2022 Fantasy Awards
With the fantasy season beginning to wrap up, it is time to give out superlatives for the season. These are my choices for some major awards, along with a couple of awards I made up just for fun. I will also be running polls for each of the awards on the Commissioner Corner Twitter page (@CommishCornerFF) if you want to give that a follow and cast your votes. Let's get to the winners.
MVP: Travis Kelce
We talked about how great Kelce was in our last article (https://wordpress.com/post/commissioner-corner.com/354), and how it's getting to a league-altering level. Kelce is outscoring the tight end field by over six points a game, and through 16 weeks he was a model of consistency with only one game with single digit points all year. Although he is the 6th ranked non-quarterback this season, his positional advantage gives him the edge in this award.
Side Note: My league with my high school buddies has been going now for five years now. The team that has had Kelce has made the championship every single year. It's like LeBron in the 2010's, doesn't win all of them but he drags teams there every single year. The team that had him this year lost Cooper Kupp and he still made it mainly because of Kelce. That's what MVP caliber players do I guess.
Others Receiving Votes: Justin Jefferson, Austin Ekeler, Tyreek Hill
Biggest Bust: Jonathan Taylor
The entire summer Jonathan Taylor was the consensus 1.01 and top running back because he was the safe choice. Although there was a late push from the analytical community for McCaffrey, Taylor was likely the first pick in the majority of drafts this year and simultaneously lost people leagues. Through 16 weeks Taylor is the RB28 in PPR leagues after finishing in the top spot in 2021. His yards per carry dropped, he did not have the same red zone volume and the "safe pick" missed three games in the middle of the season then was later put on season ending IR.
The injuries definitely didn't help, but that was not the only factor for Taylor's struggles. He started the year hot with a 27.5 point RB2 finish in Week 1, then his only other top ten PPR week came nine weeks later. For many, that massive drought from their first round pick in all likelihood tanked their season and made them start planning their waffle house strategies early.
Others Receiving Votes: Najee Harris, D'Andre Swift, Mike Evans
Best Value: Amon-Ra St. Brown
Prior to the season, Amon-Ra was being taken outside the top 20 wide receivers in most drafts. This was the same player that finished the second half of last season as the WR2. St. Brown started hot this year with a near 40 point performance in week 2, had a slight lull during the month of October but then came alive to the tune of a WR7 season this year.
The Sun God was being drafted behind guys like Brandon Cooks, Mike Williams and Diontae Johnson in this years draft. With two weeks to play, St. Brown has a chance to solidify himself as a top 10 pick at the position for the 2023 draft, as he probably should've been this season.
Others Receiving Votes: Rhamondre Stevenson, Tony Pollard, Devonta Smith
League Winner: Josh Jacobs
Another guy we talked about in a previous column (https://wordpress.com/post/commissioner-corner.com/306), Jacobs was "The King of the Running Back Dead Zone". This was a minefield of players around 4th and 5th rounds of drafts that people felt would not give the return on investment. Many of them didn't: Guys drafted around him like Cam Akers, Elijah Mitchell and AJ Dillon did not really pan out the way the people drafting them thought they would. Jacobs was obviously quite the opposite.
Jacobs is the current RB3 on the season and has had five top five finishes on the year. No one forgets his 48.3 performance against Seattle either. Although he struggled in the first week of playoffs for most people, I don't think many would be able to get too upset at the guy that likely carried them to the postseason to begin with.
Others Receiving Votes: AJ Brown, Devonta Smith, Rhamondre Stevenson
Comeback Player of the Year: Saquon Barkley
In the lead up to this year's draft, Barkley had fallen outside the top ten running backs taken in drafts. This was somewhat reasonable as he had not had a fully healthy season since his rookie year in 2018. Since that rookie season he had an RB10 finish in 2019, missed all but two games due to a torn ACL in 2020, and had a very disappointing 2021 that could partly be blamed on a spotty offensive line. This season there was much concern that we would see a repeat of the year prior, where Barkley was barely able to scrape together a top 30 finish.
Barkley finished as the RB1 in the first week of the season with 33.4 PPR points and carried his dominance over for most of the season, being the current RB5 through 16 weeks. The best part of Barkley's season is the consistency: the entire season he only has two games with single digit points. This is very impressive, especially given he's on a bottom third scoring offense in the league. No matter where he ends up next season, Saquon Barkley is back!
Others Receiving Votes: Christian McCaffrey, AJ Brown, Geno Smith? I guess?
Biggest Tease: D'Andre Swift
I personally drafted D'Andre Swift in the first round this season, and after the first week I felt like a genius. He had 18 touches, scored 26.5 points and averaged over nine yards a carry. The dude looked like a league winning player. Then he played well but got banged up against Washington in week 2, tried to play through it but ended up missing a couple of games.
Swift then entered the timeshare of the century, splitting carries with Justin Jackson, Craig Reynolds and immediately coming off the field inside the red zone for Jamaal Williams (we'll get to that later). After showing RB1 potential the first two weeks, he then didn't receive more than six carries until week 12. That week he again had 18 touches and had a top five finish, again. This lead people like myself to believe he could keep this up the rest of the year, just to start him the next week and only score 6.9 points. Multiple flashes of greatness, only for disappointment from D'Andre Swift in 2022.
Others Receiving Votes: Michael Thomas, Michael Pittman Jr., AJ Dillon
The One That Got Away: Breece Hall
Breece Hall was the premier rookie running back from the real draft and also fantasy drafts. Throughout training camp he was being touted as the best player on the Jets roster. Through the first seven weeks he proved those people right, averaging nearly 6 yards per carry, scoring a touchdown in four straight games and placing himself as a top seven fantasy running back. Then, the injury.
I was in the airport when it happened, little did I know I was about to board a flight to Spain without the S. I was watching redzone on my phone, it was blurry because of the shitty WiFi. I saw a Jets player on the ground and couldn't tell who it was, but when Scott Hanson told me it was Breece Hall, I teared up a little. An ascending player, possible league winner and future number one overall pick had his magical season taken away in the blink of an eye. He will be back.
Others Receiving Votes: Javonte Williams, Jahan Dotson, Michael Thomas again
The "Adam Thielen pray this guy scores a touchdown" Award: Adam Thielen
This is a legacy award for Thielen. This season the Minnesota wide receiver averaged 17.6 PPG in games with a touchdown, which is the same as CeeDee Lamb and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However in games without a touchdown Thielen only cracked doubled digits twice for a whopping 8.08 PPG. This puts him in the echelon of a Richie James or teammate K.J. Osborn.
The addition of T.J. Hockenson midseason certainly did not help Thielen's target share, especially in the red zone. Hockenson has 12 red zone targets since joining the team compared to Thielen's 9. The appeal of Thielen coming into the year was the red zone opportunities on a high powered offense, but being the third target down in that area normally does not bode well for fantasy success.
Others Receiving Votes: Gabe Davis (this is a 51-49 vote split, Thielen gets the nod based on previous performance)
Vulture of the Year: Jamaal Williams
Jamaal Williams currently leads the league in touchdowns on 3.8 yards per carry. You know why the yards per carry are so low? BECAUSE HE GETS THE BALL AT THE ONE YARD LINE EVERY SINGLE TIME!!! The amount of times I saw D'Andre Swift break off a 10+ yard run to get them down into the red zone just for Jamaal Williams to trot onto the field and get three chances at punching it into the end zone was more than I can count.
The worst part about Williams is that he seems like a great person and someone I would love to hang out with. Therefore I cannot hate him for stealing points from my players every single week. He does fun dances, he loves anime and he had me ready to run through a brick wall on Hard Knocks. He is the most likable vulture in the history of the league.
Others Receiving Votes: Ezekiel Elliott, AJ Dillon (Preseason Favorite), Shane Zylstra just for last weeks 26 yard three touchdown performance
Biggest Loser: Me
After my draft with my buddies from high school, the NFL app projected my team to go 0-15. I disagreed with this prediction, however I did feel somewhat thin at running back so I traded for Saquon Barkley. I then started the season 3-0, made weekly video recaps and there was even a cake with a final score involved at one point. However after a couple losses, I made another move to pick up Davante Adams and when Ja'Marr Chase got hurt I went and traded for him as well. My starting lineup going into the final stretch of the season looked like this:
QB: Justin Fields
RB: Saquon Barkley
RB: Rhamondre Stevenson
WR: Amon-Ra St. Brown
WR: Davante Adams
TE: Mark Andrews
FLEX: Ja'Marr Chase
Going into the final two games of the season I was the highest scoring team in the league, but was only 7-6 and needed to win a game to get into the playoffs. I did not win either game and missed the playoffs. It's the first time I've missed the postseason in this league and I got what I deserved in the group chat. Lots of memes, lots of screenshots. I tried to defend myself, saying I had a loss as the second highest scoring team in the league that week and two with the third. It did not matter. Although it statistically does not make sense that the team with the most points doesn't make the playoffs, I will have to live with this until next August.
Others Receiving Votes: The Denver Broncos, my girlfriend for having to put up with me during my historic collapse
Featured image courtesy of Raj Mehta/USA TODAY Sports