WEEK 7 - PART 1

WEEK 7 ENTERTAINMENT – STEALS & BUSTS

Welcome back for Week 7’s rendition of GWBL entertainment. Given that we’re past the half-way mark of the regular season, I think it’s a good time to reflect on the draft. While there’s plenty of time left to change the narrative on these players’ seasons, I’m going to look at each team’s draft and identify one steal and one bust. I’ll try to pull the steals from the later rounds and the busts from the earlier rounds, but no two teams are the same and I may have to improvise a bit. Either way I think it’ll be interesting to look at. In order of the draft:

1st Pick: Tell Sloan I Said What Up (5-2)

STEALS: I already have to improvise and go with Dalvin Cook here. The 20th pick in our draft and the 11th RB off the board is RB2 on the season and the 5th highest scoring player regardless of position. Cook averages 28 points per week and has scored 15.6 or more points every single time out. He has 4 weeks with 30+ fantasy points and is on pace for over 2,100 all purpose yards and 16+ TDs. Cook is carrying Dyl’s team and is the #1 reason he’s 5-2 on the year.

BUSTS: This fits nicely so I’ll go with another COOK here. Too many cooks in the kitchen? You be the judge. Brandin Cooks was the 1st pick in the 5th round and he’s currently WR28 on the season. The Rams offense has been been a let down for the most part and Cooks has suffered as a result. He’s only on pace for 900 receiving yards and only has 1 TD thus far shooter. He’s already killed his owners on more than a few occasions – he has 7.9 points or fewer in 4 of 7 games. I’m guessing he’ll have some big games as the season goes on (likely this week vs. CIN), but to date he’s been a bust.

2nd Pick: Make Kamaraca Great Again (3-4)

STEALS: Austin Hooper, 13th round pick #122. Despite having a strong 2018 (70+ catches, 660 yards), Hooper wasn’t touted at all during draft season. It was likely due to his low TD total (4 last year) and the fact that he was expected to be the 5th option in the Atlanta offense (Julio, Ridley, Sanu, Freeman). Whatever the reasons, he slipped to the later rounds of most drafts and went #122 overall in ours. Fortunately for Kev, Hooper has been a focal point of the Falcons offense and is the #1 TE in fantasy football. Hooper has 46 catches for 526 yards and 4 TDs this year – putting him on pace for over 100 catches, over 1,000 yards and 8 TDs. In terms of fantasy points, he’s 22nd overall among ALL FLEX eligible players. Only 5 WRs have scored more points than him.

BUSTS: I’ll go with a trifecta here: Antonio Brown (2nd), Mike Evans (3rd) and Robert Woods (5th). We’ll start with Antonio Brown who has essentially contributed nothing this season. He’s played for more teams (2) than regular season games (1) and is currently a free agent in the NFL. Moving along to Evans – he’s WR14 and has put up dud weeks of 3.8, 8.1, 0 and a bye through 7 weeks. He’ll probably be fine, but it’s been frustrating for Evans owners so far. Speaking of frustrating – Robert Woods. Like with Brandin Cooks (see above), Woods has struggled with the rest of the Rams offense. He’s WR24 and has only has one game with more than 13 points this year. If you take out the 13 catch 164 yard performance in Week 4, he’s averaging 4 catches for 45 yards per week with ZERO receiving TDs per week. Week 6 was the low point when he had ZERO catches.

3rd Pick: The Skid Row Nightcrawlers (3-4)

STEALS: Not much here so I’ll go with Christian McCaffrey. He was the 3rd pick of our draft and based on production, should have been the #1 pick. He’s the #1 RB in fantasy and the #1 non-QB in our scoring. He has more fantasy points (198) than the two players taken ahead of him…combined. While Saquon (75 points) and Kamara (111 points) have struggled with injuries/inconsistent offenses, McCaffrey has been the best player in fantasy.

BUSTS: This one’s easy – OJ Howard Guy Ritch, 5th round. Howard was a popular breakout candidate in the pre-season and was going as high as the 4th round in some deeper leagues. He had a promising 2018 season with 34 catches for 565 yards and 5 TDs in just 10 games. It was expected he’d break out and live up to his draft slot (1st round NFL Draft), but then….. nothing. Literally almost nothing. In 6 games he has 13 catches for 176 yards and 0 TDs. He only has 18 targets on the year, or 3 per game. Yikes.

4th Pick: KingoftheNorth Shore (3-4)

STEALS: I’ll go with Deshaun Watson. Watson was a 6th round pick, the 57th player overall and the 3rd QB off the board. He was widely accepted as the 3rd best QB in draft season and it was a very fair price to pay on draft day. In hindsight, Watson has made Robby D look like a genius. Watson is QB2 through 7 weeks and is 1 of only 3 players to reach 200 points so far this year. He’s scored 21+ in 6 of 7 games and has 4 separate “week-winner” scores of 34, 33, 52 and 36 this season. While he’s on pace for 4,000+ passing yards and nearly 30 passing TDs, it’s his rushing that makes him special. He’s rushed for 200 yards on 36 carries this year with 5 rushing TDs.

BUSTS: Through no fault of his own, I have to go with JuJu Smith-Schuster. JuJu was Bob D’s second round pick and the 17th player taken in our draft. He started out well enough with 11 catches for 162 yards and 20 fantasy points in Weeks 1 and 2. Unfortunately for his owners, Big Ben got hurt in Week 2 and the Steelers offense has gone back to the stone-age without him. In the 4 games without Big Ben, JuJu has 14 catches for 178 yards, 2 TDs and 35 fantasy points. He’s averaging fewer than 4 catches and fewer than 50 yards per game in that time. It’s nice he’s scored 2 TDs, but he’s also had 2 games with fewer than 3 fantasy points. It’s really hard to trust him right now and Robby D has sat him a few times.  

5th Pick: Butt Kicker Dot Com (4-3)

STEALS: I’ll go with Mark Andrews here – TE taken #136 overall, 14th round. Andrews is TE3 on the year with 36 catches for 450 yards and 3 TDs. He has 3 games with 100+ yards and has 4 or more catches in 5 of 7 games. He’s Lamar Jackson’s favorite target and the only receiving threat you can rely on for the Ravens. In a year full of frustrating TE production (looking at you OJ Howard), Andrews has been huge for Keetz.

BUSTS: Keetz had a good draft so it’s hard to find a big one here. That said I have to go with AJ Green. A perennial 2nd rounder, Green hurt his ankle in the very first practice of the pre-season and fell to the 6th round. It seemed like a great value at the time – the injury happened in early-August and it was estimated that he’d be back in the first 2-3 weeks of the season. Unfortunately that estimate was very very wrong. Green hasn’t played a snap this year and it’s looking like he won’t be back til Week 10 at the earliest. With how bad the Bengals are, there’s a very strong chance Green does absolutely nothing this year.