The real football season may have been over for three weeks now - not to mention the fantasy season being over seven weeks - but that doesn't mean it's not too late to announce our yearly awards!

This year's awards were chosen by a committee of three: yours truly, Danny, and Air Bear.   Majority vote won.  Since this post could take a while and I know I'm going to lose patience soon, I'll jump right into it.


$167 Award - Greatest Overreaction

The candidates:
1. Jose - $101 Free Agent Money on Jerick McKinnon
2. Tim - $40 Free Agent Money on Teddy Bridgewater
3. Jeff - $70 Free Agent Money on Adrian Peterson
4. Dan - $103 Free Agent on Brandon Oliver
5. Arun - $63 on Tre Mason
6. Arun - Dropping Jeremy Hill, Tom Brady, and Lamar Miller
7. Arun - Trading away his team by Week 4

At first it was Dan that was going to win this dubious award.  Baron admitted that $103 for Oliver was considered "ridiculous" at the time, and could still be viewed as ridiculous to date.  I was convinced that Katarya dropping and trading away keepers was the biggest overreaction, especially considering how he traded Charles for Hyde and McKinnon when only one of those could actually turn out to be a keeper.  And we don't know if he'll even be decent.

Danny's vote originally went to Dan's decision to drop $103 on Oliver, but changed after he admitted that what Katarya had done to drop his team was over the top.  As he put it, 

"AK's later firesale was planning long term, but actually dropping those big name guys was a desperate move. So despite me enjoying the prospect of giving Dan a negative trophy, I'm switching my vote to Brown Town."

Winner: Arun - Dropping Jeremy Hill, Tom Brady, and Lamar Miller

Child Please Award - Best Write Up

The candidates:
1. Jose - Stat Writeups
2. Jose - League Q&As
3. Baron - Power Rankings

Not much debate to this one. Danny and Baron agreed that the league Q&As were original and refreshing, and put their votes into those. I enjoyed that they were new and introduced everyone's voice into the league, so this became a clean sweep. Winner: Jose - League Q&As

Brown Banner - Luckiest Owner The candidates:
1. Joe - Holding off Tim's super team the final two weeks of the season
2. Sean - Going 12-1 homie
3. Jose - Second fewest points, but still in the playoff hunt with three weeks to go

I'll let Danny's explanation tell all: I might be fine leaving it vacant for this year. Some of those things were kind of lucky, but none of them seemed too over the top. It would feel like a stretch/not in the spirit if the trophy's intent.

Winner: No one

FuBSA Award - Unluckiest Owner

The candidates: 1. Tim - Going all in, scoring in the Top 4, and missing the playoffs
2. Baron - Gio and Cobb trades and missing the playoffs.

There were only two candidates here for a reason. In what might have been the easiest decision amongst the three of us, the fact that Tim is now down $25 draft dollars means he's very handicapped for next year, even with Demarco Murray on a potentially good contract. Poor Tim, this is becoming his M.O. Winner: Tim - Going all in, scoring in the Top 4, and missing the playoffs Kevin Kolb Award - Worst Draft Pick

The candidates:
1. Tim - Adrian Peterson for $67
2. Jeff - Jimmy Graham for $60
3. Jose - Brandon Marshall for $53
4 Danny - Reggie Bush for $33
5. Jose - Bishop Sankey for $15
6. Baron - Montee Ball for $21
7. Baron - Wes Welker for $18
8. Danny - Zac Stacy for $27
9. Jose - Robert Griffin III for $12
10. Baron - Michael Crabtree for $15

There was a bit of debate surrounding this one as Danny couldn't make up his mind right away. He immediately ruled out Tim due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding AP. He suggest his pickup of Zac Stacy by comparing him to Reggie Bush (Bush's decline was injuries, Stacy's was general terribleness). I countered by saying that, if given the chance, we all would've spent decent money on some of the bigger names. So I ruled out the big names at the time like AP, Graham, Marshall, Ball, and Stacy. I mentioned that the spirit of the award is that exaggeration should be big enough to say "even at that time, I wouldn't have paid that much for that guy." I nominated myself for the Sankey pick.
To help clear up any potential tie, Baron laid it out clearly: I'd have to agree that Sankey is the winner for me because I literally said "who?" when you drafted him.

Winner: Jose - Bishop Sankey for $15

Jamaal Charles Award - Best Pickup The candidates:
1. Sean - Odell Beckham Jr for $33
2. Jose - Jeremy Hill for $12
3. Siems - Tom Brady for $11
4. Sean - Ahmad Bradshaw for $3
5. Danny - Justin Forsett for $30
6. Jose - Mark Ingram for $7
7. Dan - Brandon Oliver for $103

Surprised to Oliver on the list for best and most exaggerated pickup? You shouldn't. Sure Dan paid a lot, but BO also turned in some decent games for him. That being said, he didn't win. It came down both of Sean's pickups: ODB vs Bradshaw. Baron put his vote in by pointing out that he think a playoff team should earn the award, thereby eliminating every option except for Bradshaw, ODB, and Oliver. Of course, Dan dropped Oliver as the season went on, so he was scratched off quickly. My original vote went to ODB because he had the "biggest impact" of any pickup to date. However, as Baron pointed out, Sean never actually used ODB until the very, very end of the season. He already had Antonio Brown and Jordy Nelson as his WRs and Emmanuel Sanders as his flex. So he had no reason to play him. However, Ahmad Bradshaw was his starting RB2 from the time he picked him up until the time he was injured. And Bradshaw was putting up some serious numbers. Add in the fact that Sean only $3 on Bradshaw (which was half of what Joe spent on Shonn Greene), and it became pretty obvious what the best pickup of the year was. Winner: Sean - Ahmad Bradshaw for $3 It's at this point that it should be mentioned that the Ode of the Year was nixed as no one actually made a song for anything.  


So there you have it! This year's awards. We'll be back at it soon enough. Meanwhile, we're one month away from my first spreadsheet of 2015, so there's something we all can look forward to.