THE KIPREVIEW: WEEK FOUR

 Greetings gents. Mitch Kiper here, with another visual delight for your nerd eyeballs to scan. This week won’t carry the controversy of Week Three, but the Kipe won’t let that stop him from providing fun and questionably valuable metrics as we head in to the fourth week of fantasy. It’s hard to believe we’re almost a quarter of the way through the season. Not only that, we’re officially entering bye weeks! Ç'est Magnifique! That’s right—Mitch Kiper speaks French.

NOTABLE TRANSACTION:

Gakusei Kai Nickelsnatchers – Trade SASWW for Buck Allen: Was it a great long term dynasty trade? Probably not. However, that trade saved the Nickelsnatchers week 3, and probably benefitted the league as a whole. Buck Allen was the key contributor to the Nickelsnatcher upset of the Brooklyn Yeshivas. Without him, KAI would have played Marcus Murphy (if you’re asking “who?!”, you’re right) and lost by just a few points.

According to KiperMetrics, Allen also adds to the overall strength of the Nickelsnatchers team. Adding Allen shifted the Nickelsnatchers from 11th to 10th overall, and more importantly closer in score to the middle tier than the bottom (see league overview for this). Here is what the Nickelsnatchers team looks like right now.

Honorable mentions go to…

Gakusei Kai Nickelsnatchers – Week 03 Tyler Eifert trade: For the simple fact that the moment they traded him away, he posted up a double digit scoring game. Eifert needs one more for the Nickelsnatchers to level up and earn at least one of the Boxtable’s 2nd round picks.

Dishonorable mention goes to…

Bergen Boxtables – Starting Deshaun Watson AGAIN: While not a transaction, per se, this needs to be noted. Bergen has a good team. Mitch Kiper stands by this statement, as well as his pre-season rankings. Alas, a good team means nothing if you’re starting the absolute wrong player. Watch Deshaun Watson for five minutes and you see a quarterback going through a sophomore slump. Teams have scouting on him now, and know how to make him struggle with his progressions. Here is a comparison between the Boxtables’ two best QBs:

Ben has started Watson for three straight weeks. For three straight weeks, Drew Brees—a perennially good fantasy QB, as proven by the fact that he is #1 all time among all NFL players in composite rating—has outperformed Watson. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

And for once, a neutral mention goes to…

Brooklyn Yeshivas & Bergen Boxtables – Ito Smith to BOX, John Brown to YESH: There’s no arguing that this trade is mutually beneficial. The Yeshivas get a young promising WR to replace a lagging Brandon Marshall as their WR3, and Ben Buccigross gets a promising young Falcon RB who is primed to possibly take a bigger role next year once Tevin Coleman is gone. Yet as far as the KiperRatings go, this move does not make much of a dent in their overall roster composition.

The Yeshivas gain slightly by adding Brown, at least according to C-PPG, which is a more long term measure. John Brown carries a 10.62 c-ppg, while Brandon Marshall is at 9.86. For how far ahead of the pack the Yeshivas are, this does not make enough of a dent to be considered anything more than a minor move. Perhaps it will pay off come playoff time, but for now it makes next to no difference in his overall ranking. Here’s how the Yeshivas looked before and after this trade:

TOP FREE AGENTS:

It’s a sad, lonely world in free agency. But if you want to brave it, here are the top free agents according to cppg, and the rostered players closest to them in the ranks:

Notable tidbits:

- People are hanging on to kickers that are well below the leaders in the league. In particular, Jason Myers should be signed by someone, as he’s currently in the top 10% of all kickers currently in the NFL according to C-PPG. If you look at the current K rankings by FPG, the top 5 are taken and then there’s a wide gap before we hit other owned players. Sure, the difference is miniscule, but every point counts.

- According to C-PPG, Deshaun Watson is not far off from Joe Flacco and Andrew Luck. This should be a signal to the owners who insist on playing these QBs in lieu of alternatives (or, owners who insist on holding even worse QBs—cough cough Dak Prescott—in lieu of Flacco).

- D/ST pickings are not bad. As this article was written, HAMM dropped the Jets for the Dolphins. That means there is one D/ST available that is still better than 80% of the D/STs currently on Dynosteve rosters. For those who have been paying attention the last few weeks, 75th percentile seems to be the mark you want to stay above to win points in positional battles.

- RB free agents are virtually non-existent. Alfred Blue is the best option available, and he puts up fewer points than fellow FA WR Terrelle Pryor. Terrelle Pryor.

- Same goes for TEs. But hey, if anyone wants someone who puts up points, Garrett Celek is there.

- There are certain players that, according to C-PPG, are due for a regression: Dolphins WRs Jakeem GGrant and Albert Wilson are the main suspects. To a lesser extent, Chris Godwin and Keelan Cole are outperforming their history. On the flip side, Mitch Kiper expects to see slightly more from Duke Johnson and Tavon Austin.

TAXI WATCH:

Here is the taxi squad as it currently stands, followed by relevant updates and changes:

- Dante Pettis: With Garoppolo out for the season, Pettis has seemingly gotten comfy in his taxi seat. He is currently in the lower half of Dyno WRs as far as points scored goes. There’s no reason to bring him up.  Antonio Callaway is ranked similar to Pettis, and for now is in the same boat.

- Nyheim Hines: Hines remains our best taxi player, and yet due to the strength of the Falls, his promotion seems far off. He’s performing better than 60% of the Dynosteve RBs. This would qualify him as a worthwhile sub on most squads. The fact that the Falls can afford to keep Hines off the active roster is a slap in the face to us all.  

- Mark Andrews: A newbie to the taxi watch, Mark Andrews is currently performing better than 60+% of the TEs on Dynosteve rosters. Considering how many teams have been scrounging for TE talent, Andrews is a valuable stash, and possible trade bait.

- Ito Smith: The trade of Ito Smith is, I believe, our first ever taxi-squad only trade. Because the Boxtables had to drop Dalton Schultz to make room for Ito, the total taxi pool has dropped by one player this week.

LEAGUE OVERVIEW:

Finally, the league overview.

- ZIMBAB and YESH remain in a league of their own, while the Fenoms amazingly lead the pack for the last two spots in the championship tier.

- Without Lev Bell to buoy them, the Juneboshers have fallen to merely above average. They’re in the thick of things, barely separated in score from WALL and BOX.

- Mitch Kiper still predicts that BOX will rise and ONED will fall in the standings by season end, mainly due to bench strength and lack thereof, respectively. He believes that the coming bye weeks, not to mention injuries, will more directly hurt the Syndrome, while the Boxtables have enough bench strength to weather the storm. This is also why he predicts KAI to suck eventually. There’s very little depth in the Gakusei Kai household.