2020 Season Recaps - The Gabriel
That’s a wrap folks, the GWBL’s 2020 season is finished. After 16 weeks we have named a champion and it’s just about closing time. The last item before we move to 2021 is the year end recaps. As always, we’ll take a step back and look at each team from a high level. We’ll look at what went right, what went wrong, compare the results to preseason predictions and ultimately close the book on each team. I think that covers it, hopefully this provides some closure for everyone and thank you all again for playing this year.
10th Place: Vote for Creepy Sniffin Joe! (4-9) – Dylan Whiting
Coming in last place with a 4-9 record and 1,492 points scored (9th) is Dylan Whiting. THE 2020 GABRIEL.
What Went Right:
I’m going to focus on 3 savvy moves Dylan made this year – two draft picks and 1 FA acquisition. The first move was drafting Calvin Ridley in the 4th round of the draft (#32 overall). Ridley was a popular breakout candidate and boy did he break out. The Alabama product is currently WR3 in fantasy scoring and has racked up 82 catches for 1,300 yards (5th) and 9 TDs despite missing a game and leaving 2 others with injuries.
Keenan Allen was another smart draft pick by Dylan. The Chargers QB situation (Tyrod) scared people away from Allen, but Dylan was happy to grab him in the 7th round. 7th round! Crazy he fell that far. Allen is currently WR12, but that’s largely because he put up 2.3 points in Week 15 and sat out Week 16. His 100-992-8 stat line is more than you could hope for out of a 7th rounder.
The last one is Myles Gaskin, who Dyl grabbed off waivers for $3 on September 23rd. Gaskin is RB30, but that’s only because he missed 6 games with injury/coronavirus. He averaged 17 points per week when he started and was a must-start back when healthy.
What Went Wrong:
The injuries to Myles Gaskin are a nice segue to what went wrong for Dylan – in particular the injury to Nick Chubb. Dylan’s 1st round pick got injured in Week 4 (5.5 points) and missed the next 5 weeks with injury/bye. He’s produced enough to still be RB11 on the year, but a lot of that production came after Dylan was eliminated from playoff contention.
Lamar Jackson was another frustrating aspect of Dylan’s season. He’s turned it on lately, but he’s still only QB7 in our scoring (which is very favorable to running QBs). When you take a QB in the second round he cannot finish that low at his position. Draft cost aside, Jackson had some really low scoring weeks. A few of his poor showings include: 16 points in Week 3, 14 points in Week 5 and 17 points in Week 8. All of those were losses for Dyl.
Dyl had the 2nd most points against which is a bad beat. He also had some brutal losses, especially in Weeks 2, 3, 10 and 13. He lost all of those matchups despite scoring healthy totals of 130, 135, 125 and 124.
Preseason Prediction:
“I say Dyl finished 6-7 and misses playoffs. He does have some good players and Lamar Jackson is a freak, but I just don’t see this team making it far.”
Good start here, 1 for 1.
Final Thoughts:
This is the second year in a row Dyl has missed playoffs after winning the league in 2018. Is this a sign of decline, or just a blip on the radar? Will he fade into obscurity, or climb his way back up the rankings and into the playoff picture?
To close it out, I’ve thought of Dyl’s Gabriel nickname. “Dyl-briel”. Not my best, but I like it. Kinda like Dilbert from the comics.
