Fantasy Football Funk Town - Week 8 WAR Update, The Shittiest Starting Lineup Possible, And - Of Course - The Team You Could Have Picked Up Hung Over Sunday Morning
Here is your official best fantasy football players in PPR through eight weeks according to my wins above replacement model. Quick TL;DR - WAR estimates how many wins acorss a 17-game season your fantasy team gets solely due to a specific player MORE than a replacement-level player at the same position.
Mid-way throught the fantasy season and the list of which player's have brought the most value is starting to solidify. Let's fire off some takes.
Christian McCaffrey is fantasy porn
I'm starting to wonder if it's wrong to say McCaffrey is this generation's LaDanian Tomlinson. And that what we should be saying is LaDanian Tomlinson was his era's Christian McCaffrey. 17 straight games with a touchdown to tie Lenny Moore. You just know CMC will be hell bent on taking that record for himself after this week's bye.
Travis Etienne is enemy #1 to Calvin Ridley drafters
We get it. You score all the touchdowns. Congrats. Maybe take a break so someone else can play now?? Sincerely, everyone who bet on Calvin Ridley. Except Calvin Ridley.
Brett Maher (Bye Felicia)
The Rams cut Maher after Week 7 for missing two field goals and an extra point. Kinda on the Rams if you ask me. You may as well get rid of your dog for eating a cake you left in his food bowl. I mean - did they not watch the 2022 Playoffs? What did you think was going to happen? This makes me sad that Maher is on the street because he was literally the best kicker in fantasy just two weeks ago. Which was objectively hilarious.
Top-ADP QBs still worth Round 1 draft picks
I'm going to keep bringing this up and the fact that I told everyone that taking a top QB was the sharp play pre-season. I might even just copy paste this exact section next week.
It's a bit depressing seeing Gus Edwards ahead of your top drafted RB
No one expected their top-drafted Ferari RB to get lapped by the Gus Bus, but for many, that's what happened. I'm talking Derrick Henry. Tony Pollard. Joe Mixon. Not to mention guys who got hurt like Taylor, Chubb, Ekeler, or Barkley. I'm not even sure how Gus made it to rank #37. I don't watch a lot of Ravens action and can't recall one play of his I've seen on Red Zone. But there he is. The "slow and steady" tortoise that wins the race.
CeeDee's are no longer outdated!
Just a week ago CeeDee Lamb wasn't even in the top-100 but his blow up performance in Week 8 puts him at #52 just like that. Over 41 PPR points and my model estimated 85% of teams won their matchup because of this. That's good for 10th best performance for any player in any position of the season so far. Week 3 Devon Achane leads all with an estimated 94% win chance.
Nico Collins BARELY sneaks in at #100 for the sole Houston Texans representative to the list
Hope you're not laughing too hard Steelers and Packers fans becuase your teams are the only two who failed to have one player crack the top-100. Jordan Love has been the Packer's best player (#102) while the Steelers DST is right behind at #103.
Alright. Enough takes. Let's get to this week's team we could have all had played by picking each player up from the free agent pool.
But instead, we were stuck with some sorry saps likely on the following worst possible team composed of players with at least a 30% start in ESPN leagues. How many of these bums did you start?
33 points. Yikes.
I'm just glad Gabe Davis took a week off this list after appearing in two consecutive weeks. Not gonna lie though, was not expecting Patrick Mahomes and Cooper Kupp to even find their way in one of these. I mean shit - even a team compiled solely of players from the New York Jets/Giants punt fest would have got you 104.5.
That's it for Week 8. Let me know if you have any wierd stat run requests you think might be fun I can do next week.
- Jeffro