7. Josh
When I was a kid, I used to love to watch Bewitched on Nick at Nite.
For those of you who've never heard of it, Betwitched was a show about an upwardly mobile ad man who comes up with clever advertising slogans in order to climb the corporate ladder despite the hijinks caused by his wife, Samantha, and her quirky family. Also, his wife is a witch or something. I don't know what it was about that show, but personally I found it fascinating and to this day very relatable.
That is until Season 6 when the show's hero Darrin, played by the inimitable Dick York, was replaced by another actor, Dick Sargent. A second Darrin? Who was this imposter? After five seasons of the Darrin everyone had come to know and love, they replaced him with some schlub and hoped the rest of us wouldn't notice.
It's no surprise the show only lasted three more years.
But over the years, I've come to realize that Bewitched is not alone in replacing one of its star actors. Famously, Rosanne's oldest daughter Becky was played by both Lecy Goranson and Sarah Chalke on Roseanne. Maggie Gyllenhall replaced Katie Holmes in The Dark Knight. There were two Aunt Vivs on The Fresh Prince. Two Dumbledores. Three Mountains on Game of Thrones. And even two Chris Partridges in a pear tree! (Yes, they fired the youngest boy in The Partridge Family after Season 1 reportedly due to a "personality conflict" between 10-year-old Jeremy Gelbwaks and the rest of the cast. Harsh.)
And while often the newcomer struggles to recapture the magic of the original, sometimes the replacement is so good, it makes you forget about the actor who came before. Such was the case with Linda Purl, the actress who replaced Shannon Cochran, as Pam's mom on The Office. Here they are pictured below.
The character's first appearance came in Season 2 in an episode titled "Sexual Harassment" in which Cochran as Helene Beesly visits the office indiscreetly asking Pam, "So, which one is Jim?" Later, when she reappears in "Niagara" at Jim and Pam's wedding in Season 6, she's played by Purl. Shortly after, the character is later revealed to be Michael's new girlfriend in "The Lover," only to have Michael break up with her on her birthday two episodes later when he finds out she's 58 years old. "I am not robbing the cradle," he says. "If anything I am robbing the grave."
Whereas Cochran was wallpaper that softly fell off into the background of the show, Purl was a central storyline to the show at least for several episodes. Her performance was clearly an improvement over her predecessor.
In the case of Josh, I think it's safe to say we have another Helene Beesly on our hands.
It may be hard to remember a time when Josh was not in the league—so good has his performance been—but such were the early days of The Worst League from 2011-2013.
Like Shannon Cochran in Season 2 of The Office, the two previous team owners who occupied his spot played little more than a bit role to the overriding action of the league. Previous team owners Jackie LaPenta (2011) and Adan Miranda (2012-13) both failed to make the playoffs, winning a combined 14 games in three seasons. Neither managed to finish within the top-5 of the final Power Rankings. (Though Adan does hold the record for the most ties in a single season with two, finishing 4-7-2 in 2013.)
But the league really got a shot in the arm with the addition of Josh in 2014. (Or should I say Season 4?) In Josh's inaugural season, he announced his presence with immediate success, going 9-3-1 with a TW% of .566, which placed him second in the standings and fourth in the final Power Rankings. Both were good enough to catapult him to the playoffs where he ultimately finished fourth, losing to eventual champion Jess and then Gray in the consolation game. He responded with another solid season in 2015, this time with eight wins again making the playoffs and finishing fourth, but once again losing to the eventual champion (Alex, this time) and then Gray in the consolation game. Regardless, he won more games (17) in two seasons than his predecessors had won (14) in the three seasons prior.
But after two seasons of primetime production in the top-4 of the Power Rankings, Josh has struggled in recent years. From 2014-15, his first two years in the league, he ranked second in wins (17), third in TW% (.568) and third in points (90.8 ppg). But in the two years that have followed, he's ranked seventh in wins (12), ninth in TW% (.453) and ninth in points (82.0 ppg). How do we explain his recent downturn? Perhaps it was due in part to the fact that after two years of drafting from the middle of the pack, Josh has had to draft from the 11th position each of the last two years. (Or maybe it was just Endora.)
Still he's never won fewer than 6 games in a season. All-time he ranks fifth by TW% (.510) and fifth by points (86.4)—both marks rank right around the league average, which after two solid seasons and two subpar seasons makes a lot of sense. And if we look at his playoff appearances as a percentage of his total seasons, his 50% rate of making the playoffs ranks third in the league, trailing only Gray and Greco.
This season, Josh no doubt hopes to return to his earlier form. And that starts with the draft. Unfortunately for Josh, the draft is historically not his strong suit. For his career, he ranks as the eighth-best drafter as measured by VBD and has presided over two of the bottom-10 drafts in the modern era.
In fact, over the last four seasons, he's only had one good draft, which would be his first season. His 2014 draft ranks eighth all-time (out of 48 drafts) in large part due to a solid first five picks. Those picks included Marshawn Lynch, Julio Jones, Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman. Of course, three of those four would go on to feature heavily in the outcome of Super Bowl XLIX later that year. Though for Lynch, one could argue not heavily enough. (Sorry, Josh.) In addition to those early picks, rookie RB Jeremy Hill also delivered top-13 value all the way back in the eighth round. If not for Jess' superior draft that year, Josh might have won a championship in his first season.
But Josh's second year in the league really shows his strength as someone who does his best work after the draft. In 2015, Josh had his worst draft ever, failing to draft a single player that exceeded the value at which he was selected with each of his first eight picks. In other words, eight bad picks in a row. His best drafted players were Matt Forte, Randall Cobb, Julian Edelman, Martavis Bryant, Jason Witten and Ryan Tannehill. Not exactly murderers row. Despite that, he went on to average 91.1 ppg, finish 8-5 and make the playoffs.
How'd he do it? Largely through trade. There was the post-draft swap of Matt Forte for DeMarco Murray with JT, who I believe auto-drafted his first pick and wanted no part of the Dallas-Cowboy-turned-Philadelphia-Eagle. That trade was largely a wash. But in Week 5, Josh traded away Pierre Garcon and Stevie Johnson to Trevor for Russell Wilson. While Garcon and Johnson would finish as the 69th and 123rd ranked players by VBD, Russell Wilson would finish as the the 29th overall player by VBD. Meanwhile Jeremy Langford and James Jones were terrific free agent pickups with multiple 20+ point games.
That season, Josh's primary source of points was the draft. But only by a narrow margin. Approximately, 48.3% of his points came from players he acquired after draft day, which compares to the league average of 23.8%. That ranks fifth-most all-time, indicating a much greater reliance on free agency and especially trade. His 274 points from players he traded for ranks second-most in a season all-time. It's only surpassed by my 2015 in which I traded away nearly my entire team with a league-record seven trades. For reference, last year the league had six trades total.
But beyond 2015, Josh has continued to feast on the waiver, manufacturing points throughout the season. For his career, Josh gets 27.0% of his points from free agency and 7.1% of his points from trade, which ranks second and third-most, respectively. In fact, in just four seasons, Josh has more points from free agency (1,214) than Nick and Greco have combined (1,177) over seven seasons. Now, that's impressive.
Despite his prowess as an in-season manager of talent, I'm sure Josh is hoping to reverse his recent trend of subpar drafts. Sure, it's fun to make trades and scout the waiver wire, but it's a lot more fun when you have assets to play with and are not faced with the prospect of immediately digging yourself out of a hole. Believe me, I know.
So what trends can we observe from Josh's drafting behavior?
If we look at the draft bias statistic, most glaring is the fact that Josh waits on QB more than any other owner. He has a strong aversion to drafting the QB position early with a much greater preference placed on RBs and WRs, for which his bias ranks first and fourth respectively compared to other owners.
In each of the last four years, he's selected QBs between the seventh and ninth rounds. And in every case, he's been one of the last four people to draft a QB. Last year, he was the last, selecting Ben Roethlisberger with the 107th pick. One owner (Terryn) even selected two QBs before Josh drafted his first.
The names are also striking—Ben Roethlisberger, Carson Palmer, Ryan Tannehill and Matt Ryan. With apologies to Roethlisberger and Ryan, those are not elite guys, which further demonstrates that Josh is not afraid to wait on QB and figure it out later. As evidenced in all but 2016, the QB he drafted first was not the one with which he finished the season, finding suitable replacements whether through free agency (Alex Smith in 2017) or trade (Russell Wilson in 2015). And in 2014, it was a backup QB (Philip Rivers) that he drafted four rounds later who outperformed his Day-1 starter.
The result of his preference to wait on QB is that he spends most of his early picks rotating between RBs and pass-catchers, whether WRs or a TE. Here's a look at Josh's first ten draft picks by position each of the last four years:
17: WR-RB-RB-WR-RB-TE-WR-RB-QB-WR
16: RB-WR-RB-WR-WR-RB-QB-TE-RB-RB
15: RB-WR-RB-WR-RB-WR-TE-RB-QB-WR
14: RB-WR-TE-RB-WR-WR-QB-RB-RB-TE
If we look at his picks in pairs, wee see that he tends to pick one RB and one pass-catcher (either WR or TE) every two rounds. Such was the case in 2014 through the first five picks, in 2016 through the first six picks and in 2015 and 2017 through the first eight picks. He typically grabs a QB in either round seven or nine.
Some notable draft quirks—Josh has repeatedly invested in the Bears backfield, drafting Matt Forte in 2015 before trading him away, but ultimately picking up Jeremy Langford off waivers. Then in 2016, he acquired Jordan Howard who stole the starting job from Langford after an early-season injury. He then reinvested in Howard in 2017 with a first-round pick. Looks like you can take the man out of the Windy City, but you can't take the shitty Bears RBs away from the man. This year, that might be Jordan Howard again or perhaps Tarik Cohen.
Speaking of RBs, we do observe a general trend in recent years toward more fleet-of-foot, pass-catching RBs. Last year he drafted Jordan Howard, Christian McCaffrey, Danny Woodhead and James White all within the first eight rounds, not to mention Chris Thompson in the twelfth round. In 2016, he used a first-round pick on Devonta Freeman along with a sixth-round pick on Danny Woodhead, again. We also see Matt Forte in 2015 and Ryan Mathews in 2014. This year, with the seventh pick, one wonders if history might repeat itself with Alvin Kamara.
As we enter Season 8 of The Worst League, I'm struck by the fact that eight is also the number of seasons for my beloved Bewitched. And like Dick York who played five seasons in the role of Darrin, this is Josh's fifth but hopefully not final season.
Now that he's back to picking within the middle of the draft, Josh will be hoping to recapture some of that early magic. We know he'll find production off the waiver wire or via trade. So I guess it will depend on the draft.
Or maybe if he can do that thing with his nose.
