OBITUARIES - 8TH PLACE

Team/Record/Owner:

Coming in 8th place with a 6-7 record and 1,473.6 points scored (9th) is SLAMMY TWATSKiNS owned by Matt Lamonakis.

What Went Right:

I’ll start with an intangible asset here – the team name. Lamone may not lead the league in points, but he leads the league in creativity. SLAMMY TWATSKiNS - lol.

In terms of tangible fortune, points against is the next thing I have to point out. Lamone had the fewest points against of any team in the league with a total of 1,507.3. As I mentioned before, the league average score was 126 per week - Lamone’s opponents only scored 116 per week. Robby D had the most points against with 1742. That’s 235 more points than Lamone’s opponents scored, or 18 points per week. 5 of Lamone’s 13 opponents scored under 110 and there only 4 of his opponents went over 125. Going further, there were only TWO TIMES ALL SEASON that his opponents topped 130. With luck like that it’s hard to believe he didn’t make the playoffs.

One last thing - Lamone had an awesome stretch during the season which brought him from 3-6 and all but eliminated, to 6-6 and on the cusp of a playoff berth. The TWATSKiNS entered Week 10 with a 3-6 record and were coming off 4 straight losses. Things were not looking good, but Lamone ripped off three consecutive wins and put himself back in the hunt. He scored 138, 132 and 148 in Weeks 10, 11 and 12 which were his three highest scores of the season. During that time he stole a bye week away from Tieg, eliminated Frader from playoff contention and nearly eliminated Guy as well. It was a great run for the team and Lamone can hang his hat on that.

What Went Wrong:

Although he had the great run above, it was preceded by a historically bad run. Weeks 6 through 9 were not kind to Lamone and he lost 4 straight matchups. He scored fewer than 90 points in 3 of the 4 weeks and his highest output was a meager 113 points – all well below the league average. Overall during that 4 game stretch he was outscored 367.9 to 516.5 – or an average of 92-129. He made it interesting towards the end of the season, but this ultimately doomed him.

As always, Lamone had some trouble with early season injuries. We all know the Jerick McKinnon story – Lamone drafted him with his 3rd round pick (#23 overall) and he tore his ACL the next day. You just can’t make that up.

The other player he lost was Delanie Walker, his 6th round pick (#58 overall). Walker has been a fantasy stalwart the past 5 seasons missing just 4 games during that time. In the 5 seasons stretching from 2013 to 2017, Walker averaged 71 catches for 831 yards and 5 touchdowns. In typical Lamone fashion he was hurt in Week 1 and missed the rest of the season (had 4 for 52 in that game).

Best Owner Move:

Lamone added George Kittle for $12 after Week 1 when Delanie Walker got injured. Kittle is TE4 on the season with 62 catches for 900 yards and 3 TDs. He averages 12 fantasy points per game and has scored 10 or more points in all but 4 games this season. Losing Walker hurt, but Lamone recovered nicely.

Another major injury was the impetus to his other “Best Owner Move”. Lamone added Matt Breida once McKinnon went down and he’s been rewarded with the #17 RB on the season. Breida has been banged up most of the year, but he’s played in every single game. Overall he averages 14 points per game and has 900 total yards with 5 TDs.

Worst Owner Move:

Drafting Jerick McKinnon in the 3rd round was definitely the worst move Lamone made this year. Despite the fact he’s never really been a full time starter and was new to the 49ers, Lamone went all in on him. In doing so, he passed up players such as Joe Mixon (RB14), Travis Kelce (TE1) and Tyreek Hill (WR1) to name a few. It seemed like an odd move at the time and it proved to be a bad choice.

Speaking of odd - keeping Jerick McKinnon in his IR spot the whole year was definitely an odd move. Maybe he just did it to motivate his team and remind everyone that he lost his third round pick before the season started? Either way he’s not coming back this year so it’s tough to justify.

Most of Lamone’s draft was bad, but I’ll address his 4th and 5th round picks here – Demaryius Thomas and Royce Freeman. First off, why would you take both an RB and a WR from the same team? That doesn’t seem like a sound strategy unless it was the Rams or Chiefs. Second, why take an RB and a WR from a team that went 5-11 the year before and has a new QB? You don’t know how that offense is going to look, so why make the investment? Lastly, the specific players seemed like bad picks. Demaryius turned 30 last year and has been declining since 2015. Royce Freeman was a rookie and we had no idea how he’d perform. The 4th and 5th rounds were pretty mixed this year, but both of these picks were duds.

(Hate using this clip but it’s the first thing that came to mind.)

Draft Recap/Prediction:

Lamone will finish 5-8 and miss out on the playoffs this year. Losing your 3rd round pick a day after the draft is going to be hard to overcome, so he’s gonna need to catch a few breaks here and there. 5-8 isn’t a terrible year, I just think he’ll come up 1-2 games shy of the playoffs.

Finally got one right – 1 for 3 to start.

Applicable Quote:

“And that one - Renly - he’s copper. Bright and shiny, pretty to look at, but not worth all that much at the end of the day.” - Donal Noye, Game of Thrones

Had some trouble finding an applicable quote here because this season was so forgettable for Lamone. He didn’t score that many points and was never really a threat - just meh. Ultimately I settled on this quote from Game of Thrones which was spoken by Donal Noye (Night’s Watch). He’s telling Jon Snow about the Baratheon brothers and he says that Robert is steel, Stannis is iron and Renly is copper - shiny, pretty, but not worth much. This reminds me of Lamone’s team. Sure he had some big names in Kirk Cousins, David Johnson, Keenan Allen and George Kittle, but his team was just shiny, pretty, and not worth much.

Final Thoughts:

This is the first time since 2015 that Lamone has missed the playoffs, so I guess he gets mulligan here. He won the title in 2016 before losing in the first round last year. His team was never much of a threat, but he still won 6 games and barely missed the playoffs. Is this the start of a decline, or a bump in the road? We’ll have to wait til next year to see if he can get back in the playoffs.