Pre-Draft:
Sean receives an extra late keeper slot, spent on Trey McBride
Cam receives a 6th round pick, spent on Raheem Mostert
Oliver receives a 7th, spent on Caleb Williams
Doak receives Kyler Murray, for use as my late keeper
Oliver receives a 10th, spent on TJ Hockenson (or Chase Brown; Oliver picked them back-to-back)
Kennedy receives Nico Collins, for use as his early keeper.
Mid-Draft:
Coleman receives Laiatu Latu
Doak receives Romeo Doubs
Post-Draft:
Brian receives Brian Burns
Doak receives DeAndre Hopkins
Coleman receives Kyren Williams & a 2nd
Oliver receives Joe Mixon & Chris Olave
Doak receives Chuba Hubbard
Kennedy receives Romeo Doubs
Week 3:
Sean receives Kyler Murray
Doak receives a 3rd
Week 4:
Doak receives Mark Andrews
Kennedy receives Antonio Gibson
Week 5:
Doak receives Sam LaPorta
Max receives Isaiah Likely
Cameron receives Austin Ekeler
Spencer receives Raheem Mostert & an 8th
Doak receives Tee Higgins
Brian receives Brian Burns & a 9th
(Yes, that’s twice I traded Burns to Brian)
Week 7:
Cameron receives Jordan Love
Evan receives Austin Ekeler & Fred Warner
Week 9:
Evan receives DeAndre Hopkins
Sean receives DeVonta Smith
Brian receives Travis Etienne
Spencer receives Diontae Johnson
Week 10:
Brian receives Brian Thomas
Doak receives a 4th & 9th
(that’s my 9th back)
Week 11:
Kennedy receives Christian McCaffrey
Corey receives a 4th & the Pats’ backfield
Spencer receives Khalil Shakir
Doak receives Raheem Mostert
Cameron receives Bo Nix
Doak receives Josh Downs
Kennedy receives Zay Flowers
Coleman receives Jauan Jennings
Week 13:
Kennedy receives Mark Andrews
Doak receives a 5th
Oliver receives Ladd McConkey
Brian receives a 4th (a 3rd if Oliver wins a playoff game)
Cam receives Mike Evans & a 7th
Doak receives Jerry Jeudy & a 4th
Coleman receives Mike Evans & De’Von Achane
Cameron receives a 1st, a 5th, & Jordan Addison
Sean receives Josh Allen
Spencer receives a 2nd & a 14th
(wtf is even the point of the 14th?)
Oliver receives Crosby, Kupp, & Love
Cam receives Ladd, a 5th, & a 10th
I would like to honor myself with the superlative of Master Alchemist, turning a 7th into a 3rd, an 8th into a 4th, an expiring keeper into another 4th, and however you want to condense adding Antonio Gibson for free, trading him for Mark Andrews, getting mostly starter-level stuff from Andrews for nine weeks, then trading Andrews back to his original owner for a 5th, oh and beating that owner with Andrews scoring 16 FP in their lineup.
I’ll give Cameron the honor of Relentless Salesman, scoring his entire lot of picks days before the deadline, after three straight weeks of advertising, even cajoling Coleman into dealing a 1st.
Spencer is simply The Scab after the rest of us spent all season trying to take Sean down, only for Spencer to give him Josh Allen, and not even for a 1st. Have some backbone! Demand the 1st and broadcast it to the league. Do you understand what we’re trying to accomplish here? Was the election not enough? You really need to sponsor the coup in our escapist refuge, too? For shame. For actual shame. Especially when anyone paying attention knew Oliver would offer more. Hell, if you’d given it until the end of the Browns’ game, I’d probably have offered at least a 2nd and change—and for the record, a 14th is not “change;” a 14th is belly-button lint that you can’t even trade for a red paper clip. Look, I’m not innocent; I traded Sean a QB for a 3rd. But we all know what that trade was, and we all know what this trade is. We all know what it means to go into the playoffs ping-ponging Kyler and Purdy versus stone-cold starting Josh Allen. With Sean having locked up the bye week, we can only hope the Patriots and the Jets come to play in Weeks 16 and 17 after they’ve both been super eliminated and the Bills are still playing for the 1-seed. FUCK! UGH, YOU FUCKED US, YOU FUCKING COWARD! One of Sean’s rules should be whoever finishes in last, effective immediately, has to continuously lick sewer lids until every member of the league says they can stop. I’d just want to see how long Oliver holds out. I would literally wish a small disease on you, something temporary and curable, but either disgusting or painful. Pink eye. If I were Oliver, and you did me dirty like that, I would spend every night between now and Sean’s last game praying that you get pink eye. (Note: I agree it’s just a game, and it’s all for fun; I just don’t see how selling out to Sean for a 2nd is fun. But I’m not actually mad. Don’t put it in the newspaper that I’m mad.)
The All for Naught Award goes to Kennedy, who played it frugal and still got screwed by a season-ending injury to CMC.
The Bitter Stench of Desperation Award is in the process of being renamed the Oliver Rigobon Death-or-Glory Pendant and will be presented adorned to a choker. Oliver is 22 points away from being 11th in scoring. Among current playoff teams, he’s fifth in scoring, a full 85 points away from fourth. And yet he leaves the trade deadline having given up the most future draft capital. I do respect the hustle of trying to kill the king. I’m just not sure the pieces you’ve added make you a contender, and (by no fault of your own), you couldn’t even keep the king from landing the big fish after all of that.
Most-moved players: Brian Burns, Raheem Mostert, Austin Ekeler, DeAndre Hopkins, Antonio Gibson, Mark Andrews, Mike Evans, Ladd McConkey, with the latter two each moved twice in one weekend.
Most capital received:
Cam: 1st, two 5ths, 7th, 10th
Doak: 3rd, two 4ths, 5th
Spe: 2nd, 8th
Coleman: 2nd
Brian, Corey: 4th
Oliver: 14th, 15th
Most capital sent:
Oliver: 2nd, 4th, 5th, 10th
Sean: 2nd, 3rd
Coleman: 1st, 5th
Kennedy: 4th, 5th
Cameron: 4th, 8th
Brian: 4th
Doak: 7th
Net:
Doak: + 3rd, two 4ths
Cam: + 1st, 5th, 10th
Spe: + 2nd, 8th
Corey: + 4th
Coleman: + 5th
Brian: + 4th swap
Evan, Max, Shelby: 0
Kennedy: - 4th, 5th
Sean: - 2nd, 3rd
Oliver: - 2nd, 4th, 5th
Now, the thing about Brian, Evan, Max, and Shelby is that there is more than one way to increase your draft capital. Even if all four miss the playoffs, they take the strongest four rosters into the pick ladder. While the #1 overall pick has dubious value, just look what Corey was able to do picking out of that spot this year, while making hardly any roster moves. He’s 7-6 despite his top two picks playing, like, two games combined between them. And again, without those two, he just dropped 183, just two points shy of the league lead this week. So while it might seem worth it to bail on your season for an extra pick, that move-up by an extra few picks every other round adds up to the value of one or two good picks over the course of a draft. A Brock Bowers type player is always available at the 4-5 turn. You just have to be willing to eat that risk.
I think it’s always important to remember this is a luck-based game. If Week 13 had been a melee, here’s how it would have shaken out:
185 Max W
183 Corey W
177 Sean W
175 Doak W
163 Shelby W
156 Brian W
151 Oliver L
149 Coleman L
148 Kennedy L
147 Evan L
135 Cameron L
109 Spencer L
Those results would have put Shelby in 4th, Oliver 5th, Corey 6th. Actual results put Oliver in 4th, Corey 5th, Max 6th. Oliver clinches a top-5 finish with his free space W over Spencer, when a loss would have put him in serious danger of missing the playoffs. Corey and Max go from the outside of the playoff bubble to having win-and-in scenarios for Week 14 (more details to come later in the week).
Let’s celebrate the bye-week-free Week 13. Definitely saw a scoring boom, just anecdotally. 151 to lose a melee would be brutal, especially when 132 and 145 resulted in melee wins in Week 1 (back when scoring across the league was low enough that talking heads were arguing there should be even more rules to help the offense). Jameis Winston and Jerry Jeudy led all players in scoring, the only two players with 40-point games. Nobody had Leo Williams on their team, but he scored a thicc-six which led him to the season-high 36 FP from an IDP. Oliver and Sean each had three RBs score 20+ FP (one of each on the bench). Antonio Gibson also had 20 FP, but unbeknownst to me, Corey dropped his ass last week; Gibson has outscored Rhamondre in both weeks since, by a total of 28-16. As good as scoring was across the board, it wasn’t due to a lot of spikes. It was due to everyone scoring at or above their floor. Jerry Jeudy led the way with 43, and then #2 was Mike Evans at 24. Brock Bowers spiked with 25 to lead all TEs, #2-6 all scored between 15 and 18. 14 kickers score double-digits, most of them in our starting lineups. (Two of our four starters who didn’t hit double-digits: Aubrey and Tucker.) Nobody started Leo Williams, but we did manage to start DLs #2-5, the only other DLs above 15 FP on the week. (Meanwhile, I started two DLs who combined for 2 FP.)
Let’s put the final nail in the coffins of Brian, Evan, and Spencer. Though Evan won, he needed Max to lose. Evan trails Max by 190 points, so that ship has sailed. Brian scored enough points to beat a lot of teams, but he went up against the week’s best team. Spencer earned every bit of that participation ribbon.
I am tired, and it is getting late in my slice of the planet. I’m going to reduce each individual recap to one sentence.
Shelby gets within one quarter of beating Corey, and then Bucky Irving rushes for literally 100 yards in that final quarter.
Oliver has almost as many points on his bench as Spencer has in their starting lineup.
Max peaks at the absolute worst time, as he only props up a false playoff bid and misses out on getting a massive haul of draft picks for his amazing roster.
Losing to Evan convinces Cameron to give it all away, even with a playoff bid still in the cards.
Jameis Winston keeps my season alive, with the… mmm… obvious literary reference, not quite Monkey’s Paw, not Chekhov, ugh… I don’t know, fucking Robert Johnson shit that the cost of Jameis Winston keeping my season alive is that I have to keep starting Jameis Winston, even though his next game is AT PITTSBURGH against a Steelers’ defense that’s going to be especially motivated to tear Winston to shreds.
Sean’s win-streak hits three, and it’s starting to sink in that the win-streak will never end, that the abolishment of term-limits will be swiftly followed by an abolishment of Sean losses, and a correction to the record books to reflect Sean’s Honest Truth that Sean has never lost. Sean’s Honest Truth will also dispel the rumor that Sean traded for Kyler Murray, when what really happened was that Kyler Murray begged Sean to be part of the cabinet, and Sean made Kyler pay for the wall, and so on. Don’t even bother making copies as proof for later generations. They’ll just call you crazy. (Tell me that was more than one sentence, and I’ll tell you that it was a life sentence.)
