SEASON RECAP - THE CHAMP - KEETZ
Lord Jonathan of the House Keetz,
First of His Name
King of the Sandals and the First Men
Lord of Manhattan and First at the Beach.
Here in sight of Gods and Men I declare you:
THE 2017 GEORGE W. BUSH LEAGUE CHAMP
Congratulations again to Keetz.
MIXONS HERE HYDE UR GURLEY: 12-1
What Went Right?:
Now that we have that out of the way let’s get into it. What went right? Easy pickings here, but Todd Gurley is the first thing we need to discuss. What an unbelievable season. As a second round pick (14th overall) Gurley leads all players with 427 fantasy points. It’s only taken him 15 games to get there which makes for an average of 28.5 per game. If I was drooling over the 25 points per game that Leveon Bell averaged during the season, then I’m cumming to the 28.5 that Gurley averaged this year.
Let’s put this in perspective - David Johnson put up 440 last year while playing in all 16 games (AVG of 27.5). It was widely accepted that he was the fantasy MVP and he won many a championship – including Lamone in this league. As amazing as David Johnson was last year, Gurley was even better this year. While he’s 13 points behind DJ’s 2016 figure, I’m pretty sure he would score more than 13 if he were to play this week (he only scored fewer than 16 points once this year). While he won’t play this week, his points per game through Week 15 shows he had a better season.
Back to 2017 – Gurley pretty much averaged 30 points per game. Let’s look at some quick weekly point totals:
- Gurley scored 16 or more in 14 of 15 games.
- He scored more than 20 in 11 of 15 games
- Gurley exceeded the 30 point mark in FIVE different weeks. Once every three games.
- Ready for some more bukake? Bukake away they say….. Gurley exceeded 40 points three times.
- He also exceeded 50 points twice.
The best part about the 50 point games? Both were in Weeks 15 and 16, which is literally the best timing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. (And no I will not link to a Country Strong song here.)
So how much better was Gurley than everyone else? The 2nd highest scoring player is Russel Wilson, who has 381 points. Gurley scored 46 more points than that, no big deal. How about non-QBs? The next highest is Leveon Bell, with 477 points. Gurley casually scored 50 more points than any other non-QB this year. Good grief.
I’ll close this out by looking at the run Gurley had in the playoffs (weak pun). In Week 15 and 16, Gurley combined for 43 carries, 270 yards and 3 rushing TDs. Great stats, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. In those two games he also had 13 catches for 186 yards and 3 more TDs. All in all, he had 43 carries, 13 catches, 456 yards and 6 touchdowns in just two weeks. Over those two weeks, he combined for 104 fantasy points. ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR. His touchdowns alone were 18 per week.
The other thing I’ll mention would be….. the entire season. This year was just ridiculous for Keetz and was the most dominating season I’ve ever seen in fantasy. Keetz had 15 games this year – 13 regular season and 2 playoffs. He won 14 of them. 14 and 1 in fantasy is ABSURD. I’ve never been more confused in my life. What in the fucking fuck? This league is supposed to be about parity, how did this happen? Other than Todd Gurley, points against is the most obvious indicator. Looking back at it, the numbers are startling.
Keetz’ opponents scored 1,231 points against him which was an average of 94.7 per week – that’s 18 points below the league average. If you extend that to his two playoff games, his opponents scored a total of 1,435 points against him – that brings the average up to 95 per week. Still very low. Big picture - that 1,435 is fewer than all but 3 teams had in the 13 week regular season. Think about that…… Keetz played 15 weeks and still had fewer points against than 7 teams had during 13 weeks of the regular season.
(Side Note: I play in 1 standard scoring league. It’s .25 PPR, but no points per carry, 100 yard bonuses, or or anything. Scoring 100 points is considered a really good week. My team had 1,262 points against in that league which is STILL more than Keetz had against in our league. LOL)
Let’s keep digging. Seven of Keetz’ 13 regular season opponents scored under 100 and 8 of his 15 total opponents scored under 100. More often than not, Keetz opponents didn’t even come close to the league average of 112 per week. Along with that, 7 of his 13 regular season opponents didn’t even hit 90!!! Ninety points is a shit week in this league. Wanna puke in your mouth a little? 5 of his 13 opponents DIDN’T EVEN SCORE 80 POINTS.
So how did this compare to other teams? The 1,231 against is much lower than our 9th place team (Rob D) – 95 points fewer to be exact. That’s nearly a full week’s worth of points. It’s also well below the average points against for all 10 teams. That would be 1,467 and Keetz had 235 fewer points scored against. Sheesh. So did Keetz win the league purely due to points against? Honestly yeah, kinda sorta.
I guess that’s not totally fair to say, so let’s look further. Out of curiosity, I checked to see how Keetz would have done if he had the MOST points against. I did that by comparing Keetz’ schedule with Kev’s schedule. Kev had 1,657 points against, which is FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE more than Keetz. If Keetz had played Kev’s schedule, he would have gone 3-10. That is laugh out loud funny. What about a mid-tier team? The middle team was Dylan with 1522 points (5th). If Keetz had played Dylan’s schedule, he would have gone 6-7. I’m sure no one is still reading this, so I’ll stop there.
What Went Wrong?:
Keetz did lose one game, so there’s that. The only other thing that went wrong was Mike Evans, who was kind of a bust. When the worst thing to happen to you is first round pick finishing as a top 20 WR, you won’t get pity from me.
Best Roster Move:
Drafting Todd Gurley in the 2nd was nice, but this is the same as the DeAndre Hopkins situation. Someone was lucky enough to grab him at his ADP and they probably won their league for it.
Keenan Allen in the 3rd was solid too, he’s WR4 overall. That being said, his numbers are really really inflated by a few monster weeks.
Carlos Hyde in the 4th was a good pick – RB10 and was pretty consistent this year.
Frank Gore in the 8th was another good pick. The old man/Terminator/Energizer Bunny is RB17.
Getting the Jaguars D late was a smart move. They were dominant most of the year and scored 179 points through 15 weeks. Only 21 RBs scored more than that and only TWELVE WRs scored more than that (holy fuck). The next highest scoring D had 17 fewer points and the 3rd place D had 33 fewer. In a league with depressed D scoring that’s nuts. Definitely a lucky pick but luck and fantasy skill go hand in hand.
Worst Roster Move:
Pretty much every one of his draft picks worked out if you take out the later round guys. Not much to work with there. He also only made 13 add/drops all year, which is 2nd lowest in the league – not much to work with there either.
Defining Moment:
When Todd Gurley caught an 80 yard TD pass in the 2nd quarter of the Week 15 game. An RB had an 80 yard catch? Todd Gurley who should be double teamed on every single play somehow got free for 80 yards? YEP!
Gurley went on to score 54 points and that was all she wrote.
Pre-Season Prediction: I’ll give Keetz a B+ for this draft and would give him an 88.5 out of 100. I predict he’ll make the playoffs at 8-5, win his first round matchup and lose in the second round.
Correct on playoffs, but didn’t anticipate the domination. Ultimately predicted 60% correct in terms of making the playoffs vs. not. Only missed on Tieg, Ken, myself and Frader. Tieg had a collapse, Ken had an absurd run and David Johnson got hurt in Week 1. Not a great year for the Commish but 60% isn’t terrible. I’ll do better next year.
Applicable Quote:
“A people should know when they’re conquered.”
That’s a quote from Gladiator and is perfect for this. It was pretty obvious by about Week 5 that Keetz was going to win this league. Not one bad thing happened to him this year. Not one. Rob D, Ken and Dylan were minor threats, but really this was Keetz’ year. A people should know when they’re conquered.
Wrap It Up:
Keetz had a great year so one more congratulations to the champ. As I said above, I’ve never seen a more dominating season. 14-1 is ludicrous. Keetz was the chosen one this year. It was predestination, fate, he sold his soul to the devil, whatever you wanna call it. This was just "his year".
As we saw, there were two reasons this happened. Those points against numbers were crazy. That’s the number 1 reason why Keetz won. While Keetz didn’t win the league purely based on points against, that’s what got him into the playoffs. Having the bye also saved him because he only put up 96 in Week 14. He would have lost in round one without the bye. The number 2 reason he won was Todd Gurley. Gurley’s Week 15 and 16 explosion officially won him the league. It won a lot of people their leagues - Gurley was actually on the championship team in 4 of the 5 leagues I’m in. While most fantasy championships are an inexplicable combination of luck, timing and fantasy acumen, this championship is very explainable.
All bitterness and jealousy aside, Keetz has been knocking at the doorstep for a number of years. He finished in 3rd place in both 2015 & 2016 and has made the playoffs in 5 of his 6 seasons in the league. This year it finally came together. For the next 12 months he can enjoy being the champ, the title defense starts right MEOW.
