Alright, alright, alright. Due to the unique nature of The League and our Free Agent Acquisition Budgets (that’s what FAAB stands for, who knew), I decided to run the numbers a bit and liven up the mid-week storylines so they don’t go unnoticed in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
Introducing: The Wire. I’ll be taking a look back at the performance of the free agents who were picked up last week, speculating about the ones picked up this week, and analyzing everyone’s FAAB strengths and weaknesses. I’ll also dive a bit into those free agents who were added/dropped post-auction. Let’s begin with Week 3…
Boy oh boy, were there a shit-ton of injuries in Week 2. I think everyone had one of their first three picks go down with a multi-week or season-ending injury, and if it didn’t happen to you in this league it probably happened in another. The most sought-after player in The League on Wednesday, September 23rd was Devonta Freeman, the man who returned to the NFL to replace second-overall Giants star Saquon Barkley. I think everyone may have forgotten that the Giants are gonna Giant no matter who’s in the backfield. The big winner, or should I say loser in this case, was Kris, who spent a whopping $26 on this man (and that wasn’t even his biggest purchase this week). The one silver lining for Kris is that he decided not to start Devonta, who put up 1 point and is therefore the LEAST efficient pickup of the week. Kris also spent $27 on Jerick McKinnon and $15 on Dion Lewis who did not start and was dropped immediately, if you’re doing the math at home you know that Kris has not very many FAAB bucks left.
On the other side of the coin, we have Mike Davis. Now I don’t want to gas Lebron up too much, but he was the only person in The League to think of picking up the man who would replace number one overall Christian McCaffrey. Maybe it’s because the Carolina star’s injury isn’t season-ending like Saquon’s, maybe it’s because Mike Davis didn’t sign an emergency contract and was just kind of there already, kudos to you either way. This was actually one of the few position players who scored more points than FAAB bucks spent on him. Ultimately Lebron could not convert this smart spending into a win, as he did not start his new recruit and ended up losing a close game in which Davis outscored RB2 Kareem Hunt and Flex Devin Singletary. He also dropped Justin Jefferson who was quoted as saying “Thank God Almighty, free at last” and dropped a quick 27 on the Titans, only to be picked back up again by Lebron this morning for $10 (he actually beat Abie’s $10 bid in our first tiebreaker, don’t ask me how). I guess there are some things you can’t teach, better luck next week.
The biggest winners in the Week 3 auction, were interestingly enough the people who picked up defenses. Looks like I’m learning the names of some more defensive players because these guys are the real deal. The BIGGEST STEAL of the week went to Beans Corp. and their acquisition of the Colts D/ST for $7 and a whopping TWENTY-SEVEN points. Of course, playing the Jets didn’t hurt, but this defense was Beans’ second-highest scorer of the week in a very close game with Kris (see two paragraphs up). Brent also ditched the Bears and picked up the Bucs D for $3 and got 16 points for his trouble. Alex tried to sneak in with a $1 offer but had to stick with the Chargers, although I don’t think that would have affected the outcome of his matchup ;).
Speaking of the Vignali twins, they had quite a rough week of free agency. I love them to death and am forever grateful for welcoming us to their home on a weekly basis, but this got ugly, plain and simple. Andrew picked up Darrell Henderson Jr., who got 18.5 points sitting on the bench in a close loss and a drop to 0-3. Then, Russell Gage gave The Commush some negative returns (that was a typo but he’s Eddie Mush so I’m keeping it). Alex’s only pickup was his hero Rodrigo Blankenship, who for just a buck gave him a solid 11 points. He actually saved the most money on offers he didn’t get, so hopefully he’ll use that extra $17 wisely in the future. It looks like Alex also entered two identical offers of $5 for Devonta Freeman, which is weird but he definitely dodged a bullet there. The ugliness continued into the FA Add/Drops, with Alex’s pickup of the Chargers D/ST scoring 1 point less than the Seahawks who he dropped to make room, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling simply not showing up on Sunday. Andrew actually had a decent add post-auction with the Titans D/ST, giving him 13 points vs. the Browns’ 2, but it still wasn’t enough to get the win. If we didn’t love them so much, these two may have been better off ending their careers with The League as the Champ and the Top Scorer. Best of luck for the rest of the season.
You can see all of the auction results in the spreadsheet above, which is ordered a little more clearer than how ESPN puts it to show who bid on the same player(s) and the handy point total for the week of the pickup. I also included a FAAB bucks summary below, I didn’t include the remaining balance because ESPN only shows the current balances and subtraction is tough. Yes, I’m an accountant. I’m also hungry, so I’m not going to get much into Week 4’s auction without the point totals to show you all that you wasted your money again. Just based on the adds & drops so far today, I can tell you that Kris is in panic mode. We’ll see how that goes.
My advice: Spend your FAAB bucks wisely, pick whichever defense is playing the Jets or Giants, and don’t spend it all in once place. Ryan, you may want to start spending some of yours, buddy. Until next time, this has been The Wire.
Must Be Sunday 