Welcome back. A few notes before we get into it:
- The timeline is 2015-now
- Postseason record combines playoff results from all five seasons with consolation bracket results from the last two seasons (since the #1 pick became a bargaining chip)
- Sometimes I call it the consolation bracket; sometimes I call it the pick ladder.
- There have been significant scoring changes over the years:
- Between 2016 and 2017, an extra player was added to our lineups. Scoring increased by 7 points per team per lineup, despite NFL scoring being wayyyy down.
- Between 2017 and 2018, we added keepers, but this didn’t affect overall scoring. What affected overall scoring was that the NFL broke its record for offensive TDs by 57, besting 2017’s total by 165 offensive TDs, good for at least 990 fantasy points (62 per week including fantasy playoffs).
- Between 2018 and 2019, point-per-first down added an average 20 points per team per week, but because 2018 was such an outlier, overall scoring only increased about 14 points per team per week.
- There might be other things that don’t make sense. I wouldn’t worry about it.
Timeless Team Name: Better Call Morty
Regular Season Record: 44-24 (.647 W%, 1st)
Postseason Record: 2-5 (.286, worst)
Best Finish: 2nd (2016, 2018)
Worst Finish: 11th (2017)
Average Finish: 5th
High Score: 212 (2019, Week 8)
Low Score: 83 (twice)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Jameis
RB Dalvin Cook, Carlos Hyde (SF version), Marlon Mack
WR AJ Green, Julio Jones
TE [whoever’s hot and cheap]
IDP Calais Campbell, Vontaze Burfict, Derwin James
K Justin Tucker
DST 2010 Bucs
In addition to having the best overall record, Brian also has the best single-season record, 12-2, which he accomplished on his way to second place in 2016. According to history, it’s time for Brian to reach the championship again and lose again. Brian has a ring or two in this league, but that was B.C. (“Before Cameron,” aka “The Anchorman Era”), so they don’t count as canon. We weren’t a complete league then; we had half-assers and quitters and stooges, and maybe we still have stooges but we solved the other stuff.
Still, in the five seasons that are canon, Brian has secured a first-round bye in the playoffs in four of them. (Only one other team even has two bye weeks on their record.) For what its’ worth, if you remove Brian’s worst season (an anomalous 3-11), he has a .759 winning percentage since 2015.
At least recently, his team has a tendency to look like trash coming out of the draft, then somehow something happens, and he’s rattling off six straight wins and coasting into the playoffs. There’s no simple solution for getting over the hump. In 2016, Brian finished with the best record, but Evan had maybe the best team our league has ever seen—Lev, Gurley, and David Johnson at the height of the powers, Rodgers leading the league in TDs, and rookie Tyreek as the cherry on top. Then in 2018, Cameron led the league in scoring by about ten points per game. Brian would have beat him any playoff week except championship week, when Cam’s squad combined for 180, a squad headed by Zeke, Kamara, Tyreek, and Antonio Brown.
I don’t think there are any lessons here. It’s just good trivia to know that if you have Tyreek Hill and multiple stud RBs, you’ve probably got the upper hand on Brian.
So whatever happens to Brian in the end, it seems to be nothing more than an unfortunate result of playing the game. And Brian plays the right way. He’s active in trades, and he takes risks in free agency. He averages 60 transactions per year. Last year alone, Brian made a league-high 115 transactions (1 trade). I think if there is a weakness to Brian’s game, it’s that he’s too aware of potential complacency, which spurs him to take unnecessary risks to mitigate said complacency while not actually risking enough to increase his potential output. It’s shits and gigs, basically. Anyone who makes the playoffs has done all they can do. After Week 13, we have very little influence over the game. Free agency is pretty bare (except IDP and maybe K), and we rarely have stacked enough teams to have more than one pivotal decision per matchup.
Whatever you think about what I’m saying, remember that when you matchup against Brian, you should recognize his status as top dog. Even when his team looks like trash, he scrapes together points and assembles winning teams.
Looking to 2020, what can we expect of Brian? For years, we’ve known who his starting QB would be—and I suppose that could still happen if Drew Brees slips in the shower—but maybe without Jameis, he’ll be liberated to experiment at QB. It’s more likely we see total chaos. Without that crutch, Brian will actually have to think about the QB position, which will draw focus away from the sleeper RBs and WRs that have sustained his success. I’m shying away from making outright predictions right now, but I am curious to see what Brian does without not only Jameis but maybe even Dalvin Cook, who I expect to be drafted before Brian’s pick at 9. My assumption as of August 16 is that he’ll enter the draft with Chris Godwin and DeVante Parker, and while that doesn’t guarantee he’ll take an RB with his first pick, it might liberate him to trade up for the RB he wants.
(Reminder: the champ rule this year was to convert one RB slot into an additional FLEX.)
Timeless Team Name: Jimmy G String Divas
Regular Season Record: 43-25 (.647 W%, 2nd)
Postseason Record: 6-2 (.750, 1st)
Best Finish: 2018 Champ
Worst Finish: 9th (2016)
Average Finish: 4th
High Score: 186 (2018, Week 4)
Low Score: 54 (2015, Championship, Week 17)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Brady
RB Zeke, Kamara, James White
WR Tyreek, Emmanuel Sanders
TE Gronk
IDP JPP, Jamie Collins, [totally random DB]
K Dan Bailey?
DST Vikings
In this five-year history, Cameron paces us in scoring by a solid 300 points. There are even a few low-scoring teams who, if they were to have any hope of catching up, would need him to sit out an entire season. He has posted 1900 points each of the last three seasons (i.e., since we added a player to the starting lineup), and he’s the only team averaging more than 140 points per game in that timeframe. But in 2019, he dropped to fifth in scoring, barely above league average. He was one of two teams who didn’t set a new personal single-game scoring record (due to the first-down bump), though his personal best (186) did set a league record at one point (Week 4, 2018).
If I were to narrativize this sucker, I’d say we figured out what he likes and how to keep him from getting it so easily. If I were to be fair and logical, I’d say a few of us has really great seasons last year whereas Cameron just kept paddling his canoe same as he ever did. In a down year, he still fought all the way to the championship game (and you LOST, biiitch), outscoring ten teams during that championship week (except the one that mattered, ya big ol’ biiitch).
There’s not much else to say. He missed the playoffs twice: in 2016 he was a meh 6-8. Then in 2017 he led the league in scoring and finished 8-6, but he lost the head-to-head tiebreaker (MWAHAHAHA!). Say what you will about a H2H vs. a points tiebreaker. Over the course of a season, it matters when you score. How do you lead the league in scoring and lose six games, anyway? Wasn’t meant to be.
As an additional note here, Cameron averages 30 transactions per year, and he’s surprising consistent, with a low of 27 and a high of 37. It’s below our league-average of 42, but it’s probably the right amount of movement a team should make. Now, to be clear, I personally am not going to restrict my movement for the sake of efficiency and, uh you know, some sort of recipe for success prescribed by team that wins more consistently than anyone else. I’m perfectly happy being unhappy with my team in the middle of every week.
Looking to 2020, Cameron should be expected to totally suck. No, seriously. What I failed to mention when talking him up just now was that he spent three years owning Kamara for free. For fucking FREE. And he drafted Zeke relatively late each of those seasons. In his championship season, his keepers were Tyreek and Kamara, and he was traded (by some boob) the 1.06 and 1.08 for the 1.01, then he was basically given the player taken at 1.01 for the player at 1.08. Look, don’t ask me who made those trades with him. I don’t keep great records of this thing, but I’m pretty sure whoever did it was really sorry about it and made up for it by beating him in the championship game the following season.
Look, we’re getting off track.
The point is that Cameron’s success the past few seasons can be tied to favorable starting positions. This season his keepers are fine. He’s pretty set on keeping Dak and Darren Waller, which is a very good pair of keepers, but it’s no Tyreek/Kamara, okay. And he’s got his worst starting position. Last year, he was able to snag Zeke 12th overall, and there’s just no way. So after three straight campaigns of Zeke/Kamara filling those RB slots, he’s going to have to build something completely different. It’s a good test. It’s a chance for Cameron to prove that even if fantasy football is a game of luck, he brings skill that sets him apart. My contention is that he won’t prove that all but instead will totally suck.
Timeless Team Name: Turn Down for Watt
Regular Season Record: 40-28 (.588, T-3rd)
Postseason Record: 3-3 (.500, T-4th)
Best Finish: 2016 Champ
Worst Finish: 9th (2018)
Average Finish: 5th
High Score: 205 (2019, Week 3)
Low Score: 70 (2015, Week 12)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Carson Wentz
RB Lev Bell, Nick Chubb, Matt Jones
WR Hopkins, Keenan Allen
TE Kelce
IDP Lavonte, Watt, Reshad Jones
K Caleb Sturgis
DST Wade Phillips
Evan was the first in our league to break 180 points. It was in 2016, before we even bumped up scoring. Sean had set the record at 170 in 2015, on his way to a championship. Evan’s team in 2016 was the one I mentioned earlier—Bell, DJ, Gurley, Rodgers, etc. He was killing us that year, outscoring the next best team by a cool seven points per game, but it wasn’t until the final week of the season that we knew what he was capable of. Brian had some insane winning streak and locked up the 1-seed a couple weeks earlier. Evan was one game behind Sean for the 2-seed, and they were somehow playing each other that final week. Well, I kind of spoiled it at the top, and for good reason since I have no details on how it happened (ESPN doesn’t keep anything but the scores, and I didn’t write any notes after Week 13 that season), but Evan scored 183, shattering Sean’s scoring record and supplanting Sean as the 2-seed in those playoffs, which Evan proceeded to steamroll. The bye week didn’t end up mattering, as Evan outscored every team every week leading up to his championship demolition of Brian’s record-setting team. It all stems from that record-setting performance, and it’s like this Wilt-Chamberlainian myth we would have to recreate from snippets in order to understand. It’s over 16 points per player without any propping up from PPR or PPFD—
Okay, fuck it. I looked it up. Week 14, 2016: Rodgers has 250 yds and 3 TDs ~ 28 pts David Johnson has 120 yards ~ 12 pts Kyle Rudolph has 60 and a TD ~ 12 Gurley has 80 yds and a TD ~ 14 Tyreek has 60 rec yds, 120 ret yds, and 2 TDs ~ 24 Lev Bell has… 298 yards and 3 TDs ~ 48!!!
That’s basically 140, so I’m fine cutting myself off there. Holy shit, though! And I’m pretty sure there would have been a 200+ yards bonus that gave Bell over 50. Wow.
Zooming out, Evan has obviously been one of the fiercer competitors in our league. (If you haven’t noticed yet, we’re going in order of winning percentage over the past five years.) He has a clear-minded approach to player evaluation. He has an intimate knowledge of the game, and he’s been watching as long and as passionately and as brilliantly as any of us (except maybe Corey, but he has a distinct advantage where time on Earth is concerned). What I’m saying is that Evan is reasonably better at this than the rest of us, and it’s been fun making a nemesis of him over the years in my notes. I don’t know how it started, and to be fair, it’s waned as I’ve focused in on Cameron as kind of an overarching villain of the league as a whole. Evan, now that Cam is vanquished, I promise to return that passion to our rivalry. What I already know writing this is that the next person on this list is me. Evan and I have the exact same record over these past five seasons. I decided to use average finish as a tiebreaker, and Evan edged me. You see, I couldn’t use average score per game, because Evan and I are knotted at 127. Technically I’ve scored 36 more points, but I said we’re knotted, dammit, and if I want 2020 to be the year that we decide who’s the real highlander, then dammit that’s what will fucking go down!
But okay, focusing on Evan, he’s missed the playoffs once, and it was in 2018 when he was one of five teams tied for fifth place and, look, I still don’t understand the math that decided the top two teams in that rat king but what I do understand is that Evan is always in this thing. Always.
In 2020, I don’t expect things to be any different. I think fatherhood will drain his legs a little and maybe make him forget every now and then what day it is, but he’s gotta teach this little ball of goo how to play this game at some point. I see a potential back-to-basics approach that return him to the promised land, but to be fair, that might be a few years from now. This season, he has a rough start to the draft with no picks until #18 overall. I thought I completely sold out 2021 for my championship last season, but even I have a first rounder. Then again, Evan starts with Nick Chubb, who’s basically as good as whoever he was getting 7th overall anyway. Maybe he turns that extra 5th rounder he got from Kennedy into another sweet keeper for next year, all the while competing for a playoff spot like he does every year. All I know is when it’s my turn to face him, I want to crush him. Oh, now I have to look up what our record is against each other…
(imagine this taking a while; cut together a montage where I’m talking to people at city hall, gathering files, perusing them, fist-pumping, typing in a dark room, pale blue light reflecting off my glasses, a slow smile creeping in, and then…)
First thing I found: I beat him in 2016, the week before he posted 183. So I catalyzed that shit and you’re welcome.
Second thing: he beat me earlier that season.
Overall, Evan’s record against me is 6-2, including 3 wins in 2018 alone. It’s not as much of a rivalry as I imagined, BUT I did almost derail his championship season, okayyy, AND I won our most recent matchup, sooo it’s like practically even.
Timeless Team Name: The Legend of Solenya
Regular Season Record: 40-28 (.588, T-3rd)
Postseason Record: 3-4 (.429, T-9th)
Best Finish: Reigning Champ
Worst Finish: 10th (2018)
Average Finish: 6th
High Score: 217.63 (2019, Week 10)
Low Score: 66 (2015, Week 11)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Lamar, Stafford
RB [premature rooks & last-gasp vets]
WR Evans, Crowder
TE Jimmy Graham
IDP Garrett, Sean Lee, Keanu
K Vinatieri
DST 2018 Bears
(That 217.63 is also the single-game record for our league, barely edging Coleman’s 216.54 from earlier in the 2019 season.)
It’s me, your favorite commissioner. I have been here since the beginning, and I am surprisingly consistent when it comes to winning. My first win was our first season in 2009, I won again in 2014, and now I’ve won for a third time in 2019. There’s literally no pressure this year since I can expect to win again in 2024. There was lots of pressure last year, not only to maintain the trend but to make all the trades worthwhile. I’m also pretty consistent when it comes to transactions. In the last five years, I’ve made 475 transactions, a cool 95 per year, with exactly 134 in 2017 and again in 2018. Last year, sad to say, Brian stripped me of the belt, demolishing me 115-90 on his way to fourth place. I feel good about my long-term hold on the title, though, as I’ve still got a 136-transaction lead on Sean.
Yeah I think transactions are kind of my calling card in one way or another. I’m known for making questionable trades, for sure, but I think I’ve made some quality trades here and there. I’ve developed a strategy I call overpaying on purpose. It’s not a popular strategy, except with the people who trade with me, and that’s really only half the league. In some cases, the moves make sense but take time to develop. Two years ago, when I traded Brian Chris Godwin for Drew Brees, it was viewed as Brian basically giving me Drew Brees. Brian kept Godwin late and wound up with a top-10 WR who he’s keeping early this year. Meanwhile I kept Damien Williams late last year and I’d feel pretty dumb about it if I weren’t keeping Lamar early this year. Other trades are just plain bad, like trading 6 and 8 overall to Cameron for the 1 overall, wasting it on Antonio Brown, deciding I hate him, and trading him back to Cameron for Mike Evans, who was originally drafted at 8. (There were other pieces, but they were just there for optics.) I can’t shake that trade because Cameron went on to win because of it. He maybe could have won without it, but it sealed the deal.
It’s also fair to say I keep it competitive. While half the league has inexplicably finished with three wins or fewer at some point, I’ve bottomed out at six. Maybe this is the year that changes. God knows I’ve rigged it up to look that way.
I’m not going to lie to you: it was never my intention to strap ankle weights to this season and push it in the deep end. I got carried away chasing gold. Don’t judge me. It could happen to anyone.
But so looking to this season, my first five picks are: 12, 36, 84, 85, and 108. Two picks in the top 50 and four picks in the top 100. Entering with Lamar and Andrews is nice. It gives a nice sheen to season. Like drinking a frozen cocktail on the beach before noon, you see the world differently; you let things float on by instead of worrying about anything.
But also my transaction total is about to reach critical mass. With ten picks in the last five rounds, I’m taking a bunch of flyers and letting the breeze rip right through them if that’s what the breeze wants to do. Without even knowing who most of my players will be, I know it will take a lot of luck for me to field a competitive starting lineup.
Timeless Team Name: The Fantasy Gods Taketh
Regular Season Record: 35-33 (.515, 5th)
Postseason Record: 3-4 (.429, T-9th)
Best Finish: 2015 Champ
Worst Finish: 10th (2019)
Average Finish: 6th
High Score: 187 (2018, Week 1)
Low Score: 89 (2019, Week 10)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Cam Newton
RB CJ Anderson, Gurley
WR Julio, Crabtree, [any Charger]
TE Zach Ertz
IDP Watt, Kuechly, Jamal Adams
K Wil Lutz
DST Browns
All hail the zombie of MORTYDOME, the only team owner to leave and come back. It’s possible that instead of a Curse Purge his team needs a straight-up exorcism. One of these days, I’ll have to hold a séance, which is a word I just learned how to spell. Fitting that the first four letters are Sean. Okay, so let’s light some candles, there we go, and get this pentagram of salt manicured, very nice, and I’m chanting now, now taking the dagger and slicing into my left palm, blood on the pentagram nice, and ohhh spirits, make us aware of the grievances committed. Help us understand…
They say this gimmick wasn’t ever going to work since I don’t know anything about séances that you can’t see on an episode of Dawson’s Creek.
So okay, Sean’s claim to fame in my mind is that when he entered the league he either immediately won or won after a year. He was just getting into coding and created some algorithm he claimed would basically get him in the playoffs every year. Then one year he drafted JJ Watt and Luke Kuechly in the third and fourth rounds (before keepers, so these were legitimately like the 30th and 40th picks overall) and he didn’t just lose, he super lost because either one or both of them got injured for significant time, and obviously his offense wasn’t making up for it. Let’s see…
Oh man, it was 34th and 39th that he took Watt and Kuechly, respectively, and his picks around that were 1 Julio (nice), 2 Ajayi (yikes), 5 Kelvin Benjamin, 6 CJ Anderson okay we can stop. That’s definitely the curse.
The following season, he drafted Gurley and Gordon in the first round. He set the single-game scoring record in Week 1, but injuries derailed the season. Sean snuck into the playoffs on that five-team 6-7 rat king bullshit, but he lost in the first round when Gordon didn’t play and Gurley had about three points. Sean acquired the additional first-rounder used on Gordon by trading away early keeper Christian McCaffrey, which brings us back to the Panthers. Sean’s obsession with Luke Kuechly might have something to do with all of this. I thought the curse was that shitty draft, but maybe it’s that Sean had Kuechly on his team every year until last year, and every year until last year was more or less okay, a couple six-win seasons but nothing crazy.
Maybe there was never any curse. Maybe it was a hoax meant to distract us from Sean half-assing it as manager. But now that Kuechly’s retired and the Panthers are a smoldering turd, not unlike Sean’s 2019 squad, maybe that’s just the fire he needed lit under him. Maybe mixing images and analogies together until we don’t know how we got here is the only way through this section. Maybe the commissioner’s lost his touch. Maybe he never had one to begin with.
Last shot: having your lowest score in our highest scoring season is truly impressive. It suggests you suck, but actually you just had a ridiculously high floor the four years prior.
Last last shot: it’s because of Sean that we assign draft order the way we do. Originally he did it because he wanted the 1/2 turn coming off his championship season, but either way it’s a huge improvement over random order assigned one hour prior to draft. It set the table for the pre-draft trades we added along with keepers.
Timeless Team Name: T Mac Dumpster Fire
Regular Season Record: 33-35 (.485, 6th)
Postseason Record: 5-5 (.500, T-3rd)
Best Finish: 3rd (2017)
Worst Finish: 11th (2016)
Average Finish: 7th
High Score: 200 (2019, Week 7)
Low Score: 73 (2015, Week 5)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Big Ben
RB Lenny, Aaron Jones
WR Julio, Davante Adams, Funchess
TE [no preference]
IDP K Mack, Telvin Smith, Landon Collins
K Crosby
DST Steelers
I think we’re all surprised to find Tim this high up the list. I think his early cluelessness would lead you to believe he didn’t play very well. Even at his worst, he finished 4-10 (twice), but in the past three years, Tim is on a hot streak, finishing 11-3, 7-6, and 7-6, making the playoffs all three years and even winning two postseason games. In that span, he’s been the second winningest team in the league (behind Cameron). Well, damn!
The secret seems to be consistency. You may have noticed Tim has the best “Ideal Team” so far, at least when you look at his RBs and WRs. The reason they’re there is that he’s owned them not just multiple times but multiple times in the last three years. Keepers make that a little easier, but it’s not like the rest of us are maintaining teams of this caliber, much less building winning seasons in three straight years. In fact, Tim and Cameron are the only teams to finish above .500 in each of the last three seasons.
Is there anyway to take this jinx and redirect Tim’s half so the entire jinx is aimed at Cameron? Do I need to cut the head off a chicken or something?
Basically, Tim’s come a long way. It was disappointing that one time (2017) when it was his year and it really seemed like it was gonna happen, but somehow Sleepy Gary knocked him off and won the whole thing. That’s gotta be a little bit of comfort. I always appreciate it when the team that knocks my team out of the playoffs ends up winning the whole thing. It’s enough to convince myself: if not for them, then I’d have won the whole thing. That’s how it works.
Looking to 2020, I’ve accidentally laid the jinx on Tim pretty hard. He’s without his 2nd rounder after trading it to Oliver for Kelce last year, a move I completely understand since Oliver also has my 2nd. So what do we think? I always believe in Tim. But it honestly seems like the kind of year when the sun shakes the snow globe and we all end up all over the place.
Never forget it’s because of Tim that we know LeGarrette Blount liked to rip phone books in half in high school.
Timeless Team Name: JCor413
Regular Season Record: 32-36 (.471, 7th)
Postseason Record: 5-2 (.714, 2nd)
Best Finish: 3rd (2018)
Worst Finish: 9th (2017, 2019)
Average Finish: 7th
High Score: 181 (2017, Week 11)
Low Score: 62 (2015, Week 9)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Cam Newton
RB Gore, Matt Forte
WR Hilton, Edelman, Landry
TE Brate
IDP Clowney, Deion Jones, Hargreaves
K [a good one or no one]
DST Mike Smith Era Bucs
Corey’s history in this league begins as a co-owner of Shelby’s team and as a persistent advocate for the $50 buy-in. (By the way, feel free to pay anytime. My venmo is in your history if you just start typing my name. That’s not just for Corey; that’s for everyone.) In a roundabout way, we have Corey to thank for the weekly cash game. We can also thank the weekly cash game for making the championship pot feel a little light.
Corey’s known for drafting chalk and never naming his team. He’s someone you never want to play because the outcome is as good as a coin flip. When you combine regular season and postseason contests, Corey comes out closer to .500 than any other team. It’s his consistency that does it. Nobody hangs onto players like Corey, except maybe Coleman, but whereas Coleman does it because he’s aloof, I believe Corey keeps it consistent on purpose. It’s an up-and-down game. If you believe in the player, you have faith that they’ll ride a little roller coaster every now and then but give you more or less the average you drafted them to get. If I weren’t fucking impulsive, I might emulate that kind of consistency, but alas…
The flip side of consistency is that it’s a bit of a hedge. It minimizes risk but it doesn’t offer the upside you need to get over the top. Corey’s highest regular season win total is eight, and that was back when we played a 14-game season.
Looking to 2020, I don’t see much changing. Corey’s keeping Tom Brady and a quality RB (either Ekeler or Drake), which is fine. He has his standard lot of picks, which is fine. He might make a little swap before the draft like he did the last two years, but I’m hoping when he makes that swap, he does it to chase after the grail. I want to see you break free of any restrictions, Corey, and make a daring reaches for players you think could be the best instead of taking the safe route. No more of this Antonio Brown and Sony Michel garbage. Ask what you believe in and click that draft button for players who mean something!
I want Corey to win because I want more trash-talk from him. Granted, I don’t want him to win the whole thing. I want either Oliver or Spe to win the whole thing because this is the best shot either of them have ever had.
Timeless Team Name: Sleepy Gary
Regular Season Record: 29-39 (.426, T-8th)
Postseason Record: 4-5 (.444, 8th)
Best Finish: 2017 Champ
Worst Finish: 11th (2019)
Average Finish: 7th
High Score: 197 (2019, Week 5)
Low Score: 69 (Nice, 2015, Week 1)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Russ
RB Jordan Howard, Chris Carson
WR Juju, Marvin Jones, Golden Tate
TE Rudolph
IDP Calais, Martinez, Barry Church
K Ka’imi
DST Bears
I think Kennedy’s legacy beyond his championship is the creation of the keeper rule, which shoed in the implementation of pre-draft trades. (Editor’s Note: no it didn’t. In fact, Kennedy and I made a trade in 2016 where he got the #2 pick and I got picks 23 and 24. I spent Picks 22-25 on WRs, and they pretty much all crapped out. If I had a re-do, I’d still pick four WRs, just different ones.) I have Kennedy to thank for saying that he didn’t intend the keeper rule to be any kind of precursor to dynasty. He foresaw that it would increase trading, especially trading ahead of the draft. I’m glad he said it because it reminds me to play the seasonal game instead of getting locked in on keepers during the draft.
(Side note: I am shopping my third-round pick hoping to pick up a fourth-round pick or a couple mid-rounders.)
I appreciate how unpredictable Kennedy’s team has been. Even in his championship season, he entered as the 4th seed and upset the favorite (Tim). Last season, he became our first team since 2017 to finish the regular season with double-digit losses. (Good stuff, everyone.) He averages 30 transactions a year, and last year he had 50. He’s the only team I can recall that’s added a first round pick in multiple seasons. He started a tank war with Oliver! Oliver may have the better overall value, but Kennedy has the two 1sts. It’s frankly very cool to see this kind of buy-in. It enriches my experience as commissioner for sure.
Looking to 2020, Kennedy’s got the 6th and 7th pick. He’s probably keeping two WRs, buuut it’s possible he keeps one RB and one WR. It’s possible he keeps Chris Carson over Courtland Sutton. It’s possible he keeps Raheem Mostert over DJ Chark. Value says keep the WRs and draft an RB in the first. You don’t have to draft two RBs in the first, but it might be the smart move. Your next pick is 19, and I’m guessing 10 or 11 RBs will go in the top 18. If you have your two RBs and your two WRs, it opens up 19 to be a Kelce or Kittle pick, and if you think that I just spoiled Kennedy’s opportunity to get either of those TEs, I’m sure he’s not sweating the difference between the 2nd best TE and the 7th best WR. (For color, nine WRs outscored the top TE last season.) Whatever happens, Kennedy should have the best draft just because of those two first-rounders. If he’d given up a bunch of picks for it, he might not have that advantage. When you subtract the player included in the trade, Kennedy only gave up his fifth for this boon. It’s going to go well for him.
Timeless Team Name: Immortan Joique
Regular Season Record: 29-39 (.426, T-8th)
Postseason Record: 4-4 (.500, T-4th)
Best Finish: 6th (2016, 2017)
Worst Finish: 12th (2015)
Average Finish: 8th
High Score: 216.54 (2019, Week 3)
Low Score: 68 (2015, Week 11)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Deshaun Watson
RB McCafe, Bilal Powell
WR Allen Robinson, Alshon, Lockett
TE Greg Olsen
IDP Joey Bosa, Wagner, Harrison Smith
K Gostkowski
DST Rams
Amazing the twins have the same record. It’s camp to mention it, but since when are we taking anything seriously. One not-so-nice memory I have of Coleman in this league is there was at least one year I had to text him almost every week to set his lineup. I’m pretty sure it happened twice since I remember separate summers where I was wondering whether he still wanted to play with us. I kind of still wonder, but that’s more my insecurity than anything Coleman has done. The point is: if I make allusions to Coleman being aloof, there’s a chance I’m speaking on things that happened further and further in the distant past. They made an impression, but perhaps it’s a shortcoming of mine that I haven’t done anything to buff that scratch.
I also think of how both of those seasons Coleman finished 6th, I finished 5th. Hopefully you don’t take that as a weird flex; I’m just reminiscing here. I think the five-year window we’re employing as league canon smiles on Coleman, maybe more than anyone in the league, maybe more than Tim—probably not, though (sorry, Tim). In those years where Coleman wasn’t setting a lineup, he wasn’t exactly maintaining a competitive roster, either.
Still, at this point in time, Coleman is a threat. He drafts smart. He doesn’t panic. He’s the only one of us with fewer than 100 transactions in the past five seasons. Frankly, I think it’s too few. I know I do too much and that makes my opinion on this seem unreliable, but it’s possible I have some insight regardless of my level of self-control. I think if you’re making an average of one move per week, you’re most likely just accounting for injuries and bye weeks. We’re gambling money on sports. In order to have a legitimate shot at our (frankly underwhelming) cash prize, you have to take risks.
In 2020, I don’t expect any of us are trying to increase risk, but that’s all the more reason to exercise that muscle in this controlled (imaginary) environment. Do it. Oliver’s dangling that #1 pick out there. Use your 2nd and 3rd to go get it. Oliver probably has it in mind that someone will offer him more, but the only person that stupid is me, and I don’t have the capital or else it would already be done.
Timeless Team Name: Seals Team Rick
Regular Season Record: 28-40 (.412, T-10th)
Postseason Record: 4-4 (.500, T-4th)
Best Finish: 4th (2016)
Worst Finish: 12th (2018)
Average Finish: 8th
High Score: 164 (2019, Week 8)
Low Score: 63 (2015, Week 8)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Rodgers
RB Gore, James White, [Broncos backup]
WR Randall Cobb, Big Dick Decker
TE OJ Howard
IDP Aaron Donald, Jamie Collins, Reshad Jones
K Prater
DST Broncos
Here’s the man who I can always count on to make a move when the league needs a shakeup. Maybe it’s a name change. Maybe it’s an off-color GIF. Maybe it’s actually a move involving an NFL player, maybe even one with another team and not just him making masturbatory free agent moves ten minutes after waivers clear. Maybe that’s just the kind of dick he is.
Oliver’s team is a constant source of entertainment, which is objectively good even when his team is objectively bad, which is almost always. Oliver has a knack for self-sabotage. He tends to covet the wrong pieces of his roster. Furthermore, he’s fickle. His master plan can change overnight without a trace of logic in his decisions. Just look at this year’s draft. He already has the best set of picks, and he’s out here trying to tinker with it, trying to shake things up some more. I know his first-rounder isn’t up for grabs. He’s just letting us know it’s available if someone wants it badly enough. But I do get the impression he’s antsy to make a move, and stuff like this tends to backfire. In 2018, he traded Stefon Diggs for a third round pick, even though he had no one in mind to spend the pick on. Then when the pick came, everyone left was worse than Stefon Diggs, so Oliver drafted Lamar Miller.
Oh my god, that was the same year that Oliver had snagged Kareem Hunt off waivers to end the previous season, before Kennedy won and implemented keepers, so then Oliver traded Kareem Hunt for the 12th overall pick and spent it on Aaron Rodgers. And he somehow became obsessed with stacking all of his picks near each other, or at least that’s what it seems like because that was his only pick in the first two rounds.
In fact, he traded his first pick to me so that I could use it to trade up for the first overall pick so that I could trade it to Brian so that he could draft Jameis, but then Jameis got suspended and Brian and I undid the trade. It’s all coming back to me.
Yeah, for whatever reason, Oliver wanted all of his picks as close together as possible, and he wanted to start fresh, so he traded away his keepers and his early picks in order to get rid of his late picks and amass a hoard of picks in the early-middle. He made (definitely a league record) nine picks between the beginning of the third round to the end of the sixth, and he only had one pick after the 11th. The names look good, but it was probably the wrong year to have most of them because that was the year Oliver finished in last place.
So in 2020, it’s redemption time. It’s practically the same strategy, only the picks are better, assuming Oliver doesn’t do something dumb. He has five picks in the top 25, eight in the first five rounds. With ten picks in the top 76 and counting our 24 keepers, Oliver can draft/keep 12 of the top 100 players available. That’s a full starting lineup a full two rounds before the next team (Coleman, then Kennedy shortly after) and four rounds before most teams. If things stay as they are, I won’t have my 12th player until the first pick of the 14th round, a full seven rounds after Oliver gets his. Will he spend his first ten picks filling out the starting lineup? Hopefully not. That would be a waste.
I’m most curious whether Oliver will reach for Kelce/Kittle in the first half of the second round. It’s a dicey move, but mathematically it’s fine, especially at Pick 17. At that point, Oliver would have Brees, Woods, the top RB, and either another potential stud RB or a stud WR. He’d be free to take a player like Kelce or Kittle, a TE who finished in the top-30 among flex players. It’s a reach, but by how much? Kelce’s been the top TE. In total points, he’s averaged a 25th place finish. If you take pick 17 and add the three or four keepers who would have gone before it, you get 21. That’s a reasonable reach. Kittle missed some time in 2019, so I opted to use his per-game stats to find his average finish over these last two seasons, and he’s more like 35th. We can be generous and say 30th, but even then, it’s nine picks below the value of your pick, and if you’re picking at 17 and 24, you have a seven-pick cushion. Then again, we can operate under the assumption that either Kelce or Kittle might finish as high as Kelce has the last two years. We can make the logical leap that Kittle is an ascending talent while Kelce is a seasoned veteran. We can also look down the line at the next TE and see that Zach Ertz has consistently gotten close to Kelce and Kittle in the standings, and Zach Ertz will definitely be available at 24. The problem is that Zach Ertz is past his physical prime and nearing the end of his contract, while competing with an ascending TE for targets, whereas Kelce and Kittle have more assurances of target shares consistent with recent seasons. When you also consider that the rest of the top-5 TEs (Andrews and Waller) are taken, you can make an argument that either Kelce or Kittle is worth the 17th pick, but again, you have the luxury of viewing the problem this way because you have so many high picks around it. For a team like Brian picking 16th, taking a TE comes with a more severe opportunity cost. Oliver might miss out on his choice of second-tier WR or fringe second/third-tier RB, but he would get a guy in that tier at the end of the round, whereas Brian would miss out on those tiers altogether. Just in case you’re thinking about snaking this draft away from Oliver, if you try to play cards at his table, you will end up all-in without even denting his stack of chips.
Timeless Team Name: Tank City
Regular Season Record: 28-40 (.412, T-10th)
Postseason Record: 4-3 (.571, T-3rd)
Best Finish: 3rd (2019)
Worst Finish: 12th (2016)
Average Finish: 8th
High Score: 198 (2019, Week 5)
Low Score: 60 (2015, Week 2)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Luck
RB Gurley, Henry, Cohen
WR Evans, Brandon Marshall
TE Charles Clay
IDP McCoy, Bowman, Cyprien
K Robbie Gould
DST Cowboys
I think for Shelby, there is a lot at stake. She’s basically playing for her whole gender, and she’s competing against her husband, her brother, and a bunch of annoying losers (mostly Cam and Oliver, but that’s more a credit to their effort than anything). I would like to see her win. I think she deserves more than anyone who hasn’t won yet, except Tim. Again, if we only look at the last three years, we lop off most of Shelby’s losses. She was a combined 5-23 while she was either pregnant or taking care of two tiny people while working full time. (Corey, if you wanted more credit, you should’ve played worse.) But in the past three seasons, she’s fourth in wins and has made the playoffs twice, winning in the first round each time. She’s better than Brian. In fact, she proved him when she beat him for third place last year.
Shelby’s intimidating to trade with, and it’s possible it all stems from the time I somehow swindled her for Mike Evans. This was four years ago. I don’t remember the details; I just vaguely remembering it being a source of conflict. I’m sure she doesn’t love some of the shitty trades we make. Anything that blurs the rules or general order is sure to get her paying close attention. She was not a fan of the Godwin-Brees trade, but then again I might be misremembering how much she even cared about it.
I feel like I let Shelby off the hook too easily when it came to the details of her horrendous start to this era of fantasy. She and Tim are the only two teams with multiple double-digit-loss seasons in the past five years, both of them in the same two years. Don’t overthink it; it’s a great sentence. You should see the scoring numbers from those years; they’re pitiful.
But even as a winner, Shelby hasn’t scored a lot of points. Her best finish has been 6th in scoring.
Maybe that all changes now that she starts the year with (presumably) Kyler Murray and Derrick Henry. Even if she opts for Henry and Metcalf, it should be a good year. She’s picking 9th, which precludes her from getting any obvious mega-producer, but with Henry and two picks in the top 15, it’s possible she has three non-QBs in the 20-point range. I’m looking forward to getting crushed by that freight train in the near future.
Timeless Team Name: Fitzpat Rick
Regular Season Record: 27-41 (.397, 12th)
Postseason Record: 2-4 (.333, 11th)
Best Finish: 3rd (2015)
Worst Finish: 12th (2017, 2019)
Average Finish: 8th
High Score: 177 (2019, Week 8)
Low Score: 71 (2017, Week 10)
Ideal Lineup:
QB Mahomes
RB Peterson, Sproles, Doug Martin
WR DeSean, Doug Baldwin, Landry
TE Kittle
IDP Chandler Jones, Tremaine, Mathieu
K Matt Bryant
DST Bills
It’s been a long time since Spencer’s team was any good, but in 2015, he led the league in scoring. He’s notably one of two teams whose low score didn’t occur in 2015. He scored 87 in Week 1 that year and never scored lower. He was starting Russ, Vikings Peterson, prime Gurley, peak Sammy Watkins, Amari Cooper, Gary Barnidge (the year he dominated), and Landon Collins and Lavonte as IDPs. Stacked. He ended up one win shy of a bye week. Still, he beat Evan in a slugfest Round 1 of the playoffs. Oof, then Sean trounced him in Round 2 and eventually won the whole thing.
The following season was the year of the infamous laptop disaster, and that’s all I’ll say about it. What’s weird about that 2016 season is that Spencer finished 7-7, so what the hell happened? Why is he 11-29 with two last place finishes in the last three seasons? Why is he missing the playoffs despite having Mahomes at QB?
I’m exaggerating the amount of awful it’s been. I mean, I’m using real numbers, but I need to include the detail that Spencer steamrolled the consolation ladder in 2018 and earned the top pick last season, then spent the pick on Saquon, who spent half the year hurt. Also Mahomes got hurt. Is it regrettable that Spencer didn’t pick Christian McCaffrey? Meh. I wouldn’t have taken McCaffrey either. In terms of overall scoring, Spencer was fine last season anyway. He finished sixth in scoring, which was better than two playoff teams.
So I guess in 2020, he needs to keep doing what he’s doing. If you think about what I said about Corey’s outlook (that I projected on him), you have to recognize there are ups and downs and there’s no meaning to any individual player, game, or season.
But dude, you gotta make this last Mahomes year count. I can’t imagine how it will feel to have that fantasy monster on your team for three straight seasons without making the playoffs, dude, you gotta at least make the playoffs. I think I might trade AJ Brown for the best pick I can get. I don’t buy him repeating the success of his rookie year, but I imagine there’s at least one person in our league who does (and I hope it’s not you). Let’s see… you’re picking back-to-back with Sean, and he can potentially keep Ryan Tannehill—his other option is Josh Allen, who is the favorite but also yikes—so Sean might be tempted to stack the two keys to the Titans passing attack. Might be. At least enough for you to move some of your picks closer together and facilitate that roster construction.
But if you decide to stick with Brown (who’s good, to be fair), then you’re opening the draft with Mahomes, Brown, and the fifth best RB available, with your eye on Kittle in the second round—it’s a reach but a fun one.
I think there’s value to be had this year. People are worried the season might not finish. It’s a great time to take risks and trade 2021 picks for 2020 stars. It’s all gonna end in a blaze; it might as well be a blaze of glory!
Thanks for indulging me. I’m thinking of putting out a little season preview next week, but maybe I’ll condense it to a Bucs preview and some player-ranking type stuff. We’ll see. Have a good rest of the week, and remember to get those keepers finalized by Tuesday night. Peace.
