actual finish: 1917.11 pts, 9th place
NFL equivalent: Miami Dolphins

One of my favorite fantasy jokes every year is waiting for Dad to get the top post-draft ranking from Yahoo, then watching those predictions crash and burn. This year was no exception, with the search engine’s bizarre algorithm overrating his squad yet again. But instead of burying Dad’s fortunes this season, I come here to praise his dedication to the game. His squad was 100 points out of 10th place at the start of December after a miserable combination of gawd-awful WR play, sub-par results from RB Dalvin Cook and an unholy QB combination of Derek Carr and Carson Wentz. And yet he stuck with it, slowly climbed back up the standings and jumped into the single-digit ranks. That’s the kind of heart I want to see out of all of our coaches each year. And so, in recognition of his solid, steady focus, I award him the coveted “Dan Marino Award for Excellence.” It doesn’t come close to a championship at all, but it feels like an important award anyways.

Kneel Armstrong (Sam)
Yahoo ranking: 2234.04 pts, 7th place
My ranking: 2233.44 pts, 4th place
Actual finish: 2016.43 pts, 8th place
NFL equivalent: San Diego Chargers

The Chargers missed the playoffs by a last-second FG in overtime of the last regular season game, and Sam missed the 7th-place pseudo playoff berth by a mere 0.41 pts. Imagine all the small decisions he could have made to avoid that fate. What if he hadn’t relied on WR Brandon Aiyuk all season? What if he had drafted Jonathan Taylor instead of Alvin Kamara? What if he didn’t stupidly go for a fourth down on his own 20-yard-line in the third quarter of the final game? (That may apply more to the San Diego coach than Sam.) So many what ifs. For now, the only comfort for both is that they struck gold with QB Justin Herbert, and there is more football to play next year.

Came and Wentz (Capt. Awesome)
Yahoo ranking: 2166.32 pts, 10th place
My ranking: 2333.33 pts, 3rd place
Actual finish: 2016.84 pts, 7th place
NFL equivalent: Philadelphia Eagles

Much like the birds, I ended up in 7th place and would not consider this a good year under any metric except for the NFL’s watered-down playoff rules. I really expected more from this squad — QB Matt Stafford was a late-round steal, RBs Nick Chubb and Josh Jacobs should have been worth more, WR/RB Cordarrelle Patterson was a fun fantasy roller coaster ride each week. Yahoo said my team had the most points of any squad from waiver wire pickups and the least from actual drafted players, which is an impressive feat. This is the first time since 2016 that I haven’t finished in the top three, so we’re gonna have to have some major rule changes next year to fix that.

Blue Collar Killers (Jeff)
Yahoo ranking: 2174.43 pts, 8th place
My ranking: 1993.12 pts, 10th place
Actual finish: 2031.36 pts, 6th place
NFL equivalent: Pittsburgh Steelers

Solid showing from one of our oldest franchises, but Jeff gets docked style points here for using too many Cowboys to get this high in the standings. His WR corps of Davante Adams, Stefon Diggs, CeeDee Lamb, Mike Evans and Marquise Brown gave him five of the top 25 players at the position. But he had trouble figuring out the timing of when to use them, and often left substantial points on the bench. RBs Leonard Fournette and Melvin Gordon were little help the second half of the season. He also had Ameer Abdullah on his roster, even though I was sure he retired 10 years ago. Still, finishing in the top half of the standings is nothing to sneeze at. Like the Steelers, they did enough to look respectable at the end of the season, especially given the low pre-season expectations.

Ouch! It Hurts (Mom D)
Yahoo ranking: 2171.83 pts, 9th place
My ranking: 2401.10 pts, 2nd place
Final ranking: 2074.24 pts, 5th place
NFL equivalent: Arizona Cardinals

If you told Mom D and the Cardinals they’d finish as the #5 seed at the start of the year, they’d both be excited at the strong showing. But given that both looked halfway through the year like they could top the charts, this ending feels a bit low and anti-climactic. Mom complained about Aaron Rodgers all year long — even though he was the sixth-highest scoring player in fantasy for the year — and had Joe Burrow as a worthy backup. Her trade of Tyler Lockett for Diontae Johnson added 20 extra points to her team for the season (would have put me in 6th place, dammit) and RB James Connor was a late-round steal with lots of TDs. But in the end, her faith in players like Cole Beasley proved costly, and her team was overtaken by other, hungrier squads. Five is good enough to get you mentioned among the top teams, but not enough to get you a title.

Murder Hornets (Mike)
Yahoo ranking: 2297.88 pts, 4th place
My ranking: 2009.97 pts, 7th place
Actual finish: 2124.18 pts, 4th place
NFL equivalent: Kansas City Chiefs

For the record, the gap between Mike’s 4th place finish and Ant’s 11th place finish was 225 pts, and the gap between Mike and 1st place was 301 pts. That’s a wide, wide berth between the haves and the have nots this year. Mike’s team was the ultimate feast-or-famine squad: Over the last two weeks alone, he scored more than 300 pts. But in the previous eight weeks, he failed to break the 100-pts barrier four times. QB Patrick Mahomes was wildly inconsistent, RB Derrick Henry watched his leg snap off mid-season, the Buffalo defense buffaloed. Mike did claim the title of “most waiver wire pickups” this year, an award which Dad usually has wrapped up by week 10, but not this time. Sadly, all those moves couldn’t get him onto the medal podium.

This is Fine (Bob)
Yahoo ranking: 2255.26 pts, 5th place
My ranking: 1850.50 pts, 11th place
Actual finish: 2154.46 pts, 3rd place
NFL equivalent: Green Bay Packers

Bob gets the bronze medal after a solid season-long campaign, along with his award for the best team name of the year (Jonathan was ineligible, I came up with his team name.) WR Deebo Samuel and QB Kyler Murray piled on the points, TE George Kittle and WR Mike Williams had big games to keep his team moving up. RB Saquon Barkley didn’t stink enough to tank his team. And Bob even started a defensive player named Foye Oluokun, which is Scandinavian for “fictional linebacker.” Third place is nothing to be ashamed of, unless your goal is to have your name etched among the legends, in which case third means you missed true victory by two spots.

Honey Bunches of Goats (Jonathan)
Yahoo ranking: 2249.50 pts, 6th place
My ranking: 2501.03 pts, 1st place
Actual finish: 2333.34 pts, 2nd place
NFL equivalent: Tennessee Titans

Oh boy. Junior Awesome had an impressive rookie season, mixing a solid draft (QB Josh Allen, RB Austin Ekeler, WR Tyreek Hill) with some impressive post-draft pickups (WR Jaylen Waddle, RB Eli Mitchell). Every Tuesday night, Jonathan would be scouring the waiver wire for deals, trying to suss out the diamonds in the rough from the big-name busts like Odell Beckham. He’d look at targets and rushing averages. He’d weigh upcoming strength of schedule. And then he’d pick the guys with the most ridiculous names (WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, TE Pat Freiermuth) and start them. The boy didn’t win the ultimate prize, but he did earn the league’s “rookie of the year award,” a very rare honor since we haven’t given it out in about five years since everybody returns every year.

That leaves just one team left, your champion for the year:

QB Carousel (Jo)
Yahoo ranking: 2307.74 pts, 3rd place
My ranking: 2112.21 pts, 5th place
Actual finish: 2425.54 pts, 1st place
NFL equivalent: 2017 Philadelphia Eagles

There really is no more appropriate champion for “The Awesome Cup Championship #20 brought to you by NFL Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, the greatest safety of all time” than Joanna. She’s one of the founding members of the league, endured 20 years of nonsense fantasy talk from me, labored through 20 years of recap copy editing and joke management as my obsession has grown by hundreds of words each week. And through it all, she has failed to get her name onto the greatest trophy in all of sports, until now.

Joanna proved that you can win a championship with QB Jalen Hurts (provided you put all-star players around him). She grabbed the top RB (Jonathan Taylor) at the end of the first round. She got the second-place TE (Travis Kelce) in the second round. She got the top WR (Cooper Kupp) in the fourth round and the top rookie WR (Jamar Chase) in the seventh. She picked up the top D player (TJ Watt) and top K (Daniel Carlson) off the waiver wire. Every move she made this year seemed to work (except relying on RB Miles Sanders, but no one really believes in him anymore).

It would be sacrilege to compare Joanna’s prowess to Dawkins in the year of “The Awesome Cup Championship #20 brought to you by NFL Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, the greatest safety of all time,” but I think I found a fitting nickname for Joanna’s long-awaited, underdog trip to the side of the trophy.

Since Joanna and the boy will likely be insufferable about beating me this season, August can’t come soon enough. As always, thanks to all of you for playing this year, and start getting your research together now for next year’s fantasy campaign.