2012 Mid-Season Review and Analysis

#1 Fan of the Ice Cold Bruschis

The 2012 season is now half over, with only six weeks remaining until the start of the fantasy playoffs.  For my money, this has been the most intriguing season in recent memory.  Things have been relatively injury free.  The top players (QBs, especially) have been good but not so dominant that the rest of the pack is being blown away.  There are so pleasant surprises and some shocking busts.  Here's a closer look at the first seven weeks of the season.

The Competitors

CheektoWojo is AldenLeague's top team thusfar, sporting a cool 6-1 record that comes close to guaranteeing the team's first postseason appearance since 2009.  That said, there is some dissent over who the league's top team really is.  While CheektoWojo has an unmatched win-loss record, they have only the 5th most points in the 6-team Cobras Division, and are 7th across the league.  The leader in that distinction is Andy's Red Hots, whose 1,144.08 points put them on pace for a season total of 2,124.72, which would not only be a franchise high but also the 4th-highest in league history.  Unfortunately for the Red Hots, they've suffered the 2nd-most points against, leading to their 4-3 record.  Coming next is is a cluster of four teams, including The Risen (4-3), defending AldenLeague Champion The Skyns (5-2), the L.A. Ninjas (4-3) and Most Murderous (4-3), who all sit within eight points and one win of each other, and would round out the playoff field if the season ended today.  As a darkhorse candidate (I went through all the trouble of writing this article, so shut up), Fireseed is a better team than their 2-5 record indicates.  After their top players struggled for the first few weeks of the season, the team has averaged 173.30 points in the past three weeks.  If not for a 212.75-point effort by The Risen in Week 5,  the team would be 3-4 and well in the hunt. 

The Disappointments

After the Big 3 QBs (Rodgers, Brees, Brady, in some order), the pre-season question many were debating is who was #4: Matthew Stafford, or Cam Newton? The correct answer was: neither. Taken with the 5th and 6th picks of the first round by C-Men and CheektoWojo, respectively, Stafford is 13th and Newton is 20th in QB scoring. LeSean McCoy is the 17th best RB despite being drafted by Syn City as the second RB taken at #7 overall. After rewarding the L.A. Ninjas for taking a risk on his contract situation, Maurice Jones-Drew failed to live up to his 1st round status and is currently 20th among running backs, after sporting back-to-back weeks of less than 9 points. Sitting just behind him at 21st is Darren McFadden, the 9th RB taken in the draft by The Stigs. Can you call the 12th-best WR a bust? In most cases no, but The Skyns may be thinking so after drafting Calvin Johnson with the last pick of the 1st round. Johnson has been far from terrible, but you don’t take a WR 12th overall in hopes that he isn’t terrible.

The Surprises

At the time of his selection in the 12th round, Fireseed proclaimed that wide receiver Randall Cobb would be the steal of the draft. Bravado, maybe, but it certainly could be true. Cobb sits as the 3rd best WR overall, behind only Percy Harvin and A.J. Green. Perhaps this is not entirely a surprise, but Robert Griffin III turned out to be better faster than anyone thought. RGIII has broken the “Big 3” QB dominance and sits 3rd (ahead of Brady) on the positional list despite being taken as the 13th QB by CheektoWojo. The L.A. Ninjas pulled in Reggie Wayne in the 9th round, despite questions about his offence, but Wayne has risen to the challenge and sits as the 9th best WR. Most Murderous decided to pull a Synrod and wait until the last round of the draft to take his second QB. The gamble paid off, as Andy Dalton is the 9th best QB. C.J. Spiller is the 5th best RB, giving Andy’s Red Hots great value for their 9th round pick. The Skyns took a chance on Stevan Ridley in the 9th round, who paid off as the 9th best RB so far.  While certainly not a surprise in terms of talent and output, but Adrian Peterson rewarded C-Men's faith in his ability to recover from last year's devastating injury.  While many teams stayed away from Peterson, he is now the 3rd overall player at that position.


Best Performances
The Ice Cold Bruschis lead the race for Best Week of the season so far with their 212.75-point effort in Week 5.  Other teams achieving the 200-point mark include The Skyns (206.19 in Week 3) and Andy's Red Hots (201.96 in Week 6).
The best winning streak belongs who CheektoWojo, who rattled off four straight wins to start the season.
The best match up came in Week 7, in which CheektoWojo defeated Most Murderous by a score of 160.58 - 159.85.  The 0.73-point victory is not only a tight game, but also a striking reflection of Fantasy Bowl II, in which the same two teams battled to a 0.77-point victory for CheektoWojo.  What makes the coincidence even more amazing is that in both games, Most Murderous started the Baltimore Defense, and both times they finished with negative points (-5 in Week 7, and -1 in the Fantasy Bowl).
The 2-division alignment has gotten off to a good start.  The three-week inter-divisional matchups have been largely one-sided, however, with the Cobras Division teams winning 11 of the 12 match ups against the Rhinos Division teams. 

Injuries

The first half of the season has surprisingly been injury-free, knock on wood.  A few missed games here and there, but overall nothing to upset the balance of the league.  Aaron Hernandez cost The Risen a number of games at the tight end position.  Most Murderous picked up Nate Burleson after Week 2, and he is now out for the season.  CheektoWojo's Cedric Benson got hurt in Week 5 and has been out since.  So, no tremendous set-backs.  Perhaps the biggest injuries of the season have been defensive players who have affected their respective teams' defensive values.  Darrelle Revis is out for the year, and the Jets' team defense only ranks 18th. Baltimore's Ray Lewis and Lardarius Webb both recently suffered long-term injuries, and immediately Baltimore put up negative 5 points the next game.

Transactions

So far the steal of free agency goes to the L.A. Ninjas for taking Alfred Morris after his strong Week 1 performance. Many shied away due to Mike Shanahan’s tendency to shuffle running backs, but Morris is rewarding the Ninjas as the 4th best overall RB. Kyle Rudolph sits as the #6 tight end and was picked up by Fireseed after Week 3, and just behind him at 7 is Martellus Bennett, picked up a week earlier by Andy’s Red Hots.

Only one trade has been made thusfar, a swap of backup running backs deal in which the Ice Cold Bruschis sent Kansas City’s Shaun Draughn to Andy’s Red Hots in exchange for Houston’s Ben Tate.

Todd’s Draft Analysis

On the optimistic side, Todd correctly predicted 4 of 6 playoff teams (if the season ended today, of course): The Skyns, CheektoWojo, Most Murderous and The Risen.  On the pessimistic side, the two teams he predicted postseason glory for that are currently not in the playoff field (Boys of Summer and Fireseed) he actually had slotted in as the top two teams in the league. Let’s call it a push, so far.

Message Board Games

The first Eliminator game came down to Adam and Dan.  Each team made a mistake on the same week, prolonging the game. But then Dan missed a second time, and Adam didn’t even submit a pick that week, leading Todd to call the game off and award half a win to Dan for at least bothering to show up.  (But, to be fair, if I were in Hawaii on vacation like Adam was, I might’ve forgotten too.) Game 2 is currently underway.

Meanwhile, Andy holds a 1-point lead over Todd in Triple Streak for the top spot, while Adam, Synrod and Dan are all still within striking distance.  That is, as long as Dan stops picking TJ Graham as his wide receiver.

Looking Forward

With only one week to go in the inter-divisional match ups, the Rhinos Division will look to get things going against their Cobras counterparts.  Meanwhile, the playoff races are too tight to call as usual - few games separate the pack from the chasers, as few games separate the pack from the leaders.  Anything can happen, and everyone is still in it.  Best of luck to all.