I Present To You The OFFICIAL 2023 Fantasy Football "Troll Of The Year" Award
NBC. Getty Images.Welcome to the fantasy football Troll of the Year ceremony. I'm so happy to be here today as your host and I thank you for joining us in the proceedings this morning from the comfort of your toilet to regale in the delicate art of fantasy football trolling.
What does it mean to be a fantasy football troll?
A troll is the absolute worst player you can have on your fantasy team. He's the guy that stays one step ahead of you in doing nothing when you start him and going bonkers when you bench him. It's a very difficult maneuver that very few players possess the…qualities… to achieve at a high level. They leave you psychologically damaged and emotionally unavailable after you forgive them over and over only to be let down once again. Bad players are usually bad. Good players are usually good. But to diversify your performances so sharply from week to week takes a trait that can only come from a neighborhood in hell Lucifer himself wouldn't dare enter.
Before we meet our finalists - let's give some respect to the trolls of the past. An 'In Memorium' (but still actually alive) if you will.
If I had a trophy for this award, it would be a bust of Will Fuller. In 2019 he started the year with four duds before hanging the #1 WR output of the entire season in Week 5 only to go radio silent (then injured) rest of season.
Then there was T.Y in 2021 (whoops looks like I didn't do one in 2020)
And DJ Moore last season. (Sorry the y-axis is different from the earlier versions. We're sticking with start percent from here on out)
OK. Let's get to it. Here are your finalists for 2023. They gave you highs. They gave you lows. But how many points they'd score nobody knows.
Finalist #1 - Calvin Ridley
Calvin Ridley was Mr. Preseason training camp social media clip porn. And he came out of the gate in Week 1 firing up guys like me that loved him as a breakout candidate and potential top-5 receiver. From Week 2 through Week 5 he was trusted less and less by managers with a solid 20.6 outing before a Week 6 dud and Week 7 super dud. That gave 30 percent of managers the hook line and sinker to bench him for a decent Week 8. But Week 10 disappointed once again to set up his crushing blow.
Week 11. Anytime you have a guy who's best game of the season is his least trusted game you know you have a bona fide Troll of the Year candidate on your hands. He won't be the last.
Finalist #2 - Drake London
Drake London was always sort of a fringe flex guy as his lower adjusted y-axis might suggest. Complete opposite start as Ridley. London goose egged out of the gate before immediately going off in Week 2 helping only fantasy managers that stopped opening the app after their draft.
But there are some key blemishes with annointing a Troll of London. Week 7 was set up to be an epic stinker and he came up short by not coming up short. The Week 14 blowup was nice too after a 1.8 point Week 13 but variability in start percentage just wasn't quite there.
Finalist #3 - San Francisco 49ers
This was your preseason #1 DST that novice managers drafted in Round 7. They would pay the price.
At almost 100 percent started, the 49ers showed up in Week 1 to set an anchor bias into their manager's psyche. After three mediocre at best weeks 2-4, they came alive with 16 points after about 20-25 percent of teams took them out. Rinse and repeat for weeks 6-10 as they served up their plat du jour in Week 10 with an equisite recipe of contrasting flavors including their highest scoring week of the season together with their lowest start percentage of the season. All fantasy managers could do was watch it marinate.
The 49ers would be a solid recipient, but in comparison to our winner they just had too many decent 9 and 12 point outputs towards the end of the season when managers began trusting them again. The true winner of this award needed to show they could stay consistent in being wildly inconsistent throughout the entirety of the season.
And let's be honest. We already knew who was winning this. There really wasn't any debate after crunching the numbers and this might even go down as the greatest Troll of the Year performance of all time. I present to you your winner of 2023 Troll of the Year.
Recipient: Gabe Davis
11 out of 12 readers currently (league depending)
1 out of 12 Readers currently (league depending)
Look I tried to make this ceremony entertaining and give respect to each finalist but this was a runaway. Gabe had this puppy wrapped up after Week 9 and even the Fantasy Footballers gave me some appreciation on their podcast for pointing out the majesty we were seeing happen.
Let's pull up the full graph one more time. We need to fully appreciate this with a proper post mortem.
Gabe was always the guy you wondered if you should flex or bench. He started off the season with a solid first five weeks. Like an artist setting up his easel and canvas, he was just getting ready to paint. Through seven weeks, his worst two games were his last two in which he was started the most in that timeframe. We gave him a break after Week 6 and stuck with him in Week 7. For that we paid the price. And when we benched him in Week 8 we paid the price again.
We would go on to learn nothing once again in Week 9. It was a spectacle to behold. Week 10 was meh and if you're wondering why there's no point plotted for Week 11 it's because my data on the backend uses targets to ID if a WR played and … wellllll…
Not quite done yet. Week 12 was a key week in this campaign. His most important week. Even more so than Week 9. It was as evil a setup as you'll ever see. It's not even because he blew up after being almost unilaterally benched. But with the Bills Week 13 bye, he gave one last "I'm sorry, I've changed for good this time" remorse speech right before the start of fantasy playoffs - many of which start in Week 14.
Goose egg.
What's that? You somehow managed to win and get the next round? Or you're playoffs started in Week 15?
Goose egg.
And whether Week 16 was your semis or Super Bowl there's not a chance his 23 points contributed anything other than boost your bench points tie breaker.
Astonishing. We might not ever see anything else like it. I'd love to say we'll move on from him next year but I'm not even sure of that given the brand of black magic this man possesses. Afterall, he was a finalist for Troll of the Year 2022 which you can read about below.
Thank you for joining me. You can get up now. That is if your legs haven't fallen asleep like the fantasy seasons for Gabe Davis managers.