Fantasy Friends Fantasy Football League Week 4 recap
We’re bad at fantasy football??
In fantasy football, we select players we think will score the most fantasy points. Our available pool of all players is split equitably between our ten rosters through the draft. Player evaluations change suddenly in fantasy football as new information becomes available and we make roster adjustments accordingly. Through the first four weeks of the fantasy season, most assume their predictive accuracy closely aligns with Sunday’s results. This league, however, appears no better than a toddler button mashing Mommy’s iPad on the waiver wire when it comes to fantasy defenses and the tight end position. For example, both Alan’s Two Win Weiners and Bill’s Bitch added defenses Sunday at noon before kickoff and found the 6th most, and the top fantasy scoring defenses for the week. In fact, there was no statistical difference in the mean fantasy finishes of started and nonstarted defenses this week (Figure 1; Supplementary Methods).
We were even worse with tight-ends this week (Figure 2; Supplementary Methods)!
Are we bad at fantasy football? Are we just a bunch of toddlers at the iPad? Are defenses and TEs stupid? Or should we start multiple TEs and defenses? We don’t have this issue with the positions we start two or more players from.
Matchups
Alan’s Two Win Weiners were picked off by Bill’s Bitch in this week’s toilet bowl. Each squad consisted of mostly duds, one good QB performance, one decent skill position performance, and great defensive scores. Justin Fields (27.9) finally came alive for fantasy purposes throwing 4 TDs against the struggling Denver defense. A pair of turnovers late in the game however sent the Bears to 0-4 on the season. For Bill’s Bitch, Jalen Hurts (24.16) produced in a tight division game, and Amon-Ra (16.6) played through his turf toe injury for a decent day. George Kittle however (1.9) was not needed as Christian “The Goat” McCaffery absorbed nearly the entire 49ers offense this week (more on him later). The Weiners streamed the Chargers DST against Raiders rookie Aiden OConnel to the tune of 16 fantasy points, 6th best on the week. Heading into Monday night, Seattle needed 15 points against the Giants for Bill’s Bitch to win. A few early sacks had the defense trending up and the victory was sealed by a 97 yard pick-six near the end of the first half. Primetime Kirk Cousins? More like Primetime Danny Dimes who is now 0-7 on Monday Night Football.
Team Tallman Kiss My A$$ benefitted from a God-like performance from Christian McCaffery (48.7) against Am I good?. CMC produced nearly 45% of the entire teams offense and accounted for 4 total TDs. There was even a moment late in the game when the 49ers had 1st & goal but decided to QB sneak instead of getting Cmac to 5 TDs. This guy is incredible, how can you lose with him? *checks notes* wait he lost!? How embarassing. Lets find out how it happened shall we? Credit to Tallman, there were no excuses this week (after the Thursday game of course). But thats where the good news ends. Deebo (0.6) seemed a little more beat up than he led on, receiving only three carries and no targets. Joe Mixon (8.6) fell behind with Joe Burrow’s injured calf while Bill stubbornly stuck with Joshua Kelley (6.5). Tallman’s second highest scoring player was Jared Goff (11.4), totaling only 109.06 points on the week. Fun fact, CMC also accounted for nearly 45% of Tallman’s fantasy points. Am I good (140.22) still stands as the lone undefeated team with a solid week headlined by Josh “The Stallion” Allen (36.5) in the Bills’ dominant victory. Rookie sensation Puka Nacua (31.3) scored his first NFL TD this week in what could have been his last game without Cooper Kupp. Even if Nacua fails to produce with Kupp on the field, I’d call a 3 week stretch of 30, 12, and 31 nearly worth the $82 spent.
Red Solo Kupp (159.46) cruised to victory against Jesus Christ Superstars? (97.12). The Superstars had no standout performances. D’Andre Swift (17.9) was the highest projection buster beating it by only 3.6 points. There were no great disappoints aside from Pickens (5.5), Waddle (8.6), and the 49ers DST (1), but it amounted to less than 100 fantasy points; far from getting it done. RSK dominated with their passcatchers JJ (6-85), Diggs (6-120), and surprisingly Josh Jacobs (8-81). The late deafting QB crowd is benefiting again from the likes of Russell Wilson (22.22) and CJ Stroud (21.84). RSK even had a trio of 20 point performers on the bench (Kamara, Aiyuk, and Khalil Herbert).
Da Bearers (171.62) Hyde-ed their way to victory against The Steagles (116.86). Da Bearers have now either won by ~38 points, or lost by ~50 points. Fortunately for them it was the former. $8 waiver wire add Nico Collins (35.8) led the way with DJ Moore (27.1) and Derrick Henry (24.38) also producing their best games of the season. A lackluster QB statline (Mahomes - 13.22; Daniel Jones - 8.72) was balanced by a 3rd great Cowboy’s defenseive showing (26) in 4 weeks. The Steagles continue to fall with Joe Burrow’s (4.7) injured calf. A duo of other injuries also affected the Steagles as Luke Musgrave (1.1) was concussed early, and Deshaun Watson’s surprise shoulder injury led to a disappointing day for Amari Cooper (2.6). The Steagles will try and look to get their season on track next week against Bill’s Bitch.
Shave Less, Pluck Less (149.04) attained their first victory of the year against Token Female (96.58). Their coveted TE advantage didn’t play out this week (Kelce - 12; Evan Engram - 12.9), but that was supplemented by a solid 21 point advantage at DST (TB - 15; PIT - -6). SLPL’s QBs also balled out with a combined 83 rushing yards and 3 rushing TDs (Lamar/Richardson). Token Female joined Jesus Christ Superstars? in the sub 100 point scoring this week mostly due to the Steelers laying down against the Texans. The only other surprising dud was Michael Pittman (4.5) only hauling in 1 of his 5 targets on the day.
Waiver Wire and Trades
We had one this week… boring
| Shave Less, Pluck Less | Jesus Christ Superstars? |
|---|---|
| Rachaad White | Najee Harris |
Joshua Dobbs was the highest bidded on player going to The Steagles for $25. The next highest add was Jaleel McLaughlin for only $9. The Steagles wanted to ensure they got a defense this week and put bids on 4 separate defenses. To their credit, their top 2 choices were snagged by other teams so they settled with the Commanders against the Bears Thursday night.
Weekly predictions
We went 2-3 this week for 10-10 total. ESPN projections matched and went 2-3 for 12-8 total. This week’s winners are: Alan’s Two Win Weiners, Da Bearers, Shave Less Pluck Less, The Steagles, and Jesus Christ Superstars?
Supplementary Methods
Data were manually curated from https://fantasy.espn.com/football/players/add?leagueId=1804892 (last accesses 10-03-2023 at 8:44pm by AEY). Players were classified as “Started” if they were in a team’s starting lineup. Fantasy finishes were counted by sorting “All” players at their respective positions for “LAST”. 11 fantasy defenses were on rosters. Cleveland was the only rostered defense (fantasy finish 14) and was therefore classified as “not started”. For tight-ends, only the top 32 fantasy finshers were considered. 11 of the 32 were rostered, and nine of those were started. The nine started TEs composed list_started_TE and the 21 TEs in the top 32 on the waivers composed list_nonstarted_TE. The two TEs in the top 32 that were rostered but not started were excluded from this analysis. Our two sets of fantasy finishes were tested for differences in means using the Student’s t-Test under default parameters in R version 4.2.1 (2022-06-23).