GWBL - 2022 Season Recaps - GABRIEL (Ken)

Gentlemen,

I know the in-season recaps have been light these past few years, but I want to end on a good note in 2022. So here we are - it’s time for full season recaps. As always we’ll take a look at the game tape and see what happened for each team this season. Let’s get it started with our 2022 Gabriel - Ken Peabody

Team:

Austin Ma-ssachoochoo - Ken Peabs (4-10), 1741 points (10th of 10)

What Went Right:

We’ll keep this section quick due to the obvious…… Ken’s WRs played pretty well this year. AJ Brown (4th round) is WR5, DK Metcalf (Round 5) is WR14 and Mike Evans (3rd round) is WR 23. Those players were inconsistent at times but put up some good numbers. I’ll also add that Ekeler’s had a nice season even if it’s mostly based on volume.

What Went Wrong:

Have to start with points against, of which Ken led the league. Not exactly a place you want to be #1. The 2,108.5 points he faced averaged out to a hair over 150 per week. ONE FIFTY PER WEEK. His opponent scored 147 or more in TEN of 14 weeks….. The scoring was inflated this year due to format changes, but good grief.

Injuries were another culprit - starting with Deandre Swift, his 2nd round pick. Swift has always been injury prone but holy hell this has been a frustrating season for his owners. While he’s had some big weeks, he’s currently RB29 and has 4 games with under 10 points (out of 10 games played). He only missed 3 games outright with injuries, but the fact he only sat 3 games made things worse because he was often quiet and underutilized when he did play. It’s so bizarre, I don’t get why he’s dressing and playing if he’s not healthy. To make matters worse, Jamaal Williams has rushed for 50 TDs this year and scored 70 more fantasy points than the guy he was supposed to be a handcuff for.

We’ll continue with Darren Waller, Ken’s 6th round pick. The presumptive TE5 (Kelce, Andrews, Pitts, Kittle) has had a nightmare season and hasn’t played since Week 4. Just as a slap in the face to his owners he’ll probably return for Week 15… when they’re eliminated.

We’ll end the injury section with a 1-2 punch in the backfield - Elijah Mitchell and Damien Harris. These guys were Ken’s 7th and 10th round picks and are currently RB84 and RB48 respectively. Mitchell got hurt in Week 1 and has essentially produced nothing. Instead of having the top RB on an extremely productive rushing offense, Ken got 43 touches for 231 yards and 0 TDs out of his 7th round pick. Harris has also missed time and failed to produce - just 3 TDs and fewer than 400 yards.

Draft misses like Aaron Rodgers, Darnell Mooney, Michael Carter and others round out this section. I’ll stop now, he’s dead already.

Best Owner Move:

Friermuth in the 13th was a solid pick. That might be more of an indictment on the position this year though he’s TE5 despite only scoring 2 TDs.

Worst Owner Move:

Not handcuffing Deandre Swift. When you have a high profile RB with injury concerns you have to handcuff him. We moved the RB limit up from 5 to 6 this year so Ken probably should have taken advantage. We’ll get to Jamaal Williams later in these recaps.

Preseason Prediction:

I said he’d finish 4th, rough start here. I thought the Ekeler-Swift-Mitchell combo, with Waller and the Evans-Brown-DK combo would propel Ken to a semifinals appearance. Can’t predict injury and this was one of the most confusing fantasy seasons I can remember.

ESPN said 7th of 10 - point ESPN.

Final Thoughts:

Sometimes fantasy just isn’t fun and I can’t imagine it was very fun for Ken this year. Worst record, most points against and ended the season by losing 110-182. He did get a W over Rob D in Week 13 but this was one to forget for Ken.

You’d have to go all the way back to 2011 to find the last time Ken finished as the GABE. Oddly enough I think that was the inaugural GWBL season. I think Frader is the only two-time Gabe, so welcome to the club I guess.