Your End of The World, 2012 Fantasy Superlatives

See Y'all!

     Well everybody, the end of the world is nigh. According to professional nut jobs and rabble rousers, the world will be ending tomorrow; on 12/21/12... Whoa, I just noticed 12/21/12 is made up of all the same numerals and dashes... gnarly... (wait, isn't it December 21st in Australia already? Somebody call up those Aussies and see what the deal is.)

     Anyway, hopefully your league planned ahead, and started your playoffs in week 13, otherwise the 2011 championship winner might be holding that title in perpetuity. Regardless of what you may or may not believe about the impending apocalypse, we at Flootball are not going to waste time doing our usual fantasy cheat sheet for week 16 until we wake up alive and hungover tomorrow afternoon. If things don't go well, and the entire world population is teleported through a worm hole made of rainbows and jagged dragon glass, we wish you all well. 
      Hopefully our new alien overlords on Nibiru will let us play fantasy sports in between shifts in the slave mines.
If not, here is a sentimental last look back at the 2012 season in this "End of the World As We Know It" Edition of Fantasy Superlatives:


1. Fantasy Rookie of the Year (Single season leagues)- Robert Griffin III- Rookie QB's like RGIII, Luck, and Wilson, (and Cam Newton before them), are shattering the "don't draft rookie QB's in fantasy football" mantra. Through 13 games running the hip "pistol offense",  RGIII has amassed 3,650 total yards, (2,902 passing & 748 rushing). Plus 24 total TD's. He's fast, smart, accurate, and has a beautiful smile. What else could you want in your fantasy rookie of the year? Barring any setbacks with his knee injury or a solar flare that toasts the earth, RGIII should continue to add to those monster totals this Sunday against a lackluster PHI defense.  Runners up: Russell Wilson, Trent Richardson  

2. Fantasy Rookie of the Year (Dynasty Leagues)- Russell Wilson- I can hear the RGIII fan boys making a collective "rabble rabble rabble" noise right now, but I don't care; It's the end of the world right? YES, I am aware that I just picked RGIII as rookie of the year, but this is a different category. This award goes to the best rookie in "Dynasty Leagues", and Rdubs is a better dynasty QB to own than RGIII, and I'll tell you why as long as you go spew your East Coast biases somewhere else (Flootball is east-coast btw). 

• Durability- Russell Wilson might be a shade taller than Tyrion Lannister, but he's STOUT. He knows how to break a big run, but more importantly, he knows how to avoid the big hit. He utilizes the slide effectively, gets out of bounds when he needs to, and has a stiff arm that would make the Heisman statue blush. Wilson knows how important he is to his team, and makes sure he doesn't get killed out there. RGIII on the other hand, has a much slighter build and gets consistently ROCKED when he takes off with the ball, (ala another great running QB of old named Mike Vick who has been unable to stay healthy his whole career). RGIII was forced to sit  just this past week due to a punishing leg twisting tackle put on him by Baltimore in week 13. If RGIII doesn't start avoiding those kinds of hits, expect him to be sitting out 2-3 games every year; not something you want out of your dynasty QB.
•  Progression- Not to say RGIII hasn't progressed as a QB as the year has gone on, but Wilson has proven at every level that he knows what it takes to hone his craft, (College Synopsis: he became NC State's 2nd best QB of all time, then transferred to Wisky, learned their playbook in a month, and went to the Rose Bowl). In the NFL, the numbers speak for themselves. In 5 of the last 7 games, Wilson has had a passer rating over 100, and totaled 14 Tds during that span. Compare that to the first 7 games of the year, where Rdubs had just 2 games with a passer rating over 100, to go with 8 tds and 6 ints.  Wilson is asked to do a lot more in Seattle's offense than RGIII is in Washington, and Wilson has taken the challenge and run with it. Seattle started him in a pro style offense, and then out of nowhere, they've mixed in some read option as well, and he's been reaping the benefits.  If Cthulhu doesn't destroy the world tomorrow  expect big things from Wilson next year, he's the real deal. 

*In sum, Wilson is going to be the healthier QB long term. He is going to play more games than RGIII. While his numbers are not as awe inspiring this year as RGIII, don't think for a minute he won't catch up to in his production. He will. For the aforementioned reasons, I find that Wilson is just more of a sure thing as dynasty league QB than RGIII. "Rabble Rabble" all you want. 

 Runners up: RGIII, Trent Richardson, Andrew Luck

Which Doomsday prophecy do you teach your kids?

3. Fantasy QB of the year- Peyton Manning- Its gotta be Manning. It's truly unbelievable how effective Manning has been after missing the entire 2011 season due to freakin neck surgeries. Manning has amassed over 4,000 yards and 31 tds in his comeback year with the Broncos. It was a tough race between he and Brady, (they have very similar numbers), but the difference was average draft position at the beginning of the year. Brady was a late 1st round/ 2nd round pick in most leagues, whereas Manning dropped to the 4th and 5th rounds due to his injury uncertainty. A lot of teams came away with a gem in the late rounds, and that fact tips the scales in Manning's favor. Oh yea, and he's probably gonna win the league MVP. That is unless the next guy on our list takes it out from under him....
Runner up: Tom Brady 

4. Fantasy RB of the year- Adrian Peterson- This pick is basically a shoe in. Peterson is just a true freak of nature. Less than 8 months after getting his knee shredded like a pork butt at Lexington BBQ, Peterson was back and better than ever. Literally. Like, he is about to break the all time single season record for total rushing yards literally. In addition, he has had MONSTER games in the fantasy playoffs thus far, and for that he gets an extra pat on the butt. Oh, and he might steal the MVP from Manning if he breaks the all time record. Runners up: NONE. 

By BenduKiwi, CC-BY-SA-3.0
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5. Fantasy WR of the year- MEGATRON- Calvin Johnson has the coolest damn nickname ever doesn't he? And you know you can't have a nickname like that and be a sucky football player. Like, you could have the nick name "speedy", or "Flash", and be sucky, because as long as you're considered "fast" nobody would make fun of you for your name. But a nick name like MEGA-TRON..... You've got to be bad-ass, or else all the kids will make fun of you and kick sand in your eyes. Nobody is kicking sand in Calvin's eyes this year, as he has almost 300 more yards receiving than any other wideout in the field (1,667 total), to go with 5 Tds.   Admittedly  the Tds are low; Brandon Marshal, who came in 2nd runner up on this list, has a whopping 10 TDs so far. However, the massive yardage, (he might break Jerry Rice's all time record), coupled with 106 receptions (ppr monster), gets MEGATRON the thumbs up here.
Runner up: Brandon Marshal

6. Fantasy TE of the year- Tony Gonzalez- Gonzalez, at age 60, or somewhere around there, is on his way to having his best season as a pro. He's collected 8 tds and 880 yards thus far this year, and had a great fantasy playoff game for owners last week against the Giants (6 rec 49 yrds and a Td). But let's be honest, if Rob Gronkowski had stayed healthy, he would have this category locked up. Gronk had 10 tds before going out with an injury a month ago. But T-Gon, the ageless man beast reaps the benefits of Gronk's demise here. I've been saying it for years, he and Mario Lopez have been hoarding the fruit of everlasting life somewhere. I heard it might be on David Copperfield's private island.... 
Runner up: Jason Witten, "Gronk"

And that's it folks.... if we happen to survive the microwave ray that will result from the alignment of the milky way galaxy with the galactic center, stop by tomorrow for your fantasy start'em cheat sheet for week 16.