Tis’ the season of mediocrity. Our entire league, save for Erik, pulled a Jensen this year. Erik, he pulled an Erik, like only Erik can. The 100 point mark in a fantasy game separates the mediocrity of the pigskin proletariat from the Lombardi totin’ bourgeoisie. Let’s have a look back at the league’s happenin’s this year. If the list below doesn’t scream average, I don’t know what does.
We had:
1. An undefeated start slowly fade into an epic losing streak, resulting in one of our league’s current mediocre records (Chase: 7-6)
2. A star-studded team that lost a few early despite putting up 100 points week in and week out; that same team shat on mediocrity on the D&W podcast, only to fall prey the following week to the jaws of average (Jarrett: 6-7)
3. #Optimizelineup – this gaffe is the only reason Sean isn’t currently in the playoffs. But, average players take the path of least resistance, so you kinda deserve it, Sean*. Can we talk about Sean’s strategy this year? Is it time to load up on pass catchers and move on from RBs? (Todd Gurley and Christian McCaffrey may have something to say about this)? I don’t like it one bit, but it seems that the obsession with tossin’ tuddys may drastically change our league’s draft landscape. We’ll see if Sean was able to sniff it out, the way he sniffs out pre-teens, prior to all the rest of us. (Sean: 7-6)
4. A quartet of other teams that really embraced mediocrity, so much so that we don’t even have a good story line to go along with our sub-par, panty waisted, Jensenesque performances. We just win a couple, lose a couple, win a couple, and lose a couple. (Jensen: 8-5, Terrance: 8-5, Jacob: 7-6, Jake: 6-6-1 are we still doing tie games?)
That covers most of it. We do still have two less than stellar teams to cover who have taken a different road to mediocrity. They were living in the shantytown of the fantasy football world, cast out by their working class counterparts. But, they stayed the course and are currently in the thick of it (and in Schweg’s case, by stayed the course, I mean “given the keys to the fantasy football Ferrari by a certain spliff smokin’ serpent”). Aaron and Schweg – well done. I don’t know if either of you will make the playoffs, but at least you put together respectable winning streaks at the right time in the season.
A couple more signs of mediocrity:
5. Not one player in the letters division is averaging over 100 points a game (I’ll have you know, I am the closest though). One player in the numbers division (letters and numbers as division names? What kind of lazy, Trump administration effort is that?) is below the 100 point mark. 60% of the league is below the 100 point per game average. Isn’t this going to be the highest scoring year since the league moved away from six points for a passing touchdown? Pathetic! Or, maybe this isn’t surprising.
6. Check out who the current playoff teams are: low scoring, low points scored against teams (aside from Terrance, who got his scoopity poopitied all up on by Sean this week). This is what makes fantasy football fun, right? Aaron and I have a little surprise for the league this year at the banquet related to this!!
Cheers to Mediocrity!
That wasn’t the end. There has to be a point to this succinct summary of our less than stellar performances, right? What are we to take away from this season at this point in time? Well, and some of you won’t like this, but, I think what I have come to accept is that not a single one of the players in this league is great at, or can be great at fantasy football. You need machine learning or AI to get close to that, and even then I think you still come up short.
For us, members of TPDFFL, you are either in the “rotate your draftees” camp or you’re in the “make a bunch of moves” camp. Obviously, there are circumstances that could push you from one camp into another for a week or two. Personally, I like the rotate your draftees approach, and I think the outcomes in this league show it’s a pretty reliable strategy. It’s possible to make the case for the other side, but I think it is a tough sell. Why? This game is driven by at least 75% luck. There is no telling whether Mark Ingram or Alvin Kamara will be the stud, or if they both will, or if they both won’t, and make owners want to razor blade their scrotums like last week. You have to start guys consistently to reap the benefits (aside from streaming in a position where you clearly lack talent). Trying to pick when to sit them is a fool’s errand. You have to start each guy every week, luck be damned.
Unfortunately, luck is a fickle bitch that seems to show up at the most inopportune times. Well, bad luck that is. Good luck masquerades as skill, talent, picking the right guy on the week he hangs fantasy football dong. I think it is time we start attributing more of what happens week in and week out to luck and less to owner skill. It may be a hit to your ego, but it’s certainly helped me react better to outcomes and sleep better at night. Maybe none of you needed to hear this, but, I am the loser this week and luckily none of you have anything better to do than read this.
Despite all of this talk about luck and how none of what we do actually matters, I urge you all to keep talkin’ shit to each and every member of this league!! That’s really why we’re all here, right? To blame our less than respectable outcomes on bad luck and take credit for luck driven positive outcomes as skill that we hold over our less “skilled” counterparts! Poopity on some Scoopity, ya’ll!!
P.S. I would like to get rid of defense and kicker as roster spots, and add a superflex position.
*In case your feelings were hurt, Sean, this more so was said to fit the narrative than an as an actual dig at your fantasy prowess. I am, however, using the word prowess quite loosely here!