2023

Season Story

Shartnado Drafted a Dud and Won It All on Waivers

The Hogs Bolt, the Champion Idles

Drunken Hogs opened 5-0, the league's only unbeaten through five weeks, riding a Christian McCaffrey roster to a 9-2 peak by Week 11. Prodigies and Keep Pounding held the early North and South leads behind them.

Shartnado, the eventual champion, looked like nothing for two months. It lost the opener to Keep Pounding 125.2 to 91.9, sat 1-2, and was still only 4-4 through eight games.

The South Side was a meat grinder. Four of its five teams finished .500 or better; only Bama Boy, at 1-14, was roadkill, and its lone win came Week 3 over Big Tex, 145.3 to 125.6.

The Wire Built a Champion

Shartnado claimed Puka Nacua off Week 1 waivers and never dropped him. Puerto Rican Pounders put in a claim for the same player that week and lost it; that failed slip is the whole season in one transaction log. Week 2 brought Kyren Williams and Nico Collins off the same wire; Week 8 added Trey McBride. Four league-relevant starters, all for free.

That haul turned a middling roster into a juggernaut down the stretch. Shartnado closed on a five-game win streak in Weeks 11 through 15, surviving 1-14 Bama Boy by 0.24, 113.64 to 113.40, then torching the Drunken Hogs 188.6 to 165.1.

The reward was the South Side crown, decided on total points over Keep Pounding, and the number 2 seed with a first-round bye.

The Deadline Market

The champion sold high and won anyway. In Week 10 Shartnado shipped Raheem Mostert, mid-way through an 18-touchdown season, plus Kareem Hunt to Puerto Rican for James Conner. Puerto Rican bought a contender's backfield and finished 5-10.

Prodigies made the year's worst swap. In Week 10 they sent the already Achilles-torn Kirk Cousins to Drunken Hogs for Deshaun Watson, who was days from his own season-ending shoulder. Two wrecked quarterbacks changing hands, and Watson's value never came back.

Big Tex flipped Mark Andrews to Prodigies in Week 4 for Darren Waller and a 2025 first-round pick; Andrews got hurt, Waller barely played and then retired, so the pick was the only keeper. In Week 12 Big Tex also sold Joshua Dobbs to Herbert at the peak of the Passtronaut craze, right before Minnesota benched him.

The Startup Draft, in Hindsight

Drunken Hogs owned the best pick in the room, Christian McCaffrey at 1.04, the overall fantasy RB1. Keep Pounding paired Patrick Mahomes at 1.05 with Tyreek Hill at 2.16. Jameis built a monster with CeeDee Lamb at 1.10 and Breece Hall at 2.11, and still missed the playoffs.

Shartnado spent 1.07 on Jonathan Taylor, a holdout-and-injury dud. The champion's first-round pick was a bust, and it did not matter.

Bama Boy held the cruelest sheet in the league: Jalen Hurts at 1.06, Davante Adams at 2.15, Trevor Lawrence at 3.26, and a 1-14 record to show for it. Prodigies lost Justin Jefferson (1.01) to a hamstring and Joe Burrow (3.21) to a wrist and still finished 11-4.

The Snub

The division format ate Jameis alive. At 8-7 the Crab Shack had a better record than three of the six playoff teams and still watched from home, stranded fourth in the loaded South. thompr backed in at 7-8 as the North's third and final seed.

The Drunken Hogs nearly threw it all away too. After starting 9-2 they lost three straight in Weeks 12 through 14, capped by a 174.9 to 107.5 mauling from Puerto Rican, and stumbled in as the 3 seed.

Jameis answered the snub in the consolation round with a season-high 197.2, the most points any team scored all year, wasted on a seventh-place game.

Two Byes, One Trophy

Both division champs held serve. Prodigies, the 1 seed, edged Keep Pounding 123.5 to 112.8. Shartnado, the 2 seed, buried Cinderella thompr 167.8 to 75.9, the most lopsided game of the season.

thompr still authored the run of the bracket. The 6 seed upset 3-seed Drunken Hogs 149.4 to 134.5 in Week 16, then beat Keep Pounding 100.3 to 95.3 for third place, a sub-.500 team finishing on the podium.

The final was chalk and a shootout. Shartnado 173.3, Prodigies 147.4, and the wire-built roster lifted the first GNG Dynasty title. The blueprint, waivers over the draft, would carry straight into 2024, when Shartnado would try to prove one banner was not a fluke.