Year One Report Card: What 1,054 Calls Taught Us
All season we did something most fantasy accounts won't: we graded our own start/sit calls against the real box scores, every week, and published the results. Seventeen weeks of it. By the end, the ledger held 1,054 calls.
The final tally: 64.5% landed on the right side in standard scoring, 68.1% in full PPR. Two out of three, give or take.
Context matters here, because those weren't easy calls. Every week we follow eight or nine of the big fantasy shows and podcasts. Not an episode here and there. All of them, everything they release that week, which in the thick of the season is a frankly ridiculous amount of audio. We sort out where they agree, where they're arguing, and bring you only the players where there's a genuine decision to make. Nobody needs a newsletter to tell them to start Christian McCaffrey. When an obvious name did appear on our list, it was a "duh, and here's why," usually because a position had gotten thin. So: two out of three, on the coin flips. We'll take those odds. Here's what a season of receipts taught us.
Trust the quarterback calls
Our QB starts were the most reliable thing on the sheet nearly every week. In Week 5 they went a perfect 7 for 7. Championship week, five of six cleared the highest bar, including Drake Maye throwing five touchdowns on 21 attempts. When we plant a flag on a quarterback, the flag has held.
We're better at benching than starting
The quiet superpower of year one was telling you who not to play. Our sit calls graded out sharper than our starts almost every single week, and the running back bench calls alone had multiple perfect weeks. Sometimes the most valuable call is the one that keeps a dud out of your lineup.
Targets are not points
Our worst habit was falling for the target hog. Week 8 our receiver starts went 4 for 19, a season low, mostly on players who saw plenty of volume and did nothing with it. Catches without touchdowns pay the bills in PPR and break hearts in standard leagues. We know that now.
About the tight ends
No position wrecked our calls in both directions like this one. One week the bench calls went a perfect 9 for 9. Another week, six straight tight end starts couldn't clear four points. We go into year two humbler at the position and suspicious of everyone.
Know your league settings
Dozens of calls flipped their grade entirely between standard and PPR. Same player, same game, different verdict. Before you take anyone's advice, including ours, check how your league scores a catch.
Two names we won't forget
Bo Nix burned our sit calls three separate times, once with a four-touchdown day we had specifically warned you off of. Ashton Jeanty exploded on our bench twice, for thirty-plus points each time. We've made a note.
The ones we'll be bragging about
The call of the year was Jonathan Taylor in Week 10: 46.6 points on 244 yards and three touchdowns, in Berlin. Josh Allen's six-touchdown day (42.7) was the single best game we called all season, and Jahmyr Gibbs gave us a 44-point overtime walk-off that had the group chat in shambles.
The whole ledger
374 of our calls missed. We counted every one and published them anyway, because if we're going to celebrate the hits, you deserve to see the whole ledger. That's the arrangement with Girls Who Draft: receipts, always.
Year two starts in August. Until then, the full week-by-week breakdown is here: every record, every best call, every miss.
xoxo, your commissionher