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The NFL award season is upon us. Pro Bowl selections have been made. MVP talk is heating up with Allen/Jackson, and Sam Darnold is a shoe in for the "hey, you used to suck" comeback player award with Bryce Young as a sneaky dark horse.
But for fake football, there is only one award that matters. Troll of the Year. An award I made up a few years ago to healthily channel my self-destructive ire for Will Fuller at the request of a court ordered family psychiatrist. Just joking about the court ordered psychiatrist part, of course. It was mandated.
The idea for Troll of the Year is that this player leaves fantasy managers looking stupid when they play him and stupid when they didn't. It's the only thing worse than having a bust. At least with busts, you knew you had to play someone else at some point in the season. But with a true Troll, you don't. I remember like it was yesterday when Fuller went off for the most points of any receiver in like 2019 or whatever year it was. Then he would go on to drop three easy touchdown passes on over 100 yards in another week leaving me turning red yelling obscenities at anyone that would dare look me in the eyes (mostly my golden retriever at 11:59am). IFYKYK.
Then came Gabe. Just look at that 2023 performance from last year's viral tweet above. It's like Satan had been working on carving out the perfect troll fantasy player with Will Fuller and finally perfected his evil science with Gabe Davis. If you think he wasn't a craft of Lucifer then answer me why he left us all yelling GD in vain?
Let's start with some honorable mentions. First up is Carson Steele. The out of nowhere full back style running back who got his chance after the Pacheco injury. The 8.3 Week 3 wasn't so bad but for some 25% or so of leagues that played him in Week 4, it was a disaster. Worst RB performance of the year (-4) for those started in at least one percent of leagues. 
But that's not enough. You can't just be a dud. Steele needed to hit one or two boom games afterwards to even have some consideration. He turned out to be just another dart throw dud.
We move on.
What about Mr. Mayo himeself, Will Levis? If you ever found yourself starting him – even in a 2QB league – I hope someone in your life answered your clear call for help. No actually, Levis gave us some reason to call on him as a streamer for the Byemagedon Week 14 after four "not too terrible" weeks before. And that's when Will went Troll. 7.02 sad points.
The -4.44 hurt too seeing as how many managers clearly forgot to switch him out in Week 15. We at the Troll of the Year committee would have made him a serious candidate if he were to have gone off with some jaw dropping performance in Week 15 (IDK, like 20 points?). But I wouldn't exactly call this a miracle whipped effort.
Let's get the real contenders now…
Contender #1 – Every single Green Bay Receiver
Seriously, you never knew what was going on with any of these guys. Complete dart throws. All of them. Let's start with Jayden Reed.
33.1 out of Reed to start the season down in Brazil helped roughly 10 percent or so of league managers. A little spike to over 20 percent of leagues in Week 2 left those thinking they found cheese with a pitiful 6.6. 27 points in Week 4 was good for that week, but Reed was never able to duplicate that type of production. Fantasy managers were waiting and waiting for the rest of the season for it. And it never really came.
Then you have Romeo Doubs on a smaller scale troll effort. His troll campaign was fueled by his stellar Week 6 and 7 PPR performances.
And finally, Christian Watson. Not nearly as trusted an option as even the other two on his team, but .4 points in his most started game is worth tipping the cap to while scoring his second most points in his least started week (6).
To me, Watson is the strongest case so far. For all games in which he was started in more leagues than the prior week, he only scored more points in two (Weeks 9 and 14). Same idea for the inverse. Only two weeks in which he was started in fewer leagues than the week before did he score LESS points (Weeks 3 and 15).
That's some solid trolling Christian. Fair to say you should never trust a Christian when it comes to fantasy football. At least not in 2024.
The only thing keeping Christian Watson from taking this award running was the fact that he was pretty much a flex option for most teams. Even his most started week was in less than 30 percent of leagues. So you could deal probably with the headache.
Meanwhile…
Contender #2 – Jameson Williams
Jameson Williams is turning into an electric star and yet the fantasy community has no idea what to do with him. This performance is simply marvelous. Let's track the chronology.
Week 1 – 4.4% of leagues started this wild card meaning 95.6% of managers missed out on 24.4 points from the rising star
Week 2 – 14.4 point in PPR is solid, but with only 24% of his managers on board, many more finally saw enough to trust him for Week 3. All systems go!!
Week 3 – 1.2 points. Most started week of the season by a long shot.
Weeks 4-5 – No longer to be trusted, yeah sure why not, let's hit em with 16 and 17.7 points to make managers miss him
Week 7 – OK, we'll test the waters here with a spike in starting percentage – how about .6 points?
Week 10 and 11 – Huge drop in faith = a mediocre Week 10 before another breakout 21.7 Week 11
Weeks 12-16 – Here's what I love about these weeks. At this point, Jameson's work was done. He was all clear to just have solid if not great performances to close out the year because over 60% of his managers were damaged beyond repair at this point to ever trust him again. Remarkable performance.
But not Markable enough.
2024 TROLL OF THE YEAR WINNER!!! – MARK ANDREWS
This was a dead heat with Jameson Williams, but everyone take a bow to Mark Andrews. Just an asbsolute spectacle out of what everyone thought should be a top-3 tight end in fantasy.
Let's relitigate this absolute fantasy nightmare.
Week 1 – The Isaiah Likely game planted to seed. Mark was an absolute afterthought in the opening game of the NFL season in which we all saw him do next to nothing. To be honest, 3.4 points seems high based on my recollection.
Week 2 – Signs of life.
Week 3 – Signs of death.
Week 4 – Proof of death.
Back to back zero performances left managers panicking, leading to a 57% drop in leagues starting him from Week 1 to Week 5.
Week 5 – Signs of life. He's only… mostly dead.
Weeks 6-10. An absolute stud four out of the next five weeks, yet still left about half of leagues skeptical. But going into Week 11 after weeks 6-10 it sure seemed like whatever was ailing this fantasy stud was behind him.
Week 11 – 4.2 points. And with that, half his managers were out on him rest of season. No longer could this guy be trusted even in the most precarious, hard to predict position in fantasy. Well, except for kicker. Better try your luck with Cade Otton, David Njoku, Evan Engram or Jake Furgeson, who had higher start percentages in some of the weeks following.
Weeks 12 – 16 – WE'RE SO BACK BABY.
Well. Except in 60% of Andrews' lineups. But five double-digit fantasy points weeks to end the season for what should have been a 99% used tight end throughout the year is what makes Mark the winner of Troll of the Year for 2024. His four worst performances came in top-five starting weeks. Face it. He broke you. Maybe not to the level of Gabe Davis in 2023, but still a masterful effort from the man child.
Congrats to all contenstants. Everyone give a wellness text on the group chat to Mark Andrews owners. See you next year for fantasy football Troll of the Year.
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