Pick two for me to start…
Jared Cook (TE - TEN)
Nate Burlseon (WR - DET)
Dominik Hixson (WR - NYG)
I would go with Hixson and Cook personally.
It depends on whether Nicks is playing or not, and whether it’s PPR. The problem is that the Giants play the late game, and you won’t know if Nicks is playing or not until after Burleson’s game starts.
As it is, I’d start Cook for sure tonight (I think the Titans will need to throw a lot). Then, if it’s PPR, I’d go with Burleson because he’s kinda a safety blanket for Stafford and they’re not playing the 49ers. But non-PPR, I might take a chance on Hixon and hope he hits his higher upside.
Pretty much everyone, one would think.
I can’t believe I don’t have RG3 in every league. I think it’s probably because I landed Rodgers in so many leagues - I didn’t feel the need to take high upside backups.
I’m enjoying the yahoo recaps this year. It’s often obvious and repetitive, but occasionally cool little nuggets like
And regular stuff like
PF PA HOME AWAY DIV STREAK
776 624 3-1-0 3-1-0 6-2-0 W1
770 634 3-0-0 3-2-0 6-2-0 W2
593 601 3-1-0 2-2-0 5-3-0 W1
596 630 3-2-0 1-1-1 4-3-1 T1
711 676 1-2-0 3-2-0 4-4-0 L1
630 659 1-3-0 3-1-0 4-4-0 W2
593 619 2-2-0 2-2-0 4-4-0 L1
592 663 2-1-0 2-3-0 4-4-0 L4
795 832 2-3-0 1-2-0 3-5-0 L2
654 660 2-2-0 1-3-0 3-5-0 W1
605 670 2-2-0 1-3-0 3-5-0 L1
618 665 1-3-1 0-3-0 1-6-1 T1
I’m presenting this without commentary. I suspect you’ll understand.
As a Trent Richardson, Darren McFadden, Percy Harvin, Jordy Nelson owner in my money league, I’m getting a tad bit upset with these bad weeks that happen when my guy leaves the game early due to injury. It’s starting to really piss me off in my other leagues too.
See, in the real NFL, they have these things called “backups”, where, if your star player goes down in the first quarter with an injury, you get to bring in the “backup” to play instead of him. These “backups” take the touches that your injured player would normally get, and, as a team, you’re not completely fucked when one player goes down (which happens all to often in the NFL).
But in fantasy football, which is supposed to let me be an imaginary GM, we don’t have the luxury of “backups” that we can put in a game in case of injury. And that’s starting to piss me off, because I will lose this week (unless Brees decides to throw for 4 touchdowns) because McFadden got injured early in the game and got me a whopping 1.7 points, Nelson got me nothing in the flex spot, and Harvin severely underperformed (although he was in there for the whole game, so I won’t count him). And this won’t be the first week this happens.
What I’m wondering is if there is a fair way to deal with this disparity between real and fantasy football. Just thinking aloud, perhaps having a designated “backup” spot from your roster at each position that will kick in if the player is injured for more than a half of play. So when McFadden goes down in the first quarter, I get his 1.7 points for the first half, but I get a “backup” for the second half (in my case it would have been LaRod Stevens Howling), and whatever points he scores in the second half are mine too.
Has anyone ever heard of this? Any websites that allow for this? Am I on the cutting edge of the next great development in fantasy football, or just a bitter man who has finally had enough of losing games due to early in game injuries when, in the real world, these things called “backups” exist?
What say you fantasy football gurus?
There are leagues where you can draft like “Green Bay Quarterback” to take care of this situation, although it’s very tricky with receivers, since they don’t have clear backups. I don’t think there’s anything like this on yahoo though.
Instead of drafting by team position (like Packer WR or Browns RB), I’m thinking you simply pick a guy off your roster at each position to be your “backup”. That way, you won’t have to deal with which receiver is the backup decisions, you simply pick a particular guy who you aren’t starting as your backup in case of injury.
Do you know anyone who can create a website and the database necessary to make this work, because I’d love to set it up and then sell it to ESPN in a couple years.
Playoffs! Every point counts. As my WR3 I have a choice between T.Y. Hilton and Kenny Britt. Britt is going against the Jets (Cromartie) which may be a tough match up, but he seems to be back in stride. Hilton has more big play potential and the game against Houston could be a shoot out. What do you think?
I really like Hilton, and I have trouble trusting Kenny Britt. I don’t know that Cromartie worries me as much as Brit himself worries me. When he’s on he’s great, but…my gut says go with Hilton.
I posted this in the Week 15 thread, but this thread is actually more appropriate so I’ll give it a shot here.
Hilton has a 61-yd TD so far. Glad I played him. However, James Jones has THREE TDs from my bench…
Ok, I won this week and am in the championship game. I have a few choices to make this coming week. Non-PPR league.
I need 3 WR from: Julio Jones; Mike Wallace; T.Y. Hilton; James Jones; and Kenny Britt. From that group, Britt is right out. So 3 of the rest. Surprisingly, James Jones leads that bunch with 12 TDs. They all have good match-ups this week: Detroit; Cincy; KC and Ten respectively. I have been going with Jones, Wallace and Hilton the last few weeks and have won 4 in a row, but James Jones is tempting…
Also, at QB I need to choose between Eli and Stafford. Both stunk this past week. Eli v. Baltimore; Stafford v. Atlanta. This decision is critical as my opponent has Brees.
Help a Doper out!
Oy. Stafford and Eli both stink, but I think Stafford has the potential to be great, I don’t think Eli has that anymore. So if you need upside go with Stafford. Neither is really all that safe and neither has a great matchup. As for the WRs, dance with who brung ya. James Jones has been surprising, but his production is almost all TD based I believe and that’s really hard to predict and there are so many talented WRs on that team. MAYBE you start him over Julio Jones, maybe. But Hilton and Wallace are locks.
So who did you start? James Jones was pretty excellent in a blowout, Britt and Jones were both solid starts with TDs, Hilton was a bust as was Walllace. Brees was huge as expected, and Stafford was slightly less shitty than Eli. Did you pull it out?
On a similar topic, I was also in my big-money FFL Championship Game today. I’ve posted looking for opinions in this thread a few times and had some tough choices again this week. Here’s a quick league recap:
In this very RB heavy league where RBs are roughly twice as valuable as WRs and you can start up to 3 with flexes, I’ve been juggling between the 4-some of Ridley, Gore, Peterson and Greene. In most weeks I started 3 of the 4 and Peterson and Ridley pretty much carried me. Gore was steady and Greene spent most of the season on the bench.
Those guys combined with Brady, Wayne, Demarius Thomas, Floyd and Bowe made up the balance of the offense and were good enough to lead me to the top scoring offense by a really wide margin. With some really bad luck, the highest points against by 150 points offsetting my scoring advantage, I was left battling for my playoff life.
I finished strong by winning my last 5 in a row and found myself in the title game. In week 12 I made what I think was a pretty savvy roster move, I dropped Greene to grab a still injured Murray off waivers. In that same week I grabbed the Chargers defense, dropping the Lions, knowing that in weeks 15 and 16 they had the Steelers and Jets on the schedule. At the time I expected Big Ben to still be hurting, but the Chargers paid off today. I also swapped Dawson for Bailey at K, this one didn’t really pay off but since transactions cost us $10 a piece in this league it wasn’t a trivial tweak.
Last night I watch my opponent get out to a nice lead with Julio Jones scoring 10 points, a princely sum for a WR in this league, and I’m feeling a little stressed. I make the executive decision to bench my workhorse Gore in favor of Murray against a recently surging Saints defense. Both teams have a surfeit of early game action and he gets out to a really strong start with Randall Cobb scoring almost immediately. Then Newton pulls out to a comfortable lead on Brady who has 2 INTs in the first half. Eventually his team goes cold and Ridley and Peterson start gaining steam. Neither finds the endzone, but each grind out enough yards to get to 10 points a piece. It’s neck and neck as the early games come to a close. Brady never gets going and Newton extends his lead with a 3rd TD. Doug Martin on my opponents team then finishes strong to match Peterson’s 10 points. As this action occurs the Chargers surge to 28 points on a special teams TD and a generally crappy Jets offense.
So, with the Cowboys down 14 and the rest of the early games over I’m ahead just 9 points. I’ve got the last 4 minutes of Murray and Bailey and Thomas to go in the afternoon game. My opponent has Forte, the Broncos D and what’s left of Witten’s game. Frankly it’s looking like I’m cooked since Forte alone would close that gap against a crappy Cards team.
Then all hell breaks loose in the Cowboys game. Murray gets a couple nice catches for a couple extra points and the Pokes tie it up getting me a couple extra PATs. My lead is now 12. OT starts and I’m excited about the possibility of Murray grinding out a drive and Bailey ending it with a FG. Of course the opposite occurs with Witten getting a couple catches and the Saints shutting the door. What briefly seemed like a godsend turned into a net -2 point swing. Fox cuts away to the Bears game and immediately a defensive TD and Forte TD run and it’s clear I’m cooked. The Bears are gonna grind this out and Forte will rack up plenty of garbage time yards.
Looking at my team I see that none of my RBs find the end zone, Brady has one of his worst games of the year and my TE posts a measly 1 point. Just not my week. Then Thomas get a TD and posts 7 yards in the first Quarter to tie me back up. Still, with Forte and the Broncos D on the other side it just wasn’t meant to be. Then the unthinkable, Forte goes down with a bad ankle and I’m up 3 points. If Cleveland can just score and not make any horrible mistakes on offense and Forte stays on the sideline I might luck out! Then Thomas posts another TD for 17 points! The clock clicks down, the Broncos D settles for 12 points and I walk away with a 3 point League Championship clinching victory.
I posted one of my lowest scores of the season and the first sub-100 point game of the last 5 games. My core players, Brady, Peterson and Ridley all have terrible games. But, the shrewd addition of the Chargers defense and a miracle performance from Thomas combined with a massive stroke of luck with Cobb and Forte each going down hurt in the middle of blowouts were enough. The football gods smiled on me today.
It was a good, and profitable, day!