2015 Season - Week 24

The 2015 version of Gang Green were the first team to win the Papas Fritas Trophy without a Franchise Player on their final roster since Wayne’s California Dreams back in 2008. Ron cut Le’Veon Bell on Trading Day 2 after he was put on IR by Pittsburgh. He had already cut his 2014/15 Franchise RB Zac Stacy during the 2014 season. That TD2 change was signing Bell’s Steeler replacement DeAngelo Williams, who went on to score 36 points in the final eight weeks (after Bell had scored just 18 in the first nine). But perhaps his most important trades came on TD1. He cut his third round draft pick, Lions Head Coach Jim Caldwell and replaced him with Panther Ron Rivera who won 11 out of 12 games for Ron and he also discarded disappointing 49er QB Colin Kaepernick (his fourth round selection) for the Raiders rising star Derek Carr. Finally he cut his sixth rounder WR Martavis Bryant for Gary Barnidge which was his one wrong move as Bryant outscored the Cleveland TE by 6 points the rest of the way. As reported at the start of the newsletter he was the most successful trader in 2015. His first two picks in the 2015 draft netted him two receivers at the opposite ends of their careers with first rounder (and possible retiree) Calvin Johnson outscoring rookie Amari Cooper 54 points to 36. His fifth round pick up Josh Brown was the fifth highest scorer of the year with 134 points while his supplemental pick at the end of the fifth round (for the cut franchised Stacy) Jonathan Stewart went on to score 42 points. Gang Green won with a real team effort with solid contributions from all. Trading Day – Is It Pointless? Last week you saw how you did on a weekly basis but could it have been so different. The analysis is in (and attached). Without Trading Day Ron would have come fourth rather than winning his first Premiership title. His replacements outscored his original draftees by 115 points mainly because Derek Carr outscored Colin Kaepernick by 61. At the bottom Craig would have been relegated but his three changes gave him a lift of 83 points (Rivers plus 53 over Romo being the big winner) and so he finished above the drop line. Daz on the other hand also worked hard on Trading Days but his six changes netted him no change in points and so he went down. His cut receivers went on to score 54 between them (Jordan Matthews scored 42 after being cut on TD1) while his replacements only scored 42 together. In the Conference no positions changed as a result of the trades but John Botten’s five trades on TD1 saw his weekly average go from 11.2 points per week to a more respectable 19.9 after. His pre TD1 form would have given him a season score of 190 points, the previous worst was 241, but his changes meant he scored 295 and so he avoided posting one of the top ten lowest scores of all-time.