Exeter Fantasy Football League Begins
With the first week of the National Football League’s regular season in the books, Exeter students were left in awe by some of the sleepers and busts in this year’s Fantasy Football draft.
In the words of the great Jay-Z at the 2009 American Music Awards: “Men lie, women lie, but numbers don’t.” Fantasy football players can watch all the Matthew Barry breakdowns they want and spend hours scavenging waivers for the next come-up player, but at the end of the day, numbers are the only truth-tellers. Pros had originally predicted that Devante Adams, the #17 wide receiver out of California State University, would be a great success in this year’s league and were surprised by his drastic underperformance. Adams went late first round in many eight-man leagues and was expected to be the third top receiver, but instead, the Bears’ defense limited him to a measly 36 yards (3.6 points). Worse yet, Adams was only able to catch the ball 50 percent of the time he was targeted. “It was heartbreaking to see that one of the best wide receivers in the league underperformed to the extent that he did,” said senior Carson Garland, who drafted the player. “I put my trust in him and he let me down.”
This week was also a bust for many quarterbacks in the league. Eight of the top ten point scorers in non-PPR leagues were running backs and wide receivers, with the leading scorer being Sammy Watkins of the Kansas City Chiefs. Hanging onto nine of his 11 targets, Watkins hauled in 198 yards and three touchdowns which scored him 46.8 points. This was a hefty haul for the Clemson graduate, as ESPN had only expected him to earn 7.1 points. This impressive turnout can likely be attributed to his teammate on the wide-receiving core, Tyreek Hill, who is a very capable receiver and likely drew the secondary away from Watkins, allowing him to put in work on the Jaguars’ defense.
While upper Connor Chen took a hit with Tyreek Hill being shut down by the Jags, he was able to capitalize on the second top scorer in the league, Carolina’s running back Christian McCaffrey. McCaffrey threw down a strong 42.9 points. “He ran the ball into the endzone 13 times last season and was a couple of yards short of a 2,000-yard season,” Chen remarked on why he took a risk and drafted McCaffery with the third overall pick in his draft. Chen’s team was able to blow senior Ademide Kosko’s team out of the water by a 70 point margin, thanks to some remarkable performances by Deshaun Watson and Austin Ekeler.
While most of the players in fantasy football prepare for their drafts by testing countless mocks, lower Aiden Silvestri chose a different approach. “I decided to let luck take control,” Silvestri said, as he auto-drafted and let a computer pick his team. This proved to be the superior tactic—Silvestri beat upper Yuvi Sethi by 30 points.
With week one at a close, team owners are both rejoicing at their wise picks and dwelling over their mistakes during the draft. But never fear. There are always sleepers on the waiver to beef your team back up.