2014 NFL Fantasy Football Award Season

The end is here. It is Super Bowl 49! Sadly, we are seeing very familiar teams as the Seahawks return to defend their crown and the Patriots return for the 6th time under Belichick and Brady. However, these were the two best regular season teams, so it is nice to see that the regular season followed through into the post-season, though it wasn’t easy. The Packers had the Seahawks pinned to the mat with the final count on its way down before they decided to find every way imaginable to blow, what seemed like, an insurmountable lead in the last 5 minutes of the NFC Championship game. The Patriots cruised past Indy but found themselves embroiled in, yet another, controversy. Who really wanted to fill the two weeks between the championships and the Super Bowl with human interest stories, anyway? With the season coming to an end, let’s take a quick look at a positional summary.

QB Stud: Andrew Luck (sadly, 3 of his 4 worst games were in weeks 15-17)
QB Disappointment: Jay Cutler (good thing for Garbage time points)
QB Surprise: Russell Wilson (Wilson had more a few more points than Rodgers and was drafted 8 rounds later, on average)
QB To Watch: Teddy Bridgewater (monster first game vs Atlanta, regressed for a month, and then finished consistently strong the last 6 weeks)
QB Biggest Waste: Johnny Manziel (his first start vs Cincy said it all. He knew it was coming and still wasn’t prepared.)

​RB Stud: DeMarco Murray (DeMarco outscored Peyton this year. He was run into the ground, but 2014 owners didn’t care.)
RB Disappointment: Zac Stacy (THUD. Kudos to Rams brass who felt this could happen and drafted Tre Mason)
RB Surprise: Justin Forsett (Jeremy Hill and Matt Asiata could have qualified but Forsett had a more productive 16 weeks though he ran out of gas in the end)
RB To Watch: C.J. Anderson (Anderson put in a full year of stats in 8 games of work and made owner ecstatic. He looks like the real deal for the long run.)
RB Biggest Waste: Ben Tate (After getting out of Arian Foster’s shadow, he flopped so badly in the perfect situation that he ended up playing for 3 teams this season)

​WR Stud: Antonio Brown (Receivers dominated the landscape this year but Brown takes the crown. He only had 2 single-digit games and ruled PPR leagues)
WR Disappointment: Cordelle Patterson (No one saw this coming after his rookie season. He even started game 1 with 102 yards rushing. He would get 15 more the next 15 weeks and rarely saw the field after midseason)
WR Surprise: Odell Beckum Jr {Mike Evans had this wrapped up until Beckum’s hammy healed up enough and Victor Cruz went down. Fantasy playoff MONSTER this year.)
WR To Watch: Brandin Cooks (Loads to choose from but let’s go with Cooks since his season was cut short due to injury. Youth is a good thing in the Saints receiving corp.)
WR Biggest Waste: Josh Gordon (What a waste. He was given a break and let back into the league early this year, flopped and is now rumored to be facing a potential 2015 season-long suspension.)

​TE Stud: Gronk (Easily outpointed all other tight ends this year. Runaway winner.)
TE Disappointment: Jimmy Graham (With an ADP of 8, he was a flop with 900 yards and 10 TDs considering Greg Olsen picked up a few more points 6 rounds later.)
TE Surprise: Antonio Gates (Many of us were putting him out to pasture before the season and anointing Ladarius Green the new Go-To option. Gates has the 2nd highest TE fantasy output this year.)
TE To Watch: Mychal Rivera (The numbers were there on certain weeks but the Targets were there almost every week. That bodes well in 2015 with a more seasoned Derek Carr under center.)
TE Biggest Waste: (Injuries and poor QB play are more to blame than Cameron himself, but 2014 was a downer for one of 2014’s Breakout Candidates.)

Changing Of The Guard

Once written, twice true? People are lining up to bid Peyton Manning adieu. Should they? Well, based on the past 6 weeks, it appears that Father Time has caught up with Manning. Personally, I do not think that he thinks it is time to expect him to walk away. Peyton has a lot of Pride and his performance versus Indy is not the way he will want to end his career. Paraphrasing the great Marcellus Wallace, “When thinking about your future, you may feel a slight sting. That’s pride f&&ing with you. F&&k pride. Pride never helps you. It only hurts you.”. I believe that he will come back for one more season and attempt to end it on a healthy note versus being hobbled. Strained quad? Torn quad? Hard to say, but he will be back.

Getting back to Sunday, it is apparent though that Andrew Luck is the new AFC gunslinger. It was obvious all season long but things do not change over-night. The coronation takes some time and culminates with an underdog triumph. That has now taken place and, fittingly, he now opposes King II of the Hill; Tom Brady. A true storybook would have Luck also beating Brady to take his newly earned spot on top, but it doesn’t happen like that in real-life sports. There is always more than one hurdle to the top and you cannot leap them all the first time once the wheels are in motion. You get to the last hurdle, get knocked back, re-group and then try again. So, Luck will run into the Brady wall this weekend and will come back next season for another attempt. There is no doubt that he will pass Brady, and pass him soon, but it is not this year. With Peyton on the way out, “The Game” in the AFC will now be New England vs. Indy until Brady rides off into the sunset. The way the Patriots have handled the Colts in the past few years, it may take another 2-3 years before Luck clears that last hurdle.

Aside for the demise of Manning, it was a busy weekend in sports.

• Yes, Cowboys fans, it was an incompletion. Dez did not take 3 steps and make a football move as you have exaggeratedly argued. It was all one process and he did not complete it. Now, if that silly rule was not in place and it was a judgment call, then, Hell yeah, he caught it. But, the NFL is full of silly rules and they have to be followed consistently. I loved the Tweet by the Lions afterwards, btw.
• I am an avid fisherman and a mediocre swimmer. This tale from former Dolphins fullback Rob Conrad guarantees that I will wear a life jacket when out fishing solo from now on. What a great story!
• The writing was on the wall all season for Jim Harbaugh, regardless of how well his teams had done previously, but I did not see John Fox parting ways with the Broncos. This man can coach. I just hope my Bears can lure him in.
• Shame on me. I was fooled the prior week by CBS in thinking that their pre-game show was about football and not advertising but I still went back this week and was caught in that trap again. I hope James Brown can get out of his contract cuz he has no business on that joke of a show. Strahan fits perfectly on it though. The bit they did with Katy Perry was embarrassing enough….maybe they should focus on her two true assets…but was the plug for the movie “American Sniper” really necessary? I thought they filled time between segments with commercials. I didn’t know that they ran commercials as segments? Also, Pepsi pushing the halftime show as “Hyped”?! Can you overstate the obvious any more? The best part of a Super Bowl party is being surrounded by food and drink so it is easy to pass on the commercial time and halftime with sustenance and actually enjoy the evening.

The Last Dozen

The Wildcard Playoffs are in the bag and we look ahead to some great matchups/rematches this coming weekend. Before we do that, it truly looks like this will be the last season of 12 playoff teams and every winner getting a home game. Thanks to greed and injustice due to the overall incompetence of the NFC South, you can expect 2 more playoff teams next season and the overall playoff seeding to be based on record, not division winner. I agree with the latter. I see no need for more playoff teams...however, it will provide the NFL with more money for the owners to line their pockets with and throw away on bad contracts. It still won't stop bad teams from making the playoffs as division winners still have to get in.

Speaking of greed, did anyone stay tuned into the Sunday post-game show on CBS after Indianapolis beat Cincinnati? If so, were you as disgusted as me by CBS cowtowing to Subway and letting one of their pitchman losers shill new sandwiches in the studio? It harkens back to the on-air advertising of the 50s and 60s. I fully expected Terry Bradshaw to start showing the results from the Viagra that he took an hour before. It may have happened, much to Jared's elation, but I changed the channel as soon as I could. Maybe this is a regular segment and I have just missed it by turning in another game as soon as football ended on CBS. To make matters worse, I flipped over to the pre-game on Fox long enough to see Michael Strahan say one word and I turned the TV off until I knew the Dallas-Detroit game had safely started.

I generally spend my weekends in sports bars watching the games but laid low on Sunday after a long holiday celebration stretch; College Bowl Season absolutely rocks. Whenever I watch a pre or post game, it is always on ESPN. Speaking of which, every sports fans should have started their Sunday depressed. It saddened me greatly to see the report on Stuart Scott's passing when I first turned on ESPN. He was a pleasure to watch and will be missed. You really had to think about a Grand Plan when you heard the behind-the-scenes on his battles with cancer. When you "beat" something that has no cure TWICE, you should have a free pass until natural causes are the reason for your ultimate demise. Life is not fair, but, maybe that is the Grand Plan.

Recapping the games from this weekend:

• The writing was on the wall in Carolina before the game started but you have to feel sorry for Arizona. If the above playoff changes were in effect the past two years, they would have made the playoffs in 2013 and they would have hosted a wildcard game this year. The football gods do not smile upon them. They won most of their games this season based on the strength of their defense and could have won this past weekend if their offense could have contributed some. Losing their top RB and top 2 QBs proved impossible to overcome. Carolina repeated Seattle's 2010 season first round result after it won the NFC West by getting, and winning, and home game. It is fitting that these two teams square off in the divisional round of the playoffs. 
   
• Pittsburgh and Baltimore showed that, though their teams are more offense than defense nowadays, they can still dial up Old School defensive efforts when they square off against one another. No rivalry in this century compares to the intensity that these two teams take the field with when matching up. It was unfortunate that Le'Veon Bell had to miss the game cuz you want to see these two teams go against each other with all weapons at their disposal. I still think Joe Flacco gets too much credit for Baltimore winning in the playoffs but he does seem to elevate his game.
   
• Though the Colts limped into the playoffs and could not beat a top team this season, Sunday was theirs. The Bengals were short-handed with A.J. Green and Jermaine Gresham out so the Colts decided to try to make the game a fast-paced shootout and keep Cincy from running the ball and the Bengals fell for it. They couldn't stop the deep ball and decided to effectively bench their best weapon, Jeremy Hill, for the last three quarters. In this case, I think Andy Dalton is getting too much blame for Cincinnati losing in the first round each year, but I think questioning the coaching ability of Marvin Lewis is valid.
   
• In the final game pitting Dallas and Detroit, you had plenty of reasons to root against both teams as non-fans. You have Ndamukong Suh and the thugs of the Detroit defense on one side and many Cowboys past and present along with Jerry Jones on the other side. It is difficult not to talk conspiracy when you dissect the pivotal play of the game. Overriding a called penalty? How many times have you see that this year? I can recall only a handful of times and they where for justifiable reasons. Not in this game. On top of it, you had two other calls on Dallas that were ignored, not missed, ignored; defensive holding and unsportsmanlike conduct. I tells you, Jerry Jones and the NFL have a side deal as plain as Jerry Jones and Chris Christie have a side deal. How the people of New Jersey have not impeached that clown is beyond me.....but I don't mix politics and sports.