Dear loyal fantasy friends,
I apologize for the delay in this write-up. I’ve been busy, not going to lie. Also, I really wanted to inject some advanced analytics into this write-up, which takes a long ass time.
Congratulations to Murphy’s Dan Campbells Pet Lions. Murphy is back-to-back champ. Colten made a strong postseason push and ended up with silver, while Trystan bested Evan for 3rd place. The regular season champion was Trystan as well, while our consolation champion is Andrew Spencer.
The biggest storyline of this season could be that we’ve had 3 repeat champions in 7 years. Evan in 2017 and 2018, Nic in 2020 and 2021, and Murphy in 2022 and 2023. How do these mini-dynasties come to fruition? The only real common player between these 3 repeat champions is Evan’s usage of Ezekiel Elliot in 2017 and 2018. But apart from this, these repeat champion’s teams look completely different from Year 1 to Year 2. How do these winners get in the zone?
The more entertaining story line this season is the collapse of the 1 and 2 seeds in the playoffs, Evan and Trystan. Their respective teams, NO D FOR YOU and King Stanley, felt utterly dominant in the regular season. Evan’s team had the best record in the history of the league at 12-2, while Trystan’s team scored the most regular season points with 1658.76 and started the season 7-0. But how good were these teams really? Now that the league has completed its 8th year, we have some historical data to put this season into context.
Here’s some interesting findings when looking through our league’s history:
Although this NFL season felt like scoring was down, it wasn’t the lowest scoring season that we’ve had in our fantasy history. 2023 had an NFL average team points scored of 21.8, while 2017 had 21.7. This panned out in the fantasy scoring as well, with 2017 being the lowest average score/game at 101.4, while this year was 103.4. 2018 was our highest league average at 110.6.
Evan’s and Trystan’s teams points scored/game, when weighted by the league average, were the 2nd and 4th highest we’ve had in league history. 1st and 3rd both came in 2017, from my team Tony Browntana and Murphy’s team FlaxenCheese 25, respectively. Interesting that down scoring years seem to produce the highest outlier scoring for those teams at the top.
Colten’s 2023 team Burrow McCaulkiner had the 3rd lowest adjusted points/game for a team that made the playoffs in league history. The lowest was Andrew’s Odell’s School of Stool in 2020. Colten’s team was the lowest scoring team ever to win a playoff matchup.
If we look at difference between adj. points for per game and adj. points against per game, Nic’s Puccacabra had the 2nd worst in league history, behind Kopke’s 2020 Uncle Rico squad. This means Nic had a historical combination of scoring very little while being shit on by his opponents. Trystan’s squad conversely had the 3rd best in league history, behind Evan’s Ezekial Elliot: True Romance team of 2017 and my Juulio Vape Squad team from 2019.
Although Murphy’s 2023 postseason run may seem miraculous, his 2022 South Beach AUDIBLE team actually had a lower adj. points scored/game and also won the championship. But no team holds a candle in terms of miracles to Colten’s 2016 team Moscow Matty Fam, which in our inaugural season, won the championship with a below average adj. points scored per game, the only team ever to do so.
Let’s get into the team breakdowns:
FYI: 30 Bomb is a 30+ point performance by a starting player. 40 Bomb is 40+.
Murphy Olmstead
Dan Campbells pet Lions
What a story for Murphy. He feels like Tom Brady in his Super Bowl season with the Bucs. A slow start, a team that gels later in the season, and some playoff luck. Murphy was 1-4 after 5 weeks, averaging 83 points per game over that span. He then went on to rattle off 6 of the next 8, averaging 121 points. What led to this ascension? Dak Prescott. But the Dak we all know chokes in the playoffs, which is why Murphy had Amon-Ra St. Brown, who gave him just enough to win his playoff matchups. Stat about Murphy’s team: his players scored more points compared to their projections than any other team. Now that Murphy is back-to-back champion, I fully endorse trying to fuck him over whenever possible.
MVP: Amon-Ra
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: Rachaad White
30 Bombs: 2
40 Bombs: 0
Colten Bernauer
Burrow McCaulkiner
Colten’s season started a bit differently, with a 5-0 start. 2 of these wins came by less than 3 points, the first being one of Evan’s only two losses and the other from a 63.06-51.4 win against Murphy. This is the lowest combined scoring game in the history of our league. When I was looking through the other lowest scoring games in our league history, I found something curious. Here are the next 3 lowest scoring regular season games in league history:
Week 8 2020 69.66-69.66 Colten vs Evan (Colten wins on tie breaker)
Week 5 2022 78.38-61.06 Colten vs Murphy (Colten wins)
Week 2 2018 77.08-55.36 Colten vs Nic (Colten wins)
What a lucky son of a bitch. Another weird thing about Colten’s second place team is that his highest ranked player by position is David Njoku, who only placed as the 6th TE because of his insane weeks 13-17 with Joe Flacco. Colten’s next highest ranked player was Baker fucking Mayfield at QB10. Colten had the lowest average game margin, meaning his match ups were decided by the least points, on average.
Colten was the only player with no 30 Bombs. How did this guy get 2nd place again?
MVP: Njoku I guess
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: Brandon Aiyuk
30 Bombs: 0
40 Bombs: 0
Trystan Chambers
King Stanley
7 straight wins, followed by 5 straight losses, followed by 2 huge weeks to secure a 1st round bye, followed by a loss to Colten in round 2, followed by a 170 point explosion to win 3rd place. This season must be seen as a success for Trystan financially, winning both regular season champ and 3rd place. But will Trystan always be the bridesmaid? His 2020 team almost made a miracle run; squeaking into the playoffs as a 6th seed after winning his last 3 regular season games, destroying Murphy in round 1 of the playoffs before getting waxed by a 160 pointer from Zach. His 2022 team made it to the championship but had the worst championship performance in league history against Murphy. And this 2023 powerhouse team, with the RB4, RB5, RB6, QB4 and the WR2, couldn’t get it done in the semis. 3 of the top 9 scoring weeks (quite a shame 2 of them were by benched players). What could have been. Trystan might be the Lamar Jackson of fantasy.
MVP: Tyreek Hill
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: Kyren Williams
30 Bombs: 8
40 Bombs: 0
Evan Buchert
NO D FOR YOU
Tough ending after riding McCaffery to the most regular season wins of all time. While Trystan’s playoff woes are an enigma, I can tell you exactly why Evan lost in the semis after taking the #1 seed into the playoffs. It was classic hubris. When probed about his start-sit decisions heading into the semis, Evan was quoted as saying “It doesn’t matter, I’m going to win.” Evan proceeded to lose by 15 while 5 of his bench players outscored his starting WR2, TE and Flex. This was statistically a common occurrence for Evan; he had more bench players finish with more than double their projected point than any other team. The next week in his 3rd place match up, all Evan heard was his cheeks getting clapped by Trystan and his own words ringing in his head.
MVP: Christian McCaffrey
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: Alvin Kamara
30 Bombs: 1
40 Bombs: 1
Jakob Haxby
Haxsaw 69420
What to say about Haxby’s team… not a ton of intrigue here. This is Jake’s 2nd season in the league and both years have resulted in 8-6 teams who were bounced in the first round of the playoffs. Haxby’s team was middle of the pack in scoring, average in scoring variance, slightly above average number of 30+ point performance, didn’t’ have any notable highs or lows…He did have the top scoring QB in Josh Allen. I guess Hax may be this league’s Marty Schottenheimer?
MVP: Josh Allen
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: Jordan Addison
30 Bombs: 4
40 Bombs: 1
Zach Saleen
Post Mahomes
Zach’s team had another solid season. The story here is that Zach hasn’t missed the playoffs since 2017. That’s 6 straight playoff appearances. 7 out of 8 seasons in the playoffs. Zach’s teams also have never had worse than a +5 point per game differential. He’s the only owner who has never had a negative point differential season. Zach is the Mike Tomlin of this league. This season wasn’t all consistent output, however. He started 1-4 before winning 5 straight. He is the only team with two number 1 positional finishers in Sam LaPorta and CeeDee Lamb. The funny part is he only started LaPorta one week after picking him up off waivers Week 1, which was during Travis Kelce’s bye week. I guess the rookie with the greatest TE season since Mike Ditka in 1961 was more valuable on Zach’s bench than in a trade?
MVP: CeeDee Lamb
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: LaPorta, but not really
30 Bombs: 6
40 Bombs: 0
Jordan Schwers
Son and Done
My team stunk this year. Statistically my team’s output was actually pretty average, with the 5th highest points/game, but I had the 2nd highest points against/game and couldn’t seem to string together any wins. This is the 2nd year in a row I made the most roster moves. League-wide we had the lowest average roster moves in league history, I guess everybody was just too busy to fuck with their lineups. My team’s top scorer was my starting kicker or defense in 5 weeks. No other team had that happen more than twice. You know how I said Zach was the only owner with two #1 positional finishers? I lied. I had Brandon Aubrey and the Cowboys Defense, who both finished #1. Does this make me good at fantasy or bad? I also uncovered that I am 1 of 4 owners in our league to have a lifetime points/game over 110, the others being Evan, Zach, and Murphy, who all have chips. Maybe I’m the Dan Marino of fantasy.
MVP: Cowboys DEF
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: Brandon Aubrey (my team was so fucking lame)
30 Bombs: 2
40 Bombs: 0
Charlie Cornforth
Surprise Motha Tucker
Charlie had the most statistically average scoring season at 103.5 Points/Game (league average was 103.41). Despite average scoring, Charles was very streaky this season in his matchups. He won 2 straight, then he lost 5 straight, then he won 4 straight, then he lost 3 straight. His comeback season came to an end when he was narrowly thwarted week 12 against Andrew, who had his best regular season point total of the season. The next week, Charlie lost Tank Dell to a season ending injury and his team lost the will to live. One fun stat about Charlie is that he had the most bench points scored, and I don’t think he was stashing multiple QBs. Lots of points left out on the field.
MVP: Jalen Hurts
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: Tank Dell
30 Bombs: 1
40 Bombs: 0
John Kopke
Uncle Rico
Kopke started terribly with 4 straight losses, followed by our highest point total of the season in week 5 with 172.18 points against Zach. This was also the highest combined scoring game of the year with 307.3 total. John middled around after his big week, going 5-4 with a big moral victory over Andrew to finish the season off. It reminded me of the Saints win in week 18, which didn’t help them make the playoffs in the end but was a good ole’ ass-whooping, just for the hell of it. John’s bench performed poorer compared to projections than any other team, while his starting lineups were 3rd best, so he made good start/sit decisions. He also had 3 of the top 7 weeks when comparing points scored to projected points. His team was just underwhelming in the win/loss column. But John will always have week 5, when Ja’Marr Chase scored 47.7 points and Etienne added 34.4.
MVP: Travis Ettienne (Did not realize this guy finished RB2)
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: James Cook
30 Bombs: 4
40 Bombs: 1
Jeff Slonaker
Kooscotopia
There were 3 teams to start the season 3-0: Colten, Trystan and Jeff. The next 8 weeks Jeff’s team wavered a bit, but never fell below .500. He came into week 12 at 6-5, but proceeded to drop 3 in a row, averaging 70.3 points over the span. During this 3 games Jeff had no player eclipse 20 points, no bench player eclipse 10 points, Justin Herbert scored 40% of his projected points and Austin Ekeler scored 62%. Slon got Chargered. Stats: Jeff’s team had the lowest variance in points scored. He also only had one player that finished Top-10 in their position: Taysom Hill at TE10.
MVP: The Bills Defense?
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: Jayden Reed
30 Bombs: 1
40 Bombs: 0
Andrew Spencer
Hyde and Zeke
Not a great year for Hyde and Zeke. Worst PF/G in the league. Only one game over 120 points. 3 games under 60 points, most in the league. 2nd highest variance behind Kopke, but while Kopke had variance due to the random point explosion, Andrew had the random point diarrhea. He didn’t really have any reliable studs except Achane, but he was only able to suit up for 5 games in Andrew’s lineup. Andrew had the lowest points scored by his lineup compared with their projections at 89%. Josh Jacobs, Davante Adams, Najee, Goedert, Cam Akers, Daniel Jones. Andrew’s draft was more busty than Hitomi Tanaka. But somehow, despite all this, and despite a 59 point showing in Round 1 of the playoffs, Andrew somehow rattled off 2 big weeks and won consolation championship by 2.5 points over Jeff. 49 fucking points from Amari Cooper in week 16 (biggest player performance of the year), and solid performances all around in week 17 and Spence wins his money back.
MVP: Nico Collins
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: De’von Achane
30 Bombs: 4
40 Bombs: 1
Nic Andreason
Puccacabra
While Nic’s team didn’t have the high-octane pants pooping that Andrew’s did, his squad laid more consistent, firm stools in his pants, week after week. From weeks 6-17, Nic only scored more than 100 points once, which was in week 10 with 106.32. This was not aided by the fact that Nic had 114.7 points per game on average scored against him. He only scored more than this average in weeks 3-5, and not by much. But I think Nic knew it wasn’t his year when he started the season 1-5. He got his two rings and now he’s in rebuild mode, not caring too much about the losses piling up. One thing Nic can hang his hat on is that his yearly week 2 FAAB overspend (which usually works out) won him Puka Nacua, who had the best rookie fantasy WR season of all time, and is on Nic’s favorite team.
MVP: Puka Nacua
Best Acquisition/Sleeper: Jake Ferguson
30 Bombs: 3
40 Bombs: 0
I’ve prepared some data if you’d like to look at it.
Thanks for playing everybody. Love you guys.
