Casey Irwin: Not one, not two … not three?

PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Two years. Two titles. With results like those, there’s no arguing that the Tiger Township Fantasy Football League is currently inhabiting in the Irwin Era, and no amount of finger-pointing or attempts at diminishment can erase that. It’s a fact; Casey Irwin is living the good life. Irwin’s championships — especially his most recent — don’t tell the entire tale of the last two seasons in the TTFFL, though. Rather, they’re just the mere end result. Early on, it appeared as if Irwin’s title defense would never get off the ground in 2017. But through grit, luck and “help," he toughed it out, conquering the highly competitive league once again. “Looking back on it, I honestly don’t know how that happened last year,” Irwin told Chibby’s Corner in an exclusive, lengthy interview. “It was my most complete work, turning a team of complete scrap metal into a championship-winning squad. It was a lot more challenging than the year before.” Irwin faced an 0-4 start to his 2017 campaign, largely due to a sickly looking lineup based on a horrid performance at the draft. In that first month of competition, he never scored more than 122.3 points. The good times were over. “I was absolutely not prepared,” Irwin said of his early struggles. “I was still celebrating, and I felt like (the 2017 TTFFL Draft) was the culmination of winning another championship. I didn’t want a championship hangover, but I don’t know if I necessarily believed that walking into Fort Lauderdale.” But the Kent State University graduate made it to Week 8 still feeling a pulse. And after trading away receiver Antonio Brown, one of the faces of Irwin’s franchise, he nearly dropped 200 points on Nick Sobevski, thanks in large part to his new toy, quarterback Deshaun Watson. It felt like a turnaround, just what the desperate Irwin was looking for. “Trading Antonio Brown, you never want to give anybody a player of that stature to add to their ball club, but it just had to happen,” Irwin said. “We had to break the team up.” From there, Irwin, who finished last in points allowed for the season, lost just once more the rest of the way. Despite losing Watson to a season-ending ACL injury, he polished up the regular season at 7-6, which included a Week 13, winner-take-all victory over Joe Mitchin. A new-look Irwin team ended Mitchin’s 14-year playoff streak in blowout fashion (203-115.1). Suddenly, Irwin looked like a force to be reckoned with come playoff time, and the TTFFL has no one to blame but itself for that. In Week 10, Louie Thomas traded Irwin running back Le’Veon Bell and tight end Delanie Walker in exchange for running back Le’Sean McCoy and others. If that wasn’t enough of a pogo stick for the former All-Federal League defensive back, he also acquired running back Todd Gurley from Cee Jay Julian just hours before the end of the regular season. Those two assets proved to be large in the postseason. Fifth-seeded Irwin took down No. 4 Andrew Castle in the quarterfinal, much of it to do with an injury sustained by NFL Rookie of the Year running back Alvin Kamara. A week later, he topped No. 1-seed Grant Seanor for the second consecutive season, scoring 217 points in the process. He added another 200-plus point performance over sixth-seeded Julian in the championship game. It became just one thing after another going Irwin’s way, and to say his gift-wrapped running back tandem didn’t alter league history forever would be simply foolish. Gurley, who scored 54 points on his old team in Week 16, averaged a miraculous 44.7 points per game in the postseason. Bell was no slouch, either, averaging over 32 points per game in that three-week timeframe. Really, Irwin’s season was defined by those trades. The way he sees it, the decision-making built upon itself down the stretch. “Obviously, the Bell deal sticks out from the crowd —that was a huge deal for me — but I point back to the (Antonio Brown) deal being the momentum changer,” Irwin explained. “Without that blowup performance from Deshaun Watson in Seattle and picking up JuJu (Smith-Schuster), I was one loss away from not making the playoffs before ever making that Bell trade. They were dominoes that fell, and then Gurley just put me over the top.” Irwin, who described the Gurley trade with Julian as “shocking," couldn’t be more proud of the way things worked out for his group last fall. He said it was the hardest he’s worked to build up a roster in his entire career, and rightfully so. Now the league’s only three-time champion, Irwin carries the weight of a title defense into a new season once again. And despite his embarrassment of riches of late, he’s still hungry. Irwin also appears to have learned his lesson. His preseason plan will look a lot different this time around in Las Vegas, noting his travel arrangements as a main factor. Instead of arriving less than 24 hours before the draft like he did in 2017, Irwin is headed to Sin City a little early to get his celebrating out of the way with plenty of time to spare. And he’ll do so with one thing in mind: respect. “The main thing that keeps me energized is just the noise I hear outside of my organization,” Irwin said. “It keeps you hungry and puts a chip on your shoulder when you hear people saying that I’ve been handed all three of my titles. … It helps me from a competitive perspective to stay hungry. It makes you think, ‘Maybe the TTFFL doesn’t respect me as much as they should, so let’s go win number four.’” Can Irwin find a way to do it again? Starting next week, together, the entire TTFFL will begin to find out. Editor’s Note: This story concludes the second installment of the ‘Chibby’s Corner’ series. A special thanks to all TTFFL members for taking the time to sit down with me, letting me pick your brain and discuss the year that it was; I truly cherish each and every phone call, more than any of you will ever know.