Fantasy World: Awards Season

Who starred, who were the busts, and who you must keep.

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A picture tells a thousand fantasy points.

Ahh, the end of the year. It's a time for getting together with the people you love, a time for figuring out what to do with that extra second you'll be getting next year, and, most importantly, a time to travel to your old bar in your hometown neighborhood and get picked on by the same jerks who picked on you in grade school. (True story.) But it's also a time for reflection, and there's no more important topic to reflect upon than the past fantasy football season. Let's hand out some hardware!

The Hope Diamond Award for Most Valuable: DeAngelo Williams: No real shocker here—he was the 2nd highest point scorer for the year, after all—but DeAngelo gets the award for two distinct reasons other than his scoring output: (a) performing well above expectations; and (b) putting up his biggest games at the end of the year during the fantasy playoffs. Williams' average draft spot was 87th, 21 spots lower than more highly-touted backfield mate Jonathan Stewart; that kind of production fixes a lot of early-draft mistakes. You know what else helps? Putting up a 25.4 point average over the final five weeks. That's DeAngitastic!

The Wendy Whoppers Award for Biggest Bust: Technically, Tom Brady was the biggest bust; he was generally picked 4th overall and ended up with just three fantasy points. But since it wasn't entirely his fault, he gets a pass here. No, this spot goes to Joseph Addai, drafted 5th overall and finishing with only 96 fantasy points—to give you a comparison, Ricky Williams ended up with one more point than Addai. And yet Joseph was still owned by 97% of the leagues by year's end because he refused to help out his fantasy owners by getting busted for public indecency or something. Worst of all, this was his fantasy output for fantasy playoff Weeks 13-16: 3, 3, 0, 0. Luckily for the Addai owners, most didn't make the playoffs anyway.

The "He Went to Jared" Award for Most Annoying Performance: Tim Hightower, by a mile. Hightower was a trendy sleeper pick during the offseason (including in these parts) for good reason: He was the young, primary backup to an aging RB on the down-slope of his career. At the very least, he'd get goal line carries. His first seven games went according to plan when he collected only a handful of carries but got a whole bunch of TDs in the process, making him a respectable flex option with eight points a week. And then came his Big Moment in Week 9 against St. Louis, where he was officially handed the starting role and responded with a 22 carries, 109 yards and a TD. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a mirage as Hightower did pretty much nothing for the rest of the season, never gaining over 35 yards in a game (his 2.8 yards a carry is among the lowest in the league) and collecting only three TDs down the stretch. Unless you sold high after that magical performance in Week 9—most likely the chapter spot on the Tim Hightower Career Highlights DVD—all he caused was teary eyes, like the commercials this award is named for.

The Charles Rogers Award for Most Obviously Bad High Draft Pick: Laurence Maroney. Everyone who drafted him (his average draft spot was 30th overall) knew immediately they were walking into a mine field, but who knew he'd detonate so quickly? How bad was it? The best part of his season came in Week 7 when the Patriots finally stuck him on IR and freed his owners from his 3.3 yards a carry. Needless to say, I won't be keeping him this offseason. But I will be keeping …

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Sublime.

The Kelly Kapowski Award for Suddenly Compelling Prospect: Remember when you were in grade school and suddenly realized that girls were, well, girls, which opened up a whole lot of possibilities? Yeah, that's what having Pierre Thomas on your keeper league is. Consider this: Deuce McAllister is pretty much done with the Saints, Reggie Bush has never excelled in any role outside of the change-of-pace/swing-pass kind of guy, and Thomas collected an average of 113 yards over his past six games, including nine TDs. This is someone to hold onto next year. (Calm down, friends. This isn't the last we'll be talking about keepers. And that, folks, is what you call a teaser.)

The Steve Jobs Award for Most Trustworthy Executive: Falcons' GM Thomas Dimitroff, who knew much more about football than any of us, as evidenced by Michael Turner and Matt Ryan. Let's trust him on any moves he makes this offseason.

The Nostrarickus Award for Best Preseason Prediction From This Column: Vincent Jackson, who did indeed have a career year as predicted, putting up highs in catches, yards and TDs. V-Jax finished the season as the 11th highest scoring WR in the league, sandwiched between the highly-touted Randy Moss and Brandon Marshall. As the 47th wide receiver drafted in most leagues, that kind of output has to be nice. If only you heeded my always completely 100% accurate advice!

The Sylvia Browne Award for Worst Preseason Prediction From This Column: Oh yeah, Tim Hightower. Let's say 99% accurate then.

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Player on My Team of the Week: Not that any of my teams were playing this past week, but Dwayne Bowe had a pretty nice week (10 receptions for 103 yards) and hopefully something he can build on for next year. Shockingly, it was only Bowe's 2nd day over 100 yards this season.

How to Heckle One Of My Players of the Week: "Hey Marshawn Lynch, do you realize you have the scariest player photo of all time?"

The Michael Douglas in Falling Down of the Week Award: James Joseph Cialella Jr. of Philadelphia, who did what every one of us has always wanted to do and shot a guy for talking loudly during a movie. Unfortunately for Cialella, that movie was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which sucked.

Sell Low: Trusting your elders, after author Herman Rosenblat admitted that his memoir—which described first meeting his wife while imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, and reconnecting with her years later on a blind date—"embellished" a lot of the little details in it. Like, all of them.

Buy High: The consumption of alcohol during family holiday parties, after a new study finally confirms that visiting your family "warps your brain".

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