A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
Injuries happen in all sports – especially football.
It would be awesome if we could develop a way to completely solve the problem, but we never will. Football is a violent sport, and when you have guys as big and as fast as NFL athletes, injuries will invariably follow.
However, every year, injuries DO occur that could be avoided – especially when guys like James Harrison are involved.
After watching the Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Cleveland Browns 14-3 on Thursday night, I noticed a familiar sight.
It was the battered Browns’ quarterback Colt McCoy, slumping his shoulders with a disappointed and depressed look on his face after yet another though loss.
Update: Our Week 10 start em, sit em advice is posted, and this week’s post includes an opportunity for one MSF reader to win free NFL tickets. Make sure you check it out after you finish going through the waiver pickups.
There are no teams on bye in Week 10, but don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security.
The Texans, Colts, Saints, and Steelers are all on bye in Week 11, which means a lot of fantasy firepower will be sitting on benches during one of the final weekends of playoff positioning.
Don’t get caught snoozing; take this opportunity not just to improve your lineup for Week 10 but also to plan ahead for any lineup vacancies impending next week.
The Cleveland Browns have started off this season a deceiving 3-4.
Their three wins have come against subpar teams including the Indianapolis Colts, Seattle Seahawks, and the Miami Dolphins. Those three teams combined are a miserable 2-20.
Granted, the Browns are under a new regime with rookie head coach Pat Shurmur at the helm. Not having an offensive coordinator has also put a lot of pressure on Shurmur week-in and week-out.
With a lockout-shortened, OTA-free offseason, plus a brand new offense, one should have seen the Browns’ offensive woes in 2011 coming.
[Read more...]
Compared to the last couple weeks, there were relatively few impactful injuries during Week Five. Couple that with the fact that a number of the teams on bye next week (Arizona, Denver, Kansas City, San Diego, Seattle, and Tennessee) aren’t exactly offensive juggernauts, and you might think there aren’t many worthy pickups on the waiver wire this week.
To a certain extent, you’re right. There are very few must-adds this week, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t guys out there who can help your team the rest of the way, possibly as soon as this week. (For more Week 6 analysis, here is this week’s Start/Sit column.)
As always, the players listed here are owned in fewer than 50% of Yahoo! leagues.
Letdowns and surprises have been the theme over the first two weeks of the season, but that’s just because it has only been two weeks. Now is when we see who the real fantasy stars are as outlier 33-point games from Chad Henne are brought back down to earth.
The Chiefs team as a whole gets a lot of attention this week due mainly to the injury of Jamaal Charles, which opens up some opportunities for other guys on that squad.
The game itself is changing with the way teams throw the ball. Yes running backs are still important but QBs and WRs are becoming the high scorers week in and week out. Don’t be late to the party.
The NFL season officially began on Thursday, which also meant the fantasy football season began as well. That might have been good or bad for your fantasy team, depending on whether or not you have Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees on your team.
If you are already losing in your fantasy league, make sure that you have the right players on your roster to counter your opponent.
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?
Sometimes things go as planned during the course of your draft. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes your guys make it through the season without suffering major injuries. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes your sleepers perform just as you planned. Sometimes they don’t.
When those things go wrong – and from time to time they will – you’ll turn to the waiver wire in your moment of need. And that’s why I’ll be here at the beginning of each week to highlight players owned in fewer than 50 percent of Yahoo leagues.
When Super Bowl XLVI arrives in Indianapolis come February 2012, it will be 19 years since one of the most iconic moments in the history of America’s most popular sporting event: Michael Jackson’s epic 1993 halftime show.
Unfortunately, the eternal King of Pop is no longer with us (he would have turned 53 just a few days ago on August 29th), and he thus he will never be able to follow in the footsteps of Bruce Springsteen, The Who, John Mellencamp, and others who have taken to the Super Bowl stage as older musicians, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t weave the musical brilliance of Michael Jackson into a post about the National Football League.
So enjoy this homage to my favorite musician of all time, Michael Jackson, as we kick off our coverage of the 2011 NFL season. Here are all 32 Week One starting QBs in the NFL…as Michael Jackson songs.
The Super Bowl is always filled with great stories. Some are tales of great competition while others are of awful halftime shows and fans not getting a seat after paying hundreds of dollars. Super Bowl XLV was no exception.
One of the more compelling stories of this year’s Super Bowl revolved around Charles Woodson, who – despite have to leave the game with an injury – finally achieved what he always wanted to achieve: become a Super Bowl champion.
We’ve done the Week 13 start em, sit em, the Week 13 rankings, and the Week 13 waiver wire sleeper picks. Now it’s time to turn our attention to the injured players, as we do every Friday.
When Adrian Peterson – the best and most consistent player in fantasy football over the last four years – gets injured, there is no bigger news in the fantasy football world. Thus, we’ll lead off with news about the man they call All Day.
Sadly, there isn’t a whole lot of new news to pin our Week 13 hopes on.
By Week 11, the bye weeks are over and the playoff picture is becoming clear in your league(s). You are either researching waiver wire sleepers because you a) need someone with upside to win a key Week 11 battle, or b) you are in the playoffs already and are looking down the road to guys who can help you win a championship.
So my goal with this week’s waiver wire sleeper column is to satisfy both searches.
Remember in the movie Men In Black how they had that little device that could wipe someone’s memory clean? After last week, I wouldn’t mind someone doing that to me.
Though I did a good job answering specific questions with all relevant lineup/league info (as I feel I usually do), Week 9 was certainly less than stellar with respect to the top-line picks.
While I nailed Eli Manning as a start and Seattle’s D as a sit…that was pretty much it. See below. The carnage was ugly.
But you know me. Bad weeks only motivate me more to dig deeper into the numbers and trends. I am committed to making Week 10 a much more accurate week over all…as much for your teams as for my own.
