Week 5 2019 : Early Season Review

Sorry I didn't write one of these last week

5 Weeks now in the books, let's spend a bit of time looking back at what has surprised us so far this season, and maybe some answered questions.

From our presason post, we can already answer a few of our questions:

• Are the Brows actually good now? Nope. I feel like we all should have seen this coming.
• Will the entire Cowboys offense hold out for better contracts? Nah. Zeke proved he knew what he was doing chilling in Cabo all summer and getting a huge contract, but Dak and Cooper are participating without similar shenanigans.
• Can Antonio Brown recover from his frostbitten feet (seriously?) He did. Of course he went on to call out his team publicly, get cut, sign with the patriots, get accused of assault, and then get cut again. But at least his feet are ok.

Game Changers

Which players through 5 weeks have pushed past their projected value to totally change the landscape of our league?

Quarterbacks

• Lamar Jackson(QB4): Rushing yards and  rushing TDs are so valuable for QBs in fantasy. We all knew Jackson could do that. It's his improved passing game that has shocked the league so far and made him an every week start.
• Dak Prescott (QB6): Are the cowboys still a run first team? With Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup at WR maybe not anymore. Dak is benefitting from a top end O-line and using the time to throw down field instead of dumping passes to his RBs this year.

Runningbacks

• Christian McCaffrey (RB1) : It seems strange to call McCaffrey a game changer when he as drafted top 3 overall, but through 5 weeks the gap between him and every other player at this position is so massive he has to be mentioned. He's 34 points ahead of Cook, and has almost twice as many points as Zeke on the season. He's the Panthers' entire offense and it's actually working.
• Dalvin Cook (RB2) : With the Vikings committing to a run first offense this season, Cook is finally becoming the player people hoped he could be. With 4 110+ yard games he's way overperforming his 2nd round draft stock.
• Austin Ekeler(RB3): While his performance can't be expected the rest of the season with Gordon back, Ekeler has been an insane value as a 7th round pick, a lot of that coming from his ridiculous 39 catches through 5 games.

I did just pick the top 3 RBs for this one, but I feel like that's because they've all had really interesting stories so far.

Wide Receivers

• Chris Godwin (WR1): Mike Evans who? There's a new #1 receiver in Tampa and he's the leagues leading WR. Bruce Arians took over this team in the offseason hoping to improve the offense by reworking things, and it looks like Godwin has been the primary beneficiary.
• Cooper Kupp (WR3): Some players recover from ACL tears, Kupp somehow got better as he did it. He's the clear top target in a high powered Rams offense and has a mind boggling 63 targets already.
• DJ Chark (WR5) : Gardner Minshew may be this season's meme player, but he's also Chark's new best friend. Chark has 5 TDs through 5 games after being completely undrafted in our league. Will that all change when Foles comes back from his injury?

Tight Ends and Defenses

• Mark Andrews (TE4) : Part of the upgrade in Lamar Jackon's passing game has been thanks to this breakout TE. He has slowed down a bit since his first 2 games, but he's getting a lot of looks from Jackson each week and is a constant big play/TD threat.
• Will Dissly (TE5): Russel Wilson is on fire this season, and Dissly is one of only 2 real pass catching options for the team. That has resulted in 4 big games in a row for this undrafted fantasy player.
• NE Defense: I wasn't even going to list defenses in this writeup, but how can you not talk about this defense? 24 sacks in 5 weeks, 5 fumbles, 11 INTs. Oh yeah, and they're actually scoring more TDs than they allow to other offenses. They're the #1 defense by a 40 point margin already, and a total cheatcode for fantasy football.

Tight ends are actually a very close position. The difference between the TE1 (Engram) and Dissley is only 7 points.

Survivor is Back

People from last season (so almost everyone ) will remember that week 5 is the beginning of my unofficial survivor standings. Lowest scoring team each week is eliminated, and maybe lets us have something to play for if we start out 1-4 or 0-5.

• Wampus Cats : 188.54 ⚔️
• Lucky Charms : 152.02
• zcub : 143.24
• BriasaurusRex : 142.84
• BurntOrangeMan : 141.80
• Sudowoodogang : 127.28
• cfisher1991 : 114.04
• lilmoonee : 112.76
• GrandPooba : 106.82
• Country Roads, Take Mahomes : 83.04💀

An injury to Wayne Gallman, a pedestrian week for Pat Mahomes, and another awful outing for OJ Howard (non injury bust of the year?) killed barbw this week. Wampus Cats got big games from DJ Chark and Aaron Jones to get the week 1 kill (these are meaningless but I like to keep track).

Pickup(s) of the Week(s)

Week 4: Will Dissley: Lucky Charms. Outside of week 1, Dissley has 10 or more points every week and seems very involved in the Seattle offense. It's not easy finding consistently good TEs for free.

Week 5: This was a pretty slow week for waivers, I'm giving this one to .. Wampus Cats for picking up Golden Tate early now that I know he had a very good game vs the Patriots in his first week off his suspension. If he becomes Daniels' go to receiver he could have a ton of value this season.