A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
The NFC playoffs begin in New Orleans as the Saints will host the Lions tonight. The two teams have already met up once this season, which came in Week 13. The Saints won 31-17, in a game that saw Drew Brees dominate the Lions’ defense. Matthew Stafford threw for 408 yards, but Drew Brees just outmatched the Lions.
It should be a shootout this time around, as both quarterbacks threw for over 5,000 yards this season.
The Detroit Lions were one of the feel-good stories of the 2011 NFL season nine weeks ago. Winners of their first five games, the Lions were marching towards what appeared to be an eventual playoff appearance.
Fast forward nine weeks and, while still in the playoff picture, the Lions’ roar has subsided to a meow as the team has gone 3-5 since its perfect start.
At 8-5, the Lions are now masters of their own playoff destiny. [Read more...]
Jon will have the overall Week 12 start/sit post ready to go for tomorrow morning, but with three games on Thanksgiving Thursday I thought it might be helpful to do a special start/sit column for those games.
So in this post I’ll do just that, providing analysis and recommendations for the key players you need to decide on before Turkey Day.
[Read more...]
Well, that was fast.
As soon as I opened up my big mouth and proclaimed that 2011 was going to be the most prolific fantasy year ever, scoring around the league plummets. No worries.
At least I had a great week on the predictions front, as I was right on nearly 80% of my picks.
As always, here is a quick look back at last week before we move on to week 7.
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Is 2011 going to be the highest scoring fantasy season of all time? All signs indicate that it could be. Last season, seven players finished the season with more than 270 points (ESPN Standard Scoring). After four weeks this season, a staggering 18 players were on pace to beat that mark…and nine of them were QBs.
Like I said at the beginning of the season, gone are the days of fantasy rule by the RBs. Of those 18 players, only 5 are RBs…simply a staggering thought to anyone living in 2006 or before.
Injuries!
Andre Johnson is gone. Ben Roethlisberger is banged up. Miles Austin is on the mend. Marques Colston is back, but when will he get on track?
With the bye weeks now here, the time has come when fantasy leagues are truly won and lost. If you drafted well, and got a little lucky, you should be near the top of the standings. But nobody can ever completely escape the injury bug. Managing your lineup properly when byes and injuries attack is what separates the good owners from the great ones.
So let’s look at the Week Five games and decide who to start and who to sit this week.
Week Three is over, and you are probably wondering one thing: How is a guy that’s giving such great advice 0-3 in his own fantasy league?
I wish I knew…injuries have just killed me…and I’ve lost each week by an average of 1.2 points. Just heartbreaking.
Some of you are probably in the same boat as me. Even if you aren’t, it’s the time in the fantasy football season when leagues are won and lost. Now is when we have to start making the tough calls.
My fantasy team is about as good as the Bears’ O-Line against the Saints. Yeah…0-2, baby. But that doesn’t mean we can’t turn it around!
Let’s take a look at the fantasy football-relevant injuries going into week 3, including Peyton Hillis, Tony Romo, and Beanie Wells.
[Editor's note: this was originally published on September 13th, but I'm bringing back to the front of the site for easy Sunday morning access.]
If there is one word of advice I could give you before week two of your fantasy league this year, it would be this: “Don’t overreact. Panic time doesn’t hit until week 4.”
Every player is due to have a bad week or two; and luckily for Jamaal Charles and Adrian Peterson owners, they already got one of theirs out of the way.
Does that mean that we should take nothing from week one? Of course not. It’s possibly time to drop Colts’ players not named Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark.
But don’t go scrambling for Cam Newton just yet.
After losing my Week 1 matchup for fantasy, I am ready to call it quits. Not sure I’m cut out for this.
The first week was full of hard-hitting action and high scores, and with that combination comes the injuries. Here’s your injury update to make sure your second week goes better than my first!
Week One is finally here. You have done all the research (you know, the usual: waiver wire picks…injury updates…comparing QBs to Michael Jackson songs…), you have gone through your draft, and most importantly, you have started talking smack to everyone in your league.
You only have one job left to do: start the right guys.
Nothing could be worse than having an awesome team…on your bench.
Each and every one of us has a fantasy sob story or two, and it’s almost a guarantee that one of them revolves around sitting the wrong guy.
So who are you going to start this week?
Well, it all comes down to this.
As I put the finishing touches on this week’s Start ‘em, Sit ‘em post, I currently lead my Week 13 opponent (Brian Bassett of The Jets Blog) 61.22-36.20 in the P&G-sponsored Blogger Fantasy Football League*.
Before you get too excited for me though, take a look at who he still has left to play: QB Mark Sanchez; RB Shonn Greene; WR Danny Woodhead; TE Dustin Keller; D/ST New York Jets. Basically, if those five players average five points a piece, I’m toast.
What will make a loss burn even more is that the team I needed to lose, PUNTE‘s squad, did in fact lose. A win and I am a single game out of the final playoff spot with one week to play. I’ll have a fighting chance. A loss and I’m done, just playing Week 14 for pride.
Needless to say, I will be watching the Monday night game with great intrigue, hoping for a miracle.
Update: I don’t know how the hell it happened, but I won! Still alive baby!
This post and all of our weekly Chicago Bears previews are made possible by Brouwer Brothers Steamatic of Chicago, which proudly provides restoration, cleaning, and construction services to Chicago, Naperville and the surrounding areas.
Chicago: 312 386-7688 – South Suburbs: 708 396-1444 – West Suburbs: 630 243-4387 – NW Indiana: 219 210-4254
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It seems like a year has passed since these two teams had their first game back in Week 1, which featured one of the most devastating ways a team can lose a game.
On Sunday, the Detroit Lions(2-9) will try to avenge that Week 1 loss and steal a home-field victory over the surging Chicago Bears(8-3).
A lot of people asked about Roddy White before last night’s game. He was limited in practice with a knee issue and listed as questionable.
I told everyone on Twitter (@FantasyMSF) and in the comment sections here at MSF Fantasy Sports that if he plays, you have to play him. With supreme talents like White, you play them if their team feels comfortable doing so.
And all Roddy White did was go out at put up 100+ yards and 2 TDs. Let that be a lesson as we delve into every fantasy-relevant Week 10 injury.
In other WR news, Sidney Rice is not even on the injury report!
