For the last several years, I’ve been disappointed that the NFL killed the trophy processional. Awkward as it was, the song was amazing, and watching the players kiss the trophy was a chance to see the people we actually care about (i.e. not the owners) bask in the win.
Let’s compensate for this by making the Lombardi Trophy Processional the official music of the FGW Awards! So please have that sone on repeat while you read this post.
If you want a more in-depth breakdown on how Playoff MVP is calculated, check out last year’s post. The short version: Use draft-adjusted FGW to determine your chances of making then playoffs with each player, then apply FGW to weeks 16 and 17 to determine your chance of winning out.
Playoff MVP
Talk about a close one – Lamar beat out Saquon for Playoff MVP by 0.002% better chance of you winning your fantasy championship if you had him. That’s within a single playoff fantasy point, or a single draft slot.
Lamar got more of a bump in the regular season from his 37th pick draft slot. Saquon’s excellent semifinals nearly won it for him alone.
I’m tempted to make this a tie, but I don’t really like it when real awards are ties. I’ll save that for when it’s a tie beyond something like 10 decimal places.
Playoff LVP (Least Valuable Player)
This one shouldn’t be a surprise. If you took McCaffrey first overally, you had perhaps the greatest uphill battle of any fantasy manager over the last decade. Last year’s RB studs in McCaffrey and Etienne were bad for business this year.
Intestingly, Hurts nearly took it away from CMac with his awful playoffs. Hurts’ high percent started in Week 17 might be a bit of a bogey, though, so it’s good the award stayed with CMC.
Regular Season MVP
As announced earlier on X, Ja’Marr won regular season MVP by barely beating out Saquon in Week 15.
Should we create an honorable mention award for Saquon here? That’s a rough go of it, missing out on 2 awards so slighltly. Reminds me of Revis missing out on DPOY in 2009 when Charles Woodson go the AP vote and Revis got the vote from all the voting bodies that didn’t matter.
Regular Season LVP
C.J. Stroud was the master of underperforming, but not playing so poorly that you felt compelled to bench him for a replacement QB.
Not only did he win the award, but he’s the first played to cross below -1.0 FGW for a full season. Oof.
Regular Season ROI (Return on Investment)
It’s too bad Lamar also on Playoff MVP by a slim margin, because he already had the Return on Investment lightsaber in the bag.
Saquon with three 2nd-places is paltry consolation if he doesn’t break the single season rushing record in Week 18.
Regular Season DOI (Disappearance of Investment)
Another double-award as CMC gets the DOI pelt. This one was more of a guarantee than Playoff MVP – nobody has been close to him in disappeared-value for quite some time.
King of Wasted Value
Baker locked up the Sand Worm halfway through the season. Jared Goff, Mr. JV himself, must have caught wind of that and started cranking out bench points to give him a challenge.
This was the first time any player crossed 0.8 bFGW for a season, much less 1.0. Because of the huge number, we’re gonna rename this one. For 2025, the award will be known as the Baker Mayfield Hayfever Cake.
The Real Champion: The Reader
If you haven’t seen anything on the blog this year, it’s because I’m putting all my posts on FantasyPros. Be sure to check me out there for the regular FGW column!
Byron Cobalt's Lazy Analysis 