Column: My fantasy team is better than yours
I started the fantasy football season 0-3 and averaged just 114 points per game through the first three weeks. However, I might possess the best fantasy team you could possibly have for the 2022 season.
Seriously.
Before I give you the full rundown of my team, I want to provide you with some history of my league and our scoring system. The league is a 12-team, PPR league with 6 points per passing touchdown (like all leagues should be because in no universe should EVERYBODY in fantasy football other than QB’s get six points for a touchdown). Other than that, everything scoring wise is normal. There’s no special bonuses, and kickers get docked one point for a missed FG.
This is my ninth season in this league, and I co-run a team with my uncle. It consists of family members on my dad’s side of the family across all four of the U.S. time zones, and the buy-in is $75. Not crazy, but it’s enough that it makes everybody pay close attention throughout the season and not draft like absolute morons.
Historically, we have never won the championship, but we have had two of the top-five highest-scoring individual seasons in our league’s nine-year history (2019 and 2021, where we averaged 138 and 137 points per game). Last year, we had Jefferson, Chase, AND Deebo Samuel at receiver, but we still couldn’t win the ‘chip.
This year’s team might blow those two teams out of the water, and it might not even be close.
How is my team so legendary when I started 0-3? Let me explain.
My uncle and I had the 10th pick, and after draft night, the core of our team looked like this:
QB: Kyler Murray
RB: David Montgomery
RB: Josh Jacobs (absolute steal in Round 6)
WR: Ja’Marr Chase
WR: Davante Adams
TE: T.J. Hockenson
FLEX: Tee Higgins
D/ST: Cowboys
K: Evan McPherson
BE: Dameon Pierce (absolute steal in Round 8)
BE: DeAndre Hopkins
After a strong rookie season, we decided to take Ja’Marr Chase with our first selection at the 10th overall pick. Credit: Sam Greene - The Enquirer
I was super hyped about my team, but after a 0-3 start, I was beginning to lose hope. I was 10th in the league in scoring, so the record was pretty deserving. It wasn’t like I was scoring a lot of points but was just getting unlucky with my opponents. I had a lot of high expectations for my team after draft night, but after three weeks, it just didn’t feel like it was my year.
Then, Week 4 changed everything.
Five of my starters scored more than 25 points, including 39.9 from Hockenson and 34.5 from Jacobs. In total, my team scored 204.18 points, the first time I had ever broken 200 in all my years of fantasy, and good for the 3rd highest scoring week in the history of our league. I went from 10th in my league in scoring to second, overnight.
After a phenomenal week and only being two weeks away from Hopkins’ return, I decided it was the perfect time to trade one of my four “elite” receivers to upgrade another position on my team. I decided to sell high on Higgins (25.9 points in Week 4) and Hockenson (who was now TE3 and averaging 16.0 fantasy points per game), and acquired arguably the most valuable asset in fantasy football: Travis Kelce.
The trade was processed in time for Week 5, and after amazing performances from Kelce, Jacobs, and Adams on Monday Night Football, I scored 184.5 points, the second most I have ever scored in one week and the 10th most in our league’s history.
0-3 and averaging 114 per game to 2-3 and averaging 146 per game in just a two-week span, all while posting the two highest scoring fantasy weeks of my life.
Not too bad.
Where does my team stand after five weeks? I have Kyler Murray (disappointing so far but I have a feeling he is going to take off when he gets Hopkins back), Jacobs (RB4), Pierce (RB10), Adams (WR5), Chase (WR13), Kelce (TE1), DeAndre Hopkins, the fourth best defense, and seventh best kicker.
With Hopkins returning in just one week, I am going to have seven players in my starting lineup who are all capable of scoring 25-30 points on any given week. Even on just “average” performances from my starting lineup, an average of 130 points a week from my core seven is definitely possible moving forward. When you add in the scores of the Cowboys defense and Evan McPherson, an average of 150 per game for my team this season is well within the realm of possibilities, which would catapult my team into an elite fantasy football tier.
Moving forward, I fully expect Jacobs to play similar to what we have seen from him the previous two weeks. I don’t think he will score 30 or more points every single week, but I don’t think it’s out of the woods to suggest his new “standard” for scoring every week could become 20 points. It sounds insane, but if you watched the Raiders’ previous two games, Jacobs looks like one of the best running backs in the NFL. I fully expect the Raiders to make him one of the most high-usage backs in the league moving forward. All of the same can be said about Dameon Pierce, who after a slow start has averaged 21.4 fantasy points per game since Week 3.
Coming in as RB10 after the first five weeks of the season and averaging 21.4 points over his last three games, Texans rookie RB Dameon Pierce has an argument to be made as being the biggest steal of fantasy drafts in 2022. Credit: Yi-Chin Lee - Houston Chronicle
As far as the rest of my lineup goes, not much needs to be said about Chase, Adams, and Kelce. A lot of fans seem to have their doubts about Hopkins performing at an elite fantasy level, but I fully expect him to be a top-12 fantasy receiver for the remainder of the season once he returns to the field. If Kyler’s pace of only 20 passing touchdowns for the entire season can increase when Hopkins returns, which it should, I fully expect him to score around the same amount of fantasy points as Jalen Hurts, who is currently QB4.
With bench players such as David Montgomery, David Njoku, Kirk Cousins, and Michael Gallup, I have plenty of insurance in case one of my starters gets injured, as well as great substitutions when they have their bye weeks.
My team is perfectly built. If I can get out of Week 6 with a win after being forced to start Njoku, Gallup, and Mike Boone (Adams, Jacobs, and Pierce are on a bye this week), I think running the table and ending the season on an 11-game win streak is definitely possible. Will that happen? Probably not, but it could.
My team is that good, and after a heartbreaking, three-point defeat in last year’s league championship, this could finally be my year.
Only time will tell, but if there is one thing I know, it’s that my fantasy team is damn freakin’ good.
And it’s better than yours.
