MoFo Fantasy Football 2022 - The Season

I’m down by 8 points but I have Connor, Brown, NE Def and Folk left. Between those four, I should be able to close this out and snag that last spot.

And then Promptly lose my first round game.

I feel like The Jets or The Commanders or whichever NFL team that was written off early is going to sneak into the playoffs. By the projections I managed a huge upset in Week 14, bringing my regular season record to 8-6, which if my calculations are correct will put me in fifth place, only twenty or so points behind Yoda's sinking ship.

Last week I noted it would take dud performances from just about all of Justin's stars for me to have a chance, and sonofagun if that isn't exactly what happened. Even though Detroit scored heavy winning against Minnesota, somehow Amon-Ra St. Brown was only peripherally involved, Kansas City scores 35 and none of them are Kelce, Chubb was shut down by Cincy, and Evans like the rest of Tampa Bay was embarrassed by The 49ers. Even the Dallas DEF, who probably should have put up a double-digit fantasy line against Houston, found themselves scrambling to get the win after giving up 23 points.

But all of that only left the door unlocked. Somebody on my squad still had to open it and saunter on through. And I did not start well on Thursday when my TE Foster Moreau had zero catches on one target. I picked up the Vegas DEF hoping the revolving door of Ram QBs might add up to some fantasy points, and it did...until Baker's final two drives. I wound up with a microscopic 7.00 with seven of my players left. By the projections I was only a 31% shot to win.

Sunday was better. Much better. Derrick Henry had a very good game, rushing for 121 yards and catching three passes for another 34, and he scored a TD. But it was "only" one TD and he also uncharacteristically fumbled twice. That cut down what was looking like a 30+ fantasy day to a respectable 19.00. My savior was KC's Jerick McKinnon. With the emergence of rookie Isiah Pacheco, McKinnon hasn't exactly been a sure-thing play, though he was still getting the majority of the snaps on passing downs. He had a humdinger of a game Sunday. Only 22 rushing yards but seven receptions for 112 and a pair of TDs (28.90).

I had a third RB in my FLEX position, Miami's Raheem Mostert, and even though his backfield competitor Jeff Wilson went down with an injury, The Dolphins were playing from behind all night and didn't utilize the run game much. Mostert only got me a 4.90. Christian Kirk has been reliable all year, but in a game where Trevor Lawrence found his groove he lit up Evan Engram and Zay Jones more often. Kirk finished with five catches for only 45 scoreless yards (7.00). But I had Deebo Samuel going in the 4:00 window and after weeks of underuse in preference of new toy Christian McCaffrey there seemed to be a deliberate effort to get Deebo more involved. He scored a TD on the opening drive and was looking like he was going to bust open a huge game...when he hurt his knee and had to be carted off. He left with 21 yards on the ground plus for catches for 43 and that TD, as well as a fumble on the play that took him out. He may be back for The 49ers real-life post season run, but I suspect that will do it for fantasy purposes. Too bad. I could have used him!

Before the SNF game even started I had a three-point lead on Justin. His day was done and I still had Justin Herbert and Raheem Mostert. As I said above Mostert was a wash-out, but Herbert had an efficient game 367 through the air and a TD for 21.48. Much more than I needed to win, though not quite enough points to catch up for fourth place.

The loss of Deebo's potential high-scoring ceilings isn't going to help me in the playoffs, though he had only averaged 10.50 over the last five games. Even that number is not going to be easy for me to replace off of my bench. I scooped up Washington's rookie Jahan Dotson when I saw Deebo on the cart, and I also have Buffalo's Isaiah McKenzie and Baltimore's Devin Duvernay, but both are incredibly inconsistent fantasy plays on their respective teams.

I didn't think I was even going to make the playoffs, so who knows, but if King Henry goes off against The Chargers, Texans, and Cowboys, if Justin Herbert starts hitting his ceiling, McKinnon continues to be the hot target for Mahomes, and then a couple random big games from one or two other guys...we shall see.

I'll check the final standings Tuesday morning, find out who I am facing. Whoever it is I reckon I will be the underdog, but so far that is working out for me. I am going to wind up as the second seed in my other league, so it may be a fun post season for this guy!

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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

Man, shame I already got 8 losses. My team has actually rebounded and put up some pretty nice totals for a minute now. Oh well... Maybe I'll figure this game out someday.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

is it over yet?

Tough injury for Kyler. Oof

The playoffs are set!

You and me, buddy.

Grrr. Threatening language. Et cetera.

We look pretty evenly matched, significant injuries on both sides. I'd like my chances if I had Lamar (and I'd love them if I had Kupp), but without either it feels pretty close, even with Deebo out.

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Brief recap now that the regular season is done: as predicted after the Kupp injury, I limped into the playoffs, losing my last three games. That said, those losses included a nail biter to Spaulding and a loss to Fabulous that probably doesn't happen if two of my starters don't miss basically the entire game. That's the difference between 4th place and one of the byes.

In retrospect I think my draft strategy worked really well: I got a top 5 QB, the best WR, the best TE, a WR1 as my second WR, and a bunch of lottery ticket backs, only one of which I really needed to end up in a starting role by the playoffs. And it turns out like three of them did, it just took a couple weeks longer than expected and came on the heels of losing my QB, WR1, and RB1.

But the logic was sound: White and Pacheco have emerged exactly as I'd hoped they would. And if I knew they would, I probably would've hung onto Kelce, but even the good luck (sort of) of those guys finally breaking out a bit had the bad luck of it happening so late in the season that I had to make other arrangements.

Obviously, once you're in anything can happen. But I'm the #4 seed and I think that's about right, I think I'm probably something like the fourth-best team, so I'll need a break or two to pull this one out. If (likely when) I don't, I'll spend the offseason dreaming about what could've been with even one less major injury, nevermind two. The team this could've been would've been scary, but hey, you play long enough and you eventually have every type of season. And here in year 15 of the MF Fantasy Football league is where I finally have that injury year from hell. I think I had a couple of pretty bad ones, but this is definitely the worse.

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Just as an observer, though, it's a pretty exciting playoff coming up. The three teams I'd definitely put ahead of me are all really formidable and it wouldn't surprise me to see any combination of them in the MoFo Bowl.

Oh, also, raul just spoiled Spaulding's chance to break the all-time win streak record (11, which ended with the 2014 season). He had a chance to hit 12 thanks to the longer regular season schedule. He'll settle for nine straight, the second-longest in league history.

Most top scores:

Raul with five, Spaulding with four. This ties the record (Adam in 2019, me in 2014), though in both of those cases the season was a week shorter (and Raul's fifth this year did, in fact, come in the final week).

Good news for Raul, though: BOTH of those teams went on to win it all.

This last week was really fun. There were legitimately 4 teams fighting for that last slot. I needed 2 teams to lose ahead of of me and I needed to win. The fact everything happened the way it needed to is amazing. That said, I don’t expect it to be a long trip for me.


Let’s look at the participants.

The theme of the playoffs is old vs new.
Spaulding, Adam, and Yoda have all three been in the playoffs multiple time with a combined 7 championships between them. Mostly from Yoda. Both Spaulding and Adam will look to join Yoda, Empire and Beantown as 2 time champions here.

Spaulding is the favorite, with Adam, who I consider the second favorite, a legit threat to him.

Raul, Holden and I are the new comers, making our first appearances in the playoffs. Raul did it in his first year, with a very Jekyll and Hyde team. He’ll either score 150 points, or less then 90. Holden and I join in our third year.

I’m lucky to be in this, as I went through a period where I lost a player to injury every week. Brown, Smith-Schustsr, Connor and currently Walker have all missed time, while Doubs, Bateman, Robinson, and Ertz also are out. Corey davis caught one pass this past week and promptly suffered a concussion.
*sigh*

But I’ve learned it’s how you deal with these injuries, and patched in players where I needed and it worked well enough.

Brady has been one of my biggest disappointments. Last year, he was my second best player, behind Cupp. Last year, Brady was always a threat to score 30 points. Now, he can barely muster 20. Making a switch to Cousins helped me persevere.

Who knows? If Walker is back next week, my team might finally be healthy at just the right time to make some noise.

Good luck guys.

Actually, I was the top scorer this final week. He managed it the week before, however, so I think it still gives him 5.

Whoops. He actually did have five, but the fifth didn't come in the last week, you're right. My bad.

If I advance at least one week and get both Deebo Samuel and Darren Waller back, that'd be crazy. Though with The Raiders on the verge of being mathematically out of it they may not even bother bringing Waller into any action? If Henry and Herbert break their ceilings a couple times here - and their schedules are leaning toward favorable, including playing each other this week in what I hope is a 53-48 scoregasm - I have a shot of making some noise. If either one of them goes towards their floors...I have almost no chance. Especially against those top two, loaded seeds.

Should be fun!

Wound up as the three seed in my other league. My team is pretty good, but my money is on the second seed rolling. She has Hurts, McCaffrey, Tyreek Hill, Metcalf, Josh Jacobs, Hockenson...she is scary loaded, and they are all peaking.

There's two main reasons why I even made the playoffs, much less the 2 seed.

Josh Jacobs, who nobody would have expected to play like this, myself included.

Secondly I'd say that Adams for Lamb trade. I mean Lamb is very very good, but Adams is top 3 level and I luckily had known that it wasn't just Rodgers who made Adams hum. I knew he would be big again.

Hm, we have a setting to "Lock Eliminated Teams" but I forgot that it doesn't think you're "eliminated" if you're still in the consolation bracket.

We should talk next year about how to handle this. I'm not sure it seems right for eliminated teams to keep grabbing free agents that will affect the playoffs. Usually it's not a problem because most teams don't work too hard to try to win those just-for-fun games, but it could make quite a difference this year. There's no setting for that, so I guess I'll propose it just be an honor rule.

Also I'm very glad to have a bye. A little bit of breathing room because I don't think my team would put up a big amount of points this week. It does look decently favorable in 2 weeks again but we shall see.

Yeah, byes in fantasy are pretty distinct from byes in real life. In real life you get to rest, heal, plan more for an opponent, etc. In fantasy it just means "here's a week where your team can randomly suck/you would've played some other team popping off and it doesn't matter."

So for me to have a chance to make it out of the first weekend, I need CMC to have an average game, that is, less than 20 points.

Engram is a wildcard. Can he continue his production against a tough Dallas D? Was last week an outlier?

I get Walker back for tonight, so it’ll be interesting to see how he performs coming back from his Injury, but I can’t avoid putting him in if he can play.

Either way, good luck Adam.

I’m just happy to be in the playoffs this year. I really wanted to make it haha.