What is FGW? Go back to the shadows, I mean Go Back To Week 1.

TL:DR; – FGW is the likely number of Head-to-Head fantasy football matchups a player has won his team. dFGW is FGW adjusted for ADP.

Quick Note – I had been planning to post this the day after the fantasy season ended, but waited a few days, for obvious reasons. Hello to the crazy people with Week 18 championship games.

If The Walking Dead finale was good, but nobody really watched, does it matter?

If Mike Evans and Tom Brady balled out in Week 17, but nobody started them in the championship, does it matter?

Last year, Ja’Marr Chase rocketed up the board to become the 6th best asset of 2021. Wasn’t quite the same story with our WR du jour in 2022.

Here are the FGW awards for 2022! Players that clearly set the record for prominence in a category (versus 2021) are eligible to have the award re-named after them.

2022 Regular Season MVP
Winner of the Cooper Kupp Golden Barrel

Travis Kelce-led teams had an expected regular season record of 9.42-5.58 – 1.8 more wins than the Mandrews teams. The rest of the TEs were so bad I think I need to lower my expectations of Tight Ends in 2023. Those Ends are gonna get more flabby.

2022 Regular Season LVP
Winner of the Dak Prescott Memorial Trophy

Tom Brady owners came in at 6.55-8.45 this year, almost a full game below .500. He was just too tempting to drop, as every week it seemed like he could turn it around. And he did!…when it was too late.

AWARD RENAMED FOR 2023: The Brady Wedding Ring

2022 Playoffs MVP
The Davante Adams Apple

With 21.9 and 30.1 points in Weeks 16 and 17 respectively (by standard Half-PPR scoring), Ek took teams that were already very likely to make the playoffs (he was 6th in regular season FGW) and gave them a golden ticket to the championship. If you drafted Ekeler, you had a 27% chance of winning your league in 2022.

2022 Playoffs LVP
The Staff of Fording

If you took the inverse-stack with Herbert and Ekeler, you may have cancelled out your championship odds this year. Herbert owners were less likely to make the playoffs (22.3%) than Ekeler owners were to winning the championship. And even then, if you made the playoffs, your title odds were 1 in 10, resulting in a 2.2% chance of a title.

AWARD RENAMED FOR 2023: The Justin Herbie Fully Empty Tank

2022 Best Return On Investment
The Plate of Jonathan Taylor Promise

With only the 57th highest ADP, Jalen Hurts had the best mid-round QB season since Lamar Jackson blew up fantasy in 2019. He’s the single biggest reason that 2023 will almost certainly be the year of the early-drafted QBs, with him a likely 2nd round pick (my prediction).

2022 Worst Return On Investment
The Allen Robinson Bear Pelt

Denniston Moore Jr. was the biggest tease of 2022 – even more so than Tom Brady. In Week 8 he went off for 24.5 points (while started 76% of the time, thanks to a decent Week 7) and then flipped a middle finger to fantasy lineups the rest of the year. He also had a decent playoff run for anyone that survived 0.6 points scored in Week 14. DJ “Not Much” almost deserves to have the negative ROI award named after him, but A-Rob was too noteworthy last year.

2022 Wasted Value Champion
The Jared Goff Drop

Late addition! Late addition! Forgot to do the new award – just like people forgot to start Jared Goff this year. Putting this in here so I remember next year to award the Wasted Value award.

But What About Mike Evans?

Even with an FGW score of 0.35 in Week 17, where he was started 79% of the time, it was too little too late for Mr. Mike. Unlike my childhood bus driver of the same name (Hi, Mr. Mike!), he failed to arrive the least bit on-time up until the final week. Though if you were in the 7.4% that made the finals with him, you did pretty well.

Thanks to everyone that read the FGW column this season! Readers on Byron-Cobalt.com almost doubled from 2021 to 2022. Like 2021, I will close with an empty promise of some offseason content and a hint that I might make this data available in the future.

For those of you Mike Evans owners on the bottom of the ocean with me, just remember we all went down in the ship together. It has been a privilege and an honor.

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