Last Week’s Question: Are any
teams made up entirely of backup players going to the fantasy playoffs?
We’ve seen a stunning number of players come off the bench and perform
well for their teams in 2015. Not only did Charcandrick
West fill in capably for Jamaal
Charles, but Spencer
Ware subsequently did a great job in relief of West. Backup
success seems to be more widespread at RB than at other skill positions,
as Darren
McFadden, DeAngelo
Williams, Jeremy
Langford, and Thomas
Rawls have all been productive fantasy rushers. Even Tevin
Coleman got in on the action in Week 12; he wasn’t very good
in place of a concussed Devonta
Freeman, but at least he put up decent stats for fantasy owners.
Other notable backup skill players include Cameron
Brate (the TE who realized that someone in Tampa Bay needs to
step up, since Austin
Seferian-Jenkins’ primary job is to tie up space on the injury
report), Stefon
Diggs (the WR who went from filling in for an injured Charles
Johnson to becoming a weekly starter), and even Brian
Hoyer (the QB who technically began the season as a starter,
but lost his job to Ryan
Mallett only to take it back far more convincingly than was
necessary—since Mallett was determined to lose that job no matter
how little faith the coaching staff had in Hoyer).
This widespread pattern got a reader named Kyle thinking that maybe
somebody out there has put together a playoff-worthy team that consists
entirely (or mostly) of backups.
Perhaps that’s true, but I have no evidence to support it.
I didn’t hear from anyone with anywhere near a complete starting
lineup of backup players. The best I can do is this response from
Roland:
I have four [notable] backups on my roster:
R. Fitzpatrick, D. McFadden, T. Rawls, and Z. Miller, but I’ve
never started all four on the same week. I almost never use Fitzpatrick
(my backup to Palmer), and I just sat McFadden vs. Carolina. I’m
heading to the playoffs, but not really because of these guys.
The other responses mainly came from folks who were excited about
how well their handcuffs have worked out (think Bell/Williams and
Forte/Langford owners). If there is an owner out there somewhere
who managed to scrape together almost an entire squad of these guys,
no one in his league contacted me about it.
I wish I had something more interesting to report. You know, it’s
almost as if people have something better to do with their Thanksgiving
weekends than to send me emails about the number of backups on playoff-bound
teams in their leagues. Go figure.
Anti-apathy loose ends
In my column for Week 12,
I highlighted four techniques that commissioners can use to keep
owners engaged in their leagues after being eliminated from playoff
contention, but I heard from two readers who thought my list came
up short.
Option #5: Expand the playoffs to as many
teams as possible.
This has been a key to maintaining competition in Christian’s
league:
Our league has 8 of the 12 teams make the playoffs.
It’s always a race to the final playoff spot and it keeps
everyone involved until the end. If your team suffers lots of injuries
or has busts, it gives you a chance to rebuild and still have a
chance to make the playoffs.
We have 4 divisions of 3. You play everyone in your division twice
and everyone else once. It’s not possible to have byes for
the top two teams but works great anyway. We looked back through
the last 15 years of our league and the top teams have won the majority
of the time anyway. The 4 division winners are the top 4 seeds and
the next 4 best records make up the wild card teams.
Option #6: In money leagues, make sure that
owners can recoup their entry fee (or at least a good chunk of it)
even without winning the championship.
The champion in Joey’s league may win the biggest purse, but
other purses are awarded in varying categories, such as total points
for the season and weekly high scorer, etc.
Since the weekly high score topic was responsible for taking us
on this little detour, that seems like a fitting place to park this
subject for now.
Once again, I want to thank everyone who wrote in.
This
Week’s Question: Remember when?
Do you remember anything about how fantasy football used to be that
would shock people who just started playing in the last year or
two?
I remember back when some leagues required all owners to set their
lineups for the entire weekend by Thursday at noon so that the commissioner
could spend Thursday afternoon building a spreadsheet. These days,
everybody takes partial roster locks for granted as a part of the
Thursday football tradition—well, everybody but FanDuel (but
that’s another story).
A reader named Dan remembers even further back than that, as this
brilliant note illustrates:
I was asked
to join [my current fantasy football league] in 1986. Having little
interest in or knowledge of pro football, and with no internet or
fantasy publications available, I had to find a way to gather stats
before my first draft. I decided to buy Topps football cards, which
have player statistics on the back. Rather than buy packs, I bought
a few boxes (36 packs each) to get a lower price per pack. I opened
enough packs to get a complete set and put the unopened packs aside.
I finished in 8th place (out of 10 teams), but financially I was
actually the winner: Last year I sold the unopened packs for about
$25 each (Jerry Rice rookie card that year), compared to my initial
investment of about 25 cents per pack.
I’m grateful to Dan for sharing this story with me, as I suspect
it will resonate with some of the readers of this column.
Whether your memory of fantasy football in the old days is laden
with nostalgia or a pervasive sense of “Thank-God-we-don’t-do-it-that-way-anymore!”,
I hope to collect a few more stories like Dan’s for next week’s
column.
Just think back to how fantasy football worked when you first started
playing, and if you have a few minutes to jot down whatever stands
out in retrospect as being most unlike your experience in the here
and now, please email me (or post your thoughts directly to this
column).
Survivor Pool Picks
- Week 13 (Courtesy of Matthew
Schiff)
Image by Tilt Creative (Ty Schiff)
#3: Washington over Dallas (5-7, Cin,
Phi, AZ, ATL, KC, SEA, SD, NE, DEN, GB, NYJ, CAR):
Mom, do I have to pick a third game this week? Really? It seems
like all of the teams that I want to rely on have already been
used by now. So who’s left? Washington—yep, that’s
the ticket. There’s no Tony Romo in Dallas, and even though
all the teams in the NFC East may be terrible, some are more terrible
than others, which is why the Redskins are atop the divisional
standings while the Cowboys have turned into cellar dwellers.
If Kirk Cousins can best Eli Manning, a healthy Odell Beckham,
and the inconsistent Giants, then I suspect he might have what
it takes to beat Matt Cassell, a gimpy Dez Bryant, and the consistently
terrible Cowboys (who were putting together a disastrous performance
against Carolina long before Romo had to leave the game). In fairness,
I’ve issued warnings in the past about divisional matchups
being trap games, a concern that is only amplified when the teams
play in primetime. This one is therefore difficult to feel confident
about, but we’re all running out of options in Week 13.
Since you’re going to have to take a chance anyway, you
might as well have a little fun with your pick, and this one lets
you root against Jerry Jones and deeply dysfunctional Cowboy organization.
So go ahead and enjoy this pick and risk your late-season run
in your survival pool on the Redskins. You won’t be watching
Joe Theisman and the Hogs dominate, but these Skins should do
more than enough to seal the deal.
#2: Chicago over San Francisco (9-3, GB, Balt,
NE, SEA, NYG, MIN, AZ, STL, ATL, PHL, Jax, Cin)
Just a few short weeks ago, I would NEVER have considered this
game. That said, the Chicago defense has made major strides since
the beginning of the season and now ranks second against the pass.
Since San Francisco’s QB shift from Colin Kaepernick to
Blaine Gabbert, the 49ers have exceeded the expectations of analysts
and the fanbase alike by playing tough games at home against Atlanta
and Arizona—but they’ve been a different story on
the road. Gabbert’s limited success with short passes to
TE Vance McDonald and RB Shaun Draughn won’t be enough to
overcome Chicago’s combination of an excellent rushing attack
with a QB in Jay Cutler who isn’t afraid to stretch the
field. Take ‘Da Bears’ at home if you aren’t
comfortable with Big Ben against the Colts (below).
#1: Pittsburgh over Indianapolis (7-6 NE, Mia,
SEA, AZ, ATL, GB, STL, KC, NO, Cin, CAR, NYG)
Big Ben had his bell rung last week during Pittsburgh’s
loss to Seattle according to the Steelers coaching staff, but
according to Ben, he didn’t. Either way, he still posted
456 yards against a very good defense. This week, he faces a very
different, and definitely a weaker, defense when the Colts come
to town. DeAngelo Williams has taken over for Le’Veon Bell
and has enjoyed the change in venue from Carolina. Add in some
monster wide receivers like Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant, and
Markus Wheaton, and you start to wonder why the Steelers aren’t
doing better than 6-5. Meanwhile 40-year-old Matt Hasselback is
undefeated in his four starts this year and has the Colts atop
the AFC South (which isn’t saying much). Ironically, the
NFL in its wisdom randomly drug tested Matt this week to make
sure that he wasn’t doing anything that would give him an
unfair advantage. The results will most likely be clean, but it
just goes to show that the NFL, and most people these days, question
those who defy expectations. Performance enhancing drugs or not,
don’t expect a miracle cure for the Colts this week. But
don’t fret, they still have three games against division
rivals that should help them all but clinch the AFC South. They
can afford to lose to Pittsburgh, and they will.
Mike Davis has been writing about fantasy football since 1999--and
playing video games even longer than that. His latest novel (concerning
a gamer who gets trapped inside Nethack after eating too many shrooms)
can be found here.
