I haven’t been through an emotional roller coaster like that since my youngest son had the cord around his neck.
I’m writing this Tuesday morning and, for those that don’t know, I’m a Jets fan. (My fantasy week 1 was rough, but not THAT rough.) Now it’s time to write the first Weekly Update post of the year with all the emotion vaporized out of me, as if someone microwaved the water supply.
Time to send that buzzsaw to R&D for post-race inspection. And I guess I’ll have to find other sources of emotion to adequately evaluate everything that has happened…
Full explanation for FGW HERE.
Who Won The Week?
Quick Primer on FGW: Fantasy Games Won is the impact a player has to you fantasy team’s chances of winning each week. 0.4 means 40% increased chances of winning, versus a 50/50 baseline. Percent started reduces the impact proportionally. dFGW adjusts for draft slot.
- Tyreek Hill’s week 1 almost softens the blow for the fact that he says he’ll retire at the end of his current contract. Well, almost. Knowing how good things can be can often make the loss feel worse. Why can’t I stop crying.
- Dallas defense with an absolutely absurd Week 1. I would make a New York 9/11 joke except we still have until Dec 29th before 9/11 jokes officially become funny.
- Oh wow, Aaron Jones still exists.
- Ekeler and McCaffrey took it personally that we drafted WRs first in fantasy drafts this year. Now we’ll get 5 straight years of RBs going first.
- Fairly certain Brandon Aiyuk has already scored his allotment of touchdowns for the first half of the season.
- Jets Defense is amazing. And they will be playing a lot of defense this year. A lot of…opportunities for points…
- I will forever like Tony Pollard after the whole Ezekiel Elliott Reddit problem of 2021. Quick story as I’ve told this before: One of my first ever comments on r/fantasyfootball was pointing out that Zeke might actually be washed after he had a great game in a very positive game script. I got downvoted to oblivion and had to go to Reddit purgatory (r/AskReddit) to try and get my karma up before I could post again.
- Calvin Ridley rewarding the dynasty managers whom picked him up dirt cheap last year. The gamble was worth it. Har-de-har.
- For the negatives, I will just use some of the most notable comments from the Jets subreddit last night and see how they can apply to everyone.
- Christian Kirk: My neighbor just walked out and looked so defeated
- Jahmyr Gibbs: I kept my expectations low and I’m still disappointed
- DJ Moore: Spike my drink and put a pillow over my head
- Drake London: How can you die if you’re already dead
- Dallas Goedert: Look what they did to my boy
- Josh Allen: My life is everything I feared it would be and nothing I hoped it would become
- Tee Higgins: I knew they were gonna disappoint, just surprised on how quickly they did it
- Joe Burrow: The most robbed I’ve ever felt in my 30 years as a fan.
Couldn’t fit this one in, but had to reference it:
Return On Investment (ROI) and Disappearance Of Investment (DOI)
No MVP/LVP leaderboard this week since it’s just a repeat of the weekly winners.
ROI and DOI are the best and worst players for the full season, having adjusted for draft slot.
Housekeeping: I had a hell of a time recalibrating draft value replacement player this year, specifically for Travis Kelce. His predicted average score was coming out to be over 16, which is pretty absurd. Kelce only has himself to blame for that as his 2022 swung the numbers for Tight Ends. So, I had to mash all the positions together to get a more reasonable expectation for first rounders.
- Don’t worry about the kickers. They come to feed in the early weeks and are gone by lunchtime.
- Nice to see Tua on a list, for now at least.
- Cooper Kupp and Travis Kelce getting hit with the replacement player logic. It’s not assumed you got to put Puka in there for Kupp.
- Ja’Marr showing up due to his draft slot. He was my #1 guy, of course.
Junior Varsity All-Stars
These are the players with the most value left on your bench. So high points, but they didn’t really matter. Like your JV glory days.
- Not only will Jakobi not help in week one, but he probably won’t help for a while. Nobody will remember this great week. Especially Jakobi.
- Weird to see Allgeier with a big game. I don’t think his volume’s gonna last.
- I should look up how to pronounce Puka Nacua because I do on any more podcasts.
- Jordan Love, huh.
- Sean McVay only didn’t cut Cam Akers because you can’t bench him if you cut him. Kyren is the man now.
The All-Time Leaderboard
- Tyreek making a case to be an all-decade player here.
- Did everyone just forget how awesome Deebo Samuel was in 2021? He gets like no fantasy love now.
- Now that my face is public, people can judge whether or not George Kittle is my doppelganger, or Aron Baynes. I’m afraid it might be Aron Baynes.
The Full List
Not much to say except a lot of red in week 1. Let’s hope Week 2 is less bloody.
Say Goodnight to Week 1
Hopefully it didn’t come through too clearly that I’m saltier than a pout-pout fish whose final pages were torn out by a young toddler. But if it did, I can make it better!
Here’s Week 1 Start/Sit and rankings data. It’s not free, but the $1 supports the blog. And now the YouTube channel.
But remember – as bad as it might get, we’re all going down in this Fantasy Football ship together. It’s been a privilege and an honor.
Byron Cobalt's Lazy Analysis 