But anyway here we are! And years from now when people are marveling over the great novels written and great albums composed and great technologies innovated during the Covid Pandemic of 2020, I'll be able to say that I forced my friends to gather around their laptops on a Friday night to try to remember the best fake football players of the past twenty years and then spent hours and hours compiling their statistics and writing about it. Without further ado, let's dive in to Week 1!
I assume that if, prior to this draft, you'd asked any of us to name 10 great fantasy players at each position from the past 20 years, we could have easily done so (although my selection of Isaac Bruce late in the draft does cast some doubt on that assumption - I blame gin). The difficulty, of course, lay in selecting the right season. How often have we finished a fantasy season and thought "I could have won this season if only ________ didn't get injured!" Well, this was your chance to right those wrongs with full hindsight, suckers. These two blew it anyway. Cody selected Rob Gronkowski's 2013 campaign in the fourth round of our draft, and he won't be available to play until Week 7. Colly, on the other hand, was able to start all of his players this week injury-free, but for one of them, this will be his last game of the season. Is it a torn ACL? A lisfranc fracture? Nope, it's an indictment on charges of reckless or negligent injury to a minor! Can you guess which Colly franchise cornerstone this will affect?
Anyways, regardless of next week's child abuse charges, Colly couldn't win even at full strength this week because Christian McCaffrey and Terrell Eldorado Owens both exploded out of the gates, fifteen years apart. Oh also Cody has maybe the best fantasy season ever by a quarterback in the QB1 spot, so that doesn't hurt either.
While we're here, have we ever considered whether Cody and Joe played high school lax against each other? This might not be their first face-off.
Trey's team is a case study in capitalizing on Cody and Colly's year selection mistakes. The tree that eventually produced AP's whoopin' switch in 2014 was probably barely a sapling in 2009, so there was nothing to keep him from galloping (remember how this guy used to fucking gallop down the field?) out of the gates in 2009. And of the five Gronkowski seasons selected in our draft, 2015 might be his most injury-free, starting off with a blistering three-touchdown performance. Those two alone provided enough firepower to defeat my haplessly-drafted nostalgia squad.
When I had the idea for this league, one of the things that excited me most was the potential to draft guys who had served me well in the past and re-live those glory seasons of yesteryear, back when I was good at fantasy football (at least in BIFL; I've never been good in NBD). Tops on the list? Michael Turner, who I wrote this loving blog post about many years ago, after picking him up when he was still LDT's backup and keeping him going into his first studly season with the Falcons. The only problem? For this league, I chose him in that LDT backup season. This is a keeper league, right?
Good lord. My memories of the Denver Broncos version of Peyton Manning are of the somewhat hobbled caretaker who rode a dominant defense to the Super Bowl. I totally forgot that Peyton had a few absolutely monstrous seasons in there, including Bardey's '13 season in which he threw for 7(!) touchdowns in Week 1, easily outdoing his 2010 self. He'll go on to throw 48 more over the course of the season, setting the record (by 5!) for most touchdowns in a season. Considering that Bardey drafted him in the eighth round of our draft, I'm guessing you guys forgot about that, too. It's not just the passing game either; I've looked ahead at Priest Holmes and LaDainian Tomlinson's '02 seasons as well. There are a lot of numbers starting with 2s and 3s there. Some 4s as well. I believe we've found our early-season favorite.
The third Manning in this game, Kevin, put up a decent showing, but nothing that could compete with Bardey's week-high score. Kex does bear the distinction of being the only owner to start a lineup composed entirely of players from the 2010's. It seems like a reasonable move, considering that NFL offenses have only been on the upswing for the past ten years. But aughts standouts like '02 Holmes and Tomlinson and the Moss twins are here to remind these young bucks that they are the ones responsible for making fantasy football what it is today.
Every fantasy league needs a shitbag. The guy who basically gives you a win every week by not setting his lineup properly, or making lousy trades, or just being such a loser that the universe shits on his luck year in and year out (see: me, NBD). You would think in a league of owners that were artisanally culled from years of fantasy experiences, drafting players whose outcomes are already determined and known, there could be no such shitbag. And yet I give you: the Covid Fantasy Football Challenge's Ben Dekker. It doesn't really get better from here, folks. The 2002 Kurt Warner is... not the Kurt Warner you're remembering, either for the Rams (too late) or the Cardinals (too soon). The 2011 Chris Johnson is... not CJ2K. Well, he might be the Chris Johnson who gave himself that nickname, but not the one who earned it. Clinton Portis will improve as his rookie season progresses, and LeVeon Bell will return from... suspension? Contract holdout? Injury? I can't remember which Bell semi-season this is. But in general Dekker will need to do some work during the post-Week 4 transaction window to make this team a contender. Beb, on the other hand, was not hurt by homerism as his Texans trio led him to a Week 1 victory. It's interesting to note that these rosters feature both 2016 Antonio Brown (the second-highest scorer in this match-up) and 2016 LeVeon Bell. Performances like this one from Brown, while LeVeon sat out, were the type that gave Steelers fans the impression that AB was the type of high character guy you build a franchise around whereas LeVeon was just another highly-paid diva. Whoops!
To his credit, Souts has never engaged in the rampant, bigoted Burke-bashing that goes on over in the Cluj FBB league, so it's a little ironic that his first two matchups in the CFFC come against two staunch Burkeites (he takes on Elliott in Week 2). It may also finally drive him into the anti-Burke camp, because despite some strong performances, he lost in a barnburner to Screen. Andy's team has a nice balance of youth and experience, as his high scorers were likely the youngest and the oldest players in our whole league, Lamar Jackson and Marshall Faulk. (I'm aware that Kurt Warner is probably older than Marshall Faulk. There might be some guys younger than Lamar, too; grant me some narrative license ok?) Those two, along with AJ Green (now destined to be forever thought of as "Oh yeah! AJ Green. Forgot about that guy.") proved enough to stave off a voracious Week 1 Alvin Kamara and a well-balanced attack out of Hell's Kitchen.
I'm guessing that none of us were playing fantasy football back in 2000, so you might remember Marshall Faulk being awesome and being part of the Greatest Show on Turf, but you probably aren't familiar with his fantasy numbers. Let me tell you, there are some big numbers coming up. Dude was no joke before he put on a suit to become an NFL Network talking head.
While all of us are certainly feeling the absence of sports in our lives (FUUUUUCK I just realized that we should be in like round 2 of the NBA playoffs right now), probably the hardest hit are those who rely on sports gambling for part (or all) of their income. So I'm glad we could give DeYoung this opportunity to flex his sports knowledge muscles and maybe pull in a little cash if he can win it all. Judging by this week, though, that's not in the cards; and it might be a good thing that there's nothing for him to put money on right now. Not one of Deezer's running backs or wide receivers managed to make it into double figures. That won't last forever (Alexander and Tomlinson will both break out after slow starts), but I do think 2017 might be the year that Julio Jones put up a ton of yardage every week but couldn't find the end zone.
Meanwhile, Elliott is riding high off the fact that I made a homer pick for him, taking LJ '05 in the first round, without remembering just how good he was that year. After this strong Week 1, there's a bit of a dry spell, but if Elliott is still in the hunt during playoff season (are we doing playoffs? I haven't actually thought that far ahead yet), LJ will be carrying this team. Along with his more recent vintage running back (Christian McCaffrey) that will be a two-headed monster that's tough to take down.
Standings After Week 1:
On to Week 2! Stay healthy and sane!
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