Fantasy Football Week 5 WAR Report And Troll Of The Year Watch

Oh, hello there. I see you scrolled your way to the bottom of the fantasy football top-100 scroll. What we have here is the rank each of the top-100 players holds prior to Monday Night Football after adjusting for position. It's called Wins Above Replacement and if you want to learn the nerdy details you can check it out here but for purposes of this blog you can just use this a player ranking to get a feel for the fantasy landscape and evaluate your good takes and league mates' bad takes. For example, here's a random take I stumbled across online that seems pretty smart:

Fantasy football experts have been propogandizing the idea of waiting on a quarterback for years and while this was true back in the day, the game has drastically changed. Not only are top-performing quarterbacks demolishing those at the replacement-level, but it's becoming predictable which quarterbacks will be the stars on the fantasy field. Right now the overall #1 quarterback, Josh Allen, was worthy of the second pick in fantasy PPR drafts and is on pace to give fantasy teams just shy of an estimated 4 more wins than had fantasy teams started a replacement-level quarterback instead. Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts have also earned first round valuations while Mahomes will likely join after tonight's game goes into the model. That's three of the top-4 preseason ADP QBs along with Hurts who was literally everyone alive or dead's "sleeper" this year. The only top-quarterback to stumble so far has been Justin Herbert, which can easily be explained because he's on my team. That's just how that goes. Not that you care. 

In true fantasy football fashion, I might feel like the smartest person in the world for being right on the "take a top-quarterback" take before realizing I'm a complete idiot for being wrong on another take. The Zero RB truthers continue to rain on my Bell Cow RB grave. Usually the #1 player from the prior year regresses to the mean of expectation the following year but Cooper Kupp is actually on pace to outdo his 2021 season. I hope Kelly Stafford has a good friend group for brunch because her man continues to be sit and sip Bloodies with his Kupp. Stefon Diggs, Justin Jefferson, and Tyreek Hill follow - all worthy of first round picks pretty darn close to in order of ADP. And while there has been some resurgence in top-running back play the past couple of weeks, the fact of the matter is we running back guys are getting curb stomped. Never a great sign when the ADP overall #1 Jonathan Taylor is getting outplayed by 12 kickers. That's not exactly ideal. 

Tight end production has been right on script this year too. There's Travis Kelce who has been worth a first round pick since the signing of the Magna Carta, Mark Andrews, and… checks notes:

At least Zach Ertz and Tyler Higbee have been somewhat serviceable. Higbee seems to have invited himself to breakfast with Matt and Cooper averaging 9.6 targets per game which would be more impressive if he had the stamina to make it further than four yards before needing a cigarette. He might not paper cut your opponents to death, but definitely to moderate annoyance.  

Troll of the Year Watch

There's always that player that absolutely whack-a-moles you every week. Play him? He sucks. Play him again? Still sucks. One more time? What's the definition of insanity again? Bench his ass? 

Now 5 weeks in I'm officially putting Gabe Davis on Troll of the Year(TM) watch. Troll of the Year(TM) is a thing I made up and it's exactly what you think it is. Shout out T.Y. Hilton who won a couple years ago and Will Fuller - the Troll of the Year GOAT:

For the record, Will Fuller's Week 5 39.7 points was the most of the year for any WR and 3rd most of that decade providing a 90 percent chance to all of the zero owners who started him of winning their matchup. ALSO for record, I tagged Bobby Sylvester before his creep gate scandal. Just getting out ahead on that.

Using ESPN's platform, Gabe Davis was started by fantasy managers in 48%, 43%, 40% and 33% (Week 5) of respective weeks played this year. At a 93% Week 5 ownership rate, that means 60% of leagues had a poor sap of a manager that started Gabe Davis in the "BENCH 1" slot in Week 5 after giving up hope. I'm guessing the only reason the figures aren't worse is from ten and maybe even eight-team leagues pooled into the start percent data. Managers who did start him had a 75 percent chance of winning, which makes me a 25-percenter after going up against Josh Allen with aforementioned dud Justin Herbert. Again, not that you care. 

That's it for this week. Happy to make this a recurring weekly blog if the vibes are positive. Next week I hope to reveal who the worst players in fantasy are but I need to work out some qualifiers to not count backups or those that managers don't likely play. Right now it's Mitch Trubiskly in 583rd place just behind Feleipe Franks who has played in three games as a quarterback and has more receiving targets (2) than snaps under huddle with a grand total of 0.0 fantasy points. Again he's ahead of Mitch. Who I definitely didn't draft in any 2 QB leagues.

Not that you care. 

- Jeffro