I did a fantasy football Love/Hate earlier this season and all my choices were amazing (even the ones that weren't). Observe.
My 2015 Loves:
Marshawn Lynch, RB, ADP 5.4. Marshawn spent part of the season injured. There's no accounting for injury, and I wouldn't hold this against Berry (unless it was a situation where injury was predictable, which are rarer than you think), so I won't hold it against myself either. There's also a decent chance he tears it up for the rest of the season and ends up finishing top-10 anyway, which is really all you can reasonably ask for from a first-round running back. But probably not.
Calvin Johnson, WR, ADP 18.0. Calvin's statline is hurt by a stretch of three games from weeks 3-5 where he did jack shit (16 total points), which makes him look mediocre. The thing is, those games were against Denver, Seattle, and Arizona, who are the three scariest pass defenses in the league. Of course, now he's injured too, so that's fun.
Randall Cobb, WR, ADP 22.8. Again, Cobb has been playing injured for the majority of the season. This is pretty clearly why he started out averaging 16 points per game for the first three weeks of the season (good for #1), before dropping down to 3 points per game for the latter three. He got shut down by Denver last week, which was pretty predictable, but his 15 points this week might indicate a return to form.
Peyton Manning, QB, ADP 26.5. Yeah, I can't justify this one. Yet. But have faith. I don't believe in much. I don't believe in magic, or universal morality, or god. I don't believe in ghosts or psychics or spirituality of any kind. But I fucking believe in Peyton Manning.
Russell Wilson, QB, ADP 26.6. What do you get when you put the most magical person since Merlin behind the worst offensive line since Eminem said "I ain't hear a word you said, hibbity-hoo-blah" in his second-to-last 8 Mile rap battle? You get the #13 fantasy quarterback. I can't and won't make excuses for Seattle's O-line.
Emmanuel Sanders, WR, ADP 32.7. More injuries (and some really spotty play). Shoot. Maybe I'm really good at predicting which players will get injured? Hold that thought. Anyway, despite Peyton's struggles, Sanders has had a couple really good games and looks like he might be able to put together a productive season if he can stay healthy. That said, there's (also) no excuse for the drops he's been... dropping.
Justin Forsett, RB, ADP 35.0. Forsett is the #12 RB so far this year. I said I wanted him "as my #2 back whenever I can, and in a pinch... he'll probably do okay as a #1 RB." Hashtag nailed it.
Andre Johnson, WR, ADP 55.6. Why? WHY?? WHY DID I BELIEVE IN ANDREW LUCK???
Jeremy Maclin, WR, ADP 64.9. Injuries. God dammit.
Tom Brady, QB, ADP 78.4. YES FINALLY ONE I TOTALLY NAILED!!! I mean, uh, yet another one I totally nailed. I NAILED this pick. Because I don't believe in much, blah blah blah, but I believe in Tom Brady, et cetera. Oh yeah, and I stand by what I said about Edelman not being a good football player. Never mind that he's on pace for 1341 yards this season. It's all Brady. I'm not even kidding. Take a high school kid with good hands who can run clean routes and Brady will turn him into a 800+ yard receiver. That's what he does. Who's the second best* wide receiver (not TE) Brady's ever thrown to? Welker, the king of what I'll call the "hands and routes" school. Who's the third best receiver he's ever thrown to? I don't know, because he's thrown to dogshit his whole career. This is what he does. (It also helps that he's throwing to the best tight end to ever play the game.)
*First is obviously Moss, who's the second best receiver of all time and stands as the only genuinely great receiver (not tight end) Brady has ever had.
Arian Foster, RB, ADP 94.3. Soo remember that joke where I suggested I might just be really good at predicting who's gonna get injured? Yeah. Foster just tore his achilles after his best game of the season and after missing the first three (really four) games of the season with a completely different injury. For what it's worth, in the three games he really played this season, he averaged 16 points per game, which would have been good for #2 in the league this season. Ugh.
Darren McFadden, RB, ADP 110.1. Hold tight on this one. McFadden has been used sparingly (that might be generous) this season, but he's in the midst of a very respectable run, and Dallas might have finally figured out that he's the most talented RB they have on the roster. (He's leagues ahead of Joseph Randle talent-wise, and Christine Michael doesn't even register. [I wrote this before Randle was released but I'm leaving it because #prescient]) Injury is a factor here (ha--sad laugh), but I still have high hopes for McF.
Teddy Bridgewater, QB, ADP 119.5. Yeah, not so much.
Antonio Gates, TE, ADP 124.9. Holy crap injury gods I swear to You--
Coby Fleener, TE, ADP 132.2. So tight ends suck this year, and Fleener hasn't been a particularly good one. But neither has Dwayne Allen, the other Indy TE; in fact, Fleener has massively outperformed Allen this season (!!!!!!!!!). Fleener was a DEEP sleeper and I blame his lack of success entirely on Andrew Luck's TERRIBLE season (hahahahahahaha), so I feel 100% justified in calling this pick a win. Because any loss of Luck's is a win of mine.
My 2015 Hates:
Adrian Peterson, RB, ADP 3.3. So Peterson has been a little better than I anticipated (still not top five--it's the little victories), and his top 10 showing, by my own logic, justifies an early first-round pick (god dammit). But shit happens. Even terrible people performing okay. (But for the record, it would be reasonable for me to call my Hate of Peterson justified by his underperformance.)
Antonio Brown, WR, ADP 8.1. Brown is the 8th-ranked receiver so far this year. Does that justify a first-round pick? I still say no. Really, that was the basis for my hate. Everyone (including me) knew Brown would be a legit #1 choice at receiver this year. I just don't value that as highly as a clear #1 RB.
C.J. Anderson, RB, ADP 11.6. Ooh, yes, come to papa, show us your mediocrity! Anderson has broken 45 yards exactly once this year, and has a total of one combined touchdown; he's the 46th-ranked RB. In a nutshell, Anderson has been terrible this year. God, I love being right.
LeSean McCoy, RB, ADP 14.8. McCoy has also been pretty bad this year. I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: for the vast, vast majority of running backs (think 90+% of those starting in the league at any given time), their performance is almost entirely a result of their offensive line play. I've called Lynch the outright best RB in the league before because of his amazing ability to make something out of nothing, by breaking tackles and staying on his feet for extra yardage even with bad blocking. Barry Sanders used to be the master of something-for-nothing, although he did it by being elusive like a freak. McCoy couldn't--and can't--do this. Hence not being good in Buffalo. This is also the reason why you see some teams plug in whomever-the-fuck and make them successful (e.g. McFadden).
Jeremy Hill, RB, ADP 18.5. Few quotes from my writeup, along with the relevant stats and analysis from this season:
- "[Hill] broke 10 fantasy points seven times last season... [Giovani Bernard] also broke 10 fantasy points seven times last season." Hill has scored 10 points three times this season; Bernard has done so four times.
- "I see [Hill] splitting carries with Giovani Bernard, who's somehow getting forgotten in all the hype." Hill has 104 carries; Bernard has 91.
- "You know what this reminds me of? Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams." Hashtag nailed it.
And yes, Bernard is outperforming Hill so far this season. Although for what it's worth, they're both doing surprisingly decently (Bernard and Hill are the 17th and 20th rated RBs--NOT overall--which is okay but way worse than where Hill was being drafted this year. Oh, and Bernard is the better one). You know, like Stewart and Williams used to.
Mark Ingram, RB, ADP 28.4. Uh. Yeah (he's the #2 RB). This is probably one of the worst fantasy calls I've ever made. But the crazy thing is, all my reasoning was right. He IS playing in a high passing-volume offense; he IS splitting carries with not one, but two other backs; and he IS probably going to be the first 1000-yard rusher for the Saints since Deuce McAllister in 2006 (but only BARELY, and only if he keeps up his performance). What I didn't anticipate was Ingram TRIPLING his career-best receiving output (on a per-game basis) while also maintaining his rushing production. Admittedly, even without his receiving production, Ingram would still be a top-10 RB this season, but that's still a pretty big difference.
Jimmy Graham, TE, ADP 29.0. I'm really impressed by how well Graham has done this year, but to be objective he's the 8th best TE in a weak year and he was going in the third round. I'm gonna call this a win.
Carlos Hyde, RB, ADP 39.0. Hyde is the #17 ranked RB this year, exclusively by virtue of one amazing game week 1 and a good game week 5. His other five games have come in at 6 or fewer fantasy points. I don't see Hyde as a feast-or-famine type player. I see him as a bad player who had a few lucky breaks. He's injured now, which sucks, but I was still pretty right here (but I was scared for a second after week 1).
Frank Gore, RB, ADP 40.3. Honestly, all I can say is props to Gore. He hasn't been great this year, but he's been holding it down in the Indy shitfest of an offense. He's been better than I expected.
Seahawks D/ST, ADP 61.4. The Seahawks have tied for the second best D/ST so far this season (miles behind Denver's). It's still a TERRIBLE call to take a defense in the seventh round.
Joique Bell, RB, ADP 62.4. AND C.J. Spiller, RB, ADP 73.2. AND Ameer Abdullah, RB, ADP 83.8. I'm grouping these three together because they all suck and it all basically counts as one big win for me. It's nice to know that my notions about RBBCs still hold up most of the time (Williams/Stewart, Hill/Bernard, these guys... there's a pattern here). Ingram's really the freak outlier here.
By the way, I have no idea how Devonta Freeman is doing what he's doing. It's not unprecedented, but it's pretty freaking rare. I saw Gurley's explosion coming, to some extent (I liked him a lot in my draft writeup here, which I'm about to go write an article about), but I never expected Freeman to blow up like this. A lot of it is touchdowns, which really don't reflect any particular accomplishment on his part, but you can't blame a guy for making the most of his offensive opportunities. Good for him.
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