MoFo Fantasy Football 2023 - The Season

Week 1, where half the league realizes their RB situation is potentially dire.

Initially I was disappointed with my team (damn mock drafts filling my head with unrealistic expectations every year), but now I view my roster as a solid mix of upside and stability. I've had a knack for drafting QBs during their breakout seasons (Wentz, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts) and I'm hopeful that Fields continues that trend. He got off to a poor start last year then exploded for consecutive 40-pt games during a 2-month streak of 20+ performances. If his passing stats improve to go along with his tantalizing rushing ability, he could make a Jalen Hurts-like meteoric leap. I also drafted Tua, who was a top-ten QB last year by avg. PPG, just in case Fields doesn't pan out.

Barkley is a heightened injury risk, but when healthy he's still one of the best RBs in the league, and I was ecstatic to land him in the 11th spot. (I would've picked him as high as 5th.) Also happy to secure Mixon's heavy volume on a great offense. He was considered a disappointment last year, yet he still finished as a RB1 thanks to the 53-point explosion against Carolina in week 9. At the very least he should provide me with a nice reliable floor, with the potential for a few spike weeks. My WR duo -- Lamb/Metcalf -- should also provide a nice weekly baseline. I'm skeptical that Mike Evans will continue his record-breaking streak of 1000-yard seasons now that he's shackled to Baker Mayfield, but I'll gladly take the 9th-round discount on him just in case. Freiermuth doesn't have the ceiling of most of the TEs drafted ahead of him, but he was typically good for 7-10 points last season, and I'll take that week-to-week consistency given the unpredictable volatility of the TE position.

The ceiling for my team will likely depend on the success of Khalil Herbert and Javonte Williams. The latter was on my "Do Not Draft List" until a couple weeks ago, as I feared that he might start the season on the PUP list while recovering from last year's devastating knee injury, but his health reports this off-season have been consistently optimistic and his heavy usage in brief pre-season action allayed those fears. I presume the Broncos will limit his workload early on, but I love the talent and the expected checkdowns in Sean Payton's offense. Khalil Herbert has put up RB1 numbers when he's been the starter, and his playmaking ability forced a timeshare last season with Montgomery. I don't think the average football fan realizes just how talented is Herbert. Some of his advanced metrics are eye-popping. Analysts expect a committee approach, but I'm banking on Herbert to be the primary guy. Between Fields and Herbert, I'm rolling the dice on the Bears offense being one of the more exciting units this season while their defense remains poor, leading to weekly shoot-outs.

I'm definitely a little nervous that I don't have a more sure thing in my FLEX. There has been an industry-wide shift in favor of WRs over RBs this season, and in mocks I typically took advantage of the low ADPs for RBs by stocking up on them, but that didn't bear out so much in our draft. I worry that I made a mistake not going KWIII or Stevenson in the 4th, but I was confident that at least James Conner would fall to me and that didn't happen.

__________________

Yeah, the switch to WRs being the power pieces to grab really took hold over the last couple seasons. If you had Cooper Kupp on your squad two seasons ago or Justin Jefferson last year it was like having Todd Gurley four or five years ago. In general the league seems more comfortable with little passes or screens or QB sneaks along the goal line these days instead of muscling it in through the pile. If you don't have McCaffrey, who gets nearly as many catches as he does runs, you are likely stuck with backs who get you 76 yards a game on the ground and very few TDs, which doesn't translate to much Fantasy-wise. If your team's RB is pulled on long downs in favor of a back who catches passes....good luck.

WRs seem to be the way to go, now.

Until they aren't any more.

__________________
"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

I made my picks. Quoting this in case everyone hasnt seen it. We should make a thread for this in case any Football fans not in our league would like to do this Football Pool setup. I know Cricket watches Football.

Who is Shamus Criswell?

I've joined too.

That's his son Tongo.

For sure, go for it if you want. If not I will make one this weekend. My other two drafts are this weekend, so I will pimp it there too. Hopefully we can get a few more.

__________________
Letterboxd

Good job on nabbing McCaffrey Justin

Is it okay if I invite my GF's son? He's been looking to make money quick and thinks gambling on football is the way. I've been very encouraging, letting him know that that's a fantastic idea, what could go wrong?, but he may want to give some thought to practicing in a few freebies before giving your direct deposit info to Frankie Kneecaps in Jersey.

Yo Justin if you just wanna send me your address for the trophy now I'd love to bang out that to-do item real early this year.

Absolutely. We will consider it his first intervention. Like my dad always says, those guys in Vegas didn’t get rich by being dumb and losing.

But seriously everyone must just be tired because back in the day when I made trades like this everybody got mad.

Nah, I just don’t overreact to these trades. As good as CMC is, he won’t win the league by himself. Justin still has a few decent supporting players around him (Chase, Cousins, Allen). But it remains to be seen how well Mattison and Perine will do as full time starters. Justin’s definitely increased his chances of making the playoff of course, but how far he goes remains to be seen.

As much as CMC helped WtLB last year, it only translated to a 6th place finish.

I don't, either, I find it all totally legitimate, depth is valuable, you have to account for risk when there's an open injury diagnosis, etc. All arguments I made many times in the past which somehow seemed not to effect the reaction(s) the next time.

The more I look at my team, the more I like it. Like, it’s actually better than last years team, which had a higher grade. Better WR (moving on from JSS last year. Ugh) and the RB position has two potential breakout stars in Pierce and White, which I hope work out.
Godwin, Hopkins and M. Brown (my sole WR who actually contributed before injuries) should provide enough depth at WR and I’m hoping Mostert can avoid injuries because he can be really good when healthy.

TE I’m not so sure on, but outside of Kelce, Andrews, Kittle and Waller there isn’t much there.

I’ll be happy to make the playoffs again

McCaffrey only scored 12 more points than Jacobs on the season last year. I expect McCaffrey to widen the gap this season, considering that was a career year for Jacobs, but Jacobs should remain one of the top RBs even if he doesn't replicate last year's production. And obviously McCaffrey is always a huge injury risk. I personally think it was a bad trade for @jiraffejustin. Whatever increase in points he gets from upgrading from Jacobs to McCaffrey likely won't be worth losing Gibbs in the deal as well, but I'm extremely high on Gibbs. For all the hype Bijan Robinson has gotten, I think there's a decent chance Gibbs is just as good if not better this season. (I keep forgetting that Justin also received Sutton in the deal, but that's because Sutton feels like such a "meh" guy. Although if Jeudy is out for extended time and Russell Wilson doesn't play like ass again, Sutton might be a sneaky good WR2.)

The other trade feels like @Powdered Water panicking on Kupp's hamstring issue, but kudos to Justin for exploiting that fear of the unknown. What's puzzling to me is that PW is trading him away for another WR dealing with the same issue at the moment (Jeudy) and a guy who missed half the season last year with a hamstring injury of his own (Keenan Allen) and who is at the age when we typically see a decline in performance. When healthy last season, Kupp was averaging even more points than Justin Jefferson. I feel like Kupp should definitely fetch more than Allen/Jeudy in a trade (although both guys are very good, especially Allen). Who knows, maybe PW has a friend of a friend who is cousins with Kupp's personal trainer and he's got inside information that Kupp is about to miss the next 8 weeks.

At the rate @jiraffejustin is going, he will have acquired Mahomes and Kelce by the end of the week.

Obviously a lot of questions with my squad, but I am going to see how things shake out for a couple of weeks before making any moves. My RB situation is especially dicey, so hopefully things work out well there over the next few weeks.

__________________

Kittles hurt, and my backup TE is a rookie who may not even get targeted. Other than that I'm debating if I should play my Chiefs RB or Brandin Cooks in my Flex. So far I can't complain.

I guess I may have made a bad deal eh? Probably. I admit, I really don't follow football very close these days. So instead of panic it was, "Oh, one if my main guys is already hurt... again?" Then Justin came thru and I figured why not? Maybe its moves like this that keep me pretty mediocre at this game? Its cool. We'll see how it shakes out.

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

And maybe a bit of a panic trade on my end but I shipped Gainwell to Justin for Luke Musgrave. Well I have to start someone with Kelce out and the waiver wire is beyond awful. You would think the Eagles are assembling a 3 headed RB monster since two of them are so injury prone. There's a chance I regret the trade but it was worth the chance.

Detroit is coming to Kansas City tonight, game 1 week 1. Wouldn't it be funny if the first game of the year ended up being the biggest upset of the year? Any Given Thursday.