There’s not a more cathartic league to be a part of than a WorstBall league. If you get frustrated watching a kicker missing a chip shot, seeing a quarterback throw a pick-six, or even just seeing a wide receiver plain drop a ball, be frustrated no more! Instead, join a WorstBall league, where those things are worth points, and find yourself celebrating the crappiest of play on the field. We want to see our running backs get tackled for a loss, our defenses bleeding points over and over, and our receivers watch pass after pass hit the ground instead of their hands. Finally, we have the opportunity to cheer instead of jeer as our players flat out stink.
For those of you familiar with the BestBall format, this is nothing like that. This is pretty much your standard H2H league, with weekly matchups and the team scoring the most points in the given matchup will get the win. It’s going to be all about finding that unique combination of really sucking at what you do, but also still getting regular playing time for whatever reason. Some of our top scorers from last year include QB Josh Rosen, whose 55% completion rate was 2nd-worst among all qualifying QBs and added 45 sacks and 14 interceptions in just 13 starts to boot, RB Adrian Peterson, who was stuffed behind the line a league-high 42 times for 82 yards lost, and the Cincinnati Bengals DST, which finished in the top 3 in points allowed, yards allowed, and percentage of drives that ended in a score. These were our best players, and we’re hoping to see more of this “production” on our teams this year.
We decided to keep the roster construction simple since the rest of the league would be anything but: 9-man rosters with 7 starting spots and 2 bench slots. One starter at each offensive position (QB, RB, WR, TE) plus a flex, as well as a kicker and a defense. With 8 teams in the league, that meant we would be rostering 72 players that we hope really just don’t perform whatsoever. Take a look below at our draft and let us know your initial thoughts!
The Worst NFL Teams
The teams with the most players drafted are probably going to be the worst teams this year, as we don’t figure them to be strong offenses, clearly. Here are the teams with the most players selected in WorstBall.
Indianapolis Colts (4 players drafted) – T.Y. Hilton, Jacoby Brissett, Marlon Mack, Eric Ebron
Tennessee Titans (4) – Derrick Henry, Corey Davis, Dion Lewis, Adam Humphries
Arizona Cardinals (5) – Kyler Murray, David Johnson, Michael Crabtree, Zane Gonzalez, Arizona DST
Miami Dolphins (5) – Kenyan Drake, Kalen Ballage, Josh Rosen, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Miami DST
Washington Redskins (7!!) – Dwayne Haskins Jr, Case Keenum, Adrian Peterson, Derrius Guice, Jordan Reed, Dustin Hopkins, Washington DST
The #1 Pick, Tevin Coleman
This draft could have gone any direction with the #1 pick, and ultimately it was San Francisco’s projected starting running back Tevin Coleman who made the cut. Team manager Collin Carlone, who is no stranger to WorstBall as he’s been a top contender in the Pitcher List version of the league, said that it was a decision that he put a lot of time and thought into. “He fits the profile of a 2-3 down RB, with a large financial commitment just given to him, so they will want to see to it that he gets an opportunity to prove that commitment was correct. This league values a 3-down RB with a bad offensive line and a lot of volume in their offense. San Francisco churned out a ton of points in this league format last year and made no real improvement to their line. They had multiple runners with elite production on a per-game basis last year, leading me to believe that this situation is very profitable in WorstBall.”
Whether Coleman ends up being the top pick remains to be seen, but I think the thought process behind the pick was sound. Some of the other first-round picks follow a similar guideline, with Kenyan Drake, Josh Jacobs, and the Tampa Bay running backs going early, all of whom fit the bill of a high usage runner behind a bad offensive line.
Handcuffs Galore
Quite a few teams made sure to get a handcuff for their top producers, but no one did so as blatantly as I did, taking the Buccaneer running backs back-to-back, and then the Dolphin quarterbacks back-to-back as well. I’m not sure who’s going to get the most starts or the most usage in these situations, but what I do know is that both Ronald Jones II and Peyton Barber, as well as Josh Rosen and Ryan Fitzpatrick, are completely set up to fail. The Buccaneers have an atrocious offensive line and did nothing to improve it, and Jones and Barber were completely unproductive behind this line last year. Not only did the Dolphins already have a terrible offensive line at the time of this draft, but it’s gotten worse with the trade of LT Laremy Tunsil, and the already bare cupboard of receiving threats got even emptier with the loss of Kenny Stills. I’ll be paying close attention to both teams before game-day each week to figure out who to start, but I know that regardless of who it is, they should fail spectacularly for me.
Defense Wins Championships
Well, bad defense wins championships anyway. None of the defenses we picked are owned in more than 6% of Yahoo leagues, but the team that took the crown for being considered the poorest of them all was the Oakland Raiders, as they were the first defense selected. Team manager Mike said it was pretty simple picking Oakland first. “They were garbage last year and the first half of their schedule is brutal.” He’s spot-on on both counts, the Raiders defense finished second overall in this format last season, features top offenses like the Chiefs, Packers, Texans, and Vikings. I wanted to grab the Buccaneers defense, as I believe they’ll have the worst unit this year especially taking into account opponent strength, as they face the three tough NFC South teams twice each, not to mention the Rams, Texans, and Seahawks. Alas, I was too slow, and snagged the Cardinals defense, who will be without Patrick Peterson for the first 6 games due to his suspension, and once he returns I may end up streaming defenses (which hopefully won’t be too difficult to pull off).
I’ve Got Your (Quarter)Back
Quarterbacks went early (then again, who knows how to draft for a WorstBall league), as most teams got their starter within the first three rounds. There seemed to be two types of quarterbacks picked, the old reliable who probably has job security (Eli Manning, Joe Flacco), and the young gun who is taking on a new challenge of running an NFL offense (Kyler Murray, Dwayne Haskins, kind of Jacoby Brissett). Our Eli owner stated he was looking for three things, mediocrity, consistency, and poor situation, all three of which led him to Eli as the top QB to take. The Murray owner said he felt that Murray has a stranglehold on the job with the draft capital spent on him and lack of backup options, and that a lot of negative plays are expected from a rookie quarterback getting his plays from a rookie play-caller, with a bad offensive line protecting him.
Favorite Picks
I asked each manager to tell me who their favorite pick was from their draft.
Collin Carlone – “My favorite pick was Kyler Murray. QB was the top-scoring position last year and I believe that Murray has the chance to be the Mike Trout of this league.”
Justin Paradis – “Case Keenum. They’ve got a bad offensive line and not great receiving options. Hopefully they don’t let Haskins play.”
Joshua Botelho – “Kalen Ballage, I am taking the shot that if Ballage gets the starting role in Miami, I expect him to get stuffed over and over again behind that awful offensive line.”
Stephen Dudas – “Allen Robinson. Trubisky had one of the highest rates of uncatchable throws last year. Robinson is the #1 WR on a team with an inaccurate QB.”
Mike P – “Eric Ebron. I don’t see him keeping his touchdown efficiency, and the downgrade in QB made that an easier decision for me as well.”
Kenny Hyttenhove – “Courtland Sutton. He had the most penalties on a per-game basis of any receiver last season, and he was also second in the league with 9 dropped passes.”
Donny Moskovits – “Jarvis Landry. He led the league in dropped passes with 11, and had a pathetic catch rate of just 54%.”
Let us know in the comments who your favorite picks were, and who you think has a winning team in WorstBall.
Featured image by Justin Paradis (@FreshMeatComm on Twitter)