#dynosteveweekone

The most frustrating part of the year is finally upon us. That’s right: it’s fantasy football season, and Mitch Kiper is back to give you a quick and dirty rundown as we head into Week 01, which kicks off tomorrow with the Falcons and Eagles. Don’t skim too fast—each team is covered in this rundown, along with some fun facts about the league, and predictions about how each team will fare, thanks to Mitch Kiper’s patented KiperScore™.

A quick reminder of the stats Mitch likes to use:

Composite ppg: A blend of the player’s 3 year averages with current ppg (except for this week, where I’ll be using the CBS 2018 projections one last time). Note for context: Rookies will have comparatively weak composite ratings. I’m comfortable with this because rookie years are still unproven, and composite ppg is meant to be used as a measure of reliable value.

Composite %ile: How the player compares to other players on DYNOSTEVE rosters, based on composite ppg.

DIRTY RECAP: WEEK ONE

With the final round of roster cuts, taxi adds and waivers, this was a beyond active week for league transactions. For the first time, teams cut down to the now-increased maximum of 23+3, which already seems to be having an impact. Trade activity has been high leading into Week One, likely because the free agent field has been decimated by the increased roster size. Waivers aren’t quite what they used to be.

In an effort to set a consistent format for the weeks to come, we’ll be looking at several items each week: Notable Pickup of the Week, Notable Trade of the Week, Top Free Agents, Taxi Watch, Interesting Tidbits, and the League Overview.

NOTABLE PICKUP:

BERGEN BOXTABLES - Rico Gathers, TE DAL

In a week of pickups, drops and waiver claims, we could assess the statistical merits of any of these. What we can’t assess is the emotional merit. Finally, owner Ben Gross gets a player he’s been pining over for years from afar. Rico made the cut in Dallas, and supposedly still has a long way to go learning how to block and run clean routes before he can be effective on the big stage. But what he lacks in polish he more than makes up in heart and DYNOSTEVE name recognition. With Dalton Schultz on the taxi squad, Rico is the 3rd rostered Tight End on the Boxtables roster.

Key stats: 2.4 projected ppg, 15.38th Percentile of all DYNO TEs.

 NOTABLE TRADE:

The Hammerfest Duo

Thatcher Robinson was so busy auditioning for the Kevin Costner role in the sequel to Draft day, his method work must have seeped into real life. The Hammerfest were involved in several pre-week 01 trades, one of which Mitch Kiper loves; the other he’s not so keen on.

Calvin Ridley + 1st Round for Kenyan Drake + 2x 4th Rounders – This trade Mitch Kiper loves. While Hammerfest sacrificed some future potential, they gained solid depth in their RB stables, and some instant ppg production. He is a full 10%ile better than Hammerfests’ other potential RB3s, Darren Sproles and Rex Burkhead, and contributes to Hammerfests top-4 bench rating (more on this below).

For now, the move has less impact on the Juneboshers, and possibly a negative one; They lose their RB4, and Ridley barely makes a dent at WR8. The potential future value of Ridley and the 1st rounder have yet to be determined, but for now the Juneboshers are making an investment in their future. We’ll see if it pays off.

Mitch Kiper’s Winner: HAMMERFEST

Michael Thomas + Ty Montgomery for Rob Gronkowski + Emmanuel Sanders – When Mitch Kiper first saw this trade, he loved it. He thought the Hammerfest were getting a phenomenal upgrade at TE for little sacrifice at receiver. Unfortunately, the crunched numbers suggested otherwise. The trade took the Hammerfest from 5th to 8th in his overall scoring metric (once again, more below). Before it, Adam Thielen was his projected flex, at 11.61 ppg composite. Now it’s a toss-up between Kenyan Drake and Emmanuel Sanders, at roughly 8.7 a piece. Along with the loss of Michael Thomas’s production, plus the trickle-down effect on bench depth, this move seems to be more of a negative than positive impact, even when you consider the gains made in the TE position.

On the Syndrome Side, Ty Montgomery comes in as an RB5, strengthening the RB portion of his bench. And of course, Michael Thomas is an instant upgrade, providing 13.14 composite ppg in the WR1 slot, pushing Golden Tate to WR2 with 11.36 cppg, for a total of 24.50. Previously, the duo of Golden Tate and Ted Ginn were a total 19.48.

Mitch Kiper’s Winner: SYNDROME

For reference, here are the involved teams as they currently stand:

TOP FREE AGENTS:

It’s a sad, lonely world in free agency. But if you want to brave it, here are the top FLEX free agents according to cppg, and how they compare against some similarly-projected current rostered players:

For reference, here are the top rostered composite players heading into the season:

TAXI WATCH:

Considering it’s Week One, no one has been de-activated from Taxi Squads. Mitch Kiper does, however, have some interesting findings.

- Total by Position: 5 QBs, 11 RBs, 15 WRs, 4 TEs.

- WALL has Sam Darnold on the taxi squad, despite him being a starting QB on a team that’s sure to be passing a bunch.

- Of all the taxi players, Mitch Kiper predicts that ZIMBAB’s Nyheim Hines will be the most likely call-up. He would be the Falls’ RB5 if active.

- The player with the special designation of worst taxi squadder belongs to WR Jaleel Scott of the Norwegian Juneboshers, with 0 cppg and a 3.60%ile against all rostered WRs. Though there are others with 0 cppg (KAI’s Josh Adams and SASWW’s injured Derrius Guice), RBs with 0 have a slightly higher %ile at 5.43%, probably because there are two of them versus the one WR.

 INTERESTING TIDBITS:

Per usual, there are plenty. But this week, Mitch will let the charts speak for themselves. This is a look at all the DSTs in the league. Either one team knows something we don’t, or is just trying to troll us all…

 LEAGUE OVERVIEW:

Finally, the league overview. Every week, I’ll be presenting a league ranking based on an overall score I’ve been working on. It combines the following elements:

- Composite FPG: The total composite FPG of the “ideal” starting bench: QB1, RB1, RB2, WR1, WR2, TE, DST, K, and then half of RB3+WR3 to approximate a FLEX.

- Starter Composite %ile, Weighted: This is a weighted average of each starter’s composite %ile rank. Each position is weighted by Mitch Kiper’s secret blend of herbs and spices. The weighting is meant to reflect each position’s proportional contribution to total weekly score (i.e. a QB contributes more to total score than a TE, so QBs have more weighted value), and well as the relative value of having a top player at a position (i.e. the difference between RB #1 and RB #12 is much larger than the difference between QB #1 and QB #12, so RB has more value)

- Bench Composite %ile, Weighted: A weighted average to measure the strength of each team’s bench, using their highest players that are not in the “Starter” roster. 

The two charts below are the first weighted scores with their individual components, and then the unweighted %ile averages of each total roster, based on composite, current (projected for this week), and 3 year ppg.