I didn't expect after drafting my team that I would come away with the title. I am at this point still elated that I picked up the quote "fluff and beans bowl" crown. However for one night of victory, dubbed one again as a certified Tealand Tuesday moment, I want to impart some wisdom for what I did as champion, how I got to where I did and more crucially for those reading, give some helpful tools to go out and play the game to the best of your ability.
Sparey's guide to fantasy football
1) A good draft helps out a lot. You never truly know who is going to be electric immediately and who will become talented late into the season, but the one thing you can do early is lock down some key cornerstones in the draft that as points, you can price out from trading. For me, that player was Tyreek Hill. In my league he was a second round selection but someone who everyone knew going in had the capability to put astronomical performances up. Week 4 proved that when he put 47.6 up against the eagles. If you get the cornerstones of your team down early, you'll find a lot of leverage when it comes to players.
2) Relative value and the waiver wire. It's no secret that I traded my way to success, trading with 10 of the 13 players in my league for over double the amount of transactions as the next person. A lot of this came off of the back of a week 3 defeat where I sat down and honestly thought about what I wanted to do. I identified a player that was doing nothing for a team and offered this trade. Tyler Boyd and Kenyan Drake for Deebo Samuel and Alexander Mattison. Deebo vhanged how my team played overnight and was consistently my best player for the season. Mattison went immediately to the waiver wire where I promptly never saw him again as he played a key role when Dalvin Cook was injured. Without that first trade being a success, I don't go on a lunatic's frenzy trying to improve my team and don't improve projection from 125 to 140 in the space of 4 weeks.
Now when I say relative value, most of the deals I made had the same principal. Player I want, plus low rated fodder piece, for a slightly worse piece I want to trade away and a backup running back, wide receiver or tight end. The value in getting the player you want doesn't come from the player you traded for but more rather the fodder piece. Let's take Cedrick Wilson as an example. When I picked him up he was worth about six points and immediately cut him. The reason why is when I made the trade for him, there were much better options on the waiver wire. That six point player in escence has as much weight as 11 points depending on who is available. A trade deal that I try to make to be fair is to trade between even and minus three points if there is value in the waiver wire. It was how I managed to get Jalen Hurts, Stefon Diggs, Dalton Schultz and many others in my mad scramble for talent before the trade deadline. Knowing what value you have for a piece is vital to how you manouver and improve as a season progresses.
3) Finding gems on the wire. This is easier to do if you're down in the league a bit. My opponent who made the final for example was 2-4 and staring consolation but rallied to 7-7 with great positioning on the wire. I spent most of my season 14th and dead last on the wire, meaning great options were more likely to go elsewhere. I made three really good finds this season, firstly with my kicker Nick Folk. I frequent a YouTuber called Chiseled Adonis and the one thing he always does as a meme is berate the everloving clustertruck out of Nick Folk for missing his kicks. Memes aside, Nick was the number one kicker for most of the year and was a vital source of eight or more points more often than not. My second find was Emmanuel Sanders who consistently had been averaging 12 points a game and proved to be a very strong trade piece in the mid to late part of the season. The third? Khalil Herbert. Rookie at Chicago, he jumped into the team and for two weeks, was unstoppable. He was sured up firepower at a weaker running back position and I was able to pawn him off for a more solid option into the second half of the season. Finding one player on the wire that works brilliantly changes your entire outlook on the season.
4) A little bit of luck goes a long way. In week one, Darren Waller got 19 targets and put 26.5 points on the board for me to squeak my opening game. I was hooked at that point which led to week two, where Aaron Jones and D'Andre Swift clawed me out of a 50 point hole to steal my second game of the season. I should have been 0-3 to get my campaign off the ground but reality was that I was 2-1, unwilling to let that slip. I had losses, but also a team that through the first 11 weeks was averaging 130 points. After the trade deadline, I got hit by the injury bug and averaged around 110 points until the end of the season. I lost the one seed going into the playoffs, my team didn't score over 120 points in any playoff game, but fortune favours the brave and the title came home with me.
I scored the most points in the league, and also had the toughest schedule by points too. I got blown out 180 to 90 in week 14 to lose that seeding at a time where I didn't know how my team would perform. I had luck that Amari Cooper and Sterling Shepherd got iced out of the quarter finals. DaVante Parker put up an egg in the semi finals, and the most fitting end to a final ever, the player I tried to save on injured reserve, Antonio Brown, walks out mid-game leaving my opponent stranded on 5.6 points. You have no control over how players play, you just have to build a team with the best chance of success. It wasn't a pretty win at any point but it was victory enough to win overall.
A toxic player said to me after I got his trade vetoed that my victory would be hollow. Rule one of any game is you play to have fun, no fun, no play. I'm proud of the win, and next season should be a fun time for everyone involved!
