GWBL - 2021 Season Recaps - 6th Place - Rob D
6th Place: Fresh Prince of Bhel-aire - Rob D - 8-6 record, 1,805 points (Most)
What Went Right:
Robby D scored the most points in the league, so quite a lot went right this season. He either had the luckiest draft ever, or did more research than all of us combined, because he hit on so many draft picks that it’s going to take me an hour to type this recap up. Just to pick the 4 most noteworthy:
His first round pick Derrick Henry averaged 30 points per game, which is the highest weekly average among any player in our league, QBs included. Henry scored 25 or more points in 5 of the 8 games he played in, which included a 55 point outburst in Week 2 and a 42 point effort in Week 6. Despite playing in only 8 games, Henry is STILL a top 10 RB and ranks 6th in the NFL in rushing yards.
Rob D’s 2nd round pick Antonio Gibson had a career year and has firmly established himself as a top 10 RB for 2022 and beyond. The Washington Football Player averaged nearly 16 points a game on around 1,200 total yards and 9 TDs.
Josh Allen was a stud for Rob D as well (4th round). He’s QB1 and averages the 2nd most fantasy points per game (29), only behind his fake life teammate Derrick Henry (see above).
Diontae Johnson was a 6th round pick and became his WR1. The Steeler is #8 in WR scoring despite missing 1 game. If you round up, he scored 10 or more points in all but 1 game and averages close to 15 points per game.
I could list 4-5 more players and will include more below, but you get the picture. Rob D hit on pretty much every single draft pick he had.
Since I’m the one writing these I’ll also complain about the Week 12 matchup where Robby D beat me by 157-159. 2 frigging points and he won the weekly high score that week. If I had beat him, I would have had the high score. So he robbed me (get it?) of $10 that week, but also robbed me of an additional $75 dollars because that loss forced me into a 4 way tie for “best regular season record”. The payout was $100 but I had to split it with 4 other teams who also finished 9-5. (How good of a commish am I by the way? Rather than arguing that I should get the full payout since I had the #1 seed, I generously split the pot with everyone. Can’t teach that in Commissioner school, but it’s the little things like this that make leagues run smoothly.)
What Went Wrong:
Despite the fact he had so much good fortune in his draft, there were some notable bad beats during Rob D’s season. Just in terms of players:
His 3rd round pick Chris Carson got hurt in Week 4 and hasn’t played since. He was averaging 14 points per game.
Chase Edmonds (7th round) was having a great year through Week 8 and was a top 20 RB. He had scored 12 or more points in 6 of 8 games but he got injured and missed the next 6-7 games.
His 12th round pick Antonio Brown has had a Pro Bowl caliber season when he’s’ played. He’s averaged 17 points per game and is on pace for 110 catches, 1,400 yards and 11 TDs if he had played all 17 games. Unfortunately for Rob D, he missed 9 games with injury and for faking a covid vaccination card. Lol.
Aside from that the only thing that went wrong was his Round 1 playoff loss when his team stalled out and put up 96 points. During the regular season Rob D led the league in points and averaged close to 130 points per game. The 34 point drop from his average represented more than a 25% decrease from his regular season output. Prior to Week 1 of the playoffs, he hadn’t scored fewer than 112 points since Week 10. 112 points would have won him his matchup. Bad bad bad timing.
I’ll also mention that Keetz technically won on the “covid-rule” that I instituted prior to Week 15. Keetz started Tyler Lockett, who didn’t play, but designated Devante Parker as his backup. When I added Parker’s score to Keetz’ total, that was the end of Rob D’s season. I feel shitty about the whole thing, but Keetz and I both got instant karma in Week 16 when Tieg and dyckfuckdylan ended our respective seasons with ridiculous point outputs (more on those in future recaps).
Best Owner Move:
Drafting Leonard Fournette in the 9th round. Fournette had a career year in 2021 and averaged closed to 19 points per game (RB6 on the year). I will say - this is a horrible look for the fantasy football analyst community. The fact they didn’t have Fournette ranked higher in draft season is an egregious miss. Robby D was more than happy to take advantage of that market inefficiency though.
Drafting Mike Williams in the 14th round. He fell off during the 2nd half, but he’s still a top 20 WR. From Weeks 1-6 he averaged 18 points per game.
Worst Owner Move:
This may come off as salty, but I have to address it…. Rob D had a great season even though he wasn’t really trying. How do I know he wasn’t trying?
He only made 6 add/drops all season. That comes out to .43 adds per week, not even 1 every other week. That’s the lowest of any team in the league, yet this team led our league in points. Frader had the most add/drops, with 36. Literally 6 times more than Rob D. The league average for add/drops was 23 and 7 of the 10 teams had 27 or more. Only Rob D and DMO had fewer than 10.
1 of those 6 add/drops was for a bye week replacement kicker. That kicker is still on his roster….. 8 weeks after the original kicker had his bye. So he has 2 kickers on his roster for the playoffs.
He didn’t use his IR spots, really ever. During his Round 1 playoff loss, he had 3 IR eligible guys on his bench… with 2 open IR slots. (In fairness he did move Henry to IR)
He also didn’t roster the maximum # of players. He actually has an open bench spot on his team, meaning he was rostering 1 fewer player than our league allows him to.
Was this a luxury due to the fact he nailed his draft? Maybe, but it’s hard not to see it as a wasted opportunity. He had an unbelievable draft and didn’t really follow through on the team. While he may not have lost his playoff matchup due to lack of active management, it’s hard not to think he left something on the table by not being active on waivers, utilizing his IR spots, etc.
ESPN Projection:
ESPN projected him for 2nd place and he ended up in 6th. Still made playoffs so I’d say ESPN got it right technically. 3 right 2 wrong.
Final Thoughts:
As we’ve seen the last few years, the highest scoring team never wins the title. It seems to be some combination of “peaking too early”, “using up your luck”, or just flat out getting complacent. Was it the latter here? Hard to say, but has anyone heard from Bob D the past few weeks? I was sure that I’d hear from him after the Covid rule issue, but no dice. Hope he’s doing okay and still invested in the league for the future.
