MoFo Fantasy Football 2020 - Regular Season

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After the early games, it looked like my team was going to pull off another big score for the week, with both Wentz and AJ Brown overproducing at their positions. Alas, the rest of the team all decided to play possum, playing dead at home and getting killed on the road.

I still managed to eek out a win, but man, I do not feel good about some of my guys going forward, My bench actually had some points on it, so it may be time to switch some guys out next week.
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



So if Garoppolo would have done anything at all other then hand the ball to other people and give the ball away twice I might have had a chance this week.





.

No idea why she decided football over an acting career/stand-up, she should go back.





Edelman, the underachiever of the year, I am about to drop your arse.







I actually cannot complain much about the rest of my team. Steelers D had a rough week, but that was to be expected and the Steelers as a whole are looking quite amazing the first third of the year.

I fully expected to lose this week, but my team did not have to tease me thinking I might have a chance.

Screw you JG


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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton



And now you're projected for almost 130.
I scored 107 and lost by 48.

Very competitive.
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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



Well, the "losing by" part is irrelevant, running into a buzzsaw doesn't reflect on your team. And leaving aside that your remaining projections made a much higher score plausible, 107 points is pretty much right around league average. If you score that most weeks you'll go close to .500.

But you've got the right idea: dumpin' on the squad weirdly seems to motivate them!

Really though, it's just that Robby Anderson's one of the breakouts this year and Joe Burrow might be really good in fantasy if the Bengals just chuck the ball all year, which is plausible.



I still managed to eek out a win, but man, I do not feel good about some of my guys going forward, My bench actually had some points on it, so it may be time to switch some guys out next week.
Part of the reason I'm so desperate to complete the comeback against Wyldesyde tonight is because I'm fully expecting a loss against you next week. You've got some tasty match-ups and I've got key players on a bye, including my MVP Kyler Murray. Plus I just read that McCaffrey is a longshot to return Thursday night.

Also, I wish you people would stop trading Yoda all your best players. This is a recurring problem, so I hereby volunteer my services for free consultations on all future trade requests. I know this current trade (Derrick Henry for Hunt/Jefferson) isn't imbalanced on paper, but c'mon . . . Henry's a stud, a consensus top-five draft pick in a majority of leagues this season, the leading rusher in the NFL (or last I checked), just as he was last season. Kareem Hunt is very, very good, but Nick Chubb (you know, the starting RB on the Browns over Hunt) is expected back in a couple weeks. I like Justin Jefferson a lot. The Vikings are bad on defense and don't have many viable receiving options, so Jefferson should continue to produce good numbers, but he's also a rookie with a small sample size. Personally, if I was going to give up Henry, I would've targeted Thielen in place of Jefferson, since he's the #1 and you know he's not just a flash in the pan. Or at least try to get another piece or two from Yoda's bench. After all, this is King Henry we're talking about, a dude who can stiff-arm his way to 40 points any given week.

If you're a GM in the NFL and Bill Belichick calls you up with a trade offer, chances are you should turn it down because history shows that he's most likely getting the better end of the deal. Same applies to Yoda. Tyreek Hill, Adam Thielen, Alvin Kamara, Derrick Henry, Darren Walller . . . That would be an impossible squad to beat even in an 8-team league, yet here we are in a deep 14-team league where most us have been besieged with injuries to key players, and Yoda's over here accumulating an all-star squad. I hope somebody's got a chest full of voodoo dolls because otherwise Yoda is cruising to an easy championship.
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"Not unbalanced on paper" is putting it mildly: on paper it's unbalanced the other way, because I traded the 8th highest scoring RB and the 6th (!) high scoring WR for the 4th highest scoring RB, in a 14-team league, no less.

As you say, there's a few unquantifiable considerations that tilt it back to reasonable, like Hunt's role when Chubb comes back and Jefferson being young, but those kinds of uncertainties are the primary reason any trades happen: one guy bets that a breakout is real (or not), one guy needs depth and the other needs an upgrade, etc. They don't happen if we know someone's a stud now (or not). But really, here's the key, as you put it:
most us have been besieged with injuries to key players
This is exactly right. Adam just lost Beckham, for example, so he had a hole. And lots of people have lost players and desperately need starters. When that happens, and your mid-round fliers have panned out, you've got a lot of options. Adam doesn't care if this makes my team better, and he mostly shouldn't. He just cares if it improves his.

That's the real thing: I've avoided major injuries and the fliers have worked out great. Knock on wood. There but for the grace of God, in fantasy football. But there's no way I'm not cashing in on that good fortune.

(I wouldn't have done it for Hunt and Thielen, BTW. I barely did it as-is. We're one Chubb setback away from this backfiring.)



The trick is not minding
Yeah, I know you guys know it's all part of the game, but I am kinda bummed that the two brand new owners both got bit by the injury bug so hard.
I’ve played before, so I know how it goes. I once had Fred Taylor as my starting RB back in 2000 I think? He was always injured.
I didn’t draft well to overcome any potential injuries either. WR was a big question mark for me, and continues to be so (hence Wilson and Guyton).
Outside of Cooper that is.



All 3 Seattle running backs got hurt last night. Yikes!
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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...



"Not unbalanced on paper" is putting it mildly: on paper it's unbalanced the other way, because I traded the 8th highest scoring RB and the 6th (!) high scoring WR for the 4th highest scoring RB, in a 14-team league, no less.

As you say, there's a few unquantifiable considerations that tilt it back to reasonable, like Hunt's role when Chubb comes back and Jefferson being young, but those kinds of uncertainties are the primary reason any trades happen: one guy bets that a breakout is real (or not), one guy needs depth and the other needs an upgrade, etc. They don't happen if we know someone's a stud now (or not). But really, here's the key, as you put it:
most us have been besieged with injuries to key players
This is exactly right. Adam just lost Beckham, for example, so he had a hole. And lots of people have lost players and desperately need starters. When that happens, and your mid-round fliers have panned out, you've got a lot of options. Adam doesn't care if this makes my team better, and he mostly shouldn't. He just cares if it improves his.

That's the real thing: I've avoided major injuries and the fliers have worked out great. Knock on wood. There but for the grace of God, in fantasy football. But there's no way I'm not cashing in on that good fortune.

(I wouldn't have done it for Hunt and Thielen, BTW. I barely did it as-is. We're one Chubb setback away from this backfiring.)
It's just frustrating. Every year this happens. This is why I've joked multiple times in the past that you must secretly threaten to ban members who reject your trade offers. I've never seen you agree to a trade that I didn't think was heavily weighted in your favor at the time. Of course, not all things play out that way in the long run. I remember being annoyed last year when you traded Kenyan Drake for Kittle (I can't remember if other players were involved or not.) At the time I expected Drake to split carries with David Johnson, but due to inefficiency or injuries or whatever, Drake dominated the backfield and was a top-five back in the second half of the season, so you actually lost that trade since Kittle was banged up a lot, if memory serves correctly.

Earlier last season you traded Ertz for Barkley. Ertz is (or was) a great TE, but typically this is a guy who is drafted in the 4th round at the earliest, and you traded him for an elite RB who was the #1 or #2 overall pick. Barkley was injured at the time, but I think he only missed a couple weeks or something. Of course, Barkley was still hampered by the injury most of the season so he didn't put up crazy numbers until the last month, but it was still one of those WTF are you thinking trades. I remember being especially annoyed about that trade because I had planned on going after Barkley myself and would've given up a whole lot more than an Ertz.

Same applies to this trade. I expect Derrick Henry to be the #1 overall RB by season's end. (Surely Kamara's crazy reception totals won't continue once Michael Thomas returns.) Henry is a durable beast who only gets better as the season progresses. I would've given up a whole lot more for him if I knew he was available, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Kudos to you for being so aggressive. You're an amazing fantasy player anyway, but your trade acumen exceeds anything I've ever seen. I just wish these other owners would test the market more. At the very least post on here that a player is on the trade block and see what offers they get. I'm not one to propose many trades, and when I do it's typically for a low-tier or bench player who I think has the potential to breakout later in the season. I rarely bother with people's top guys since I assume they're not available.

It's possible that Adam still would've preferred your offer more than anything else he would've received. For Henry, I would've offered him Conner and Evans. On paper, what you gave him is better, but paper is misleading. Jefferson is ranked ahead of Tyreek Hill, for instance, but if I saw a one-for-one trade involving those two in any league, I'd want to smack the person trading away Hill. Chase Claypool is currently ranked as a WR1, but his numbers are inflated from that monster game against Philly. According to the paper scales, you'd be coming out on the losing end if you traded him away for Julio or Golladay or another big name ranked beneath him, but anyone who watches football would know otherwise.

Justin Jefferson is the key to this trade, as Hunt's production, even when Chubb returns, is much easier to forecast. It'll be interesting to watch Jefferson's production the rest of the season. I'm always reluctant to trust rookies or players without a track record, probably to my own detriment, so I'm skeptical that he'll be more than a streaky mid-level WR2, and even that seems like a generous prognostication. Hopefully I'm wrong and you regret this trade and I look like a fool for questioning Adam's fantasy intuition. Henry could tear his ACL next weekend for all we know. For now, though, I'd be shocked if you didn't perform a victory dance once the trade was accepted. I'll be checking the hidden cameras I've set up throughout your house to see if I'm right.



The trick is not minding
Minshew is up for trade. Decent production. I’m looking for a RB or, preferably, a WR of equal value.
Send pm if interested.
Give me time to respond and to consider it as well.



Not in but Hunt and Jefferson for Henry is unreal.
It's kind of lame to offer this drive-by criticism. Like, honestly, without looking, do you have a sense of Jefferson's breakout? Do you buy it, and if not, why not? And is it your position that it's unreasonable to believe in it? Et cetera.

I think sometimes people don't ask themselves whether it improves the other team, or contains reasonable expectations, or (usually) involves a reasonable risk-reward for a team that needs upside. They just sort of make snap judgments and figure out which side they'd prefer in a vacuum, even though that's not how decisions are made in reality.



@Captain Spaulding (better than quoting a giant thing).

I don't make a secret of it: I literally just ask myself what other teams want. When someone's hurt, I look at the team that had the guy and see if it leaves them with a hole. If someone is throwing a hail mary flier in at RB, I offer them someone startable and someone who can mostly replace what they're giving up. I also look at teams that are near the playoff bubble because they can't afford to wait for injured players to come back. Or teams in the basement that know they need high-upside players to have any chance of getting back in it. In a word: empathy.

But really, all of that is, to my mind, obvious. That's not the hard part. The hard part is stockpiling a bunch of guys that are actually playing and putting up start-worthy numbers partway through the year. Those guys are always in demand in 12 and 14-team leagues, and if I have several of them, they can always be packaged for an upgrade. Because people just straight-up need them. There's no way to offer any of this without having lots of depth.

Anyway, I agree that you can't look just at points rankings, but in this case it's a top 10 player at both major skill positions, for crying out loud. Bluntly, I think it's absurd to think the trade is absurd for that reason alone. And I think reasonable people need to allow for a wide range of opinions on any trade involving injuries, too, for obvious reasons.

This is how people win or lose leagues, I think: they have to bet on which breakouts are real, and which aren't. And I notice the Greek chorus never thinks they are. They always just eye-pop at draft day value. I'll give you credit for remembering some of the many, many times these kinds of deals did not work out for me at all: most people conveniently forget those.



Let the night air cool you off
Yeah, every time I see there is a trade and @Yoda is involved, I just know he won the trade. I try to make offers to people, but I keep getting turned down, and I usually feel like I'm offering more for less than what Yoda gets. I don't begrudge him, but goshdarn if he's not securing all the players on the Can't Drop List.



I feel like that shot at Raul is pretty uncalled for. Not everyone has the time to write up a 3 paragraph explanation as to why they dont like a deal in fantasy football. @Yoda, he didn't single you out. But you sure seemed to take it some kind of way and definitely singled him out.



I have to disagree on basically every front. He did single me out: who/what else is the post about? And I didn't ask for a treatise, but there's no elaboration at all. Just a total drive-by. That's what a "shot" looks like: criticism without elaboration. And from someone not even playing? I think you know that's pretty lame, whether you happen to agree with the conclusion or not.



Welp, I just lost to the New York Jets of our league. Time to go sit in the corner and hide my head in shame. Congrats on getting your first win, @Wyldesyde19, and my bad for underestimating you.

I've now lost 4 of my last 5. I'm still putting up respectable point totals that are usually good enough to beat at least half the league, but my opponents have just been better. (In my four losses, my opponents have scored 148, 152, 123 and 118.) Fortunately for me, there's a huge glut of teams at 4-3 and 3-4, so I'm still in the thick of things, and I've got McCaffrey waiting on the horizon to hopefully lead me to a winning streak to close out the season.

(That is, if I don't trade McCaffrey to Yoda for Michael Gallup. )