Richardson finished with a completion percentage of 47.7 percent over the 11 games he played as it was the worst starting QB percentage since another similar quarterback and also a fellow Florida product — Tim Tebow. That led to him finishing QB24 on the season, so yeah, far from top 5.San Francisco’s George Kittle paced […]
Richardson finished with a completion percentage of 47.7 percent over the 11 games he played as it was the worst starting QB percentage since another similar quarterback and also a fellow Florida product — Tim Tebow. That led to him finishing QB24 on the season, so yeah, far from top 5.San Francisco’s George Kittle paced the way with 197.9 points as Raiders rookie Brock Bowers was a close second at 195.7. To put that into perspective, each would’ve finished WR10 and WR12, respectively, had they been actual wide receivers. Arizona’s Trey McBride was third at 181.3 as he would’ve finished WR18 as he outscored the likes of Tyreek Hill, Puka Nacua, DJ Moore and Zay Flowers.And dare I say this without jinxing the position for 2025. But…
If you hit on players like Lamar Jackson, Ja’Marr Chase and Saquon Barkley, chances are you made a deep playoff run. Personally I got lucky enough in a 10-team league where I was the last pick. I took Chase at No. 10 overall and then with my next pick, I took Barkley. And yes, I actually won a championship there.First I said Russell Wilson would be a top 15 fantasy quarterback. Although he did miss the first six games, Russ was QB22 — so we’re 0-1.It feels like the season just began. But after 17 weeks of professional football, the fantasy football season has come to an end.As far as my picks, I did not meet my picks goal for the year — such is life. A final week of 4-6 doomed me for a below-.500 mark of 78-82 on the season. I’ve always tried to make it difficult when it’s come to these picks, as anyone can make the easy picks. But being just four games below .500 isn’t exactly terrible, either.After being a barren wasteland of a position — many leagues of which had just started to put TEs into a flex position — the tight end spot actually meant something.All three of Jackson, Chase and Barkley were far and away the best at their respective positions. In standard, half-point PPR leagues, Jackson finished almost 40 points higher than Bills QB Josh Allen — that gap was even higher before Allen’s monster end to the season.The final prediction? Oh boy. I apologize here. I said Colts’ Anthony Richardson would be a top 5 QB, siting his Cam Newton-like build and his ability to get rushing yards and TDs.In the fantasy world, Barkley racked up 350.8 points as it was exactly 45 points more than the first-year Raven Derrick Henry. Detroit’s Jahmyr Gibbs, after a strong end to the season, was third, followed by Atlanta’s Bijan Robinson and Green Bay’s Josh Jacobs to round out the top five.Here’s what we learned about the second-year Richardson this season — he is not a good thrower of the football. Now I’m far from being a football savant here, but it’s my understanding the quarterback position does indeed need to be a good thrower of the football. And if you are not, this is a recipe for failure.What’s more embarrassing, however, is how my “bold predictions” turned out from the beginning of the season as I’ll recap that now.Tight ends became relevant again.Barkley was essentially the same thing, albeit not as pronounced as Chase’s dominance. The former Nittany Lion became the ninth running back in NFL history to get over 2,000 rushing yards last week, notching 2,005 on the season. He’ll likely not add to that total this week as head coach Nick Sirianni said he and many other Eagles starters will rest up for the week 18 tilt.Regardless, it’s been quite the season and if you hit on a good mix of players, chances are you hoisted a championship trophy (whether that’s a real one or a make-believe one). Chances are if you had a pick towards the middle to end of your draft, you turned in a fantastic team as early rounders such as Christian McCaffrey and Breece Hall — many league had them going 1-2 overall — were complete busts.The next was that Chiefs RB Isiah Pacheco finishes outside the top 15 for RBs. I actually hit on this one as the original reasoning was how head coach Andy Reid always is erratic with his running backs. Instead what really “helped” out here is Pacheco missing nine games in the middle of the season for an RB62 finish. Cool, we’re 1-1.I then said Jets WR Garrett Wilson finishes as a top 3 wideout. Amid all of the turmoil with the “J-E-T-S, JETS, JETS, JETS” this season, Wilson still was productive — he just wasn’t top 3 productive, especially after Davante Adams was also traded over. Wilson finished the year at WR9 so that’s 1-2 now.Chase led all wideouts with 324.9 points as second place — Vikings’ Justin Jefferson — had 264.08 points. For you mathematically inept here, that’s a difference of over 60 full points. And for those unfamiliar with the fantasy football world, that is a lot. Chase actually scored over 100 points more than the WR5 of the season, CeeDee Lamb. So if you snagged him, Chase was essentially a cheat code.So those bold predictions indeed turned out to be “bold” and also very “wrong.” Regardless, at least it’s been a fun year with the NFL and fantasy football and I hope it was a fun year for you as well. Hopefully this coming week and the playoffs will be just as exciting.This is where things go south, however.q q qThe next one was that Denver rookie Audric Estime would take over the backfield and be the go-to guy. This kind of happened but also didn’t — I’ll explain. In week 10, Estime clearly was the go-to back with 14 carries for 53 yards. Here’s the issue though. It took until these last two weeks where he even was top 2 in carries on the Broncos, as head coach Sean Payton was apparently reveling in creating chaos among the fantasy community in terms of which Denver RB was going to be viable for the week (spoiler alert: no one was). I’ll say this is a loss so we’re 1-3.Tyler Kolesar is a writer at the Courier Express and Tri-County Weekend newspapers. He can be reached at tkolesar@thecourierexpress.com.McCaffrey, the overwhelming No. 1 overall pick, played in just four games. Meanwhile, Hall finished as RB18 as he saw the likes of Cincinnati RB Chase Brown (RB11), Panthers’ Chuba Hubbard (RB13) and Tampa Bay rookie Bucky Irving (RB15) finish ahead of him.As I do each season, I get into the habit of continuously checking my apps on my phone for fantasy updates, how I can improve my rosters, etc. So this is now the time I’ll be going through withdrawal from that. But if you were one of the unfortunate ones that didn’t make playoffs in any of your leagues, maybe the end is a welcome sight.
