MoFo Fantasy Football 2018 - The Regular Season

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Let me guess . . . you were the first?
Yeah, made it to the first four.

After Lamar Miller got injured early in the game Saturday, I thought that might've ruined my chances at a victory this week, but my other guys stepped up. Looks like I might have to buy myself a Derrick Henry jersey. When I did that trade with Sedai a few weeks back (I gave him Trubisky/Lockett for Baldwin/Henry), I was really only interested in Baldwin, hoping that he might return to his past self (and I was looking ahead to a juicy matchup against the Chiefs in week 16). I only asked for Henry to balance the trade and give myself some emergency depth. Never expected to actually be starting him. Now Henry looks like one of those random, unforeseen guys who might lead people to fantasy championships.
Yep, seems like there's a couple every year. There's guys like Freeman or Gurley who you can ride all year, and there's guys Jerome Harrison and now Derrick Henry who just go nuts right as the fantasy playoffs start. But hey, you can never have too many RB lottery tickets, I guess.

I'll be playing on All-Madden difficulty next week. (Mahomes AND Gurley on the same team? That's just unfair.) Happy to have made it to three straight championship games, though. That's a feat in itself.
Yeah, for sure. And yeah, you've got your work cut out for you. The really crazy thing is that he got stuck with Mahomes and Rodgers and couldn't unload either all year.

I think mikey might have set a new points record just barely, too. I'll check everything when the season's over.



This has been the most pitiless and random football season I've ever experienced in regards to fantasy Sports and it seems to be getting one last dig in before the years end. I was comparing Mikey & Spauldings rosters expecting Mikes Nannies to be the sure winner and I come across this little blurb how Todd Gurley is questionable. He has knee inflammation and is day to day.



It appears to be a close one according to Yahoo projections. Nannies - 124.13 / Clowns - 123.50. I agree with those projections. Should be exciting. I think Gurley should be fine. The Rams have a lot to play for so I think he should be playing in his normal role .
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2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
I don't know how much I believe in fantasy football being much about skill anymore with a 5-8 team in the final in my other league



Depends on the timeline. Individual weeks are highly volatile. Seasons less so. Multiple seasons less so still.

I dunno what kinda league could allow for a 5 win playoff team. That sounds nuts. Making the finals isn't that crazy, anyone can have a couple good weeks. It's getting in in the first place that's the main thing.

How many teams are in it, and how many make the postseason?



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Depends on the timeline. Individual weeks are highly volatile. Seasons less so. Multiple seasons less so still.

I dunno what kinda league could allow for a 5 win playoff team. That sounds nuts. Making the finals isn't that crazy, anyone can have a couple good weeks. It's getting in in the first place that's the main thing.

How many teams are in it, and how many make the postseason?
10 person league with 6 making it. Kind of allows for an NBA Playoff type set up, but we have done it this way for years.



Yeah, that's not so weird, then. If more than half the teams make it you're going to get sub-.500 teams, and once you make the playoffs it's obviously not strange for someone to just happen to have a couple good weeks (or run into opponents having bad ones).

Particularly true with fewer teams, since the available talent is so high. One of the reasons I like a larger league size.



MoFo Bowl XI



Silly Nannies
vs.
Censored Clowns


Season Recap: mikey's season recap is...kinda boring, actually. He took Todd Gurley and he's been ridiculous. He's had one "bad" game all year (which was still 7 points), and that came during the one week the Nannies didn't play, because they had a bye. He took Aaron Rodgers and then Patrick Mahomes in the 9th (?!?!), a crazy move on paper that somehow worked out, as the latter has been the #1 QB by a large margin. Even crazier: it worked even though he never found a suitor for Rodgers and just hung onto him all year.

Crazy fact: if you combine Gurley and Mahomes' totals (and ignore the fact that he didn't play Mahomes in week 1), it'd make up 48% of his seasonal points total. Which, I'm going to double check, but I'm pretty sure narrowly beat my record from a few years back. That, even with a so-so supporting cast, is enough for a 10-3 record and a #1 seed. He beat Josh in the semis with the 18th-highest playoff score in league history, against the second-lowest playoff score. Pretty sure it's the most lopsided playoff result we've ever had.

Spaulding, however, is one of the three teams that beat him. It was in week 1, in fact, 141-127. We had our finals preview right off the bat, and it featured a score that just missed the record book cutoff for combined total. mikey won six straight after that, though, and never looked back.

Spaulding lost three of his next four and didn't even manage to win consecutive games until the end of the season, when he reeled off four straight, where he promptly dispatched me in the quarter-finals, and Fabulous in the semis.


History: Spaulding's made the playoffs all four years he's been in the league, and he's made the MoFo Bowl three years running, just the second team to manage the feat. If he loses, I think we have to start calling him Buffalo Bill.

mikey went 7-6 wayyyyy back in 2009, didn't play again until 2016, went 6-7 that year, and 6-7 again last year. This is his first trip to the playoffs.

The Matchup: all that matters right now is Gurley. He single-handledly won bunches of championships last season (thanks, Todd!), he's got a tasty matchup this week...and he's questionable. Hard to see mikey as an underdog if he's active...and it's hard to see him as the clear favorite if he's not (or if he barely plays). The fallback from Mahomes to Rodgers might not be too bad, but the fallback from Gurley to anyone on mikey's bench is massive.

mikey's got good solid matcuhps all over, though. Chubb is up against the single most permissive defense against fantasy running backs, and both Mahomes and Diggs have mediocre opponents. Mike Williams has a tougher road...but that works both ways, because Spaulding's got Rivers with the same matchup. Spaulding's biggest hopes right now are Elliott, who's got a great matchup against Tampa Bay, and Derrick Henry, who's scored an insane 77 points the last two weeks.

This is, despite mikey's Terrible Twosome, a very winnable game for Spaulding, but he needs more Derrick Henry magic, and he probably needs a banged up Todd Gurley not to get a crazy number of touches. And he has to avoid that Chicago defense putting up another big total, which they could absolutely do against San Francisco.

It's easy to imagine this going either way, and even being a clear favorite maybe means a 65% chance of winning, but more things need to go right on one side than the other, so...

Prediction: Mikey takes it.




Great season to both of you, and here's to a fun, dramatic MoFo Bowl.



Week 16 and I finally have my full roster playing at once. sigh

I'm rooting for you Spauldy! Being afflicted with the nickname Buffalo Bill would just be the worst in football. Even worse if it was to be in a cinema sense cuz that means you're a serial killer that wears the skin of your victims (Silence of the Lambs). So yeah, I hope you win



In the.....idk, 7th place Championship bowl Yahoo has me and PWs Wilson War almost dead even. PP&IM 116.61 to RWW 116.17




This is my championship game. I have the slight edge, projection wise.
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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra



I really appreciate the time you took to make these little write ups yoda. Makes it fun to follow along.



Anyway, looked like a wash after the early game yesterday, but Rivers scored just 3.34 points last night, and that puts Spaulding in a pretty huge hole. But it looks moderately likely Gurley will sit tomorrow, and mikey's roster is pretty top heavy; most of his likely substitutions are iffy.

Still a lot of football left.



Gurley's out, and just like the last two rounds, virtually everybody in Spaulding's roster is coming through with double-digit totals. He's a modest favorite right now.



Rivers picked a helluva time to end his 27-game TD streak. I was worried about his match-up all week. That Ravens defense is no joke. But he's in the MVP discussion for a reason, so even though I didn't think he'd reach his projection, I sure as hell expected him to score more than 3.34 points.

Luckily the rest of my squad has delivered today. I expected 20+ from Zeke today, though, and he just had a so-so game by his standards. Meanwhile, Mikey currently has 24.5 points from Robby Anderson of all people, and that game is now in OT, so he might not be done. Gurley not playing today gives me a chance, but it'll probably come down to Mahomes tonight. I think Yahoo's projection for him is rather low. We'll see what happens. I don't expect to win, to be honest, but I'm glad that I'm at least making things interesting after Rivers pooped the bed last night.
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Up by 8.82 with only Royce Freeman left to play for Mikey. Freeman has scored more than that only 4 times this season. Lately he's been a complete afterthought. (His last four totals: 1.7, 2.8, 3.6, 1.3.) So it looks good for me, but if Freeman poaches a TD, things turn suddenly dicey.

I wish I had started Baldwin. When I traded for him, I had this week's match-up against the Chiefs in mind. Choosing between him or Edelman in my flex was the only line-up decision I wrestled with this week, but Edelman's been so incredibly consistent this season that I decided to stick with Mr. Reliable rather than chase Baldwin's ceiling. Those extra six points he would've netted me would allow me to breathe a little easier right now.

Glad I grabbed CJ Anderson. Mikey would be hoisting the trophy tonight if he'd picked him up and played him.



Glad I grabbed CJ Anderson. Mikey would be hoisting the trophy tonight if he'd picked him up and played him.
Yeah, and given how Anderson tore things up so easily you figure even a 60% Gurley would've done something similar. But hey, depth matters sometimes. Not usually in the playoffs, but you never know.

And yeah, the total he needs tonight seems pretty much right on the line of what's plausible, and is probably TD dependent. What a wild finish, either way.




I won!

Despite Gurley being a scratch I prevailed. It was a shoot-out, hinging on the Sunday night game, but I prevailed. Lots of lead changes, high drama, everything you could want in a championship game.

My opponent (my sister-in-law) made a couple tactical errors, which I was happy to benefit from. The big one is because she has been riding Mahomes to victory all year and obviously was going to start him in the big game she decided to drop her back-up QB from her bench to make room for another position player to give her options. The QB she dropped was Russell Wilson.I picked him up off the waiver wire, started him, and that was the difference between me winning and losing.

I drafted Carson Wentz as my top QB and used Phil Rivers most of the year. In Week Nine I scooped up Matt Ryan from the waiver wire, since at that point Wentz was still decidedly looking less than 100%. In Week Ten after I had lost my top two WRs to injury (A.J. Green and Will Fuller) I made a trade: Phil Rivers and Mohammed Sanu for Mike Evans. I was desperate for a quality WR and at the moment I was quarterback rich. Wentz was still inconsistent (Gawd, that fu*king New Orleans game) and then, mercifully, he was just plain out. Which left me with only Matt Ryan for the playoffs. Which I wasn't super stoked about. Though he had a great game against the lowly Cardinals in Week Fifteen. Still, I was a little nervous about how he would do against Carolina, with nothing to play for. And then, miraculously, there was Russell Wilson.

I did pick up C.J. Anderson, but not until Sunday morning, when it was looking like Gurley might not go. Thank goodness I did. The one mistake I made, which could have cost me big, was sitting Sterling Shepard. When I saw OBJ was officially out, I knew I should have put Sterling in. But I sat him in favor of Dolphins RB Kalen Ballage, who had a great game last week. Came back to earth against Jacksonville. That was a ten-point decision, as Sterling streaked to 113 yards on six catches. Whoopsie.

I used my first round pick, first pick of our draft, on Gurley, and despite his not making this game I don't regret that. He was a horse and dependable. But what wound up being the best pick of my draft was my second pick: Christian McCaffrey. Wow, what a year. And even with Cam gone this week he rumbled to 101 rushing yards and another 77 on TWELVE receptions. 29.80 points and he never even made the end zone.

Another one of my good waiver wire moves was getting Jaylen Samuels in Week Fourteen. He took most of the load for the injured phenom James Connor, and in my league (Yahoo) because Samuels was on the roster originally as a back-up TE you were able to use him either as a RB or a TE. Seeing as my TE Greg Olsen got injured the week before, this was perfect timing. Samuels promptly scored 16.20 in that first week, 19.20 the next, and finished with 15.40 in this week's game in the loss against the Saints.

My opponent was hanging with me all day. Her best player before the Sunday night tilt was Alvin Kamara, who rocked 26.50 points against Samuels and Pittsburgh. And that game held my opponent's other error. She had Juju Smith-Schuster, who was coming off a horrible game versus New England and was listed a questionable all week. She benched him and he was good for 20.50 fantasy points...even with his game-ending fumble.

So it truly came down to the Kansas City vs. Seattle game. Neither of us had players in the Monday night contest, it was all about Sunday night. At the game's start I was leading 124.70 to 104.40, I had Russell Wilson and Daniel Baldwin left to play. She had Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Seahawks RB Chris Carson. Going by the projections she was favored 53% to win, with the imagined totals of 161.29 for me and 163.41 for her. Tight. And knowing what these two QBs are capable of we both knew their projections of 24 and 25 points were conservative.

With 4:06 left in the first half and the scoreboard showing 14-10 in favor of the hometown Seahawks we were sitting at 50/50. The projections had it coming down to hundredths of a point being the difference. In the third quarter with the game tied 17-17 after Mahomes had led a seven-play 83-yard drive to tie it up and all the momentum seeming to be going red I was down to a 38% chance to win. But there was lots of time left. Russell Wilson answered with a drive of his own, ending with a 27-yard TD pass to Baldwin. Because I had the QB and the WR on the score, that was an instant 16.78 point swing my direction.

After that play, with 45 seconds left in the third, I was suddenly an 81% favorite. But a quarter is a long time, especially with these offenses. The next Chiefs possession stalled with a FG and Seattle answered with another TD pass from Wilson. The Seahawks were up by ten points and I was now a 99% favorite to win with 7:31 left to play in the game. But even with that 99%, I knew if Carson got another TD and there was a big swing like I had with her QB tossing a TD to her TE, she had a legit chance to still win. Mahomes led another drive, ending in a non-Kelce TD, and Seattle followed with a drive ending with her Carson getting the TD. If KC got the ball back and it ended with that potentially dangerous Mahomes to Kelce strike, I was still going to lose.

Luckily for me they settled for a FG and lost 38-31. I won by a margin of 12.22.

Champion.