Drinking the Yaterade: Season 71 Predictions
by AST1N | 3 years ago | 0 Comments
First season of the cycle is in the books. For as much adversity we had to deal with with the scouting and restart, the season and draft were great times for the league. In my opinion, the draft/scouting isn't close to being perfect, but is a HUGE improvement over the old system. The only people who don't like it are the ones who want to pinpoint every single great player and not have surprises later on. We had busts, we had sleepers. It's what we like to see from a sim league. Picks between the 3rd and 7th rounds actually have value now! I am grateful we decided to wait.
Now on to the best part of the article, the Season 70 review:
I hate to sound like a broken record…
If you enjoyed heading over to the User Hub (essentially RZ Canton), enjoy it while it lasts. The league shifting to an 18-week (17-game) schedule will ruin it all. Throw in an extra game’s stats? Game over. While I don’t know if any of the cycle long records will be broken, I would be surprised if we don’t obliterate some of these records. Rushing and passing yards should be broken. TDs will probably go as well. I would imagine there are some untouchables (Bosa’s 50 sack season), but for the most part we are probably about to witness RZ history go down the drain. Prepare your emotions.
Good-bye single season rushing yards record! You will be missed.
Monty Python and the Holy Giants
Are the Giants a terrible team? Maybe? Am I buying stock in Danny Dimes? Absolutely. If you are a fan of Play Action Roll outs, I would suggest buying RZ Sunday Ticket and watching these Giants (Don’t illegally stream it!). The sad part about it all, is it actually works for him. Defenses need to respect Barkley and once they start playing the run, goodnight. They surprisingly have quality WRs that makes this system work. I don’t know about the defense, as that might be the Achilles heel of the team, but I would expect many high scoring, shootout games. The NFC E should be a very good division, so while I don’t expect him to win it, I think he still finishes over .500 and flirts with that Wild Card spot in the NFC.
Would ya look at that! He finished over .500, and he played in that WC game. The only slight knock I would give myself is saying the NFC E should be very good. Hopefully Tauph and Pat bounce back from down years and make this a true battle from top to bottom.
Three weeks
What do you mean, three weeks? Are we talking about 1 week longer than the average RZ Flavor of the Month game lasts? How long it takes us until the Scouting update drops? How long it will take until the Jets are eliminated from the playoffs?
No. This is how many weeks it will take before we start hearing some sort of complaint:
“This guy is cheesy because [X].”
“Sliders are broken and [X] needs fixed.”
“The [X] rule should be changed, I hate it.”
“This coordinator thing is dumb. I hate my playbook and I should be able to use what I want.”
Look, I don’t know what the first issue will be, but there always seems to be something. It’s like clockwork. I hope I am wrong.
I love, love, LOVE this call. You want to know why? Sorry…. I meant to say “You want to know Y?”
That’s right. In WEEK THREE, we decided enough is enough and we changed the rule on the Y button.
ITS. LIKE. CLOCKWORK.
Watching KC in 8K resolution
Every cycle for the past few years we have always worried about Kansas City’s high octane offense being too overpowered. Today is that day we dreaded. The 2011 New Orleans Saints have the NFL record 7,474 yards in a single season (16 games), and I am scared that KC is going to blow by that and have eyes on 8,000 yards. When you have the strongest arm and the fastest guys… that’s worrisome. This is me putting the league on notice now.
Maybe if John could quit cheating during the season and getting his guys suspended he would have had a chance. He was only like 2,000 yards short.
Colt .45 Locked and Loaded
There have been debates on who is winning the AFC South. Let me just shut all that down right now. This division is White Greg’s. As much as we want Andy to make a run, I just don’t think it’s his time. It is hard for me to say what Boggs will do in HOU with a rookie QB or Jim will do with that roster that went 1-15 last season. As long as Gregory doesn’t shoot himself in the foot (it’s okay, he has an open carry license, so it’s legal), he should have this division by at least 2 games.
Look, I took this L one day after posting the article. Let’s move on.
Season 70 Offensive Rookie of the Year – QB Trey Lance, San Francisco 49ers
We all want it to be close. There are a ton of big names gunning for the award. However, as long as Lance can keep himself out of 3 Pick Sit situations (big ask), he should run away with the award. We should see respectable numbers from some other skill positions (like Chase, Waddle, Pitts), QBs will always have that leg up in an award competition.
While Lance ended up throwing 3 INTs on four separate occasions, he still ended up having a solid season. Chase, Waddle, and Pitts also showed out in their rookie years and I would expect all of these guys to be stars in the league for a long time.
Season 70 Defensive Rookie of the Year – LB Jamin Davis, Washington [Insert Team Name Here]
Here are the facts. Defensive linemen are not showing out as much as they have in the past two cycles, especially those who are super highly rated (so basically no rookies). CBs are very volatile for stats and INT dependent. This leaves us with LBs and Safeties. It really comes down to do I trust Pat or Jake more at LB? And will Spittah play mostly user safety with Jevon Holland? All things considered, I lean towards Davis in WFT.
Good job, Field. You finally got one of these award predictions correct.
Season 70 Offensive Player of the Year – Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, wants to vote for Lamar and Adel. Unfortunately, the stats will be too definitive to be able to cast your vote elsewhere. We can all pray up to our Lord (or down to Satan, if that’s more your style) that Lamar gets hurt. That’s about as much as we can do. Adel is locking this and LFTP up with ease.
Lamar had a great season, especially in the ground game (913 yards and 7 TDs). If Derrick Henry doesn’t exist, I think we strongly look at Lamar as a serious candidate for the award.
Season 70 Defensive Player of the Year – MLB Devin White, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
I toyed with either White or fellow MLB Lavonte David winning this, but I speculate that Roc will be usering the speedier White and leaving the better LB in the hands of the AI. White will be able to cover more ground in the passing game and will likely end up picking off balls that QBs think have a chance to get to the receiver. With Shaq Barrett and JPP flying off the edges, opponents will need to make quick decisions, which RZ has shown that we are not very good at doing.
White didn’t have the worst season, he just didn’t show out like I had expected. While 2nd on his team in tackles, it appears he was more involved with stopping the QB than he was at defending passes (6 sacks vs. 2 INTs). Even more surprising was that Lavonte David was even worse on the stat sheet, finishing 6th on the team and tackles and pretty much no other relevant stats. Maybe we can just chalk this up to the Bucs defense being a team effort kind of thing.
Season 70 Most Valuable Player- Lamar
Mahomes, Brady, and Lance will get a couple of participation votes, but it should be Lamar by a landslide.
See above comments about the OPOY award and apply them here.
Season 70 Superbowl –
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 34, Kansas City Chiefs 51
The Chiefs finished up the regular season almost as an afterthought, snuck into the playoffs, and were 1 game from making it to the main event.
The Bucs finished up the regular season as an NFC powerhouse, coasted their way to the playoffs, and lost in the first round of the playoffs.
Moral of the story here: Once the playoffs start, anything can happen.
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Alright. Season 71. This is where I put some quirky comment and head to the predictions. Just pretend it’s here. It’s Friday and we have a lady in my office that enjoys going around saying it’s “Fri-yay” and I want to shoot myself in the forehead every time she says it, so bear with me here.
The Colts stunk before and they will continue to stink in the future
Alright, I’m going to be real with you. This is only here because they made me look stupid last season, so I just want to tell White Greg to eat a bag of dicks. And I am talking like Costco-sized bag. Just gobble them all up. I will never believe in you again.
The Throne
No, this isn’t about “King (or Queen)” John’s made up title. Or where Trent takes most of his snapchat pictures from. Wait a second, with “John” being interchangeable with “toilet”, is he the Toilet King??
GET IT TOGETHER, FIELD. THIS ISN’T ABOUT HIM!
Sorry, folks. Sometimes my thoughts take over and I can’t help myself. What I am really talking about is Eikim. Now who had “Eikim” as a topic on their Yaterade Bingo sheets? Now by this I mean Robo has taken over for ol’ Mikey. Great drafter, but pretty “meh” on the sticks. It’s a rookie mistake to overload one draft with great players, especially on a team that has a lot of work ahead of them. By the time the team starts coming together, that 3+1 is going to be hiding around the corner ready to punch you in the groin. If Robo can keep drafting like this every season then maybe it will work out in the end, but I still see the Jets finishing bottom 10 this season as well.
NFC East: From Least to Beast
Last season, many of us thought the NFC E was going to be a 4 man race, and it really fizzled to work out that way. I’m here to tell you now, IT’S FINALLY GOING TO HAPPEN. I think all 4 teams will end up 8-9 or better. The Eagles aren’t going to be tanking anymore, Pat started to figure things out late last season, and we already know about tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb fighting for the top spot.
Watch your back
Last season, the AFC North was Adel and Moji…………………… and then the other two. I think that gap may close a bit and I will be able to remove a few of those periods in the gap.
The Steelers had two giant holes heading into the cycle. No offensive line and terrible QB play. Both were upgraded in the off season, and Derek Carr is pretty dang good.
The Browns will get heat for trading away Baker, but let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not like Longville was blowing people away with him while he had him. He just needs to get Jaymiss to manage the game (big ask, I know), but putting two burners in Anthony Schwartz and Curtis Samuel to go along side of OBJ should help open the field for him to get to what he does best, pounding the ball with an elite HB and the best OL in the league. Oh, and have you heard of this Aaron Donald guy? He looks good on paper.
The Sewer
There are 3 divisions that are just going to be bad as a whole.
In order of worst to best: NFC North. AFC East. AFC South.
There was a point last season where the NFC North had all 4 of their teams around .500 or better. Don’t let that fool you. The North will always be the North in RedZone. I can see a lot of teams improving in the league, and if teams are getting better, there has to be teams who get worse.
Season 71 Offensive Rookie of the Year
WR Jarred Hatchett, New York Giants
You don’t give up two years worth of draft picks to give the ball to Kenny Golladay. Monty is going to feed Hatchett early and often, and you can’t blame him. He is a special talent. I like Peterman’s potential, but I think there will be growing pains with Tauph that will cause some inconsistencies in his play.
Season 71 Defensive Rookie of the Year
MLB Kordell Bayless, Los Angeles Rams
Another guy who is just physically gifted. With Ramsey shutting down one side of the field, teams will either look to the other side of the field or in the middle. Also, with Donald leaving, that will just open up more need for someone to step up, and Bayless will be that guy for the team.
Season 71 Offensive Player of the Year
QB Aaron Rodgers, Cincinnati Bengals
Bengals offense? Great.
Bengals defense? Ehhh….
I think Moji will rely on his offensive star power to keep him in games, which leads me to believe that Rodgers carries the team on his back like he is used to doing his whole career.
Season 71 Defensive Player of the Year
MLB Jamin Davis, Washington Football Team
Pick a 2nd year player to win this award? You betcha. Another freak athlete like Bayless who will be relied on to make plays. With guys locked up on the outside, you will be forced to test Davis in the middle, and I wish you good luck with that.
Season 71 Most Valuable Player
QB Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens
We are about to see a 4,200 pass yard, 1,000 rush yard play lining up at QB. If you don’t see that as ultimate value to a team, you might need to reassess what the award means.
Season 71 Super Bowl Prediction
Baltimore Ravens 38, Washington Football Team 20
If I am wrong about any predictions, please make it this one.