Stream Pies: Season Recap

Written by Starbonell on 27 December 2012.

Mason Crosby: Heavily drafted, rarely worth the price
Photo Credit: Mike Morbeck

At “Stream Pies,” we are serving up gooey loads of knowledge. Here, we’ll provide invaluable streaming advice on kickers and DEFs who are owned in less than 30-percent of Yahoo! leagues. We list the options in order of best to “least-best” option (with the strongest recommendations starting at the top). We also include last week’s suggestions and full season results. Points are based on default Yahoo! settings (with 0.5 points-per-reception).

The numbers are in, and our defensive recommendations would’ve ranked 11th overall in fantasy points-per-game among all defenses. While our kickers finished a disappointing 13th, they still helped pushed forth the theory that playing the waiver wire made more sense than sticking with your kicker all year.

More final results after the jump:

Team Defense (DEF) Recommendations

Week 16 Results (Points calculated with Yahoo! default settings)

Carolina Panthers: six points allowed, sack, INT = 10 points

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 28 points allowed, INT, fumble recovery = three points

Indianapolis Colts: 13 points allowed, sack, two INTs, fumble recovery, TD = 17 points

Season Totals

Average for top ranked DEF in Y! scoring: 14.47 points-per-game (CHI)

Average for “Stream Pies:” 8.91 points-per-recommendation

Final Thoughts

While highly-owned defenses like the Bears, Seahawks, 49ers, Texans, and Broncos all ended up finishing with a higher average throughout the season, teams like the 49ers and Texans shit the bed in the fantasy playoffs while our picks averaged a cool 10.2 points-per-recommendation between weeks 14-16. As for the regular season, our recommendations outpaced a number a fantasy defenses owned in more leagues such as the Packers, Falcons, Ravens, and Steelers. Keep in mind, that we started out atrocious this season (after three weeks, we averaged 5.8 points-per-recommendation), which just goes to show how well our picks played over the course of the second half of the year.

Kicker Recommendations

Week 16 Results (Points calculated with Yahoo! default settings)

Garrett Hartley: seven points

Kai Forbath: 11 points

Season Totals

Average for top ranked K in Y! scoring: 11 points-per-game (Stephen Gostkowski)

Average for “Stream Pies:” 8.83 points-per-recommendation

Final Thoughts

The goal was to finish the season in double-digits for our kickers, but while we didn’t reach that mark, we still proved streaming to be the way to go when starting kickers. Sebastian Janikowski and Mason Crosby were among the top kickers drafted this season in fantasy leagues, but neither failed to match our production. And when it came to crunch time in the last four weeks of the season, heavily leaned-on players like Matt Bryant and Lawrence Tynes shit the bed.

If you went with our picks week-in week-out, you averaged just under 18 points per week from your kicker/defense combo. If you are the type that likes to stick with the same kicker and DEF all season, go ahead and see how they performed. Were your regularly getting around 18 points a week from those spots? If so, nice job by you picking the right combo. If not, well, maybe next year you’ll take your stream game to the next level.

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