Fantasy Check In Post Week 4
How the mighty have fallen.
After the draft and Week 1, I felt on top of the world in Fakalaka. Number 1 in points scored, with the biggest names at each draft position. Now it’s all name and no game. Matt Rhule uses CMC like a fat guy uses a treadmill. JaMarr Chase is drawing coverage from more guys than Urban Meyer at a college bar. And Zeke Elliott looks like he’s been fed too much in the offseason. I’m hoping these guys start to trend upwards soon or I’m going to be stuck in mediocrity hell.
Trade Season
With most players finding stability in their offenses, fantasy managers figure out what they really have on their teams. The lucky managers struck gold in their drafts or the waiver wire and can hold out the whole season without a trade. Others try to navigate their season with trades that they hope buoy their weaknesses. Here’s a few happening in the Keeper League:
Ceedee Lamb for Courtland Sutton
New Teams: Shizzles / Let_Russ_Cook
One of the first trades in the league this season is the unusual trade for the same position straight up. The trade is pretty even, with both receivers at #12 and #11 respectively. In Week 4, following the trade, Ceedee outscored Sutton 18.70 to 13.70. Both players have the same bye week and a somewhat disappointing QB situation that they can still easily overcome, so each manager had their own reasons for liking the other receiver more. Sutton seems to have the easier stretch of games after his bye week but with the season-ending injury to Javonte Williams, if the Broncos offense takes a step back, that could mean less opportunities. The Broncos are currently tied for last (among whom are the Cowboys no less - and the Bears LMAOOOO) in total Touchdowns scored so I think I like Ceedee more in this case. Not something I thought at the beginning of the season. I’ll eat crow on that one. Hopefully Wilson and Sutton get cooking throughout the season before this trade gets too lopsided.
Trevor Lawrence for Carson Wentz & Darnell Mooney
New Teams: BLukesRevenge / ManaMan
Gotamnit. ManaMan traded away Lawrence, who was skyrocketing in points and wins in real life until Week 4, for Wentz and Mooney, both of whom are stuck on terrible teams but trending down. After 2 huge games, Wentz looked like Wentz the next two weeks and Mooney still plays for the Bears. At the moment, ManaMan somehow looks like the winner of this trade. Wentz will probably be forced to continue throwing the ball with some good receivers while Lawrence has a tough stretch of teams coming up. He won’t hit 2 points again unless he continues to fumble the ball the same way famous cheating husbands have fumbled the bag lately. He’ll still do very well, but I think Wentz might be the way to go just because of volume and receiving options.
Brandon Aiyuk for Brian Robinson
New Teams: BotoHead / ZeyTong
This is a super intriguing trade. Aiyuk had a lot of buzz prior to the season but has seen mediocre at best production, even though the snap count and targets have mostly been favorable. Robinson, on the other hand, could be a massive gain for ZeyTong to avoid the toilet bowl if he does indeed turn out to be RB1 in Washington the way he was supposed to be. Zey seems to be collecting Washington running backs the way a teenage girl collects K-Pop merch, but maybe Robinson shoots to legit RB1 superstar status and he becomes stacked at the position. Or maybe he shows completely average and this move becomes pretty irrelevant. BotoHead is pretty deep at receiver already (if somewhat inconsistent so far) with Diggs, Evans, Olave, and Mike Williams. With that, I would have kept Robinson, I think, considering how stacked he is at WR, but BotoHead already declared his zero RB strategy and with how bad all RBs have been this season, it seems like it might pay off.
Dalton Schultz for Jeff Wilson
New Teams: BotoHead / DoItAllDMac
I mentioned already how disappointing my team is and BotoHead felt the same way about his TE Pitts. We had talked about shuffling players around previously but I felt good about Gerald Everett as TE1 and less confident at RB so a one for one trade looked good in my eyes. Schultz has been struggling this season with injury and with Everett on my team, he would never see the lineup except for the Bye. Wilson, on the other hand, immediately replaces Elliot on my team the same way Schultz might for Pitts. BotoHead watches enough Cowboy porn - I mean games - to know how he fits into the offense, but I’m not as confident. Wilson may have to battle Mitchell for touches when he returns from IR, if he is fully healthy, but for now there’s at least one more month of healthy opportunities and volume.
Questions and Concerns:
- Who runs the Broncos backfield? It’ll clearly be Melvin Gordon but both dkdiddy and DontComeInLast put $20+ bids on bottom-roster players Mike Boone and Latavius Murray. I don’t see either really making an impact on this team even if there’s a timeshare in the backfield. If either one vultures touchdowns from Gordon, that will be their only real fantasy value, but neither are going to be starting for your fantasy team anyway.
- Will DontComeInLast get a win this season? He even changed his name to FuckThisShitNeedAMiracle to reflect the desperation he’s probably feeling at the moment. The team looks fine on paper, but between inconsistent points and unfortunate matchups, particularly Week 2 against BotoHead and Week 4 against DumbLuckChamp, they can’t catch a break. Huy’s going to do what does he best, though, until his luck changes (or even after his luck changes) - drink the pain away. Ultimately, I think he’ll be okay unless he continues to get unlucky. HiloBayPackers scoring only 320 is the crime of the cntury considering dkdiddy’s team. Both are basically a moped and a three-wheel rental (yes that is what they are actually called) on the H1 at this point.
- Will my team live up to the hype? Week 1 was the type of production I was expecting (mostly), but since then I have not scored more than 96 active points. I’m officially putting out an APB for Chase since he hasn’t been seen for 3 weeks and all my other receivers can’t decide if they want to score 15 or 5 points any given week,. Josh Allen and the weight of his big boto are the only thing getting me through the games so far, with CMC slowly finding life, Everett generally scoring double digits, and Christian Kirk doing everything he can to earn that dumbass overpriced contract.
Why I Hate Fantasy Football This Week:
We called him a madman. We yelled. We shouted. We laughed. But he made us touch his back hair and now he’s making us look at it while he sits in 2nd place, only down by 5 points. ZeroRB for BotoHead. Zero 2nd Round Pick for ManaMan. At least we’re not not Josh or Huy. Yet
