Fantasy Decision Desk: Boutte Or Not Boutte

Both to hold myself accountable and also create sort of a living record of where my fantasy teams were, I wanted to make a series where I explored the decisions I made and how stupid or smart they wound up being. I'll be profiling my two longest-running leagues. One of them is a keeper league with a lot of long-term ramifications. One of them is just a basic 10-team league.

Multileague

SAFE
Josh Allen
Trevor Lawrence
Matthew Stafford
Travis Hunter
Malik Nabers
Zay Flowers
Nick Chubb
Bucky Irving
Zack Charbonnet
Christian Kirk
Cardinals Defense

POTENTIAL CUTS
Dillon Gabriel
Jaylin Noel
Kyle Monangai

If you're wondering why Dillon Gabriel is (spoiler: was) on the roster at all, let me say that this is a short-term keeper league (kept players are kept for one year) and it's superflex. The NFL section of the draft this year had Cam Ward go No. 2 overall, and I felt like getting Matthew Stafford later in the draft was a major coup. This is a quarterback-heavy league in every sense of the word.

Reading the waiver wire columns this week left me a little cold on moves in this league, to be honest. The best running back available in my opinion was Kareem Hunt, and I have enough floor on my roster that I wasn't dying to go out and pick up Hunt. I passed on the tight end run of Harold Fannin Jr. and Juwan Johnson. I think Johnson's usage was specific to the Cardinals game plan. I could see Fannin becoming an interesting keeper choice next year, but the bar to clear at tight end is high for a keeper in my opinion. I preferred to just let Mark Andrews ruin my life again next week.

I wound up putting in my waiver dollars on Kayshou Boutte:

I don't know that the Patriots will throw this much all year, but I felt like he was the best option (Quentin Johnston second) as far as reliability given his route participation and snap count. I didn't wind up winning Boutte as I fell about a FAAB dollar short, but I didn't have great vibes on any of these players. I just thought Boutte had the best chance of any of these players to turn into something given how bad the Patriots run game looked in Week 1. Perhaps it's just going to have to be a pass-first offense solely because the line is that bad. I don't have a ton of belief that the Chargers will be a pass-first team this year just yet, but if they are, Johnston will probably be a great pickup for the team that got him. (Would have outbid me.)

Where I wound up instead was dropping Jaylin Noel for Calvin Austin. Austin has appeared to win the Steelers No. 2 receiver job in every sense of the word, and though I probably won't be starting him this week, I think he presented an interesting upside case and did a good job of embarrassing Brandon Stephens in Week 1.

Finally, I dropped Dillon Gabriel for Mac Jones. Every 49ers quarterback is a potential starter in superflex, and while I think Jones is bad, we would have said the same thing about Sam Darnold this time last year. I didn't think very hard about this.

More basic league:

SAFE
Jalen Hurts
Omarion Hampton
TreVeyon Henderson
Brian Thomas Jr.
George Pickens
Justin Jefferson
Emeka Egbuka
Rashee Rice
Jacory Croskey-Merritt
Nick Chubb
Tyler Warren
Cardinals Defense

POTENTIAL CUTS
Braelon Allen
Ollie Gordon
Chase McLaughlin

I hit on most of these picks to at least some extent, and ever since this league added bench spots a few years ago, I've felt I haven't ever had to make a hard decision.

I made one move here, dropping Gordon for Hollywood Brown. I don't like Hollywood Brown's game and I don't think he played especially well against the Chargers, but the role is too good to ignore. I passed on Keon Coleman for Brown, which I think in retrospect feels like a mistake to me, but I'm heartened that there's no way I would have won Coleman given the FAAB bid placed for him.