TTR - Special Report

To help this football-less Wednesday quickly pass, I offer up some insight on the composition of my Week 4 starting lineup. But first an observation...

Choices have consequences.

However, in fantasy football, week-to-week choices have less effect on the actual outcomes of the games than you might think. For example, in Week 4 I could have committed roster neglect and forgotten to start Mahomes and Kamara and still beaten Rich. Outside of a handful of close contests per year deploying the best ball lineup doesn’t drastically change the overall trajectory of the league. Far more important than the symptomatic, individual choices are the systemic, strategies that we employ governing those choices. See my analysis of Josh’s QB dilemma in this week’s TTR for an example of how a draft strategy sends ripples throughout the season.

While this remains true for the ordinary week-to-week contest, in order for record-breaking history to occur, a preponderance of choices have to break positively. This is the story of last week’s choices.

QB, Patrick Mahomes, 24.9: I drafted Mahomes as my backup while Wentz rehabbed his surgically repaired knee. Mahomes had serious boom potential thanks to a cannon arm and Andy Reid’s trust. Well…BOOM!!! In all seriousness, his performance thus far exceeds even the most generous predictions. The arm strength, the scrambling, the decision making, the left handed throw (are you kidding!!), OH MY! While it’s still a relatively small sample size, and I’ll reserve serious judgment until a few more weeks pass, my Mahomes boner will grow to Dirk Diggler proportions IF Mahomes performs well vs. the vaunted Jags D this Sunday.

RB1, Alvin Kamara, 38.6: I believed after Gurley and DJ (so far totally wrong on this one), Kamara was the top-RB to draft. He was due a heavy expected workload over the first 4 weeks and there was potential for a big play every time he touches the ball. I thought he would be good, but I did not expect a best start in the past 50 years good. He is averaging nearly 30 points per game (29.7). Here is the craziest stat (courtesy of ESPN): “Todd Gurley is having a fantastic fantasy season, but if he and Kamara both maintain their current fantasy scoring paces for the rest of the season, Kamara would end up outscoring Gurley by nearly 120 points.” That’s insane (and albeit unsustainable) production.

RB2, Aaron Jones, 14.7: Patience paid off for my 14th Round draft pick. After much deliberation I swapped Jones for Chris Carson on Saturday night after deciding that the risk of Carson not playing in the afternoon game (where I would have had very few viable options for replacement) was too great. Ended up working out, and it seems that Jones’ big play capability has him lined up for more work moving forward…at least that’s what I am telling myself. Now if Mike McCarthy would just listen to Aaron Rodgers and get Jones the ball more.

WR1, Adam Thielen, 23.5: I didn’t love Thielen coming into the year, having concerns with him having a new QB, and the possible emergence of Dalvin Cook suppressing the passing attack. Ultimately, he was the best WR available and I comforted myself with thoughts of volume mixed in with the occasional score. This week, I got the benefit of a rare Thursday night shootout where he saw 12 targets and topped it off with a TD.

WR2, John Brown, 19.4: Drafted him, dropped him, scooped him back up. I have been a John Brown fan since 2015 (drafted him in Round 8, 2016) and hoped he might finally step into the hype he has garnered each preseason since. Thanks to the misadventures of Larry Fitz, I am left scrambling at WR2. Is John Brown the answer? At least for this week he was, however his disappearing act in the second half wasn’t exactly reassuring.

TE, Zack Ertz, 16.2: Generally, I don’t value top-tier TEs at the draft, and yet for the second year in a row used valuable draft capital on the position, as he fell to the 52nd pick and my rankings showed he was a good value there. My comfort in streaming TEs led me to dangle Ertz in a number of potential and tempting trades this past week. Ultimately, the very thin nature of the position led me to retain his top-3 potential in a wasteland of TE options. This pays off with a 10 for 112 performance as it seems Wentz and Ertz are back in sync. Now if only we could get some red zone looks.

D/ST, Packers, 30: I am all about streaming D/STs, and that means taking a glimpse into the future at times. I picked up the Packers a full 9 days before Sunday, knowing that they had a juicy matchup with the hapless Bills. However, the Bills didn’t make the decision easy thanks to their shocking destruction of a very good Vikings D/ST in Week 3. It was a tough decision between starting the Packers as planned or a good Texans D/ST vs. the Colts. Either way it would have worked out well (Texans D/ST put up 18), but it was the Packers that set the tone for this historic week.

K, Harrison Butker, 9: The only starter not to reach double-digits, as if I needed it. Here is my prevailing K strategy…better offenses = better kickers. That’s all I got.

Total Week 4 Score = 176.3 a new ALL-TIME MANCHILD RECORD!!!

Special note: the previous all-time high (held by the Kommish’s 2014, Week 10 score of 153.5) was recorded before we went to 0.5 PPR scoring. So in the interest of full disclosure I went back and added in the 0.5 PPR to Matt’s score. In Week 10, 2014, E. Sanders, J. Thomas, R. Hillman, E. Lacy, and K. Benjamin totaled 19 receptions for 9.5 points. This would have brought Matt’s 0.5 PPR total to 163.

176.3 > 163

0.5 Commish, Your Champ, and All-Time Record Holder OUT!