2018 in review
Standings & superlatives →KJ Beckett wins it from the five seed
The first season with per-player data is also the first season you can see exactly why someone won. KJ Beckett won because of Patrick Mahomes, who scored 398.3 points across fifteen starts in the year he threw fifty touchdowns, and because of one week from Derrick Henry.
That week was the quarterfinal. Henry went for 53.8 — the night he ran ninety-nine yards untouched against Jacksonville and finished with four touchdowns — and Beckett put 131.9 on Joe Hegarty, who scored 71.4. Saquon Barkley added 28.7 and the Bears defense 21. It was over by Thursday.
Beckett was the five seed at 9-4. He beat the one seed next, 92.9 to 88.1, on a week where Henry gave him 29.2 and Mahomes 17.9 and nothing else went right. Ricky Robinson had gone 10-3 and got 29 from DeAndre Hopkins and 24.9 from Marlon Mack and still lost by 4.8. Robinson finished third.
The final was the best game the league has had. Beckett 121.4, Harrison Dolgoff 117.9. Nobody on Beckett's roster scored thirty — Mahomes had 28.1, Robby Anderson 20, Henry 15.2 — but all nine starters scored, and the last three were worth 26.5 between them. Dolgoff got 28.5 from Russell Wilson, 18.6 from Doug Baldwin and 17.8 from Christian McCaffrey, then Tim Patrick gave him 3.7 and Kalen Ballage 4.9. Three and a half points.
Elsewhere: Drew Cakouros scored more than anyone in the league, 1,430.9, went 7-6, missed the six-team bracket and finished tenth. Brady Vrettas hung 175.1 on Michael Freking in week eleven, which is still the second-highest week anyone has posted. Roddy Tobin went 3-10 and gave up 1,404.6.
And Ben Catudal, the previous year's runner-up, went 7-6 and finished twelfth. He lost his last five games in a row, the last three by scores of 63, 55 and 57. There is no bracket that punishes you for that except the one he was in.