Monday, November 3, 2014

Just Past NFL Midseason Awards

We are almost through the Bye Season and are into the second half of the season. Let’s take a look back at how the first half of the season has unfolded while handing out a few First Half awards.

Best Team: Arizona. This is NFL Karma since they won 10 games last year and didn’t make the playoffs. They have a nice mix of talented offensive players and a solid defense. They may surprisingly clinch their division before any other team. Runner-up: New England. After being written off after their shellacking at Kansas City, no team has looked more dominant.

Worst Team: Oakland. The Raiders have had some close losses (3 to San Diego, a TD to New England,..) but they have a very, very good chance of going 0-16. Runner-up: New York Jets. The Jets are the worst team in the NFL but get runner-up status by virtue of beating Oakland.

MVP: DeMarco Murray, hands down. It took a Romo-less effort against a solid Arizona run defense to stop his streak of 100+ rushing yard games. Runner-Up: Andrew Luck.

LVP: LeSean McCoy. Always be leery when a RB comes off of a big season and start spouting off about a 2000+ yard year coming. LeSean has a whopping 1 TD and half of the yards of Murray. Runner-up: Megatron, though he gets a pass due to injury so we will give it to Brandon Marshall since most of his points have come in one game.

Surprise Team (good): Cleveland. Sure, it helps to have games against Tampa, Tennessee (amazing comeback), and Oakland, but they did beat some quality teams. The most surprising thing is that they didn’t throw Johnny Football in while they were down over 20 points to Tennessee or after they lost to Jacksonville. However, I am not sure we won’t see him in the second half as Cleveland may not win another game. Runner-up: Dallas. They have 5 of their last 7 on the road and will find it difficult to keep their magic rolling.

Surprise Team (bad): Chicago. They lost a few games that they shouldn’t have and they won a few games that they shouldn’t have, but their D is terrible and their offense is bickering. Their Bye came at a good time but they go to Green Bay when they come out of it. They need to treat that game as a playoff game. Their schedule in the second half sets up nicely, but they may be too dysfunctional to take advantage of it. Runner-up: Atlanta. We gave them a pass last year with all of their injuries. Now, they are beat up again this year, but we now know that they are not a good football team….we just didn’t want to believe it at the start of the year.

Best Reason To Handcuff: Matt Asiata. Getting a handcuff for your studs is always recommended, no matter why it kicks in. If you had AP, Asiata went into the year as the backup to have. He immediately produced 47 points in his first 3 games. Granted, he did fall off after Jerick McKinnon emerged, but Asiata did carry a few owners over a tough period where the realization that AP was going to miss the rest of the season was sinking in. Runner-up: Chris Ivory (this should have been obvious with Chris Johnson being a yearly bust).

Wasted Fantasy Performance: Ben Roethlisberger in Week 8. Far too many owners dropped Big Ben after three lackluster performances in a row and many others benched Ben against the Colts as their defense had played very well in the weeks leading up to the game. That left at least 44 points unused that week, depending on the league configuration. Runner-up: Matt Asiata in Week 9 (second 3 TD performance of the year).

Worst Fantasy Move: Far too many owners gave up on Tom Brady after he started the season with 4 Geno Smith-like games in a row. This happened even in 12-team leagues! After a mediocre 2013, the thought was Tom Terrific was Tom Terrible. Yes, Gronk DOES make that much of a difference in the Patriots’ passing game. Runner-up: Overpaying for Toby Gerhart. Minnesota’s running blocking scheme made him look good.

Player To Immediately Trade For: Mark Ingram. He has played in 4 games this year and has put up 16, 16, 23 and 23 (his brief minutes against Detroit are exempt). With New Orleans committed to the running game and Ingram in a contract year, we expect more of this type of production. Runner-up: Sammy Watkins. He loves him some Kyle Orton.

Player To Offload ASAP: Frank Gore. Many people will overpay for a running back and Gore’s last month makes it seem that his best days are behind him. Even when he is feeling spry, Colin Kaepernick is finding a way to ruin San Fran’s season. It won’t be long before you see more of Carlos Hyde on the stat sheet. Runner-up: Steven Jackson. Jackson is faring better than Gore but, with Atlanta’s season soon to be in the tank, expect the Falcons to turn to their younger backs to see what they have in their future.


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