Championship Week 2023

LOWR Final

Congratulations, this will be the last time you read my snarkily typed words in a Google Doc until next summer. Other congratulations are in order for Ryan, who has secured his first ever LOWR title with a narrow victory over yours truly. This recap will be all one section, serving as both the praise for Ryan and my obituary.

As I mentioned last week, this championship was laced with narratives, but there’s one resounding takeaway when examining Ryan’s season: getting hot when it matters. Going into week eight, Ryan was 3-4, without Nick Chubb, and played five teams all contending for playoff spots to close out the season. Ryan responded by losing only one game from week seven through the title, ripping off four in a row, a loss, then five in a row. This team got and stayed hot from Halloween onward.

There were a few culprits of this: first and foremost, CeeDee Lamb. Week seven was the Cowboys bye week, and Lamb never dipped below 13.5 points for the rest of the season. In this stretch, he had six games of 20+ points and three games eclipsing 30. CeeDee Lamb is unequivocally the MVP of Ryan’s season, and it’s fitting that he now gets a title.

The second trick to a fantasy football title that experts don’t want you to know: have the top scoring fantasy QB in a year where over half of them get hurt. Josh Allen was a rock this season, dipping below twenty fantasy points only four times, and never reaching single digits. This type of consistency and attrition against every other QB in fantasy was an edge that cannot be overstated. Every week, no matter who he was playing, Ryan had the advantage at QB. And most weeks, he realized that advantage.

The final bedrock of Ryan’s season was Jayden Reed, who didn’t even join the roster until November 8th, after Joe cut him. He also had stints on Matt’s and my roster. November 8th preempted week ten, which is when Reed began scoring a touchdown almost every week. That stretch run included seven touchdowns, and most importantly, two in the championship game. Those two touchdowns were the nail in the coffin for me and the punctuation on what, in context, is probably the waiver pickup of the year.

Another congrats to Ryan. He did it in the playoffs, and powered through an injury to his first round pick en route to glory. Most fantasy teams are completely dead the moment their first round pick, especially a running back, gets hurt. Ryan flipped the script. Ryan also brought us some of our favorite characters we’ve seen in a while like Shid Shaheed, ‘Chaad White, and every Denver Bronco running back you can think of. Ryan is now enshrined in the exclusive club of Gackus winners, which can never be taken away.

As for my team, here are the tears that you all came for. I will try to keep it brief:

I started to type out why I think this season went wrong (mostly blaming the Chargers), but in reality, I wasn’t even supposed to be anywhere near this good. The only reason I was even close to a title was because of Kyren Williams. Winning that free agent bid by a dollar saved my season. Had I cut one more player week one, I would’ve won the Puka Nacua sweepstakes too. There’s the championship right there.

As a strong proponent of removing defense and keeping kickers, it did make me laugh that I rode the Dolphins defense to the title game then got beat partially by a 32 point performance from Ryan’s special teams. This game wasn’t ever really close, with CeeDee scoring an untouched ninety two yard touchdown in the first quarter of the first game of the slate. It’s really hard to beat that. Kyren tried, and so did #MySteelers. But in the end, I came up short again.

So that puts a wrap on the season. To say I genuinely feel like it was a good season 48 hours removed from that defeat would be lying, but I know that it was a great season. I will continue to provide your weekly recaps next season, and we should have a decision on the Irish Dance songs soon. After I send this I am walking to the bank to deposit the cash from the league, then I will pay out everyone’s winnings. Until next year.