Now that the 2014 fantasy football season has come to an end it's time for America's Team to look back on what we did right, what we did wrong and how we must improve next season if we want to win the NFL Fantasy LIVE league championship in 2015.
First things first though. Let us begin by congratulating this season's league champion Matt "Money" Smith.
Victoire indeed.
Money eked out the win over Michael Fabiano in Week 16 by a margin of just 5.18 total points. If you've been following along all season you might remember that America's Team accepted a trade back in late October with Fabiano in which we gave up Peyton Manning in return for Russell Wilson and Demaryius Thomas.
Quite simply, this traded ended up resulting in Fabiano's demise as Manning posted just 12.44 fantasy points in Week 16 while Wilson and Thomas combined for 47.86 total points. That's right. If Fabiano didn't trade for Manning he would have been the league champion. That has to hurt. But enough pouring salt on Fabs' wounds. Let's take a look ahead.
In 2014 America's Team had the eighth overall pick and went with Peyton Manning in the first round and got Dez Bryant on the way back. This left us weak at the running back position. We went with Ryan Mathews in Round 3 and Reggie Bush in Round 4 (sigh) and even though we managed a few great waiver wire pickups in C.J. Anderson and Denard Robinson (he kept us above water for a couple of weeks) it was too little too late. Let's make a collective vow to never wait until the third round to take a running back again.
With more and more teams shifting to the running back by committee strategy and the wide receiver position seemingly deeper than ever, it will be increasingly important to lock in a top back like Le'Veon Bell, DeMarco Murray or Jamaal Charles early in the draft and then stock up on a few wideouts after. And after what happened this year with guys like Drew Brees and the late-season decline of Manning it's probably wise to wait on a quarterback. None of this taking a signal-caller in the first round garbage. Lesson learned.
It's been a great season America, so thank you for all the help along the way. We were so close to a playoff spot but it just wasn't in the cards this year. Make sure to check back next summer to help America's Team draft a championship caliber team to take down the experts of the NFL Fantasy LIVE league once again!