OBITUARIES - THE GABRIEL — Protector Of The League

That’s a wrap gentlemen, the regular season is over. It’s been one of the more memorable fantasy seasons in league history and there is a lot to talk about in the obituaries. We had record setting performances, Patrick Mahomes’ breakout, Le’Veon Bell’s saga, Kareem Hunt’s kick heard round the world, the Rams offense, Kev’s collapse and many other noteworthy items. While the last week of action was pretty poor, the season as a whole was a good one. Now it’s time for the obituaries where we’ll examine each team and perform an autopsy on their season. Or a colonoscopy in some cases… Anyways the format is pretty similar to past years and I’m hoping these will provide you with some distraction at work as we head towards the end of the year. As always we’ll work from Gabriel up to the champion and I’ll try to get a few of these out every week. The format will be as follows:

Team/Record/Owner:

What Went Right:

What Went Wrong:

Best Owner Move:

Worst Owner Move:

Draft Recap/Prediction:

Applicable Quote:

Final Thoughts:

THE GABRIEL:

Team/Record/Owner:

Finishing in 10th place with a 2-11 record and 1,403 points scored (10th of 10 teams) is DalvinCooKens AfricanRhino owned and (poorly) managed by Robby D.

What Went Right:

Not a whole lot. He didn’t go winless, so there’s something. He also didn’t have the worst record of the history of the league – that award goes to Rob Karpel and the 1-11 season he had back in 2011. That was Karpel’s first/only season in the league and he was dealing with a debilitating opioid problem at the time, so take that for what it’s worth. It also took Robby D a 13th week to get the 2nd win, which Karpel didn’t have (seasons were 12 weeks back then). We can move on from this section.

What Went Wrong:

Just about everything, starting with the draft order. We did a lottery system based on last year’s standings and as a result, Robby D got the 8th pick in the draft. This was the first time he picked outside the top 3 during his 6 seasons in the league, which is a startling statistic. I imagine it threw him off a little and it just wasn’t a good pick to have this year.

In terms of the actual season, the first thing I’ll note was points against. Robby D had 1,742.6 points scored against his team this season, which was the most in the league. During the season, the average team scored 126 points per week. Robby D’s opponents averaged 134 points per week. Only 1 of his opponents scored under 100 points and only 4 scored 120 or less. Tough luck there.

Adding on to that, Robby D’s opponents had some big weeks. On three separate occasions, Robby D faced the highest scoring team during the week. That’s tied for the 2nd most of any team in our league and those of course equated to three losses.

Aside from points against, Robby D had brutal results from his draft picks. In fact, he probably had the worst draft of any team in the league. Notable draft busts include: Dalvin Cook (RB53), LeSean McCoy (RB32), Golden Tate (WR21), Chris Hogan (WR76), Devin Funchess (WR47), Chris Thompson (RB63), Jordan Reed (TE9) and Jordy Nelson (WR61). To have a few draft picks fail is one thing, but to have this many go south is impossible to overcome. The way his picks busted were really difficult to deal with too. It’s not like the players got injured and had to be dropped (ie Devonta Freeman), it was worse than that. The players Robby D had just underperformed all year and as a result he was never able to comfortably move on from them.

Best Owner Move:

Robby D added Phillip Lindsay on September 12th for $10 of FAAB and it was easily the best move he made all season (right after Week 1). Lindsay is RB9 on the year with 937 rushing yards, 25 catches, 190 receiving yards and 9 total TDs. For our purposes that equates to 225 fantasy points scored. On a week to week basis, he’s scored 11 or more in all but one game (ejected due to fighting) and has 20+ points in 5 of 12 games. He’s been a true breakout this year and is a top candidate for Rookie of the Year (will likely go to Baker Mayfield but Lindsay will be in the conversation). Great pickup by Robby D.

Worst Owner Move:

Lack of owner moves is the first thing I’ll point out here. On the season Robby D only made 11 acquisitions, which is less than 1 per week. Guy is the only person with fewer (8), but that’s not surprising because Guy barely pays attention (too busy with work #PwC). All teams aside from those two had at least 15 and when you’re a last place team, I’d expect to see more waiver wire action.

Another easy one – just about all of his draft picks. While a lot of it is just bad luck, there were clear warning signs on a lot of his draft misses. Dalvin Cook’s ACL, LeSean McCoy playing in a terrible offense, Chris Hogan not being worth a 5th round pick, injury concerns for Jordan Reed/Chris Thompson, etc etc etc. While he didn’t reach for any of these players, the red flags were out in the open.

Lastly - on Wednesday, October 17th Robby D turned down a trade offer from me that he would have won in a landslide. I offered to give him Lamar Miller and Chris Godwin for Golden Tate and Wendell Smallwood. At the time it seemed like a somewhat fair trade, but in hindsight it was a real bad decision for Robby D to decline. October 17th was right after Week 6 - since then Lamar Miller has scored 121 points and Chris Godwin has scored 69. Meanwhile, Golden Tate (traded) has scored 55, while Wendell Smallwood has been irrelevant and scored 27 (no longer on Rob D’s team). Easy to go back now and say he should have accepted the trade, but that’s exactly what I’m doing here. Robby D lost nearly 110 points over the course of 7 weeks by not accepting.

Draft Recap/Prediction:

Robby D finishes 7-6 and YET AGAIN loses in the finals. I’m not sure his team is as good as it was last year, but the thought of him finishing 2nd for the 10th year in a row is so hard not to hope for. No one circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills. (Bob even has LeSean McCoy, I mean come on.)

Damn, couldn’t have been more wrong on this one. Have a feeling my predictions did not go so well this year. 0-1.

Applicable Quote:

“My memory…. Haha. “King Robert Baratheon”…murdered by a pig. Give me something for the pain… and let me die.” -King Robert Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm

That quote is from Game of Thrones Season 1 and is Robert Baratheon’s last words. He says it to Ned Stark and he’s lamenting how he’ll be remembered in a negative light due to the way he died. This is like Robby D for a few reasons, the first of which being that they share the same name. The second is that King Robert was once a feared ruler, but has become a punch-line. “Murdered by a pig.” This is like Robby D – once a feared owner of the league, but has now become a punch-line. Lastly, King Robert, like Robby D, just wants an end to the suffering.

Final Thoughts:

A merciful end to an agonizing season for Robby D. It was his worst season in the league and the first time he’s failed to win at least 5 games. I guess it’s not all that surprising when you think about it – he’s had really good luck the last three years and he was due for some regression to the mean. While he lost in the title game each of the past 3 years, it still takes a ton of good fortune to make it that far.

Bob D also has 2 kids and a 3rd on the way (congrats again). That’s just a few more distractions than the rest of us have so it’s natural that his performance might slip as the family grows. The question now is – will he rebound next year, or will the family commitments prove to be too big of a hindrance? We’re in uncharted territory here as no one else in the league has gone through what Bob is experiencing. Only time will tell.