*is honored by a victory parade*
The ToO Champion
Awarded annually for winning ToO Fantasy Football. Record: 14-1
*takes podium to thank sponsors and fans*
This was an absolutely
incredible season! It’s almost time to start preparing for the next one and I still haven’t fully processed the one we’re coming off. It’s still amazing to me that I actually won.
It was a mix of emerging understanding of how the league works and luck. I’m not going to lie, there was a lot of luck involved in how things fell into place.
It started with the draft. When I initially saw the results of autopick I was not pleased. I actually complained to a couple people that I would have made many different selections if I had been able to draft live. But in hindsight I have to eat those words. Autopick was what gave me the core that kickstarted what became such an unstoppable roster. Yes I would have gone with different players, and they would not have been as solid out of the gate as the ones autopick went with. I would have had another season like all the others, trying to manage all of the positions at once. What enabled my success this year was I could focus on just one or two positions, and improve bit by bit, because the general foundation was already set.
The main example of that was Brown. I wouldn’t have known to draft him, I had never heard of him, but autopick clearly knew and I am
so thankful. He was the one who truly solidified my roster. He was the rock of my season, the guy I could rely on to always come through in the clutch. He didn’t show up big every game, but did in every game I needed him to. He never let me down. I had confidence playing him which meant I didn’t need to worry about that position, I could put my attention to figuring out the positions around him.
Another factor in this amazing season was the beginning emergence of a real understanding of how this all works. Each year I’ve gotten a better feel for it, but something was always just beyond my reach for having what I would call an actual understanding. I just had occasional feelings or thoughts of what I should do, they didn’t always work out because they weren’t always inline with how this actually operates. But this year, finally, something clicked. I didn’t become a fantasy football guru, there is still plenty I’m clueless about, but I finally opened the door. I wasn’t just semi-educated guessing my moves, I was making them with some level of confidence now. That meant I didn’t have to just go by feelings week to week; I could make a
plan.
Defense and special teams is the position I have seemed to developed the best understanding of over the years, and this season it just went into another level. I don’t know how or why, but I really
got it. I was able to form a solid plan for that position. It was actually such a comprehensive plan I was making moves several weeks in advance because I knew who I wanted to play when, so I set the wheels in motion early to be sure I would be able to. It felt really good to be able to have that kind of confidence in a position.
Then there were the combinations of understanding
and luck. Like having a feeling I should pick up Beckham right before he went
insane. I was confident that move would pay off, but I never imaged it would do so at such an extreme level. And then the Anderson pickup was just unbelievable good fortune; getting him right when he went off and piled up absolutely
ridiculous numbers. That was what cemented my dominance. Anderson’s breakout, combined with Beckham’s monster games with Brown’s consistent solid performances underlying it all was simply too much to overcome for my opponents.
All of these events built on one another to develop into an incredible roster. It just worked out perfectly. The positions that were drafted well were set from the start so I could look to improving the others, forming the defensive plan took care of that position for the season so I could focus even narrower, I pretty much was able to just shore up a position, check it off, and turn attention to the next one. By the end of the season the result was that just about every one was confidently solid. There was virtually no maintenance needed to the roster this year, once I got a position down it was good to go.
Going back to the idea of forming long term plans due to increased understanding of the game, I made a couple notable strategic moves concerning running backs during the season. One worked out for me and one didn’t.
First was with Foster. I had gotten him in the draft and he was doing well for me, but then he got injured and missed some games. I held onto him over the downtime, but as he prepared to play again I had concerns over whether he would be able to immediately return to his previous high performance, so I made the decision to look elsewhere for the position. I had my eye on a couple guys I wanted to try working into my rotation, and to raise my chances of picking them up from waivers I dropped Foster with the express intent of him distracting another team that may possibly be looking at those guys I wanted, and they would go for him instead. And that’s exactly what happened; KF picked him up leaving the new players to me. It didn’t work out as I had hoped, as Foster of course did return to meet, and exceed, his previous performance becoming a beast down the stretch that I could have used to make my nigh unbeatable team actually unbeatable, while the players I picked up did okay but didn’t break out as well as I thought they would. But I wasn’t upset about it, I consciously made that decision and was fine living with the results. It worked out well enough in the end.
The other was sort of the opposite situation. I had picked up Ingram and he similarly started strong but then went out with injury. I knew I did want to replay him when he healed, but it was at a time when I was still moving some pieces around and couldn’t afford him taking up bench space while on IR, so I dropped him. I kept my attention on his recovery status though, and I grabbed him back up when he was nearing return, but still yet to have his status changed so he was under the radar of the other teams. I put him back in my lineup and while he had occasional struggles he played an important part in the rest of my season.
Making these kinds of consciously strategic moves made me feel good about how I was running the team. I wasn’t just guessing, I had a definite plan. It might not have always been a good one, but I had one.
It’s been a truly incredible journey. All I had hoped for this year was to have a good season with no stinging disappointments. Possibly make the playoffs for the first time. That’s all I wanted! If I had a season where I could say ‘I did my best’ I would be happy, regardless of the resulting record. I never imagined advancing in the playoffs should I make it in, and
never would have even considered the possibility of winning the championship! I thought I was still a good few seasons away from that; I was still learning how to be good at this.
As I said though, everything simply fell into place perfectly. It genuinely could not have gone better. Absolutely everything, from acquisitions, to performances, even the schedule, went my way. To quote Drew Brees, it was all meant to be; it was all destiny.
Now that everything has settled and I can look back over it all, it is disappointing that I had that one loss. A perfect season isn’t something you even consider in fantasy football, that’s such an unlikely achievement even if you have a great team, there’s too much chance involved each week. But this year clearly it was a definite possibility. I can’t be upset about it though, because at least it wasn’t a situation where I played the wrong guy that week and it didn’t work out or anything like that, I did the absolute best I could, Laura simply did better. That’s how I want all my losses to be because there are no regrets then.
Finally, I would be remiss if my season review did not mention Eugene, whose team has become a true partner to my own, despite being competitors for success in the league.
Last year my relationship with Eugene’s team consisted of some trade assists and just general advice if we saw positions the other could be better at.
This year it went to a whole new level. No longer simply offering passing recommendations from time to time, this season I became personally invested in making him the best team he could be. I think it was partially because I had to do the least work I ever had this season on my own team as my lineup was pretty much set from the start, so I wanted to find somewhere else to make moves and improvements, but it was also because I truly want him to do well, we’ve formed a special connection in this.
I gave him some advice on shoring up his defense choices because that’s the one position I feel I have an actual understanding of as far as having real insight into what are going to be good or bad matchups and being able to make a long term plan. I was pleased to see those suggestions work out very well for him.
Then I looked to make a mutual improvement. I desperately needed a reliable TE, that was the one position that week in and out I just could not get rolling. I had two good ones, on paper, but I couldn’t get them to show up in the game. With that being my only serious concern on my roster, I explored the possibility of acquiring Gronk. I wanted to forget about trying to figure out the position and just get someone you didn’t have to think about so I could be done with it. Eugene was hesitant, as he should have been, because he realized what a serious concession that would be, but I knew I was proposing an even trade in the long run. His team would not rise or fall on a TE, he had deeper problems. He needed a better QB, badly. I knew Romo was on the verge of turning a huge corner, I could feel it, I
knew this would be the boost his team needed. He wasn’t so sure, which I understood, but I literally begged him to make the change. I had a gut feeling inside me that it was something he just
had to do. He finally agreed, and it came to pass as I had foreseen; Romo suddenly blew up and Eugene surged into the postseason.
As a result of the Gronk trade Eugene actually ended up in the exact same position I had been in before, of needing to decide between Bennett and Kelce at TE each week. Because I had been there for several weeks I had developed an insight into figuring out what to do, so I was able to share that with him and it worked quite well.
And lastly I was able to patch up the last remaining hole I saw in his lineup, the kicker. Bailey has always been my guy, he’s super solid, but this year I stumbled across Parkey who was actually doing even better. I kept Bailey around for a while in case it was just a passing phase of success, but Parkey stayed strong so I decided to stay with him and no longer needed Bailey taking bench space. Rather than immediately drop him I decided to give Eugene first chance if he wanted him since he was being more consistent than his kicker, and he did. And of course that one worked out well, there was never any doubt it would.
So I feel like I actually managed two juggernauts this season. My team became one mostly by accident. A lot of lucky draft picks and some chance acquisitions that turned out to be great. So I didn’t have to form it, I just maintained it. But then I made Eugene into one. He had a solid core, but there was room for improvement. I was able to identify the weaker areas and effectively bolster them. I showed myself that I
am finally gaining an understanding of how this all works and the right way to do it. Between the involvement I had with both our teams I feel like I had a really complete season.
In League milestones I have:
Recorded the best start in League history (11-0).
Recorded the best final record in League history (14-1).
Become the first #1 seed to win our Championship.
And in general League news:
This is the first time the #3 seed has not won our Championship.
This evens the conferences up at two Championships each.
This continues the streak of having a new Champion each year (four teams in four seasons).
And I have pulled up to a winning career record!
I thank you all for an awesome season! Even if I hadn’t had such incredible success I would have enjoyed it just as much, this is something I look forward to all year. It is so much fun for me, but it wouldn’t be without you. I can’t do this on my own, we need multiple teams to make up the league. I hope you’ll all be back next season!
-- 06 Jul 2015 11:56 am --
My season recap:
My record: 14-1 on the season (1st of 8), 2-0 playoffs, 16-1 overall
Career Record: 32-28 regular season, 7-1 playoffs, 39-29 overall
Individual Matchups:
(season 1 stats),(season 2 stats),(season 3 stats)
Final Standings:
EAST:
bookworm (14-1; 2-0)
Eugene (10-5; 1-1)
AE (6-9; 1-1)
gia (3-12; 0-2)
WEST:
JC (9-6; 1-1)
Laura (9-6; 1-1)
KF (5-10; 1-1)
EK (4-11; 2-0)
League Champion:
bookworm
-- 06 Jul 2015 11:56 am --
And lastly, some franchise news.
Because I have shown continued success with each year being better than the previous, management has decided to finally give the team a real name!
They weren’t sure when this all started whether it would be worth the effort of investing in licensing, but it has proven to be an establishment that is here to stay. (The decision was already made before I won the Championship, but I’m sure that didn’t hurt!
)
Beginning next season bookworm's team will be rebranded as the
Blitzing Bookworms
These are our new helmets:
And this is the logo for media coverage:
)
Congrats on your narrow win as well, bookworm. 
