For the quarter season mark, we'll take a look into how our keepers have fared over their first 4 games returning to their same team. A few have already paid dividends, while others have been dropped or injured, each leaving their mark on the team just 4 games in.
First, I'll list out each keeper, along with the round they were kept and their on-field position. I'm going to be using player names instead of team names this week, since (almost) all the teams changed names for the theme this year.
Cody: Anthony Richardson (QB - Round 9)
Cole: C.J. Stroud (QB - Round 12)
Nathan: Jordan Love (QB - Round 12)
Kidd: Puka Nacua (WR - Round 12)
Tyler: Tank Dell (WR - Round 12)
Greg: Garrett Wilson (WR - Round 11) [Kept twice]
Cameron: Michael Pittman Jr. (WR - Round 6)
Kevin: Jonathan Taylor (RB - Round 5)
Ryan: Michael Wilson (WR - Round 12)
Schott: Kyren Williams (RB - Round 12)
Munsch: Trey McBride (TE - Round 12)
Ellis: Jalen Hurts (QB - Round 4) [Kept twice]
So how have they all fared? Besides the running backs, really not well, especially for about half of these. That said, fantasy forecasters are optimistic for the most part that these players will pick the pace back up in the last 3/4 of the season.
First, I took a look at the raw points numbers. I didn't do math on PPG (points per game), unfortunately for players like Puka, but tried to include those figures anyway when analyzing. Along with the points, I'll list here the positional rank each player has by the points right now in the season, and after looking back at our draft, I compare that with where they would have been drafted (listed as Round-Position) based on that positional rank (ie. if their positional rank is TE8, I looked at when the 8th TE came off the board in our league). I'll also list the draft gain (or loss) compared to their drafted round above.
Cody: Anthony Richardson (58.8 points, QB18: Draft Equivalent 14-3, Draft Gain -5 Rounds)
Cole: C.J. Stroud (78.8 points, QB9: Draft Equivalent 8-5, Draft Gain 4 Rounds)
Nathan: Jordan Love (55.05 points, QB23: Draft Equivalent Undrafted, Draft Gain -4 Rounds)
Kidd: Puka Nacua (6.2 points, WR119: Draft Equivalent Undrafted, Draft Gain -4 Rounds)
Tyler: Tank Dell (17.9 points, WR76: Draft Equivalent Undrafted, Draft Gain -4 Rounds)
Greg: Garrett Wilson (33.6 points, WR42: Draft Equivalent 9-6, Draft Gain 2 Rounds)
Cameron: Michael Pittman Jr. (28.6 points, WR51: Draft Equivalent 11-4, Draft Gain -5 Rounds)
Kevin: Jonathan Taylor (69.6 points, RB6: Draft Equivalent 1-12, Draft Gain 4)
Ryan: Michael Wilson (24.8 points, WR61: Draft Equivalent 14-1, Draft Gain -2)
Schott: Kyren Williams (75.7 points, RB4: Draft Equivalent 1-8, Draft Gain 11)
Munsch: Trey McBride (25.2 points, TE8: Draft Equivalent 7-7, Draft Gain 5)
Ellis: Jalen Hurts (80.8 points, QB8: Draft Equivalent 8-2, Draft Gain -4)
Both running backs have been returning first round numbers, with Kyren Williams blowing everyone out of the water with an 11 round gain on keeper value. Despite many being taken for a 12th round, there were lots who still haven't returned value, and even some who wouldn't have made it into the draft board.
Looking at our draft for this, I see that we took a lot of WRs. So many that someone performing at WR 60+ still wasn't "undrafted" on this board, and so many that Garrett Wilson is still technically returning value at WR42. The breakdown of our draft for those insterested is this:
21 QB
63 WR
54 RB
18 TE
12 K
12 Def
No team picked up a backup kicker or defense (congrats on no auto drafts this year). Almost everyone got a backup QB, and half of us got two TEs. With 63 WRs picked up, we started running into WR6 territory, and stopped just short in RB5 territory. We were just short of averaging 2 WRs for every NFL team and not far off for RBs. That means almost every NFL backup running back was on a fantasy team, and with some NFL teams not supporting more than one WR, we were well into a few teams' WR3 and WR4 pools.
Back to our keepers, what are the real analysts saying ROS (rest of season) for this set of keepers? I'll list the ECR (expert consensus ranking) from Fantasy Pros, as well as a generalized comparison of what they've been doing (something like "high/low WR2") vs where their ECR is. This ROS ranking may help some, if not much for those lost to injury, like my poor Puka.
Cody: Anthony Richardson (Positional Rank QB18 -> ECR QB10, low QB2 -> low QB1)
Cole: C.J. Stroud (Positional Rank QB9 -> ECR QB6, low QB1 -> mid QB1)
Nathan: Jordan Love (Positional Rank QB23 -> ECR QB11, low QB2 -> low QB1)
Kidd: Puka Nacua (Positional Rank WR119 -> ECR WR42, waiver wire -> mid WR4)
Tyler: Tank Dell (Positional Rank WR76 -> ECR WR35, waiver wire -> low WR3)
Greg: Garrett Wilson (Positional Rank WR42 -> ECR WR8, high WR4 -> low WR1)
Cameron: Michael Pittman Jr. (Positional Rank WR51 -> ECR WR36, WR4 -> WR3)
Kevin: Jonathan Taylor (Positional Rank RB6 -> ECR RB4, mid RB1)
Ryan: Michael Wilson (Positional Rank WR61 -> ECR WR67, waiver wire)
Schott: Kyren Williams (Positional Rank RB4 -> ECR RB7, mid RB1)
Munsch: Trey McBride (Positional Rank TE8 -> ECR TE1, low TE1 -> TE1 overall)
Ellis: Jalen Hurts (Positional Rank QB8 -> ECR QB3, low QB1 -> high QB1)
Fantasy analysts still have some hope for a return to form, at least for some of these keepers. Despite a mediocre year last year and a poor start to the year even with Aaron Rodgers back, they still believe in Garrett Wilson, even when his own team had plenty of reservations keeping him. Puka Nacua makes an obvious big jump from being on IR to eventually being back, and his ROS will probably keep going up as he gets closer to return. Trey McBride did have one of the biggest draft gains as a keeper in our league, despite fairly lackluster numbers so far, and analysts expect him to really be worth his value by the end of the season still. The expectation for Jalen Hurts to regain top 3 QB status is probably fair, though Saquon Barkley is probably going to be competition for rushing TDs the rest of the season, so we'll see if that really happens.
The consensus pre-draft was that Michael Wilson wasn't worth drafting. The consensus now is that he's not worth rostering. And his points and positional rank line right up with consensus. Ryan still drafted him anyway, despite being given the green light to just not keep anyone, but has since dropped him, so all is right with the Michael Wilson keeper situation once again.
Finally, in the fomo section here, I wanted to take a quick look at my pre-draft script's predictions to see if any other possible keepers would have been a better idea in hindsight. I'm not going to go through all the numbers for all the possible variations, so the rest of this will just be on vibes:
Greg had the opportunity to keep Christian McCaffrey. It seems he avoided a big mistake there, but I'm sure Munsch would have appreciated it. Breece Hall was another top tier RB opportunity avoided, though that might have been a good choice too given his start to the season. (Lots of underwhelming Jets to keep on his lineup actually). At least he won't even have the option to keep and be disappointed again by Garrett.
Munsch could have kept CeeDee Lamb for his first pick. That might have been decent given the CMC pick, but Trey McBride still seems like a good keeper overall, especially since he's already paying off while technically underwhelming.
Kevin could have kept Sam LaPorta, and I really thought he might. It seems he avoided a disappointment there, while hauling in one of the best keeper values on the season.
Cole could have kept Ja'Marr Chase as his first rounder, but instead just redrafted him anyway. Out of the gate, it looked like Achane might have been the better keep, but as feared, he seems injury prone by game 4 here. CJ Stroud ultimately seems like the safer and better bet, and is paying off well so far.
Cameron didn't have much option at keeper in the first place. Pittman hasn't been a good value, but I'm not sure Goff would be either. Justin Jefferson seemed like he would have been the best option, but the injury nullifies that anyway.
Kidd already had a great keeper option before Puka came along early last season, with Pacheco continuing to be worthwhile as a keeper, probably even more so than the first time. He doesn't have to wonder "what if" though, since either seemingly great option ultimately meant IR.
Schott had one of the best keeper values going into the season, with my script listing Kyren Williams at +10 rounds of value. Currently he's paying off +11 rounds, sneaking into first round value after being listed at early second in the draft. There's no speculation to be had here. He definitely made the right choice.
Ellis entered the league with the second worst set of keepers, which makes sense since bad team handling is what led to the vacancy. Still, it's amazing that despite that, it was only second worst. With not much to choose from, Jalen Hurts was really the only option that would be back on the waiver wire at this point. Analysts think he can pick it back up, and he's really not doing terribly anyway.
Cody had Alvin Kamara as sort of a keeper (in my last iteration before the draft I included values of less than a full round). We wouldn't have known it then, and he could have drafted him at about the same value anyway, but in hindsight, that was apparently the play. If he had made that keep though over the 4 with more technical value at draft time, we would probably want to take him on a trip to Vegas for some craps.
Tyler picked Tank Dell, who despite being drafted for a 12th round is still underwhelming. If you account for the supposed +7 round value we expected of him, he's doing extra poorly. Not that Purdy is lighting things up, but getting a decent starting QB for a 12th would still be better than what Tank is giving.
Nathan took Jordan Love, who besides injury is doing fine enough. His only other option was Terry McLaurin, who I know personally has not been a value. Jordan Love still has ROS consensus to return value, especially for the 12th round he was paid.
Ryan had no possible keepers. He picked someone whose name I forget and I can't be bothered to scroll back up and find it. He's been dropped, as expected. Next time listen to your friends and don't keep just because everyone else is.
There's still plenty of season for these keepers to change fortunes. Maybe some will surprise us and suddenly bring back the value everyone's been expecting for years, or maybe some will end up turning out bad seasons despite a strong start. Either way, now is a fine time to start thinking about next year's keepers, especially since a lot of them come from the early season waiver wire.
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