Fantasy Football Puzzles 2020 Week One

Fantasy Football Puzzles #1: Busted Bot

The first of our fantasy football puzzles concerns a bot you’re drafting with. It has a really weird rule for every player they pick. Here’s who they have, so far:

First Round: Saquon Barkley
Second Round: Robert Woods
Third Round: Kareem Hunt
Fourth Round: Leonard Fournette
Fifth Round: Will Fuller V

For round six, the bot is selecting a running back. Only one of the following fits the bot’s rule:

Tarik Cohen
Mark Ingram II
Kerryon Johnson
Ronald Jones II
Leonard Fournette
Phillip Lindsay
James White
Jordan Howard
Matt Breida
J.K. Dobbins
Zack Moss
Darrell Henderson Jr.
Duke Johnson
Tevin Coleman
Alexander Mattison
Latavius Murray
Tony Pollard
Chase Edmonds
Chris Thompson
Nyheim Hines

Whom will the bot pick?

Click here for the answer (3 points)

Fantasy Football Puzzles #2: A Tale of Two Managers

Team “Social Christiancing” is an eternal pessimist. Meanwhile, the manager of “Joe-vid Burrow-vid” is a starry-eyed optimist. Despite this difference, they have one thing in common: They are both unbelievably bad at fantasy football analysis.

They each start 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, and a TE. Here are their players:

Here are their takes on their lineup. Based on these statements, can you piece together who is starting which players?

Statement 1

SC: Exactly two of my players’ last names start with the same letter, I may have overloaded there.
JB: Exactly two of my players’ last names start with the same letter, gonna get so many points off of that stack!

Statement 2

SC: Exactly two of my players play for the same team. I wish I had diversified more.
JB: Exactly two of my players play for the same team, I’m going to get so many points when they do well!

Statement 3

SC: I have two players playing on Thursday, they’ll probably struggle.
JB: I have two players playing on Thursday, gonna get off to a great start!

Statement 4

SC: At least I don’t have Gronk, he’s going to score zero points this season.
JB: At least I have Gronk, best tight end in history, baby!

Statement 5

SC: Two of my wide receivers are playing games against division rivals, those can be unpredictable.
JB: Two of my receivers are not playing games against division rivals, so I’m gonna live forever!

Statement 6

SC: My QB is passing to one of my WRs, so if one flops the other does, too
JB: My QB is passing to one of my WRs, Rainbow Connection is my favorite song

Statement 7

SC: Both my running backs are playing at the same time, my team could be dead by noon.
JB: My running backs play at different times, gonna watch my team run up the score all day long!

Statement 8

SC: I have two AFC West players, a lot of duds going to happen in that division.
JB: I have two AFC West players, a lot of high scoring happens in that division.

Click here for the answer (5 points)

Fantasy Football Puzzles #3: A Lineup of Lineups

It was a dark and stormy Monday morning. The famous detective of the fantasy football puzzles department, You D. Reader, had been called to the scene of a brutal murder.

“Looks like he was killed somewhere in the last day, during the daytime,” said the forensics investigator, demonstrating a distinct inability to do his job in a believable way.

“He was part of a million-dollar fantasy football league,” the police chief interrupted quite rudely, “the managers spent every week perfecting their lineups and every weekend obsessively watching their fantasy players on TV. Basically, their love for fantasy football was fervent enough to kill for. I strongly suspect one of the other three members of the league. It was a four-team league for… uh, layout purposes.”

Sir Reader (for they had been knighted for their work with Scotland Yard in The Case of the Fantasy Football Championship Ring of Thieves) pulled up the past week’s fantasy lineups of the three suspects. They then copy-pasted them into this article in a stunning show disrespect for the fourth wall:

First Suspect:

Second Suspect:

Third Suspect:

After studying for several minutes, Reader looked up and declared, “based on these lineups, I know which suspect is your murderer.”

Who dun it?

Click here for the answer (5 points)

Fantasy Football Puzzles #4: Initial-literation

Of the top 150 fantasy players, 12 of them have the same first and last initial. Obviously J is the most common letter for this, with 5 players having both their names start with J (Josh Jacobs, Julio Jones, Justin Jefferson, Justin Jackson, Jerry Jeudy.)

There are two other pairs of players on that list that share the quirk of their first and last names starting with the same letter. Name these four players.

Click here for the answers (1 point each)

Fantasy Football Puzzles #5: What’s in a Name?

For the same group of players, there are three that can spell their team nickname (like Texans, Chiefs, etc) using letters in their own names. Name ’em.

Click here for the answers (1 point each)

Ranking

Total up your points and use this rankings chart to determine how well you did. Challenge your league managers to beat your score.

Spot any discrepancies in the solutions? Come on into our Discord and share!

If this has you hankerin’ for some fantasy sports, try out Fan Duel! That link lets them know we sent you! It also gets you $5 bonus cash to play with if you make a deposit.

Then, follow Football Absurdity on Twitter!
After that, get free fantasy football advice by joining our Discord!

Finally, if you like what you read here, check out our podcast and our Patreon

[Photo Credit: https://pixy.org/478933/ under cc-2.0]