The Fantasy Football Headset 2016; Wrapping the Season
BG - A bit late but it's time to wrap the season for both my Keeper and Dynasty Fantasy Football teams. In the two leagues I covered both ends of the spectrum taking home a back-to-back Keeper championship and finishing second to last in the Dynasty League. In both leagues I made a trade before the playoffs and I already made a move to 'improve' my Dynasty roster for next season.
Starting with the Dynasty League, since finishing near the bottom isn't normally a thing for me. I was able to take advantage of a team making a playoff push to improve my team. Running back was a position that was thin across the league and, with my team sitting near the bottom, I was looking to move LeGarrette Blount for a long term piece. A friend of mine in the league had Travis Kelce and Jimmy Graham and was looking for a RB boost heading into the playoffs. I was able to swap Blount for Graham and lock up my TE position. Graham was the number four scoring TE and I have him paired with Cameron Brate, the number eight scoring TE, going forward. Blount was going to be a decision for me when it came to trimming the roster so I was happy to make a move and lock up the position.
If you followed up the Fantasy Football Headset you would know my WR position was something I felt very confident about but ended up being a big let down for me. I drafted Keenan Allen, Kelvin Benjamin, Sterling Sheppard and Allen Robinson. Allen went down in game one and Benjamin and Robinson were big busts this season. At the end of the season I had also added, Tyreek Hill (our league rewards returning points), Tyler Boyd, Marqise Lee and Malcom Mitchell. Mitchell and Lee I'm not sure when it comes to roster cuts but the rest were players to hang on to and plenty of depth to made a move.
I drafted the top four (we start three WR and Flex) with the potential hope of making a move, especially after my RB position ended up so thin. Luckily, I was able to pair up with my dad, who finished last, to take Mark Ingram off his hands. He finished as the eighth highest scoring RB but was really up and down at the end of the season with Tim Hightower taking carries. We swapped Ingram for Benjamin and I felt like it was a win for me. Out of my three studs I felt most confident that Benjamin was number three on that list and I got a potentially top 10 RB that could really give my team a shot in the arm.
Ingram now leads my running back position that also has Dion Lewis, C. J. Anderson, Duke Johnson and Theo Riddick. It is an ugly position, even in PPR, so I was happy to be able to get the Saints RB to boost the position. And with the number two overall pick I'll be looking at rookies like Leonard Fournette, Dalvin Cook and Christian McCaffrey to pair with Ingram as my two lead backs. Fingers crossed for a bounce back from Anderson and hopefully Riddick comes back to do his thing, but Lewis could very likely be cut after James White's Super Bowl performance and Johnson is nothing more than a bench piece at best right now.
In Keeper League I made a pair of trades early in the season that helped carry my team (Blount for Stefon Diggs and Frank Gore for Larry Fitzgerald), but my two biggest additions were Jordan Howard and Matt Ryan. Ryan sat on the waiver wire for about half the season and someone gave up on Howard when the OC couldn't figure out to use him. The nice thing about the keeper league (we keep two) is that assets are easier to acquire heading into the playoffs and I flipped Isaiah Crowell and Tyreek Hill for Latavius Murray and Kyle Rudolph and all it cost me was a swap of 4th and 8th round picks with the guy that finished 5th in the league. I moved down four spots in those rounds for two players I started championship week.
It was actually a tight league this season. We play 13 regular season weeks and had four people finish 5-8, two at 6-7 and two at 7-6. The team that finished second was 9-4 (and the points champ) and I finished 10-3. Even in the playoffs it was ugly with three of the four teams finishing with under 90 points. I had 88 and the 3 and 4 seeds scored 73 and 70 while the 2 seed dropped 155. Luckily, I got him in the championship round by the slim margin of 122-118, and that was going against Ezekiel Elliot.
After the several keeper swapping last season I think it is quite evident we brought the league closer together so, while I'm pumped to get the championship, it definitely proves you need some luck as I was able to escape the rash of injuries that went around. Now we get ready for the draft and the decision on keepers and possibly some more swaps. And for Dynasty it is 100% about the draft with the league set to keep 15 players on their 20 man rosters. I'll be taking a look at players as the draft get ready and this summer we'll have a new rookie rankings as we get ready for the next season.