Stew’s Pot Luck – Don’t Take Offence, It’s The Offensive Previews

Dynabowl offensive previews

 

East Flanders Dungeoneers

2015 record: 5-8 (8th)

 

With a lacklustre finish in 2015, EFD needs a strong start to have a shot at improving their record. There will be no better way to do this than with Cam at QB in the season opener. He’s a beast in the 4 point-per-passing TD format (amassing 636 rushing yards and 10 TDs in 2015) and Tannehill won’t get a look in.

 

The depth at WR is the other bright light. Allen, Cooper (1,070 yards, 6 TDs in 2015) and Marshall (1,052 yards, 14 TDs in 2015), are easy locks for starting at WR and should produce big things. Floyd is on a lot of breakout lists this season, though he could be anywhere from the 1st to 4th best receiver in an offence that brimmeth over with talent. White’s breakout hopes seem to be dwindling, so these starters need to stay healthy.

 

The RB core is a big of a dumpster fire. Carlos Hyde could be decent and showed some brilliance at the beginning of the 2015 season (182 yards and 2 TDs in week 1!). Rashad Jennings is probably a bit short of RB2 material, though he ended 2015 strongly (over 100 yards in each of the last four weeks) and should have more of a feature role in 2016 and improve on his 20th best RB ranking in 2015.

 

Fleener, while no Graham circa. 2014, is an excellent starting TE and an upgrade over Watson – he should take a good chunk of the points production at N’Orleans.

 

Final offensive prediction: 1-12 (10th place).

 

Here comes the Brees

2015 record: 6-7 (9th)

 

With a reasonable regular season record, I’m left wondering what happened in the post-season to finish 9th overall? I’m assuming it was horrible to watch and may have been, at least in part, due to the hubris and nemesis of Freeman (1,056 rushing yards, 11 TDs but only 4 yards per carry in 2015).

 

Things are looking bright at QB. Tom Brady (2nd best QB in 2015) is the single greatest player (nay person) to pick up a football and Andrew Luck should have a much better 2016 with an improved O-line and time to recover form the spate of injuries in 2015. With two starters after week 4, also potential for a nice trade here to help out at WR.

 

I love the RB depth with this team. Lamar Miller was wasted in Disneyland and is going to be a stud this season in Houston. Doug Martin (1,402 yards, 6 TDs) had an excellent 2015 and should pick up where he left off. There are question marks over whether Freeman can re-find the promise he showed pre-concussion but should be excellent. Sims is a quiet sleeper for me to pick up good all-purpose yards production, while Hightower is a valuable back-ups if Ingram goes down.

 

With the exception of TD machine Allen Robinson (14 TDs in 2015), the WRs are quite thin on the ground. Fitzgerald should have another nice 1,000 yard+ season and Dorsett is worth keeping an eye on, if Luck gets going and spreads the ball around to more than Hilton and Moncrief. I like Ertz at TE this season, a solid stand-in for Tylenol Eifert while he gets back to full health.

 

Final offensive prediction: 4-9 (8th place).

 

Tamworth Two

2015 record: 7-6 (2nd)

 

Oh to be back in 2015, when McFadden (1,089 rushing yards, 3 TDs) was doing what Randle couldn’t in Dallas, Stewart was over-delivering in Carolina (989 rushing yards, 6 TDs), Crabtree was dominating catches in Oakland (85 rec vs. Coopers 72), and we still assumed Peyton would be able to throw a ball to Thomas (1,304 yards, 6 TDs). At the start of the 2016 season, the team is looking a bit less shiny.

 

The position at QB is looking strong with two starters. Rodgers’ Packers will feel they deserve a Superb owl appearance, so should be … well, superb. I like Tyrod Taylor in 4 point-per-passing-TD formats. As long as Watkins (11 yards per target and 17 yards per reception in 2015) can remain healthy and productive, he will be a good starter, leading to some difficult starting line-up options some weeks.  

 

At RB, LeSean McCoy (17th best RB in 2105, but a disappointing 3 rushing TDs over 12 games) should be a solid RB1. After that, there’s a bumfight for RB2 spot. Duke Johnson could be a sleeper if Cleveland can remain competitive and he dominates touches in favour of Crowell.

 

There are two good starting WRs in Thomas and Jeffrey (807 yards, 4 TDs over 9 games), though both have their risks – new QB and injury/offensive ineffectiveness respectively. Crabtree is likely to be the third best receiver, but should take a step back in 2016 as Cooper shines. As long as he can keep the bulk of the redzone work, he should be ok though.

 

Not much to shout about at TE. Eric Ebron (537 yards, 5 TDs in 2015) is the obvious starter and should get a bump following the departure of Megatron but difficult to get too excited about based on an unexciting 2015.

 

Final offensive prediction: 2-11 (9th place).

 

TPRot4thD: Dynasty of Sadness

2015 record: 4-9 (6th)

 

The recent injury to Teddy Bridgewater was gruesome (flailing knee anyone) but with Brees (averaging 20+ fantasy points per game in 2015) taking the starting QB position  the fantasy impact for this team should be nil. Osweiler is a nice back-up if needed and has looked promising in the preseason. Goff will probably forget his own name so probably want to steer clear. Sweet tank though.

 

The depth at RB looks much improved with the addition of Elliot and Dixon (a good stash for week 4+). Elliot has all the signs of being a stud taking advantage of that O-line. I got burned by the Abdullah (pathetic 597 rushing yards and 6 fumbles) hype in 2015, so don’t have too much confidence in the Detroit RBs. Riddick’s (80 rec in 2015) role is pretty well defined on the passing plays and Zenner seems unlikely to provide enough production to start on a week-to-week basis, despite looking like the best RB in Detroit before getting injured.

 

At WR, “ODB” (1,450 yards, 13 TDs in 2015) is the shining light and should be amaze-balls. Despite no obvious number two, there is good sleeper value. Kenny Stills has been getting some attention in Miami, while Michael Thomas, Treadwell and Diggs are all good candidates to step into sizeable roles in 2016.

 

Delanie Walker (94 rec, 1,088 yards and 6 TDs) should be excellent this season in an improved Tennessee offence and Dwayne Allen should bounce back and be more productive following the Fleener departure – a nice decision to have to make each week.

 

Final offensive prediction: 8-5 (4th place).

 

Dynasore Losers

2015 record: 6-7 (7th)

 

This looks like a team that can grind out wins in 2016, but it won’t be pretty.

 

With about 1/10th of the salary cap going on four mid-range QBs, it might be time to rationalise with some blue-sky thinking to create a new paradigm. Carson Palmer (close to leading with 4,671 passing yards and 35 TDs in 2015) seems like the obvious starter, if he can stay healthy and take advantage of the WR talent in Arizona, though Carr (15th in 2015) and Winston (13th in 2015) may also be worth starting in a given week.

 

This team is shallow at RB. Peterson (1,707 all-purpose yards, 11 TDs in 2015) should get a lot of work to start the season, though I’d want McKinnon too should age and workload catch up with AP. I’m not optimistic about the rest. Forte (< 900 rushing yards, 7 TDs) seems likely to take another step back in 2016 and Blount (only 746 yards, but 7 TDs in 2015) might be a good starter but you really will have no idea week-to-week. I don’t see Washington doing much without an injury to Murray.

 

To balance this, the team looks great at WR. Jordy is back and will be a stud in the Bay. Moncrief (only 733 yards and 7 yards per target in 2015), seems to be on all sleeper lists everywhere always and his ADP has been creeping up, with good reason. Landry (1,270 all-purpose yards, 5 TDs in 2015) is a great pick in Miami, as long as Tannehill and the O-line hold strong in 2016. Gordon is an unknown, but after a promising preseason he could be great. To round it out, the WR2 position in Pitt is up for grabs and Coates seems a good candidate to run with it.

 

Nothing to shout about at TE – Graham (74 targets over 11 games) could be productive but needs to prove he can play a sizeable role in Seattle and Walford showed some promise and rapport with Carr in 2015, but would need to take a large step up to be worth starting.

 

Final offensive prediction: 6-7 (6th place).

 

DynaForOne Firebirds

2015 record: 4-9 (10th)

 

A disappointing 2015 record shouldn’t discourage this team for 2016 – they’re definitely my favourite to get a most improved award.

 

At QB, Russell Wilson (4,024 passing and 553 rushing yards in 2015) will be excellent with his hands and feet and should have a good shot at ending the season at number 1 and MVP. Rivers (4,792 passing yards in a league leading 661 attempts) throws a tonne is a decent stand in for the bye week and a sneaky choice when the match-up suits.

 

This is a damn fine bunch of RBs. The new, leaner Lacy (only 946 all-purpose yards in 2015) should be back on form after a disappointing 2015. Hopefully CJ Anderson (903 all-purpose yards in 2015) has shaken off his ankle troubles from last year. And despite the naysayers, I like Mathews – he has an inexperienced QB who will want to hand off and while he faces injury risk, this seems far overblown. Plus a mint week 1 match-up. Gore (12th best RB in 16 games and 260 attempts in 2015), could still be a workhorse in Indy and Rawls (6 yards per rushing attempt) could be useful, despite Seattle’s backfield shaping up to be an RBBC.

 

The WR bunch seems well thought through. Julio (1,871 yards in 20150 is the sole stud, and Edelman (37th best WR despie only playing 9 games) is great but with some patience there is a great chance that a few of the other WRs will emerge as top 20 WRs in 2016. My money is on Snead (984 yards in 2015) with a pass-heavy New Orleans offence, though Jackson and Sharp both have 2nd year QBs in offenses that should be productive in scoring points and chasing games. DGB is probably not going to do anything, but it would be cool to see him get going in Philly.  

 

Gronk-party boat-owski (1,176 yards and 11 TDs in 2015) is amazing, but you knew that.

 

Final offensive prediction: 11-2 (2nd place).

 

Dynablaster Bombermen

2015 record: 6-7 (5th)

 

When you’ best QBs are Dak Prescott and Kirk Cousins (8th best QB in 2015 with 4,166 passing yards and 70% competion), difficult questions will be asked. Dak had a nice pre-season but I think Cousins will be the go-to guy, with a nice receiving core and an improving O-line. RGIII got named team captain, which is nice for him. Still, it’s the Browns though.

 

David Johnson (1,038 all-purpose yards, 12 TDs in 2015) will be fun to watch in Arizona and, if he lives up to anywhere near his ADP, will be a lock for 1500+ all-purpose yards and 12+ TDs. So that’s all good then. The memories of 2015 disasters past seem to be fading for Gordon (not a top 50 RB in 2015) and Hill (794 rushing yards, but 11 TDs!), though they might be difficult to trust week-to-week given the bust potential. Gio (21st best RB in 2015, 1,200 all purpose yards, 5 TDs)  should emerge as a decent match-up proof RB2 or flex behind that O-line.

 

At WR, AJ “turf toe” Green (1,297 yards off only 132 targets in 2015) is one of the most fun players to watch, as long it’s not prime-time. Cooks (12th best WR, 1,138 receiving yards in 2015) and Decker (10th best WR, 1,027 receiving yards but 12 TDs in 2015) should be very productive again in 2016. Benjamin may start slower than Funchess and Olsen, and rumours are he’s chubbed up a bit and is losing snap counts, so not sure what to expect there.

 

Greg Olsen (1,104 yards and 7 TDs in 2015) should have another solid season with plenty of red zone targets, you pretty much know what you get at this stage. It’s a shame, therefore, that Butt-catch Barnidge (1,043 yards and 9 TDs in 2015) will probably warm the bench.

 

Final offensive prediction: 9-4 (3rd place).

 

Champions of the Sun

2015 record: 11-2 (1st)

 

Congratulations to this team on their dominant record in 2015 and championship. However, I can see the crown slipping in 2016.

 

Big Ben (21st but almost 4,000 yards in 12 games in 2015) had an excellent 2015 and will be a fine fantasy starter in 2016, despite slipping in fantasy rankings. Not much in terms of back-ups here though, with Lynch losing the starter job to Siemian and may be third behind Sanchez also.

 

Bell is the clear RB1 from week 4, and Williams (1,274 all purpose yards, 11 TDs in 2015) should be an excellent fill in, with a great week 1 match-up to boot. I love Stradivarius Murray (10th best RB in 2015, with 1,298 all-purpose yards but only 6 TDs), who should pwn with an excellent O-line and a lot of production. Booker and McKinnon are both valuable handcuffs/trade bait for their respective starters. Like orange is the new Black, could White be the new Dion i(4 TDs in only 7 games in 2015) n New England? A good looking bunch.

 

And the fun doesn’t stop there. Hopkins (3rd most receptions and 1,521 yards in 2015) was a monster in 2015, despite a poor QB situation, so should see a great 2016 with the upgrade to Osweiler. Mike Evans (1,206 yards, 3 TDs) is the easy number WR2 despite a slightly disappointing 2015 on TDs and will be the clear centre-piece for Tampa Bay. Choosing the WR3 between Brown (21st best WR in 2015), Shepard and Tate (34th best WR in 2015) is a nice problem to have. At least one should emerge as a clear starter by week 3.

 

Jordan Reed (952 yards, 11 TDs in 2015) will be an excellent starter at TE, with Kelce (875 yards, 5 TDs) a decent replacement if the usual injuries hit.

 

Final offensive prediction: 7-6 (5th place).

 

Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules

2015 record: 6-7 (4th)

 

I think the decent showing in 2015 and I can see the good times keeping on rolling …

 

While the Bortles (4th best QB in 2015, with 4,428 passing yards but 18 interceptions in 2015) hype train is starting to slow down, he should be a reliable starter each week and, some weeks, will be great. Fitz-magic can be swapped in when the match-ups favour the beardy man. Kaep won’t be worth starting, but nice to have him on your team as a point of principle.

 

The shrewd addition of fantasy expert love interest Derrick Henry adds some great depth to the RBs, to back up Murray (1,024 all-purpose yards and 7 TDs in 2015). One of them should be a good producer in 2016 and my money’s on Henry. Mark Ingram (1,174 yards, 6 TDs in 2015) is a solid starter and, with the lingering knee issues for Charles, Ware will be a great starter for the Chiefs. Don’t fancy Blue (39th best RB in 2015), Foster or Yeldon (26th best RB in 2015) to do much given their all in backfield timeshares, but hopefully won;t need to start them unless things get desperate.

 

This team is loaded with high to low range WR2s. Cobb (28th best WR in 2015, 829 rec yards) should have a better 2016 since he should draw less coverage. Funchess is a good shout to lead the Panthers in receiving yards, Baldwin (7th best WR in 2015 with 14 TDs!) is just brilliant and Aiken (944 yards, 5 TDs) should produce again in Baltimore. Rookie Will Fuller is a neat addition to the team. His draft report warned he has skinny legs though, so watch out for that I think? I don’t really understand the excitement about Maclin (1,088 yards, 8 TDs in 2015) given the Chiefs’ running game will have improved significantly from 2015, but I might be an outlier here.

 

Either Jared Cook or Julius Thomas should be fine TEs this season, but nothing special.

 

Final offensive prediction: 5-8 (7th place).

 

Dyna Hard With A Vengeance

2015 record: 10-3 (3rd)

 

I love this team almost as much as the name. It’s not a Christmas movie though.

 

At QB, Manning (10th best QB in 2015), Mariota (22nd best QB in 2015, but only 12 games in 2015) and Stafford (9th best QB in 2015) are all viable starters in 2016. Mariota is especially valuable in the 4-point-per-passing TD format and Stafford will probably only get better without the pressure to keep Megatron involved.

 

The depth at RB is attractive, with Gurley (1,294 all-purpose yards, 10 TDs in 2015) and Charles as two clear RB1s. Langford (816 yards, 7 TDs in 2015) has the chance of remaining productive if the Bears can keep games close enough to run the ball. Christine Michael could be the leading rusher in Seattle at the end of the season, though we’ve heard the hype before. Smallwood and Drake are neat additions, though Miami and the Eagles might be offenses tto avoid in 2016.

 

This is a team with two WR1s – Brown (1,834 yards and 10 TDs in 2015) and Dez; two WR2s – Hilton (1,124 yards and 5 TDs in 2015) and Watkins (15th best WR despite playing only 13 games in 2015); and two WR3s – Hurns (14th best WR in 2015) and Lockett. Plus Pryor! Absolutely loaded. TE is fairly thin, with a bumfight between Bennett or Rodgers to start. Neither will be great in 2016 though.

 

Final offensive prediction: 12-1 (1st place). Probably not a surprise, but this is my team to dominate and take home the Owl.

MAX’S STAT BLATS! Pre-Season Tim Preview

DynaForOne Firebirds

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

101.71 ppg, 9th best in league

QB 21.68 ppg, 1st
RB 24.03 ppg, 9th
WR/TE 43.66 ppg, 7th
SPEC 12.34 ppg, 10th

It was a case of first to worst (in Tim, it’s almost impossible for a Tim team to be worse than most of the teams in Peter) for Neil Hawke and the Firebirds last season. The inaugural champs didn’t lose it at QB though where Rusty Wilson and Big Phil Rivers are one of the best one-two tandems in the league. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and, barring the ever-present spectre of injury, there’s no reason to think that the Firebirds’ QBs won’t be right up there again this year.

So where did it go so wrong then? Step forward CJ Anderson and Marshawn Lynch. Neil’s two big RB threats going into last season both underwhelmed drastically for one reason or another and left the Firebird’s relying on Chris Johnson’s zimmerframe and Frank Gore’s determination to show the young ‘uns how they do back in the day. This season Lynch is retired and Gore and CJ2K are both yet another year older. The Firebirds have added Lynch’s heir presumptive in Seattle, Thomas Rawls, and traded for Eddy Lacy though. Rawls and Lacy both have question marks over them but it’s good to see Hawke recognise the problem and take big steps to resolve it. If CJ Anderson turns up this year and Ryan Matthews stays healthy this could be a very strong group.

The receivers weren’t quite as bad as the RBs but they still weren’t great. How Julio Jones didn’t get injured from the stress of having to carry this entire offence on his back last year I don’t know. Edelman gave him some help before injury ended his season and Hawke pulled Snead from the waiver wire but after those three there’s really nothing to say. Again though, the Firebirds went hard at fixing this position. Vincent Jackson came in free agency and Markus Wheaton in a trade (albeit for a vastly overinflated price for some reason). With Corey Coleman, Tyler Boyd and, particularly, Tajae Sharpe added in the draft there is a good group of young receivers here who can provide this season and hopefully for a while to come. And at TE? Hawke had Gronk last season and he still has him this season. End of story.

Trending up

DEFENCE

75.81 ppg, 8th best in league

DL 28.22 ppg, 2nd
LB 24.90 ppg, 7th
DB 22.69 ppg, 9th

Along with the Tamworth Two, the Firebirds have the best DT tandem in the league and both Geno Atkins and Ndamukong Suh (eventually) produced the numbers last season and are in a position to do it again this year. Unfortunately for Neil he only had one DE that scored over 51 points last season and none that scored over 100. It’s all change on that front this season with only Charles Johnson back. Brandon Graham moves from LB to DE to provide a clear #1 but Johnson is not the guy to rely on and so Neil is left looking askance at Mario Williams and hoping that he can be bothered to turn up and play in Miami when he couldn’t in Buffalo. To be honest though, if Neil just didn’t play a second DE it still wouldn’t be that much worse than last season.

The Firebirds’ LBs were a weak unit last season with injuries to De’Andre Levy and Alec Ogletree cutting down hugely on their ceiling. Behind those two both Lawrence Timmons and Julius Peppers were solid but Derrick Johnson was the only elite performer. This season both Johnson and Timmons are back and Levy is at least Questionable rather than Out. Ogletree looks healthy, Eric Kendricks moves into year two after a promising rookie season and Mark Barron has been moved from S to LB. Last season’s performance should be the floor for this unit going forward.

The real place that Hawke suffered was at DB though, giving away 16 points a week to the best unit in the league. If you got prizes for having the most players to choose from he would probably do very well as he had a whopping 12 DBs on the roster at the end of the season but sometimes less is more, particularly at CB where the Firebirds had 7 players and only one that scored over 90 points. Neil has trimmed down a little for this season (although he still has 10 DBs) and added Janoris Jenkins at CB who scored well last season, although he is in a new spot this year. Patrick Chung is the only addition at S though where Mark Barron’s loss will hurt.

Steady

OVERALL

177.52 ppg, 7th best in league

The Firebirds have strengthened on offence and should be much closer to the middle of the pack this year and with more depth in reserve. On defence, although the LBs got better the DBs got worse and the D line is one injury away from collapse. I think they may still be the worst team in Tim but the performances should be better.

Dynablaster Bombermen

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

103.81 ppg, 7th best in league

QB 17.17 ppg, 7th
RB 25.09 ppg, 8th
WR/TE 47.47 ppg, 4th
SPEC 14.08 ppg, 4th

Many people’s hot tips for the Owl last season ended up mired in mediocrity as their big guns just didn’t quite fire like many of us thought they would. Despite a poor QB performance it was the RBs that really hurt the most though. Going into the season with round 1 re-draft RB Jeremy Hill and hot rookie Melvin Gordon looked good but, in hindsight, we should have seen that the group was shallow and when Hill and Gordon were less than stellar it left the Bombermen’s ground game plodding. This year they have Gordon and Hill still in place, with appropriately tempered expectations, but superstar-on-the-rise David Johnson to back that up too. Surely another bright young thing can’t flop to the floor like a suffocating salmon at the Bombermen?

I skipped over the QB situation up there but it’s worth looking over again. The Bombermen go into the season with 6 QBs rostered as of today, two more than any other team. It’s a sure sign that they don’t think there are guys there to rely upon. Matt Ryan has consistently underwhelmed now to the point where he can only be seen as a backup and that leaves the Bombermen choosing between Kirk Cousins and RG3; both with huge potential but neither is a sure thing. Cousins should be an improvement over Ryan though and RG3 still has the potential for gold dust. The Bombermen will have to be careful not to fall into the Mangboob trap of tinkering too much though and PLOBbing themselves out of a lot of points.

Despite performing the best of the units mentioned already, the Bombermen’s receivers also have to be classified as a disappointment in 2015. Kelvin Benjamin never saw the field, AJ Green didn’t live up to his usual stellar standards, Brandin Cooks took half a season to get going and Jordan Matthews dropped, tipped and fumbled his ceiling away. With the exception of Matthews, all of those guys should be much better this year and the addition of Eric Decker in free agency brings some week-to-week stability to the unit. With the likes of Ty Montgomery, De’Anthony Thomas and Chris Conley backing up though the Bombermen have to hope that their WRs stay healthy. At TE Greg Olsen keeps on rolling and must be considered the #2 fantasy player at his position going forward.

Trending up

DEFENCE

79.38 ppg, 5th best in league

DL 25.09 ppg, 4th
LB 23.17 ppg, 8th
DB 31.12 ppg, 3rd

Looking at the Bombermen’s defence last season you would probably have had it down as average and that is how they performed. Ben Hendy spent big on the D line in the season, bringing in Aaron Donald and it paid off as the line clawed its way up to 4th in the league by the end of the season. The procurement of Donald was just as well really as there was little to speak of outside him one Cameron Wake went down. This season sees Connor Barwin move down to DE and explosive rookie Noah Spence offers some potential at the same spot. You don’t have to imagine much though to see one injury to Donald leaving this unit producing bottom tier numbers.

The LB group wasn’t so much bad as it was lacking an elite talent. Ryan Shazier was the B-men’s top scoring LB and he was LB26 for the season in terms of production. Barwin, Sean Lee and Clay Matthews offered a solid presence but not much of a ceiling. This year the picture is much the same, if not worse with Barwin’s move to DE. Hendy will need to hope that Willie Young’s sack numbers continue to rise and that Clay Matthews’ move back to OLB kicks up his point ceiling. Sean Lee and Elvis Dumervil are fragile presences to rely on though and there is a question about how long Julius Peppers can reasonably keep going at an elite NFL level.

The defensive backs produced well last season and they’re almost entirely all in place still for this season. You wouldn’t want to bet serious money on a group of corners and safeties producing with any consistency but there’s no reason to think that they will be worse so you have to consider this area the strength of the D.

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OVERALL

183.20 ppg, 5th best in league

Barring another clean sweep of disappointment, the Bombermen have to be better on offence this season. On paper their starting lineup is excellent but I am concerned about the depth behind it. The same could be said of the defence except that, DT and DB excluded, I would say the starting lineup is average. If this team is going to challenge they’re going to need their big names to produce and to stay on the field but I worry that the teams around them have strengthened more than Hendy’s men have.

Champions of the Sun

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

122.17 ppg, best in league

QB 16.52 ppg, 9th
RB 35.13 ppg, 2nd
WR/TE 56.31 ppg, 1st
SPEC 14.21 ppg, 3rd

When you have the best offence in the league, where do you look to improve? Well, the stats would tell you to look at your QBs who averaged out at replacement level for the season. There were a couple of games that Roethlisberger left injured that influences that but Max Cubberley was lucky that Carson Palmer’s poor numbers didn’t come in the regular season as they might have cost him a couple of wins. Will they be better in 2016? Palmer is gone so it really all depends on Ben Roethlisberger’s health. If he plays 16 games then they probably will but if he goes down injured it becomes Joe Flacco or Paxton Lynch calling the shots and things could get ugly.

A triple combination of Latavius Murray, Thomas Rawls and DeAngelo Williams really brought home the bacon for the Champions last season as they scored consistently well through the year to prop up the team. Rawls is gone for the coming season but Murray and the Bell/Williams tandem should still be top performers. Behind them Cubberley would have been hoping Jay Ajayi would provide depth but Arian Foster seems to have taken the starting job in Miami and so he will be relying on the mercurial talents of Shane Vereen or a rookie breakout from Devontae Booker or Keith Marshall to back-up and that’s not ideal.

Breakout seasons from Allen Robinson, Jordan Reed and DeAndre Hopkins led to the Champions’ receivers plowing a furrow through most opposing defences last season, scoring nearly 9 points more per week than the 3rd placed unit. John Brown, Mike Evans, Travis Kelce and the late addition of Eric Decker really reinforced the strength of this group and it’s no surprise that they topped the scoring charts. Cubberley took the somewhat perplexing decision to move Allen Robinson on in the off-season though, ostensibly because he couldn’t afford to renew him, and the loss of Decker also makes this unit weaker. The Champions are gambling on Mike Evans to bounce back and replace Allen Robinson’s production and have also brought in Golden Tate to shore things up. Reed and Kelce are still present at TE in one of the best TE tandems in the league. Expect to see this group fall back to the pack but still be a top producer.

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DEFENCE

95.05 ppg, best in league

DL 20.68 ppg, 6th
LB 35.89 ppg, 1st
DB 38.48 ppg, 1st

If the offence was the best in the league by a length, the defence was best in the league by a country mile, averaging nearly 12 points per week more than the unit in 2nd. The biggest reason for this was a surprisingly huge production from the DBs. The Champions don’t roster a lot at this position but Reshad Jones and Kurt Coleman were both top 10 safeties and Josh Norman, Adam Jones and Marcus Williams were all top 10 cornerbacks. Every member of that secondary is back this season but the fickle nature of the position means that Cubberley cannot count on that production continuing. Norman is in a new spot, Jones is a year older and Coleman’s supporting cast has diminished. They should still be good but you wouldn’t want to bet on them being the best.

If secondary was the strength of the D then the line was the weakness. Marcell Dareus is a fantasy bust and Robert Quinn played half a season at best, leaving the Champions without their top two earners on the line. Thankfully Cubberley struck gold on the wire with Tom Johnson from Minnesota and a mid-season trade for Olivier Vernon made up for the loss of Quinn. The line should be stronger in 2016. Cubberley drafted three rookie DTs and, although it looks like Tom Johnson will still lead the line into the season, he can hope that by week 9 he may have more options there. At DE though Robert Quinn is back and has been joined by the newly re-classified Khalil Mack. Add Robert Ayers (#8 DE by average weekly points), Olivier Vernon, Calais Campbell, Leonard Williams and a healthy Dante Fowler Jr. to the mix and, frankly, it all looks a bit silly.

In a reverse-Chandler Jones though, the line’s gain is the linebackers’ loss as Khalil Mack’s re-classification leaves the Champions’ #1 LB corps light. Jamie Collins, Navorro Bowman and Anthony Barr are back but Justin Houston may or may not play this year. There is scarily little depth present at this position at the moment and Cubberley will have to look to address that before the season starts otherwise this unit will see a serious drop off.

Trending down

OVERALL

217.21 ppg, best in league

Although both sides of this team are trending down I still think the Champions will be one of the better teams in the league. Cubberley has leveraged some of his potential to repeat to try and build for longevity a bit through the draft and that will see the team drop to the pack but hopefully stay bobbing near the top, hunting for the playoffs.

Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dynarules

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

109.08 ppg, 4th best in league

QB 19.94 ppg, 4th
RB 30.00 ppg, 5th
WR/TE 45.88 ppg, 5th
SPEC 13.25 ppg, 5th

After a slow start to the season that saw Kelkowski start 1-4 they really rallied at the right time and made a strong, late run to the playoffs. Looking at their scores it’s a story of consistency across the board being just top-half in every category. This would seem to tell the tale of an offence with few weaknesses but perhaps lacking in top-end but in fact it was more a case of top-end talent not performing at a top-end level for one reason or another. At RB Mark Ingram only played half a season and Arian Foster managed less than that. DeMarco Murray was trapped in a nightmare and TJ Yeldon was defeated by game script. Despite all of that though they put up good numbers and gave Kelkowski a solid floor every week. This season Murray is in a better spot but Foster a worse. Ingram is still going to be top 5 when fit and TJ Yeldon has gone from being flummoxed by game script to being flummoxed by Chris Ivory. Pretty much status quo at Kelkowski.

QB is a tale of a jaguar. Well, not just a jaguar but El Jaguar. Blake Bortles ascent into the stratosphere of premiere QBs was a thing of beauty and timed to perfection to help Kelkowski as Romo and Kaepernick both finally gave up any pretence of fantasy relevance. This season they have a little more depth behind them but I have my doubts as to whether El Jaguar will get quite the stats he did last year, if only because the Jags may not be losing quite as much, quite as often (I can’t believe I just put that in black and white).

What was a tremendous WR group for Kelkowski in 2014 took a step back last year as Calvin Johnson got older, Julius Thomas went to Jacksonville and Randall Cobb took a step back. Their numbers were saved by Doug Baldwin’s frankly ludicrous second half of 2015 and Ben Watson coming out of leftfield to be a fantasy TE1. This year Megatron and Watson are gone and Kelkowski are relying on Baldwin to continue his form in order to give them a truly top tier WR and Julius Thomas to stay healthy to produce at TE. Unless they do Kelkowski may find themselves lagging behind the field at receiver.

Trending down

DEFENCE

79.66 ppg, 4th best in league

DL 14.82 ppg, 9th
LB 33.81 ppg, 2nd
DB 31.03 ppg, 4th

In drafting Kwon Alexander, Preston Smith and Stephone Anthony, did Kelkowski show themselves as IDP draft geniuses or did they just get lucky? Whichever it was, the trio of rookies produced and, alongside wily vets Brandon Marshall and D’Qwell Jackson, contributed to the 2nd best LB unit in the league. This season they’ve added Jerell Freeman, Dont’a Hightower and Nigel Bradham to strengthen an already powerful unit and should be right up there again.

Kelkowski’s eye for talent seems to apply equally to the secondary too where they had 5 safeties and 3 cornerbacks over 100 points. There has been turnover at CB this off-season but that isn’t necessarily a problem as the position is very volatile. The names Kelkowski have in place offer a lot of potential again and their solid S group from last year is largely intact leaving them with the most strength in depth in the league at this spot.

Where Kelkowski were let down was on the defensive line, a recurring problem for many teams in the league. Everson Griffen did not produce at his 2014 levels and he and Cliff Avril were a pedestrian DE pairing. It was even worse at DT where Malcolm Brown (DT15 but nearly 200 points down on Aaron Donald at #1) was their top scorer. Things look brighter this year with Malik Jackson moving to DT, Jason Pierre Paul having got through an off-season without blowing any more bits of his hands up and Mario Edwards Jr into his second season. The ceiling still looks low on this group but they have a chance to be better than last year.

Steady

OVERALL

188.74 ppg, 3rd best in league

Although they added a lot of strength in depth to the defence I don’t actually see the ceiling being raised a long way and I’m concerned about the depth on the offensive side of the ball. Kelkowski aren’t as bad as their first half of 2015 but they aren’t as good as their second half of 2015 either and I think they could end up pretty middle of the pack in Tim.

DynaHard With A Vengeance

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

115.45 ppg, 2nd best in league

QB 19.08 ppg, 5th
RB 33.91 ppg, 3rd
WR/TE 47.91 ppg, 3rd
SPEC 14.55 ppg, 1st

Embroiled in a two horse race with the Champions of the Sun for the best record in the Dbowl for most of the season, Chris Braithwaite denied the fans the Owl they wanted by choking in the semi-final against the Tamworth Two. DynaHarder were strong all over the roster but it’s at WR where their depth really shone from stars like Antonio Brown and TY Hilton to impact youngsters like Sammy Watkins, Allen Hurns and Tyler Lockett. Their 3rd place finish is perhaps a reflection that a lot of these players are young and a bit inconsistent but more than good enough to put the points up each week. The TE position was a bit of an achilles heel with a bunch of pedestrian options however. Over the summer Chris has engaged “win now” mode, trading away youngsters and picks for Dez Bryant to attempt to move from 3rd to 1st. The Hards have more than enough depth to take the hit though and looks stronger than ever in this department for 2016 although if Martellus Bennett isn’t a big part of the New England offence they may be light at TE again.

A power couple of Jamaal Charles and Todd Gurley made sure that Chris’ RBs held up their end of the bargain too. Jeremy Langford got a welcome boost by Matt Forte’s injury and Alfred Morris proved his usual dependable if unexciting self in Washington. This season the outlook isn’t so rosy. Todd Gurley is still a stud but there are doubts about Jamaal Charles’ role, Jeremy Langford’s competence and Alfred Morris has become a back-up in Dallas, albeit one with a huge ceiling if Ezekiel Elliott goes down. The rest of Chris’ selection consists of questionable rookie picks (Wendell Smallwood, Kenyan Drake) and handcuffs (Charcandrick West and Benny Cunningham). It’s still not difficult to envisage a scenario in which this unit produces at a top level but it’s far from guaranteed.

At QB Chris rode on the back of a good season for Eli Manning for most of the year before making a trade to bring in Tom Brady to prevent the usual post-season choke (not much luck there). Before Brady’s arrival the group was at a low-end QB1 level and that’s probably still where it is. The future looks a little better if Stafford can maintain his form of the second half of last season but Chris may well be looking around again as the trade deadline looms trying to find that extra bit of quality.

Steady

DEFENCE

83.58 ppg, 2nd best in league

DL 27.43 ppg, 3rd
LB 29.76 ppg, 4th
DB 26.39 ppg, 6th

It was a strong effort all round in 2015 from DynaHarder, led by the D-line where the force of nature that is JJ Watt continued to dominate and Ziggy Ansah’s potential started to pay off with a 14.5 sack season. The line was kept from dominating truly by mediocre options at DT with Brandon Williams and Johnathan Hankins and that situation is the same going into 2016. Ansah and Watt are still present too and Sheard and Ninkovich offer decent depth behind. If I had to pick one unit on any team to perform almost identically to last season it would be Chris Braithwaite’s D-Line.

In 2015 injuries to Kiko Alonso, Terrell Suggs and Jadeveon Clowney left the Hards looking a little thin at LB but a trade for Thomas Davis mid-season took care of that and, ably supported by CJ Mosely and Von Miller, the group started to put up good numbers. Those three are all back this season and Deone Bucannon has been re-designated as an LB, giving Braithwaite an excellent starting four. Jadeveon Clowney has the potential to put up big numbers too but beyond those 5 players there’s little else here. It would take a lot of bad luck to unsettle this group in 2016 though.

DynaHarder’s secondary was run-of-the-mill last season and, for 2016, they’ve lost their top 2 safeties with Walter Thurmond no longer on the roster and Bucannon moved to LB. Chris will be hoping to cover that gap with free agent signing Harrison Smith and Thurmond’s replacement in Philly, Rodney McLeod. Smith has top 10 pedigree but time will tell if McLeod or rookie Keanu Neal can step up. At CB Damarious Randall is coming into his 2nd year in Green Bay after a good first season and you know that teams will throw at Delvin Breaux all day long.

Steady

OVERALL

199.03 ppg, 2nd best in league

On both Offence and Defence it looks like more of the same for Chris Braithwaite’s Dyna Hard. Even if his corps of running backs isn’t as robust as last year that’s compensated for by a top-heavy WR unit and a defence that looks as steady as they come as a top-line group. If you were wanting to point to a weakness then you could say that DynaHard may struggle for production at TE week-on-week but, really, they should be able to get by.

IMPOSTER – 2016 Chatterbowl Preview

Dyna Hard GM Chris Braithwaite is here to provide a preview of the 2016 Chatterbowl on the day after the draft:

All position groups were ranked out of 16 and scored accordingly. The scores for running backs and wide receivers were doubled due to the size of those groups.

Running Outta Shrimp

QB – 10/16 – Brees is generally reliable (6th last year, projected 5th this year), but he’s at the age when a QB starts to decline, and as Manning showed last year, when a QB declines, he really falls off. Therefore I’ve dinged a mark for the lack of a backup plan, even if it may never be used.

RB – 32/32 – This is the first team I’ve looked at, but I suspect it may be the best RB stable in the league. There are risks (Elliot may take time to get the pro game, Martin may not try as hard now he has a big contract, Stewart might get hurt, Jones might lose his starting job, Ajayi probably won’t be a starter unless Foster goes down), but there’s also a chance there might be 5 worthy starters in any given week.

WR – 2/32 – As the RB is strong, WR is weak. Tate has the potential to be a #1 WR, but its likely that at best he is WR1.5 alongside Marvin Jones. White has draft pedigree, but he’s lost a year to injury, has looked bad in preseason and, frankly (in my opinion), wasn’t a great prospect from a production standpoint anyway. Charles Johnson has looked good in preseason, but he did last year too and caught about 4 passes.

TE – 6/16 – Tough call. If Graham is back to 80% of his best, he’s an every week starter at TE. If he’s where he was last season… well, to be honest, he’s still probably an every week starter in a 16 team league. Just not a great one.

K/D – 15/16 – The Seahawks have the potential to start every week and the Patriots produce pretty well when they have easy matchups. Catanzaro is a dreadful kicker (5 missed XPs last year) but he’s on a good offense so should get at least average (if not higher) points just from the opportunities.

Overall – 65/112 (5th) – This is a good team, but somewhat brittle. If we were back in the days of the 2RB league, they’d be a point higher, but needing 2 of those 3 WRs to produce each week is a risk. Trading an RB for a decent WR would be a good move.

Shire City Barons

QB – 16/16 – Cam is about as reliable as a QB can be. He’s shown durability and he runs well. He’s unlikely to be outside the top 4 QBs this year.

RB – 10/32 – Sneakily not bad. The talent level is probably better than the likely production though. Hyde has potential (especially in Chip’s RB friendly offense) to be a top 5 back, but he’s not always been healthily and has a concussion at the mo. A handcuff might be worthwhile here. Yeldon looks like he could be very good, but will be splitting carries with Chris Ivory, which probably caps his output at about 800 yards. Despite Freeman’s season last year, Coleman still has a good chance for a decent volume in Atlanta, but like Yeldon his situation probably limits him to about 800 yards. Vereen has a similar limit, but more due to his skill set than his situation. If one of Yeldon or Coleman breaks out and Hyde stays healthy, this is a good group. In all likelihood, it’ll be kinda average.

WR – 2/32 – Nothing really needs saying about OBJ. Lockett has a hell of a lot of upside, but there aren’t a great deal of targets to go around in Seattle if the running game is working, so he may underperform a little. Or he may break out as the most physically talented receiver in that offense. Snead is fairly mediocre but the high volume offense gives him an outside shot at around 1,000 yards. Fuller seems to have been doing well in preseason, but he’s likely to be a boom or bust option most weeks, which makes him a tough play in fantasy. Boyd seems like he might be quite a reliable producer (but with a lower ceiling). Kearse is Lockett insurance. There’s good talent here, but only one reliable producer, which means one of the three rookies or sophomores will need to produce.

TE – 10/16 – Ertz is a perfectly fine tight end, but he’s unlikely to threaten to step up into the Gronk sort of region.

K/D – 7/16 – Prater has been fairly unreliable in his career, as has the Detroit offence. He could be fine,  but a week-to-week streaming tactic seems likely here, which can be tricky in a 16-teamer. The Jets D is good, potentially very good. They have a division with some tough offenses though, so a backup might be necessary.

Overall – 55/112 (11th) – There’s good talent here, but a lot of it is handicapped by situation or experience. Newton and OBJ should guarantee at least a middle of the pack finish, but at least one RB and one WR will need to breakout for there to be much of a shot at the title.

The Factory of Sadness

QB – 1/16 – Griffin is an interesting gamble. If he starts running again, even if he’s average in reality he should be a good in fantasy. Tannehill is a fairly reliable backup if Griffin flames out, but neither of them is likely to be a top 8 guy.

RB – 2/32 – Duke Johnson is a good player, but he’s unlikely to be a major fantasy factor in a non-PPR league (this is non-PPR, right?). The rest of the RBs (Derrick Henry, Bilal Powell, DeAndre Washington) could all be good, but require an injury to the starter first. Henry might at least be a TD vulture. If he’s not, I suspect this team is starting 1 RB and 4 WRs each week.

WR – 28/32 – Evans is good and will likely improve on his terrible TD output from last season. Baldwin isn’t quite as good and will likely regress from his amazing TD output from last season. Between them, that should even out to about similar to last year’s production. Floyd is in a contract year in a good offense. He might be the most reliable WR in that group too. Diggs has been getting great reviews during camp and seems to be the clear #1 in Minnesota. But #1 in a Shaun Hill run offense isn’t doing much.  Treadwell is good insurance against a Diggs injury, but again, he’s not going to do much in a Hill-run offence.

TE – 16/16 – Gronk.

K/D – 6/16 – Boswell is similar to Catanzaro, in that its not clear if he’s any good, but he’s in a great situation for volume in the Pittsburgh offense. Unless they go for two regularly (I believe they led the league in this last season). The Titans D? That’s a streaming strategy if every I saw one.

Overall – 53/132 (13th) – Good WR and TE situations, but the QB and RB are likely to drag them down.

Brett Favre’s Junk Calls

QB – 6/16 – Everything I said about Drew Brees applies to Carson Palmer, except he has a lower ceiling. If he doesn’t get old or hurt, he’ll be fine. If he does, it’s an ugly situation.

RB – 26/32 – It’s a thin group, but a damn good one. Both Miller and Murray could easily rank in the top 5 RBs this year. Neither has a great injury history, but if both can be healthy its a great pairing. If only one does, it’s still better than some other teams. CJ Prosise is unlikely to be a factor though. I’d rather have a handcuff for either of the top guys.

WR – 26/32 – Dez, if healthy, should be good for a least 1,000 yards, even with Dak under centre. He might well blow up once Romo returns too, which would be good for the likely playoff challenge this team will be mounting. Edelman is very reliable, but might be slow out of the gates while Brady is suspended. Parker was very good at the end of last season, but seems to have slipped to number 3 on the depth chart and has his coach criticising him. As a third WR though, he’s pretty good. Matthews should be a fairly reliable guy, although his ceiling is quite low. He should be good for 5-8 points a week though, which isn’t bad as a backup. Coleman is a wildcard who could be great and could be terrible this year. Lack of competition seems to dictate that he’ll get decent volume. Ginn is likely to be relegated to number 3 this year and isn’t likely to be much of a factor.

TE – 11/16 – Bennett should be a good play most weeks, but he’ll probably be shut out occasionally. Cook has been very good in preseason, but he’s done that many times before. He’s very unreliable, so with the return of Nelson and Cobb being healthy again, he’s likely to be a distant third option at best. A lot of upside though.

K/D – 12/16 – Cairo Santos should be perfectly acceptable. The Panthers D is probably one of the best in the league. Both positions can probably be happily ignored outside of byes.

Overall – 81/132 (1st) – This is a very good team. QB and RB are fragile groups, but if they can stay reasonably healthy this should be a strong contender.

Woah Woah Woah Fitzmagic

QB – 12/16 – Rodgers is an elite option, but doesn’t have quite the upside of the likes of Newton or Wilson. Fitz is a perfectly adequate backup, but not really worth a roster spot unless Rodgers has a very early bye.

RB – 8/32 – McCoy is very good but possibly declining, Jennings is very average but in a decent situation at least for this year. Kenneth Dixon will be a non-factor early on and its a crowded backfield anyway. I feel this group is fairly reliable, but lacks much chance of outperforming expectations.

WR – 4/32 – One of the weaker groups in the league. Decker is probably a good second WR, Fitzgerald is probably a good third WR, but there’s definitely a lack of top WR here. I can tell you that from a year or two of watching him, Kenny Britt is a big sack of crap. Even with little competition, he’s not going to do much.

TE – 7/16 – I guess that you have two likely every week starters, which is good. However, it seems that the plan is to play one as the FLEX starter, which is not good. Witten could hit that old man wall any day now (and is likely in a much lower volume passing attack for the first half of the year).  Fleener has the physical skills, but hasn’t been getting great reviews in training camp. Both could be good. Both could be perfectly mediocre TEs (and bad FLEX options).

K/D – 16/16 – Crosby is a good kicker on an excellent yet conservative offense. Denver’s D is brilliant. Two reliable options who will likely be around the top 5 in the season. Josh Brown should be cut by this team, and by the Giants. For fantasy purposes, he’s not great and there’s no need for a backup kicker to Crosby (again, unless there’s an early GB bye I guess).

Overall – 47/132 (15th) – I’m not a fan of this team. Rodgers is good, but the RBs and WRs are fairly poor, the TEs aren’t great. When the best groups on your team are QB, D and kicker, in reality you’ve got a good team. In fantasy you don’t.

McLovin It

QB – 4/16 – You like that? Not massively. Cousins is a big risk, as he really only has half a season of good performance. Smith is a fairly adequate backup, but if Cousins doesn’t produce, you’re not going to want Smith starting every week.

RB – 16/32 – Freeman did well last season as a receiver, but I’m still far from convinced. Ivory should be good, but the likely splitting of work with Yeldon does limit him a bit. He’ll probably get the goalline work though, which is good. Sproles tends to be good for about 4-6 points a week, which makes him a nice reliable fill in. Morris has little upside outside of a Elliot injury or the Cowboys running an Exotic Smashmouth West offense.

WR – 14/32 – Not an inspiring group, but a pretty reliable one. Marshall and Maclin should fairly easily be top 30 WRs, and Jackson could easily perform to that level too. Aiken produced well last season, but it remains to be seen whether that was a function of there being no one else to pass the ball to in Baltimore.

TE – 13/16 – Greg Olsen is a generally excellent and reliable TE. He’ll finish somewhere between 3rd and 6th without ever having a great week or a bad week. ASJ feels more like trade bait to me. Let him have a decent week 1 and trade him to a TE needy team for another WR.

K/D – 13/16 – Gostkowski is the number 1 kicker. The Chiefs D is good, but is likely to be without its best player all season, which I think will limit its potential a bit. They should still be a perfectly fine every week start.

Overall – 60/112 (7th) – This team feels like more than the sum of its parts. There are bits and pieces that I’m not a great fan of (Cousins particularly), but this feels like a pretty strong and reliable team. It’s unlikely to blow the league away as there is no one who is going to wildly outperform expectations (beyond Morris in the event of Elliot getting hurt on the season’s first snap), but it’s likely to be there or thereabouts by the end.

Dan Sayles’ Bounty Program

QB – 9/16 – Neither Manning or Carr are likely to be elite players, but between them they make a pretty strong platoon. At least one should be close to top 10 points most weeks. Picking the right one will be the challenge.

RB – 14/32 – Lacy looks primed for a bounceback season after spending last season at the buffet line. Gordon looks like he has a chance to breakout too. Of course, both could flame out quite easily. Isaiah Crowell could end up being the main back in Cleveland, but that’s only because I could also end up being the main back in Cleveland. Jordan Howard looks like he’s 4th string at the moment and can probably be relegated to a watch list to pick up again once he starts climbing the depth chart.

WR – 20/32 – Watkins and Brown both have a chance to be top 20 WRs, if not higher. Watkins will need to dominate the Bills’ targets in that low volume offense, Brown will need to emerge as at least a 1b target in that high volume offense. If the Rams continue to be creative in forcing Tavon Austin the ball (and have a QB who can get the ball to him when he gets open deep), he could also force his way into the top 20. Tajae Sharpe has been getting rave reviews in preseason and might well end up being the second most-targeted Titan (behind Delanie Walker). If it all breaks right, that would leave a WR corp with 4 strong starters and Dorial Green-Beckham sitting on the bench watching.

TE – 9/16 – Gates should still be perfectly fine for another year, especially in a 16 team league

K/D – 5/16 – McManus is a good kicker in a good environment, but the offense isn’t likely to be much better than last year. He’s trusted to be allowed to attempt long field goals, so might be as boom and bust as a kicker can be (not very). The Steelers D is not good, but the quality of the offense should force opponents into taking risks and there are enough playmakers there to force some big plays. Streaming seems like the best bet here.

Overall – 57/112 (9th) – Each position group here has a hell of a lot of potential. However, QB is probably the only one which will reliably meet it. If everything breaks right and the RB and WR groups play to their potential this team could run away with the league. If it doesn’t, the league could run away from them.

Ballad of Ju-Halo Jones

QB – 15/16 – Russell Wilson is probably second only to Cam in fantasy QBs. If the running game doesn’t recover from the loss of Lynch, his increase in volume could make him the #1 QB. Even if it doesn’t, he’s very likely to be top 5.

RB – 6/32 – CJ Anderson should be pretty good, and if he isn’t it’ll be because Booker has taken his job. That’s one starting RB right there. Williams should be good for the first three weeks then fairly useless. White should be good for the first 6-8 weeks, then fairly useless. Chris Johnson seems like he’d have more value by being traded to the David Johnson owner. This group could easily get off to a fast start, but I can’t imagine them being great by the end of the season.

WR – 8/32 – Julio is obviously excellent. Sterling Shepard looks to be, at worst, the #3 target in a good offense. Jackson looks likely to a fairly reliable #2 and Stills could also nail down a #2 role. Even if Sammy Coates does nothing, this should be a fairly good group, but its unlikely to be outstanding.

TE – 12/16 – Delanie has become a pretty reliable TE. He should be fine every week.

K/D – 10/16 – The Bengals offense should be good enough, Nugent is good enough. He’ll probably be around #12 for the season. The Rams D is good, but fairly inconsistent. They should reliably get sack numbers, but losing Janoris Jenkins and Rodney McLeod might mean the INTs take a hit.

Overall – 51/112 (14th) – There are good bits and bad bits, and I think they end up coming to around average.

Large Hadron Colliders

QB – 3/16 – Stafford was great at the end of last season, but has been bad in preseason. He feels like the kinda guy who needs to be paired with another reasonable starter, rather than being expected to produce every week.

RB – 22/32 – Forte is a solid every week starter. Sims should continue to chip in with a decent enough amount of receiving yards to be fine as the final FLEX starter. Mathews should be a perfectly average starting RB and could easily end up being a reliable every week starter. Smallwood probably isn’t worth the roster spot as a handcuff though. McKinnon is a decent lottery ticket to have if Peterson goes down.

WR – 30/32 – Robinson, Jeffrey and Landry can all easily be started every week. The only thing stopping this group being a 10 is total lack of depth. Pryor is unlikely to be much of a factor.

TE – 15/16 – Thomas and Clay should both be somewhere between 10th and 20th at TE this season. Thomas is more likely to be a reliable every week starter, but this group should be able to muddle through even if they only produce at the same level as last year.

K/D –11/16 – Gould and the Jags D are perfectly average options.

Overall – 66/112 (=3rd) – This team should be around the playoff picture, but feel unlikely to one of the top teams in the league.

Legion of Gloom

QB – 5/16 – I’m quite bullish on Tyrod Taylor and running QBs generally, so I think he’ll be an above average every week starter. However, he’s still a fairly big risk. Dak could be equally good, but the odds are that you won’t want to play him for the first few weeks until you know what he can deliver, and then by the time we get near the playoffs he’ll be back on the bench after Romo returns.

RB – 18/32 – Peterson is very good and should get a ridiculous amount of work this year with Bridgeeater down. He’s fine to start every week. The other two guys drag the group down, because I’m not sure either can be relied on to be in the FLEX role in any given week. If Rawls goes down Michael should be worth a start. Blount is unlikely to be a safe option to rely on in any week.

WR – 10/32 – Cooper should be a pretty reliable starter. I’m not a massive fan of the rest of the group, but they all have a chance to be equally reliable starters. Moncrief hasn’t produced much thus far, Dorsett has produced even less, and Agholor is somewhere in between. None are proven starters that you want to rely on yet (although all could become that). Sanders has been a proven starter, but its tough to project his likely production with Siemian at QB. I suspect he’s going to finish as this lot’s second best WR though. It should be possible to get a good group, but I think, when you also factor in Blount’s TD dependency, there may be a lot of PLOBing.

TE – 15/16 – Kelce is excellent and Rudolph is a reliable backup option with some upside. This is about as good a group as you can have without having Gronk.

K/D – 11/16 – Both Bailey and the Vikings D are good players in fairly bad situations. The Vikings D should do ok on points allowed simply because all the running on offense is going to keep scores down. But offenses probably won’t want to take too many risks against them, which might hurt their chances at big plays. Bailey is a good kicker who is likely to spend the first half of the year struggling for opportunity.

Overall – 59/112 (8th) – I like most of the team, but the WR2 and FLEX situation make it difficult to project success. There are 5 guys who need to produce to cover those 3 positions, and I’m not convinced that’s likely.

Sou’Westkuntry Pasty Pounders

QB – 14/16 – Rivers and Brady seems like a brilliant pairing. After week 4, they’ll be able to platoon the two against the best matchup.

RB – 4/32 – Ingram has been good the last couple of years, but I still don’t trust him all that much. He should be fine though. Woodhead and Riddick would be great options if this was PPR, but outside that they are only borderline FLEX options at best. Starks has very little value unless Lacy goes down.

WR – 22/32 – Brown will be top 10, Hilton should be top 20 and Crabtree should be top 30. That’s a very good trio. Unfortunately they are knocked down a bit by that being it. Cutting Bruce Ellington and grabbing any other WR is a must.

TE – 1/16 – Walford could be good, but I wouldn’t want to be relying on him as my only option right out of the gate.

K/D – 4/16 – Both Gano and Walsh are very good options. Walsh is a better player, Gano is in a better situation (depending on how much Carolina goes for two). Having two kickers is kind of a waste though and I think they’d be better cutting or trading one for extra WR or TE help though. The Colts D is pretty much bang average. Streaming beckons.

Overall – 45/112 (16th) – The WR trio and the QB duo might carry this team to respectability, but I don’t there’s enough here to carry them any further than that.

Hundley Like The Wolf

QB – 8/16 – Bortles is a good option. Even if he regresses a bit from last year, he should be a nice solid starter.

RB – 24/32 – I actually really like this group. Its looking like Langford is going to get a shot at an every down role in Chicago and Foster looks like the lead back in Miami. Either one of those should be a reasonable FLEX play for most of the season. Once Bell comes back from suspension, that should be a really strong group.

WR – 24/32 – Again, this is a strong group. Cooks and Benjamin should be perfectly reliable for every week of the season. Wheaton has a good role, although may be lacking in talent. He did have an excellent second half of last season. It seems likely that one of the young trio of Doctson, Thomas and Crowder should be able to emerge as at least a half-decent option if Wheaton isn’t up to it.

TE – 2/16 – Jordan Cameron has been dreadful in Miami and is barely worth a roster spot at the moment. Ebron has yet to live up to his draft status, but there are lots of targets to go around in Detroit now that Calvin Johnson is gone. He should be able to be at least a top 12 TE, which would just about justify starting him every week.

K/D – 8/16 – I’m not sure if the Texans D is actually going to be that good, but they will probably make a lot of big plays which should make them a perfectly serviceable option every week. Matt Bryant is a below average kicker but if Atlanta’s offense plays the whole season like it did the first few weeks of last season, he’s in a very good situation. If not, streaming will have to do.

Overall – 66/112 (=3rd) – There’s a strong core of QB, RB and WR here. If one or two of the younger players can fulfil their potential, this could be a really good team. I suspect its more likely that they end up getting knocked out in the playoffs.

Spunky Beans

QB – 2/16 – Going with just Winston is bold. My feeling on him is similar to Cousins – he’s shown he can be good for a period, but I’m not convinced he can be worth an every week start just yet. He seems like an ideal candidate for platooning with another veteran, rather than relying on him every week.

RB – 30/32 – This is an outstanding trio. Like Adrian Peterson, Gurley is going to get a tonne of work this season. At his very worst, Jamaal Charles will be a much better version of Darren Sproles. At his best, he’s a second feature back. Frank Gore should be perfectly reliable, but he is very old as RBs go, so he may fall off a cliff this year. No sign of that happening yet.

WR – 6/32– There are far more questions at WR. Both Matthews and Smith have talent, but its unclear how much production they will actually have. Matthews’ floor is probably as a mediocre FLEX play. Smith’s floor is absolutely zero. Travis Benjamin and Mike Wallace have similar profiles to Smith, although with a bit less upside. Sanu could be a fairly reliable FLEX play, although he has historically been quite TD dependent. Boldin is a big question mark. I can’t imagine him doing too much this year, but then I’ve thought that for about the past 4 years.

TE – 14/16 – Jordan Reed is an elite TE with some questions about his ability to stay healthy. Dwayne Allen is a good TE with some questions about his ability to stay healthy. If one went down, the other should be fine to play every week. There’s even potential to play both if Allen can rediscover his early career form.

K/D – 2/16 – The rarely seen Buffalo Buffalo. Carpenter is a fine kicker on a fine offense. He should be perfectly acceptable in a 16 team league, although not a whole deal better than streaming. The Bills D is a big unknown. If it plays to its potential, its elite. If it plays to last year, its crap.

Andover Anteaters

QB 13/16 – Luck is worth a 9/10 on his own. Ryan isn’t in his league, but if he can rediscover his past form, this could be an elite pair to play the matchups. Or just plug Luck in most weeks.

RB – 12/32 – Hill should be ok to start every week, although its likely that Gio Bernard will outscore him. Ware looks likely to get, at minimum, the goalline work in KC along with 5-10 carries a week, so he could be a viable flex play, especially if KC has a decent matchup. West might end up being the Ravens leading back, but he might also end up getting 0 carries. Regardless, Hill and West are a strong pair.

WR – 32/32 – This is a strong group. Green and Allen are clear #1 WRs. Jones has a chance at being similar, and should threaten 1,000 yards anyway. Funchess has been getting excellent reviews in the offseason and should have more production in his second year with an actual other WR on the field with him. Gordon could end up doing nothing, but if he hits the field and doesn’t get suspended again, he also has the potential to be a #1 calibre WR. They might not be able to get everyone on the field, but there may be trade potential here too.

TE – 3/16 – A fairly uninspiring group. Both Miller and Green are perfectly average players who are clear starting TEs, but I’m not sure how much upside there is. I feel that this will be a very TD dependent group, with lots of PLOBing.

K/D – 14/16 – Tucker is excellent and should get more opportunities with Flacco healthy again. It’s still not a great offense though. The Cardinals D is just a monster, but they’ve got a fairly tough schedule which might limit them slightly.

Overall – 74/112 (2nd) – A very strong team. The only weakness is TE and RB depth and frankly, if you’re going to have a weakness that’s a good one to have.

Coach Taylor’s Khakis

QB – 11/16 – Roethlisberger is a solid top-10 option apart from the game or two he misses due to injury. Mariota should be fine to fill in for that game. If he develops his running, this could be a great pairing.

RB – 20/32 – Rawls showed a lot of ability last year, but might end up in a job share if he doesn’t show that he can stay healthy. He has a lot of upside, but a lot of risk too. Murray should be one of the most used RBs, but he’s pretty average. Still, that’s a good enough combination to be a solid FLEX play. Abdullah flashed some good skills last year, but I’m not sure what role he has on the offense. Riddick has shown he is an excellent receiver and Abdullah doesn’t really profile as a high volume runner. He might end up just doing a lot of not very much. Javorius Allen looks like Baltimore’s 3rd RB and probably doesn’t have much value.

WR – 16/32 – Hopkins is elite and will see a tonne of targets. Nelson should also see a lot of work, but he’s quite old and coming off an injury, so there’s a bit of risk there. Still, both should be solidly top 30. Steve Smith is similar to Nelson but with far less upside. Chris Hogan is a good pickup, especially with Amendola not being healthy, and should be a borderline flex play. Strong is probably Houston’s 4th WR, so doesn’t have much value.

TE – 4/16 – Eifert is very good, but he’s going to miss the first 2/3 games at best and hasn’t showed the ability to stay healthy after that. The total lack of backup is alarming.

K/D – 9/16 – The Raiders D should be perfectly fine and the offenses in the division are fairly poor, which helps. Vinatieri’s range seems to decrease by the minute, but he should be fairly reliable.

Overall – 63/112 (6th) – This looks like another team that should make the playoffs but may struggle to produce once it gets there.

Kuhn on the Cobb

QB – 7/16 – Dalton has a fairly well established floor of being a perfectly acceptable QB and should be fine to start every week. Osweiler doesn’t strike me as a particularly appealing platoon buddy though.

RB – 28/32 – Johnson should be a feature back, Gio Bernard should get a good amount of work between rushing and receiving and Justin Forsett looks like he’s going to be the starter in Baltimore. That should translate to at least one good starter and one good FLEX every week. Kenyan Drake looks like he’s worthless this year. Reggie Bush has more value in a PPR and return yards league, but he might ok, especially if McCoy goes down.

WR – 16/32 – Thomas is a risk with a new QB, but he should be able to struggle his way to around 1,000 yards regardless. Cobb should see fewer targets but be more productive this year. Hurns will probably fall off a bit from last year, but he should still be a pretty strong FLEX play most weeks. Garcon is aging very quickly and might lose targets to Doctson and Crowder as the season goes on, but should still be borderline playable most weeks.

TE – 4/16 – Barnidge was excellent last season, but its really hard to see him repeating that with an improved WR corps. If he falls back to anywhere near his career average production (i.e. nothing) tight end will be a big black hole.

K/D – 1/16 – Aguayo should be absolutely fine. The Packers are fairly average. Streaming for both is probably the plan.

Overall – 56/112 (10th) – Great RBs, but the rest of the team is pretty much average or worse. If Barnidge recaptures last year’s form they could outperform this though.

 

Commish Addition

I tabled up the figures in the above piece. Some of the maths was a bit dodgy. This is the actual ranking…

Rank Team QB RB WR TE K/D Overall
=1 Brett Favre’s Junk Calls 6 26 26 11 12 81
=1 Large Hadron Colliders 3 22 30 15 11 81
3 Andover Anteaters 13 12 32 3 14 74
4 Hundley Like The Wolf 8 24 24 2 8 66
5 Running Outta Shrimp 10 32 2 6 15 65
=6 Coach Taylor’s Khakis 11 20 16 4 9 60
=6 McLovin It 4 16 14 13 13 60
8 Legion of Gloom 5 18 10 15 11 59
9 Dan Sayles’ Bounty Program 9 14 20 9 5 57
10 Kuhn on the Cobb 7 28 16 4 1 56
11 Spunky Beans 2 30 6 14 2 54
12 The Factory of Sadness 1 2 28 16 6 53
13 Ballad of Ju-Halo Jones 15 6 8 12 10 51
14 Woah Woah Woah Fitzmagic 12 8 4 7 16 47
=15 Shire City Barons 16 10 2 10 7 45
=15 Sou’Westkuntry Pasty Pounders 14 4 22 1 4 45

MAX’S STAT BLATS! Pre-Season Peter Preview

It’s nearly time for the new season of football and so it’s time to let the Stat Blats get all up in yo’ bidness and make you feel tingly.  Below is a combination 2015 season review and 2016 season preview for each team in Peter.  Want to know where the Sadness’ QBs ranked last season?  This is your place.  Want to know my opinion on whether the Breeses have improved their woeful linebacker corps?  Come on in friend!

Tamworth Two

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

106.3 points per game (ppg), 5th best in league

QB 18.52 ppg, 6th
RB 32.21 ppg, 4th
WR/TE 43.22 ppg, 8th
SPEC 12.35 ppg, 9th

Looking at the stats it’s clear that sub-par offensive performance was the thing that kept T2 from challenging more closely in the Owl.  When you pay Aaron Rodgers the big bucks you expect better than run-of-the-mill QB numbers but that’s what he put up last season.  There were mitigating factors though and, despite the fact he’s on another roster, they must have their fingers crossed hoping Jordy Nelson will be back in form this season.

RB was the Hogs’ strongest position last season riding the unexpected highs of Chris Ivory and Darren McFadden.  Run DMC is down the Cowboys depth chart now though and Chris Ivory is gone, leaving T2 looking sparse.  Jonathan Stewart is still pootling along and they have the Buffalo backfield sewn up tight but Duke Johnson is not someone I would want to be relying on for my third RB position.

Injuries to Alshon Jeffery and DeVante Parker hit Tamworth hard at WR last season and their 8th placed finish will be some way off what they’d have been hoping for at season start.  The bad news is that I don’t see where it’s improved.  Jarvis Landry, their WR1, is gone, DeVante Parker is, by all accounts, running hot and cold in camp and Demayrius Thomas will be catching balls from the Sanchize.  At TE there is hope for Eric Ebron and Virgil Green but neither are a sure thing for regular production.

Trending down

DEFENCE

82.23 ppg, 3rd best in league

DL 33.02 ppg, 1st
LB 25.83 ppg, 6th
DB 23.38 ppg, 7th

So if your offence isn’t great then how do you get to the final of the Owl?  Great defence.  Defence wins Owls.  The Hogs’ had a dominant line led by Kawann Short and Gerald McCoy, two of the best fantasy DTs in the business.  They’ve lost their best DE, Chandler Jones, to a position switch though and will be relying on the promising Stephon Tuitt and rookie Chris Jones to pick up the slack, a big ask.

The Hogs’ LB corps was a sea of pregnant potential and mediocrity, lifted by the transcendent talents of Luke Kuechly and the hard graft of Paul Posluszny.  The Pos has jumped ship for the coming season but the unexpectedly solid Whitney Mercilus should still produce and Jeremiah Attaouchu is poised to break it big.  Add to that the fact that the D-Line’s loss is the ‘Backer corps’ gain when it comes to Chandler Jones and things should keep ticking along nicely.

The Hogs were let down in the secondary by a poor showing from their safeties.  Kam Chancellor being motivated for a whole season may help but David Amerson will lose snaps at CB to Sean Smith in Oakland so there is a question mark about his ability to repeat last season’s good showing.

Steady

OVERALL

188.52 ppg, 4th best in league

The Hogs should see performance drop from last season.  The defence will still be there or thereabouts but the offence has taken a hit in the loss of Landry and Ivory.  If Aaron Rodgers can play like he’s paid he may make up for it.

Prediction: 6-7, 3rd in Peter

East Flanders Dungeoneers

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

104.17 ppg, 6th best in league

QB 20.97 ppg, 2nd
RB 26.22 ppg, 7th
WR/TE 44.24 ppg, 6th
SPEC 12.74 ppg, 8th

Being definitively the worst team on the Dbowl last season means it makes for slightly surprising reading to see that the Dungeoneers were middle of the pack in offensive terms.  Cam Newton’s rise to superstardom helped buoy the numbers no doubt, racking up the record highest weekly score for a QB in the process, and he should continue to raise his team for the coming season.

The RBs were a mess in East Flanders last year with Justin Forsett and Carlos Hyde both missing considerable time and forcing Pete Conaghan to rely on the likes of Ronnie Hillman and Darren Sproles.  Danny Woodhead was a consistently good performer though who at least made sure to keep Conaghan’s men from complete ignominy week on week.  The Dungeoneers have re-signed Rashad Jennings on a good deal and brought in T2 reject Chris Ivory to strengthen this season but will still rely on Woodhead for production.  A fit season from Carlos Hyde could make a huge difference however.

Amari Cooper, Brandon Marshall and Michael Floyd all put in good showings last season but a lack of depth behind those big names and a horror show at TE kept the Dungeoneers from putting up consistent good scores at receiver.  Things are looking much better this year.  Those three are all still in the fold and have been joined by a fully fit Kevin White and Keenan Allen plus rookie Josh Doctson.  The TEs are no better in terms of personnel but Coby Fleener escaping from Indianapolis to New Orleans hikes his ceiling way up.

Trending up

DEFENCE

63.80 ppg, 9th best in league

DL 15.64 ppg, 8th
LB 27.37 ppg, 5th
DB 20.79 ppg, 10th

If the Dungeoneers offence were surprisingly good for the worst team in the league then that can only mean one thing for the defence.  Look away now, Pete, it’s not pretty!  Tyrone Crawford was the star on the defensive line last year, turning in a top 10 performance.  There is absolutely no depth behind him however though if Sen’Derrick Marks can stay fit and work into the Jacksonville rotation significantly he offers some hope. Kony Ealy flashed his talent last season too and Conaghan will be hoping that the Panthers’ DE can step up to the next level this season.

When you’re only paying two of your LBs more than $3 and one of those two is Paul Worrilow your expectations for the unit are probably reduced.  Pete can be quite happy then with his middle-of-the-pack placing.  Astute signings of tackle machines Melvin Ingram and Malcolm Smith brought a good floor to the team and the likes of KJ Wright and Worrilow produced steady if uninspiring numbers.  The Dungeoneers’ prospects of improvement have been hindered by Shaq Lawson’s injury but the Justin-Houston-shaped hole in Kansas may open the door for Dee Ford and Vontaze Burfict’s suspension may put Paul Dawson in the mix.

What do you do when you have the worst secondary in the league and the top-scoring player in that secondary retires?  Nothing!  Apparently!  That’s not fair, Pete signed rookie safety Karl Joseph.  I’m sure he’ll be a good player down the line but expecting him to replicate Charles Woodson’s numbers in year one is probably asking a bit much.  The Dungeoneers are relying on the fickle nature of the secondary to provide a better result.

Steady

OVERALL

167.97 ppg, 10th best in league

I don’t think the Dungeoneers will finish the season as the worst team in the league again; the offence has the potential to put up top 3 numbers under the right circumstances.  Unfortunately, the defence is still a hot mess and will drag the team down.

Prediction: 5-8, 4th in Peter

The People’s Republic of the 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

102.06 ppg, 8th best in league

QB 14.98 ppg, 10th
RB 19.74 ppg, 10th
WR/TE 54.46 ppg, 2nd
SPEC 12.88 ppg, 6th

Well, if you’re not sure what an unbalanced offence looks like then there you go.  The problems at the QB position for the Sadness were largely self-inflicted as Mangboob’s love for Teddy Tinyhands prevented him from just starting Drew Brees in every game he was available for.  Brees averaged 20.28 points per game, a full 5 more than the Sadness did.  Even if you add in the fact that Teddy averaged 11.5 points in the two weeks Brees missed that is a clear case of overthinking it.  Mangboob should not make the same mistake this year.

Unfortunately, the Sadness’ struggles at RB cannot be blamed on GM tinkering.  It turns out that owning the entire Lions’ backfield is not conducive to fantasy success.  Eddy Lacy’s plummet off a cliff accounts for some of the underperformance here and Mangboob has lost patience with the player, shipping him out to the Firebirds.  He has been replaced by number 1 draft pick Ezekiel Elliott, one of the most hyped fantasy rookie prospects of all time.  Zeke and fellow rookie Kenneth Dixon add some spark to the position and Abdullah and Matt Jones could improve in their second years.  This is a young unit on a young team and should get better year-on-year.

In contrast, the Sadness’ receivers were stellar.  Led by superstar OBJ, even a down season for Dez Bryant couldn’t stop them marching to 2nd place on the receiver rankings.  Eric Decker, Delanie Walker, Golden Tate and, surprisingly, Ted Ginn Jr turned in performance after performance over the season to keep scores high.  This season it’s all change with Dez, Tate and Decker gone but Stefon Diggs, Laquon Treadwell, Michael Thomas and DeSean Jackson come in.  Mangboob is building for the future and while I would expect to see this unit decline this season they look strong for the future and improvement elsewhere should more than make up for it.

Steady

DEFENCE

77.18 ppg, 6th best in league

DL 14.66 ppg, 10th
LB 33.62 ppg, 3rd
DB 28.90 ppg, 5th

The defensive line is the real Achilles heel for a defence that is otherwise strong.  Mangboob has three players there and they are all nearly men.  Michael Brockers is a very good player but with the strength on that Rams’ line his play doesn’t equate to fantasy points.  Linval Joseph and Sharif Floyd are both similarly good players but Tom Johnson’s pass rush exploits on the interior limit their upside.  All are young and Joseph missed a few games with injury so Mangboob can hope for an improvement.  He’ll have to, because he has brought in no extra help for his tackles.  The viewing is even more bleak at Defensive End where no player scored over 80 points.  Sheldon Richardson is a talented idiot but the others are just not elite players.  The drafting of Robert Nkemdiche may help but he enters a crowded situation in Arizona and we will likely not see him emerge until at least 2017.

The linebackers at the Sadness, by contrast, are elite and dominant.  Lavonte David, Telvin Smith and Bobby Wagner are all top level talents on the field and on your fantasy teams and are young enough to provide for a few years yet.  Behind them, Danny Trevathan, Mychal Kendricks and Bruce Irvin feel like players on the cusp of a fantasy boom and with Trevathan and Irvin in new teams this season this year could be the year.

The secondary is a similar situation to T2’s linebackers: an average group of players propelled upwards by one stellar talent.  Tyrann Mathieu scored twice as much as most other members of the Sadness’ secondary last season and the rest were much of a muchness.  Sean Smith comes in this year and Eric Berry is re-signed to a better contract but question marks of Tyrann Mathieu’s health mean that last season’s performance probably remains the ceiling for this bunch.

Steady

OVERALL

179.23 ppg, 6th best in league

I don’t think this season will see much change for the Sadness.  They have lost elite level talent at WR but added a lot of young players and have a deeper pool of players to pick from.  A lot is riding on Zeke Elliott’s shoulders as far as this season is concerned.  If Mangboob decides to start Teddy Bridgewater all season long then all bets are off.

Prediction: 5-8, 5th in Peter

Dynasore Losers

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

99.75 ppg, 10th best in league

QB 16.56 ppg, 8th
RB 28.83 ppg, 6th
WR/TE 39.87 ppg, 10th
SPEC 14.49 ppg, 2nd

Hoo boy, it’s difficult to know where to start with this one.  The Losers’ WRs were a horror show last year.  Jordy Nelson injured, Josh Gordon failing to get reinstated, Emmanuel Sanders feeling the bite of the Peter-collapse, Torrey Smith left hopping mad by Colin Kaepernick and Nelson Agholor leaving everyone wondering what Chip Kelly deemed worth the 20th overall pick about him.  Add to that a wasteland at TE and it’s easy to see how this unit came out bottom in points scoring per game.  That kind of luck should regress back towards the mean this year and almost every player at this position should be better in 2016.  The loss of Larry Fitzgerald is a blow to the weekly floor of the group but Jarvis Landry, the Losers’ big blockbuster summer trade, covers that and more.  The Losers are a candidate to go from worst to first at WR in 2016.

A shallow group at RB left a lot on the shoulders of Adrian Peterson and Matt Forte and it was enough to struggle to mid-table in the RB rankings.  David Slater is relying heavily on rookies Jordan Howard and DeAndre Washington to provide depth for the coming season though.  Dion Lewis is already out, surgery required on his knee, and AP and Forte are getting no younger.  This situation could get very unpleasant, very fast.

If that happens, Slater may look to trade in some of his excess talent at QB.  The group performed poorly last season with Peter Manning’s decline the headline event but this season should be vastly improved.  Andy Dalton is healthy, Jameis Winston is no longer a rookie and Derek Carr is heading into his 3rd year heading an offence going from strength to strength.  Add to that the free agency addition of Carson Palmer and this is a strong group that should be able to comfortably mix and match each week for the best matchups.

Trending up

DEFENCE

75.93 ppg, 7th best in league

DL 23.33 ppg, 5th
LB 20.27 ppg, 9th
DB 32.34 ppg, 3rd

A much-reduced year from Ryan Kerrigan was still the highlight of the LBs at the Losers last year as he was the only player to top 100 points.  David Slater put a lot of work into fixing the offence but this was another place that the Losers were giving points away on a weekly basis.  The free-agency addition of Paul Posluszny, plus the drafting of three rookie LBs shows that Slater recognised this fact and has moved to address it.  The group is still raw and has a lot of question marks but is an improvement over last season, albeit only a small one for this year.

A middle of the pack defensive line remains largely unchanged.  Carlos Dunlap was re-signed to resume a powerful starting tandem at DE but if one goes down then much will depend on 2nd year rusher Danielle Hunter of the Vikings.  Hunter looked excellent in limited snaps in his rookie year and Slater will hope that he can maintain that form into more snaps.

The strongest unit on the Losers’ defence remains largely intact though whether Marcus Peters can perform at the same level in year 2 is questionable.  Some regression to the mean is to be expected (players are rarely consistently at the top of the CB rankings) but the brothers Johnson (Kevin and Trumaine) and Logan Ryan should be able to offer plentiful depth.  At safety Slater will grind his teeth as he hopes for Michael Mitchell of the Steelers to remain steady and clasp his hands in prayer that Tashaun Gipson can recapture his 2014 Cleveland form in Jacksonville.

Steady

OVERALL

175.69 ppg, 8th best in league

Unless the Losers are struck by catastrophic bad luck again this year they should perform better.  The QB and receiver units can hopefully carry the RBs on offence and an improvement from 9th to 7th or so in the LBs would be enough to see the defence able to support.  I expect an improved year but not an Owl year.

Prediction: 7-6, 1st in Peter

Here Comes The Brees

OFFENCE/SPECIAL TEAMS

111.22 ppg, 3rd best in league

QB 20.20 ppg, 3rd
RB 38.24 ppg, 1st
WR/TE 39.98 ppg, 9th
SPEC 12.81 ppg, 7th

If I’d asked at the start of last season which Dbowl team had the best RBs in the league would you have said the Breeses?  Come on now, don’t lie.  Doug Martin’s renaissance, Devonta Freeman’s explosion and a combination of Lamar Miller and (really) Isaiah Crowell left the team top of the pile.  All four of those players are back this year with the added depth of Charles Sims, Darren Sproles and a healthy Tevin Coleman.  The Breeses are set up nicely to repeat in 2016 and perhaps even improve though a predicted decline for Freeman and Martin after their monster seasons could throw a spanner in the works.

It’s a good job Archer and Sayles’ RBs were such a surprise smash hit because the receivers were a disaster. Injuries for Steve Smith, Breshad Perriman and DeSean Jackson left the team scrambling to field a decent unit and there were too many weeks of Pierre Garcon and Terrance Williams for anything to be salvageable.  Tyler Eifert was a ray of hope at TE, particularly with Zach Ertz providing depth.  The Breeses have gone all out this summer to rectify what is their problem position on offence with a host of bodies run through camp.  The big arrival was Martavis Bryant, right at the tail end of last season, but a year-long suspension buried that.  The new big arrival was Allen Robinson who has, incredibly, yet to get suspended or go on injured reserve for the entire season.  Larry Fitzgerald and Jaelen Strong also arrived and even with the departure of DeSean Jackson the unit looks better.  Phillip Dorsett comes into his 2nd year with a path clear to a starting job, Travis Benjamin lands in a friendly spot in San Diego and JJ Nelson is pushing in Arizona.

Even with Andrew Luck’s injury, the Breeses managed to get good QB production, largely thanks to Tom Brady with occasional spells of Fitzmagic.  Luck is fit this season, Brady is back (albeit suspended for the first 4 games) and Alex Smith is ready to step in in an emergency.  This unit should be top end producer again.

Trending up

DEFENCE

60.20 ppg, 10th best in league

DL 19.02 ppg, 7th
LB 18.39 ppg, 10th
DB 22.79 ppg, 8th

Well, that is ugly reading.  There were very few bright spots for the Breeses on defence after they traded away Aaron Donald.  Fletcher Cox had a breakout season at DE but the Breeses got unlucky mixing and matching between him, Cameron Jordan and Michael Bennett and too often the big points were on the bench.  For the new season though Fletcher Cox has moved to DT, solving that problem.  The Breeses should not PLOB themselves out of his points any longer.  Not least because, at time of writing, they have no other DTs on the roster.  Jordan and Bennett are still in place at DE, backed up by Jaye Howard and new boy DeForest Buckner.  I think we should see this unit move into the top half in the league but if Cox goes down there is (literally) nothing to cover for him.

Sheesh, if you thought the DL reading was bad, take a look at this shower.  In week 10 last season, the Breeses started Karlos Dansby, Daryl Smith, Jelani Jenkins and Derrick Morgan.  Not a collection to inspire fear in the opposition.  I’m not convinced this unit looks any better going into 2016.  Dansby and Pernell McPhee are good starters but 2nd year guys Shaq Thompson and Jordan Hicks are going to have to step up if there is to be any improvement.  It’s still a fairly uninspiring bunch.

At DB the Breeses suffered a blow when they lost Harrison Smith for the year but they got a nice surprise in the performance of DROY Ronald Darby who put up a nice tally.  There’s little to see here beyond that.  Earl Thomas is an amazing real-life safety and an average fantasy one and the rest of the unit were all much of a muchness.  This season the CBs are the same but the Ss get a little influx with the drafting of Von Bell and the signing of Barry Church but the inexplicable decision to drop Harrison Smith (the #1 safety in 2014) means that I can’t say this unit has improved.

Steady

OVERALL

171.42 ppg, 9th best in league

It’s easy to see that the Breeses have improved on offence.  A lot of their guys are starting the season healthier, more experienced or in better situations than last year and strength has been added, particularly to the wide receivers.  I can still see them being hampered by a defence, however, which seems to take a step back for every step it takes forward.  It won’t be the worst in the league again, but it will be a long way from the best.

Prediction: 7-6, 2nd in Peter

DELO Ratings 2016

Maybe you’re familiar with Elo ratings, but I’m going to assume you’re not. Arpad Elo was a Hungarian-born American physics professor who developed a ratings system, originally for chess but later applied to all sorts of sports, including American football, baseball and snooker. It’s now used frequently (in a variety of adapted versions) on fivethirtyeight.com to try to find the best team in history in various sports, amongst other things.

The idea is relatively simple, but the methodology is much more complicated. All competitors, be they individuals or teams, start with a ranking – often 1000 or 1500 – and each time they play they add on points or lose points, according to the result. That can just be a win/lose/draw based metric or it can get much more complex to try to account for home field advantage and scale of victory. If the team you beat is very good you score lots of points, if they’re not so good, fewer points. Likewise, lose a game and lose points based on the skill of the opposition – the better the opposition, the fewer points lost.

In order to try to compare eras, previous results from previous years/decades/whatever have to be removed in some manner so the rating only applies to the team of now and ensure they’re not getting false credit for performance too far in the past. Another adjustment 538 have mentioned they make is between seasons. In all sports, the team line-ups change one year to the next. In American sports, the system is set up to try to even the playing field, with the worst teams getting to draft players first. As this is supposed to be a return towards the middle, they adjust their rankings between seasons by reducing above average teams slightly and increasing below average teams slightly so that next season they all start a little closer together.

All this got me thinking, could we develop an Elo system for the Dynabowl? A DELO system, if you will. So I gave it a shot. I’m going to outline my methodology, share my results, and the provide a means to download my source spreadsheet so you (YES, YOU!) can see if you can improve on it.

The first problem I encountered was that Elo is specifically designed for situations where two teams are playing each other with the result changing a teams ranking. While that does occur in fantasy football, the teams aren’t directly influencing each other’s performance. If the top scoring team one week played the second top scoring team, it would be harsh to penalise the second team DELO points when they would have won any other game.

What i decided to do was look at a teams scored in comparison to the weekly average score achieved. If you beat the weekly average your rating goes up. If you drop below the weekly average your rating goes down. I also (pretty much arbitrarily) decided to exclude the top and bottom scores each week from the average. This was a gut based decision where I felt one or other of the numbers being an outlier could sway the overall average too much in one direction or the other so I felt it better to take the middle 8 scores and average them. This may be the wrong approach – I didn’t check it against an average of all 10 – but it’s the one I decided to take and I think I made a working system in the end. You may decide otherwise.

The next step to decide was how to calculate the points. I decided, again arbitrarily, to start every team with 1000 points. It felt like a high enough total that I could get some big enough variation, and it felt in keeping with the Elo rankings I’d seen produced elsewhere.

So how many points should get added on or taken away? The obvious answer is however many points above or below average the team scored that week. However, I needed to reflect the way Elo works. As I said, with Elo you get more credit for beating a good team than a bad team and so on. Here I thought that if a team has a lower DELO rating than average and scores well it should get ‘extra credit’, while a poor team scoring poorly shouldn’t be penalised as much as a good team performing badly.

This led me to produce a weighting spread. I said that if a team has a DELO between 950 and 1050 whatever their points difference from average gets added or subtracted at a rate of 100% (i.e. if you were 10 points above average you would get 10 points x 100% added to your DELO. If you start at 1000, your DELO would go up to 1010). The scale then was for every 100 points further away from this central spread you got credited with 10% more or less points. Another example: A team has a DELO of 800, falling in the 750-850 bracket. If this team scores 10 points above average, their DELO would go up by 10 x 120% = 12 points. However, if they scored 10 below average it would only go down by 10 x 80% = 8 points. So a bad team gets more credit for performing well than they lose for performing badly. And vice versa.

Finally, I decided I needed to perform the same between-season adjustment to bring teams back to closer to the 1000 starting point. At first I moved teams 10% closer, but then decided this wasn’t enough so moved it to 20%, which seemed to work. Again, it’s pretty arbitrary, but I’m trying to make a system that seems to represent team skill pretty accurately and this seemed to work. So what do I mean by moving teams 20% closer to 1000 points? I mean if a team had 1100 points at the end of the season, they would lose 100 x 20% = 20 points from their total and begin the next season at 1080. Each team would stay in the same order, but teams with a bigger lead over others would lose more points and the field would close up again, pending the next season’s battle commencement.

Now, I said finally, but there is a final, final step I made, but I applied this later, after I decided the system wasn’t working properly. Before that, I was still pretty happy, but I needed to leave it for a while and come back with a fresh mind. When I did, I decided that, despite the intra-season adjustment, not every team quite matched up by the end of the season to where their talent seemed to lie. I thought some more about 538’s Elo system for eras of sports and how they had to be removing old activity from the ranking to make sure they were appropriately evaluating the current team and I realised my rankings still included too much residual effect. I played around with some options until I found one that appeared to work.

I hit upon a formula which removed half the ranking points earned (or lost) in the same week of the previous year. Again, this feels arbitrary, but again it seems to reach the point where teams are fairly evaluated for their most recent performances. Specifically, their most recent season long performances (i.e. 16 games).

So what does all this show? Here’s a table:

2014 2015
Low Week High Week Final Low Week High Week Final
East Flanders Flahutes 754 16 998 2 754 724 6 799 1 760
Here Comes The Brees 873 16 1021 5 873 760 15 928 7 793
Tamworth Two 968 10 1100 6 976 926 5 1106 14 1087
The 4th Dynmension: Dynasty of Sadness 739 14 953 1 782 836 7 922 14 856
Dynasore Losers 988 1 1185 12 1156 885 14 1149 3 905
DynaForOne Firebirds 907 4 1254 16 1254 1021 16 1255 1 1021
Dynablaster Bombermen 967 9 1041 12 1021 903 12 1065 4 997
Champions of the Sun 1000 6 1149 14 1144 1120 1 1395 16 1395
Kelkowski Don’t Play By No Dyna Rules 1040 1 1166 8 1161 1022 4 1121 14 1049
Dyna Hard 1005 2 1126 11 1086 1087 6 1280 14 1265

 

Remember, these scores essentially represent the the sum total of performance over the previous 16 weeks. They should kind of link to the total points scored, but when you scored them matters. Scoring a lot of points in a week when, overall, comparatively few points were scored will net you a lot more DELO ranking points than scoring them in a high scoring week. But sure, you could use points scored as a measure. But would that be a fair way of comparing teams across seasons? A high scoring team in a high scoring year may be less impressive than a slightly lower scoring team in a much lower scoring year. This accommodates for that.

And what’s the first thing it tells us? That Max’s winning team in 2015 was quite significantly better than Neil’s winning team in 2014, and even Dyna Hard in 2015 were better than Neil’s team. However, the context that needs to go with that is that Firebirds had a shocking start to 2014. In week 4 they had the second lowest DELO in the league (907), and they recovered from that point. They scored DELO 347 points from week 5 to week 16. Champions of the Sun, by comparison, scored only 198 across the same 12 weeks in 2015. So the Champions were more consistently good. They won 11 regular season games scoring over 3800 points in the process. The 2014 Firebirds, by comparison, snuck into the last playoff slot on the last week of the season with a 7-6 record, scoring 3480 points, before producing an incredible post-season. In fact, the 100 DELO points scored in week 16 is the greatest gain or loss by any team in any given week.

From this, perhaps we can say that the Firebirds produced the most dominant stretch, but for the season as a whole, Champions of the Sun were the better team.

Tune in next time for a breakdown of Offensive, Defensive and Special Teams DELO!

Access the file of data HERE!.