Brian had one of the worst seasons in league history, but it wasn’t the worst! It’s the third time in the Mortydome common era that a team has gone 2-12 (Shelby and Spencer are the others; they are coincidentally the two teams Brian beat this year), and 1578 regular-season points is only second worst since scoring increased in 2019 (Sean finished that season with 1561). How did it go so wrong? Well, Brian couldn’t score any points. His best week was last week, with 132 FP in a melee loss. His highest score in a win was 117. His lowest score in a win was 105. Brian is lucky to have avoided going 0-14. But why didn’t he score any points? Let’s start with his choice of draft slot. Brian could have chosen 6th overall, but he chose to go 10th. Picks 6-10 were Dalvin Cook, Najee Harris, Justin Jefferson, and Ja’Marr Chase. Brian picked D’Andre Swift. He made up for it by taking CeeDee Lamb in the 2nd Round, even scoring a 3rd (or a 1st) by trading Lamb way ahead of the trade deadline. Brian’s next seven picks were Pittman, Akers, Diontae Johnson, Derwin, CEH, Isaiah Simmons, and Jameis Winston. At the time, it was fine, potentially great value on all of these guys, too. Winston and CEH were starters. Isaiah Simmons sucked for the first month but since then is a top-5 LB. In retrospect, Brian took on too much risk. Swift is always hurt, Pittman was getting another uninspiring QB change, Akers had the Achilles thing plus Stafford had the elbow thing plus the Rams had the no o-line thing…
So what can we learn from Brian’s disaster season? First, reduce risk with that first pick. Second, if your team sucks ass and scores no points in the first four weeks, hit the shake-up button hard. Third, instead of quiet quitting, have some fun with your team. Make an experiment of it, if only to widen the range of players you’ll draft. I think Brian’s kind of done the last one, taking shots on WRs and maybe striking gold for next year with Zay Jones.
Spencer had ten losses in just a normal bad year. He had a bunch of good players, but he didn’t have any consistently great players. Tee Higgins posted two zeroes in his lineup because the Bengals didn’t announce before those games that Higgins wouldn’t play. Aaron Jones had three 20-FP games and a 30-FP game, but he also had weeks of 3, 7, 4, and 7 again. David Montgomery has been the most consistent producer, and even he was starting to lose his grip on the starting job before Khalil Herbert got hurt. Trevor Lawrence has finally arrived, though. Spencer won’t get the benefit of two keepers years with Lawrence, though, because Garrett Wilson is even more valuable, as long as the Jets start literally anyone but Zach Wilson. Spencer’s hitting on a bunch of late-season additions: Zonovan Knight, Chig Okonkwo, Willie Gay. Spencer is making a run at the #1 pick, and I love it. I don’t see anything Spencer could have done differently to change his team’s fate. His best players just never had their best weeks together. But those good players are still chugging along. Spencer could be the team that gets hot and tears up the pick ladder. Or it’s just not his year. It happens. But Spencer enters next year with awesome keepers, granted he would have also entered this year with awesome keepers, if there were keepers.
Shelby only lost nine games, but she is finally free from Kyler. His ACL tear will keep him out until at least mid-September, and it could end up derailing his career. Shelby knows what I’m going to say next: she had the chance to take Joe Burrow over Kyler, and she chose wrong. It happens! It happened to me twice before she even made that pick. But it’s not like that pick broke her season on its own. Shelby only drafted one real RB, and her WRs didn’t live up to expectation, but they also didn’t play poorly enough to get cut. Everything was fine. Shelby was 5-4, looking like a shoe-in for a playoff spot. In Week 10, Kyler missed his first game of the season. Shelby hasn’t won a game since. So okay, maybe that pick ruined her season, but I don’t like to blame injuries for bad luck in fantasy, especially when your backup QB is outplaying two-thirds of the league. Despite the season-sinking skid, Shelby starts the pick ladder in favorable position. Jerry Jeudy looks like a legit #1 WR, and Rachaad White looks to be the juicier half of a timeshare. But ultimately the story of her season is the (merciful) split from Kyler Murray.
Max is the only person who gets to complain about injuries. I mean, not really, because it’s bloodsport and we should expect players who get the ball the most to get hurt the most, but fine. Jonathan Taylor and Breece Hall were very important to Max’s season, and they played like three valuable weeks apiece. There were multiple weeks where Taylor got hurt early and missed the rest of the game, which is a brutal experience to live through and then on top of that, it almost guarantees a loss, a slow, painful loss. How about Darren Waller and David Njoku, who each would have been top-5 TEs if not for injuries? How about Tom Brady, who has been playing through a broken heart all season? And then Max traded for Aaron Rodgers, only after which point did Rodgers reveal he’d been playing through a broken thumb for two months, and THEN Rodgers hurt his ribs the ensuing week. You can always pivot, but if you spend every week pivoting, at some point you reach capacity and just need to vent about it in the chat. Anecdotally, you should have much better injury luck next year.
Kennedy restarted that Roy game a few times, but in the end, no matter how you play the game, you remain Roy. I had a great time. Kennedy started 1-2 and basically declared his season over. Then he won three straight and scored a shit ton of points. Heading into Week 9, Kennedy was 5-3 and blazing hot, scoring 170 in four of five weeks. Then he lost four straight, including a most deflating defeat when he scored 161 but lost to Evan’s 187. Kennedy was ready to sell out, but then he creamed Coleman in the Two Brothers Bowl and sat in sixth place with a points lead going into the melee. In that melee, he scored the fewest points of any team and set his personal season-low with 107 FP. He enters the pick ladder with a bye and the best team in the field, but the story of the season is the story of Roy, the seemingly infinite directions that man can go, and all the emotions a person can possibly feel, despite all the while knowing we’re just participating in a game within a game.
Corey had a wild ride as well. He took away our keepers, he named his team for once, and he started the season 3-0. He even outscored Evan those first three weeks. Then he lost five games in a row, including consecutive weeks when Burrow scored 40 and 50. He finished the season on a 3-game winning streak. If I had scored just 20 fewer points in the melee (like had I started Brady or Huntley over Goff, which I was really considering), Corey would have snuck into the playoffs. And like Shelby, he did it with one RB most of the way, with the added challenge of having that RB lose his starting job in the middle of the year. This season was about Joe Burrow, for sure, but also about the four-wide lineup and the extra TE. I don’t spend two roster spots on TE. I am a “stud or stream” type of guy. Last year Corey started two TEs and won the ship. This year, he flipped his extra TE for a another great WR—granted that WR got hurt but still, a great WR and a keeper. Corey also did some really interesting IDP stuff, including the late-season addition of Dre Greenlaw, who is rapidly emerging as one of the league’s best LBs, and Christian Wilkins, a DL who scores through TFLs. I’ll always remember this as the year Corey handed Shelby back-to-back losses, which was the equivalent of pulling someone into the pool after you’ve been thrown in yourself.
I shouldn’t be in the playoffs, and I wish I weren’t. I lost my QB and sold out before the season ended, only to end up leading the melee in points with 38 from Jared Goff and 62 from my IDPs. Stevenson and Hopkins are my best players. One got hurt Monday night, and the other lost his QB for the rest of the year. So I think more about DK and Derrick than I do my own team, and that’s my cross to bear for selling my alphas for magic beans. My alphas! My team identity for the season! I gave it all away because I thought Kennedy would win in the melee. I gave away my name, man, my name! And the worst part is that I still feel like I can win it all. A little bit of good luck for me, a little bit of bad luck for others, and I’m as in it as anybody. Which means even though I don’t deserve to be in it, a loss will feel as bad for me as it would for any of the real contenders.
Cameron is not one of those real contenders, and not just because I’m watching Kirk Cousins post negative points in the first half of the Vikings-Colts game (not a prediction; I am writing this during the game). Cameron is surviving through scoring explosions from Josh Jacobs, Davante Adams, and Tony Pollard. The Jacobs thing in particular is unsustainable but somehow just keeps happening. I won’t fight it. But beyond those three players, what even is this team? Amari Cooper, CryptoHenry, Travis Etienne, and Mike Williams are the other key players, which just doesn’t feel serious. That’s the theme of Cameron’s season. He scored 85 FP one week. He traded away Ja’Marr Chase, he traded post-cliff Melvin Gordon for the (at-the-time) WR9. The whole thing is fraudulent, right down to riding Tua to the playoffs. Just look at the collapse of the Dolphins offense now that defenses are actually pressing the receivers at the line. The story of Cameron’s season isn’t just that his team isn’t serious; it’s that he’s starting the least serious options at QB: Russ, Wentz, Garappolo, Tua, and now Cousins. I refuse to acknowledge his chances at a championship (and that’s what makes him dangerous).
Oliver is technically below Cameron in the standings, but he ended the season way hotter, and the talent on his team is way better. The story of Oliver’s season is that he was ready to give up when he had six losses, including four straight, but his team refused to lose, and Oliver rewarded them with an all-in approach like we’ve never seen. He traded away his 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th, and 13th picks from next year’s draft. (If he wins it all, the 2nd becomes a 1st, but if he wins it all, he doesn’t need next year’s draft.) People will say he bought his team. People will say he put the integrity of the league in jeopardy. People will call him names, like… 2022 Mortydome Champion.
Coleman has a bunch of talent, granted it’s been utilized in some kind of horror show. Herbert, Kamara, Pierce, Walker, Jefferson, Olave, McLaurin, Parsons, Maxx… that’s a murderer’s row if they can all put it together the same week. As yet, they really haven’t. Coleman did have a 192-FP week, and another at 182. But he’s mostly been between 140 and 160, utterly undominant. Or… dormant. He adds Dallas Goedert for the playoff run, and there’s no reason this can’t be Coleman’s first 200-FP game of the season. There’s no reason he can’t absolutely dominate my face in the first round of our playoffs. There’s no reason he should make it close, or even lose by a lot, to me specifically, this week of all weeks, with the season on the line. No reason!
Evan was in first place for at least ten weeks straight, and he’s been tied for first all season. He is the Polar Express. Josh Allen is the Polar Express, and Evan is the Polar Express, kind of like, that thing where the part is named the same thing as the whole. You know the thing. There’s even a word for when a thing is named that. Semantics. The story of Evan’s season is that winners win. We try to come up with all kinds of little tricks to win, and in the end, all any championship team is get the good players who play good. Evan’s actually cooling down right now, but honestly it just feels like his team is instinctively taking rest while the games don’t really matter. A bye is a bye. Evan has yet to be significantly challenged for the title. Josh Allen’s Week 16 matchup is @CHI. That’s all I need to know. But in general, it’s just been a season so coldly dominant that we’re numb to it. Evan’s going to stomp all over us, and we’re just going to compliantly take our beating like the betas he’s made us.
Sean ends the season on top, which is awesome because this year’s note around Mortydome history highlighted just how awful Sean’s team had been the past three years, literally the worst. The only way this season could have been better would be if Brian had taken the league-low scoring record for a season. Sean’s done it a few ways. He drafted Jalen Hurts for cheap and hit on the picks ahead of him, including Mark Andrews, who’s playing like shit but still outscoring every TE drafted behind him (maybe not Kittle after this week, but we’ll see). He had awesome injury luck and bought the best players at the deadline, adding Lamb, Henry, and Bosa. He’s also gotten approximately 8,000 points from Denver LBs this season, which seems like something that just happens now. Because the story is undefined, and because he’s getting QB1 play out of a mid-round pick, it feels like the story will be how Sean won the championship. I don’t want to suggest fantasy football is that simple, but historically, yeah, if the #1 QB is a mid-round pick, and you have good luck with injuries, you just win.
Bye weeks: Sean, Evan, Corey, Kennedy
Pick Ladder
Winners this week secure top-4 picks and continue up the ladder for the chance at the #1 pick in next year’s draft. Losers drop into a bucket of paint and play next week for last place and the difference between Picks 5 and 6.
#12 Peaking vs. #9 Piss Master
Having already seen most of two games at this point, I know that Jonathan Taylor might have killed Max already but also that Thielen, Warner, and Kendricks are keeping it respectable so far. Meanwhile, Brian got a huge game from Hufanga. Brian is still starting Browns QB, and it’s not even a good matchup. Brian must want to be given some sort of credit for this, either points toward League Villain membership or some kind of Purple Heart for jumping on the grenade, I don’t know. I refuse to make anything of this.
These are bad teams. The best players are bad people. Someone will win, which is insulting to Shelby and Spencer’s decent-to-good teams. So… fine. Who will win?
Brian because it’s funnier. But it’s sad that Zay Jones will be on the bench after he’s kind of proven he’s legit.
What’s more important: teams this bad need to cut the fat and add some keepers. Brian’s doing a pretty good job, but he’s also holding onto Darrell Henderson, who is not on an NFL roster. If it’s a bit, it’s totally lost on me. Max has at least three players worth cutting.
#11 C’mon Football vs. #10 You’re Doing it Wrong
This is a fun matchup. Spencer is playing against a couple of his favorite players in Kittle and Diggs, and those two will probably be the stars of the show. I would love to put Trevor on the marquee, but he’s playing against an awesome Dallas defense. Spencer’s got Garrett Wilson, but Garrett Wilson’s got Zach Wilson. Shelby’s got some bad matchups of her own. Mixon plays the Bucs (actually, without Vea or Barrett, I don’t know how tough the Bucs are against the run) and Rachaad White plays the Bengals (who are especially tough against the run since the return of nose tackle DJ Reader). Juju and Jeudy might be Shelby’s X-factors here. They’ve flown under the fantasy radar because they haven’t been consistent, but each of them has had multiple huge games and are integral to their team’s success. Personally, I’d love to see this game come down to who has more sacks between Matt Judon and Devin White, but Panthers LB Franke Luvu is scoring more points per game than either. Advantage Shelby.
Playoffs
Winners advance to Round 2. Losers play next week for 5th place and the difference between Picks 7 and 8.
#3 Krombop vs. #6 AJ Dillon
His name is Algiers Dillon. His name is Algiers Dillon.
I don’t know. I spent this week sweating the difference between Gus Edwards and Rhamondre Stevenson. I’m on full tilt, and I’m sure I just tilted by starting Gus Edwards. The idea is to capture as much of that Ravens’ rushing attack as I can, but I’m limiting my upside by sitting Stevenson, who appears to be coming back this week (reading the tea leaves of Stevenson practicing Friday and Damien Harris being ruled out Saturday). I don’t trust the Patriots. I don’t trust myself. I trust the Baltimore Ravens when it comes to running the ball. You live by the bird, you die by the bird. I don’t know.
Coleman’s already gotten a shit-load of points from Justin Jefferson. Ken Walker salvaged Thursday night with a 30-yard catch and run late in the fourth quarter. Justin Herbert plays a Titans defense with seven starters out. My only hope is that dumb shit happens, so just play the dumbest lineup possible and try to enjoy the chaos. And Coleman has given me more reason to root for the Saints to implode, so giddyup.
#4 Lyfe is Kirk vs. #5 Cum Gutters
This is the game of the week. It’s easily the most competitive, and it has the most dudes capable of cracking 30 FP. Including Kirk Cousins, who was in the negatives when I was writing Cameron’s regular season narrative, who now has 36 and potential for a game-winning TD. But the list of names here is just impressive: Barkley, CMC, Jacobs, Davante, Kelce, Pacheco, Keenan, Metcalf, Hockenson, Cooper, Pollard, even Mike Williams coming off a brilliant performance last week (and also playing the decimated Titans defense). Hell, Isaiah Pacheco had 13 FP despite playing behind Jerick McKinnon, and against the Texans this week, Pacheco could rush 25 times. On defense: TJ Watt, CJ Mosley, Budda Baker, Myles Garrett, Marcus “Primetime 2” Jones… if only Jordyn Brooks hadn’t hurt his neck, he’d have thrown a double-digit score on the board. Oh, did I mention Patrick Mahomes? There’s 200-point potential on each side of this game, and it could easily become the Mortydome game of the year (apparently I’m making that a thing? Who knows?)
All right, steam depleted. Time to watch the Ravens, if this stupid Colts-Vikings game would just end already!
