We’re now through Week 10 of our fantasy football league. Three weeks left until the playoffs begin, and nine teams sit within three games of each other. All of these nine teams have a chance of making the playoffs. Or at least that’s what I tell myself as I sit at 5-5, on the outer edge of that playoff bubble, still clinging to hope!
I was thinking about the draft today, and the things I wish I had known then that would have drastically changed my fantasy performance for the season up to this point. How great would it have been to know that Russell Wilson was going to be totally awesome this season? I would guess that he would have been picked up several rounds before Round 11, when he was drafted in our league. Or how about knowing that Antonio Brown was going to play in three games this season and suddenly be out of football? That would have drastically changed his draft stock, which saw him drafted in the third round. Following this particular rabbit hole made me question whether I could draft a perfect draft, now with the insight of ten weeks of gameplay. What decisions could I have made that would have sent me seemingly hurtling toward the fantasy football championship, instead of treading water somewhere on the fringes of playoff contention? I got interested enough in this that I decided to forego the recaps for this week and run this scenario instead. The last paragraph will still give an update on the season, so if you're not interested in this amazing fantasy fantasy football team, feel free to skip to the bottom.
I made a couple of judgment calls on this particular thought experiment. On the one hand, I felt that I had to get one of the top running backs for the year for this experiment to make sense. While Alvin Kamara and Saquon Barkley have underperformed relative to their top-four picks in the draft due to injury, having Christian McCaffrey as my first-round pick set me up nicely for the rest of the season. :-) So I drafted as if I was Goin’ In Blind, who drafted Christian McCaffrey third overall, and went from there. Each of these picks was made AFTER Goin’ In Blind’s pick in that particular round, which means they were still available at that point. At the end, I will put together a potential starting lineup and project the weekly score of this team based on the average points scored by each of those players over the course of the season thus far. Spoiler alert: this team would have dominated.
Round 1, Pick 3 : Christian McCaffrey, RB, Carolina Panthers (original pick: Round 1, Pick 3, Goin’ In Blind). No question who is my first pick. McCaffrey has the chance to be the first running back to win the NFL MVP award since Adrian Peterson won over a decade ago in 2006. McCaffrey has scored 224.5 points through nine weeks of play and a bye, good enough for 24.9 fantasy points a week. He has been healthy the entire year, plays for a solid team that recognizes his strengths, and scores touchdowns. Fourteen, to be exact. Talk about a
foundational player.
Round 2, Pick 10: Dalvin Cook, RB, Minnesota Vikings (R3, P2, The Reindeer Gamers). While some might question the desire to pick up two running backs at the start, the dropoff between the elite running backs this season and more run-of-the-mill types is too great to ignore. Dalvin Cook was taken five picks after this, but has been the second-ranked running back in fantasy this year behind only McCaffrey. He’s been the focal point of the Vikings offense, rushing for 10 touchdowns and 199.5 fantasy points this season. He averages 20 points a game, which any of us would gladly take for an RB1 on our offense. In this dream scenario, we’ve got the two best of the season, and we’re rocking and rolling on the ground.
Round 3, Pick 3: Mike Evans, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (R4, P1, Nothin’ Runs Like a Deere). Mike Evans and Michael Thomas have battled it out for the top wide receiver in fantasy every week, but the value for Evans is way better, since Thomas went in the first round. Wide receivers have significantly lower totals than running backs, but Mike Evans has been the best, with 136.4 fantasy points and seven touchdowns. The one knock on him is that he is fairly inconsistent, which makes the idea of him as your every week WR1 somewhat
questionable. His counterpart in Tampa Bay, Chris Godwin (R6, P11), might be a steadier choice here, but Evans’ ability to go off for 20 points every game would be too much to pass up here.
Round 4, Pick 10: Kenny Golladay, WR,
Detroit Lions (R4, P12, Links Dawg Pound).
Round 5, Pick 3: Cooper Kupp, WR, LA Rams (R5 P11, Low Fat Greek Goedert). Going into the season, the consensus among “experts” was that Brandin Cooks, Roberts Woods, and Cooper Kupp would all be productive fantasy wide receivers, but that Cooks would likely be the top WR of the three. As a result, he went first in the fifth round, followed six picks later by Woods and Kupp a pick later. Brandin Cooks has one touchdown on the year, Woods has one
touchdown…and Cooper Kupp has five. The highlight of the season was his 28-point explosion against the Bengals, but until this past weekend he has been a steady contributor for Low Fat Greek Goedert, good for the seventh-ranked WR season. I would have glady scooped him up in Round 5.
Round 6, Pick 10: Phillip Lindsay, RB, Denver Broncos (R7, P4, Provo Cougars Go Cougs). Not much has gone right for the Denver Broncos this year, as they hoped to compete for a playoff spot and are well out of it at this point. Lindsay and Courtland Sutton (more on him later) have been the lone bright spots, with Lindsay continuing his excellent production from last year’s rookie campaign. He is the twelfth-ranked running back, so a solid RB2, and has provided good production along the way. His 11.6-fantasy point average would be a boost to any team, and our fantasy fantasy football
team would gladly take him on.
Round 7, Pick 3: Austin Hooper, TE, Atlanta Falcons (R9, P6, Team John’s Winners). Similar to the Broncos, the Atlanta Falcons have been extremely disappointing. This has not been Austin Hooper’s fault. While Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs might seem like an obvious candidate for best tight end in football, Hooper lays claim to that title in fantasy, with an 11-point average on the season so far. He was a steal when Team John’s Winners picked him up, and even at round seven, two rounds earlier, he’s a steal for me. At a position in which any production seems to be enough, Hooper has put up great numbers every week that would rival any wide receiver production. He has hit seven fantasy points in every week but one, and has four weeks of ten-plus points.
Round 8, Pick 10: Devin Singletary, RB, Buffalo Bills (R9, P9, Lookin 2 Winovich). This pick might seem questionable at the moment, since Devin Singletary is currently the 42-ranked running back in fantasy and only has sixty points on the season. HOWEVER, his last two weeks have been much better, and since he came back from injury it looks like the Bills will feature him more in their offense. At this point on our team, we are looking for players who can explode at some point and help us win the league. Devin Singletary is certainly someone who can do that moving forward, so let’s get him and have him in a solid backup role.
Round 9, Pick 3: Lamar Jackson, QB, Baltimore Ravens (R9, P11, Low Fat Greek Goedert) Here it is, the steal of the draft, people! Lamar was supposed to be an exciting quarterback that could back up your steadier, high-floor guy who isn’t going to blow you away, but will produce points for you. He was supposed to be the one that you could swap in late in the season and he would show some flashes of how good he was, but upon whom you couldn’t really rely until you had seen his body of work. Well, all he’s done since then is be the second highest-scoring player in fantasy, a player whose 702 yards and six touchdowns rushing alone would be more than Phillip Lindsay’s total production, who is a top-12 running back! Add in Jackson’s 2000 passing yards and 15 touchdowns, and you’ve got yourself a quality quarterback and running back, all in the same player. Lamar was the best value of the draft and one of the several prize jewels in our crown of 2019 fantasy football awesomeness.
Round 10, Pick 10: Austin Ekeler, RB, LA Chargers (R11, P7, I Am The Goat). While Melvin Gordon may be the featured running back for the Chargers at the moment, Austin Ekeler was the one who took over the lead back opportunities for the first half of the season and announced himself with 33 points in the first game against the Colts. Even with Gordon back in the lineup, Ekeler has been able to score enough points to remain relevant and has the fifth-highest running back score for the season. While we might not be starting him over McCaffrey and Cook, we could start Ekeler in the right
matchups if we think he's going to be able to go off.
Rounds 11-16: With our current lineup being so strong, we probably wouldn't have to dip much deeper into our bench than the players we have right now. We do have some slots though, which we could have filled with the following players:
- Courtland Sutton, twelfth-ranked WR, England Excessive Force
- Josh Allen, tenth-ranked QB, Goin' In Blind
- DK Metcalf, 16th-ranked WR, The Reindeer Gamers
- Darren Waller, fourth-ranked TE, Team John's Winners
- 49ers D/ST, second-ranked defense, Low Fat Greek Goedert
- Zane Gonzalez, second-ranked kicker, Better Luck Next Time
With this roster, we would likely start the following players on non-bye weeks:
QB: Lamar Jackson, 26.4 points per game (PPG)
RB: Christian McCaffrey, 24.9 PPG
RB: Dalvin Cook, 20.0 PPG
WR: Mike Evans, 15.2 PPG
WR: Kenny Golladay, 12.9 PPG
TE: Austin Hooper, 11.0 PPG
FLEX: Austin Ekeler, 14.0 PPG
D/ST: 49ers defense, 9.9 PPG
K: Zane Gonzalez, 9.4 PPG
This team would, on average, score 145.9 fantasy points per game. For comparison's sake, the highest score we have had in our league for the entire season is 150.3 points. This roster would have been CRAZY and would have had a high chance of going undefeated this season, given the ability of every player to break out each week.
Fortunately for all of us, this team does not exist, and we still have a chance at the top spot. That particular spot has a new occupant this week, as Goin' In Blind took down Better Luck Next Time and that, combined with the Low Fat Greek Goedert loss, vaulted her into the top spot at 8-2! Congratulations! The Reindeer Gamers came in with the highest score of the week with 128.5 points, but Going' In Blind's 119.8 points, built on Christian Kirk's 31.8 points, come in second. After that there was a significant drop-off, but Links Dawg Pound got his second victory of the year with a strong 97 point showing!
Hopefully everyone is still enjoying the game. Good luck to you all!
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