Week 9 - MOTW

Another week, another loss. Now that I'm out of the playoff race, I'm really just hoping my opponent scores a ridiculous amount of points so I can do a postmortem on how ridiculously unlucky my team was.

On another note, I am starting to build the survey around what the league wants to see changed for our league. If you have any suggestions on things you want the league to respond to (e.g. PPR, PPFD, auction, keeper, etc.) please e-mail, text, kakao, gchat, whatsapp, or linkedin message me with what you would like to see on the survey. Please do this by 9/16 at the latest so I can be sure that I am able to incorporate it.

That's all the league related stuff for now. On to the important stuff.

MOTW
1. KISS vs. 2. BOBODDY
As always, Eric continues to blow me away with these amazing "opposite" names. I predicted YDDOBOB and he knew I was trying to hard. Keep It Simple Stupid. Best advice he ever gave me. Hurts my feelings every time.

The fantasy gods are giving me another shot at the 1 vs. 2 matchup after I missed Cho vs. Dan. Let's see who gets to pull a full game ahead of the other and gets one step closer to securing the bye.

Studs: Cook vs. Golladay
Cook should feast as he's been doing all season against a Chiefs run defense that couldn't stop Aaron Jones even when they knew he was going to run it to kill the clock. The Packers were able to kill 5 minutes off the clock and win the game. I can't imagine what Dalvin is about to do to them. Golladay gets a Raiders defense that hasn't really been able to stop anybody. Stafford has been quietly having a great season (16/4 ratio, almost 300 yards per game) and Golladay has been one of the key beneficiaries. Expect a 20+ point game.

Duds: Tate vs. Brady
It's not that I think Tate will be bad. It's more that he's probably going to have the worst game of the players on Eric's team. I don't think everyone will be phenomenal but Tate gets a tough matchup on a defense that can focus their attention on him. I believe the Giants will try to run it, shorten the game, and rely on Saquon as much as possible. Brady has been solid up to this point but he's running out of receivers to throw it to. On top of that, he's facing the first decent defense since week 4 when he faced the Bills. In that week, he scored less than 5 points and struggled to find his receivers. With a crafty Baltimore defense led by Earl Thomas and the newly acquired Marcus Peters, expect Michel to handle the rock a ton.

X-Factors: Darnold vs. Ertz
Darnold has had an up and down season... but mostly down. He got mono, posted one of the worst lines this season (-6.66 points against NE), and hurt his thumb. If there's one thing to cure all of these ailments, it's facing the Miami Dolphins. Expect a multi-TD game, with the only thing that's able to slow him down being the huge score differential. Ertz has been one of the most disappointing players, regardless of position. He was supposed to be in the A tier of TEs along with Kelce and Kittle. While those guys have had struggles of their own, Ertz has been arguably the worst one of all. Can he get back on track against a Bears team that is also reeling. Surprisingly, although they defend most parts of the field well, covering TEs across the middle of the field isn't their strength. They can rush the passer, stuff the run, and cover the outside, but the middle might be the place to find the most opportunities. Let's see if Ertz can cash in.

Key Players on Bye:
Eric - Goff, Michael Thomas - Not having one of the best WRs is going to hurt, but luckily Golden Tate has been a startable wide receiver. Goff is more hit or miss but it will be hard to beat Darnold's matchup against the Dolphins.
Dan - AJ Green, Mahomes (INJ) - The 2nd Bengals receiver Dan has traded for won't be playing this week but he has a much higher ceiling to help Dan out. Mahomes' injury usually wouldn't result in too large of a drop off since Dan has Brady, but Brady's matchup is slightly foreboding.

Winner: Eric
I see a slightly down week for CMC and Ingram which will be the difference in this one. Darnold matches Brady step for step, negating the positional advantage for Dan. Eric's superior pass catchers widen the lead while special teams should mostly be a wash.

MOTW record: 2-1

Good luck to all!

Simon Kim

Week 8 - What a Weird Season

Another week, another loss for Simon. Even worse, the KC defense played a great game on Thursday night to give me hope, only for Matt Ryan to throw it all away on Sunday. It also didn't help that 5 of my guys were out on Sunday.

Anyways, I wanted to take a look back at this fantasy season because it's been one like no other. The first round picks haven't been living up to their hype and the number of undrafted players making huge impacts are ridiculous. One defense is a top 15 fantasy player (INCLUDING QBs!!) and the TE position has been the most unpredictable since before the Tony Gonzalez/Antonio Gates/Jimmy Graham/Rob Gronkowski days. The only position that has been playing out as expected is kicker. Go figure.

Anyways, let's just cherry pick some crazy stats so far this season:
- New England is averaging 21.71 points per game. That's a 2 TDs and 97 rushing yards per game added to Cho's team every week! That's better than having Dalvin Cook, Nick Chubb, or Zeke. No WR can even match those numbers on a week to week basis. Even for a QB, that would be a 2 TD, 1 INT, 300 yard passing game EVERY WEEK. New England has been the 12th best player in the league, regardless of position. But the biggest kicker is the difference between them and the next best defense in the league. The gap between them and second place SF is 7.54 points. That is bigger than the difference between second place SF and 19th place Seattle. No other position has that big of a gap between first and second place in terms of startability.
QB: Russell Wilson => Lamar Jackson = .28 ~ Lamar Jackson => 3rd place DeShaun Watson
WR: Chris Godwin => Michael Thomas = 3.56 ~ Michael Thomas => 25th place John Brown (Remember that while this gap is bigger than the defense, we play 3 WRs. So John Brown is still a WR2/3)
RB: CMC => Dalvin Cook = 4.31 ~ Dalvin Cook => 6th place Aaron Jones
TE: (Not counting 2 game Henry) Hooper => Waller = 1.03 ~ Waller => 3rd place Mark Andrews
For a 13th round pick, you could do worse than the NE defense. The crazier thing is that they were the 10th defense taken off the board so 9 other teams are ruing the fact that they let this opportunity go.
- TE has been an infinite crapshoot this year. Let's see how the drafted TEs are doing based on the spot they were drafted:
1. Kelce - Drafted 1.11 - 4th - 60.1 total points
2. Kittle - 2.7 - 8th - 45.4
3. Ertz - 3.3 - 7th - 46.4
4. Engram - 6.1 - 6th - 50.4
5. O.J. Howard - 6.6 - 40th - 15.6
6. Henry - 6.8 - 13th - 37.7 (in 3 games!)
7. Cook - 7.2 - 19th - 28.8
8. McDonald - 8.4 - 23rd - 24.7
9. Njoku - 8.5 - 48th - 9.7
10. Ebron - 8.9 - 12th - 38.6
11. Hooper - 9.1 - 1st - 78.6
12. Andrews - 11.6 - 3rd - 60.9
13. Walker - 11.10 - 17th - 28.8
I think you get the point. If you look at these rankings, it looks like there's not rhyme or reason as to how the TEs were ranked before the season. And this chart doesn't even show the true volatility as we only start one TE. Only half of the first 13 TEs that were taken are even startable in our league. The #2 (Waller), 5 (Dissly), 9 (Everett), 10 (Olsen), 11 (Graham), 14 (Fells), and 15 (Witten) TEs weren't even taken in the draft. TE is usually the safest position to draft early because the cream at the top has usually stayed pretty consistent. This year has destroyed any notion of consistency for the position. We'll see what it means going forward.
- Has there ever been a season where this many startable WRs weren't even drafted? Let's see all the undrafted WRs that are in the top 50 based on total points scored this season:
#4, DJ Chark
#13, Terry McLaurin
#32, Phillip Dorsett
#36, DeMarcus Robinson
#38, John Ross
#44, A.J. Brown
#48, Zach Pascal
#49, Nelson Agholor
#50, Chris Conley
Somebody could have waited for the last 5 rounds of the drafted and still snagged 5 of the top 40 WRs, as well as having 1 in each WR tier as well. That's gotta be unheard of. A few trends obviously emerge. 1, Minshew-mania is alive and well with both Chark and Conley becoming real weapons. 2, the rookie WRs have really adapted well to the NFL. McLaurin, and AJ Brown on this list are all rookies. Other rookies like Marquise Brown, DK Metcalf, and Mecole Hardman have all been in the top 50 as well. Other rookie WRs (Harry, Deebo Samuel, Diontae Johnson, Myers, Slayton, Preston Williams) have shown flashes and may still have the ability to improve on the rest of the season.

Good luck to all!

Simon Kim

Week 7 - Bold Predictions for the ROS

Sorry I missed the post before Thursday night but I had a crazy week at the office. This was especially unfortunate as the top 2 teams in the league are battling this week for league supremacy... But what's in the past is past. So instead of a MOTW (since all the matchups had at least one player that played Thursday night) I'll take this time to make some crazy, bold predictions for the rest of the season, and try to convince you to take the same stance as me.

(Side note: I may have gotten last week's MOTW incorrect, but I did say it would be a matchup decided by single digits and my player predictions were right for the most part other than Fitz)

Bold Prediction 1: Paul makes the playoffs
Currently sitting in 10th place at 1-5 with the 2nd lowest PF in the league, this sounds absurd at first glance. But we do have to remember that Tyreek was out for 4 weeks, Melvin Gordon is still getting back into the groove in LA, and Hopkins has had a sub-par start to the season (even though DeShaun has been an absolute monster).

While the loss of Mahomes will hurt, Tyreek has too much talent to be less than a WR2 in a talented offense that needs to score to stay in games. Melvin Gordon should get back to fringe RB1 status as he gets re-integrated into the offense and is used as the receiving threat he was last year. If Melvin can become a RB1, that pushes Carson, Michel and McCoy down a slot in the running back pecking order on Paul's team. While they were a little risky as RB1, 2, and 3, respectively, they are over-qualified as RB2, 3, and 4. The sudden depth increase at the RB spot may allow him to trade for a QB or a TE that can help solidify his week to week points floor. Lastly, Hopkins cannot keep producing at this rate if DeShaun continues to go off on a week to week basis. He's currently on pace for 1,050 yards and 5 TDs, which isn't a terrible line but for Nuk, that's unacceptable. Since DeShaun took over at the QB spot, he hasn't scored single digit TDs or had less than 1,300 yards. Expect a huge regression to the mean and a solid second half from Hopkins.

Lastly, his schedule breaks almost perfectly for him. He's already had to face the top teams in the league and his next 5 weeks are the teams that are currently in 11th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 12th. If he can sweep them and steal a game in the last 2 weeks against the currently undefeated teams, he should sneak in. He's only 2 games out of the playoffs and he gets to play his direct competition instead of hoping for the best from other teams.

Bold Prediction 2: Mike misses the playoffs
At 5th place, with a 4-2 record, Mike's position shouldn't seem as precarious as it actually is. But there are a few factors that have me concerned about his rest of season outlook. His WR struggles might be more than a temporary trend, his QB situation is still worrisome, and his schedule is one of the tougher remaining schedules in the league.

At first glance, Mike's WRs should be a group that performs on a week to week basis and isn't a position he needs to worry about. But after hot starts, both Keenan and TY have shown signs of slowing down. I'm slightly less worried about Keenan Allen because the Chargers still throw the ball a ton but the reincorporation of both Henry and Gordon could take a few targets away from the sure handed receiver. TY has a trend that's a lot more worrisome. The Colts have turned back the clock and become a team that wants to run the ball, control the clock, and suffocate you with their defense. While this can be a great formula to win games, it's devastating on the production of WRs. The Colts have built an o-line that can run and with the transition from Luck to Brisset, they're willing to take over the game 5 yards at a time rather than through huge chunk plays in the air. Lastly, Boyd has to deal with AJ Green's return, Ross's return, and even Mixon out of the backfield. There's a lot of balls to be thrown in Cincy as they suck and will have to play catch up in every game, but his magic with Dalton from last year seems to have dissipated this season. Mike's QB situation right now is in flux as he waits for Brees to return, but even if Brees returns, will he be back to his old form? On top of that, Brees is much worse on the road (3/1 TD/INT ratio at home, less than 2/1 on the road; 2% lower comp %; 25 fewer YPG) and he's still got 3 road games left on his schedule. Finally, Mike plays a killer slate of teams, still having to play the 2 undefeated teams, as well as the 4th and 6th place teams.

His current PF slots him as the 7th best team in the league and unfortunately, I believe that'll be where he ends up: playing in the consolation bracket.

Bold Prediction 3: Eric's team names for the following 6 weeks
8: Congratulation on the baby #21
9: YDDOBOB
10: Cougars
11: Eric L Team
12: TY-de
13: Kameron Kelly Knockdown

I hope Eric comes up with better ones than these. I'm looking forward to it (especially with my team's luck and performance, it's one of the only things I look forward to. Cho's K + DEF scored 42 points on me last week. FORTY TWO! The third highest combined special teams score of the year [Week 2 Cho had 53 and Week 5 Jon had 44. Yes, I checked]).

Good luck to all!

Simon Kim

Week 6 - Some Venting + MOTW

In everyone's life, they want to give up on fantasy. It seems that all things in the fantasy world are aligning against them to rape them so thoroughly in the butt, that they can't even sit down in front of the computer to put in a waiver claim. Last year, this happened to somebody (I think it was Dan or Mike) who consistently got screwed, no matter how many points they scored. I am that team this year.

Granted, my team hasn't been scoring that well but I'm currently 8th in PF but sitting at 0-5. Let's take a look at the week to week performances of my opponents:

Week 1: Dan - 143.62, highest score in the league, Dan's highest score this season (Jesus Christ, Mahomes and CMC)
Week 2: Jung - 103.96, 4th highest score in the league, Jung's highest score this season (OBJ and Kelce's only good game of the season so far)
Week 3: David Y - 128.94, highest score in the league, David's 2nd highest score this season (Cowboys played Miami)
Week 4: Jon - 123, 3rd highest score in the league, Jon's 2nd highest score this season (Fournette's best game and Bengals are hapless in Pittsburgh)
Week 5: Rich - 129.16, 3rd highest score in the league, Rich's highest score this season (WTF, Aaron Jones)

With Cho, Mike, and Eric as my next 3 matchups, I may be out of the playoff race by week 8. I'll do a proper post-mortem on my team when we do our annual "What Went Wrong?" column but for now, I'll be crying in the corner.

The plus side is, I'll now have more time and energy to devote to MOTW. But with a lot more sinister and jaded undertones.

MOTW
7. Fe-Brees vs. 9. Mud Dogs
Jung and Jon are at a crucial juncture in the season where their teams haven't quite performed to the level of a champion but they're on the cusp of breaking into the playoffs. A win would be one step in the right direction while a loss would have them pouting with me at home about how the fantasy gods hate them. A loss here (or maybe even a win) could trigger a trade to make one last run at the playoffs (or shore up a position of weakness that they overcame in their week 6 win). Who will take a step towards playoff glory?

Studs: DJ vs. Fitz
I'm all in on the Cardinals this week (I would have put Murray here but I love Fitz and will give him praise every time I can).They're playing against one of the worst secondaries in the league and that should mean a nice bounce back week for Fitz. While Atlanta has been solid against the run, DJ should do plenty of damage as a receiver. The biggest question will be how close the game remains. A Falcons lead bodes well for Jung as Arizona tries to come back, but if the Cardinals take a huge lead by the half, DJ should get close to 30 touches to close out the game.

Duds: Fournette vs. Kelce
Fournette (who HAD to have a great game against me) faces a stiff Saints defense that has shut down some of the best backs in the league (Zeke 18 carries for 35 yards, Carson 15 for 52, 16 for 63). Fournette's specialty has never been efficiency so if the Jags fall behind, expect a single digit performance from Leonard. Kelce has to deal with his QB being slightly hobbled after getting repeatedly destroyed by the Colts on SNF. He won't be able to bust out of his slump against the Texans who have been solid against solid TEs (Hooper 56 yards, Olsen 5, Cook 37).

X-Factors: Williams vs. Diggs
Which Williams on Jon's team am I talking about? I actually don't know since both of them are quite the X-factor this week. Mike hasn't quite been the TD machine we expected him to be but gets a beatable Pittsburgh secondary that will be focused on slowing down Keenan Allen. On the other hand, Preston Williams has been a bright spot in the otherwise trainwreck of a season for the Dolphins (I can't believe they haven't traded him away for a 4th round pick yet). Can he get his first score since week 1 against a team who is just as invested in losing as the Dolphins are? Diggs didn't quite pop open last week, even as he pulled off his best Antonio Brown impression and threw Cousin so far under the bus, he was able to retrieve all the footballs stuck under it. In a matchup that should require a decent amount of throwing, against a secondary that lost Maddox 2 weeks ago (which is somehow a loss??? He was terrible against the Packers, getting repeatedly flagged and beat on routes), can Diggs get his groove back?

Key Players on Bye:
Jon - None
Jung - David Montgomery - Already lacking at RB, Jung will be at Saturday prayer meeting for White and Coleman to perform at levels that haven't been seen before.

Winner: Jung
I actually think this matchup will be decided by less than 10 points. Jung's running backs are pitiful and Jon's WR2 and 3 situation leaves a lot to be desired. But Jung's RBs have solid matchups and the TE chasm looks like it's going to be quite large (a dud by Kelce is still a top 6 score in the league). Special teams leans slightly Jung's way which should be the difference in a close battle to get a step closer to the post-season.

MOTW record: 2-0

Good luck to all!

Simon Kim

Week 5 - MOTW

Before we get into the MOTW this week, I want Eric to explain why he changed his name to "The Shameful Savages." At first glance, it doesn't really make sense but here's an explanation, in his own words:

"Before you attack me for having a bad opposite team name this week[, l]et me explain. First of all, this is Paul's fault. His team [name] wasn't even good even when he had Chris Hogan and now it's even worse. I had to play around with his team name and I made the executive decision to change his team name reference to Hulk Hogan and therefore I went with Hulk Hogan's rival, Randy Savage"

While I think his opposite team name is terrible, I must say that this his logic is relatively sound. Although, he could have used someone like Calvin Johnson (black, super tall, good at football) or TY Hilton (black, super short, good at football) to represent somebody who is the opposite of Hogan, I'll accept his change based on his reasoning. I also blame all this on Paul who hasn't changed his name even though Hogan is not just not on his team anymore, he's not even relevant in the NFL today. #blamePaul

MOTW
2. Jacked Up! vs. 4. #ridethewave
Cho's team's quest at a 3-peat in the league is off to a great start. While he does owe a bit to a favorable schedule (no opponent has scored over 100 points), he's done his part and scored 100 in each matchup. Chris, after being berated for being an absentee owner, has climbed up to 4th place thanks to the team Yahoo drafted for him. His team is much more star dependent but stars are what make or break fantasy matchups. Can he go on and crush his opponent like his SF Shock did (btw, congratulations to Chris Chung's e-sports team for winning the OWL Grand Finals!)? Or will Cho's string of victories continue for the 5th straight week?

Studs: Julio vs. Chubb
While the Texans aren't necessarily a bad defense, their secondary can be scored on. And with the Falcons defense looking similar to last year, Julio will need to be targetted early and often for the Falcons to have a chance. For Chris, Chubb comes off a monster game and should continue that against an SF team that has a better record than they actually are.

Duds: Shephard vs. Woods

With no Saquon, expect a ton of attention from the Vikings D as they look to shut down the passing game of the Giants. I trust their secondary more than I do their ability to cover Engram with their LBs so Shephard may have a slow day. Woods had a great game last week but that was more of an abberation due to game flow than consistent trend. He's the clear 3rd option in the passing game and against a run heavy, clock killing team like thr Seahawks, expect fewer targets than last week.

X-Factors: Thielen vs. RB2
Thielen has had an up and down season, through no fault of his own. Cousins has looked like the worst version of himself through 4 weeks but after a heart to heart, will Thielen be force fed against the floundering Giants? I'm not sure who Chris will end up playing at RB2. He's got some name value but so many question marks around health litter his backfield. If Damien plays, expect a solid game. If not, I can't imagine more than 6 points from the position.

Key Players on Bye: NONE

Winner: Cho
While I think this might be a tough week for Cho to break 100 points due to some non-plus matchups, Chris looks like he has bigger problems. I don't think any of his WRs break double digits and his RB2 situation looks rough. Cho continues to increase the gap between him and the other vying for a bye.

Per Dan's request, I'll be keeping track of my MOTW record to see if the MOTW jinx is real or not. So far, no real: 1-0

Good luck to all!

Simon Kim