2023 Season Wrap-Up

Feeling romantic about football after last night's college games while blasting Mr. Brightside and the Blake Corum OT run on repeat at my desk. So you are all going to be subjected to my writing, and what may be a little overdue update on the state of THE dynasty league.

As we all turn the page on another calendar year, we also turn the page on another fantasy season. Our 6th season is officially wrapped! Throughout all the good luck, bad luck, and general parity in the NFL we have a new champ, a new league powerhouse to root against, the first winless team ever, and a draft to get ready for. We have our 5th different champ in 6 years. Let's take a walk down a not so distant memory lane together.

The Curse is Broken

It was nice to finally have a 12th team in the league this year, we did a good job of expanding the league after 5 years of 11 teams. So I think that this title is kind of like old college titles, we can all just claim it and hang a banner since we did a lot of leg work around expansion.

But arguably the largest development in the league this year is that Sam and his greedy 3rd round picks finally made it over the hump. He clinched the top seed and a bye en route to his first playoff appearance, and title weeks later.

All while avoiding bullet after bullet this year. AJ Brown managed to avoid choking out Jalen Hurts or Nick Sirriani during the fantasy playoffs. Bijan produced in an Arthur Smith designed offense, despite sharing a backfield with all-pro level RB Tyler Allgeier. Lamar broke free from Greg Roman jail. The list goes on! No knees were structurally damaged in the making of this championship run!

Dare I say, luck actually swung in Sam's favor a large majority of the year.

So now the dust has settled and congrats Sam, it was clear this was coming after three years straight of having the 1.01 and a stockpile of picks. The only thing that this means is that Jeb has now been absolved of being the league's public enemy. Sam's turn to suffer from success. I welcome you all to join me in rooting against him and his powerhouse team going forward!

Bad Beats

What would a fantasy season be without some really bad beats? There is a laundry list injury wise, but that is almost expected at this point and it is just a question of who suffered.

The baddest of bad beats was far and away Cole. Our defending champ and favorite money ball manager suffered from potentially the worst injury luck anyone has ever had, the Kadarius Toney and Jerry Jeudy drop emporium, and a karmatic experience catching up to Watson on the field. All of this culminated to the league's first winless season. Which takes a truly exceptional level of bad luck if that needs stating. Better days are ahead for Cole and he has plenty of picks to bolster his roster and add talent in one way or another. He managed to bail out on the Hockensen train before the knee injury, so that can be some silver lining. I for one, will be rooting for Cole and the turnaround.

A close second would be the other Sam. Despite some bad luck early with about half his team's skill guys playing with bad or backup QBs, and the yearly Dobbins knee injury. He was still looking like basically a lock for the playoffs with five weeks to go, and then... disaster. I've never seen someone get ravaged as quickly as he did. I'm sure Sean McDermott could make a great speech about the sacrifices and organized effort made on this roster. Mark Andrews, Stroud, Pacheco, the list goes on. Quentin Johnston is looking to follow in fellow Horned Frog legend Jalen Reagor's footsteps of having a historically poor rookie year. There was a moment during that stretch where I was just waiting for the weekly bad news regarding his team. On the bright side, he had about 5 players break out and go ballistic this season. Missing playoffs always hurts, but shit happens and at least he has a top 5 pick in pocket plus a roster with some of the best young receivers in the league that can only get better to soften the blow.

The final bad beat award goes to Riddle. Runner-ups are hard to have bad beats considering how much they win/how far they make it, but somehow Riddle managed to trip on every old head landmine with his trades this year and that qualifies. Riddle was that random story you see once a year about some European farmer accidentally finding an old WWII bomb buried in their field. He was pushing his chips towards the middle of the table with trades for Kelce and Ekeler. Just for both to fall off a cliff. Ekeler might as well be Mr. Clean, bald and properly washed. Matt Nagy managed to make KC's offense the island of misfit toys, and in turn Kelce got lost in the shuffle for about a month. At least he has his next steps planned out already with his podcast career and publicity from TSwift! I'd also just qualify going all in and losing at the very last step as a layup bad beat without the context of the trades not working out in the short term.

I know these aren't the only people who ran into bad luck (Hi Henry! You are an honorable mention!), but these are the ones that stick with me the most so if you weren't mentioned and feel like you got shafted then you probably have a case to make. I heavily encourage you either share that with the nearest wall, or you can take that emotion and feel free to direct it towards rooting against our new public enemy!

Tankathon

Shoutout to all our tankers. You aren't being forgotten for your valiant efforts in the trenches and hard fought rights to high picks. Eli, Henry, and self-inflicted/accidental addition Kevin.

Eli's slow crawl out of the muck has gained traction, and he'll take home the sought after and very real most improved award (winning a title disqualifies you from this award, suck it Sam). Tripling his win total this year, and setting himself up nicely for next year. If Anthony Richardson wasn't trying to get himself murdered to start this year by dolphin diving into linebackers, then he may have even been a fringe playoff team! Trevor Lawrence is going to get paid, even if he is statistically playing like Ryan Tannehill with a better college pedigree/prospect bias behind him. David Montgomery will find another team to vulture TDs and touches from this offseason, almost definitely in front of a promising young guy. Brian Robinson hopefully will stay bullet free since '23. Jahan Dotson may even catch more than 2 passes a game next year! The rebuild is almost done (hopefully).

Henry and his QB retirement home had some ankle troubles this year. In season addition Kenny Pickett may have navigated his way to a backup gig faster than anyone expected possible, no refunds sorry. Charbonnet looks a touch jaggy. We have a modern day Will Fuller in Christian Watson, 20+ points or a hamstring injury and no in between. All the negatives aside, Jordan Love looked the part this year and the Packers have somehow done it again. Aiyuk looks like the prince who was promised to take up the Diggs "superstar that we need to get in a high volume offense asap" belt. Tank Dell was on pace to match Michael Thomas/OBJ rookie season fantasy production on a per game basis. Henry managed to stack a few picks on top of his top 3 pick by moving older players too. Stop me if you've heard this before, but this roster may actually have promise! There just isn't a Keegan in place to nuke it before it has a chance to get rolling now. In Canton Kirk we trust to lead this team to the promised land next year.

Kevin, RainMan, "the man with the plan" - the brunt of every joke this offseason still managed to find himself sitting on top of a ton of talent somehow someway. A stroke of luck? Part of the master plan he had laid out? Either way, this team is far from left for dead. That Dalvin Cook trade should still make you want to bleach your eyeballs, but at least Levis has done enough to earn another year as the Titans starter. Nico Collins is a true WR1 with a great QB. Kyren Williams broke out, and is going to be a top tier RB1 for the foreseeable future. Rashee Rice looks amazing and is tied to the best QB in all of football. Brock Purdy was in MVP talks for almost two months this year. Oh and he has two firsts next year. I'm in awe. I still don't know how this happened, but hey good for Kevin. I am just going to continually ask "how?" until RainMan beats all of us in the playoffs next year.

The Rest of the Pack

Contenders and fringe teams unite, we can make up the rest of the grouping in the league. We are the uneventful and unchanging teams of the bunch. Let's be mundane together.

Jeb finally relinquishes his title as the league villain after five years of being the undisputed top dog. This was considered a bad season by his standards and it was still a bye and a 4th place finish. Jeb is a buzzsaw. We know he will be back eventually, but for now it's been 3 years since he won. He had some real injuries for what feels like the first time ever, and plenty of guys that should have performed better. I'm looking at you and your prayer-yards Stefon Diggs and Chris Olave.

I'll rally around him.

Although, it is time to ask if Jeb is the bane of TEs and RBs. After Pollard delivered the most disappointing healthy season from a top RB I can remember, and every TE he touched getting hurt there may be some voodoo at play here. Jeb and the curse of the plodder? The zodiac TE killer?

Dan snuck into the playoffs despite Burrow getting hurt, and wanting to hit the blow it all up button on his roster. Many thanks to Tyreek and his quest for 2k leading to an insane fantasy season pre-ankle injury. That choice on rebuilding is still pending at the moment, but given the fact he has 3 first rounders already this is likely more of a retool than a rebuild. There is too much talent on this roster and not enough people willing to give up the proper value for that talent in this league's economy. The Jags super stack is officially bordering on masochistic, and perfect for peak levels of tilt as they rotate points around every week. Unrelated to on the field fantasy topics, after about the 5th procedural rule conversation we had this season to close it out. I'm going out on a limb and nominating Dan as our keeper of all things rules, bylaws, and rulebooks. Genuinely looking forward to the thoroughly revised bylaws this offseason.

Mike with his streaks of catastrophically bad luck and good luck featuring his talent of never ending points against assassination. Another roster that would be close to contention if things had just broken right at the right time. Or if his team was actually fully healthy at any point during the year. Starting and ending this year with Jonathon Taylor injuries seems all too fitting. This roster is just stuck in limbo without any premium picks to immediately make it better. That isn't a bad thing to be in limbo, you'd just hope for one or two more guys. Sure Sam Howell may end up selling insurance in Chapel Hill in two years, and his bench is pick your WR4 flavor of the month. Even with those issues Stafford looked revived, and Justin Fields will be starting somewhere. He has two or three RBs that are enough to make playoffs and compete every year. It just isn't all that deep. This team is stuck in 6th to 7th place, like the Tennessee Titans of our league until further notice.

Davis clearly broke a mirror, walked under a ladder, or kicked a puppy or two this year. Pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Danny Dimes injuries and Giants general dysfunction on top of Tannehill turning into a Cinderella sized pumpkin carriage leave him with QB questions. Dameon Pierced the veil and landed as the Texans uncontested... kick returner? AJ Dillon is still plodding, but he makes for a great virtual farmer. At least Jordan Addison looks really good, DJ Moore may escape QB hell yet, and the rest of this roster of really solid receivers shouldn't be losing playing time or their jobs any time soon. Worth throwing out once again that Davis drafts extremely well, he just never has picks.

Lastly there is me. This season left me with a distinct lack of things to bitch about sans the last hurrah of draft order, which was definitely a nice reprieve for the chat compared to last year's post week 14 explosion and weekly bitching session. My stars all stayed healthy for the most part. Just happy to have made the playoff field again, and locked in the 1.01 to boot. Hopefully I can finally solve my QB issues, but I am not holding my breath on that when I am sitting there feeling convicted to take Michigan players all draft. All I know is, CeeDee Lamb and CMC guide my hand.

Draft Season....

As we head into the offseason and get ready for the draft, taking a moment to say thanks to everyone. Thanks for making this league awesome. For the jokes, shooting the shit about football every week, the unnecessary but inevitable drama about something meaningless (1 slot in the draft order, hi it's me causing a scene in the chat), and just the general week to week of the year. This league is the best fantasy league I've ever been a part of and that won't be changing any time soon. It was another great year, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone who can make it to the draft.