Heading into this year's fantasy football season, I had neither the time or inclination to put much effort into my fantasy draft. I spent maybe 15 minutes skimming a couple of articles and made the decision to stick closely to the ESPN player rankings. It's usually hard for me to get excited about football in August, and the fact that I was coming off of a 4-9 season a year ago added to my indifference.
And my draft, despite the shift in strategy, wasn't much better than previous years. Devonta Freeman (2nd round), George Kittle (3rd round), T.Y. Hilton (4th round), and Alshon Jeffrey (5th round) have all been underwhelming considering their draft positions. A.J. Green (6th round) and David Njoku (8th round) have lost most of their seasons to injury.
However, two really good draft picks and two really good waiver pickups have made up the difference. I had the #2 overall pick in the draft and on a hunch took Christian McCaffrey (ranked #3) over Ezekiel Elliott. McCaffrey is the top scoring fantasy player to date, and has outscored Elliott by a wide margin. In the ninth round, I picked up Russell Wilson as my quarterback. He's produced the second most points for quarterbacks, and is ranked fifth among all players. Not bad value.
Back in September, I picked up undrafted receivers John Brown and D.J. Chark within a few days of each other. They've outpaced my drafted receivers. Chark has accumulated the sixth most points among wide receivers, and Brown is ranked #13.
The result? I'm 10-1 and riding a nine-game winning streak. The one game I lost was by a single point, when McCaffrey had his worst game of the season in week 2. I clinched the top overall seed in the playoffs and so now I have the next three weeks with nothing to play for. It's so bizarre. I expect that every week will be the one where it finally comes to an end, but I just keep winning.
Case-in-point: last week. In our league, we only have four bench spots. I had Wilson, my QB, on a bye, and three others out with injury (Kittle, Hilton, Freeman). Plus I had Emmanuel Sanders who was questionable, but playing in the Sunday afternoon time slot. I already had three WRs filling the active spots and playing in the early slate of games, so I couldn't wait to see if he was going to play. I I didn't want to drop any of these players, so I decided to just play the week with a depleted lineup and an empty TE slot. I figured I would lose and just sacrifice the game for the long-term good of my season.
Nope. I had my highest point total since week 1, racking up 153 points behind 34 from Brown, 30 from Chark, 30 from McCaffrey, and 18 from Jamison Crowder (a more recent free agent pickup), and winning comfortably.
I can't explain it. I've just been lucky all season. Even though I have the most points scored overall in the league, I also have the fewest points against, which is something I have absolutely no control over. For example: my worst week of the season was week 7 (McCaffrey was on a bye). I only managed 85 points. But the opponent had a bad week (59) so I got the win anyways.
In real football, when a team clinches early, the concern is that they will lose their momentum or edge. I don't know if that applies in fantasy football. For me, only two weeks matter for the rest of the season: week 15 and 16. What do I do? Continue to make roster moves? Go with the guys that got me here? Pray that no one suffers a season-ending injury? Don't write a blog post about my success prematurely?
Or maybe, I'll just enjoy it, because who knows when this will ever happen again?
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