MoFo Fantasy Football 2022 - The Season

McKinnon’s emergence reminds me of Penny’s from last year at about the same time as I recall.

Someone else can refresh my memory, but I think Penny was a little more standard in that some injury or whatever paved the way, and then he was The Guy and just stayed The Guy. The timing was what made it a big deal.

Not being The Guy but still dramatically outscoring everyone else through sheer situational usage is a lot rarer, but I think that's more or less what's happening now. Might happen all the rest of the year, might vanish next week, who knows?

Waller comes back after four months just in time for our playoff matchup and immediately catches a TD.

Pack it up guys, the capricious fantasy football Gods have spoken.

You’ll likely come back stronger next year and win your…6th I think?

In the meantime, consider this payback for the 2020 season where you utterly dominated us 😄

And within a span of a minute, both Ekeler and Connor score a TD and I’m suddenly up 131.8-110.14.

Far from over, but I’m looking to join the Final Four.

Wow, what a swing. Thought the other matchup was all but over, too.

I told Holden "GL against Spaulding" but it's probably gonna be raul instead now.

Yep. My “prize” for winning is match against the top team this year.

It was a nice run…..assuming I win

Well, cripes, Herbert has a terrible game and now if I'd played Murray (or if White OR Sanders had been half-decent OR if McKinnon hadn't tacked on that extra TD) I'd totally have a shot. Funny how that goes.

Also, probably a good time to rename your team the MASH unit, what with all the injuries you’ve endured.

McLaurin doing his best to make me worry, slightly.

That’ll do it.
Good game Adam.
My prize is a matchup against Spaulding.
Just happy to be in the second round really.

Victory is mine, sayeth The LOVE Brokers!

Yoda’s squad may be depleted and I almost caught him in the regular season standings, but he was still favored over me in the quarter finals. If you had told me my QB was going to get less than ten points I would have guessed I must have been walloped, but it was me who did the crushing.

It did not start out auspiciously for my team. On Thursday Night Football Yoda’s George Kittle had maybe his most George Kittle-like game of the season with a pair of TDs and over 23 fantasy points. And his chances of winning increased even more.

My usual level of attention to the details of the NFL goings on was severely decreased this past weekend as from Thursday to Sunday I was out of town, down in Baton Rouge where my step son was graduating from LSU (wooo-hooo!!!). Happily, that kept me from my usual obsessing over injury reports and weather forecasts.

For the Saturday games I was at a party for our son and the house did not have the NFL Network, so I saw none of the action live and only looked at my phone sparingly. But I did see a Yahoo alert that Jeff Wilson was a late scratch for the Dolphins. I only saw that because I have Wilson in my other league. I had intended to play Samaje Perine in my FLEX spot over Raheem Mostert as Mostert has been losing snaps to Wilson in recent weeks and with the bitter cold and maybe even snow in Buffalo I feared the Dolphins may be slaughtered. But when I saw Wilson was out, I slotted in Mostert. Fortuitously. Miami lost but gave The Bills a great game and Mostert had 156 combined yards for 16.10 points! If only he had found the end zone it would have been a monster game. Perine managed only 2.90 points on Sunday, so I averted disaster. But on the other side, Yoda’s Jaylen Waddle had a good but not quite monster game for 18.90 points. He started as a 56% favorite and after Saturday was up to 71%.

Luckily for me and sadly for him, every other player he had on Sunday and Monday night fell well short of their projections, none more shockingly than Philly’s RB Miles Sanders who spent most of the game in negative fantasy points and finished with a microscopic 1.40. He netted 28 points the previous week. Wow.

Which left the door open for me. I needed a big game from my number one pick and Derrick Henry obliged with 163 combined yards and a TD in Tennessee’s loss for 24.30! But the performance that really put me over the top was Jerick McKinnon’s. After CEH went down for The Chiefs he has become a favored target for Mahomes. Even with some impressive runs by the rookie Isiah Pacheco (who Yoda has), McKinnon gets some important carries and is the preferred third down back to catch the ball. He had 28 points last week and topped that with 122 combined yards including eight catches, a 2-point conversion, and a pair of TDs, including the dramatic winner in OT for a whopping 30.20 points!

So McKinnon, Henry, and Mostert got me 70.60 points. That was a heck of a cushion. Darren Waller came off of The Raiders' injured reserve and promptly scored a TD and 12.30 points in my TE position, which has been a struggle for me all year. Good timing! Christian Kirk has been very steady for me all year and had a respectable game with 92 yards on six catches for 12.20, as he watched rookie teammate Zay Jones explode for three TDs. Hopefully they spread those TDs out a bit more next week! With the injury to Deebo Samuel I was forced to gamble on my second WR spot. I picked up Commanders rookie WR Jahan Dotson from the waiver wire, recently returning from IR himself. Terry McLaurin is by far the number one guy there, deservedly so, but Dotson has had moments of brilliance this season when given the opportunity. Happily for me he had a big game on MNF with 105 yards on four catches including a 61-yard bomb and a TD for 18.50 against his modest 5.44 projection.

In short, Yoda’s squad all underperformed past two of his stars and I had one of those weeks where just about everything went right. The only downs for me were disappointing games for my Justins, Justin Tucker (5.00) and Justin Herbert (8.72). Didn’t need them, this week. If I have ANY chance in the semi finals (and I don’t), I will need them and everybody else to excel. Which is unlikely.

The 140.32 points this week was my highest total of the season, by far. My average was 104.17 during the season and there were four weeks when I didn’t break 100, including my lowest score of 60.56 in Week Six. The odds that I will get anywhere near that 140 level again are slim, but I will need it if I am going to challenge The Titletown Champs at all. Joe Burrow, Justin Jefferson, Davante Adams, Josh Jacobs, Cam Akers, Zeke Elliott, and T.J. Hockenson all or mostly having down games seems impossible. He is loaded and I am counting on McKinnon and Dotson to repeat or even best their season highs from this past week.

Doesn’t look good, but any given Sunday (Thursday, Saturday, or Monday), right?

__________________
"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

For anyone wondering the 140.32 score is the 17th-highest playoff score in league history (out of about 130 total matches). Only one person has ever scored more than that in a playoff match and not won.

Next week I play in the Super Bowl in Beantown's league, vs Beantown himself, with a team that was firing on all pistons and just dominating each opponent as I rolled along. Alas, my top player of the year, Jalen Hurts, has sprained his shoulder at the worst possible time. This seriously hinders my team, but I think I still have a shot. Hoping for the gold, but the silver might be in the cards...

__________________

Hurts not playing may be my only chance to upset Spaulding.

Yeah, he's basically been a league-winning player by himself. Only one "bad" game (and that was 15 points).

This kinda reminds me of some of the Boston-based league owners, who drafted Patriots the same years they blew up offensively.

That is my only chance in my other league. I finished third there, won my quarterfinal match, and this week am playing the two seed, who I think has our league's best team, led by Hurts. If he sits or plays at less than 100% I may have a shot...though she still has McCaffrey, Jacobs, Tyreek Hill, D.K. Metcalf, and T.J. Hockenson.

I drafted Jalen Hurts in my money league last year and I had planned to do the same in our league but one of the auto-drafters selected him a round or two earlier than he was typically drafted. That left me with Tannehill, who wasn't very good, and I spent the season unsuccessfully playing QB roulette. As a result I missed the playoffs for the first and only time. This year I was more aggressive and I landed my guy in the 5th round. For awhile now I've been telling anyone who would listen that Hurts was the future in Philly. He's got the work ethic, the coachability, the leadership intangibles, the speed and athleticism, but even I was skeptical that he would ever develop into the elite passer that he's become this season. A few months ago people would've scoffed if you had told them that Hurts was going to be the highest-rated passer from the pocket, regularly dropping dimes deep downfield with pinpoint accuracy, but it's now a fact. He was on his way to winning MVP. Now he might be done for the regular season. That's a major blow to my fantasy team and my real-life team. (The Eagles only need one more win to clinch the #1 seed, but I worry about the loss of momentum and potential rust factor if Hurts doesn't suit up again until the Divisional Round.)

I don't even have another QB on my roster. And I just puked in my mouth a bit while perusing the available options on the wire. Their ceiling is several points lower than Hurts's floor. I will also be without Tyler Lockett, the #9 WR on the season who had an excellent match-up on deck, due to a broken finger. It's hard for me to trust Garrett Wilson as a FLEX replacement now that Zach Wilson is throwing him the ball again. Christian Watson still feels too boom/bust. David Montgomery has been excellent lately while he had all the RB carries to himself, but Khalil Herbert returns from IR this week, and Montgomery's floor was much lower when the two were sharing carries. Brian Robinson has also played very well the past few weeks, but he has the worst possible match-up against San Fran's shutdown defense. Those guys have provided me with great depth to navigate injuries and byes over the course of the season, but I don't feel comfortable starting any of them this week. Given my QB situation, I can't afford a bad game from any other position.

If I'm going to advance without Hurts, I probably need Lamar Jackson to return from injury and boost the ceilings of Mark Andrews and JK Dobbins. Andrews was excellent the first six weeks of the season, as he kept pace with Kelce as the top TE, but he's cooled off considerably. Dude hasn't scored double-digits since week 6. He's still the #2 TE on the season, but that's because the position has been a fantasy wasteland. Dobbins, meanwhile, cleared waivers a few weeks ago and I grabbed him and stashed him in my IR spot. He's posted 120+ yards each of the past two games, despite clearly lacking the breakaway speed he possessed pre-injury. The Ravens have a very exploitable match-up this week against the Falcons, but they need Lamar to unlock their full scoring potential.

__________________

Well, Thursday Night Football was a push for me. Christian Kirk got about six points less than his projection in the rain but the Jacksonville DEF got about seven points over their projection...leaving me at the exact same 40% odds to win as before the game started.