Welcome to our annual interview with the champion, Bryce the GM of Bruce Almightys. I’d like to offer a hearty congratulations to 2x father recently and now 2x BFFL champion. Safe to say you’ve been having an incredible year, Bryce. First off, I just want to ask what are your emotions like after winning a second championship and how does the experience compare to your first time?
Thank you Bali, it was kind of a funny joke I’ve told a few of the league members now, each year I’ve won I’ve had a child born right after lol. The second championship I think has a little more weight on it for me. Multiple titles is something not a lot of GMs have in our league and this one felt like it was a fight from the very beginning with how my team looked after draft.
Ring pops and jokes aside, last year you executed arguably the greatest trade in BFFL history. You took on a lot of risk by potentially trading away the #1 player in fantasy in Christian McCaffrey and a stud receiver in Drake London. Consistently you have proven to be one of the sharpest traders in the league and never afraid to trade away big names. Can you talk us through your thought process before and after the trade and comment on your overall philosophy on trading in fantasy football?
Prior to the trading my team was in a very tough spot as I kind of took the hero RB approach and really pretty much threw the rest of that position away at the draft, expecting CMC to just be “the guy”. Christian and I actually had some long conversations leading up to the finalization of that trade and both of us thought CMC would be a bell cow through potential playoff games for us. Looking back at the trade now it absolutely is the key reason as to how I even had a chance at playoffs let alone being the champion. It gave me arguably the best RB duo in the league and I believe I finished with 3 wr’s in the top 20 on top of that. In general I’m always trying to bolster up weak points in my team and am fairly consistently trading or working on talks with other GM’s. I think it’s an integral part of fantasy and in order to be successful sometimes you have to move guys you really didnt want to originally.
This year you drew the #15 overall pick and loaded up on skills positions, building good depth and waiting on quarterback. Can you talk about how you feel early about your team and who are some players you are high on as well as maybe a late round pick you are expecting a breakout season from?
My initial plan in this draft was to have 2 WR, 2 RB, and a QB by the end of round 5. Unfortunately, QBs just went way to quick for me to make that happen with where I valued guys at. I dont think I ever imagined where Amon Ra would make it to me at 15 and I really wanted BTJ this year so I had to pull the trigger on those 2 back to back. After the first week I definitely am sweating having dak but at the same time he didnt play bad, just not great for fantasy. I think he is going to be throwing a lot as Dallas’ Defense is terrible so I’m hoping to get surprise games from him. I think my surprise late round pick I’m expecting a lot from is Loveland, I think he may take over for Kmet at some point and I think Williams will need him.
Can you talk about your rivalry with the FFC South, what it means to be the only 2x champion in the division and who some of the biggest threats in the league overall are to your second championship defense?
I think the south has the best rivalry in the entire BFFL we talk on a daily basis and are constantly battling it out between the 4 of us. I’m obviously the king in the south at this point with 2 championships and the most recent 2 from the south as well. Casey always seems to be a threat in our league as his teams always seem to make it to playoffs no matter where he drafts. Besides that I feel like it’s whoever hits their hot streak heading into playoffs. I feel like each year there is a team that just hits a super hot streak or lucky streak that makes that playoff push.
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