In the immortal words of Tommy Pickles, “Hold onto your diapies, babies. We’re going in!”
Wow, it’s been quite a while hasn’t it? I forget exactly what kept me from doing Weeks 10 on time, possibly work, but then the obvious Thanksgiving break came up for Week 11 and I suddenly found myself with COVID and nearly three weeks behind on my column. I’m really trying to keep this short as we all ease our way back into the content-sphere and gear up for the final weeks of the regular season. You can see every add and drop that went on for almost a month above, so I’ll just run through the highlights of each week. You can look for your name and see if there’s a green (good job) or a red (bad job) if I don’t mention ya below:
Week 10:
The only notes I took on this week were blunders made by Kris is his battle for relevancy against Abie. In retrospect, this game actually had a pretty big impact, as it keeps Abie in the playoff hunt. If only Kris didn’t drop Hunter Henry (17.7 points) and spend $16 FAAB on OBJ (2.8 points) while dropping the Cowboys Defense (22(!) points), that 13 point win margin would be going the other way, and the Norse Horse’s 165 point performance in Week 12 would have been much scarier for folks like me. I actually just remembered that it was Abie himself who took the Boys D on waivers for one measly FAAB buck and got the 22 points himself, so you really hate to see that if you’re Kris. At least that’s only reopening an emotional wound, and hopefully the physical wound from the surgery has been healing up nicely. Just remember, it’s all a game.
Another huge pick-up happened in this week thanks to New England’s favorite boom-or-bust back, Rhamondre Stevenson (Beans Corp., 25.4 points, I spelled that right on the first try). Upon further inspection of the chart above, you could argue that Beans’ pick-ups of Chris Boswell (12 pts.) and Nyheim Hines (3.9 points) also contributed to part of that 14 point win margin. This is in spite of the dropped Robby Anderson scoring 11.7 to Hines’ almost 4, but I think it was probably for the better that the “Hines Game” prediction didn’t materialize. If he beat Brad by a bigger margin then he might have gone even MORE Hollywood in his celebrations, and the fall from grace in the past week would have been that much harder, which none of us want to see. That being said, not having to worry about the playoffs give you time to crank out some more content 😉
Week 11:
The only game that ended up being remotely close in this week was the Week 1 rematch of Bonez vs. Brad (9.92 margin). Tommy made this game closer by dropping Devonta Freeman (17 points) for Jakobi Meyers (3.5 points), who he then dropped for Bryan Edwards (g00se). In the end, it was the pick-up of good ol’ Tua (17.52) that made the difference for the Bonez on the Night Before Gameday. Brad kept it close with a Rashod Bateman pick-up, but Devonta Freeman was right there. Hindsight is definitely 20-20 and this season should be in Brad’s rearview mirror by now, hope you use that last FAAB dollar on something special buddy.
The next closest game was Vigs vs. Ryan (22.16 margin) and none of the pick-ups made by either team made or braid the match-up, but I want to shout out #DaCommish’s top spender status for this week as a good use of FAAB. He grabbed the 49ers Defense for $8 and they scored 12, which is great day for any defense. Add in some help from Graham Gano and the rest of your team and that’s how you stay in the hunt for the illusive 2 seed.
Week 12:
Thank the gods that barely anything happened this week. The closest game was me vs. Andrew, but it wasn’t thanks to anyone from the waiver wire. My second Cordarrelle-related mistake in a row and my negligence in leaving Jamaal Williams in my IR spot and Dalton Schultz in my starting line-up had me singing “this’ll be the day that I die” like a regular Don McLean, but thankfully my roommate’s team pulled just as bad of a stinker. After DK dropped a gooser to T-Lock’s healthy 11, I decided to pretend I got COVID in order to give Andrew a few days to cool down by himself at the apartment. Let me know when I can come back, I’m starting to miss the city.
Two of the guys I discuss above eeking out a win over someone in Week 10 and 11 ended up playing each other in Week 12, and this was our next closest game with some actual Wire consequences. This was of course Abie vs. Tommy. The battle between two guys with an “ee” sound at the end of their names was won by our Rookie of the Year thanks to two deftly made pick-ups: Dontrell Hilliard (17.8, guess he emulated Derrick Henry by having the same initials, that’s gotta sting extra for Abie now that I think about it) and Evan “Money Mac” McPherson (13). Even though this wasn’t the highest scoring match-up, it seems like it was a battle between two chess masters who I often praise in this column. Be prepared for more fantasy genius out of whichever of these two make it far in the post-season, which could be both of them.
Alright, I’d say that was mostly painless. I’m including some analytics treats below to make up for my lack of depth. These are the follow-ups to my charts from back in Week 6 that show i) how many points each position gets you on average per FAAB buck spent and ii) how your share of the total FAAB dollar pie has changed over the course of the season along with your current % share. You’ll have to zoom in on that second one but be sure that this could possibly help you to figure out how to outwit and outbid your opponents in these next few very crucial weeks. I’m not gonna hold your hand, but all of the strategy you could want is there for the taking if you know where to look.
I’m also including a follow-up/improvement on the chart I posted the other week that showed how many of your auction and add/drop players’ points were started or sat in the past 3 weeks. You oughta know by now, but you want to see more green than yellow under your name. I still can’t believe I started -6 points in the Browns defense in Week 10 and still managed to win. If your name isn’t there, then you haven’t made moves of that type in the past 3 weeks.
This has been The Wire. Thanks for being patient, hope you get some insight out of this crap, and don’t spend it all in one place.
Must Be Sunday 