2015 Finals Preview
In our final issue, we have a new panel of analysts recapping the season with a distinct focus on the worst of us…and previewing the last match of the season between Kong (Too Many Cooks) and Alex (A-Aron Rodgers)
Table of Contents
@gordon: Caleb trades Justin Forsett and Stevie Johnson to Danny for Ronnie Hillman. No further analysis necessary.
@vince: What the numbers say: Kong made the trade blunder of the season, moving his team’s namesake and inconsistent Lacy-Starks for J. Maclin Cheese’s Julian Edelman and Ameer Abdullah. Too Many Cooks somehow still managed to lead the league in points scored, despite losing 22 points week from this trade.
What I think: Though not quite as egregious on paper, Benny swapped Russell Wilson, Eric Decker and Zach Ertz for Paul Chung’s Aaron Rodgers and DeSean Jackson. Not only did 1.21 JJ Watts lose value in the corresponding QB and WR swap, he also managed to give away the 12th ranked TE for nothing. Yikes.
@danny: Not here to pick on anybody, but to be honest, I didn’t see any laughable trades. This is ironic, but the worst trade was between Too Many Cooks and J. maclin cheese. Trading for Abdullah and Edelman and giving up Starks, Lacy, and Cooks seemed a bit preposterous. Imagine the team Too Many Cooks would be touting today if he didn’t make that trade. J. maclin cheese did a good job all year of managing his team, which put him in the position at the end of the season. In any case, it fared well for everyone.
@gordon: Caleb AKA MaXXCAMelTOE.
By default, the worst GM of the season is the GM of the team in last place. No matter how you look at it, regular season record: 2–11, points for: 1348.16 (80.48 points less than the next lowest) MaXXCAMelTOE had quite an abysmal season. The amount of time and resources the GM devoted to determining the team’s name is second to none, but when you have more team names (TheDezbianOlsenTwins, AgholorLordOfLight, and MaXXCAMelTOE) than wins (2) you automatically warrant consideration as the worst GM of the season.
@vince: What the numbers say: The numbers say that Kong led the league with 206.7 points lost from trades. Of the 3 trades for Too Many Cooks, only one trade graded well, while the trade mentioned above docked him a league-leading 222 points.
What I think: “Don’t confuse motion and progress.” As it applies to this league, it’d be smart not to confuse transactions with improvement. While Caleb ran away with a record 13* of the league’s 28 trades, 8 of his 13 trades actually lost him value. Also, if we remove the “trade” between MaXXCAMelTOE & The Primal Beings, MaXXCAMelTOE cost his team a league-leading 277 points. It’s hard to argue with those numbers when they point to last place.
@danny: This is a no-brainer — Caleb A.K.A. maxxcameltoe (not even going to spend the time to look at which letters were capitalized because that’s how bad this team and this GM was this year).
The GM had to change his name so other teams would recognize the embarrassing year the team was having… but the stink didn’t veer too far away from the new name as maxxcameltoe ended the season with a 9-game losing streak. My only quantitative evidence for this answer is the 2–11 record, the lowest points for (1348.16), and the 3rd most moves (29). I will expect this GM to bounce back next year for the sheer fact that if he bounced any longer he may fall into permanent fantasy football purgatory. Maybe as a favor, we should give him a big clock like Flava Flav so he knows when the draft time is.
@gordon: Alex, despite being projected as a slight underdog.
This ultimately boils down to matches and current performance trends. There are question marks surrounding the rest of the starters: Robinson’s sudden drop in targets, Green facing Broncos defense, and Freeman running against Panthers defense. To make matters worse, ROY-tiles-Boy-Goy’s favorite target, A. Brown, just happens to be on AAron Rodgers team (all but West are coming into this weekend on tremendous hot streaks.) The matchup will be close, but look for A-Aron Rodgers to pull this one out.
@vince: What the numbers say: Kong.
With a 150+ point projection, Too Many Cooks looks poised to walk away with his first Cowboys to the ‘Ship title. What I think: Too Many Cooks has already won. After two seasons languishing at the bottom of the league, no matter the outcome, Too Many Cooks can finally exit a season with his head held high. With star players emerging from nowhere (Freeman, Robinson) and heavy reliance on mediocre NFC East talent somehow playing out (Sproles, Reed), Too Many Cooks probably walks away with this one.
@danny: Kong wins in a close-one!
I’d be curious if AA makes any final roster changes before the end of the weekend. Having both Ware and West playing from the same backfield is a risky move, but he has some tough decisions to make with a handful of bench players who are often hit-or-miss. Both of interesting matchups all-around — Big Ben and Bryant against a terrible a Ravens D fairs to be really productive, but Freeman against Carolina D and Green (who has a backup QB) against Denver D should be more difficult than most weeks. The deciding factor for Konky’s team will be Freeman — if he can get his touches and anywhere close to the 20-point projection, it should put him in good shape. On the other hand, AA has continued to go all-in on the undefeated Panthers and reaped the benefits. Playing against a Jekyll & Hyde Falcons team should be interesting — Cam and Ginn have been hot of late, so we shall see what comes of it.
@gordon: Alex. K. Allen was traded on October 30th and played his last game on 11/1, D. Lewis was traded on Oct 23rd and played his last game on 11/8, E. Sanders was traded 11/12 and decided to take the next two weeks off. According to Sports Injury Predictor, none of those players had a injury risk of higher than 50%, so the odds of all three missing at least a couple weeks is slim, and the odds of A-Aron Rodgers offloading all three before injury is even smaller. A-Aron Rodgers’ GM claims to not wield black magic, so I have no choice but to slap him with the luckiest team tag.
@vince: In an injury-riddled season, where the championship will may be decided by the performance of both of the Chief’s backup running backs and the Eagle’s 3rd string running back, Too Many Cooks comes sprinting into the finals carrying a bench with three players on I.R. and two defenses, just in case his starting defense gets hurt in practice this week. Having not dealt with a single season-ending injury to a starter all year, somehow, this team has made it into the finals despite putting up playoff numbers that would have lost to 4 out of the 5 other playoff teams. This run by Too Many Cooks highlights how important matchups, and health, truly are.
@danny: Luck is a difficult word to use, so I’m going to say Too Many Cooks. I don’t think anybody got “lucky” for whatever reason, but from the looks of it, Too Many Cooks had the least injury-prone road to the top. He made the lowest number of moves of all the teams that made the playoffs, which is a reflection that he really didn’t have a huge need to look elsewhere. His middle of the road “B” draft should have reflected a need to make more than just 3 trades. Combined with what looked like the “healthiest” road to the playoffs was the fact that his bench is horrendous. Granted, you don’t need a bench if you are starting the Dream Team, but it is another testament to the lack of decisions he had to make (and thus potentially step on his own feet with poor GM decisions). In any case, Too Many Cooks is in the finals for deserved reasons, but it seems like he didn’t have to bang his head over too many decisions on a weekly basis, which makes it easy for amateur GMs like me.
