The Travis Kelce Award (for greatest disparity between a top player at his position and everyone) goes to… TJ Watt.
Watt is averaging 17.5 FP per game in Mortydome. That puts him 1st among IDPs and 17th among all non-QBs. He leads all other IDPs by 4.5, and he leads all other DLs by 6.3. Only five total IDPs are above 12 FP per game. DLs #2-6 are within half a point of each other. Watt is worth one and a half players at his position, and he’s more than justified being one of Shelby’s two picks in the 4th. Positional value aside, just on straight-up points, he could have been the last pick of the 1st round, and he would be living up to it. Compare it to Travis Kelce himself, who Kennedy drafted near the end of the 1st. Kelce leads his position in points, and he trails TJ Watt by three. point. five. Easily the best pick of the draft.
Honorary Mention: Derrick Henry (RIP)
The Taysom Hill Award (for positional androgyny combined with massive scoring) goes to… Cordarrelle “CryptoHenry” Patterson.
Crypto is averaging 20 FP per game, making him either the fifth-best RB, second-best WR, or sixth-best FLEX. Slotting him at WR technically gives me the option to start four RBs each week (because cheating without cheating is the best kind of cheating). Keenan Allen and DK Metcalf being done with byes makes that a bit tricky now, but also most of my hot RBs were backups whose starters are back, so Viva la Cordarrelle!
Honorary Mention: Jamal Agnew before they took his DB eligibility away after, like, Week 5.
The Michael Cera in Superbad Award (for “why do I even play if I can’t win?”) goes to…
Spencer!
I love this so much and am so sad that it’s coming to an end this week. Max has a chance to beat Spencer, but not when he’s starting Mecole Hardman and Andrew Wingard. I think in any given week any team has a chance, but you have to at least try to maximize those lineup spots. How many potential starting RBs were there on waivers this week? Six? It felt like a lot. They’re not all good or anything, but they’re better than Phillip Lindsay on bye and Bob Tonyan on IR. So the point is we have one person proving that you can play your best and lose every week, locking horns with someone who thinks losing is a foregone conclusion. Max, if ever there were a week to just try, it is this one. Claim your first Mortydome victory, and keep Spencer defeated! KICK HIM WHILE HE’S DOWN!
The Whose Line Is It Anyway Award (for the player who benefits most from made-up rules) goes to… Jonathan Taylor.
And by extension, Brian. Because of all the fuck-shit with the keeper rule, Brian was able to holdover 2020’s only decent third-round pick in JT, who is not only the best keeper but the best overall player now that Derrick Henry is done. (Give up, Cameron. Give up and trade me Cooper Kupp.) It’s bullshit, right? And we’re all in agreement that the reason it’s bullshit is because I was going to trade up into the early third round last year and pick Taylor, only I chickened out, right? That’s what we’re all thinking?
Honorary Mention: Leonard Fournette; one-third of his touches go for first downs, by far the highest rate in the league, and who made the first down rule? … Cameron with the long con. Unforgivable.
Rookie of the Year Finalists
Najee Harris – 19.6 FPpg
Ja’Marr Chase – 17.5 FPpg
Elijah Mitchell – 15.9 FPpg
Michael Carter – 13.1 FPpg
Micah Parsons – 11.6 out of 10 on the douchebag scale
Jaylen Waddle – 11.3 FPpg on a trash team
Kyle Pitts – 10.6 FPpg (TE6, right behind Waller)
And the award goes to…
Kennedy! Kennedy is pretty competitive this year, but if he wants to start looking to next year, he’s got Chase and Mitchell already locked up. Even if the 49ers pull their classic bullshit and Mitchell is somehow third-string next year, Chase is potentially the best keeper overall.
Honorary Mention: Corey spending up on Pitts and getting to keep him has to feel real good.
Keeper of the Year Finalists
Josh Allen – early keeper, second in overall scoring, but Corey kept him over DK Metcalf.
Justin Herbert – early keeper, fourth in scoring, he’s had three games above 40 FP but four games under 20…
Kyler Murray – early, MVP candidate, cheat-code with the rushing, can’t stay healthy and neither can his best receiver; it’s all crashing down.
Jonathan Taylor - …
Dammit, it’s Jonathan Taylor.
Honorable Mention: Antonio Br—nope, feels gross.
Honorable Mention: Justin Jefferson Terry McLaurin, and Keenan Allen aren’t playing like superstars, but having an everyweek starter at WR (this season specifically) should not be taken for granted.
The award for Best Fantasy First Half Ever goes to Cameron. He was melting our skin right off our bones for the first six weeks. His team is a shell of what is was then and he should just throw in the towel before we do to him what Drago did to Creed, but we should at least revere the amazing start he had and will never have again because we’re not allowed to trade him early picks anymore, especially if your last name is or was Mathias. Just say no.
It’s worth mentioning that we have yet to strike a trade this year, which is definitely caused by the (lack of) playoff structure this year. I do miss roasting trades in the moment and then being wrong about them three weeks later. I miss it, and I look forward to our trade deadline this year. I think a few of us will be aggressive, but I also think it would be a nice reset to keep our picks, set our best lineups, and hammer free agency for some nice keeper candidates. This is my egalitarian dream for 2022.
I want to do previews this week. I have about twenty minutes until the Ravens’ game starts, so I’m going to preview the Ravens’ game her and now. School is cancelled tomorrow because too many teachers decided to take vacation days to make Veterans’ Day into a four-day weekend (this really happened, and it’s forced school closures in our three largest school districts so far). So tomorrow I’ll go through and preview the six Mortydome matchups and then update this page.
The last time the Ravens played the Dolphins was fucking legendary. Lamar completed 17 of 20 passes for 324 yards and 5 TDs while carrying the ball three times for six yards. After the game, he answered his first question by saying, “Not bad for a runningback.” That was the first game of his MVP season. This is shaping up to be his second MVP season. He has accounted for 75% of the Ravens yards this season, second only to Josh Allen (who from now on should have to be qualified “quarterback Josh Allen.”)
The Dolphins built their defense back to front, Belichick style. You get the best DBs you can find, either guys who can play lockdown man coverage on the boundary or are versatile enough to play competent man/zone/press from multiple positions. You can’t manufacture coverage, but you can manufacture pass-rush, so you don’t pay shit for your front seven. You just get try to seven-to-ten guys who can get off blocks and tackle and keep churning until you do. The Dolphins have not done a good job of the second part. This is not a good tackling team. That’s bad always. The Ravens can’t tackle and have maybe the worst defense in franchise history right now. But this week, the Ravens only have to tackle Myles Gaskin, Jaylen Waddle, and Jacoby Brissett. I guess Mike Gesicki. Gesicki is the specific type of guy they’ve have trouble with; CJ Uzomah absolutely waxed this secondary three weeks ago. This is the one advantage Miami has, and I’m sure they have no idea it’s an advantage. Get the ball to Gesicki and let him break tackles. Mack Hollins is okay, too. Hunter Long, sure. Get the ball to these big dudes with speed and see what happens. Myles Gaskin is going to gain like 30 total yards. Jaylen Waddle is the type of player the Ravens can tackle. They are not lacking speed and quickness; it’s size that’s the problem.
On the other side, yeah, not being able to tackle fucking sucks because the Ravens have the two most patient runners in the game in Jackson and Bell. They have Mark Andrews who’s able to mow down any DB 1-on-1. They have Devonta Freeman looking not totally un-spry. Right now, with 75% of the offense coming via some form of Jackson, the Dolphins are totally fucked. The one advantage they have is Byron Jones can keep pace with Hollywood Brown and Xavien Howard can blanket Rashod Bateman.
What’s going to be interesting is whether the Ravens lean back into their rushing identity because I think if they do, they will be able to cruise for 250 yards rushing while the Ravens’ defense is able to capitalize on some Dolphin desperation.
The Dolphins’ only legitimate shot to win is to figure out how to erase Mark Andrews. If they can bracket or get someone draped over him, while also forcing Lamar to pass instead of run, maybe they can get some turnover luck and win a close one. Maybe.
But I bet it will be pretty ugly.
I’ll update you when Part 2 drops.
Update (11/12): the Ravens are such dicks. How the hell can you not counter against a team rushing seven defenders on every play? Or, more specifically, how is your only counter to throw a screen to the outside? Everyone who plays Madden knows that if they run engage eight, you run four verts. Small children are hip to this concept. An NFL offense should have hot routes ready for every snap. And if you’re getting blitzed every snap, you can make the whole play out of hot routes. You don’t think you have time for four verts to develop? Run spacing.
It was a smart gameplan by Miami. Baltimore wants to run, run playaction, and take deep shots. Miami bet that the Ravens couldn’t protect against all-out blitzes, and they were right. Miami mitigated read-option and runs from shotgun/pistol. They all but eliminated the potential for playaction. You can’t “freeze” LBs are intent to come storming straight at the QB no matter what. The Ravens still tried to run, still tried playaction, but it resulted in major losses of yardage in key situations. They tried going to a quick-passing attack, driven mostly by screens to the outside. These screens were somewhat successful at first but then Miami played the edges a little wider and were able to tip some passes and deter others. Blitzing safeties is especially tasty because it puts someone in the backfield quick enough that Lamar can’t shake them without wasting just enough time for someone else to get near. And who needs safeties if you’re dropping the best CB trio in football into coverage against average receiving talent. It was a great one-off gameplan to catch the Ravens off-guard on a short week.
The officiating in this game was dogshit. The NFL is not quite professional wrestling, since the players aren’t in on the con, but it might as well be. You can’t watch the Mark Andrews catch get overturned (after like five minutes of deliberation) and suggest anything above-board went down. It was called a catch on the field, there wasn’t any of that “clear and obvious evidence” to overturn it, and yet they overturned it. We are rapidly approaching an era where officials are only on the field to make sure players don’t fight each other between plays. Everything else is going to be decided by a Sky Judge. We know these officials have “New York” and “upstairs” in their ears at all times. There are plenty of good reasons for this kind of oversight and real-time correction, but this setup is ideal for corruption, even if it’s not malicious. It could just be incompetent over-management. Either way it detracts from the quality of entertainment, and I believe this is straight out of the Skip Bayless School of Journalism: disagreement drives engagement. You can’t spell contentious without content. Etc.
The officiating is bad on purpose. It drives engagement with actual games while pulling engagement away from “the off-field stuff.” It’s so stupidly easy, and it works every time. If the NFL can just survive Tuesday and Wednesday every week, they can just get the Thursday refs wasted pregame and sleep well until it’s Tuesday again.
Dalvin Cook beat up his girlfriend last year. There’s damning evidence. I think it’s damning. I’m sure there’s some legal statute that says since this is shared on Twitter, it’s inadmissible, that the bruises and lacerations are from pinch-and-zooming the pixels, and it’s really Apple’s fault for caring more about patent law than American freedom.
Fuck.
All right. Week 10 Preview Time!
If you’ve forgotten how good I am at predicting NFL action, just refer to yesterday’s Ravens’ preview.
Aka The Two Brothers Who Are Just Regular Brothers Bowl
Aka The Swole Bowl
Against his younger brother—it’s canon now, if only for this week’s cash—Kennedy is 7-1, winning by an average of 13 points. Last year, I predicted (then 0-4) Kennedy would finally lose a second game, and he won by 30. So with Kennedy’s entire offense (The Cincinnati Bengals) on bye, I am nonetheless predicting that Kennedy will win by many, many points. Kirk Cousins, 50 points. Deonte Harris and Donovan Peoples-Jones, 50 points apiece. Scrap-heap DL Markus Golden, 12 sacks. A rout. A latrine with Coleman’s face buried in it, mouth open. Alvin Kamara is out, and his only other RB is Austin Ekeler, who we all know is too small to play RB anyway. And he’s starting two rookies and two DBs? Who could possibly have success with that kind of lineup? Nobody. Not even if Russell Wilson comes back and Terry McLaurin cooks the Bucs secondary. Against Deonte Harris AND Donovan Peoples-Jones?! Together?! No chance.
Aka The Gutter Game
Loser leaves town? Or loser becomes the vampire? I think Spencer brought it up first, the idea of playing in a “vampire league” in which one teams doesn’t get to draft at all and has to make a team entirely from free agency, with the added benefit that every time they win a game, they get to steal one player from the team they beat. Whatever it is, I’m down for this happening if one of us has to miss next year’s draft. Just to go a bit deeper on this, the vampire wouldn’t get, like, exclusive access to free agency after the draft for any amount of time. Everyone else would still be able to make moves at that time, too. I do think at some point, there would have to be a wins threshold at which point you stop being the vampire. Basically I’m saying I think I could be the vampire and win enough games that my team would end up being unfairly good by the end of the regular season. I think anyone could. The hardest part would be getting WRs or RBs. I think you could easily spam one position or the other and get starters, but I don’t think you can do both. I would spam WR until I got three decent enough ones and then start spamming RB once bye weeks and injuries add up.
What I’m saying is, I would like to be the vampire, but I’m also saying whoever wins, consider making it a rule that someone be the vampire for at least one season. Maybe the champ becomes the vampire.
Does the vampire get keepers? I’m not sure about this one. I think keepers give the vampire more advantage than the game intends. But then again, Spencer kept Diggs and Devin White and has yet to win a game despite having all but his third and ninth picks. Evan kept Lockett and Jefferson and is dead last in points, behind a team that’s barely been managed all year.
I guess it should come as no surprise that Spencer and Max lead the league in “points allowed.” How else would you lose so many games? But it’s by such a wide margin that it might actually regress and lead to a balance shift as we get into the home stretch. Max is first, allowing 1524 points, Spencer is 2nd at 1505, and then I’m 3rd with… 1387. That’s almost a full game’s worth. Cameron is “allowing” the fewest points, at 1192. That’s two full week’s worth of points allowed separating first place from last place.
What I’m saying is: this matchup is the most important one in the history of Mortydome. If Spencer loses to Max’s sorry team (Mecole Hardman, Austin Hooper, Andrew Wingard are STARTING), he might never win again. And with all of his players either injured or in shit matchups, this might happen. Max stumbled into decent RBs in Conner, Pollard, and McKissic. Conner and McKissic should lead their teams in touches, and Pollard is always a threat to house one. The Rodgers-Adams combo is going to get back on track at home, and LBs Deion Jones and Darius Leonard are top-10 at the position. This team is good! Max just needs to spam WR until he gets two that do stuff.
Sorry, Spe, I’m just enjoying the winless season too much to root for you.
Aka Optimism vs. Realism
Shelby is already off to a rough start. Even though Lamar underwhelmed with 19 FP for Sean, it’s worse that Hollywood only had 3.7 for Shelby. Shelby probably gets Chris Carson back this week, though, and if Kenyan Drake’s last three games are legit, she’s looking at an extra 30 points in her lineup that haven’t been there for a while. That is enough to tilt this one in her favor. Sean is in desperate need for a WR. The Mike Williams magic has run out, Chase Claypool is hurt, Sanders put up a fat zero two weeks ago, and he can’t start Jeudy and Patrick together every week. Dalvin Cook might get suspended. Lamar Jackson is good for one stinker per month, Trevon Diggs’ INT luck has run out. I will say that Sean has two three-game winning streaks already this year, and he’s in position to get a playoff bye. If he gets the bye, he only needs to win three games to win it all.
But so this week, Shelby can combine two legitimate RBs (i.e., not Adrian Peterson or Jordan Howard) and three stud WRs (even though Brown already showed poorly, it’s more about process). TJ Watt’s 25 points should offset whatever garbage she has to start at QB (though Wentz and Carr aren’t terrible options).
Overall (spoiler) I am predicting an evening of the pack this week, with the top three teams losing their matchups, putting the best team at two losses and the ninth-best team at just five losses. With three weeks left (11, 12, and 13), that could put the playoff picture in full chaos, with almost any team capable of getting a bye at that point—though to be fair, only three spots are really open. Cameron has enough of a points lead on everybody that he likely needs just one more win to secure a bye. One of Coleman or I would have to win out to put that in any kind of jeopardy.
I’m assuming Evan’s team name is just what his team would say if it were able to look at itself in a mirror. Otherwise, I have no idea. I mean, I’m sure it’s some sort of referendum on how it feels to manage that specific team, but I don’t get the specific moment that set off the Wtf because for me it’s been Wtf since Jump Street. Corey has an empty bench spot and a QB who is out until next September. I suppose there are worse strategies than holding Winston as a late keeper option. Corey could still trade him to Brian for a little something, and Jameis would retain that keeper value. If the Saints re-sign him and he rehabs well, he’ll start for them again next year. The injury is going to make him super affordable (gross, but that’s the game), more affordable than any other starting QB with only marginally less upside than a rookie QB they’d get in the back-half of the first round. Okay, you sold me. Keep him, but c’mon man, keep him on IR. (Note: I advised Corey to put DeVante Parker on IR earlier this week, though technically that was just to present an option besides cutting him; I say “advised” but of course that’s with an implied “unsolicited.”)
Evan could win here. Herbert has a good matchup against the Vikings, which would put Jefferson on the other end of a shootout. Tyler Lockett gets his QB back. DeVonta Smith gets to matchup against former teammate Pat Surtain II and probably work him. Mike Gesicki’s zero catches on seven targets was historically bad, literally the only time since targets have been tracked that a player has had seven targets without catching one, though is it really much worse than Hollywood Brown getting 13 targets and just 37 yards? Not important. Devin Singletary is going to have a huge game against the Jets. If the Jets give the Bills the same 2-high shell that everyone else has been giving them, the Bills should have nice running lanes and use, like, an actual runningback to exploit them. I’m assuming Zack Moss gets ruled out with a concussion, but either way I think Singletary’s speed gives him an edge against the Jets’ slow second-level defenders. I’m not going to say nice things about Micah Parsons, but I will say that 43 points in two weeks is a lot. And of course Lavonte is going to come out on fire coming off a bye after a loss.
The Singletary thing probably won’t matter since any success he has will just further enable Josh Allen to shred the Jets. Corey is projected to win this matchup despite having a bye week player in at DB right now. With just Allen, Pitts, Ingram, and Hill, I think Corey has enough here, keeping his playoff-bye hopes barely alive. Meanwhile, Evan mathematically must play in Week 14 with his season on the line, which means starting the playoffs without Geskicki, DeVonta, or Miles Sanders. BUT he should have Saquon Barkley and Dawson Knox healthy by then, which really only puts him one solid FLEX away from a good shot at a First Round upset.
(I’m still partial to Pat Cajones, FWIW.)
Cameron’s team is still just so fucking stupid good, I hate it. He still has two legit starting RBs, four stud WRs, and sick IDPs. He also has the top kicker through nine weeks. But there are cracks in the façade. Mahomes has dad legs now. He’s temporarily washed until he gets used to not sleeping more than four consecutive hours ever again. CeeDee Lamb is kind of a dick, and he’s picked up a couple injuries this year. With that frame, it’s unlikely he’ll hold up to a full workload. Michael Gallup is going to come back and eat into it. Cooper Kupp is going to lose targets to OBJ, and if he doesn’t, OBJ is going to burn down the building. Give. Up.
Brian has Dak and McCaffrey back, and of course one of his starters has to get injured so that he can never have that full starting lineup. So it’ll probably be Tyler Johnson, and it’ll probably be Johnson’s breakout game. Seven catches, 110 yards, one TD. A modest breakout that’s followed by six weeks of nothing, then a sick Week 18 game with Blaine Gabbert, then nothing again until next season, when he’ll “breakout” for 1,000 yards starting across from Mike Evans. But yeah this week, I’m not just rooting for Brian. I am predicting he will win. Brian is immune to the commissioner’s curse, and he will win.
Stafford or Brady? Stafford all day. Stafford lived in Tampa before it was cool. (Is it cool now? Tampa Baes on Amazon Prime implies that it’s cool now.)
Metcalf or Evans? This is a real debate to me. I think these are the best WRs in football because anybody can get them the ball. Geno Smith and Ryan Fitzpatrick are gods when they get to throw to Metcalf and Evans, respectively. We’ll see if Rodgers and Adams breakup if Adams is this type of receiver. Jordan Love wasn’t able to just chuck it up and have Davante go get it the way Jameis could do with Evans. There’s something about being 6’4”-6’5” with legitimate WR speed and vertical ability. I think Evans has better footwork while DK is faster and stronger. The knock on both of them is they have, like, B+ hands. Just watch the games. They are usually double-covered, and whenever they’re not, the ball is usually going their way. My least favorite part of realizing this is knowing that Oliver is about to wax me this week off of Evans and Brady alone. With no Godwin, no Gronk, no AB, how does Evans not get 15 targets in this game? Coming off a loss and a bye week? Why not 20? Is there a better secondary against which to chase the single-game receiving record than this year’s WFT? Maybe Brady doesn’t care about that. But he has to at least be thinking about how to take a shot at the single-game passing marks (554 yards & 7 TDs). Brady’s career best is 517. Stafford’s career best is 520. The active leader in single-game passing yards: Ben Roethlisberger at 522.
That 554 is pre-merger. The post-merger record is… any guesses? Matt Schaub and Warren Moon tied at 527. When Schaub did it, Andre Johnson had 19 targets, 14 catches, and 273 yards, including a 48-yard TD to win the game in OT. When Moon did it, WR Hayward Jeffires had 9 catches for 245 yards.
The point is that I’m going to lose to Oliver, and I’m just wondering by how much and in what specific way am I going to be tormented while it happens. I already have to watch the Bucs game knowing that basically everything good our offense does goes through either Oliver’s team or Cameron’s. I’m just wondering how we can slather on a 200-point beatdown on top of that. But of course let’s also keep it just close enough that when the Rams play on Monday night, somehow Darrell Henderson and Tyler Higbee outscore Stafford and Ramsey. Just twist that knife slow, baby.
Also, I have RBs. If anyone wants any RBs, I have them all. Does anyone want RBs? I’m going to drop them anyway. Anybody willing to part with a decent Week 11 QB, DB, or LB? Or DL? Man, my shit is weak.
Okay, I’m toast. Have fun this weekend, friends.
