2019 RECAPS: 10TH PLACE

TENTH PLACE: MAKE AMERICA GORDON AGAIN (2-11)

Coming in tenth place with a record of 2-11 and 1,423 points scored is Make America Gordon Again owned and managed by Tieg Bean. For those of you keeping score at home Tieg hit the triefecta of misery this year - worst record in the league, least points scored and of course, the GABRIEL. TieGABRIEL.

What Went Right:

Tieg and Sam are expecting a child in 2020 so that went right. Many of us were in attendance at the wedding back in 2018 and it’s nice to be sitting here one year later knowing that their marriage has produced the gift of life. Congratulations to Tieg/Sam on this wonderful news - they make a great couple and I’m sure they’ll make great parents.

Back to football – I’ll start by saying he didn’t lose every single game despite auto drafting. He also didn’t quit on his season. A lot of people would have just thrown in the towel on the year and given up after an auto-draft, but Tieg fought hard every week and earned a few wins. There aren’t too many moral victories in fantasy football, but I’d say Tieg’s effort was one of them. He set a lineup every week and made 48 roster moves which led the league and shows his dedication.

What Went Wrong:

I’ll start with the obvious – autodrafting did not go well. It’s been a few months, so just to recap: we had scheduled the draft a month in advance for Saturday 8/24. A week or so before the draft, Tieg scheduled a trip to Florida and told me he would be on a flight during the draft’s time slot. To avoid any connectivity issues and let the league have their Saturday night back, I rescheduled it to Sunday night 8/25. No one protested. Unfortunately for Tieg the new draft time conflicted with something else – his pregnancy announcement. While we were all wondering where the hell he was, Tieg was announcing some big news to his family. The auto draft led to many bad moves, but the top 3 would be:

1)      Picking 5 WRs with his first 6 picks in a league that’s only half-ppr and awards points per carry.

2)      Drafting Melvin Gordon as his only RB when Gordon was actively holding out.

3)      Drafting Lamar Miller (9th round) and Andrew Luck (13th round) when both were out for the season with injury/retirement.

Ultimately it left Tieg’s team in a state of disarray and forced him to make things up on the fly. This led to some “interesting” moves which I’ll mention below.

The other major thing that went wrong is points against. Tieg led the league with 1,762.5 points against which is an average of 135.5 per week. Hard to do any better than a 2-11 record when you have to score 136 points on average to get a win. This is why I truly believe in the “fantasy cosmos”, “fantasy karma”, the “fantasy gods” or whatever you wanna call it. This season felt like the fantasy gods were punishing Tieg for missing the draft and decided that every team would go off against him. Don’t believe me? I’ll leave you with this stat: Tieg’s opponent put up 150 or more 5 separate times this year.

Genius Move:

The first trade between Tieg and Lamone when Tieg got Darren Waller in exchange for Hunter Henry. This happened prior to the season and as of now I think Tieg won the trade. Waller has been a stud for much of the year and ranks as TE3 in our scoring. He’s caught 66 passes for 807 yards and 3 TDs and averages 11.5 fantasy points per game. Meanwhile, Hunter Henry is TE8 with 41 catches for 500 yards and 3 TDs (missed 4 games to injury).

Dumbo Move:

We’ll go with two trades here – one of which was reasonable but didn’t work out and the other which was just terrible.

The first trade was between Tieg and myself and happened before the season started. I gave him Tevin Coleman (7th rd) in exchange for Cooper Kupp (6th rd). At the time and on the surface the trade doesn’t look too bad. Tieg needed an RB and wasn’t going to use Cooper Kupp as you can’t start 5 WRs. On the season, Kupp averages 15.1 points per game while Coleman averages 14.2. Pretty fair right? Unfortunately for Tieg those point averages don’t factor in a few things. First, that Kupp is WR5 while Coleman is RB23. Second, that Coleman missed 3 games with injury. All in all, Kupp has scored 40 more points than Coleman on the season and Tieg ultimately lost this trade.

The second trade between Tieg and Lamone - when Tieg got Carlos Hyde in exchange for Michael Thomas. THIS. This is the one that is a big ole elephant ears dumbo move. The trade was executed after Week 2 when Tieg was still starving for RBs and Drew Brees had just got hurt. Rather than waiting to see how Thomas would do without Brees, offering him up to the highest bidder, or selling one of his other 3 high profile WRs, Tieg sold his 1st round pick for pennies on the dollar. Carlos Hyde apparently was worth his 1st round pick 2 weeks into the season. Carlos Hyde who was on his 4th NFL roster in the past calendar year. Carlos Hyde who Tieg had previously added then dropped to waivers. Carlos friggin Hyde. So how did it go? Michael Thomas is currently WR1 with 233 total fantasy points (average of 19.4 per game). Carlos Hyde is RB19 with 154 fantasy points or an average of 12.9 per game. 80 fantasy points and giving up the #1 WR in football for a guy most teams wouldn’t even keep on their bench. As Red Forman would say..

Pre-Season Prediction:

“I predict Tieg finishes 6-7 and makes the playoffs on a points tie breaker. The WR and TE depth will be valuable assets, but the RB situation will hold him back. If it was anyone else I’d say they finish 3-10 and miss the playoffs, but making the playoffs after autodrafting would be the most pure taige nonsense ever.”

A lot of that was right so I’m going to give myself credit here. I correctly predicted that an auto-drafted team would finish around 3-10 and only said 6-7 as a reverse jynx. And this is why audit class teaches you about “self-review threat”.

Final Thoughts:

I think we can all agree on one thing – we’re glad Tieg’s season is over. Tieg because the suffering is over and the rest of us because he finished in last place. While we’re all thrilled about the news and life > fantasy sports, I just wish Tieg had told us so we could have rescheduled the draft. Having 10% of the league auto-draft was an unfortunate way to start the season and left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Anyways – I’m hoping we can all move on from it now that the season is almost over.