MoFo Fantasy Football 2020 - Regular Season

After a couple of bad breaks, Spaulding has something go his way: Mark Ingram is inactive leaving Dobbins to carry the load against a crappy Jacksonville run defense.

Really torn on who to play in the flex. Simple answer seems like Claypool, but the Steeler offense has been meh and they really spread it around, so he's got a fairly low floor and is pretty TD dependent. Antonio Brown has similar problems re: spreading around, but a way better matchup and is probably more likely to put up 7-8 points, and with Davis having a bad game and Rodgers having just an okay one, I'd rather take the safe points.

BUT, Justin also has Johnson, so playing Claypool might be a good hedge in that if the Steelers offense does well or struggles, odds are the ups or downs of that won't apply to just one of the receivers, so while it's clear I should go with the most conservative play, it's not clear what the most conservative play even is.

I'm leaning Brown at the moment based on the matchup, but it's a weird set of variables.

Gus Edwards will still be involved plenty, I'm sure, but Ingram being inactive is certainly a great thing for me. I can deal with a two-headed rushing attack. It's those three-headed attacks that drive me crazy.

Last night I was debating Michel or Ahmed in my FLEX. Michel will probably receive quite a few carries, but he's such an uninspiring play with his plodding running and lack of involvement in the passing game. Add to that the difficult match-up (Miami's defense is legit), and I feel like he's too TD dependent. Would love to start Ahmed after watching the way Akers ran all over he Pats just last week, but I'm worried that they limit Ahmed's workload since he's coming off injury and was still limited throughout the week.

Instead I'm going with complete wildcard Lynn Bowden Jr. No Parker, Grant or Gesicki for the Fins should mean a lot of targets/receptions for Bowden. I know nothing about this dude, however, so it's a little worrisome to rely on such an unknown in the semi-finals, but I feel like his floor might be the highest due to expected reception totals. Also picked back up the Pats D after seeing how decimated the Fins are on offense. I'd dropped the Pats D a couple days ago when the Fins skill players were trending toward playing.

Last night got off to a scary start, but fortunately Aaron Jones didn't do as much damage in the second half (despite the big lead and Jamal Williams apparently leaving the game). Meanwhile, Mike Davis underscored his projection by nearly the same amount that Jones outscored his projection. A 20+ game from Davis might've doomed me. Right now I feel like I don't need anything too crazy for things to swing in my favor. A big game for Kyler Murray (which should be in the cards considering how decimated the Eagles secondary is at the moment) mixed with a sub-20 game from Watson would help me close the gap. Akers outscoring, or at least matching, Dalvin Cook feels like another necessary result if I'm to pull off the upset, and I'm optimistic that can happen.

Should be a fun super stressful day.

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I bet @jiraffejustin is experiencing severe remorse for playing Gabriel Davis in his FLEX yesterday with Pollard now drawing the start in place of an inactive Zeke.

Yeah, I was wondering all week what he'd do there. I was a bit nervous about Davis, who was a reasonable play with plenty of upside. The EE news seemed to leak out though, but maybe that kind of risk-reward was warranted here. I dunno. This stuff gets particularly hard at the end of the season, I think, because usage can shift a lot as teams prepare for the playoffs (or accept that they're out of them).

I snagged a couple of Flex-worthy guys, like Gage, just in case.

Alright, here we go. My matchup could very plausibly be all-but-decided after the 1:00 games, but the other side of the bracket almost definitely won't with several big names going in the late afternoon.

Well, Gage scored 10 points on the opening drive alone. Not sure if I was ever plausibly going to play him over Brown or Claypool, even with Julio out. I probably should've considered it a bit longer than I did, though.

At least he didn't get nabbed and played against me, though, which was the main thing I was trying to prevent.

Dobbins' first rush is for 11 yards. And Gage's TD means Tampa's defense (who Fred is rollin' with) gives up a quick TD, too.

Watson loses a fumble and is in negative territory, and nothing much from Cook(s) yet. Thielen gets the TD in close after Dalvin fails to run it in, but he does have 31 yards rushing already, so look out.

Whoooaaaa Tannehill with a 75-yard TD on the first place of the Titan's second drive! Wide open for the catch, but the last several dozen yards were just Corey Davis juking the defender back and forth.

What a great value he's been. I'd kinda-sorta planned to nab someone like Prescott or Watson but they went a bit earlier than I'd expected/hoped, so I waited and tried to nab a super cheap QB with mid-QB1 upside, and Tannehill was near the top of that list. Worked out great: drafted in the late 12th, but 8th among QBs coming into this week.

Spaulding's Patriot D nabs an INT and still hasn't given up any points. Trying to thread the needle there a bit, though, since Bowman is on Miami.

Cook is running through some really big holes for Minnesota, though. He may or may not have a huge day depending on whether he gets in the end zone, but it seems like he's gonna put up a pretty huge chunk of yardage either way today.

Watson works his way back into positive territory, but it's with a pass to Coutee, so that's a net loss for Hey Fred each time it happens.

Dobbins in with the score, so he's at 10 already.

Tannehill with the 17 yard scramble for the score! What an effort, diving just inside the pylon at the end. Love this dude.

Watson gets something like 80 passing yards on a single drive, culminating in a TD pass. Hey Fred jumps back in front, projection-wise.

Tampa Bay's offense looks awful. Brady's missing wide open guys (a constant refrain this year) and throws the ball away at pretty much the first sign of any pressure. Brown might've been a bad play, but it's early.

Metcalf with his first catch of the game, a third of the way through it. That's rough, all of Justin's most likely routes to victory involved Metcalf having a pretty big game, but Washington's D has totally shut Seattle down so far.

Damn. Wish I could of got it the playoffs this year. All of the sudden my team can't stop scoring points.



Does Cam Newton have his cellphone wrapped up and tied at his waist? Sure looks like a phone to me.

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

Pollard, no Pollard, it wouldn't have mattered. Yoda has probably the best fantasy team I've ever played against. It's the only time I've been up against someone where I thought I absolutely could not win with my optimized lineup. I didn't see that Pollard was going to start, but that's also because I made it a point to not be too invested in this game, because I knew I'd just be setting myself up to be let down. I could have paid closer attention to my guys, but I thought my lineup was pretty solid as far as my lineups go. I've had problems with my flex all year since my 3rd round draft pick was a bust. I figured Davis might get another touchdown, because I thought his team would score a lot. They did score a lot, but Davis did not. My tight end position has been a disaster this year after I gambled big on Higbee to be the guy he was at the end of last year. He was not that. I picked up Tonyan, then gave up on him after a couple of duds. He then goes on a nice run. It's kind of a miracle I've ended up here anyway. I don't really deserve it when you consider my 3rd and 5th round picks were disasters. Other people getting bit by the injury bug, while I've been relatively safe from it have helped. Prescott going down ruined Lamb's season for me, as I think he would have had a big one, but other than that, I can't really complain about injuries too much. Yoda is probably going to take the championship pretty easily. His team was already dynamite as he drafted well, but that Tyreek Hill trade was highway robbery. I don't blame him for that deal, because that's what you try to do. You try to win every trade. The Derrick Henry trade was a little more even, but I can't imagine giving up somebody like Derrick Henry in a trade. Tannehill ended up paying off big time for him as well. Darren Waller might be his MVP though, because getting that level production out of a tight end this year is huge.

I'm pleased to have made it as far as I did. Thanks for a fun season, everybody.

The last time I played @Hey Fredrick, I left close to 50 points on my bench in what was likely the worst "coaching" performance in all my years of playing fantasy football. The damage won't be as pronounced this time, but could be the difference in me winning or losing. Switching from Seattle's D to New England's D cost me five points. And Ahmed had 21.2 points on my bench, whereas Bowden finished with 7.6. All total, that's 18.6 points I missed out on due to my infamous last-minute tampering. Currently projected to lose by 13.

Trying not to beat myself up too much about it, especially with lots of game action still to go. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to start Ahmed, especially considering how exploitable the Pats have been on the ground, but the uncertainty around his workload and the fear of him being limited or re-aggravating his injury scared me off. Bowden did grab 6 passes, but unfortunately they amounted to little yardage.

Kyler Murray is having a big day, and the Eagles are scoring right along with them, so hopefully there's plenty more of that in the second half. The big day I expected from Akers isn't materializing at all, however. The Rams were 17-point favorites, and yet currently find themselves down 20-3, in what is easily the most shocking game of the day so far.

Definitely feeling sick about it now. I'd already have the win wrapped up if not for those mistakes. Even just the 5-point difference in defenses could prove to be a killer.

TDs from Murray or Goedert could put me in the lead, but I'm running out of time.