Most bizarre year EVER????

[BillyWaz]

I know many have already mentioned this, but this has been the craziest fantasy football year in recent memory.

In 2007, there were a TON of injuries, but I believe there were just as many (if not more) this year AND the most inconsistent play by "stars and scrubs" that I have ever seen!!

To drive that point home, I have never seen so many great teams (through the first 6 or 7 weeks) completely fall off the map, and so many bad teams "rise from the ashes" and put themselves in playoff contention!

I'm sure a lot of that has to do with injuries, inconsistent play, DWAYNE BOWE , and honestly....the most beneficial free agent crop in fantasy football history.

Michael Vick, Brandon Lloyd, Jacob Tamme, etc. are TOP 5 at their position. Add in Peyton Hillis (not a free agent, but drafted mid to late rounds) and that is a nice "4" at each of the skill positions.

Curious to what others thought, as it has just been extremely wacky from my perspective. With 18 game seasons on the horizon, will seasons like this ("war of attrition") be the NORM, or is this year just a fluke (not a fluke for those doing well, but just completely out of the ordinary)?

Good luck to all who need something this week!

[ December 05, 2010, 07:39 AM: Message edited by: BillyWaz ]

[Glenneration X]

I've only played High Stakes Fantasy since last year and never really paid attention to injury phenomenon while playing only a couple not as competitive local leagues prior to that, so my sample size is somewhat limited.

Still, it sure seems like injuries are more pronounced this year to the point where it could devestate Fantasy teams. From a personal experience, my NFFC Classic team this year has lost 4 of my first 5 draft picks (and 6 of my 1st 10) to injuries of 3 games or more (most much more). Last week when AP went out, I thought those odds were about to go up to 5 of 5 and 7 of 10. How do you recover from that? You don't. You just chalk it up to the breaks of the game, finish out the season the best that you can, and hope that some of your other teams are luckier.

As far as free agent or late draft finds, again going off my limited sample data, I'm not sure this year's finds are any more significant than last year's.
Sure, while this year the Vick's, Hillis', Lloyd's, & Tamme's of the world have benefitted many a shrewd Fantasy owner, I recall Favre, Charles, Harrison, Austin, MSW, Finley, Davis, etc. doing the same for teams last year.

This year sure seems like it's one for the ages, but I'm not sure if it is or if we're living in the moment and it just feels that way.

Good luck to everyone today. Big week for a lot of people across the Fantasy landscape.

Glenn

[da bears]

When football returns in either 2011 or 2012 I think seasons like this will become the norm.

Injuries will mount and I really do believe it will be a war of attrition. Like this year depth and expertly working the waiver wire will be hugh. Some of my teams wouldn't be in it if I hadn't picked up guys like Vick, Lloyd, and Tamme during the season.

Everyone always debates how muck luck there is in fantasy football. I hate to say it but I believe the luck factor increases some (how much who knows?) with the addition of an 18 game season.

We all know how important the health of your team can be in determining your fantasy team's fate for the season. Sure sometimes you can compensate for the loss of key players with depth or waiver wire pickups but in most cases there will be a noticeable dropoff in production.

As a fantasy football veteran I accept this aspect of the game and try not to get too upset when a player of mine gets hurt. Its part of the game as some years your teams get slammed by injuries while other years your teams don't.

Anyways, no matter what the changes I'll still be playing fantasy football in future years!

[ December 05, 2010, 08:59 AM: Message edited by: da bears ]

[kentucky]

This being my second year with fantasy football, to me this is just the norm. The injury aspect is what kept me from playing FF in the past. I always felt like it took a large portion of luck to be successful. there's a lot of skill in the knowledge of drafting, maintaining, and setting your lineups each week. but, if you lose your early "stud" players to injury, if can be a tough year.

getting back to Billy's thoughts, he named a few surprises, i'll throw in Stevie Johnson to the list. The player that has REALLY thrown for me for a loop is Hillis. i believe he was 3rd on the Cleveland depth chart before Hardesty went down, now he's a top 5 RB. all we heard about was how Hardesty would eventually secure the RB slot sometime this season.

The injuries, RBBC, and now the 18 game schedule is only going to make threads like this more common in the future.

Good Luck to everyone this week.

[Sandman62]

As I've probably said before, I think this year IS different. Yes, every year, there are players who outperform their ADP. The difference this year is (a) how many of those players are all the way up in the top 10 and (b) how great their scoring has contributed to NFFC teams.

I don't have time right now to go through all the key positions. But last year, the top 10 WRs and their PPG were:

Andre 19.5
Wayne 17.9
RMoss 17.8
Fitz 17.8
Welker 17.6
Austin 17.4
Marshall 17.1
SSmith/NYG 16.9
Roddy 16.6
Rice 16.3

Only three of these were surprises: SSmith was around a 9th round pick, and Austin and Rice were very late, if drafted at all.

This year's top 10 WR in PPG:

Roddy 21.5
Bowe 21
Lloyd 20.4
Nicks 19.6
Calvin 19
Owens 18.6
Andre 18.2
Collie 17.7
SJohnson 17.5
Wayne 17.3

Surprises? Probably 5 or 6. Their ADPs were Bowe 5.7, Lloyd undrafted, Nicks 4.7, Owens 8.6, Collie 8.12, SJohnson undrafted. (Yes, Collie's missed many games, but he certainly helped catapult some teams the first half of this year.)

This shows how high some unexpected players have soared this year. The depressing other side of this coin though is how high the mighty have fallen - IOW, how many of the projected top 20 are not IN the top 20, and how far down they actually fell. For that, I'll do another update after this week on my YTD Actual vs. Projected Positional Standings charts. Players like Randy Moss have really hurt teams this year due to them not even sniffing the top 40!

If I get time later tonight (niece's christening today at 1pm; can you believe that? This week, of all weeks?! ), I'll take a look at RB and QB top 10 this year vs. last. But from what I can tell, when this many top performers come from this far down in the drafts, and so many early draftees so drastically underperform... well, it's kinda made the first few rounds of the draft a lot less significant than usual. A lot of effort that goes into trying to build a strong core team seems to have been for naught.

[Eddiejag]

Originally posted by BillyWaz:
I know many have already mentioned this, but this has been the craziest fantasy football year in recent memory.

In 2007, there were a TON of injuries, but I believe there were just as many (if not more) this year AND the most inconsistent play by "stars and scrubs" that I have ever seen!!

To drive that point home, I have never seen so many great teams (through the first 6 or 7 weeks) completely fall off the map, and so many bad teams "rise from the ashes" and put themselves in playoff contention!

I'm sure a lot of that has to do with injuries, inconsistent play, DWAYNE BOWE , and honestly....the most beneficial free agent crop in fantasy football history.

Michael Vick, Brandon Lloyd, Jacob Tamme, etc. are TOP 5 at their position. Add in Peyton Hillis (not a free agent, but drafted mid to late rounds) and that is a nice "4" at each of the skill positions.

Curious to what others thought, as it has just been extremely wacky from my perspective. With 18 game seasons on the horizon, will seasons like this ("war of attrition") be the NORM, or is this year just a fluke (not a fluke for those doing well, but just completely out of the ordinary)?

Good luck to all who need something this week! YES a crazy year indeed.The injuries have been insane but the free agent crop was the best ever.
Others from the waiver wire besides
Lloyd
Vick
Tamme
Stevie Johnson
Ben Jarvis Greene
Danny Woodhead
Deon Branch
Brandon Gibson
Earl Bennett
Brandon Pettigrew
Marcedes Lewis
Shaun Hill
Fitzpatick 2nd most td's since week 3.
Alexander
Keiland Williams
Mike Goodson
Tolbert
Maurice Morris
Westbrook
Torain
LAG Blount
Dixon
Brandon Jackson
Watson

[chriseibl]

i think the out of nowhere wrs have been the craziest thing about this year. is there anybody whose career numbers have looked remotely similar to brandon lloyd's? that's just something that never happens to a guy at that position who has been in the league for a long time. peyton hillis is less surprising because the rb spot will always be more about opportunity than talent so there's breakout performers each year there. (and that's certainly not to say he isn't talented). also, tamme isn't much of a surprise as a few people expected him to do well replacing clark's numbers.

stevie johnson is also up there as a huge surprise but he's more of a once every few years phenomenon, the last of which was colston.

[Atlas]

Seemed like there were a lot more kicker injuries this year. I really debated whether I should have rostered a second kicker for the playoffs, just in case.

Problem was, there were so many other injuries, I felt I had to prioritize and hold an extra WR and QB.

Wonder how many playoff rosters will carry 2 kickers?

[Dyv]

I'm absolutely carrying 2 kickers - losing 6+ pts. per week just isn't going to work for me and who really has enough depth to make it work if they lose their top RB or WR? You can manage with a backup kicker as they all get about the same points, but if you have to trot out your #4 RB or #6 WR do you really have a chance?