2022 Fantasy Football Troll Of The Year Award Nominations And Winner
Tim Warner. Getty Images.Welcome to the fantasy football Troll of the Year - 2022 recap blog.
It's way too early in the summer to explore actual research for you casuals who get talked into joining a league the day before the draft for a fifth year in a row. All you really need is 30 seconds before your first pick to pull up the ole Fantasy Pros ADP chart. But those charts won't tell you which player is going to fuck you over sideways. In fact, neither will this blog. What you need right now is some mindfulness training to get you ready for what's to come. Because as excited about any player as you might soon be - you're about to get kicked in the nuts one way or another.
So what is Troll of the Year? Any Will Fuller owner knows what I'm talking about. It's the guy that screws you over when you start him and when you get sick of his bull shit and put him on the bench. I'll never forget that asshole dropping three touchdown passes through his hands with over 100 yards combined to them. But I'm also an idiot and will probably use my last pick for him like I do every year.
The chart in my tweet below didn't show the weekly start percentage averages across ESPN leagues yet, but you can imagine after four weeks of duds to start the season, no one was putting Fuller out in Week 5 which just so happened to be the highest scoring week for any wide receiver in 2019.
We definitely played him in Week 6 though! And that includes me. This was the birth of Troll of the Year. My unhealthy love/hate relationship with Will Fuller - a football player who has no idea I exist.
I might have skipped 2020 but T.Y. Hilton was the recipient in 2021.
I'm looking to do more irreverent fantasy football blogs, but there's no better way to kick off the season that honoring last year's Troll of the Year. Why? Because before you read five confirmation bias articles on the players you want to draft you need to be slapped in the face with a stark reminder of how fucking stupid this game that we're all super excited about playing really is.
Let's meet our finalists for 2022 in no particular order. We'll crown the Troll afterwards.
Troll of the Year Nominee #1 - Gabe Davis
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Gabe Davis was the Rorschach player before last season. You either loved him or thought he was overhyped from just a few good games to end 2021. Ultimately, the naysayers were right, but the roller coaster season above shows you the story. After a promising Week 1 in which he caught the first touchdown pass of the NFL season, he didn't play Week 2 and gave two ice-cold duds in Weeks 3 and 4 (6.7 and 2.3 points respectively). That's pretty much when drafters gave up on him as he dropped to under a 40 percent of ESPN league starting average for Week 5.
How did Davis do again in Week 5 sitting on everyone's bench?
Week 5 was Davis's Mona Lisa troll performance full knowing no one was starting him after three weeks of doing absolutely nothing. But what hurts his case is Week 6 in which he still played pretty well (16.4 points) and about 70 percent of leagues starting him. He rebounded a little bit by putting up 21 points in Week 10 after a couple stinkers before being about as average as possible the rest of the way.
Troll of the Year Nominee #2 - DJ Moore
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I don't know what else to say about DJ Moore's season in Carolina.
Dude was seen as a certified asset as 90 percent of leagues (that includes dead leagues I'm guessing) started him in Week 1. By Week 5 it was under 50 percent. Week 8 was the week that really fucked with team owner's psyche. 27.5 points and things are looking up. Because of that Moore would stick in the lineup the next three weeks with mega dud performances before dropping from a 75 percent start clip to 45 percent for Week 12. Of course that's when he would show back up with 20 points. And his final three games he came up huge for most of his drafter's bench after officially giving up on him for his .6 point Week 14.
Troll of the Year Nominee #3 - Jakobi Meyers
Jakobi Meyers was never supposed to be anyone. But his first six games were fantastic. Double digits every game to give fantasy owners hope that when they finally get around to using him for some bye weeks or injury stopgaps, he'd give them something. And around the time when you really need help from your bench - Week 9 to Week 15 - he turned right back into the guy that forgot their was an endzone in football.
But what hurts Meyers case for Troll of the Year is Week 14. He needed a big game to spark managers to start him for Week 1 of the fantasy football players the following week. Any of the less than 10 percent of owners who did end up starting him Week 15 know exactly why, so there's no need to remind any of them.
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And the winner is….
DJ Moore. This was close. I think the difference maker here was the fact that so much, well… more was expected out of Moore vs the other guys. No one expected anything out of Jakobi Meyers going into the year and Gabe Davis was the most controversial pre-draft player in terms of rankings. But the Carolina Panthers organization came up big to fuck over their #2 offensive threat once they traded their #1 threat. And now they've gone ahead and traded him too. So while DJ Moore get's the trophy - the Panthers are the real trolls of the year.
Who was your Troll of the Year?
- Jeffro