Headhunters 5: Era of Ends

## Introduction

By decree of Glorio the Glorious, Tearer of ACLs, Hamperer of Hamstrings, Conquerer of Concussions, Crusher of Collarbones, and Hunter of Heads, you 18 mere mortals are hereby sentenced to death by a thousand start/sit decisions. Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair:

This year, many will enter and only one will survive. Whoever makes it to the very end will be spared by the just and noble Glorio, the Fantasy Gawd, and sent forth into the world to spread the message of his mercy.

In 2023, we have the most sorry lot of criminals Glorio's eyes have ever seen. Before we meet them, let's look back at the past four seasons of Headhunters history.

## Headhunters of Yore

There have been four seasons and four different champions in Headhunters, one of the toughest competitions you will ever encounter in the fantasy world.

### Headhunters: Season 1

* Criminals: 17
* Theme: None
* Champion: Al Snow's Fav Squad
* The Winning Strategy: Blitz had a strong draft and managed to hold on to his money until the bitter end. By the time it got down to the Big Three, Blitz had $53 vs. just $1 combined for the other two teams. He had enough to pick his perfect lineup.

### Headhunters: 2 Fast 2 Furious

* Criminals: 19
* Theme: Double Eliminations. Three weeks of double eliminations and a single week of non-eliminations, brought to you by the Wheel of Fate.
* Champion: Monty's Python (Formerly Mixon Beer with Liquor)
* The Winning Strategy: Whatever Al Snoq did, do the opposite. Monty came into championship week with just two dollars to his name, having spent big early and rostering a strong team that kept him towards the top for the entire year. Even though he didn't have waiver priority over his opponent, Last Coach Standing (What Hurts Moore), he had the foundation to withstand the onslaught.

### Headhunters 3: Edge of Extinction

* Criminals: 20
* Theme: Adapt or Die. The bottom two teams were allowed to team up and merge rosters, creating a dynamic in which certain managers purposefully tanked to combine strong rosters. The Wheel of Fate also returned. Commish got in a fight.
* Champion: Obi-Wan Mahomie (The Executioner)
* The Winning Strategy: Forget trying to win. Executioner was focused on one thing and that was survival. He lurked in the middle of the pack, building his roster slowly by bringing in cheaper guys that kept him afloat vs. swinging for the fences with huge names. By the time he was the last team standing, nobody knew what hit them.

### Headhunters 4: Superflex SZN

* Criminals: 16
* Theme: Rise of the Superflex. Adding the superflex spot made the competition for QBs more intense than ever. In addition, the Wheel of Fate granted one team immunity between weeks 3-8 and the lowest scoring team in week 10 survived but got docked 10% of their remaining FAAB.
* Champion: Hasta Laviska Baby
* The Winning Strategy: As the great Paul Rudd once said: do less. Hasta Laviska won both Headhunters and the League of Champions by doing virtually nothing. He finished the season with $34 left in his bank and made just 21 roster moves the entire year. For context, the team that finished in 11th place had 23 roster moves.

## Headhunters 5: Age of Ends

* Criminals: 18. Headhunters has never had the same number of teams in a season and that trend continues here. With 18 teams, we are back to single-elimination every week. No non-elim. No double-elim. No Wheel of Fate.
* Theme: Tight End Premium. With 18 teams, not everyone can have two QBs in the early weeks. But that's fine, because those teams had the option to stock up on tight ends. This season, tight end receptions are worth 2 points instead of the usual 1 for all other positions. This is a manually adjusted stat so your tight end points will adjust by the end of each day in which a game is played (late Sunday night/Monday morning for all Sunday action). Be patient with Commish, he is just one man.
* The Bounty
	+ 1st: $300 and an Immunity Idol for 2024
	+ 2nd: $75
	+ 3rd: $22 (money back)

### The Immunity Idol

As winner of the 2022 Headhunters championship, Hasta Laviska has an immunity idol for 2023. Here are the rules:

* **Use**: One Time Only
* **Expiration Date**: The immunity idol must be played by the end of week 12 or it becomes as useful to own as Trey Sermon.
* **Playing the Idol**: Must be played before the 4:25pm Eastern Sunday kickoff on any given week.
* **When Played**: If team finishes in an elimination position, next worst team gets eliminated instead. If that week is non-elimination, the idol is still neutralized.
* **Trading/Auctioning**: At any time, idol may be auctioned for FAAB money. You may also sell the idol or include idol in trades. All transactions of this nature must be made public and run through the Commish.

## 2023 Cast of Criminals

Let's meet the teams facing off in 2023 (sorted by draft order):

### Mike "Cruise Wolf" Wolfe (Obi-Wan Mahomie)

* Fandom: Patriots
* Fun Fact:

The Cruise Wolf is back and on the prowl for his second trophy after a disappointing 2022 campaign. Cruise Wolf actually went to storm the capitol on January 6th but when he got there he realized they weren't protesting the Yahoo Fantasy Football app so he left.

### Extra Tight Ends

* Fandom: Patriots

After a 5th placer in 2019, Keeling has failed to crack the top-10. It took every ounce of Keeling's being not to take George Pickens in the first round, and seeing him go to the villainous KVR had to hurt. We'll see if he can recover.

### Patrick "Ol' 50/50" McaTEERT (The Guilloteam)

* Fandom: Falcons

The man is convinced the Falcons are "sneaky good" and a person with that much confidence is a dangerous thing in a league like this. 50/50 is known for giant bids early and mid-season fizzle-outs as his bank account bleeds out.

### Matt "Coach Knows" Tebo (What Hurts Moore)

* Fandom: Packers

Coach knows early defeat and late defeat, finishing 2nd in his first season and 16th in his most recent. What Hurts Moore? Probably 2nd, right? You came so far. What Hurts the Most? Having to watch Rodgers in a Jets uniform.

### Zach "Ireland" Haskins (Al Snows Fav Squad)

* Fandom: Patriots

Zach is trying to get some good juju (so not Smith-Schuster) on his side by switching back to his old team name. the one that won him it all back in the day. He is also starting the season in Ireland, which doesn't bode well for him since historically managers that play overseas get the ax (Commish in 2022, Jared that random year he was in London for like six months).

### Commish (Henry VIII)

* Fandom: Patriots

After years of soaking in the undistilled juices of his own failures, Commish hopes to channel the powers of his fantasy overlord, Glorio, and survive long enough to be proud of himself for once in his life.

### Roger "Who?" Bacon (Muller Lite)

* Fandom: Jets

The man with the accent mark over the U that I'm too lazy to add in the writeups, Roger now has a full season under his belt after taking over a roster mid-stream during Edge of Extinction. To this day I still field many questions about Roger, like: Who is Roger? Who is he? Roger is..who? Maybe those questions will be answered this season. Stay tuned.

### Scotty "@FFDraftScott" Bourret (Never Done This Before)

* Fandom: Eagles

Don't let the name fool you: Scott has, in fact, done this before. The artist formerly known as "The Titanic" has sunken more than he has swam and finished worse each of the last three seasons, but if his destiny is anything like the Eagles he is bound for greatness in 2023 (except for week one when he somehow loses to the Patriots, weird).

### KVR (Bad Boys II - The Soundtrack)

* Fandom: Jets

The league's villain on par with Thanos minus all the success.

### Jethro "G" Glaudin (Jethro's Glorious Team)

* Fandom: Rams

A team that is so good he doesn't even need his own team name. The roster speaks for itself. So far, it is saying "Skyy Moore sucks" but anything can happen. After a brief one-season hiatus, G returns hoping to spark his greatest season yet.

### Derek "Derek" Derek (Monty's Python)

* Fandom: Patriots

The mysterious Derek, now with three children in tow, has a new erotic team name and is ready to get back to the mountaintop.

### Bob "Bobecue" Klein (Bobecue Chicken)

* Fandom: Giants

Bob was eliminated early last season and has had a whole year to think about what he's done. And with a full year to think about it, he jumped back into a superflex TE premium league and took...Cooper Kupp.

### Papa (Out of Luck)

* Fandom: Patriots

I think we can all agree Papa has not run out of luck yet, finishing top-five each of the last three seasons despite never being at the draft. This year he actually stayed up, which could mean trouble.

### Jared "The Fictitious King" Allen (Hasta Laviska Baby)

* Fandom: Patriots

Controversy surrounds his 2022 championship, as many players didn't play for Nate. Some are saying he has to win it again this year to prove he deserved it last season. I'm not saying that, but many others are. Many others.

### Andrew (Headless Horseman)

* Fandom: Raiders

Andrew, AKA "A friend of Scotty," joins the league for the first time in 2023. He is such a big Raiders fan that he named his dog Raider and he has two kids, both named Raider. Okay, I made the kid part up. A Yale man who isn't smart enough to stay away from Fantasy, Andrew is the year's biggest mystery. Will he be good? Or will he be like me?

### Joe "Cola" Colavincenzo (Jeff Probst' Tribe)

* Fandom: Packers

One of two new teams in season 5, Joe Cola is hoping to snuff some torches in his inaugural season. An Ohio native who wouldn't sink so low as to root for a professional Ohio team, Cola brings his Packers/Nuggets fandom to Headhunters along with a long history of fantasy experience.

### Nate "TBD Nickname" Follett (Tee Diggs my Chubb for Sure-Oh)

* Fandom: Football but it's Questionable

A Bailey Zappe truther, Nate has had so many disappointments that he's numb, like when you lean on your arm too long and it falls asleep. It may be too late to thaw out Nate's cold heart, but there is certainly still time for yet another hearbreaking elimination in 2023.

### Chris "Chunk" Pfeiler (deCaPitated)

* Fandom: Patriots

He may not be a champion, but he is the league's best scoring team of all time and he chose to pick last for the second year in a row. We'll see if that strategy can pay off again.

## Dead Money

This section keeps track of all the cash that never gets spent by teams that are eliminated. As of now everybody is still alive, with all the world ahead of us.

Dead Money 2022

## New Releases

Since we have no "new releases" this week, here are the top players on the waiver wire at each position.

1. Jamal Agnew (WR)
2. Kene Nwangwu (RB)
3. Darnell Washington (TE)
4. Clayton Tune (QB)
5. NO DEFENSES AVAILABLE

## 2022 Money Spent Per Week

Thanks to Nate having so much money left over to end the season, Jared was able to go gangbusters for the last week of shopping.

## Dungeon Dwellers

2022 teams that finished second-to-last, narrowly avoiding elimination:

## All-Time Combined Points Scored

Jared more than doubles his total score of the first three seasons with his historic fourth season performance.

## Conclusion

That's all I got for now. Better late than never! Enjoy and happy hunting!