MoFo Fantasy Football 2022 - The Season

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Oh so close, yet oh so far. I came within a field goal but couldn't quite get there. The LOVE Brokers officially finish in fourth place.

Going by the projections I didn't have much of a chance against The Wylde Wolves. 35% by their reckoning. Part of that gap was due to my first round pick, Derrick Henry, being a scratch on Thursday Night Football. The Cowboys DEF is certainly stout and he may not have had a huge game even if he had played, but I would have liked to see him try. It was the only game King Henry didn't suit up for all season. Not great timing for me.

I did still have Jerick McKinnon who has become a Fantasy force in the second half of the season. He continued that scoring magic again with a pair of TDs and 20.10 points! Miami's Raheem Mostert is one of those feast or famine starts, especially as he splits playing time with Jeff Wilson. But he had a very good Fantasy day with 91 combined yards including eight catches and a TD in the loss to The Pats (19.10). If my Wide Receivers could contribute I might actually have a shot, even without Henry. Alas...

Christian Kirk, who had a more-than-solid season and kept me afloat more times than I likely deserved, ended up with only two catches for 21 scoreless yards (3.10). It looked for a second like Deebo Samuel might actually play, but he did not and I played Washington's Rookie Jahan Dotson. For some stupid reason The Commanders decided to give Carson Wentz one last start to make sure he was no good. He proved himself no good. For all of his gunslinging flaws, at least Taylor Heinicke has chemistry with his receivers and makes some plays. He may well throw three interceptions too, but for pure spectacle and Fantasy purposes he is better than Wentz. After 14, 18, and 16 point totals the three previous weeks Dotson saw seven targets and had three scoreless catches for 37 yards (5.20). So no help from my WRs.

What about TE? The spot that frustrates just about everybody who doesn't have Travis Kelce in their lineup was extra frustrating for me this season as I wasted a high draft pick on Darren Waller to see him play in only six games. He was going to actually start, but with Las Vegas sitting QB Derek Carr and going against the might 49ers DEF, I decided to bench him in favor of Chicago's Cole Kmet, who hadn't mustered a huge game in a while but with Fields back and a possible shoot out with Detroit brewing, I started him. He got a quick TD and I felt like a genius...but then the Lions shut them down and even with a TD Kmet got only a 9.20. Waller, on the other hand, also had a TD but he added 72 yards to go with it (14.70).

I could have played Waller in my FLEX spot, and with hindsight obviously I should have, But no, not me. I chose a third RB. Baltimore's Gus Edwards. It was going to be another game without Lamar Jackson, but The Ravens are dedicated to the run and even though he would be second to teammate J.K. Dobbins, he did have 99 yards the week before so I went with him. Genius? Not so much. More on that later.

I did make another great call on DEF, picking up and starting the NYG against the lowly Colts, and they rewarded me with a couple sacks and a pick-six for 14.00, thank you very much. Justin Herbert had a decent game with a couple hundred yards and a couple of TDs for 20.68. Unfortunately for me Wyldesyde had Austin Eckler who once again was the point of attack on offense with another two TDs and 161 yards (30.10). BUT...Kirk Cousins had a crap game for The Vikings and the Wylde Wolves didn't have anybody else get as much as 15 Fantasy points. Meaning that going into Sunday Night Football I actually had a chance. And not a bad chance at that!

Going into SNF the Wolves were done and I still had Justin Tucker and Gus Edwards...and all I needed 12.13 points between them. Very do-able. Tucker did his Tucker thing and gave me favorable odds to win when he nailed a 51-yarder for 5 points. He had another short FG and a PAT for 9 points! But Gus Edwards....oh no. Dobbins was hitting holes for big gains and Gus got only a handful of carries, almost all in the first half, and totaled....two yards. TWO! He caught no passes and got no more carries. 0.20 points. No matter how stacked Dallas would have been against Henry ya gotta believe barring him getting injured on the first play that he was gonna get more than two yards. But even with Gus's near goose egg I was still only down by 2.92 points. I didn't have to be a big boomer, even a short FG would have given me the victory. But the best field goal kicker on the planet never got a chance to make that one more.

Had I started Waller instead of Edwards or if King Henry had played I win and take third. Though to be fair if Wyldesyde starts Tom Brady (43.68!!!) over Kirk Cousins (9.90), he would have won in a walk. Oh, well. Fourth place it is!
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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



Ghouls, vampires, werewolves... let's party.
I wasn't watching the game, but I caught some video and a report about it this morning. YIKES. Glad it looks like he will be OK. How does a kid in this kind of shape who is 24 go into cardiac arrest?
It's a reminder of just how fragile the human body is. Live today as though it was your last. Be ready.





The trick is not minding
Wow. So, Congrats instead to Spaulding.

With the cancellation of the Bills/Begals game, Fantasy Football decided to remove all scores from players involved in that game. This resets the score and Spaulding takes first place.

Tough break, Raul.



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Eh, it sounds weird but I kind of consider it a championship because there is no way I lose if the game was seen through. Not trying to be that way but it's truth.

Good job Captain!



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
It can't end this way. Why not just play the championship this week? That's what we're doing in my other league.
While the idea is nice, I'm not sure how plausible that could be. Not to mention Captain would object.



Oof. Yeah that...doesn't feel right. I was relieved at how it went down initially because, even though the score was closer than expected, it was the outcome that was all-but-inevitable given the players still involved.

Man, imagine the leagues with real money on the line? Insane.

Anyway, I've got my thoughts on all this and I'm genuinely not sure how I wanna put it in the record books (I'd already entered it the way it was, since those were all points actually scored on the field), so if the two of you come to some kind of agreement you both find fair, let me know.



My other league is a money league which is why, after talking over a few options, they decided to just move the Championship to week 18. Still have the guy(s) screaming about getting "****ED!" but that's how the league voted. Pro Tip - don't be a dick to everybody all season. Fortunately, a lot of the top teams still have something to play for so starters should be in. One of the options that was floated about was just adding all of this weeks stats from Cincy and Buffalo to last weeks games which I thought was the most fair way to end things.

I don't like adding the scores from that game since that game is not in the records.



I think adding the players' stats from this week to last week is reasonable. It has the virtue of altering as little as possible of the "real" matchup, too. And it's simpler since it's just a few players.



The trick is not minding
Could we allow Raul and Spaulding to put in their bench players in the respective positions that was effected and adjust the score accordingly?

If that’s possible, maybe vote on it I guess? I agree with Yoda that it doesn’t feel quite right.



What a weird way to end the season. So Yahoo actually took away Raul's title after crowning him several days earlier? That's an interesting way to handle it. I'm not a fan of this at all or really of any of the way this whole situation has gone down but I'll leave it at that. Wow...
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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...



Could we allow Raul and Spaulding to put in their bench players in the respective positions that was effected and adjust the score accordingly?
Well, neither of them has a bench kicker, and raul doesn't have a bench defense. If you slot EITHER of raul's QBs (not counting Carr, who everyone knew wasn't playing), even Taysom Hill for crying out loud, he wins.



The trick is not minding
Well, neither of them has a bench kicker, and raul doesn't have a bench defense. If you slot EITHER of raul's QBs (not counting Carr, who everyone knew wasn't playing), even Taysom Hill for crying out loud, he wins.
Ah, guess I should have looked at their bench.



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
@Captain Spaulding, I think we'd like to hear your thoughts before saying/doing anything here.
It will be too late I'm assuming. I'm ok with second though FTR. I just can't imagine the 1000s of people that legit were screwed in money leagues, although I bet a lot of the commissioners had to really come up with an idea of how to proceed.



I can check/confirm, but I'm pretty sure I have the tools to implement <whatever>, more or less, so I don't think we're locked into the default Yahoo thing.



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
It was pretty evident that McPherson, Burrow and Buff D we're gonna get the 8 points necessary. So I guess I'll call it an "unofficial" victory for now since the Captain hasn't spoken.



What a day by my team. Davante Adams was drafted by Spaulding and I traded Lamb away to get him. And that may be the difference in itself.
I would not have made it to the championship without that trade. Adams only scored 2.5 points week 16 while Lamb scored 29, and it took every one of those points for me to escape with a narrow victory over @Wyldesyde19. I wasn't even worried about Adams in our match-up. He was in the midst of a slump. Stidham was his starting QB. He was playing against the best defense in the league. I felt pretty confident that the Niners would hold Jacobs and Adams to single-digit fantasy points. Instead they combined for nearly 50 as the game inexplicably morphed into a shootout.

Don't know if you watched the game or any of the highlights, but there was a highly questionable 45-yard "catch" by Adams late in the 4th quarter where he was bobbling the ball as he fell to the ground. There's little doubt in my mind (or the public's mind, judging by the general consensus) that the ground helped secure the catch. Unfortunately for me, the refs initially ruled it a catch, and there was no clear and obvious angle from the replays that the ball definitively touched the turf, so the play stood. Had it been initially ruled an incompletion, I'm sure the play would've stood as well. A few plays later, Jacobs barreled into the endzone to send the game to OT, where Jacobs and Adams added a few more points to your total. Even before the bogus Adams catch, you were projected to win, but it was much narrower. That late double-digit explosion of points extinguished almost any hope I had of winning.

Eh, it sounds weird but I kind of consider it a championship because there is no way I lose if the game was seen through.
In fantasy football, there's almost always a way. Last year in my money league I won a playoff game that I had no business winning when I carried a very narrow lead into the Saints/Bucs Sunday Night Football game with nobody left to play while my opponent had Brady, Godwin and Fournette. I expected my opponent to take the lead on the opening possession but instead Godwin and Fournette suffered injuries while Brady proceeded to have possibly his worst game as a pro. Those three combined for barely any points as the Bucs were shut out. I miraculously advanced even though everyone (myself included) would've said I had no chance of winning going into that Sunday night game.

"Monday night miracles" occur every week. The sport is too unpredictable and too random to say with absolute certainty that you would've won. Granted, almost any conceivable path I had to victory would've required an injury to Joe Burrow, but who knows. Maybe Bass scores 20+ again. Maybe Mixon gets hot and scores every subsequent TD for the Bengals instead of Burrow, while your Bills D finishes with negative points. Maybe McPherson never gets a FG attempt and the Bengals start going for 2-pt conversions. It's extremely unlikely that I would've won, but I see crazier outcomes in fantasy football every year.

I would like to at least hear Captains thought on the matter though, if that makes sense.
If we were playing for money, I'd say we should split the pot. Fortunately we're only playing for bragging rights, so I guess we'll split those instead. I'll be the paper champion with an asterisk. You'll be the uncrowned champion who was robbed due to a tragedy and technicality. (I don't think either of us are deserving of a physical trophy due to the controversy and lack of clarity over how to resolve the cancellation. Although that might be irrelevant anyway, as I'm unsure if @Yoda still maintains that tradition.)

For fantasy players everywhere, this is a complicated, unfair situation. And I don't think there are any solutions that are universally fair. But when has fantasy football ever been fair? Look at Najee Harris getting robbed of a TD yesterday. Replay showed that his knee never touched the ground before the ball crossed the goal line, but the refs ruled him short and the Steelers foolishly didn't challenge. Harris then fumbled on 3rd down when he tried to dive over the pile. That was an 8-point swing for Harris owners, and bad calls, missed calls and other shit like that happens every week in damn near every game, costing people fantasy match-ups and money, but we have no choice but to begrudgingly accept it as part of the sport.

It's irrelevant to us anyway, but I don't think championships should ever be determined in week 18. Too much uncertainty about playing status and playing time. ("Hey, since neither of us got points for our Bills and Bengals, let's replay the championship next week when half our players won't be active and the ones who are might only play a quarter or two!") Savvy managers will have had the foresight to target players who had the best match-ups in week 17, so moving the championship destroys in-season strategizing. Other "solutions" I've heard include using player projections or seasonal averages to determine scores. The notion of essentially relying on guesses is preposterous to me. Look at Justin Jefferson. He had 35 points against the Packers earlier this season, whereas in the rematch last week he scored 2 points. Leagues are really emphasizing the "fantasy" aspect if they're going to start gifting players with imaginary points. Retroactively applying week 18 scores doesn't sit well with me either, mostly for the same reasons that I hate determining championships in week 18. I'm thinking more about future protocol in the event of another cancellation rather than Bills/Bengals specifically, but using those teams as an obvious example, the Bills played a team fighting for the playoffs yesterday, whereas the Bengals played a team that sat many of their best players. The scales will rarely be balanced.

Sometimes a questionable player is ruled active on gameday, so people start him, then it turns out he was simply an emergency option and the coach had no intention of playing him. Occasionally a player will suffer an injury during warmups, but nobody reports it until after kick off. (A similar situation happened with Tee Higgens earlier this season.) Players also get hurt within the first few plays as well. I recall people on social media despairing over somebody in a MNF game a few weeks back who caught a screen pass early in the game, lost a few yards, fumbled and never returned to the game due to an injury from the tackle. Match-ups that appeared final were reversed due to the negative points. Those fantasy managers can rightly scream that they were screwed in such situations, but the only realistic rebuttal is to say, "Tough break, bro." Nobody says, "Don't worry about it! We'll just add his initial projection to your point total!" Or, "No sweat, home slice! We'll retroactively apply his stats from his next healthy game! You got this in the bag!"

Ignoring the logistics of how much easier it would've been for the league to reschedule the game if this had happened earlier in the season, I don't think people would be drawing up so many scenarios to decide fantasy match-ups that are already decided according to current guidelines if this had happened in week 6 as opposed to week 17. Most likely fantasy leagues would just treat it as they would one of the above scenarios involving pre-game injuries. The likelihood of something like this reoccurring is slim to none, but it would be prudent for fantasy leagues to decide how to proceed just in case. However, that's a decision for the off-season when everyone is impartial as opposed to making stuff up on the fly when each method could alter the outcome in a distinct way. And I promise I don't feel this way simply because it benefits me. I just abhor the idea of manually altering outcomes and I think it potentially opens a Pandora's Box. "My WR pulled a hamstring stretching before the game but I didn't know until too late. Can I swap him out for the dude on my bench who scored 2 TDs?" Or, "Yo, commish, my stud RB is a game-time decision Monday but I'm starting him anyway. Cool if we plug in one of my guys from Sunday if it turns out he's inactive?" I think such tactics would be fairer, to be honest, giving managers a "fail-safe," so to speak, to protect them from fantasy-hating coaches who withhold vital information about a benching or an injury, but down that path lies a precipitous slope.

tl:dr: I've already taken the week off work to visit Disney World and schedule my parade and coronation. Anyone coming after my championship, deserved or not, will be met with extreme hostility and word avalanches. You've been warned.
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