Fantasy Football: Was Matt Ryan the 2016 MVP of Fantasy?

Who was the MVP of Fantasy Football this past season? Matt Ryan shocked by dominating the QB position, but does he win or did a Packer steal the award?

Only one game remains in the NFL season. It just so happens to be the biggest game of all for real life and the worst game for fantasy football. With only the Super Bowl to be played, there is no building of a fantasy lineup or drafting a daily team, unless you are some sort of masochist who will draft Pro Bowlers.

With that, let’s delve back into the 2016 regular season and pick the fantasy football MVP this year. Does Matt Ryan deserve the award, or did a wide receiver or running back prove himself most valuable?

Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, discuss the fantasy football MVP in today’s NFL Sports Debate.

Todd Salem:

Quarterbacks always score the most points (in standard leagues), and Aaron Rodgers finished the season as the highest-scoring player. However, he is no one’s MVP. Rodgers was one of the top two or three quarterbacks selected this season, as he always is, and required a pick in one of the first three rounds to obtain. That isn’t what being most valuable is all about.

However, we don’t have to travel far for our first contender. Matt Ryan finished second in the NFL in fantasy points. For those with short memories, he was also highly disrespected entering the season, coming off the board outside the top 20 quarterbacks on average. A sprinkling of some of the other QBs who were drafted ahead of Ryan this year: Alex Smith, Andy Dalton, Blake Bortles, Brock Osweiler. Yeesh, fantasy football players don’t know anything.

At running back, LeGarrette Blount offered the best value of anyone at the position. Scoring 18 rushing touchdowns, Blount finished the year sixth at his position. Not bad for a guy who was being drafted outside the top 100 players, the 36th running back off the board.

Though Rodgers didn’t offer great value, he did help create value for a number of wide receivers, including our MVP nominee at the position, Davante Adams. Adams finished the year seventh in WR scoring. This, despite one of his teammates, Jordy Nelson, finishing ahead of him. There was a lot of production in Green Bay to go around. However, while many expected Nelson to return to his old form this year, no one expected Adams to break out like this. He was drafted outside the top 170 players on average, meaning he was completely undrafted in many standard leagues. He wasn’t even the first wide receiver named Davante to go off the board. That didn’t stop him from outperforming nearly all of the 60+ wide receivers taken ahead of him.

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Matt Ryan, LeGarrette Blount, and Davante Adams are your three fantasy football MVP nominees. Who is your 2016 award winner?

Dan Salem:

I’m proud to say that I ended the fantasy football season with two of our three MVP candidates on my roster. This did not prevent you from winning our league, but it has given me insight into who was truly most valuable. First I must confess that I did set a daily fantasy lineup consisting of players in the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl. It was weird and I’m not sure I liked combining the two games in this manner. How long will any player actually play in the Pro Bowl? Who knows? What I do know is that it was very difficult to select our Fantasy Football MVP.

I am giving the MVP award to Matt Ryan, but not without reservations. He should win the actual NFL MVP and far exceeded anyone’s fantasy expectations, except possibly my own. Ryan earned the award and was certainly the most valuable and most reliable player in my fantasy lineup this past season. He owned the quarterback position and his value was tremendous, considering how underrated he was entering the year. My reservations for handing him the award are two-fold. Quarterbacks are always more valuable than everyone else, but knowing this I still feel Ryan outplayed that bias. The ability to rely on him for fantasy points sealed his MVP.

I wanted to give the award to Adams, but I couldn’t. He came out of seemingly nowhere to have an incredible season and nearly dominate the wide receiver position. Yet my personal experience with him in my lineup lost him the MVP. It was difficult to rely on Adams to score a touchdown on a weekly basis. There was a four to six week period where he flip flopped from four points to 15 points every week. Adams would get 40 yards, then he’d put up 80 yards and a touchdown, followed by a mere 50 yards receiving. Accurate or not, I felt like I kept starting him on the wrong weeks and could never tell if he was due to get me ten points. That reliability hurt my team and cost him the award.

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Its both gratifying and odd to be giving Matt Ryan the fantasy MVP. We play in a keeper league and I held onto him after last season, paying an above average price to do so. I felt Ryan would bounce back after a bad year, regain his consistency and perform near the top of the league. I was right and I expected him to be valuable, so it wasn’t surprising when we was. Adams surprised everyone. Yet Matt Ryan still dominated more than even I could have hoped for and earns the Fantasy Football MVP.

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