Order Has Been Restored — The Worst League

Dec 23

Dec 23 Order Has Been Restored

2,185 days.

Or as the cast of Rent might sing, 3,146,400 minutes. That’s how you measure a championship. Or at least the amount of time since Gray’s last one. Think about where you were in late December of 2013. I had just moved to Chicago, was unmarried, and this site and all the accompanying infographics were not yet a gleam in my eye.

In those first three years, Gray had been a fairly dominant force, leading the league in all major statistical categories while appearing in two title games, winning one. But since that time, Gray got back to the title game just once in the next five years, losing that 2014 championship to Jess.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t any less dominant. He finished in the top-2 of the Power Rankings three times in those five years. And that includes two seasons that still rank within the top-10 all time, one of which is still the GOAT team.

And yet, no championships. Jess, Alex and Geoff all won their first championships in that time. And then Brandon won two more. Worst of all, Gray entered this year mired in a bit of a slump, having missed the playoffs for two consecutive years for the first time in his career. In fact, last year Gray had the worst season of his career with a true record of 57-83-3. It was the first time Gray had ever finished with a losing season by TW% in league history.

The biggest reason for his lackluster 2018? Gray traded down from the sixth to the eighth pick (bypassing Saquon Barkley) to take Leonard Fournette. The former LSU Tiger then rewarded that faith by finishing as the 80th ranked player by VBD due to a combination of injury and incompetence. Despite that, Gray still had the inside track on the last playoff spot in Week 13 until Fournette disqualified himself when he got into a fight, which resulted in an untimely suspension. As a result, Greco upset Gray’s team in the final week and Samantha stole his spot in the playoffs.

So this year, it probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise when Gray named his fantasy team, “Where’d You Go Fournette?” You probably don’t even remember the movie it was based off of—the Cate Blanchette-helmed Where’d You Go Bernadette, which was released in August. But what none of us will ever forget is the way Gray doubled down on Leonard Fournette, drafting him 28th overall. If Gray was going to redeem himself, Fournette himself was going to play a role.

And what a redemption ride it was. Not only did Fournette justify his draft stock (the 14th RB taken off the board finishing as RB12), but Gray quickly returned to his former glory. After a 59-point Week 1 loss to Nick (Gray became the first owner with the lowest score in Week 1 to go on to win the championship), Gray went 11-3 down the stretch, which included victories over Brandon and Josh in the playoffs—both of his rivals from the Leaders Division. This year was Gray’s sixth season (out of nine) finishing in the top-2 of the Power Rankings. But rather than come up just short in the final weeks, this time Gray sealed the deal, winning his second championship.

And if anyone deserves to win a championship, it’s Gray. As was proven on his interview on the podcast earlier this year, no one works harder or invests more time in his fantasy team than does Gray. This year, that work would not go unrewarded.

And you know how you know this was Gray’s year? An LSU Tiger, Joe Burrow, won the Heisman Trophy for the first time since 1959. And perhaps those Tigers still have more winning to do. It’s been over 4,368 days since their last championship. But if Gray’s season is any indication, you have to like their chances. After all, the GOAT is back on top of the Worst League mountain.

Order has been restored.

The Scoreboard

After an explosive semifinals, Week 16 was more of a battle of attrition.

Gray defeats Josh for second career championship.

In Week 16, Gray became the second team owner in league history with multiple championships, upsetting the 1 seed, Josh, by a final score of 93-79.

A relatively low-scoring final, Gray’s victory over Josh was the third-lowest scoring final in league history. That being said, Gray, himself, averaged 105.5 ppg throughout the playoffs, which is the third-most for a champion in league history and the most for a champion since Gray’s last title when he averaged 107.5 ppg.

As for the game, itself, if you would have told me before the championship that QB was going to be the difference in the game, I would have thought that for sure we’d be talking about Josh’s first title right now. But strangely, that’s not how it went down.

Somehow, Josh matched Gray in scoring at RB with James Conner, Raheem Mostert and Dion Lewis playing Ezekiel Elliott, Leonard Fournette and Devin Singletary to a 21-21 stalemate. This despite the fact that Josh was without his best RB, Derrick Henry, who was declared a surprise inactive before the game due to injury.

Then at WR, Josh once again did the impossible. Despite playing without Mike Evans or DJ Moore (who went down with a concussion mid-game and finished with 0 points), Breshad Perriman weathered the storm, nearly matching the combined totals of Stefon Diggs and Tyler Lockett 10-12.

Ditto once again at D/ST and kicker where Josh and Gray played to a 17-17 tie. Though that’s probably not the outcome Josh wanted with the #1 defense and kicker on his roster. Score one for Gray here.

But at TE, Josh took advantage. With the two traded-for-each-other TEs matched up against one another, Mark Andrews came out on top, scoring 21 points on 2 TDs, which very nearly could have been three. Yes, chronologically, Travis Kelce struck the death blow on Sunday night, but Andrews won the matchup 21-13.

That left QB. On last week’s podcast, that’s the one matchup where I thought Josh would be able to take advantage considering he had Russell Wilson (QB3) going against the 32nd ranked defense (out of 32!) against opposing QBs. If Baker Mayfield could get 16 and Jared Goff could get 24 (both within the last few weeks against the Cardinals), then who knows what Wilson could do. Meanwhile, Ryan Fitzpatrick (QB24) was facing off against the Bengals who (despite their reputation) had not allowed more than 13 points to a QB in five weeks, which is the total Tom Brady got last week.

Given Mark Andrew’s performance, Josh didn’t even have to win this matchup. He just needed Russell Wilson to get within 6 points of Ryan Fitzpatrick. If you had given both owners their choice of QB going into the game, no doubt both would have chosen Wilson. But that’s not how the cookie crumbled.

On Sunday, Fitzpatrick transformed into Fitzmagic, throwing for 419 yards, 4 TDs and 30 fantasy points. That was easily Fitzpatrick’s best performance of the season, surpassing the 26 points he scored in Week 13. Meanwhile, Wilson choked. There’s no other word for it. He had one of his worst performances of the year, throwing for 169 yards, 1 TD and 10 fantasy points. It was his second-lowest score this season.

Despite all the obstacles and all the injuries Josh faced. Despite playing without his two best players in Derrick Henry and Mike Evans, despite both James Conner and DJ Moore suffering injuries during the game, Josh still had a chance to win it. He just needed his favorite team’s QB to do what he’s done all season. Et tu, Russ?

Honestly, you couldn’t have predicted a more unlikely scenario given the relative strengths of the two owners at QB. Ryan Fitzpatrick’s 30 points in Week 16 were the second-most Gray had gotten from the QB position this season, topped only by Josh Allen’s 33 in Week 11. Meanwhile, Josh had only one game this season of 10 points or fewer from his QB. For the season, Josh ranked 2nd in QB scoring with 21.5 ppg, trailing only Alex and Lamar Jackson. Gray on the other hand ranked 8th with 17.0 ppg. Without a doubt, it was Gray’s biggest weakness this season.

And to top it all off, Wilson is the last player you think would choke in such a situation. Ironically, Wilson owns more clutch playoff performances than any other player in league history. In fact, he is the only player with three 30+ point scores in the playoffs, having done it in 2012, 2014 and 2015 for Alex, Jess and Josh, respectively. He almost always heats up down the stretch. In fact, the 35 points he scored in Week 16 of 2014 even helped power Jess to her only championship. Unfortunately, that was not the case for Josh on Sunday.

But for Gray, it was yet another genius stroke on the waiver wire that has defined his postseason, if not his entire year. This season, Gray was second in free agent scoring with 21.4% of his regular season scoring coming from players available on the waiver wire, second only to Samantha. The majority of that was the Patriots D/ST and Steelers D/ST, two defenses that accounted for eight of Gray’s double-digit scores in the regular season alone.

But in the postseason, that production extended to other positions. A.J. Brown scored 17 points for Gray in the semifinals and then Ryan Fitzpatrick accumulated 50 points in two games after Gray dropped his season-long QB, Josh Allen, due to a difficult schedule. As it turns out, that was the call that won him his second championship. Had he started Philip Rivers (on his bench), he would have lost. In fact, among all former champions, Gray’s team ranks first in free agent scoring with 49.3% of his points in the playoffs coming from the waiver wire.

Compared to other champions, Gray is the second consecutive 2 seed to win the championship. His team ranks seventh among former champions in TW% (.626), but third in scoring, averaging 99.0 ppg during the regular season and 105.5 ppg in the playoffs (also third-best).

Brandon defeats Samantha for fifth top-3 finish.

As for the consolation game, that deserves a few words as well. Brandon defeated Samantha 86-78 to finish in the money for the fourth consecutive season dating back to his runner-up finish in 2016. He now has five top-3 finishes all time, which ranks second only to Gray who has six. Led by the play of Ryan Tannehill, Christian McCaffrey and DeAndre Washington, Brandon defeated Samantha despite a late charge from Aaron Jones on Monday night. After two straight weeks of 30+ point games, we got bad Jameis in Week 16 as the Buccaneers QB threw 4 INTs en route to a 10-point day. Jones scored 25 points on Monday night but it was not enough to overcome a 30-point deficit.

As for Samantha, statistically she had a much better year this season than last, though ultimately came up one spot short of where she finished last year. That being said, it’s her second top-4 finish and her second time playing in the final week of the season in consecutive years. She also led all teams in scoring in the playoffs with 105.7 ppg—better even than Gray—and still leads all team owners in career playoff scoring average with 101.2 ppg in six career playoff games. Remarkably, she’s fifth in career playoff wins (three) despite only being in the league for two seasons.

All-Time Power Rankings

Something I like to do at season’s end is to open up my spreadsheet a bit and share the career Power Rankings with the rest of the league. The table above lists the all-time Power Rankings sorted by career TW% for all active team owners.

This season, everything remained relatively static for the most part. The top 6 teams are all in the same order—Gray, Brandon, Alex, Josh, Greco and JT. Notably, Josh gained a little ground on Alex in third place while Greco’s career TW% fell below .500 for the first time in her career. Also, with his loss in the title game, Josh remains the best team owner to have never won a championship. There’s always next year.

In the bottom half of the rankings Jess and Samantha both moved up following successful seasons that ended in the playoffs, trading places with Erik who had the second-worst year of his career and his worst since 2011. Geoff improved his TW% slightly, but remains in 10th place. Finally, Nick moved up one spot into 11th as Beth Ann debuts in last place. At least, she can only go up from here.

Until Next Year

And with that, we close the door on another successful fantasy season. This year, we welcomed a new member and a new podcast. Saw controversial trades, unprecedented winning streaks and a familiar figure reemerge with the trophy at season’s end.

Next year will be our 10th season and I look forward to whatever awaits our league in the coming year. Could there be a shift to PPR scoring? A free agency budget system for the waiver wire? Both are proposals that have been tossed around in recent years and the offseason would be the time to discuss. And finally, might our 10th year be the perfect time for a reunion and a live draft? It’ll be here before you know it.

See you all in 2020!