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| This is the regular season crown. Who deserves it? |
As it has been all season, the competition for the top spot
in my playoff power ranks comes down to a close call between the top 2 teams.
Adam and I both earned byes in the first round and each only need to win 2
games to win the championship. I finished with a 10-3 record while Adam
finished 8-5, although he DID have more points scored. Am I upset I didn’t win the scoring title
this year? Yes. Am I surprised? Sort of.
I knew the only team that had a chance to beat me was Adam, and we had been going
back and forth all season. Each week it seemed like one or the other of us
would reclaim the points lead. How did I lose in the end? Well the last 3 weeks
of the season Adam outscored me 452-374. While I am not happy this happened, I
cannot say I’m not surprised. Continuing a trend that hurt me all year, I
traded FOR a few studs that had yet to have their bye. I knew I could afford to
bench these stars because of my position in the standings. For example, I
traded FOR T rich on his bye week and had to leave him on my bench . I also
traded for AP and Percy on their bye weeks. (Don’t get me started about Percy,
who suffered a season ending injury before I traded for him, but no one knew it
would be so serious. Lame.) Anyway my point is even though I finished 2nd
in the total points for, I think a large part of that was the trading trend I
set all season of acquiring a stud by convincing the other owner they could not
afford to bench their stud for the bye week, but I could. To further illustrate
my point, ALL these guys were on my roster during THEIR bye week, so even
though my team was laced with studs every week I couldn't necessarily start
them.
Roddy White (7)
Arian Foster (8)
Wes Welker (9)
Aaron Hernandez (9)
Trent Richardson (10)
Aaron Rodgers (10)
Jordy Nelson (10)
AP (11)
Percy (11)
Comparably, here are the bye weeks Adam’s team had to deal
with:
Victor Cruz (11)
RG3 (10)
AJ Green (8)
Demarco Murray (5)
As you can see my team was severely limited in Weeks 9, 10,
and 11 when I lost most of my ground to Adam. This is because I took on a lot
of “risk” by trading for guys during their bye weeks. Adam did a nice job of
avoiding bye weeks with some of his major players, most notably Ray Rice.
Anyway let’s do some more comparison between the top 2
teams.
QB- Aaron Rodgers VS RG3
It’s no surprise that Rodgers is amongst the fantasy leaders
at QB this season, although he has cooled down as of late. Conversely, RG3 has heated
up in the past few weeks and has continued his dominant rookie season. Look,
both these guys are studs. Both have high ceilings and both have very low
floors. It’s nearly impossible to give an advantage to either team here, but
gun to my head I’ll take Rodgers. Let’s not forget RG3 is still a rookie (and
there is still 25% of the NFL season remaining, traditionally about the time
rookie’s start to hit the “rookie wall”) and because of his running ability, he
is at a much higher risk of injury than Rodgers. In week 15 & 16 RG3 plays @CLE and @PHI
while Rodgers plays @CHI and vsTEN. I am
encouraged about the news of Brian Urlacher missing the next few Bears games… I’ll
admit that even I was a little nervous with Rodgers vs CHI in week 15 because
back in week 2 he only put up 10 fantasy points but I see NO WAY that happens
again, especially with the loss of Brian Urlacher.
Arian Foster, Adrian Peterson, Mikel Leshoure
VS
Doug
Martin, Jamaal Charles, and Demarco Murray
AP and Arian Foster are 1 and 1a when it comes to fantasy
running backs (no disrespect to Ray Rice, who in my opinion is a shade behind
these 2). The fact that I have BOTH monsters on my team is crazy. I am a little
worried about Foster being sat in Week 16 due to early clinching scenarios for
the Texans, but in case that happens I DO have Ben Tate who should fill in
nicely and probably perform equal to Foster. Worst case scenario is the Texans don’t
officially clinch and they split carries between the Foster and Tate. AP is a
stud and the leading fantasy RB this year. If you take out the 1st 2
weeks of the season he is ahead of everyone by a wide margin. Doug Martin has
been a very, very nice addition for Adam. Basically I traded him Dougie Fresh
and $$ sandwiches for Trent Richardson. I then flipped Trent to get AP. Of
course, the week I traded Martin he blew up for 67 fantasy points and that
performance alone pretty much won Adam the scoring total. JC in KC is a dynamic
back who is reliable. He just is. He can get only 12 touches and turn it into
150 yards easily. The only knock on JC is he plays is such a bad offense that
who knows if he can get it going. Sometimes the coach doesn’t get him the ball
and he gets cold on the sideline. I don’t
exoect that to happen, but I am encouraged that Peyton Hillis gets all the goal
line looks. JC’s fantasy value is somewhat limited because of the low TD total,
but it only takes one play for him to bust a 70 yard TD. Demarco Murray is the
X factor here. He has been out for weeks but recently made a return. This guy
is a game changer and if he is healthy come Week 15 and 16, Adam is going to
feast. Overall, though, it would be irresponsible to not give my team the
advantage at RB. It isn’t a large one, but I’ll go to war with Foster and AP
anytime.
WR
Roddy White,Demaryious Thomas, Josh Gordon
VS
Victor
Cruz, AJ Green, Stevie Johnson/Danrio Alexander
Another close, close position battle. Roddy White and Victor
Cruz are the same player. Both see a lot of volume of passes, both have HUGE
games sometimes, and both are go to receivers in high powered offenses. AJ
Green and Demaryious Thomas are also comparable. Green has the better numbers
thus far, he was a TD machine the first 10 weeks of the season. Green has
slowed down a bit as of late, I don’t necessarily think that will keep up, but
it is something to keep an eye on. A couple weeks ago I know the Raiders just
refused to get beat by him and had him double teamed in the redzone. They shut
him down. (Well, kinda. They held him to 3 catches and 0 TDs but he DID catch a
long gainer for 111 yards total.) On the other hand you have Demaryious Thomas.
This guy is an animal and it’s no surprise that he has continued to get better
as the season grows and Peyton Manning gets more comfortable with him. At the
beginning of the season Decker and Thomas were splitting the looks from
Manning, but over the past month it’s been all Thomas all the time. If you agree with me and think Roddy/Thomas cancel
out Cruz/Green, then the deciding players in this section are Josh Gordon vs
Stevie Johnson/Danario Alexander. I SHOULD have Percy listed here too but that tragedy
can be saved for another day. I like Gordon a lot but I also like Alexander.
Both of these guys were mid-season pick ups and Gordon has gone from practice squad
to deep-threat starter in a matter of weeks. The confidence Brandon Weeden has
in him make me feel great about owning and starting him. Alexander is the new
go-to guy for Philip Rivers. He kinda came out of nowhere so judos for Adam for
picking him up. I’m not a huge fan of Stevie Johnson so I’m not even going to
waste time and write about him. Basically after this entire paragraph I can’t
make up my mind about which WR trio I would rather have for the playoffs. My
guys have slightly better matchups, but all these guys are matchup proof so I’m
calling it dead even.
TE- Aaron Hernandez vs Brandon Meyers
This one is probably closer than most people think, Brandon
Meyers is an integral part of the Raiders offense. He had a ridiculous performance
recently, although 80% of his 35 points last week came on a trash time drive at
the very end. Yes, that still counts, but without that drive he played like
shit. Aaron Hernandez is going to be leaned on heavily through the next few
weeks, especially because Gronk is out with an injury. I expect Hernandez to
put up huge numbers, especially with the tough run Defenses the Pats are about
to face. Jimmy Graham is the ONLY tight end I would rather have than Hernandez.
T Gonz is close but I’ll take Hernandez. Clear advantage for me here over Adam.
Anyway when it’s all said and done both these teams are
deserving of a Fantasy Championship. It wouldn’t surprise me if Adam beat me or
if I beat Adam, I just hope we get the chance to face off against each other in
a re-match of the 2010 Championship. These have clearly been the best 2 teams
all season, I made a note of it back in Week 2 of my power ranks that I thought
Adam and my team were head and shoulders above everyone else and I was right.
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