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So you suck! (1 Viewer)

UncleZen

Footballguy
Your team just didn't live up to expectations this year. What went wrong? Was it your strategy, projections, luck, or something else? Maybe you're still convinced it was a great draft and you will enter next year changing nothing? For me, it all started with my 1st and 2nd round picks of Gurley and Lacy. I typically don't have a set draft strategy other than VBD. I still think my strategy was ok this year but my projections were severely flawed.

 
Didn't work the waiver wire well enough. 

Drafted 1.04,took OBJ.  fine pick but one guy got both David Johnson and levean bell.  

 
I had a bad year. Coming into this year, I've made the playoffs about 85% of the time going back 25 years. My leagues range from $300 to $1,000.

This year I only made the playoffs in 2 of 8 leagues (1 Championship). Most of the other leagues came to the last week of the regular season. Only one was a horrific record.

I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about it.

In many cases, I lost several players to injuries. Flat out lost them to the IR. Some other players were impacted by nagging injuries.

The only thing I feel as though I was off on was the RB situation in NE. I didn't expect White and Lewis to split time.

If I had one general theme for my underwhelming performance, it was that I went too light at RB and too WR dependent. I couldn't survive my injuries at RB.  I went away from my historical dependence on RB depth and it burned me. Players that I acquired like Ware and Booker disappointed.  I will adjust by leaning on RB earlier next season. More than likely draft one stud RB and pray that I avoid injuries.

 
Couldn't survive Rodgers bad week once my rb2, wr1, wr2 and te1 were down with injuries.  Would likely have won a title anyway if Aaron had carried me through.  Not changing anything for next year....

 
The reason I bring this up is the whole "zero RB" strategy that many suggested going into this season. It didn't work out for any of those owners in our league. I went heavy RB though and sucked worse. The Bell, Johnson, and Zeke owners all made the playoffs though

 
I had a great year but closed poorly during final two weeks. Would not change a thing because of two bad weeks.

What I'm hoping most people won't change or deviate from is the zero-RB theory. I love it any theory where teams let a guy like David Johnson slide to middle to late first round and allowed to constantly gobble up Leveon Bell in second round.

 
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The reason I bring this up is the whole "zero RB" strategy that many suggested going into this season. It didn't work out for any of those owners in our league. I went heavy RB though and sucked worse. The Bell, Johnson, and Zeke owners all made the playoffs though
Johnson and Zeke owners missed the playoffs in our league. Bell owner made it but lost first round. Owner that won it had McCoy (he of the over the hill fall off the cliff talk) and Ajayi as RBs

 
The reason I bring this up is the whole "zero RB" strategy that many suggested going into this season. It didn't work out for any of those owners in our league. I went heavy RB though and sucked worse. The Bell, Johnson, and Zeke owners all made the playoffs though

Johnson and Zeke owners missed the playoffs in our league. Bell owner made it but lost first round. Owner that won it had McCoy (he of the over the hill fall off the cliff talk) and Ajayi as RBs

I had referenced the zero-RB theory in my original reply but did not know it was already brought up.

Don't know about local leagues but I played in 3 national type seasonal contest this year and overall winner in two of them both went DJ/Bell/McCoy first 3 rounds and winner of third one went Bell in round one and McCoy in round 3.

I tend to think this will impact strategy next season, at least in events like those if not all fantasy.

 
Redraft wise, Gurley and Marshall in first two rounds sunk me.

In dynasty, injuries to Julio and Gronk meant not going on to the finals.

 
I've always tried to stay away from the trendy strategies and strictly go by my VBD worksheet. I draft the next person on my list regardless of what everyone else is doing. It's gone well for me many years but my projections this year didn't work out. I way overvalued Gurley when I could have had DJ or Zeke. I like it when everyone has the next best thing though. It helps the real value fall to me in drafts.

 
Injuries for me, especially in my best ball leagues. In the MFL 10 leagues I was in 1st place in 13 out of 50 leagues after week 10. By the end of this week I only won 2. I was heavily invested in Melvin Gordon, A.J. Green, C.J. Anderson, Lamar Miller, and Keenan Allen. Going into week 16 I was still in first in 5 leagues, but took several 0's and scored under 90 points in 3 of those leagues the last week of the year. 

 
Zero RB killed me this year.

A.J. Green, Allen Robinson, Alshon Jeffery, Eric Decker.

Based on last year's stats or future projections, this was a nice looking lineup in September. We all know how well that worked out for me.

This was compounded by the fact that I feel like there were fewer real gems off the waiver wire. There were some solid players to be had, but they seemed to lack consistency. Last year, I was fortunate to pluck " plug and play" guys off waivers like D. Williams and Gary Barnidge en route to a championship. Didn't really have those this year.

 
Mostly do dynasty, but what killed me in my Redraft was Gurley. It was an auction draft and I got caught driving the price up in Gurley.  Really didn't even want him and was going to go after David Johnson if I was going to pay big for a RB, but I got stuck spending $53 of a $200 budget on Gurley. I wasn't that high on Gurley, but even I didn't expect him to be this terrible. 

 
The reason I bring this up is the whole "zero RB" strategy that many suggested going into this season. It didn't work out for any of those owners in our league. I went heavy RB though and sucked worse. The Bell, Johnson, and Zeke owners all made the playoffs though
I went zero RB strategy this year - won a championship, and will never do it again.  Why?  Well the championship was luck - every team I faced in the playoffs had the worst scoring week of any team in the playoffs and the first two rounds I won having the second worst score because I lucked into playing the worst score.  AND...my wr/wr/wr strategy really only nabbed me A Brown, as D Thomas was my WR2 and had to be traded for rb depth and Maclin at WR3 was craptastic and eventually I waived him.  My RB1 wound up being CJA while my RB2 was a combination of Deangelo Williams for 4 weeks, then a rotation of streamers.  CJA goes down early so I am stuck with Booker.  Spent the whole year playing RB roulette and somehow managed to pull off a 9-3-1 regular season but it was TOO MUCH WORK.  Going forward, will not go zero RB strategy.  Need to land one bonafide stud RB.  Now, maybe I will still go wr heavy, but only after landing at least one dependable RB.  

 
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The injury bug and just horribly timed scoring weeks for me.  The weeks my team performed great--the teams going against me went god mod.  Ended up with great total season scores in all three of my redraft leagues--made the playoffs in 2 of them.  My bad luck continued there with both of my opponents going crazy.  In general--I don't think I'll change my draft strategy much--with one exception.  I'm going to avoid drafting players with bad injury histories---keenan allen, doug martin, gronk...etc.  I also drafted josh gordon in 2 leagues--so that hurt.   My overall strategy is to pick solid players with high floors in the early/mid rounds--and to reach for high upside guys in the latter rounds. Load up on as many rbs/wr's as a i can--and just roster the minimum number of qbs, te's, kickers, and defenses as possible.  

 
I'm in a 12-team PPR keeper league (each team keeps four players) and thought I was all set with AB, Keenan, Nuk and David Johnson. Losing Allen early hurt, but Nuk's QB issues just compounded the problem. I got incredibly lucky with DJ and AB, who led me to a title, but I relied on the wire and trades to solidify my roster. Even with two studs I still ended up with the decision of Ware or Dixon at RB2 and choosing between Russ or Big Ben based on matchups. I honestly don't know what I'll do next season. I'm happy with my core keeper pieces, but I have a feeling I'll try and go a bit more balanced. I almost always tend to go light on RB and it comes back to bite me. This year was the lone exception. I guess even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. 

 
I'm in a 12-team PPR keeper league (each team keeps four players) and thought I was all set with AB, Keenan, Nuk and David Johnson. Losing Allen early hurt, but Nuk's QB issues just compounded the problem. I got incredibly lucky with DJ and AB, who led me to a title, but I relied on the wire and trades to solidify my roster. Even with two studs I still ended up with the decision of Ware or Dixon at RB2 and choosing between Russ or Big Ben based on matchups. I honestly don't know what I'll do next season. I'm happy with my core keeper pieces, but I have a feeling I'll try and go a bit more balanced. I almost always tend to go light on RB and it comes back to bite me. This year was the lone exception. I guess even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. 
Wait a minute here. So you're in the "So I suck" thread painting how you have AB and DJ and won the title? Come on man! That's a violation  :P

 
The one  championship I won had DJ and Bell. No surprise there but that said next year--especially PPR--I'm hoping I get picks 4-6 and will be thrilled to get any of the top WRs should they fall. Don't get me wrong I'll be happy to take a top RB if I get a top three pick but I think next year's first round will have even more value. 

As is said every year, "it takes skill to get to playoffs and luck to win." Two of my leagues with great depth, I simply picked wrong first round. In an FFPC I had number one seed but lost Reed who was best player in that format. Lost finals by 1.15. Ugh....

As an aside, I play in three home leagues and then do a few MFL and FFPC. I think I'll be dropping the FFPC. 20 player rosters are tough to recover from. One of my drafts went Gronk, Charles, Martin. Almost impossible when you consider that players like Ware were already drafted (I know because I got him round 18 in my other FFPC that I took 2nd). Plus the MFL payouts are much better. They take 1/12 (so in an MFL 25 for example they collect $25 and pay out the other $275) whereas FFPC if they followed the MFL model, would take 77 dollars for the $77 leagues I played in but they pay themselves $199. No thanks fellas. Next year I'll do more MFL.

 
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Year started bad at the draft. August/September was so busy on weekend for the league, best day to have the draft was when only 2 of us couldn't make it. Draft ended up being the weekend of my biggest craft show of the summer (I do woodworking) and about 2 hours drive from where I was so I couldn't just leave my wife int he booth and go draft and rush back. Thought my prayers had been answered when a huge thunderstorm starts up and forces everyone to their cars. I figured I would be able to get most the draft done in that time. Rain stops and we go back to our booth about the time round 4 is starting, I keep losing the signal on my phone- stopping my messages from going through for my picks. Rounds 4 and 5 I am autodrafted Latavius Murray and Jeremy Maclin- could have gotten Mike Evans and Melvin Gordon from those 2 picks if I had gotten a message through. Get back to our booth and find that so much rain had fallen that the top had collapsed and everything we sell was completely soaked (my wife sells crocheted items). 

We ended up packing up for the day at that point, a leaguemate started calling instead of waiting for my messages and pretty much stayed on the phone for the rest of the draft and my drive home. Started the season 0-5 with the 3rd highest points for and highest points against. Never really got back to even keel and now going into week 17, I am going to take a goose egg at QB because Siemian is reportedly not going to play and Mariota is done for the season- Our league only allows for injury replacements once the fantasy playoffs start and that player cannot start if you have another player who is not injured ahead of them. 

Went from Champion last year to probable losing the Toilet Bowl this year.

 
For me it was just one of those years where everything went wrong.  

In my superflex league, I drafted

Cam, Gronk, Martin, Cooper, Forte, Hyde, G Tate, Tannehill, A Smith, Hurns, J Matthews, Sims, Lockett, Riddick

What a disaster.  I also traded Hyde for Allen Robinson in Week 3, cut Tate too early, and traded J Matthews for M Bennett once Gronk went down.  Out of the player I had, I think Forte and Riddick were the only good picks.

I did get a little unlucky in round 2.  I was hoping Bell got to me in round 2.  The guy two spots ahead wanted Allen Robinson, but for some reason couldn't find him in the CBS website queue (it was because CBS was really down on Robinson and his projection was much lower than the consensus).  So he settled on AJ Green and the next guy (who would have taken Green if available), ended up taking Bell right in front of me.

Somehow I sneaked into the playoffs with a 6-7 record but I got shellacked in Round 1 of the playoffs.

 
I started the year with a team that was a "mortal lock" to make the playoffs in a keeper (people not in the league couldn't believe I was starting with this team-

Cam, A. Brown, Beckham and Gurley

And I even drafted Blount in the 8th round.  

Riding out Cam and Gurley all year was just too much to overcome.  

I was listening to a podcast discussing where Cam would be drafted next year, putting him at 6th or 7th QB off the board.  Maybe because I was burned so badly on him I am biased, but that seems crazy.

Sorry to go off track here, but I would take all of the following ahead of Cam next year-

Brady, Ben, Luck, Carr, Dak, Cousins, Rodgers, Ryan, Brees, Wilson...and that's being conservative.  I could see arguments for Mariota, Winston, Stafford and Rivers as well.  

 
My stud PPR WRs: Allen Robinson, Keenan Allen, and Jarvis Landry

Tough to come back from that.

My other league I just got spanked by the schedule. Missed the playoffs with the 3rd highest scoring team.

Pretty sure it's the first time ever I wasn't in any playoffs. Just not my year.

 
In redraft, injuries and drafting too many rookie WRs.  Micheal Thomas, Taj Sharpe, Sheppard.  I was without Gronk, Allen, Lacy, Foster, and Josh Gordon early on and that put me in a position where I had to drop my rookie WRs for guys who were producing.  The result was a whole lot of mediocrity. 

 
Your team just didn't live up to expectations this year. What went wrong? Was it your strategy, projections, luck, or something else? Maybe you're still convinced it was a great draft and you will enter next year changing nothing? For me, it all started with my 1st and 2nd round picks of Gurley and Lacy. I typically don't have a set draft strategy other than VBD. I still think my strategy was ok this year but my projections were severely flawed.
My translation. Bad projections on Gurley.  You weren't alone here.  He had a great rookie year on a terrible team.  My take away would be in redraft I would like to see multiple years of success if possible.  Try to avoid overspending on guys on poor offenses.  For Lacy, he got injured.  I don't think he was all that bad prior to that.  Not much of a lesson here other than try to draft the guys that won't get hurt.  That's not in your control.

 
Second year in a row I went on vacation around draft time.  Hurt my research time, and did a lot of mobile drafting with no rankings/references at hand.  Invested Heavily in Jamaal Charles (without insuring with Ware) and Alshon.  Alshon especially hurt because I had him and Evans next to each other in my ranks, but Chicago bias had me taking. Alshon every time.

Little to no shares of Demarco, Evans, and Zeke.  Loved David Johnson early int the preseason, but once he became a top-3 back, I opted for more shares of AP or elite WR.

 
I was very lucky this year to dodge injuries.  Had a couple Qs here and there where guys would miss a game or two but no one lost for the year for the first time in several seasons for me.  Played in two leagues, finished in 1st and 3rd, but ended the regular season in 1st in both.  In the 3rd place league, I screwed myself and traded away Lesean McCoy straight up for Mark Ingram after week 2 when Ingram started slow.  McCoy's hammy injuries worried me, and I thought Ingram was going to break out...stupid trade.  Ended up with the Ingram/Hightower headache all season.  

This was the first year in a while where a waiver RB didn't emerge on the wire in the back half of the season and help win any leagues.  I kept waiting for one, even held onto Dixon for too long convinced it would be him, and missed out on the biggest ww emerging player:  Tyreke Hill.  Looking back now I'd wish I'd dumped Amari Cooper for Hill in week 10 and never looked back. 

 
wlwiles said:
I was very lucky this year to dodge injuries.  Had a couple Qs here and there where guys would miss a game or two but no one lost for the year for the first time in several seasons for me.  Played in two leagues, finished in 1st and 3rd, but ended the regular season in 1st in both.  In the 3rd place league, I screwed myself and traded away Lesean McCoy straight up for Mark Ingram after week 2 when Ingram started slow.  McCoy's hammy injuries worried me, and I thought Ingram was going to break out...stupid trade.  Ended up with the Ingram/Hightower headache all season.  

This was the first year in a while where a waiver RB didn't emerge on the wire in the back half of the season and help win any leagues.  I kept waiting for one, even held onto Dixon for too long convinced it would be him, and missed out on the biggest ww emerging player:  Tyreke Hill.  Looking back now I'd wish I'd dumped Amari Cooper for Hill in week 10 and never looked back. 
Uh, you need to suck more than 1st and 3rd to post here.

 
Wait a minute here. So you're in the "So I suck" thread painting how you have AB and DJ and won the title? Come on man! That's a violation  :P
In retrospect, I probably should've posted last year when I tanked and made a flurry of trades that set me up for this season. I guess I've always been one of those glass half empty kind of guys! Think I'm here to keep my ego in check. Yeah, that's the reason. Haha

 
Poor redraft, primarily because I didn't set aside the time. It was my birthday weekend and I went hiking in the mountains with friends. Drafted on my iPhone while engaged in a conversation & not following the flow. I only play one long time league.

Followed that with a terrible trade between PS4 and WK1. Actually made good pickups during the year but nobody that exploded. Dealt Howard when he had a couple bad games mid-season, then he blew up.

And just flat out bad H2H luck - gave up the most PA, actually would have been 5th in All Play. Instead I finished 9th, worst in 24 years.

Lost in the first round of the Consulation bracket, scored the most points in the league Weeks 15 & 16.

All and all, it was a very humbling experience.

Can't wait for next year!

 
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i need to look at it more closely, but i agree that on the surface it did not seem like a good year for zero RB.  Which suggests to me that next year people may overreact to that and allow WR value and other RB values to fall.

 
Another league I had a great team.....finished 2nd out of 12 in points, trailed the leader by only about 10.

But I finished 7-6.  Every team I lost to scored at least 135 points against me.  Seemed like everyone careered against me.

Made the playoffs and lost to the Bell owner.  Lost only by about 15, and that was due to Brees crapping the bed and Gordon getting injured.

 
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I was listening to a podcast discussing where Cam would be drafted next year, putting him at 6th or 7th QB off the board.  Maybe because I was burned so badly on him I am biased, but that seems crazy.

Sorry to go off track here, but I would take all of the following ahead of Cam next year-

Brady, Ben, Luck, Carr, Dak, Cousins, Rodgers, Ryan, Brees, Wilson...and that's being conservative.  I could see arguments for Mariota, Winston, Stafford and Rivers as well.  
6th or 7th seems about right.  His upside is just too high for him to fall behind half the guys you listed.  Risk is there of course, but someone in your league is taking cam early and hoping for the best.  Heck I'll probably take him after Brady, luck, Rodgers, Brees and Ryan are gone and maybe take a backup a little earlier than I normally would. 

 
For those that sucked, there is hope!  Three years ago lost a heartbreaker in the championship with my highest scoring team of all times, wound up with the 11th pick the following year where everything went against me and despite being third in overall points scored, went 3-10 in the regular season and wound up in the toilet bowl (which I somehow won earning the #1 pick this year).  This year, with the 1 pick wound up scoring 3rd most in the league (although less than my team had scored the previous year) and went 9-3-1 then won three straight games for the championship.  Penthouse doorstep to outhouse to Penthouse.  Oddly the championship team this year was the worst of my three teams over the last three years, but the only one with a trophy...well technically the Toilet Bowl championship does have a trophy.

 
6th or 7th seems about right.  His upside is just too high for him to fall behind half the guys you listed.  Risk is there of course, but someone in your league is taking cam early and hoping for the best.  Heck I'll probably take him after Brady, luck, Rodgers, Brees and Ryan are gone and maybe take a backup a little earlier than I normally would. 
I guess, but how high do you rank someone who can't complete 55% of his passes, and doesn't run that much anymore.

 
I guess, but how high do you rank someone who can't complete 55% of his passes, and doesn't run that much anymore.
353/5 isn't horrible.  Not what we want, and he's not run much since week 10. But some of that is attributable to injury and he was still qb11 in ppg (in my main league anyway).   Where you take players like cam (high risk/reward) is worth discussing, as is what you want from your QB. If you're looking for stability at qb, don't take cam.  If you're looking for the potential to win any given week from one guy, your won't find much better proven potential in the 5th round / qb6 on (I wouldn't take him before that). 

 
My translation. Bad projections on Gurley.  You weren't alone here.  He had a great rookie year on a terrible team.  My take away would be in redraft I would like to see multiple years of success if possible.  Try to avoid overspending on guys on poor offenses.  For Lacy, he got injured.  I don't think he was all that bad prior to that.  Not much of a lesson here other than try to draft the guys that won't get hurt.  That's not in your control.
DJ and Zeke didn't have multi years of success. I passed on both because I wasn't sure what their workload would be. I knew Gurley and Lacy were going to be the primary backs. Sure, there were signs of Gurley's suckage but I thought the Rams might actually improve "some" this year making him more valuable. I was also horribly wrong on Bortles which didn't help my season at all.

 
So this year I drafted one of my better teams in a long time and started the 1st 10 weeks in 1st place and leading in points. Then one by one injuries started happening. I mostly drafted younger players and players that weren't your typical "injury" risk. (other than my QB's, who oddly, lasted all season.)

QB -  A. Luck, D. Watson

RB - A. Kamara, J. Mixon, A. Jones, J. Conner, S. Ware, J.Williams, R. Freeman

WR - A.J Green, M. Jones JR, C.Hogan, C. RIdley, C. Merideth

TE - OJ Howard, J. Reed

I feel like my draft strategy this year worked and I worked the wire picking up several players throughout the season. I was never able to overcome the injuries to my wide receivers this year. This is why no matter your strategy, luck will always play a factor.

 
All my players are soft.  OBJ Allen and Gordon. 

Thielen turned to ####.  

Rodgers is garbage again. 

Mayfield hates Chubb now that he’s getting more credit than him.  

Gronkowski can’t even move pathetic. 

Pats only score TDS. Gostikowski sucks.  

 
My team only lost two games this year. Now it's looking like three. I wouldn't say the team sucked. My luck, on the other hand, REALLY, REALLY sucks. 

 

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