The 2023 Banter Awards!!

Introducing, the first annual Banter Awards!

I know I know, prestigious, right? Or lame, depends on who you ask. Gimme a break, figured the name wasn’t all that bad right?

This week’s newsletter we’re going to go short and sweet as I recover from vacation and the grind of the fantasy football season. We’ll be getting on a regular schedule soon don’t you worry, I just need a breather for a moment!

Several of you jumped on Discord and voted on who should win these awards, and others voted on Twitter. I’ll start off with one that was controversial (because the winner depended on where the poll was posted!)!

The 2023 Banter Awards!

First off, we have:

 Waiver Wire Add of the Year

And it goes to…. 🏆️ 🐏 Kyren Williams!

I sided with the loyal Discord group of Ballfield Banter on this one. It was unanimously Williams while on Twitter it was Puka Nacua by a wide margin! But since Banter die-hards lean Kyren, we’ll go with him here.

He led all running backs in opportunities per game with 23 and he had the sixth-best yards per carry among all running backs with more than 50 carries. Well done Kyren!

Secondly, and most prestigiously, is the:

Fantasy Football MVP

Goes to 🏆️ ⛏️ Christian McCaffrey!

I had to combine Twitter and Discord results, as we were in a dead heat in Discord between CeeDee Lamb and McCaffrey, but Twitter broke the stalemate.

Christian McCaffrey was on a different level this season. He led all running backs in fantasy points per game, scored 21 touchdowns, and had 508 more scrimmage yards than the next closest running back. He carried many teams to a title, myself included.

And for our third award the,

Fantasy Rookie of the Year

Will go to 🏆️ 🐏 Puka Nacua!

Puka had one of the best rookie wide receiver seasons of all time. Arguably the greatest rookie receiver season of all time, fantasy aside.

But this is a fantasy football newsletter, so fantasy is NOT on the side! There have only been two rookie receivers who have scored more than Puka in PPR formats; Randy Moss and Ja’Marr Chase. Purely due to touchdown production (Puka had 6, Chase had 13, and Moss caught 17). Pukachu holds the record for most receptions and receiving yards as a rookie, easily cementing his status as FRoY over guys like De’Von Achane and Sam LaPorta (LaPorta has a great case to be made btw!)

And now we take a downward side of things, an award no one wants to win:

Biggest Fantasy Disappointment

This one had another split depending on the site, so I’ll side with Discord and go with an honorable mention from Twitter. This year the award goes to:

🏆️ 💔 Tony Pollard…😭 

We had so many hopes and dreams for Pollard. And it started off great, he was the RB5 in Week 1. After that, he failed to crack inside the top 8 running backs in a given week for the rest of the season!! It’s kind of a “never meet your hero” situation huh? We finally got to see what Pollard would look like on his own and it fell flat.

Twitter’s honorable mention is Austin Ekeler.

Back to the positive side of things, next up is:

Fantasy Performance of the Year

This award was a Twitter special, and the winner hits close to home, its:

🏆️ 🐶 🟠 Amari Cooper!

Cooper put up a massive performance in the second week of the fantasy playoffs that knocked me out of championship contention in one league. I was the second-best team and had a great roster, but Cooper was not to be stopped!

He put up a massive 46 points against Houston, 24% of his total fantasy output on the season, and singlehandedly pushed many teams into the championship game! He faces Houston once again in the actual playoffs, I wonder if he can do it again?

Now for some fun and silly awards. How about this one?

That Helps No One Performance of the Year

This award is given to a player who had a big game, but nobody was starting them because why would you?

There were plenty to choose from. Aiden O’Connell against the Chargers in Week 15. Noah Brown coming off of an injury in Week 9 to have a huge game. Brandon Johnson’s two-touchdown performance in Week 2. But who took the cake?

🏆️ 🐦️ Tyler Allgeier!

His Week 1 game against Carolina stung. Bijan managers were all excited, be it you spent your first overall pick on him in a dynasty rookie draft or you used your first-round redraft pick, we were all ready to see Bijan take the NFL by storm. Look they gave the ball to Bij…nope Allgeier. It’s nothing personal, Allgeier is a fine back (who still holds the Falcons record for most rushing yards by a rookie RB) but we just didn’t see that one coming…at all.

Next up is:

Best Flipped Offseason Narrative

This award is for narratives where we all look back and say “I can’t believe that was a concern/thought I had before the season started” that got flipped around, for better or worse. Think about how we thought Dalvin Cook would hinder Breece Hall for a while. Or how Mike Evans and the other Bucs were going to suffer with Baker Mayfield. Or how we thought CJ Stroud had no weapons to throw to. Each of those things got turned on their head. Cook was cooked. Baker revived his career. And Nico Collins and Tank Dell broke out.

So, our Best Flipped Offseason Narrative award goes to….

🏆️ 🐆 Tank Bigsby will limit Travis Etienne!

Bigsby had a touchdown in his first game, then went silent. On the season, he had 50 total carries but managed a paltry 2.6 YPC. A majority of those carries came in a shutout win against Carolina, a blowout win against the Titans, and the first game of the year against Indy. Etienne went on to have nearly 1400 scrimmage yards on 251 carries, 53 receptions, and 12 touchdowns, finishing the year as the fantasy RB3.

Final Thoughts

That will do it for this edition of Ballfield Banter! I hope you liked this little bit of fun we had, if you did, share it with others! I’ll be back soon with more actionable fantasy content, but it’s nice to have a little fun and light-heartedness from time to time, don’t you think? Have a great week!