NBD - Season in Review Pt. 1

Well, boys, old Commandant Lassard has safely steered the good ship NBD through another regular season, and as the playoff fun commences, it's time to take a look back at how each team fared during the 2010 campaign. I've been lamentably spotty in my dedication to the blog this year, but I'm hoping that this series of posts will fill in some of the gaps and serve as a catch-all snapshot of each team's season. With that in mind, we'll be looking at several key areas: The Draft in Hindsight will take a look back at the draft results considering what we knew then and what we know now. Key Transactions will examine each team's most important moves on the waiver wire as well as assessing the results of trades. Crucial Victories/Crushing Defeats will identify the games that made or broke your team. The Playoff Run will recap recent results, essentially taking the place of the game summaries I never wrote for Weeks 11-13 and the playoffs (if applicable). And What the Future Holds will peer into the crystal ball of keeper possibilities. Sound like a lot? I'm sure it will be. I can't wait to write it.


Ray~The Buck Stops Here (1-12 / 1,144 pts / 12th Place)
The Draft in Hindsight
To look at this draft, or this roster, brings absolute stupification as to how this team could go 1-12. Granted, Ray came in with a pretty bare cupboard in terms of keepers: a mediocre tight end, John Carlson (11th rd), and a potential flex RB, Carnell Williams (15th), are decent additions to a team, but they're obviously not a foundation. But the players Ray got in the draft could have been a foundation. Frank Gore (1st rd) is not quite elite, but I've seen teams make the playoffs (much less win two games) with less. Anquan Boldin (3rd) has been solid, with a few spectacular weeks thrown in. Terrell Owens (6th) was surprisingly effective, especially mid-season. And a trio of Buck-Stoppers - Tom Brady (2nd), Wes Welker (4th), and Matt Cassel (9th) - have been among the hottest players in fantasy over the last month. It all sounds so right, yet went so wrong. Why? Well, bad luck certainly plays a part. Much has been made of the fact that Ray averaged nearly as many points scored per game as our regular season champ while averaging nearly 18 points per game more scored against him. I can't argue with those statistics. But I think the real culprit here is a shocker: this team was too consistent. Doesn't seem like that should be a problem, does it? But most fantasy squads have big weeks when they win - breaking 100 usually does it - and ugly weeks when they lose, posting embarrassing totals in the 50s or 60s. Those fluctuations never really happened for the Buck Stops Here. From Weeks 6-11, every score was in the 80s. Other than their explosions in Weeks 2 and Week 3 (the latter bringing the season's only victory), the total range of scoring was 27 points. Compare that to a playoff team like Sex with a Pharaoh, which at one point posted a 157-point game and followed it up two weeks later with a 50-point stinker. We all know that Ray's been learning the fantasy game for the past few years: perhaps he learned the need for consistency too well to have a dominant team this year?

Key Transactions
This is one area where I can't help but feeling that Ray is still learning. Only the one-foot-out-the-door Koehler was less active than Buck Stops Here on the waiver wire this year, and their major expenditure (Brian Westbrook, $50) was a late-season stop-gap measure to replace the injured Frank Gore, long after playoff hopes had disappeared. No other BSH acquisitions can be said to have been impactful. A look at some of these pick-ups like Chester Taylor (10/30) and Tim Hightower (11/18) reveal an over-reliance on pre-season magazine information that has long outworn it's fantasy usefulness after the first couple weeks of the season, much less October and November. Perhaps it's not surprising that our eldest member would be less up-to-date on his fantasy research than the rest of us, but you would hope that a man who can use the internet to find his latest multi-thousand-dollar bicycle or a great deal on a pair of flip-flops would be able to navigate his way to Yahoo's weekly pick-up suggestions or ESPN's Talented Mister Roto.

Crucial Victories and Crushing Defeats
Well obviously there's not a lot to choose from in terms of Crucial Victories, but let's at least take a moment to acknowledge that lone win. It came in Week 3, when Ray utterly decimated Papkin, 132 - 55. That was Anquan Boldin's week, scoring a season-best 32 points. And in addition to the usual excellence of Brady (22) and Gore (15), bit players like C.J. Spiller (16) and Carlson (12) looked like they might be a part of a big season. Sadly, neither reached double-figures again, but their efforts back in Week 3 would earn Ray Classic Soul Jam honors and $20, at least.
As far as Crushing Defeats, there are quite a few to choose from, but three of them stand out, two of which came at the hands of Joe Colly. Emblematic of the Buck-Stoppers season as a whole, Weeks 2 and 13 saw Ray post two of his highest point totals (113 and 92) and still fall well short of beating his opponent. Of the 1,348 points scored against Ray this season, over 20% came from Colly. Why you gotta hate my dad, Joe? Perhaps the only defeat more crushing than those blowouts may have been the Week 7 squeaker where the Wild Stallions topped the Buck Stops Here by a mere .28 points. Another couple steps on a Frank Gore run, another Brady-to-Welker completion, another Steelers tackle are all it would have taken, but Ray's squad never quite got there. Multiply that by 12, and you've got the story of a lost season right there.

The Playoff Run
...is certainly not an accurate name for this portion of Ray's write-up. "The Lottery Run" might be more accurate. But I digress: the point is to re-cap the end of the Buck Stops Here season.
In Week 11, even the most dependable of Buck-Stoppers failed to show up. Frank Gore's last pre-injury performance was a bust (6); Anquan Boldin did next to nothing (1), matching teammate John Carlson (1). Et tu, Carlson? Matt Cassel (15) and Terrell Owens (12) had decent days, but were of little significance in the face of Matt Ryan Loves Dogs' Ben Roethlisberger, Dwayne Bowe, Michael Turner, and Cedric Benson, who powered their team to a 107 - 80 victory.
If BSH's streak of 80-something scores had continued into Week 12, they would have gained their second win over an Emailarrhea team that only managed 75 points. Unfortunately, they chose that week to end their streak, and it wasn't by scoring more than 80-something. With Matt Cassel (28) and Wes Welker (21) blowing up, you'd think they were well on their way to a win. But the rest of the team did just about jackshit, combining for only 19 points between them. Carlson (0), Tim Hightower (0), T.O. (2) and Boldin (2) weren't asked for much, and provided even less. For shame, gentlemen. For shame.
Week 13 brought about BSH's last chance to add to that solitary single regular season win, and the squad stepped up, posting their highest point total (92) since Week 3. No single Buck-Stopper was outstanding, but many were good despite the absence of team leader Frank Gore, lost for the season the week before. Anquan Boldin (17) made up for his stinkers of the previous two weeks. Tashard Choice (16) proved himself a valuable pick-up. Wes Welker (14) continued his late-season success. It all sounds like the ingredients of a feel-good last-week redemption for Ray-Ray. Unfortunately, his opponent held no such sentimentality, despite a well-known fondness for baby pandas. Colly's Sex With a Pharaoh continued their domination of the elder Tarasovic by dropping 123 points on him and burying the team's hopes of erasing that 1 at the front end of the record.
And of course, because the Fantasy Gods are endlessly entertained by cruel ironies, Buck Stops Here managed to finally win in the utterly meaningless first round of the Consolation Playoffs Bracket, with big days from Brady (23), Brian Westbrook (17), and the Pittsburgh Defense (25).

What the Future Holds
Hopefully, the future holds some karma for Ray. Though his team was not full of incredible talent or wonderfully managed this year, they deserved way more than one win. That karmatic comeback should include a high draft pick next year, with Ray holding more names in the hat than anyone else. There are also some potentially valuable keepers in the stable with Wes Welker (4th) and Matt Cassel (9th) playing so well over the second half of this season. Nothing I've seen from C.J. Spiller has indicated that he'll be the starter in Buffalo next season, but if Fred Jackson somehow moves on, Spiller could see some definite value in the 5th. So the potential for a strong Buck Stops Here team is there in 2011, just so long as the Chief doesn't commit fantasy suicide before we get there.

Sovic~McClusterfuck (5-8 / 1,019 pts / 11th Place)
The Draft in Hindsight
When people are asking you, as they asked me, if your keepers are "some kind of joke" on draft day, that's probably not a good sign. And I never imagined that Laurence Maroney, Mario Manningham, and Bernard Scott were going to be the nucleus of my team, but I did think that in the 13th, 14th, and 15th rounds they might have some worth. Only in Manningham's case did that prove to be true. Left to build a team entirely through the draft, I found myself panicking at the end of the first round with many quality options off the board and needing to hit a home run. Despite my normal belief that good quarterbacks can be found late in the draft, I used that pick on Drew Brees, hoping that he would post one of those statistical anomaly seasons that can win a league like Manning in '06, Brady in '07, or, well, Brees the last two seasons. I paired him with Shonn Greene (2nd), who had been a beast through the playoffs last season and looked to be taking on the primary ball-carrying responsibilities of one of the best rushing teams in the league. Well, neither of those things happened, of course, and the rest of my draft was a similar run of swinging for the fences and whiffing big-time. Felix Jones (4th) was another high-ceiling running back who never really got off the floor. Kenny Britt (5th) did have one enormous fantasy week, but that was long after I'd dropped him from my roster for being a shitter early on. Santonio Holmes (6th) has been good, but it took him five weeks just to see the field, and a few more before he regained his fantasy form. Really the only draft picks that can be said to have gone well for me were Zach Miller (7th) and Austin Collie (9th), but both those guys have spent tons of time on the inactive list, leading to major inconsistency for the McClusterfuck.

Key Transactions
Sometimes looking back at the league transactions is just funny. For example, my biggest expenditure on the waiver wire this season was back on September 15th, when I acquired Fred Taylor for $12. Can anyone remember Fred Taylor even playing this season, much less playing at a level that was fantasy-viable, much less being on my team? I can't; but then again I've also got the memory of a peanut. That's why I like writing these things down. Anyways, besides the blockbuster acquisition of Fragile Freddy, the other big early-season move for the McClusterfuck was this season's lone trade (excluding the draft day Fasano-Green Bay Defense agreement) wherein I sent Brees to Haller's team in exchange for Matt Forte and Matt Ryan. This may be one of those oft-spoken-of but rarely executed trades in which both teams benefit. With Greene and Jones heinously underperforming, I was desperate for RB help, and my only real trade chip was Brees. Haller had a surfeit of startable backs with LeSean McCoy, Ray Rice, Joe Addai, and Forte in the stable and wanted an upgrade at QB. He got what he wanted in Brees, I got a RB who gave my team some stability at the position, and replaced Brees with Ryan, who hasn't been as good as DB but has provided a slightly faded facsimile of his production.
The other big acquisition for me this season was LeGarrette Blount (10/27, $11), who took a little time to claim the starting job in Tampa Bay, but has had some very solid outings since. Blount's greatest value to me probably wasn't this season, but will be discussed in What the Future Holds.

Crucial Victories and Crushing Defeats
My team did not score a lot of points this season. In fact, we scored less points than any other team in the league. I had a pair of cheap wins in the early part of the season with 76 and 66 points, and since I finished in 11th, it's hard to call any of my wins "crucial." But the win I can be proudest of is my Week 3 victory over Haller (who is really factoring in largely to my season in review) and his Cutler Crushes Cavalleri crew. This was a tight game, decided by less than three points (103 - 100) that wasn't settled until Monday night. It also represented my high score of the season and lone venture north of the 100-point mark. After the victory I was 2-1, Austin Collie (29 that week) was the best receiver in football, and the fantasy world looked like my fantasy oyster. Alas, the joy would not last for long as I would only win three more games the rest of the season.
Sometimes a defeat is crushing because it comes down to the wire. Sometimes it's crushing because it comes against a hated opponent. Sometimes it's crushing because it would have been a winning score in most other circumstances. My crushing defeat is none of these: it's my Week 9 loss to the Wild Stallions, 94 - 44. This loss was crushing because it drove home just how aful my team was. At that point in the season, we were 4-4, still very much alive in the playoff hunt, but were just coming off our lowest output (51 pts in Week 8) of the year. Looking for a bounce-back effort, I instead got an absolute turd from my boys. With the amount of time I put into fantasy every year (and admittedly, this year I've been less vigilant than in the past, but still pretty dedicated), I somehow imagine I should be immune from ugly outings like this. But in Week 9, my players barely put anything on the board, and two of them (Austin Collie and the Seattle Defense) actually took points off the board. I've won three of the past four championships in the BIFL league. I'm practically a lock to be in the playoffs in the Uberleague. Why is it that in the league I commissionerate I suck year after year? Very frustrating.

The Playoff Run
...saw me running in the opposite direction from the playoffs. Due to our crazy parity, it took a while for me to be completely eliminated from playoff potential, but three straight losses in the final three weeks of the season pretty much seals it. None of the games was a complete embarrassment like the one outlined above. In Week 11, for example, I got strong showings from Santonio Holmes (25), Matt Ryan (21), and Matt Forte (16), but the rest of the squad was mediocre-to-poor, and Michael Toobin's squad was not, soundly defeating me 106 - 84.
Week 12 saw a similar McClusterfuck score (85) and an even bigger opponent total (Woody's Warriors with 113). My high scorer for the week was my kicker, which is never a good sign, but to be fair Nate Kaeding's 19 is pretty impressive. Again, though, across-the-board decency couldn't compete with the Warriors big guns: Jay Cutler (28), the Jets' D (21), and Mike Goodson (20).
Though I didn't realize at the time that it would be his last game in the league, something in my gut told me I should give Koehler a win in Week 13. Santana Moss (2), Rob Gronkowski (1), and Mario Manningham (4) happily obliged, and though I pretended to put up a good show with my running backs combining for 32 points, in fact I was handing over one final victory to MRLD. Congrats and good bye, Koehler.

What the Future Holds
As alluded to earlier, I'm pretty psyched about my ability to keep LeGarrette Blount in the 15th round next year. I don't have any delusions that Blount will be the cornerstone of a championship team, but for Dock War/Zed Mervis/the Death Panel/McClusterfuck, having a potential Flex/RB2 keepable at the end of the draft is a huge step. Fellow waiver wire acquisition Seattle Mike Williams will also receive keeper consideration as an unspectacular but good-value possibility. Of my drafted players, Santonio Holmes (6th) could earn himself a keep if he continues his solid play and manages to not get suspended for the first four games of next season. Zach Miller (7th) and Austin Collie (9th) have also showed flashes of brilliance this year, but need to prove they can stay healthy before I'll waste a keeper spot on them. I'm not holding out any hope that the fantasy gods will bless me with a high draft pick next year, despite the fact that I'll have the second-most names in the hat, so I assume that I'll be building from the back end of the draft once again. Ever onward.

Sweet shit it took me like two weeks to write those two summaries. Now that I'm started, though, I'm determined to finish. It may be 2011 by the time I get there, but the remaining 2010 team write-ups are forthcoming.