What was, what will be
WAKE UP LOSERS IT’S FANTASY SEASON.
Your time of tranquility ends now. Enough of summer breezes and sunny beer gardens. It’s time for wet leaves, angry winds, and frantically waivering a TE on your phone as you race both the sunset and the start of the afternoon games- because those things will soon be happening simultaneously.
Much has happened since we last gathered. A quick summation: Micah won the championship last year, and shortly after that, my mom died. Now, I’m not saying that those two events are causally linked, but Micah’s last championship was 2010. Chris joined in 2011, and since that time, there were nine instances of a person winning the league for the first time (since she’d joined) that were not followed by her death. So we can’t definitively state that Micah winning was what did it, but the numbers clearly say we can’t rule it out. Something to think about.
This left the league with an opening, the first in more than 10 years. Think back to where you were in 2014. That was when DeWitt joined the fold, and our ranks have been unchanged ever since. Until now, when we welcome a fresh member in the form of a Daniel. He is the second of his kind to find himself here, and the previous Daniel did not last long. He went 5-8 and fled the league after one year. Hopefully this one is of heartier stock.
This fresh, nubile Daniel comes to us from the Chicago area; a brother-in-law to Justin and a Packer fan of the highest order. He has been an avid follower of our league (for some reason) for nearly a decade, and sat atop the standby list for years waiting for an opening. So we welcome you, Daniel. You take over for Chris, who ends her run with eight playoff appearances, two top-3 finishes, and a championship. If you need any help on shepherding the team you are left with/a draft plan, I found an index card of hers that she was using to track draft targets:
Couple things of note here. One, this collection was clearly put together at different times. For example Tank Dell getting shot is noted, but Ricky Persall getting shot was not. I’m assuming Dell was crossed out BECAUSE he was shot, but maybe it was after he tore his everything in that one knee. Seems like Pearsall was added post-shooting, because Jeanty was added before him in the list and would not have been on the radar until last year. Also, there are multiple kickers AND a punter on the list, which is reflective of both Chris’s love for foot-based fantasy players and her thoroughness in scouting. Longtime league members will also notice the presence of several Chris “guys,” including Montgomery, Mixon,Blake Corum, and Hollywood Brown (can you IMAGINE what she would have bid for Jeanty?). Lastly, we have Jeremiah Smith on the list, who not only will not be eligible for Fantasy for two more years, but who is so good that writing him down seems unnecessary. But there you have it, Daniel. That is all the research Chris left behind. Welcome and good luck.
Before we head forward, let us look back at what was. First, let us award some draft plaudits:
Key: QB= Purple | RB= Blue | WR= Green | TE= Red | Kicker= Orange | DEF= Grey
Chart on the right is the average draft values of players drafted by an owner.
In terms of value, Justin’s draft was pretty mediocre overall, but nabbing Saquon for $55 was SO valuable that he finished first in terms of cummulative draft value grade of 56.98.
Of the 40 RBs taken, the average RB value rating was 2.03. Saquon’s was 21.15. Justin also had James Cook for $40, which was a value rating of 10.21. That means more than 50% of his draft payoff was thanks to two guys. Or, to put it another way, Justin filled 15 roster slots on draft night, and Barkley accounted for more than a third of the team’s drafted value.
Other top picks in order of value behind Saquon:
Chris- Brock Bowers ($5, value of 17.24)
Micah- Derrick Henry ($49, value of 15.73)
Kyle- Jayden Daniels ($10, value of 14.84)
Andres- Bijan Robinson ($68, value of 14.42).
Kyle had the best QB pick with Daniels, Munson had the best WR pick value with Justin Jefferson (13.11), and Chris had the best TE pick with Bowers.
As for Keepers, obviously Justin blew everyone away with Chase for $11 (26.86 value), but Andres got sick value (21.02) from a $33 Lamar Jackson thanks to an MVP season they weren’t allowed to award him for some reason.
But enough positivity. Let’s see who fucking BOMBED.
Brandon Aiyuk! That fucking fraud was worth -19.62 draft value thanks to a $43 price tag, dogshit numbers, and a shredded knee. Chris, of course, picked him.
Rashee Rice! -11.65 value thanks to a blown knee and an impending suspension that everyone just sort of mumbled around when talking about the Chiefs. You can guess which Chiefs fan in here drafted him.
Chris Olave! -10.05 value, which coincidentally is the amount of functioning synapses in his brain after his head was put into a concrete mixer twice last season. He said he is “not worried” this year, saying those concussions were “unlucky.” Cool, man. How about the one in 2023? Or the one in 2022? I guess having your conscious mind puréed on an annual basis would leave you free from worry. He cost Lee $25 in draft capital.
Then, of course, there is DeWitt, who managed to keep both Isaiah Pacheco and Christian McCaffrey. Those two lads had one working leg and a combined price tag of $83 dollars last season, and also tricked DeWitt into thinking he had his RB spots taken care of so he didn’t have to go too crazy in the draft. They combined for -37 value.
As for the in-season action…
Micah became a two-time champion, winning the regular season at 10-4 before sneaking out a nine-point victory in the semifinals. However, he blew Will out in the title game and joined DeWitt on the silver medal tier as a two-time winner.
Thanks to that flurry of success (and Lee’s team putting down the controller and walking away), Micah is now tied with Lee for third in wins (110), tied with Lee for fourth in winning percentage (.524), and JUMPED Lee to take third in total points scored.
It was a fruitful season for Mr. Thoman, who, though he conceded halfway through the noon games most weeks, gets to hold the belt once again.
But that’s all that happened! Other stuff happened! Good stuff!
First, let’s celebrate Justin’s historic season. Six top scores, setting a new league record. The previous record was five, shared by DeWitt in 2018 and Will in both 2009 and 2021. Justin was also eight points away from the single-season record, which he would have reached had he not started D’Andre Swift in Week 2, or lost to me by phoning it in in Week 14 (why did he phone it in? Did someone mistakenly say he had a bye locked up? Who can remember). But Steve’s record total of 2,002.2 points from 2023 survived.
However, Justin used this season to climb the leaderboards, hopping over Munson to take sixth in all-time points and draw within 100 points of me in the fifth-place spot, while also climbing from seventh to fourth in High Scores to tie Lee at 22 (Lee had a real bad time, you guys).
Elsewhere, DeWitt took the league lead in career winning percentage (.612), Will and Steve became the only two teams to reach 24,000 points and 120 wins, and Will became the only person to have 125 wins or more.
Will used to have three of the top five single-season point records, but 2024 was a raucous season and all three of those point totals have been pushed out by 2024 teams. Those were: Justin, as we mentioned, Micah with 1,861.5, and…….. Will again with 1,896.2. This fucking guy. The Top 10 Highest-Scoring Seasons now goes:
Steve (2023)
Justin (2024)
Will (2024)
DeWitt (2022)
Micah (2024)
Will (2019)
Will (2021)
Will (2022)
JJ (2021)
Lee (2019)
Jimmy and Chris reached 20,000 points, with Jimmy doing it two weeks faster than Andres (192 weeks) and Chris doing it the third-fastest (178 weeks) in league history- one week slower than Steve and four weeks slower than Will.
Andres’ return to prominence lifted his career winning percentage from .420 to 4.43, and his bronze medal moved him to fifth in top-3 finishes.
In All-Play, Kyle climbed from 10th to 9th, Micah jumped from 6th to 4th, Lee dropped from 4th to 6th after setting the worst All-Play record in league history (sorry man, it was a really bad year), and Justin went from 9th to 7th.
We are now steaming toward our draft, which you will notice I have set a date for. Questions abound in these final days of tranquility:
How good will Ashton Jeanty be? How much will I pay to find out? Who will draft CMC for way too much money? Will the Bucs suck without Coen? Will the Lions suck without Johnson? Will Steve keep Marvin Harrison Jr. and watch him impersonate George Pickens every week, or will he let him go so Will can draft him for $6 ahead of a record-breaking season? Is Micah gonna talk himself into keeping Lamb for $70? Will Kyren Williams keep this TD shit up for Kyle? (fun fact: Over the last two seasons, Williams has 28 games played, 26 rushing touchdowns. Last season, he ran for 1,299 yards, but 1,000 of those came after contact, and his RYOE was exactly 0.0.)
Last year was a major shakeup season across the league. Historical trends were defied, power players were stifled, and Lee pooped on himself a bunch. With Chris in the “great GM box in the sky” and ripe, virginal Daniel joining our ranks, I look forward to how I manage a 7-win season yet again. TO BATTLE.
