Luke Basha’s fantasy football column: five things I learned this season
Read the label: There is a saying in economics, “past performance is no indicator of future results.” Just because your stock sailed 400 percent over the past year doesn’t mean that it will continue to do so next year.
This holds true for many aspects of fantasy football, but not as much so when it comes to players with a history of injuries. The simple science of the matter is that a leg that was broken in the past is likely to be broken again (although it is unlikely to break along that exact fracture, but that’s science not fantasy).
Seasoned players can tell you a list of injury prone players that they would never touch with a ten foot pole. But many justify the risk, studs like Jamaal Charles and Arian Foster are known to get banged up but still carry such potential when healthy that players will pull the trigger. Of course, Darren McFadden used to be the poster boy for an injury waiting to happen, and he nearly broke 1,000 yards rushing this season.
Rob Gronkowski, Le’Veon Bell, Tony Romo, Andre Ellington, and Keenan Allen are all players that had missed extensive playing time in previous seasons and experienced similar injuries this year. On a related note, it’s worth mentioning that all the punishment that an NFL running back takes throughout the course of a year adds up. DeMarco Murray led the league in carries in 2014 and we all know how that turned out. Inversely, Adrian Peterson sat out last season and was one of the consensus top-10 picks to avoid a serious injury.
…But you can still get sick even if you’re careful: You can drive as carefully as you want, but it’s still possible that you could be blindsided by a big rig. That’s what happened to owners who drafted guys like Alshon Jeffrey, Eddie Lacy, Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning, C.J. Anderson, Dez Bryant, and Jeremy Hill. There isn’t much analysis that I can give here. To loosely quote your high-school English teacher, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
Revenge of the tight end: It used to be a mere dart throw. Unless you had Gronkowski or Jimmy Graham, you merely crossed your fingers and were happy when your tight end grabbed 60 yards or a 1-yard score. Similarly, we used to be only slightly disappointed if the tight end position only brought home four or fewer points. Such were our expectations. It was truly the Haves (Gronk and Graham) vs. the Have-Nots.
Those days seem to be gone for now. The position is deeper than it has been in the past few years. Greg Olsen, Tyler Eifert, Gary Barnidge, Jordan Reed, and hometown hero Ben Watson all were able to (more or less) contribute consistent, solid production. Yes Travis Kelce failed to live up to his preseason hype, but this season you actually had to scout out your opponent’s tight end before deciding if you were scared or not.
Side note, anyone remember the Josh Hill hype? Oh man were we wrong, thanks in part to Watson.
Quarterbacks are back, back again: The resurgence of tight ends is certainly big news. Let’s not diminish that. But equally interesting, quarterbacks dethroned running backs as the top scorers in fantasy.
Last year, a championship could be won with middle-tier QBs while studs like Jamaal Charles, Jeremy Hill and Eddie Lacy scored the lion’s share of a championship team’s points. In fact, relatively few ESPN 2014-2015 championships were won by teams helmed by one of the three highest drafted QBs.
This year did experience the collapse of Andrew Luck, Tony Romo, and Peyton Manning and a down year for Aaron Rodgers, but the rising tide seemed to lift all boats. Signal-callers like Blake Bortles and Kirk Cousins were nowhere to be found on anyone’s preseason rankings and they put up (cue Donald Trump voice) “huuuuuuuuuuuge” performances.
Carson Palmer was generally regarded as a “meh” fantasy prospect, mostly due to his injury concerns, and he made an honest run at the league MVP and became a regular fantasy starter. Drew Brees led the league in passing yards for the umpteenth time. Eli Manning had “Good Eli” and “Bad Eli” days for sure, but the former seemed to outweigh the latter. Russell Wilson redefined himself and became a monster from the pocket in a sans-Marshawn Lynch Seahawks offense.
Heck, Andy Dalton was a top-3 QB at one point. And of course, Tom Brady and Cam Newton had their way with opponents on a weekly basis.
Of course, there were disappointments too. Ryan Tannehill, Teddy Bridgewater, Johnny Manziel, and Sam Bradford failed to live up to the hype. All this to say, my strategy next season is to take an upper-middle tier QB around the fourth or fifth round and then another two QBs in the closing rounds. If last year repeats itself, two of the three will likely perform well and the other will collapse.
I also feel like I owe it to you all to report my final records for the season. I’m no expert, just a guy that plays in five leagues and reads an unhealthy amount of other fantasy football articles.
▪ 7-6, finished in fourth place (eight teams)
▪ 6-7, finished in seventh place (10)
▪ 12-1, finished in first place (10)
▪ 12-1, finished in first place (10)
▪ 7-6, finished in seventh place (16)
An overall even year, but I’ll take two championships out of five leagues.
I hope you enjoyed the 2015-2016 fantasy season as much as I did. Carry on and #KeepPounding.
This story was originally published January 6, 2016 at 7:36 PM with the headline "Luke Basha’s fantasy football column: five things I learned this season."