2019 Called And They Want Their Lamar Jackson Back – Fantasy Games Won (FGW) Week 3 Update

For an explanation of FGW, go back to Week 1.

The 2019 Lamar Jackson season was probably the last year you would see a major market inefficiency in evaluating rushing QBs.

Off the top of my head, the best mid-round fantasy picks of the last 20 years must go something like:

1. Cooper Kupp, 2021
2. Randy Moss, 2007
3. Lamar Jackson, 2019
4. Arian Foster, 2010
5. Josh Gordon, 2013

In 2020, everyone was ready for the next breakout, so Kyler Murray’s stock went up a bit. Jalen Hurts saw his stock up in 2021. I don’t have data handy to back this up, but I’m fairly certain the 2011 fantasy drafts would have had Ryan Tannehill-types above Jalen Hurts-types.

We get to see now if Contract Year Lamar Jackson is as good as Breakout Year Lamar Jackson. This will be fun.

Who Won The Week?

• Lamar and Mark Andrews turned out to be quite the stack this year. Remember the Burger King stacker? That was a really good burger. You could order it for a while after it left the menu.
• Maybe we’re not at the Terminator 3 phase of Derrick Henry’s career quite yet. Maybe Week 1 and Week 2 were just one of the cheesy 13-year-old John Conner scenes from Terminator 2.
• Saquon Barkley is reaching into his 2024 projections to get these fantasy points.
• Cordarrelle Patterson a surprise on the list. Is he technically like a 24 year old running back?
• Marquise Brown also a bit of a surprise. He’s running out of pre-Nuk time, though.
• Combine an inconsistent QB (Hurts) with a WR that depends on explosive plays (AJ Brown) and apparently you get consistency. That makes sense.
• Gabe Davis is paying the price for the name change.
• Speaking of leaving the menu, Alvin Kamara is about to see a % started drop.
• I can’t believe Allen Robinson is still here. I need to rename this metric the How Much Allen Robinson Hurts Us Barometer.
• Justin “Jordan” Jefferson needs to go back to being just Justin. Or maybe there’s a dad-naming curse. If there is, it’s time to bench Amari “Amani” Cooper (yes, that actually happened Thursday night in the Cobalt household.)

Trophy Leaderboards

• So it appears that Quarterbacks were a great position to invest heavily in if you wanted to play Russian Roulette with your fantasy team. Heavy representation at the top and bottom of the list here.
• Cooper Kupp could repeat as the Season MVP. He’s probably the favorite, honestly. If you’re redrafting today, are you taking anyone above Kupp?
• Travis Kelce is sneaky really good again and deserving of a high pick, so far at least.
• I was a bit more nervous about Tyreek Hill this year than Jaylen Waddle, mainly because of how often we see receivers change teams and suddenly cannot seem to do anything. It obviously doesn’t happen with every move (see: AJ Brown), but the Peerless Price and Chad Ochocinco moves seem to be uncomfortably conceivable. The willingness of the Chiefs to move on from him also smelled a bit off.
• Not to say Tyreek hasn’t been great, I just had Waddle bumped up a bit and Hill bumped down.
• Stupid kickers.
• My 2 year old told Grandmom to start Brandin Cooks over Brandon Aiyuk. It was a rough week for The Blue Cars. He also told her to name the team The Blue Cars.
• Some players experiencing the replacement factor – Dak, Elijah Mitchell, Trey Lance.
• But there’s Allen Robinson! Though I highly doubt many people that owned him last year have him again this year.

• No real shockers on the value side so far.
• In the Full List image below, I was going to chop off rounds 9 and 10 there, but Christian Kirk talked me out of it.
• Zeke Elliott, aka the Old Man’s Tony Pollard.
• I haven’t mentioned DJ Moore yet. F*ck DJ Moore.
• As a reminder, ROI = Return on Investment.

The Full List

Thanks again to everyone for reading! And remember, we’re all going down in this ship together. It’s been a privilege and an honor.

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