Love/Hate Review
While these articles are usually fairly mundane there are some important tidbits and lessons that can be learned from reading about other peoples successes and miscues. I think it is important to post this in order to be transparent with the FF community as well as learning from my mistakes. It was by no means my best season with predictions but still a solid one nonetheless. I am excited to refine my process for next year and continue to improve. (All of these numbers are taken from the end of week 16).
1st round winners:
Antonio, Odell and Julio (Love): Julio has only played in 13 games this year, was hobbled in others and is still the WR8. Brown finished as the WR1 once again and Odell finished as the WR3 both matching their draft-day costs. While it was a down year for WR’s in general none of these players can be considered bad picks.
A.J. Green (Love): Green got injured and couldn’t return in a lost season for the Bengals. He was the WR5 in PPG and dominated when he played. He killed teams in the playoffs but injury shouldn’t count against him.
Todd Gurley (Hate): He stunk this year and it makes sense. The O-Line was bad, the QB play was worse and their WR’s were brutal. Not to mention Gurley didn’t play that well himself.
Rob Gronkowski (Hate): I won’t count the injury against him but even when he did play he was the TE6 in PPG. He wasn’t worth his drafting in the first round.
1st round losers:
Lamar Miller (Love): I should have listened to Matt Kelley (@Fantasy_Mansion) rant saying, “Lamar Miller is a fake Bellcow”. It should have made more sense to us that a player who has never received a big workload in his entire collegiate or professional career may struggle to remain efficient or stay healthy when given a big workload. Part of the problem was the poor offense around him but he also wasn’t breaking tackles or playing well himself. He is the RB15 through week 16.
2nd round winners:
Mike Evans (Love): He is the WR4 despite a WR8+ cost on draft day. Evans received a crazy target load this year and should continue to grow with Jameis. He is likely a 1st rounder next year.
Amari Cooper (Hate): The first half of the season I was mad I didn’t have more Amari cooper shares. As the season ends I am very glad I did not. He hasn’t done much to close the season out and is currently the WR14.
2nd round losers:
Jamaal Charles (Love): I was wrong about Charles because he didn’t heal properly from his 2nd surgery. This is unfortunate to see as he is a game-changing player and one that could have been a huge fantasy asset this year.
Brandin Cooks (Hate): I guess Cooks falls under the “Loser” category since he is the WR7. Yet many fantasy owners struggled with when to start him due to his inconsistencies. It is a loss, but not a huge one.
Devonta Freeman (Hate): Freeman and Coleman both exceeded expectations this year in the high-flying Falcons offense. He is currently the RB6 despite a RB7 draft cost.
3rd Round winners:
Lesean Mccoy (Love): One of the biggest market inefficiencies this year due to the amount of WR’s being drafted early Lesean Mccoy has been a league winner for those who were able to get him in the 3rd. He is currently the RB4 despite playing only 14 games.
Demaryius Thomas (Love): He is the WR13 this year and has been one of the most consistent WR’s. He didn’t have many huge games unfortunately but part of that comes with the growing pains the offense and Trevor Siemian faced. DT will be undervalued again next year and will be a high end WR2 or maybe even a WR1 again if they address their QB situation (Go get Romo).
Cam Newton & Kelvin Benjamin (Hate): Benjamin straight up sucks and him being drafted in the 3rd round was insanity to me. As for Cam, I thought some regression was coming but not this much. He isn’t even a top 12 QB this year. Yikes.
T.Y. Hilton(Love): Hilton is the WR5 and outproduced his draft cost by a good amount. Recency bias made people forget that him and luck can tear up opposing secondaries. There is a good chance he will be undervalued again next year.
3rd round losers:
Sammy Watkins: I need to stop buying into injured players. Hoping to get him at a discount I instead got pretty much nothing. If he is healthy he could be a great buy-low for redraft next year.
4th Round Winners:
Golden Tate (Love): He was being drafted at WR22 which seemed low to me. After a very slow start he is going to finish as the WR18 despite only scoring 3 TDs. He is the centerpiece of Jim Bob Cooter’s dink and dunk offense.
Matt Forte (Hate): Forte went off in the beginning of the year but ended up not doing a whole lot due to slowing down. This makes sense because he is old and shouldn’t have been handling a 30 touch workload in the first place. He will finish as RB19 with a draft cost of RB15.
Jeremy Langford (Hate): We all knew he was gonna stink (thanks Mike Clay), but besides that he lost his job very quickly. While some of that was due to injury, Jordan howard is a better talent and showed it. Langford was a huge reach in the 4th round.
4th Round Losers:
Demarco Murray (Hate): Took a hard L on this one. Murray was in the right system with a good offensive line and he looked fantastic. My worries about Derrick Henry were useless as Murray is the RB5 despite a RB18 draft cost. This was my worst call of the season.
Jeremy Maclin (Love): I really don’t know what happened here. Maclin disappeared from the offense and only played in 10 games. He had about two decent games this season where he was actually fantasy viable.
5th round Winners:
Jordan Matthews (Hate): He was being drafted at WR28 and finished as WR40. He is struggling to carve out a large piece of the offense.
Arian Foster/Ajayi (Love): I recommended buying the backfield (aka Ajayi and Foster) so even though foster retired you would have been more than fine. Yet, foster played well when healthy and racked up points. Adam Gase is a smart man and a good coach for fantasy, His RB’s are very valuable commodities.
5th round Losers:
Greg Olsen (Hate): drafted as the TE3 he finishes as the TE1. The panthers offense relied on him due to the lack of playmakers on the outside as well as cam’s poor play at times.
Jeremy Hill (Hate): He was being drafted as RB21 and finished as RB20. An injury to Gio Bernard as well as a few big games helped him match his draft cost.
Marvin Jones (Love): He started off red hot and even had a 200 yard game. He is now WR42 and not a major part of the lions offense anymore.
Micheal Floyd (Love): In a contract year no player disappointed more than floyd. Besides playing poorly and being demoted to 4th on the Arizona depth chart, he got a DUI and is now on the patriots. It was a horrible season for him and a poor investment for fantasy owners.
6th round Winners:
Drew Brees (Love): Taking a QB in the first 5 rounds is silly, but when you can get a top 3 QB in the 6th round it makes sense to invest. Brees has been fantastic this year and shown little signs of slowing down.
Allen Hurns (Hate): His Fantasy points per touch last year was unsustainable and everyone knew it. The whole Jags offense looked like a hot mess this year and Hurns went down on the sinking ship with everyone else.
6th round losers:
Tyler Lockett (Love): Sure he was injured, but damn you Matt Harmon. I became a believer despite my gut telling me otherwise. He is in an average volume offense with a QB who likes to spread the ball around. He was also outsnapped by Jermaine Kearse and Doug Baldwin. There is also a correlation between Lockett not getting targets and Jimmy Grahams emergence. There are only so many mouths that can be fed.
Travis Kelce (Hate): Kelce had one of his best seasons and will finish as the TE1/2. I was definitely wrong about him as he finally got more targets and became an integral part of the offense.
7th round + Winners:
Micheal Thomas
Desean Jackson
Mohamed Sanu
