2023 Fantasy Football Thread
I know it's only May 10th, but since we are past the real life draft, each team's situation is starting to shape into solid form for this upcoming season.
I wanted to go ahead and kick this off as plenty of us are starting best ball and dynasty rookie drafts. I'm about to start firing into Underdog's Puppy contest. For now, I'll probably mostly be posting from a best ball and redraft perspective, at least until after I get through some of my rookie drafts since I am in leagues with other followers of the thread.
There are still questions like where will guys like Zeke and Fournette land? Will it even matter?
Can Lamar really throw for 6,000 yards?
Will everyone get burned by drafting all of the WRs early and letting quality RBs fall to the late 2nd and 3rd round?
Where should we be taking the top 5-7 QBs in 1QB leagues?
How early should Kelce go?
How much will top 100 pass catcher Garrett Wilson help Fraudgers?
Let the debates begin!
Won 2 ships and have a big time sweat in the Puppy. 7/230 but no players remaining. Fading some tonight. Let’s go!
Looks like all mine are pretty much over
1. Have to fade 23pts .5ppr from Doubs for 1st, so likely a win
2. Have to fade 1.9pts .5 ppr from Doubs for 1st, so likely finishing 2nd
3. Have to fade 43pts ppr from JJ in eddy bs for 3rd
So if everything holds, 1 first, 1 second, and 1 third in 5lgs, not too bad
Wow, was down 23 points in my league championship heading into tonight’s game, with my opponent done and me having 1 player left. Picked up Reed off waivers yesterday since I lost Hockensen and Cooper last week. Up by 0.5 points and pending a fumble or something crazy I’m taking it down.
I lost in my one finals by 9, with Lamar. Villain had the best roster in the league so no big deal.
Luckily we agreed to the chop prior to the match (only two championship match finalists get paid), and it was just a battle to see whose name got engraved on the trophy.
Common theme with a lot of champions this year, at least across my few leagues: CMC, Puka, and Kyren owners. If you hit the jackpot with either of the last two on the early season waiver wire, they carried it for you.
I got a miracle win. I've been in first place since week 2 and dominated with the best RB squad ever assembled in a 12 team league (CMAC, K Williams, Gibbs, R White) was also lucky enough to get Puka after week 1. I beat my opponents team twice in regular season (he has Ceedee Lamb and Etienne) but i found myself down a few points after the 1pm games. We each had 1 player remaining. He had Mahomes and I had Butker lol. Feels good man
Dominated reg season, lost in semis :(
2 7th place finishes to miss playoffs
11th in dismal season after losing Cousins/Burrow in superflex league
Disappointing results but had a fun season nonetheless. Congrats to all participants.
Played only 1 league this year, and crushed in the finals...probably the best draft ive ever had, hit on almost every pick...fun season, appreciate this board for sharing thoughts all season
One annoying thing that I'm finding today on Yahoo, Underdog and Fan Duel is that the best ball season results haven't been finalized. I'm guessing that it is because games normally end on Monday. I'm expecting that to hopefully happen around midnight tonight.
I did like how the fantasy season ended on a Sunday night game as opposed to a Monday night game last year. It's a better experience to have it all play out in one day rather than waiting on that one game a day later.
I think looking at my best ball seasons, where I drafted over 300 teams, 99% of which were non tournament, I will come out around break even. It was my first year trying it out, and the positive take away is that my final third of teams drafted were profitable, which showed that there was a possible improvement in my process.
By the end of the drafting season, I know that I did improve by keeping better track of how much I had particular players, to try to avoid going over balance on them. I was able to also have a better idea of whether the other drafters that I completed a draft with were sharp drafters or donks.
I'm excited to bring a good process into the best ball season next year. I'll likely stay away from Fan Duel as I found their website not the best for tracking your teams, and there is no bonus offer from them. I still have quite a bit of the Underdog signup bonus to play through so I'll continue to play there. I like how it is easy to tracking the winnings of all your teams. They also provide the player porftolio exposure which is very handy.
There is playoff best ball coming up which I've never done, but I may dabble in it a bit and give it a try. I'm still not sure though.
Won the chip in 1 out of 3 leagues but it was a big one. We do a dynasty/keeper league that continues until a team makes a dynasty (either back to back titles or 3 total titles). I won it last year and blew up the league by repeating this year. Won the extra bonus money people put in when we started the league in addition to 1st place money. This time it only lasted 5 years 2018-now. The last time it went from 2006-2018 and I also ended that one with repeat titles in 2017 and 2018. All 4 times I won I had CMC on my team. The true GOAT. Looking forward to starting a new one from scratch next year.
Bah, got 2nd in both of my finals.
I got fairly lucky in at least one of them to make it to the championship, so I cant complain.
But in both matchups I made decisions that led me to lose.
-In one I had an option to block waiver wire, I chose CEH instead of Juwan Johnson
-In other I was heavily thinking about sitting either Chase or Ekeler for Warren, and ultimately went with my studs. Also swapped defensive player this week that if I didn't would have won also.
Oh well, that was last year, I am undefeated this year!
Very nice congrats!
Is that the bball contest were each week 5 out of 10 people advance in the league till you get to final week 17
I made playoffs 4/7 leagues and went 4-0
In the finals!
Lamb was definitely common denominator had him on 3 of those teams
Very nice congrats!
Is that the bball contest were each week 5 out of 10 people advance in the league till you get to final week 17
I made playoffs 4/7 leagues and went 4-0
In the finals!
Lamb was definitely common denominator had him on 3 of those teams
Thanks! Nice runs yourself!
This contest was one where you draft in a 12 team room and play weeks 1-14. The top 2 scoring teams after week 14 advance. Week 15 was a 2/18 advance pod. Week 16 was a 1/18 advance pod. Week 17 finals had 230 total teams.
A lot of fantasy relevant rookies for 2024 in this Texas/Washington game. It's been fun to watch.
Looking back on this fantasy season, where there any critical decision points that were make or break for anyone?
I feel like the biggest decision point for me was during the waiver wire going into week 2. There were a number of potential pickups. JK Dobbins went out for the season in week 1. The big names being talked about were Puka, Allgeier, Gainwell, Kyren, Justice Hill and Josh Kelley. I remember Puka was the clear WR pickup, but the RB choices weren't so clear. Acquiring Kyren in my home league was the key move that propelled me to a league title.
I remember that waiver week being the best for options that I can remember in all my years playing. It turned out most of those guys were fools gold (Gainwell, Justice, Kelley), but Kyren turned out to be the best waiver wire add I've ever seen, with Puka probably being the second best I've seen.
Another key decision point going into the season, which I clearly got wrong, was drafting Van Jefferson as a late pick, due to Kupp's early IR status. I wish I had just gone with that narrative of Jefferson being a total JAG, and I wish I had heard/read more about the Puka hype. I'm not even sure if or when I caught onto any hype for him prior to his breakout game 1.
For my one title win this season in a 12 team home league, one thing I'm pretty proud of is that I was able to over come losing my first round pick early on (Chubb in week 2) and I also lost my 3rd round pick mid season (Andrews week 11). I don't think I'll see someone win another title after losing their first rounder early on for a long time. What allowed me to do that was getting Kyren early on and he was able to replicate 1st round RB production. A similar move would have been drafting Mostert as a late round pick this season.
Stuff that I got right/lucky this year:
(1) Avoided a lot of 1st-2nd round landmines - basically went hard at WR, the only RB I drafted in these rounds was CMC. Zero Saquon / Ekeler / Chubb. Was prepared & excited to take Bijan if he fell to me at 1.09, but that didn’t happen (took Lamb).
(2) Blew my FAAB wads on Puka in redraft after week 1. Ended up with zero Kyren though.
(3) Drafted LaPorta when I couldn’t get one of Andrews/Hockenson. Was never in a draft where getting Kelce was likely.
(4) Got Stroud just as he was heating up.
Stuff I’ll probably do differently next year:
(1) Not buy into the “get early QB” hype. Jalen + Josh + Mahomes are clearly worth ~3rd rounders in redraft (wouldn’t be surprised to see Josh + Jalen go end of 2nd), but there’s so much WR/RB value in rounds 3-7 that it’s probably better to platoon 2 later QBs. Need to back some of this up with math/stats but I just can’t be convinced that taking a QB in rounds 4-8 is worth it. If you hit on Lamar (r4) that’s awesome, and maybe that’s going to be Burrow next year with his health driving the cost down.
(2) When two guys are really close in rankings, break the tie by whose team is projected to be better. Overall scoring was down again (compared to 2020-2021), and TDs matter in fantasy, so… but maybe this’ll get priced into ADP next year…we’ll see.
Would love to blame injuries but fact remains my team sucked and missed the playoffs.
Went WR heavy early with JJ, Olave and Ridley as WR1,11 and 12 taken and they returned basically zero value. Olave WR20, Ridley WR24 and JJ WR37 so pretty much wasted picks.
Hit way better on RBs with Cook, Taylor, Monty, and Mostert as RBs 17,18,26 and 35 and they returned RB11, RB37, RB18, and RB3
QB was a carousel all year after losing Rodgers in game 1. Highly doubt I will not take a running QB early next year - streaming QBs not nearly as much fun as I imagined.
TE went with Goedert as TE6 and was not impressed at all. He wont be on my team again.
In happier news I did ship my Guillotine league for 1.8k even when fate tried to F me; added CMC and Kelce to my roster for the finals and they were far and away the worst players on my team.
Traded CMC away in dynasty (ppr) for Bijan and Shaheed.
Think seeing Ekeler and Kupp (to an extent) age on the team made me cash in some chips. Life comes at you fast.