Fantasy Football Week 8: Going Insane Over Jay Ajayi and Aaron Rodgers

Is Fantasy football driving you insane? Jay Ajayi sets records from nowhere as Aaron Rodgers is mediocre at best. Stop the madness.

Fantasy football is just the worst. I know everyone with a bad beat says this every week, but 2016 fantasy football has been particularly frustrating and annoying. There seems to be no consistency or rhyme or reason left for the things that happen in this league.

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First you bet your season on Aaron Rodgers and he falls flat once again. Then you dump Jay Ajayi only to watch him set a rushing record over the last two weeks. Are you frustrated or reveling in the insanity as fantasy football Week 8 is here?

Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem discuss Fantasy Football Week 8 in today’s NFL Sports Debate.

Todd Salem:

Unpredictability makes for exciting NFL games (that make up for the fact that a lot of the action is ugly, ugly football), but it makes for bad fantasy football experiences. This doesn’t even include random mid-game injuries that destroy a week.

Take Jay Ajayi. He became the fourth player in the Super Bowl era to post back-to-back 200-yard rushing games, joining O.J. Simpson, Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams. This would have been silly, but fine if Ajayi had been the Miami Dolphins lead running back all season and just had a couple breakouts. But it was far less logical than even that.

Ajayi was a nonexistent part of the Miami offense for an entire month-plus. He was a healthy scratch in Week 1. When he got in the lineup, he did nothing the next four games. I had him in one league, drafting him in the later rounds as a flier who had a chance to start—or so I thought. Once Arian Foster got hurt, I expected the Ajayi breakout, but it never came. He was equally as worthless with or without Foster playing. There was just nothing there.

So when Week 6 came around and Foster was reportedly set to return, I dropped Ajayi with the reasoning that he possessed the lowest ceiling of any of the backs I had a choice over. There was no way he would ever be the number-one guy nor produce enough to warrant it. We know what happened since then.

In two week’s worth of production, Ajayi has equaled what first-round pick Todd Gurley has done for the entire season. He has dwarfed the production of another first-round pick, Eddie Lacy, who now is unlikely to play again until 2017. Add him to the list of first-round failures Adrian Peterson and Doug Martin.

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Aaron Rodgers is the 14th-ranked player at his own position. Cam Newton barely scrapes into the top 10 of quarterbacks. Marvin Jones has outscored Odell Beckham among wide receivers. Allen Robinson ranks below Brandon LaFell and Tyrell Williams. Fantasy is just the dumbest thing we do. It makes no sense. Why do we continue to punish ourselves with a game that makes no logical sense? Melvin Gordon and the aforementioned Ajayi were the top two scorers for Week 7. Davante Adams led all wide receivers. The Eagles defense was right up there as well, even though they faced the best team in football.

There are good times, like when I was down 25 going into Monday night’s game in Week 5 with just David Johnson left to play. But overall, I’m fed up—and I’m 6-1 in our league! I can’t imagine playing this and doing poorly. It’s torture even through the most successful of times.

Dan Salem:

Boo hoo, you’re practically undefeated and hating every minute of it. I’ve been having a grand old time on the wacky rollercoaster ride thus far. Entering fantasy football Week 8, I’ve blown several opponents out, as well as lost by less than two points on two separate occasions. I notched the highest scoring week with 166 points until someone topped me with 169. What’s not to like about the insanity?

Just as you feel terrible about jumping off the Jay Ajayi bandwagon too early, I feel incredibly fortunate for both jumping on the Ezekiel Elliott bandwagon in the preseason, while simultaneously getting shoved off the Aaron Rodgers bandwagon. I wanted Rodgers just slightly more than I wanted Elliott. He was far and away my top ranked quarterback, easily ahead of Tom Brady who was missing a few games and Cam Newton who seemed destined to at least slow down. But I failed to draft Rodgers and thank goodness. He is barely in the top half of quarterbacks.

Isn’t that what makes this game so much fun? You guess right on a player like Elliott, but swing and miss on a guy like Rodgers. You nab a complete sleeper off the waiver wire, only to watch him destroy his competition. Thank you Jacquizz Rodgers of the Buccaneers. Or you dump a guy like Ajayi because his team stinks and they are getting their presumed best runner back from injury. I notched zero points this week with Buffalo’s defense against Miami. They were cash money and facing a terrible team! No dice.

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You may choose to pull out your hair, but I choose to revel in the insanity. Nothing makes sense and no clear patterns ever truly develop. It’s why its so much fun. It’s why your keepers barely matter and anyone can win in any given season. Unlike fantasy baseball that requires some planning and actual knowledge of the league, playing fantasy football is all about hedging bets and guessing who will have a big day. Its gambling at its finest and I love it.