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The Wrong Football

~ A UK American Football fan writes about the game he loves

The Wrong Football

Tag Archives: Fantasy Football

Maybe I Do Like Fantasy Football?

23 Wednesday Sep 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Tags

Aaron Donald, Baker Mayfield, Baltimore Ravens, Brandon Staley, Cam Newton, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Cooper Kupp, Covid-19, DK Metcalf, Doug Baldwin, Ezekiel Elliott, Face Masks, Fantasy Football, Gardner Minshew, Jacksonville Jaguars, Jalen Ramsey, James Robinson, Jared Goff, Jay Gruden, Joe Burrow, Kansas City Chiefs, Kevin Stefanski, LA Chargers, LA Rams, Mike Vrabel, New England Patriots, NFL, Pete Carroll, Philadelphia Eagles, Robert Woods, Russell Wilson, Ryan Tannehill, San Francisco 49ers, Sean McVay, Seattle Seahawks, Tennessee Titans, Tom Coughlin, TWF NFL Dynasty League, Tyler Lockett

It feels like on the field the news has been about injuries as we start to get a handle on how teams are shaping up after the shortened pre-season, whereas the news from the side lines are the head coaches who have been fined for violating the face-covering protocols and it was certainly odd to see Pete Carroll operating without a covering Sunday night. You would expect a coach to lead by example, and I am not surprised that having already released a sternly worded memo after week one, that fines are following.

What I Saw

Week two started with the Cleveland Browns getting the better of the battle for Ohio, but once again Joe Burrow was able to get the Bengals into contention by the end of the game that they ultimately lost 35-30. I have been impressed by the Bengals’ rookie quarterback who after only two games I am predicting is a franchise quarterback. If the Bengals can build an offensive line either through development in-season or through off-season acquisitions either by draft or free-agency then I think Burrow and this offence could be specials. Burrow gets the ball out, has not been overwhelmed by starting in the NFL despite a curtailed pre-season, and if he had a bit more support from the defence the Bengals might have won one of the opening pair of games they lost. Having watched this game, I went back to look at the Browns’ loss to the Ravens and whilst I still would say there are valid concerns about Baker Mayfield in his third year, the design of Kevin Stefanski’s offence should help him, particularly with its focus on running the ball, play action and QB bootlegs. There is a lot of talent on the Browns’ roster but it will be a concern that the Bengals made this a close game. Then again, given how the Chargers competed against the Chiefs this week and how good the Ravens look full stop, I think both the Browns and the Bengals are already showing progression from last season, even if the records don’t really show it yet.

I watched two of the early Sunday games this week. In my first, the LA Rams followed up on my podcast bold prediction (I’m really not sure I’m happy about Dan making me do this) and beat the Philadelphia Eagles comfortably 37-19. The Eagles still have not quite put things together in either the offensive or defensive phase of the game, but they do have the chance to get right this week against the Bengals. However, the Eagles’ usually strong pass rush was not able to bother Jared Goff, and while he may not be in the upper echelon of quarterbacks, if you give Goff time to run Sean McVay’s system then the Ram’s offence looks really good. The influx of youth at running back has got the Rams looking more like they did in the first two seasons under McVay, and with half a dozen players catching the ball there looks to be support for Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods. The defence isn’t particularly inspiring despite having two all-star talents in Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsay, and currently ranks fourteenth in the league by DVOA, but it doesn’t have to be that good for the Rams to win and as they adjust to new coordinator Brandon Staley they may well improve. I have my concerns about the Eagles, but this is a team trying to bed in new players and dealing with injuries so whilst the playoffs are not beyond the realms of possibility yet, they will need to start finding some form soon. Still, the Bengals could be just the team they need to face…

The other early game I watched was the thoroughly entertaining contest that saw the Jacksonville Jaguars taking on the Tennessee Titans, but ultimately losing 33-30. In truth, the Titans were the better team who now seem to play good enough defence and offence to always be competitive and this has been the case ever since Ryan Tannehill established himself as their starting quarterback last season. For the first few seasons that I was writing this blog, it felt like the Titans didn’t really have an identity or the players to catch your attention, but Mike Vrabel and some good drafting has changed all of that. A defensive ranking of seventeenth by DVOA and a top ten offence is a similar formula to the Rams and looks to be enough to compete in the AFC South dvision and perhaps have more success in the play-offs, although the Titans do look a step down from the truly elite teams. However, they did have to work for this game and part of that is because the Jaguars are looking pretty good for a team that a lot of people thought were in for a rebuilding year. However, rookie running back James Robinson looked dynamic running for one hundred yards and catching a a couple of balls out the backfield as Gardner Minshew continues to outplay his sixth round draft status. The young talent, when combined with the off-season hiring of Jay Gruden as offensive coordinator looks like it is going to be too good for the Jaguars to have the high draft pick some were suggesting was the goal for the season. Yes the Jaguars are playing a lot of young players, but it looks like they might have something and perhaps the absence of Tom Coughlin and his frequent fines is helping the talent flourish in Jacksonville. I’m not one for big predictions (despite Dan’s best efforts) but there might be some hope for Jaguars yet.

The Sunday night game was a humdinger of a battle between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots that the Seahawks held on to win 35-30 when their defence stuffed Cam Newton on a final chance to score a winning touchdown. It was looking ominous for the Seahawks as Newton lined up once again behind a jumbo formation in a shotgun position and received the snap. Newton had already delivered two rushing touchdowns and looked set to win the game, but the Seattle defence swarmed to stuff him short of the goal line. However, the exciting thing for the Patriots in this game was not that Newton looked good running the ball, but that he threw the ball as well as he has done for a long time. The power was there and the Patriots are beginning to look like a new iteration of their usual perennially successful franchise. Something similar could be said for the Seahawks, whose defence may be languishing as twenty-fourth by DVOA but are second in offence thanks to Russel Wilson playing outstandingly well. The drafting of DK Metcalf last year to pair with Tyler Lockett has given Russell a fearsome pair of receivers to throw to despite Doug Baldwin’s retirement. The Seahawks are one of three unbeaten teams in the NFC West, which is shaping up as the strongest division in the league, with last year’s Super Bowl runners up currently bottom of the divison with a 1-1 record thanks to a slew of injuries. This was a game that lived up to its Sunday night billing and I have a feeling both teams will be featured plenty of more times before the season is through.

What I Heard

It has been a busy week, but the thing that leaps to my mind is that a lot of people who power rank teams are vaulting the Ravens over the Chiefs into first in the league, and I can absolutely see why. If you win two games by over sixteen points to start your season and are top five by DVOA in all three phases of the game then you have not just got a good team, but a potentially great one. It is too early to say anything definitive, particularly based on DVOA given that we have an even smaller sample size to work from in week than usual due to the lack of pre-season games, but I am curious to see how things develop in the coming weeks. Particularly as we are being treated to the Chiefs visiting the Ravens on Monday night.

What I Think

It was frustrating not being able to get a coaching film post up last week. Some of that was work being busy, but there was also some kind of issues with getting coaching film at all last week as I heard several of the podcasters I listen to complaining about it, and the US usually get it a day earlier that we do. If I was really together, I should look at using a VPN to sign up for the US version of Gamepass again as the interface for the EU version is no where near as good as what we used to have. We don’t even get a list of plays to browse by when working with coaching film. It’s pretty frustrating that we are now multiple years into having an EU version of Gamepass and we’re still missing basic functions we used to have when signed up in the US. It’s also noticeable that the Twitter account for the EU NFL Gamepass service has disappeared, almost as if it was highlighting more problems than it was solving.

What I Know

I have avoided playing fantasy football for years after previous disappointments. I still believe in the importance of watching whole games, looking at coaching film, but I am enjoying our new dynasty league and not just because so far I’m winning games. It helps that we know everyone by name and I do like the dynasty format as it enables you to switch track if your teams accumulates too many injuries and with IR and the Taxi squad it feels like you are more in control of your own destiny. You’ll still need luck to win a championship, and it can still all go wrong even if you have made the right moves but that this way you still have options..

Let’s see if that’s how I feel when the losses start racking up.

What I Hope

I have seen that we already have coach’s film available as I was able to check the Seahawks defensive stand on the last play of the game on Sunday. I’m looking at some play diagramming options so there may well be some graphics in the future if I can get that to work. I’m just hoping I get to watch more than 3/8ths of a game this week so I can get an actual post up, but I will always have the memories of what happened to poor Ezekiel Elliot when the protection scheme meant he had to try to block Aaron Donald.

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The Season Might be Coming, the TWF Dynasty League is Hopefully Following

10 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Fantasy Football, Pre-Season

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Fantasy Football, Hard Knocks, NFL, TWF NFL Dynasty League

I can’t complain that the off-season didn’t go as I expected given that no one’s life is what they expected at the moment.

In the swirl of work and trying to hold in with the situation surrounding Covid-19 I didn’t get to what I was planning for the off-season, but I have got two unexpected football bonuses in the last couple of weeks.

Firstly, my long-time partner in crime on this site, and erstwhile podcast producer got the itch again and so with a streamlined editing process, a more relaxed style and a new platform to host – Dan and I are back in the podcast game. I’m very much enjoying it so if you haven’t had a listen then check us out on anchor.fm/wrong-football-nfl or in the words of Dan, wherever you procure your podcasts.

The second is that for some reason, despite my relative lack of experience playing fantasy, when I saw a tweet from Dan it led to this suggestion:

Screen Shot 2020-08-08 at 12.48.40

Well, Dan did think about it and it appears we are go for the inaugural season of The Wrong Football NFL Dynasty League.

The reason I wanted to dive into this variation of fantasy football is that I’ve always been frustrated with the way injury luck has held so much sway over a fantasy season. Now, to be fair injury luck is one of the bigger factors that determines the success of an NFL franchise for a particular season, but unlike for your favourite team, in the fantasy world if your season falls apart there’s little reason to stay invested. Unless, you are in a dynasty league where you can always start prepping for the draft and next year.

So with very little actual persuasion on my part, Dan agreed that we would go for it and so should we get a season this will be the inaugural year of, The Wrong Football NFL Dynasty League.

Now in the early days I was asking about things like individual defensive players and other options that were opening up before us as I researched how we would run the league. However, given the speed with which we needed to set this new endeavour up, and our distinctly novice (at least for me) experience in this area of football fandom, we decided to model our league on a standard format with a couple of twists and the necessary additions for dynasty.

This means that our rosters will be sixteen strong with a starting line-up of:

1 QB
2 RB
2 WR
1 TE
1 Flex (QB/RB/WR/TE)
1 DEF/ST
1 K

As you can see from the above, the first tweak is a super-flex that gives the options of starting a second QB, which I believe will likely lead to a second quarterback starter but gives you options should suffer injury problems so your team shouldn’t be doomed.

The other tweak is that we are modelling the league on PPR, but using a tiered scoring system of 0.5 points for running backs, 1 for receivers and 1.5 for tight ends. This should balance up the scoring a bit and make tight ends more relevant than they usually are in fantasy.

Now, because I’m suddenly commissioner of a league and this is my first time ever doing that, yet alone for a dynasty league, I ran this all by Justin from dynastyfreeks.com to get his view. He also runs leagues on my chosen host of fleaflicker.com so that was a relief, as was his general approval of our scoring and use of Taxi squad (I’ll get to this in a minute).

Justin did suggest we up the roster size and starting line-ups, but frankly when he talks about rosters of up to 30 players, I might be interested if we were going with defensive players as well but given the circumstances, Dan and I thought it was best to start relatively standard and build from there. Particularly, as we are already looking at a twenty round initial draft.

Now if you were paying attention you will have notice that I said a twenty round draft when the roster size is sixteen. As this is a dynasty league, once we have the franchises setup you can keep up to all of your 16 player roster, but we are going to have a Taxi squad (basically a practise squad) where eventually we are going to allow the sorting away of up to seven rookie and second year players. However, in this first season we are going to allow up to four rookies to be placed on this squad. To do this we are going to draft four extra rookie players in the draft, and get everyone to assign their rookies and then cut the roster down to the actual limit for the season.

I will keep the rest of the minutia to within the league communications, but I’m sure there will be discussions on the pod or mentions here although it won’t be taking over too much. We already have six owners, but there are six more potential slots open so if you are interested then let Dan or I know and we’ll send you an invite.

It still seems strange that training camp has started, but the only normal feature of my pre-season schedule that is running this year is Hard Knocks. You have to be a little bit sceptical of if we’re going to make it through the season given the NFL’s approach to Covid-19 as opposed to say the NBA, football in Europe or cricket with their variations on bubble environments. It is also brave to jump straight into the regular season without staging any practice games in the new game day environment.

As we follow the news and start Hard Knocks this week we might get a feel for how likely we are to get to the end of the season but frankly, there are more important things taking place. The NFL season might be coming, and the TWF Dynasty league will hopefully follow, but whilst the fan in me would welcome the distraction and some good news, I’m mainly hoping for health and good things for those players who have not already opted out. It feels like the NFL are planning to carry on regardless, but whether that is actually possible or even a good idea is up for debate.

For now, all we can do is watch and wait, but my usual off-season cry of football is coming, has a very different feel to it at the moment.

Great Start To The Season… Except For Our Fantasy Team!

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by TWF Dan in Dan's Thoughts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck, Cleveland Browns, Deshaun Watson, Fantasy Football, Frank Gore, Kenyan Drake, LA Rams, Le'Veon Bell, Miami Dolphins, Minkah Fitzpatrick, NFL, NFL Trivia, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ryan Tannehill, Tennessee Titans, Week One

Ok, it’s Tuesday which means it’s Blogging time for me! I’m just back from watching a boring England side in ‘the Other Football’ beat Switzerland in a boring friendly… such a comedown from a great weekend of NFL!

Where to start? Well, the Dolphins I suppose! Good win for the fins this week against a battered and bruised Tennessee Titans – this despite two weather related game breaks meaning the game which started at 6pm over here in England went on to finish just after 1:20am on Monday morning! It’s a good job my boss knows why I’m always knackered on Mondays during the season. On a serious note, I was impressed by Miami – we looked renewed which was nice, and special mentions have to go to Frank Gore and Kenyan Drake (who I can see running through some dirty great holes in defences this year), a debuting Minkah Fitzpatrick (who made some critical defensive stops) and Ryan Tannehill who looked fresh returning from Injury.

Speaking of which, there were a few QBs coming back this week. I got to see some of Deshaun Watson for the Texans and Andrew Luck for the Colts. It won’t be long before Watson is back to his best, but Andrew Luck is going to struggle if his line let him get hit as much as he did by the Bengals in the coming weeks.

Image Credit – nypost.com

Honourable QB mentions should also go to Aaron Rodgers, who lead his team to an incredible comeback victory even with an injured leg, after being down by more than 20 points, and Ryan Fitzpatrick who threw over 400 yards and got himself a couple of touchdowns in the process – hands up who had him in their fantasy team? …anyone?? If he carries on like that, Jamies Winston will struggle to get back in when his suspension is up.

The Browns did the most Brownsy thing they possibly could and when attempting a medium range kick to win their game with the Steelers in overtime, managed to get it blocked and come away with a tie. It means they definitely won’t go 0-16 this year but it would have been nice of them to get one in the W column in a divisional game week one. Le’veon Bell will have been a keen spectator of that game, having not travelled with Pittsburgh for this one due to his ongoing contractual hold-out. I can’t see him leaving the Steelers, but some of their key players will be knocking on management’s door this week trying to get a deal done and get him back in yellow and black.

Image Credit – CBS Sports

And my early pick for the Super Bowl, the Rams, managed a good win on Monday too. Not managed to watch that game yet but I’ll pick that up in the next few days. So, “how’s the odds chart looking Dan?” I hear you cry! Well, like this, I reply:

Odds are down to 10-1 after week one actually making them third favourites – level with the Eagles and behind only the Vikings and the Patriots. Not bad after one game!

The Wrong Football fantasy team didn’t manage to get off to a winning start unfortunately, beaten by 192.5 to 183.4. This disappoints me having gone unbeaten with the ‘Suh Tang Clan’ 2 years ago (I might have mentioned it once or twice on the pod…!!). I’ll be wheeling and dealing in the market this week as I was too late to pick up a good Running back off waivers and Lynch is questionable. The full team looks something like this:

Feedback welcomed, but I can’t promise to listen!!

Anyway, before I go this week, quick shout to Darren Butler (@darrenbutler87) who gave me a great little bit of trivia this week which I wanted to share with you…

“For three years between 1983 and 1986 the Heisman Trophy Winner was not drafted by an NFL Franchise, with all three opting to join the USFL spring series instead.”

Lovely little stat that! In the spirit of our trivia competition, if you’ve got a good bit of NFL trivia to share (useless or otherwise – the more ‘pub knowledge’ the better!) drop me a tweet @TWFDan and you may get a mention here next week!

That’s all for now. Until next time…

@TWFDan

The NFL can be brutal!

03 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by TWF Dan in Dan's Thoughts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Brogan Roback, Carson Wentz, Christian Hackenberg, Cleveland Browns, Dak Prescott, Devon Cajuste, Eric Kush, Fantasy Football, Hard Knocks, Jared Goff, NFL, Paxton Lynch

I mean, the NFL really can be brutal! This time of year, we’re looking forward to the fresh start that comes with a new season, however on Saturday, just 5 days before the first ball is kicked, teams were busy shattering dreams while slimming down to a 53-man roster. And while all of the players know that’s what’s going to happen, I can’t imagine it makes it any easier for either side come cut-down day.

Hard Knocks has been around for a few years now, and off the back of that comes an increased level of understanding of what exactly goes down during the off-season, and a major part of its focus is on who makes the team and who doesn’t. Appreciating that there wouldn’t be much left to the series if they didn’t go so in depth on this element, the final episode of each season is still a tough watch. I’m not quite sure I’d like to find my career (and potentially financial well-being) forming part of a soap opera.

Clearly there’s two sides to this. People like Eric Kush (Bears Centre) who was picked up by Chicago after being cut publicly cut by the Rams on Hard Knocks, will argue that it doesn’t do your chances any harm to catch someone’s eye when the eyes of the media have spent a month and a half following you around.

Image Credit – USA Today

But this year (**Spoiler Alert, People!!**), people like the extremely likeable Devon Cajuste will be hoping to pick up a team quickly. And even though I couldn’t stand how fourth string QB Brogan Roback came across, it’s not going to be a nice watch when this week’s Hard Knocks lands. Seemingly, not many are safe either – not even 2016 first round draft pick QB Paxton Lynch could escape the cut from Denver. 2016 was a tough year to go into the league as a QB as there was a strong draft class that year (Goff, Wentz, Prescott… Hackenberg?!) but for a first rounder who Denver put a lot of hope on at the time to be gone already seems harsh to me, especially when the likes of Wentz and Goff were given a year or so to ‘bed in’.

Even for the lucky ones though, the average career in the NFL is just 3.3 years (according to Statista.com) – I don’t know about you, but if I’d dreamed of doing something as a career my whole life and invested that much time, effort, blood, sweat and tears into making it happen, I’d really hope it lasted a bit longer than 3.3 years when I finally got there… perhaps that’s why I buy Office Supplies for a living and don’t play professional sport [I’m not sure that’s the only reason – Ed.]. I guess that’s why it’s so important for those who do get there to be the best they can on every down… and keep saving their money for retirement!

This may be my last blog before the season starts so I should probably cover off a few things while I’m here! Firstly, here’s a look at the Rams ‘odds to cash out’ chart as it stands:

The Wrong Football are also taking part in a charity fantasy football league in aid of 4Louis, a charity whose amazing work provides memory boxes to hospitals in the U.K. in aid of bereaved parents who have lost a child through stillbirth or neonatal death. It’s a great charity and while I’ll share more about the team when the draft (currently moving at the speed of global warming) is complete, but in the meantime, go to 4Louis.co.uk for more information, and if you would like to donate, head over to https://www.justgiving.com/4louis – a donation of just £30 allows them to provide a family with one of their memory boxes.

Happy Week One everyone!!

@TWFDan

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