Now, with today being fantasy zone day on In The Zone, I find it appropriate to hand out some mid-season awards to those who have helped us and to throw shade at some of those that have hurt us:
·MVP: Cooper Kupp- 19th WR off the board according to average draft position. He’s the #1 WR in fantasy, he’s had 5 “game-winning” weeks according to my count, and his worst game was 11 ppr points. Pretty simple, if you drafted him, chances are you are one of the good teams in your league.
·Where were you when I needed you most: Brandon Aiyuk!The man kicked Kyle Shanahan’s puppy before the season or something. He was a strong 5th round pick and then comes out of the gate with zero targets…he’s now had 4 games with 3 or less targets. (double digits in his last 2 games so maybe he’s out of the dog house)
·Bi-polar award (hot and cold performances): Tyler Lockett- Top 20 fantasy WR. Never know what you are going to get. First 2 weeks 278 total receiving yards and 3 TD’s…then he went on a 5 week run of 7, 6, 10, 5, 3, and then 29 points against the Jags before the bye…good luck figuring that one out.
·Injury bug award: A lot of good candidates here but I have to give the nod to my boy CMC, 2 monster weeks to start the season, then he went down with a hamstring injury. Then he tried to come back, that went poorly, back on IR…and now he’s back again but the #1 overall pick has only given you 2 good weeks so far. (Saquan and Michael Thomas were options as well)
·Waiver wire pick-up of the year: Cordarrelle Patterson- We were not drafting Patterson, he bounced around the league for a few years, always had hype with nothing to show for it. Then in week 1 he rushes for 54 yards and some people became interested…some were smart enough to snag him then, but it was after week 2 that he was added everywhere. 68 total yards, 2 TD’s. 23 fantasy points and he’s been off to the races since then. Absolute must-start guy. League winner!
·Better late than never award: Leonard Fournette. Started the season as someone you begrudgingly had on your team, now he’s a week-in-week-out starter. 4 games of 15 or more points from week 4 on. Lenny matches Dalvin Cook in points per game.
·PP-ARTIST award: Jaylen Waddle. 56 catches, he’s 6th among WR’s. But 28th in receiving yards. So this guy is catching a ton of balls and going nowhere with them. But hey, catches count.
·Rookie of the Year: Ja’Mar Chase/Najee Harris split the award. Both are #3 on the season at their respective positions.
Photo: Getty Images