The fantasy football team

Back in the day, I used to play fantasy football A LOT. These days I’m a one-team kind of guy just playing in my mother’s league. I’m not willing to let it take up too much of my life anymore, but it’s still rather fun (or infuriating).

Here’s a look at the squad we drafted:

QB: Joe Burrow

Last year, I took Tua Tagovailoa late and, well, you know what happened. I had Malik Nabers, Rashee Rice, De’Von Achane, Tua, etc. We absolutely won some games by big margins, but Tua got hurt, Derek Carr got hurt … we ended up limping to elimination from the playoffs with a game or two left in the season and finished in the middle of the standings.

This year, I decided to fix all our QB woes by drafting QB Joe Burrow early. I had Burrow at QB3 on my board. Umm … that’s gone terribly. R.I.P. Joe. One of my absolute favorite QBs in the league; I had no doubts about him, but the injury really sucks.

We’re in panic mode at QB, will update you later. There will absolutely be some trade proposals going out this week once Yahoo lets me do them, but I’m also halfway content to wait.

HB: Achane, Chase Brown, Travis Etienne Jr., Quinshon Judkins

I thought Chase Brown was kind of a way to ensure I got points out of the Bengals offense, if Burrow didn’t perform. Like not a stack, moreso a way to mitigate damage. Unfortunately, that has all fallen apart. I initially considered Brown a steal in the draft and untouchable; he’s now on the block because this team feels weak and we have another HB outshining expectations. If I can get a top-tier QB for Brown, he’s probably gone. Granted, I feel the QB market is too high right now, so I want to wait a week before I try anything drastic.

I figure the objective strategy in a 3 WR, 2 RB, 1 non-super flex league is that you want a fourth WR. I think I smartly broke the rules and won because of it this week. Etienne got the start in the flex.

Obviously, this injury luck has been absolutely brutal with Burrow going out for most of the fantasy season, if not all, and me having no backup QBs on the roster. But, I had no idea Tank Bigsby and Adam Thielen were getting ready to get traded. That was a major boost to this team. I kind of just took Etienne because I didn’t think Jacksonville Jaguars were as bad as some people were making them out to be and it paid major dividends. I don’t think Etienne is a league winner, but with my QB going out, he gives me the flexibility to trade Brown and be ok.

WR: CeeDee Lamb, Garrett Wilson, Tetairoa McMillan, Calvin Ridley, Rashee Rice, Matthew Golden, Luther Burden III, Jayden Higgins, Brandon Aiyuk

This is an incredible troop. My no. 1 philosophy is to get good WRs and I think I did that ok. Aside from Rice, I do worry I have a lot of really good receivers on bad teams. Like that’s probably the biggest concern, but my thought process is if they’re trailing every second half, the offense should be throwing a lot, which should inherently benefit me? Like Wilson was at two points after halftime last week and then got up to 10 because what could the Jets do besides throw the ball?

I don’t feel super comfy in the WR corps, but I’m ok with it. Big thing for me is with this QB injury, I’m fully willing to ship Ridley.

I also think Rice will provide a massive boost when the NFL stops suspending him.

The one scary thing is both Golden and Burden look terrible. I feel ok with McMillan, but beyond that my rookie WR plan is failing. I’m the guy that always takes a bunch of rookie WRs searching for a boon. Golden probably goes first in order of guys that need to be cut and, if I need to ditch a second, Burden, who really hasn’t played much, isn’t far behind on that list.

TE: Jake Ferguson, Harold Fannin Jr.

This is where things get fun. I initially drafted Kyle Pitts as my no. 1 TE with Jake Ferguson set to be the backup. I traded Pitts and Tyler Bass, Buffalo kicker, for Zach Ertz, Washington tight end, and Brandon Aubrey, Dallas kicker.

I’m currently sitting here thinking it's a pretty fair trade. Obviously, I feel bad Bass got hurt, but I think we’re both doing rather ok? Also, my leaguemates think I’m crazy, but like when you look at TE stats, I really think Harold Fannin Jr., who I dropped Ertz for, has a lot of potential.

K: Brandon Aubrey

Best kicker in the NFL playing for a team with a bad defense that must score a lot of points to win. To say I’m happy and I trust him is beyond an understatement.

DEF: San Fran

It was WAS week one and SF week two. Not really worth talking about. There is a specific website I use to determine who I stream every week and usually I do it after the waivers process. To me, defense is about the least interesting part of fantasy football.

OVERALL:

One of the conscious decisions I made when building the team this year was that we are not trying to go undefeated. We are trying to win the league. I’m ok with Rice and possibly Judkins being suspended.

Another conscious decision I made was to draft Burrow and never have to worry about the QB position again. That obviously failed us. Obviously, a ton of QBs got hurt lately so I don’t want to overreact and trade prematurely. If I can get Danny Dimes, I feel good, or if I can make a reasonable trade, I feel good. It’s not uncomfortable for me streaming QBs either, but I really think this team can persevere as long as we don’t get more injuries. It’s also just really nice being 2-0. I can afford a bad week or two waiting for Rice to get off suspension that a lot of other teams cannot.

This team was not built to win now, it was built to halfway win now with a focus on steamrolling people late in the year. As long as I get the QB situation figured out, we can absolutely do that.