OBITUARIES - 10TH PLACE — Protector Of The League

My Lords,

We made it. Thirteen weeks have been contested and we’re now in the playoffs. In three to four weeks we will crown a new champion. It’s an exciting time of year and a lot will happen in the next month. We’ll have heart break and we’ll have triumph. We’ll have Ruxin/Kenny dancing on Commish/Kevin’s grave, while Commish/Kevin flip out in the front yard (great clip Ken). We’ll have all of those things, but first – we’ll have the year-end recaps. As always, I’ll look at each team and try to summarize their season in essay format. The format will be similar to prior years:

What Went Right – Examine the positives of your season.

What Went Wrong – Examine the negatives of your season.

Best Roster Move – The move that best shows your managerial acumen.

Worst Roster Move – The move that proves you really don’t know shit.

Defining moment – The moment your season was defined. Tin Cup inspired.

Pre-Season Prediction – A look back to see how my draft recap compares to the results.

Non-Football Reference – Similar to last year, I’ll try to liken your team/season so some non-football subject. It could be a song, a quote, a celebrity, a TV character or a historical event. Anything is fair game.

Wrap it Up – Final thoughts.

That covers it, so let’s get these going. I’ll try to do 2-3 per week for the next month and get these out before New Years Eve. As always we’ll go from last place to first place.

“Jakey-Jakey” Big Mistakey: 2-11

What Went Right?:

Did anything go right when you finish with a 2-11 record with the fewest points scored and second most points against? Finding a bright spot in a Gabriel season is like drawing blood from a stone or getting Karpel to stop pacing around. Re: It’s difficult. Alas, the Commish is here to answer these hard hitting questions.

The first thing that went right comes courtesy of our former Gabriel. Temporarily re-naming the Gabriel to the “Guy-Briel” is HI-larious. Or “Guy-Larious”? BOOM. Well done Frader.

Guy ended the year strong and scored his season high in Week 13 (126 pts). He still lost, but the effort was there – he would have beat 6 other teams this week. Guy actually topped the 100 point mark in each of the last two weeks. Considering he only did that 5 times all season, I’d say that’s a good thing. I think I can stop here, let’s get to the good stuff.

What Went Wrong?:

I have to start with Odell Beckham – he singlehandedly doomed Guy’s season. Although Beckham came into the year with an ankle injury, Guy still took him at #5 overall. In hindsight, that was a HUGE mistake.

Guy’s favorite player would miss Week 1 before scoring 5.6 points in Week 2. Guy didn’t even start Beckham in Week 2 and started his season 0-2. Things were not looking good. Odell Beckham filled Guy with false hopes in Weeks 3 through 5 by scoring 57 total points. Insert an “Odell Beckham filling a guy” joke here? Meh, do what you want. Unfortunately that was it for Odell, he's been out for the season since Week 6.

Anyways when it was all said and done, Guy only had his first round pick for 4 of the 13 weeks. Really it was only 3 as Odell wasn’t fully healthy in Week 2 (and wasn't started). That’s obviously not ideal and it is the number 1 reason the Gabriel is now the Guy-Briel.

Guy didn’t score a lot of points this year. Overall he scored 1,187 points which equates to 91 per game. For comparison, the 11th highest scoring team was Frader with 1,330 – 102 per game. Going further, the 5th place team (me) had 1,513 – 116 per game. For an extreme comparison, the #1 team (Tieg) had 1,619 points – 124 per game. All in all, Guy scored 11 fewer than Frader, 25 fewer than me and 33 fewer than Tieg PER WEEK. That is rough.

Best Roster Move:

Guy picked up Dion Lewis on Wednesday, October 25th for $16 dollars. This was right before Week 8 and Lewis had started to carve out a bigger role in the offense. Unlike most of the decisions Guy made this year, this one worked. Since being acquired by the Guy-Briel, Lewis has scored 12.4, 24.3, 18.8, 18.8 and 12.2 points. Actually a really good move by Guy.

Worst Roster Move:

Only drafting one running back in the first 6 rounds was easily the worst move Guy made all year. It’s honestly baffling to look back on…. ONE RB IN THE FIRST 6 ROUNDS!??! This is an RB-driven league and an RB-driven game - you just can’t do that. Not only was the strategy bad, the execution was worse. His first two RBs were Marshawn Lynch and Mike Gillislee. Lynch is over 30 and hadn’t played in nearly 2 years. Not exactly a safe investment. Gillislee was even riskier as Patriots RBs are notoriously fickle and this was Gillislee’s first year on the team. It clearly didn’t work out and he’s been a healthy scratch for the better part of a month now. I know I’m supposed to pick one specific move here, but I went with more wide-ranging move. The move that led him to the Guy-Briel.

Defining Moment:

The defining moment was Guy’s week 7 matchup against Tieg. You may want to sit down for this because it is legen……..wait for it…….HORRIBLE. LEGEN-HORRIBLE. It was so bad I had to make up a word for it.

To say it was the worst fantasy game of Guy’s life would be an understatement. To say it was the worst performance by any team in this league’s history would be….. well it would be false. Dylan holds that (dis)honor. Still, this is realllll bad. In his week 7 matchup, Guy put up 43.2 points……. In a league where you receive .5 points for a catch, .2 points for a carry and get points for fractional yardage……Guy put up just 43.2 points. He didn’t have any injuries, he didn’t have any byes and he didn’t forget to set his lineup. With a full lineup and inflated scoring, Guy scored 43.2 points.

Tieg bukaked that week and put up 159.5. If he had scored 13 more points, he would have QUADRUPLED Guy’s output. I don’t believe anyone’s ever been quad-boxed before. Not only that, but Tieg’s bench actually outscored Guy’s starters – his bench had 49.7. It gets worse. Not only did Tieg’s bench outscore Guy’s starters…..Guy’s bench also outscored Guy’s starters. Now that was a defining moment.

Pre-Season Prediction:

I predict that Guy will finish the season at 6-7 and miss the playoffs. Odell and Gronk will probably win him 3-4 games by themselves, but if either of them get hurt, underperform and/or have byes then Marty Huggins will struggle.

While I was far off on the record, I correctly predicted that he wouldn’t make the playoffs. His team didn’t look good enough then and that turned out to be true. 1-0 for the Commish.

Non-Football Reference:

“Why Fantasy Football Matters: (And Our Lives Do Not)”

That’s not a quote, it’s actually the name of a book. It’s a fantasy football book written by Erik Barmack and Max Handelman (married to Elizabeth Banks). It discusses how obsessed people can become with fantasy football and how they often prioritize it over other aspects of their lives – personal lives especially. I thought this was really fitting for Guy for some reason. Mainly because he is the exact opposite of this. Unlike most of us, Guy does not prioritize fantasy over his personal life or career. Especially not his career. From what I saw, his job definitely interfered with his involvement in the league this year. He was quiet on the group chats and barely made any free agent moves (only 19 add/drops all year). At one point he even said he couldn’t make free agent moves because he was too busy. As someone who prioritizes fantasy over nearly every aspect in my life – check that, every aspect in my life – it’s refreshing to see someone who can put it aside. Then again, finishing 2-11 isn’t good either. Maybe next year Guy will find some balance.

Wrap it Up:

Along with the lack of time, I feel like Guy may have underestimated the league this year. From what he told us, he barely did any research. It showed. This league is extremely competitive and even making the playoffs is really hard. If you’re not ready for the season then this league will chew you up and spit you out. Now Guy will spend the next 12 months in the PIT OF MISERY as..... The GUY-BRIEL.