10-28-2021, 12:54 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-10-2021, 06:31 PM by Crunk. Edited 1 time in total.)
Hello and welcome back to my S31 ISFL Fantasy Summary 'series'. The first entry was a mid-season review that can be found here if you are interested: S31 ISFL Fantasy Summary - First Half Recap. Another article I just put out is a recap of my S31 draft including my thought process and selections for every round as well as how it all turned out, you can find that here: S31 ISFL Fantasy Group 6 Draft Summary. I am a new create for S32 so S31 was my first season of ISFL exposure and I ended up cracking the top 10 leaderboard among all fantasy players as well as winning my group and the 5 TPE bonus that comes along with that. Was it beginner's luck or do I just have a knack for fantasy? Only time will tell, but for the rest of this article let's just assume I'm a natural.
So what I'm going to be doing here in this article is reviewing the fantasy rankings put out by Pat and Kotasa before S31 and seeing what went right and wrong in those rankings as well as reviewing the performances of players at each position as well as some ADP (average draft position) analysis to check out some steals and busts of the S31 season based on their public perception before the season. One note on my ADP measures are that I only have the data from 11 of the 30+ groups that existed in fantasy this season; the only groups I had access too were the ones that drafted publicly on the forums or ones someone was generous enough to provide to me externally. Just like last time, I'm adding in a caveat about the rankers, in no way shape or form am I trying to criticize or look down upon Pat and Kotasa's rankings, they were super helpful for me getting my feet wet as a new create. When you put your name out there with fantasy rankings, especially when it's for dots on a screen, you are going to be wrong about some things at the end of the year, there is no way you are going to get every call right. So if you look at this analysis and end up with the takeaway that you can't trust Pat and Kotasa's rankings, you did it wrong, their rankings are great and you suck (jk). Additionally, for the S32 and future seasons of fantasy, I will have my own rankings to make fun of and nitpick as well. One criticism I got in my First Half Review was that I took the tiered rankings that Pat and Kotasa did and erased the tiers essentially and just lined up the players in order; this time around I have kept their tiers in tact as well as tiered the actual results for the season for hopefully a good apples to apples comparison of the rankings and the results. Enough rambling, now I am going to break down each position in the analysis below. Without further adieu, let's start with the QBs.
Quarterbacks:
Pat:
Tier 1: Charlemagne Cortez
Tier 2: Mike Boss Jr, Mattathias Caliban, Colby Jack, Ryan Negs, Dexter Zaylren
Tier 3: Sam Howitzer, Jackie Daytona
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Charlemagne Cortez, Mattathias Caliban, Mike Boss Jr
Tier 2: Ryan Negs, Colby Jack
Tier 3: Jackie Daytona, Sam Howitzer
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Mattathias Caliban - 150, Is He Really Invisible - 144
Tier 2: Ryan Negs - 138, Gimmy Jaroppolo - 135, Colby Jack - 134
Tier 3: Panda McKyle - 129, Dexter Zaylren - 126, Mike Boss Jr - 125, Jackie Daytona - 121, Charlemagne Cortez - 120
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Mattathias Caliban - 329
Tier 2: Ryan Negs - 265, Colby Jack - 253, Dexter Zaylren - 252, Mike Boss Jr - 248, Gimmy Jaroppolo - 248, Jackie Daytona - 247
Tier 3: Joliet Christ Jr - 235, Kazimir Oles - 228, Sam Howitzer - 228, Charlemagne Cortez - 228, Is He Really Invisible - 226, Panda McKyle - 221
So what happened in QB land this season? Well we had a singular very clear winner by the name of Mattathias Caliban. My dude was 65 fantasy points clear of 2nd place by the end of the season and clearly in a class of his own. The Yeti were a high flying, highly productive offense that was fairly one dimensional in the passing game as they led the league in passing yards and touchdowns while being last in the league in rushing yards and touchdowns. With a trio of great receivers, the Yeti had 3 1k+ yard and 10+ touchdown wide receivers on the team that Caliban fed all season long. Caliban was expected to be a top tier QB this season but he definitely outperformed expectations. With an ADP of 28 while finishing with the 2nd most fantasy points out of all players at all positions, Caliban was probably the 2nd biggest steal of the draft. Is he really invisible? That was a question we were asking at the halfway mark when Really Invisible was the second highest scoring QB at the halfway mark, but he fell off quite a bit in the second half as the rushing production disappeared and he ended up 12th in fantasy points among QBs. One of the biggest busts of the drafts has to be Charlemagne Cortez among some other Arizona Outlaws that we will discuss later on. With an ADP of 19, and consistently the first QB off the board as well as being the top QB for both of our rankers, Cortez' fantasy finish of 11th among QBs was a massive disappointment for all that drafted him. There wasn't much separation within tier 2 and tier 3 respectively so that's why the tiers are pretty large. If you ended up with a QB in tier 2 you weren't hurting too bad at the position in S31. Most of the tier 3 QBs weren't widely drafted so the only fantasy players that got burned at the position were the ones that paid up for Cortez early.
Running Backs:
Pat:
Tier 1: Cobra Kai, Goat Tank
Tier 2: Deadly Memes, Zoe Watts, Captain Rogers, Tatsu Nakamura, Tre'Darious J'Vathon, Madison Hayes, Jamar Lackson, Mike Rotchburns
Tier 3: Danny King, Lonnie Jackson, Busch Goose, Drip Dad, Jay Cue Jr
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Goat Tank, Cobra Kai
Tier 2: Zoe Watts, Deadly Memes, Tatsu Nakamura
Tier 3: Mike Rotchburns, Jamar Lackson, Tre'Darius J'Vathon
Tier 4: Madison Hayes, Jay Cue Jr, Drip Dad, Captain Rogers
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Goat Tank - 184, Jay Cue Jr - 172
Tier 2: Jamar Lackson - 133, Tre'Darius J'Vathon - 126, Mike Rotchburns - 122, Cobra Kai - 119, Deadly Memes - 112
Tier 3: Captain Rogers - 108, Tatsu Nakamura - 103, Zoe Watts - 99, Dante King - 97, John Huntsman - 96, Drip Dad - 93, Busch Goose - 93
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Goat Tank - 358
Tier 2: Jay Cue Jr - 312
Tier 3: Cobra Kai - 266, Jamar Lackson - 243, Tatsu Nakamura - 241
Tier 4: Deadly Memes - 230, Drip Dad - 227, Dante King - 223, Madison Hayes - 219, Busch Goose - 214, Mike Rotchburns - 214
Tier 5: Tre'Darius J'Vathon - 202, Jim the Vampire - 197, Zoe Watts - 196, Danny King - 187, Lonnie Jackson - 183
Tier 6: Lordre Sombre - 172, Captain Rogers - 160, John Huntsman - 154, Vermillion - 150, Terry Yaki - 132
Whew, Goat Tank was definitely the GOAT and definitely a tank on the field this season. He scored the most fantasy points of all players and beat out the RB2 by 46 points. Similar to Mattathias Caliban, Goat Tank is easily in a tier all of his own for both running backs and among all fantasy players. But I don't want to spend too much time talking about him here because it was expected he was going to be a beast and he performed to expectations. The biggest surprise among all running backs has to be Jay Cue Jr. He was ranked as a fringe draftable running back by our rankers and the preseason ranking gets no argument from me as he is an S29 create and had pretty low TPE compared to most other starting running backs in the league. Cue Jr's ADP was 27, but in many groups (including mine) he wasn't drafted at all so a lot of people got a waiver wire steal whenever they finally pulled the trigger on him. Any S32 preseason fantasy content will be trying to identify next season's Jay Cue Jr. and I can't blame them. Looking at tier 3 of the post week 16 leaderboard, all 3 of these guys were ranked fairly highly and performed to expectations. Tier 4 and tier 5 don't have a ton of separation but there are a few names I want to point out as underperformers like Zoe Watts. He was ranked as a top 4 running back by our rankers and had an ADP of 3, but with a fantasy finish of RB 14. Alongside Watts, some other RB busts on the year were Tre'Darius J'Vathon (ADP 22, RB 12), Captain Rogers (ADP 8, RB 18), and Mike Rotchburns (ADP 9, RB 11). Outside of Jay Cue Jr, some steals among running backs in S31 were Jamar Lackson (ADP 12, RB 4), Drip Dad (ADP 24, RB 7), and Jim the Vampire (ADP 45, RB 13).
Wide Receivers:
Pat:
Tier 1: Darren Pama, Taro Raimon, Kai Sakura, Mark Walker
Tier 2: Cmon Skiuuup, Raphael Delacour, Tugg Speedman, Sam the Onion Man, Jackson Kingston, Tychondrius Hood, Videl-San, Jake Fencik, Tsuyu Asui, Chambers, William Lim, Eleven Kendrick-Watts
Tier 3: Luke Quick, Zach Crossley, Saleem Spence, Mike Hunt, Maxwell, Radetzky, Halloway, Crash
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Kai Sakura, Jackson Kingston, Raphael Delacour, Taro Raimon
Tier 2: Cmon Skiuuup, Tychondrius Hood, Videl-San, Tug Speedman, Mark Walker, Eleven Kendrick-Watts
Tier 3: William Lim, Darren Pama
Tier 4: Jake Fencik, Chambers, Tsuyu Asui
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Videl-San - 118, Mark Walker - 116, Eleven Kendrick-Watts - 113, Jake Fencik - 109, William Lim - 108, Jackson Kingston - 107
Tier 2: Cmon Skiuuup - 102, Luke Quick - 101, Darren Pama - 101, Zach Crossley - 101, Raphael Delacour - 99, Kai Sakura - 98, Taro Raimon - 95
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Mark Walker - 241, Videl-San - 236, Raphael Delacour - 233
Tier 2: Eleven Kendrick-Watts - 222, Jake Fencik - 217, Jackson Kingston - 213, Cmon Skiuuup - 210, William Lim - 206
Tier 3: Luke Quick - 193, Tugg Speedman - 191, Maxwell - 185, Zach Crossley - 183, Kai Sakura - 180, Darren Pama - 178, Tychondrius Hood 177, Taro Raimon - 175
The reign of Kai Sakura in Yellowknife has come to an end as he has passed the torch along to Mark Walker and Walker took it in stride to a WR 1 finish on the season. With an ADP of 19 on the season, Mark Walker's WR 1 performance was definitely a steal for the draft capital, I overpaid for him at the round 2/3 turn taking him with pick 13 and was extremely happy with how his season turned out. The other 2 top tier wide receivers on the season were also steals in the draft as Videl-San had an ADP of 22 and Raphael Delacour had an ADP of 18. Of the top 5 ADP wide receivers, only 1 lived up to expectations in Eleven Kendrick-Watts. The other 4, Kai Sakura, Darren Pama, Taro Raimon, and Tugg Speedman all found themselves in tier 3 of the post week 16 leaderboard with Speedman having the best season being the WR 10 on the year. Darren Pama and Taro Raimon saw down seasons across the entire Arizona offense compared to S30 and Sakura, as previously mentioned, passed off his WR 1 torch to Walker in Yellowknife so that is why he had a down year. The next few wide receivers to be drafted outside the top 5 are where the TPE was made in fantasy groups this season, Jackson Kingston, Cmon Skiuuup, Raphael Delacour, Mark Walker, and Videl-San were WRs 6-10 off the board and they finished as WRs 6, 7, 3, 1, and 2 respectively. They all returned their draft capital or improved upon it in S31. The 2 other names to point out in tier 2 at the end of the season are Jake Fencik and William Lim. Both receivers were among a solid trio in their respective teams, Fencik emerged as the top option for Philly and put together a WR 4 season as a result, look for him to be drafted a lot higher in S32 as there is little regression on this offense and Tsuyu Asui left for greener pastures. William Lim didn't have the same WR 1 on the team treatment as Fencik but was still able to put up a solid fantasy season due to Colorado's massive passing attack this year. This was probably his last year of fantasy relevance as he is hitting some massive regression and is now the WR 4 on his own team as Asui has joined Colorado.
Tight Ends:
Pat:
Tier 1: Adam Spencer, Makoa Mahi'ai, Borgo San Lorenzo
Tier 2: Zach DiNozzo, Zee Rechs, Mario Messi, Nick L. Back
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Mario Messi, Buffalo Hunter, Makoa Mahi'ai
Tier 2: Zee Rechs, Borgo San Lorenzo, Zach DiNozzo
Tier 3: Adam Spencer
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Zee Rechs - 67
Tier 2: Nick L. Back - 55, James Lewandowski - 52, Mario Messi - 51
Tier 3: James Angler - 47, Gronku Muerto - 45, Adam Spencer - 43, Makoa Mahi'ai - 42
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Zee Rechs - 133, James Angler - 124
Tier 2: Sal Ami - 105, James Lewandowski - 102, Nick L. Back - 96, Mario Messi - 94, Adam Spencer - 90, Makoa Mahi'ai - 89
Tier 3: Borgo San Lorenzo - 76, James Wilkinson - 72, Zach DiNozzo - 72, Ragnar Krashwagen - 71
As a tight end, they need to change the scoring up a little bit so my boys aren't so low compared to literally every other position. That aside, Zee Rechs dominated this season in his retirement year. Yellowknife as a whole popped off in fantasy with a highly concentrated passing attack and Rechs was a beneficiary of that. With an ADP of 43 and a finish of TE 1, Rechs was a pretty big steal in S31 for those that bought in. Fellow retiree James Angler rounds out the top tier in the post week 16 leaderboard after being lined up as a wide receiver a lot for Sarasota while Mario Messi was filling in the TE 1 slot for the team. Many didn't believe in Angler since he was only the TE 2 on his own team in terms of TPE, but the way the Sailfish used him in his last season led to some fantasy relevance and decent production for the future gold jacket wearer. A couple of busts among the highly drafted tight ends have to be Borgo San Lorenzo (ADP 30, TE 9) and Zach DiNozzo (ADP 41, TE 11). Both coming off of good seasons in S30 were regarded as having some fantasy value in S31 but neither lived up to expectations. A lot of fantasy players probably missed pretty big on the tight end position, but due to the relative lack of scoring and variability among the tight ends, it probably didn't hurt too much among your groups.
Kickers:
Pat:
Tier 1: Cade York, Jacob Small
Tier 2: Taipan Pete, Dallas Dole, Blago Kokot, Jean-Jacques Leroy
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Blago Kokot, Sam Sidekick, Cade York
Tier 2: Jacob Small, Jean-Jacques Leroy, Matthew McDairmid
Tier 3: Lux Opal
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Blago Kokot - 91, Jacob Small - 88
Tier 2: Jean-Jacques Leroy - 73, Dougie Smalls - 73, Sam Sidekick - 70, Paul Monitor - 67, Cade York - 67
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Jacob Small - 175, Jean-Jacques Leroy - 160
Tier 2: Freddy Bly - 147
Tier 3: Sam Sidekick - 132, Blago Kokot - 132, Danny King Sr - 132, Lux Opal - 130, Cade York - 130, Dougie Smalls - 129, Matthew McDairmid - 128, Paul Monitor - 122, Taipan Pete - 118
Kickers, kickers, kickers, what a difficult position to predict in fantasy football and that turned out to be pretty true in S31 fantasy. Blago Kokot, the leader through 9 weeks ended up as the K 5 and 43 points behind the leader after a slow second half of the year. The top 3 finishers in terms of fantasy points all were among the top 3 in field goals attempted on the season and were the only 3 to make 30 field goals. Leroy was among the bottom 5 in the league in FG % but clearly it is the attempts and volume that drive fantasy production as opposed to the efficiency. Jacob Small had a super impressive season, not missing a single kick and is a small counterpoint to the volume over efficiency statement I made in the previous sentence as he was 3rd in field goal attempts but by far the #1 scorer in terms of fantasy points. He was the only kicker in the league to hit field goals at at least a 90 % rate. Cade York has to be the biggest bust in fantasy for kickers, not a surprise given how many other Outlaws have been seen as busts in this article. The concern with York coming into the season was the efficiency of the Arizona offense, if they were as good as last year York would kick a ton of extra points but hardly any field goals. Not only was the Arizona offense efficient in terms of scoring touchdowns as opposed to field goals, but overall the scoring opportunities for Arizona were down on the year. York was top 5 in extra points attempted but bottom 5 in field goals attempted. That said, he was still in the middle of the pack for all kickers outside of those top 3 so he wasn't really a killer for your fantasy team.
Defense:
Pat:
Tier 1: Arizona Outlaws, Colorado Yeti, Sarasota Sailfish
Tier 2: Berlin Fire Salamanders, Austin Copperheads, New York Silverbacks
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Colorado Yeti, Arizona Outlaws, Philadelphia Liberty
Tier 2: Sarasota Sailfish, New York Silverbacks, Berlin Fire Salamanders
Tier 3: Austin Copperheads
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Baltimore Hawks - 128, Berlin Fire Salamanders - 127
Tier 2: New York Silverbacks - 117
Tier 3: Austin Copperheads - 98, Colorado Yeti - 94, Chicago Butchers - 88, Sarasota Sailfish - 86, Yellowknife Wraiths - 84
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Austin Copperheads - 248, Chicago Butchers - 243
Tier 2: Baltimore Hawks - 228, Berlin Fire Salamanders - 224, Philadelphia Liberty - 216, Sarasota Sailfish - 208, New York Silverbacks - 208, Colorado Yeti - 205, Honolulu Hahalua - 202
Austin, Chicago, and Baltimore, the top 3 scoring defenses in terms of fantasy points this season. What do they have in common? Not much. Austin won their conference regular season and made the conference finals on the back of a prime QB / WR combo and a defense that allowed the 2nd fewest points in the ISFL. Chicago made the playoffs and got a berth to the conference finals as well on a defense that allowed the fewest points in the ISFL and a top 2 rushing attack. Baltimore tied for the worst record in the ISFL and allowed the most points BY FAR in the league, so how did they score so many fantasy points? Well all 3 of these teams led the ISFL in interceptions, Baltimore was the far and away leader in fumble recoveries and the other 2 were among the top 5. Baltimore and Austin were also near the lead league in touchdowns. Usually sacks are the most predictive measure for fantasy defenses since turnovers can be highly variable, and Chicago and Austin were among the top 4 in the league for sacks. The other 2 teams in the top 4 were Sarasota and Colorado who both had solid tier 2 finishes, they were both just a bit lower on the turnover front. Biggest defense bust? Arizona again. Bottom 5 in the league in sacks and interceptions and they were only 1 of 2 teams without a defensive touchdown. I'm going to have a future article trying to dive a bit into defenses and seeing what makes a good fantasy defense, but for now it seems like sacks are a good baseline, turnovers are nice, and touchdowns are just a cherry on top.
Offensive Line:
Pat:
Tier 1: Alexander Franklin, Adam Mellott, Jaja Ding Dong
Tier 2: Stumpy Jones, Bruce Buckley, Marc Hamel
Tier 3: Connor Quigley, Clark Boyd, Icebox Riposte
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Bob Roberts, Adam Mellott, Bruce Buckley
Tier 2: Jaja Ding Dong, Stumpy Jones, Clark Boyd
Tier 3: Alexander Franklin
Post Week 8 Rankings:
Tier 1: Ananda Adyan - 132, Pepelegs Johnson - 128, Cade Williams - 125, Icebox Riposte - 124
Tier 2: Alexander Franklin - 120, Jaja Ding Dong - 120, Marc Hamel - 120, Stumpy Jones - 120
Post Week 16 Rankings:
Tier 1: Alexander Franklin - 257
Tier 2: Marc Hamel - 239, Stumpy Jones - 236, Pepelegs Johnson - 234
Tier 3: Icebox Riposte - 224, Cade Williams - 223, Connor Quigley - 217, Ananda Adyan - 217, Jaja Ding Dong - 214, Brent Silva - 211
There's really not a ton of takeaways from the offensive lineman that I can tell right now. I'm not sure what is predictive about pancakes, do you get more cakes while running or passing, is there some kind of roster designation that leads to more cakes, which position gets more cakes? O line is a pretty high scoring position in fantasy so you have to make sure you get a good one. My recommendation for S32 is to be quick to use a waiver move on the offensive line if the guy you drafted is a dud early on like Bob Roberts or Adam Mellott were this season. Pepelegs Johnson, Cade Williams, and Ananda Adyan were all guys that were sparsely drafted if at all, pivoting to them early in the season in S31 would have left you in a decent spot compared to your groupmates that drafted Alexander Franklin or Stumpy Jones. Hopefully I have some article in the future that is a little more illuminating for predicting O line success in fantasy but all I got for now it to be flexible and not be married to your draft pick.
Whew, so that's it for this article, hopefully there were some insights in here if you read the whole thing. I do plan on doing one of these as well as a mid season analysis for each season going forward. In addition, I plan on having 2 more articles to release before the S32 fantasy drafts start on Monday 11/1. One article will be some general tips for your draft in fantasy and the other will be my rankings for S32. I also plan on having an article some time in S32 that tries to do a little bit of statistical analysis in determining predictability for some positions and stats that are important in fantasy. Stay tuned for more juicy fantasy content folks!
P. S. If you read the entirety of this article, may you be blessed and I love you you fantasy loving maniac, best of luck in your draft and for next season, I hope to see you on the leaderboard.
So what I'm going to be doing here in this article is reviewing the fantasy rankings put out by Pat and Kotasa before S31 and seeing what went right and wrong in those rankings as well as reviewing the performances of players at each position as well as some ADP (average draft position) analysis to check out some steals and busts of the S31 season based on their public perception before the season. One note on my ADP measures are that I only have the data from 11 of the 30+ groups that existed in fantasy this season; the only groups I had access too were the ones that drafted publicly on the forums or ones someone was generous enough to provide to me externally. Just like last time, I'm adding in a caveat about the rankers, in no way shape or form am I trying to criticize or look down upon Pat and Kotasa's rankings, they were super helpful for me getting my feet wet as a new create. When you put your name out there with fantasy rankings, especially when it's for dots on a screen, you are going to be wrong about some things at the end of the year, there is no way you are going to get every call right. So if you look at this analysis and end up with the takeaway that you can't trust Pat and Kotasa's rankings, you did it wrong, their rankings are great and you suck (jk). Additionally, for the S32 and future seasons of fantasy, I will have my own rankings to make fun of and nitpick as well. One criticism I got in my First Half Review was that I took the tiered rankings that Pat and Kotasa did and erased the tiers essentially and just lined up the players in order; this time around I have kept their tiers in tact as well as tiered the actual results for the season for hopefully a good apples to apples comparison of the rankings and the results. Enough rambling, now I am going to break down each position in the analysis below. Without further adieu, let's start with the QBs.
Quarterbacks:
Pat:
Tier 1: Charlemagne Cortez
Tier 2: Mike Boss Jr, Mattathias Caliban, Colby Jack, Ryan Negs, Dexter Zaylren
Tier 3: Sam Howitzer, Jackie Daytona
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Charlemagne Cortez, Mattathias Caliban, Mike Boss Jr
Tier 2: Ryan Negs, Colby Jack
Tier 3: Jackie Daytona, Sam Howitzer
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Mattathias Caliban - 150, Is He Really Invisible - 144
Tier 2: Ryan Negs - 138, Gimmy Jaroppolo - 135, Colby Jack - 134
Tier 3: Panda McKyle - 129, Dexter Zaylren - 126, Mike Boss Jr - 125, Jackie Daytona - 121, Charlemagne Cortez - 120
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Mattathias Caliban - 329
Tier 2: Ryan Negs - 265, Colby Jack - 253, Dexter Zaylren - 252, Mike Boss Jr - 248, Gimmy Jaroppolo - 248, Jackie Daytona - 247
Tier 3: Joliet Christ Jr - 235, Kazimir Oles - 228, Sam Howitzer - 228, Charlemagne Cortez - 228, Is He Really Invisible - 226, Panda McKyle - 221
So what happened in QB land this season? Well we had a singular very clear winner by the name of Mattathias Caliban. My dude was 65 fantasy points clear of 2nd place by the end of the season and clearly in a class of his own. The Yeti were a high flying, highly productive offense that was fairly one dimensional in the passing game as they led the league in passing yards and touchdowns while being last in the league in rushing yards and touchdowns. With a trio of great receivers, the Yeti had 3 1k+ yard and 10+ touchdown wide receivers on the team that Caliban fed all season long. Caliban was expected to be a top tier QB this season but he definitely outperformed expectations. With an ADP of 28 while finishing with the 2nd most fantasy points out of all players at all positions, Caliban was probably the 2nd biggest steal of the draft. Is he really invisible? That was a question we were asking at the halfway mark when Really Invisible was the second highest scoring QB at the halfway mark, but he fell off quite a bit in the second half as the rushing production disappeared and he ended up 12th in fantasy points among QBs. One of the biggest busts of the drafts has to be Charlemagne Cortez among some other Arizona Outlaws that we will discuss later on. With an ADP of 19, and consistently the first QB off the board as well as being the top QB for both of our rankers, Cortez' fantasy finish of 11th among QBs was a massive disappointment for all that drafted him. There wasn't much separation within tier 2 and tier 3 respectively so that's why the tiers are pretty large. If you ended up with a QB in tier 2 you weren't hurting too bad at the position in S31. Most of the tier 3 QBs weren't widely drafted so the only fantasy players that got burned at the position were the ones that paid up for Cortez early.
Running Backs:
Pat:
Tier 1: Cobra Kai, Goat Tank
Tier 2: Deadly Memes, Zoe Watts, Captain Rogers, Tatsu Nakamura, Tre'Darious J'Vathon, Madison Hayes, Jamar Lackson, Mike Rotchburns
Tier 3: Danny King, Lonnie Jackson, Busch Goose, Drip Dad, Jay Cue Jr
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Goat Tank, Cobra Kai
Tier 2: Zoe Watts, Deadly Memes, Tatsu Nakamura
Tier 3: Mike Rotchburns, Jamar Lackson, Tre'Darius J'Vathon
Tier 4: Madison Hayes, Jay Cue Jr, Drip Dad, Captain Rogers
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Goat Tank - 184, Jay Cue Jr - 172
Tier 2: Jamar Lackson - 133, Tre'Darius J'Vathon - 126, Mike Rotchburns - 122, Cobra Kai - 119, Deadly Memes - 112
Tier 3: Captain Rogers - 108, Tatsu Nakamura - 103, Zoe Watts - 99, Dante King - 97, John Huntsman - 96, Drip Dad - 93, Busch Goose - 93
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Goat Tank - 358
Tier 2: Jay Cue Jr - 312
Tier 3: Cobra Kai - 266, Jamar Lackson - 243, Tatsu Nakamura - 241
Tier 4: Deadly Memes - 230, Drip Dad - 227, Dante King - 223, Madison Hayes - 219, Busch Goose - 214, Mike Rotchburns - 214
Tier 5: Tre'Darius J'Vathon - 202, Jim the Vampire - 197, Zoe Watts - 196, Danny King - 187, Lonnie Jackson - 183
Tier 6: Lordre Sombre - 172, Captain Rogers - 160, John Huntsman - 154, Vermillion - 150, Terry Yaki - 132
Whew, Goat Tank was definitely the GOAT and definitely a tank on the field this season. He scored the most fantasy points of all players and beat out the RB2 by 46 points. Similar to Mattathias Caliban, Goat Tank is easily in a tier all of his own for both running backs and among all fantasy players. But I don't want to spend too much time talking about him here because it was expected he was going to be a beast and he performed to expectations. The biggest surprise among all running backs has to be Jay Cue Jr. He was ranked as a fringe draftable running back by our rankers and the preseason ranking gets no argument from me as he is an S29 create and had pretty low TPE compared to most other starting running backs in the league. Cue Jr's ADP was 27, but in many groups (including mine) he wasn't drafted at all so a lot of people got a waiver wire steal whenever they finally pulled the trigger on him. Any S32 preseason fantasy content will be trying to identify next season's Jay Cue Jr. and I can't blame them. Looking at tier 3 of the post week 16 leaderboard, all 3 of these guys were ranked fairly highly and performed to expectations. Tier 4 and tier 5 don't have a ton of separation but there are a few names I want to point out as underperformers like Zoe Watts. He was ranked as a top 4 running back by our rankers and had an ADP of 3, but with a fantasy finish of RB 14. Alongside Watts, some other RB busts on the year were Tre'Darius J'Vathon (ADP 22, RB 12), Captain Rogers (ADP 8, RB 18), and Mike Rotchburns (ADP 9, RB 11). Outside of Jay Cue Jr, some steals among running backs in S31 were Jamar Lackson (ADP 12, RB 4), Drip Dad (ADP 24, RB 7), and Jim the Vampire (ADP 45, RB 13).
Wide Receivers:
Pat:
Tier 1: Darren Pama, Taro Raimon, Kai Sakura, Mark Walker
Tier 2: Cmon Skiuuup, Raphael Delacour, Tugg Speedman, Sam the Onion Man, Jackson Kingston, Tychondrius Hood, Videl-San, Jake Fencik, Tsuyu Asui, Chambers, William Lim, Eleven Kendrick-Watts
Tier 3: Luke Quick, Zach Crossley, Saleem Spence, Mike Hunt, Maxwell, Radetzky, Halloway, Crash
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Kai Sakura, Jackson Kingston, Raphael Delacour, Taro Raimon
Tier 2: Cmon Skiuuup, Tychondrius Hood, Videl-San, Tug Speedman, Mark Walker, Eleven Kendrick-Watts
Tier 3: William Lim, Darren Pama
Tier 4: Jake Fencik, Chambers, Tsuyu Asui
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Videl-San - 118, Mark Walker - 116, Eleven Kendrick-Watts - 113, Jake Fencik - 109, William Lim - 108, Jackson Kingston - 107
Tier 2: Cmon Skiuuup - 102, Luke Quick - 101, Darren Pama - 101, Zach Crossley - 101, Raphael Delacour - 99, Kai Sakura - 98, Taro Raimon - 95
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Mark Walker - 241, Videl-San - 236, Raphael Delacour - 233
Tier 2: Eleven Kendrick-Watts - 222, Jake Fencik - 217, Jackson Kingston - 213, Cmon Skiuuup - 210, William Lim - 206
Tier 3: Luke Quick - 193, Tugg Speedman - 191, Maxwell - 185, Zach Crossley - 183, Kai Sakura - 180, Darren Pama - 178, Tychondrius Hood 177, Taro Raimon - 175
The reign of Kai Sakura in Yellowknife has come to an end as he has passed the torch along to Mark Walker and Walker took it in stride to a WR 1 finish on the season. With an ADP of 19 on the season, Mark Walker's WR 1 performance was definitely a steal for the draft capital, I overpaid for him at the round 2/3 turn taking him with pick 13 and was extremely happy with how his season turned out. The other 2 top tier wide receivers on the season were also steals in the draft as Videl-San had an ADP of 22 and Raphael Delacour had an ADP of 18. Of the top 5 ADP wide receivers, only 1 lived up to expectations in Eleven Kendrick-Watts. The other 4, Kai Sakura, Darren Pama, Taro Raimon, and Tugg Speedman all found themselves in tier 3 of the post week 16 leaderboard with Speedman having the best season being the WR 10 on the year. Darren Pama and Taro Raimon saw down seasons across the entire Arizona offense compared to S30 and Sakura, as previously mentioned, passed off his WR 1 torch to Walker in Yellowknife so that is why he had a down year. The next few wide receivers to be drafted outside the top 5 are where the TPE was made in fantasy groups this season, Jackson Kingston, Cmon Skiuuup, Raphael Delacour, Mark Walker, and Videl-San were WRs 6-10 off the board and they finished as WRs 6, 7, 3, 1, and 2 respectively. They all returned their draft capital or improved upon it in S31. The 2 other names to point out in tier 2 at the end of the season are Jake Fencik and William Lim. Both receivers were among a solid trio in their respective teams, Fencik emerged as the top option for Philly and put together a WR 4 season as a result, look for him to be drafted a lot higher in S32 as there is little regression on this offense and Tsuyu Asui left for greener pastures. William Lim didn't have the same WR 1 on the team treatment as Fencik but was still able to put up a solid fantasy season due to Colorado's massive passing attack this year. This was probably his last year of fantasy relevance as he is hitting some massive regression and is now the WR 4 on his own team as Asui has joined Colorado.
Tight Ends:
Pat:
Tier 1: Adam Spencer, Makoa Mahi'ai, Borgo San Lorenzo
Tier 2: Zach DiNozzo, Zee Rechs, Mario Messi, Nick L. Back
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Mario Messi, Buffalo Hunter, Makoa Mahi'ai
Tier 2: Zee Rechs, Borgo San Lorenzo, Zach DiNozzo
Tier 3: Adam Spencer
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Zee Rechs - 67
Tier 2: Nick L. Back - 55, James Lewandowski - 52, Mario Messi - 51
Tier 3: James Angler - 47, Gronku Muerto - 45, Adam Spencer - 43, Makoa Mahi'ai - 42
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Zee Rechs - 133, James Angler - 124
Tier 2: Sal Ami - 105, James Lewandowski - 102, Nick L. Back - 96, Mario Messi - 94, Adam Spencer - 90, Makoa Mahi'ai - 89
Tier 3: Borgo San Lorenzo - 76, James Wilkinson - 72, Zach DiNozzo - 72, Ragnar Krashwagen - 71
As a tight end, they need to change the scoring up a little bit so my boys aren't so low compared to literally every other position. That aside, Zee Rechs dominated this season in his retirement year. Yellowknife as a whole popped off in fantasy with a highly concentrated passing attack and Rechs was a beneficiary of that. With an ADP of 43 and a finish of TE 1, Rechs was a pretty big steal in S31 for those that bought in. Fellow retiree James Angler rounds out the top tier in the post week 16 leaderboard after being lined up as a wide receiver a lot for Sarasota while Mario Messi was filling in the TE 1 slot for the team. Many didn't believe in Angler since he was only the TE 2 on his own team in terms of TPE, but the way the Sailfish used him in his last season led to some fantasy relevance and decent production for the future gold jacket wearer. A couple of busts among the highly drafted tight ends have to be Borgo San Lorenzo (ADP 30, TE 9) and Zach DiNozzo (ADP 41, TE 11). Both coming off of good seasons in S30 were regarded as having some fantasy value in S31 but neither lived up to expectations. A lot of fantasy players probably missed pretty big on the tight end position, but due to the relative lack of scoring and variability among the tight ends, it probably didn't hurt too much among your groups.
Kickers:
Pat:
Tier 1: Cade York, Jacob Small
Tier 2: Taipan Pete, Dallas Dole, Blago Kokot, Jean-Jacques Leroy
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Blago Kokot, Sam Sidekick, Cade York
Tier 2: Jacob Small, Jean-Jacques Leroy, Matthew McDairmid
Tier 3: Lux Opal
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Blago Kokot - 91, Jacob Small - 88
Tier 2: Jean-Jacques Leroy - 73, Dougie Smalls - 73, Sam Sidekick - 70, Paul Monitor - 67, Cade York - 67
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Jacob Small - 175, Jean-Jacques Leroy - 160
Tier 2: Freddy Bly - 147
Tier 3: Sam Sidekick - 132, Blago Kokot - 132, Danny King Sr - 132, Lux Opal - 130, Cade York - 130, Dougie Smalls - 129, Matthew McDairmid - 128, Paul Monitor - 122, Taipan Pete - 118
Kickers, kickers, kickers, what a difficult position to predict in fantasy football and that turned out to be pretty true in S31 fantasy. Blago Kokot, the leader through 9 weeks ended up as the K 5 and 43 points behind the leader after a slow second half of the year. The top 3 finishers in terms of fantasy points all were among the top 3 in field goals attempted on the season and were the only 3 to make 30 field goals. Leroy was among the bottom 5 in the league in FG % but clearly it is the attempts and volume that drive fantasy production as opposed to the efficiency. Jacob Small had a super impressive season, not missing a single kick and is a small counterpoint to the volume over efficiency statement I made in the previous sentence as he was 3rd in field goal attempts but by far the #1 scorer in terms of fantasy points. He was the only kicker in the league to hit field goals at at least a 90 % rate. Cade York has to be the biggest bust in fantasy for kickers, not a surprise given how many other Outlaws have been seen as busts in this article. The concern with York coming into the season was the efficiency of the Arizona offense, if they were as good as last year York would kick a ton of extra points but hardly any field goals. Not only was the Arizona offense efficient in terms of scoring touchdowns as opposed to field goals, but overall the scoring opportunities for Arizona were down on the year. York was top 5 in extra points attempted but bottom 5 in field goals attempted. That said, he was still in the middle of the pack for all kickers outside of those top 3 so he wasn't really a killer for your fantasy team.
Defense:
Pat:
Tier 1: Arizona Outlaws, Colorado Yeti, Sarasota Sailfish
Tier 2: Berlin Fire Salamanders, Austin Copperheads, New York Silverbacks
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Colorado Yeti, Arizona Outlaws, Philadelphia Liberty
Tier 2: Sarasota Sailfish, New York Silverbacks, Berlin Fire Salamanders
Tier 3: Austin Copperheads
Post Week 8 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Baltimore Hawks - 128, Berlin Fire Salamanders - 127
Tier 2: New York Silverbacks - 117
Tier 3: Austin Copperheads - 98, Colorado Yeti - 94, Chicago Butchers - 88, Sarasota Sailfish - 86, Yellowknife Wraiths - 84
Post Week 16 Leaderboard:
Tier 1: Austin Copperheads - 248, Chicago Butchers - 243
Tier 2: Baltimore Hawks - 228, Berlin Fire Salamanders - 224, Philadelphia Liberty - 216, Sarasota Sailfish - 208, New York Silverbacks - 208, Colorado Yeti - 205, Honolulu Hahalua - 202
Austin, Chicago, and Baltimore, the top 3 scoring defenses in terms of fantasy points this season. What do they have in common? Not much. Austin won their conference regular season and made the conference finals on the back of a prime QB / WR combo and a defense that allowed the 2nd fewest points in the ISFL. Chicago made the playoffs and got a berth to the conference finals as well on a defense that allowed the fewest points in the ISFL and a top 2 rushing attack. Baltimore tied for the worst record in the ISFL and allowed the most points BY FAR in the league, so how did they score so many fantasy points? Well all 3 of these teams led the ISFL in interceptions, Baltimore was the far and away leader in fumble recoveries and the other 2 were among the top 5. Baltimore and Austin were also near the lead league in touchdowns. Usually sacks are the most predictive measure for fantasy defenses since turnovers can be highly variable, and Chicago and Austin were among the top 4 in the league for sacks. The other 2 teams in the top 4 were Sarasota and Colorado who both had solid tier 2 finishes, they were both just a bit lower on the turnover front. Biggest defense bust? Arizona again. Bottom 5 in the league in sacks and interceptions and they were only 1 of 2 teams without a defensive touchdown. I'm going to have a future article trying to dive a bit into defenses and seeing what makes a good fantasy defense, but for now it seems like sacks are a good baseline, turnovers are nice, and touchdowns are just a cherry on top.
Offensive Line:
Pat:
Tier 1: Alexander Franklin, Adam Mellott, Jaja Ding Dong
Tier 2: Stumpy Jones, Bruce Buckley, Marc Hamel
Tier 3: Connor Quigley, Clark Boyd, Icebox Riposte
Kotasa:
Tier 1: Bob Roberts, Adam Mellott, Bruce Buckley
Tier 2: Jaja Ding Dong, Stumpy Jones, Clark Boyd
Tier 3: Alexander Franklin
Post Week 8 Rankings:
Tier 1: Ananda Adyan - 132, Pepelegs Johnson - 128, Cade Williams - 125, Icebox Riposte - 124
Tier 2: Alexander Franklin - 120, Jaja Ding Dong - 120, Marc Hamel - 120, Stumpy Jones - 120
Post Week 16 Rankings:
Tier 1: Alexander Franklin - 257
Tier 2: Marc Hamel - 239, Stumpy Jones - 236, Pepelegs Johnson - 234
Tier 3: Icebox Riposte - 224, Cade Williams - 223, Connor Quigley - 217, Ananda Adyan - 217, Jaja Ding Dong - 214, Brent Silva - 211
There's really not a ton of takeaways from the offensive lineman that I can tell right now. I'm not sure what is predictive about pancakes, do you get more cakes while running or passing, is there some kind of roster designation that leads to more cakes, which position gets more cakes? O line is a pretty high scoring position in fantasy so you have to make sure you get a good one. My recommendation for S32 is to be quick to use a waiver move on the offensive line if the guy you drafted is a dud early on like Bob Roberts or Adam Mellott were this season. Pepelegs Johnson, Cade Williams, and Ananda Adyan were all guys that were sparsely drafted if at all, pivoting to them early in the season in S31 would have left you in a decent spot compared to your groupmates that drafted Alexander Franklin or Stumpy Jones. Hopefully I have some article in the future that is a little more illuminating for predicting O line success in fantasy but all I got for now it to be flexible and not be married to your draft pick.
Whew, so that's it for this article, hopefully there were some insights in here if you read the whole thing. I do plan on doing one of these as well as a mid season analysis for each season going forward. In addition, I plan on having 2 more articles to release before the S32 fantasy drafts start on Monday 11/1. One article will be some general tips for your draft in fantasy and the other will be my rankings for S32. I also plan on having an article some time in S32 that tries to do a little bit of statistical analysis in determining predictability for some positions and stats that are important in fantasy. Stay tuned for more juicy fantasy content folks!
P. S. If you read the entirety of this article, may you be blessed and I love you you fantasy loving maniac, best of luck in your draft and for next season, I hope to see you on the leaderboard.
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