Last week, I went back to work full-time (teaching elementary), so any time I would usually dedicate to writing the note I spent accidentally napping while watching week-old Magic games (they still suck, btw). I’m trying to negotiate a day off every Wednesday so I can continue the progress I’ve made writing over the past few months. I have an obsessive mind, which is why I’m prone to addiction and also fits of passion (for better or worse). Many people could do what I do for a living, five days a week, and write on the side. For whatever reason, I cannot switch back and forth in a single day like that. I am perpetually all-in and though I’m easily distracted from simple tasks, I can’t really get my mind off school/work on school/work-days. Workdays are not good writing days for me. When I had copious amounts of free time at Mattress Firm (not a sponsor)—a job I got specifically because it meant huge paychecks and lots of on-the-clock downtime—I couldn’t detach enough to write the way I like to. The best I could muster was these audio-diaries I would make, basically walking laps through an empty store talking to myself and recording it on my iPhone (not a sponsor). The diaries did what writing does for me. They cleared the gunk in the machinery so I could distill my daily life into things that matter and things that don’t. I got really fucking good at that job because of that habit, even though I only did it about once per week on average.
Being nakedly honest with myself amid a job that relied on a certain amount of dishonesty allowed me to negotiate a sweet-spot where I could tell the truth without giving up a good sale, which was something most people in my profession weren’t figuring out. They were just swallowing the Mattress Firm playbook and not giving a shit. I remember one guy explained it like “You can’t force someone to give you their money. That’s always their choice.” While that’s technically true, that same guy would also admit that the best way to make a sale was to keep a person in the store for long enough (rule of thumb, an hour or so) that if they left without a mattress, they would more or less consider it time wasted. So the trick wasn’t forcing someone to give up their money; it was forcing whether they’d rather give up their time. Reasonably, how much time in one day can you dedicate to mattress-shopping, and how many days can you make that commitment? I had to be in the store five or six days a week for ten to twelve hours at a time, and eventually all the mattresses were pretty much the same (maybe four variations across forty beds). Eventually that slog becomes homefield advantage, and the monotony of the product reveals that the only thing you have to sell is yourself. You find out that all you have to do is trade your time for their money.
I could talk about this for longer, but that’s as good a segue as any. Fantasy football is, similarly, trading your time for someone else’s money. In Mortydome, it’s not about the money, but hopefully the level of competition (or addiction) is fierce enough here that it helps you win money in your other league(s). The note has always been about making the league better, and that includes making all of us better at playing the game.
Cards on the table: I didn’t plan this out, but now that I’ve started off this way, I might as well stick with the bit. Here’s my sales pitch for each team in this league, starting with the worst of them. (Note: this is technically the opposite of how you sell a mattress. In that process, you start with the best, usually most expensive, to demonstrate its value and make it seem like you’re conceding something when you move on to less expensive options.)
Now more than ever, we are focused on sustainability. As well we should be; the planet is alternating between begging us and threatening us. What’s interesting is that we end up choosing options that sustain our own creature comforts. We shop brands we already know. We shop near our homes or in places where we can cover many needs with fewer trips. Evan has maybe the most sustainable roster of all because it’s mostly just Eagles and Giants. He knows they’ll always be available because no one else wants them. It takes the guess work out of it. So what if they don’t score any points? After all, it’s not about money; it’s about friendship. A good friend will give you the shirt off their back. Evan will give you the win. You don’t even have to set a full lineup. He’s just that good a guy. He even drafted Justin Herbert in the third round to show how much he loves us and wants us to be happy.
Taking selflessness to the next level, Max not only adopted this orphan team midseason, he let one of his best players take some time off to focus on his mental health. He condoned homeopathic immunization. Robert Tonyan has been declared out for the year, but Max won’t give up on him that easy. That’s leadership. Starting three backup RBs week-in, week-out, that demonstrates courage. Max is starting a TE who has yet to score more than eight points in a single week and two WRs who average fewer than ten points per week because they were in the starting lineup when he got here, and a real leader respects seniority, dammit.
One legitimately nice thing I can say about this team is that when you’re ready, Max, you can dynamite the whole fucking thing in the final week and buy in on as many keeper candidates as you want.
Seinfeld voice: If the Cardinals are the best team, why don’t we build our whole team out of the Cardinals?
With Kyler hurt again and this team grinding it’s way down the standings, you’re not buying this team for what it is—even though it most literally is what it is—you’re buying it for what it will be. Shelby came in to this season drawing dead in terms of keeper options. Kyler was nice but the late options made her say, Ugh, nuh nah nuh nah. You want late keepers? How about top-10 WR Hollywood Brown? How about 2021 #1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence? And for early keepers, so far you’re picking between Deebo and TJ Watt (and maybe sort of Chris Carson)? And with Kyler forced back into the draft pool, you can even get off the Cardinals altogether and hop on a bandwagon without a perennially bum wheel.
Nothing reels customers in like the promise of Buy Two, Get The Third Half-Off. What we have here is the three teams most likely to vie for the mid-round picks after getting bounced in the second round of the playoffs. They average decent points, but each has a significant defect, thus the generous discount/package deal. Spencer doesn’t have a QB (or a WR2), Corey doesn’t have an RB, and Coleman doesn’t have a bench. Oddly, they all have sick defenses, and they have kickers attached to elite offenses, hence we’re not cutting the legs off the price here. This is a valuable group of players (just ignore how many teams it takes to make up that group).
I continue to maintain that my team is fraudulent, and it’s not reverse-jinxing or false modesty or whatever. But I won’t deny the sex appeal of having an elite QB, RB and WR, not to mention my shares in CordarrelleCoin, especially since it allows me to start four RBs each week. Including Cordarrelle, I am up to nine RBs. If we gave Max his pick of any team in the league, I feel like he would pick the one with nine RBs. It’s just too juicy, especially when you garnish them with Stafford, DK, Keenan, and Andrews. The tightrope you’re walking if you buy into this team’s success is that the DL spot might as well be empty every week, so you’re playing 11-on-12 and at some point, and nothing is more consistent in football than close-game-record regression.
We like starting RBs, and we like capturing the boom-potential of one passing offense by starting a good quarterback and his best receivers. Are we jumping the shark starting a team’s QB and its two best WRs? Not if they continue to get the target shares they’re getting. The only issue is that Higgins isn’t scoring TDs. Literally zero in the last six weeks. But what you can bank on is two things: Kennedy is going to get his points from three of his four stud RBs, and either Chase or Higgins is going to lead the Bengals’ WRs in points each week. We like stacking QBs with WRs because their points correlate. Yes, you fall victim to bad weeks for that offense, but this is a boom-bust game. You are playing for first place at all times. If our league is truly competitive, we shouldn’t be able to survive bad games by our QBs anyway. So ride that correlation wave until it breaks, baby!
(Also, if you have four starting RBs, you don’t trade any of them. You expect one of them to get hurt and have the humility to know you can’t predict which one. It’s really only one bench spot you’re spending to hold them all, and I promise as someone holding Trey Lance purely on keeper spec, you can afford to burn one bench spot all year long.)
(I understand I’m not sticking tightly to the “sales pitch” conceit of this piece and promise I’m unfettered and just barreling ahead here.)
On paper, this is a great team. The sticker price, whew. Looks worth it. You’ve got the elite QB, RB, WR, TE, DL, LB… the only problem is that suddenly you can’t field a full team from week to week. That 250 was legendary, but Waller and AB missing time makes you mortal. Mahomes sucking is worse than Henry being hurt since you at least have the easy decision on just not putting Henry in the lineup. But you’ve got the depth you need everywhere—not this week, but for the future. There’s a reason losing your best player only drops you a couple spots in the rankings. While I keep begging you to trade me Cooper Kupp, you should really be begging me to trade you Stafford. I think Mahomes and Roquan would be a fair offer. Hell, I’ll throw in one of my nine RBs to balance it out.
Do you know that in the history of Mortydome scoring, Lamar Jackson had the best QB week, and Dalvin Cook had the best RB week? Do I have to sell you on this, especially when you combine it with, I don’t know, the single-game rushing record-holder in Adrian Peterson? The guy who actually has a better single-season rushing record than Derrick Henry? Or the league-leader in interceptions, on pace to break a fifty-year-old record in that category in Trevon Diggs? Or, I’m sorry, future HOF’ers Aaron Donald and Bobby Wagner? WTF. Get in on this team while David Montgomery is on IR because this is a rocket ship ready to blast off. Who cares if he has our league’s least consistent WRs? Mike Williams and Chase Claypool are 6’4” burners, while Sanders and Jeudy are elite route-runners. The only hole is the second LB, Kirksey, and that’s probably the easiest position to stream. It’s okay if you don’t want this team at 10% off. I promise someone will walk in later today and buy it full-price.
Cosmetic damage and an overall lack of brand equity makes this a hard sell, but it’s one of those items that becomes sort of a storied pearl in the back room. Yet to ever be operating at full capacity, Brian’s team is riding the league’s longest winning streak and it appears that next week he’ll be getting as close as he’s ever been to full health. CEH is the one question mark, but even so, he will be back before our playoffs start. It seems like five RBs is too many, but the pecking order should be pretty obvious, and the glut gives you the option to sell if you want. What I really love about this team is the hipster IDP group. Casual fans have heard of none of them, and they’re all absolutely crushing. And with Henry going down, Brian now holds the #1 RB in Jonathan Taylor. Did I mention his top-5 QB (paired with his TE) and two top-15 WRs? When healthy, he should challenge for the top spot.
Trust me: when you get the #1 QB in the 5th Round, you should be thinking championship. Especially when it was your extra fifth-round pick, which came after you had an extra third-round pick. (PSA: It should come as no surprise that our top teams had extra picks and our bottom teams were the ones giving up those picks.) I’m just going to rattle off the specs here, and you tell me what it’s worth: #1 QB, three top-10 RBs, five top-25 WRs, two top-5 DLs, Jamal Adams, Younghoe Koo… you want that team, right? Like, if you weren’t Brian pretty much, or maybe Cameron, you would take the opportunity to just switch whole teams here. The one thing this team needs is a TE, and I’m not sure Oliver even has to give away a pick to get it when the time comes. Honestly, Higbee is fine. He doesn’t kill you. But it is the one loophole I could use to haggle you down, even if it’s just a couple points. You at least end up throwing in the pillows for free, if not a matching bedset with them.
Doak (Najee) over Sean (Peterson)
Oliver (Chubb) over Max (Adams)
Brian (Taylor) over Evan (Renfrow)
Shelby (Kyler) over Corey (Ingram)
Kennedy (Mitchell) over Kermit (Gordon)
Scary Terry (Kamary) over Jerry (Carter)
If this week’s trade deadline made you wonder about ours, know that it is very, very far down the road. I believe it is the end of Week 13. Like, you can offer/accept a trade any time before Monday Night Football of that week, even if the players included have already played, and it will go through for the following week.
Quick Bucs rant: watching Tom Brady play football isn’t fun. It’s not boring, exactly. It’s appreciable but not exciting. I imagine it’s like watching Yo-Yo Ma in concert. There’s awe there. The man is doing something at the highest level. But I’m not getting up and dancing, right? I have to pay close attention to be stimulated. It’s not like watching Jameis play. And now who knows when we’ll see Jameis play again. I believe he’ll start again, but I can’t imagine how it would happen next season when he likely won’t be able to take snaps until the end of preseason. If he re-signs with the Saints, I guess I would bet on him being their starter next year. Anywhere else, and all bets are off.
This feels like a good week to take off football altogether. Pretty much every matchup is trash, and the Bucs are off. I will watch the Ravens and maybe catch some primetime stuff. So next week I will continue the trend of barely talking at all about what’s actually happening week to week in this game. But our playoffs are getting closer, and there will be a natural ramp back up.
Oh, I am looking forward to Cameron extending his losing streak, though.
Peace.
