Fantasy Football Week 14 Start em, Sit em Advice, Projections, and Lineup Q&A

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Week 14 is here.

For some of you, that means you have a team (or hopefully teams) on bye this week. If so, major kudos to you.

For others of you, Week 14 means that it’s the first week of the playoffs. If so, good luck, and hopefully the advice in this post will help you move on.

For others, Week 14 is the last week of your regular season. Maybe you’ve clinched a playoff spot or maybe you’re still scratching and clawing for one. Regardless, hopefully we can do you and your lineup some good with our picks in this week’s start em, sit em.

And for some of you this may be your first week without fantasy football – if your playoffs start this week and you did not make it; but if that’s the case, why would you be reading this?

Alas, if you’re here, you are looking for help in Week 14. And you’re in luck, because that is exactly what you’re about to get.

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Fantasy Football Week 13 Start em, Sit em Lineup Advice, Projections, and Roster Q&A

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I know what you’re thinking…

“I love the NFL, and I need my start/sit advice for Week 13, but I’m just SO pumped for the Big Ten Championship game this weekend that I can’t even think about it!”

You’re in luck!

Click here (or here for a work-friendly page) and comment, “I want tickets!!!!” in order to win FOUR free tickets to the Big game this weekend between Michigan St. and Wisconsin, courtesy of our friends at Verizon.

Seriously…that’s all you have to do.  What have you got to lose? We’re even going to save you time by helping you out with your start em, sit em questions in this post and in the comment section!

Now on to week 13.

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Fantasy Football Week 9 Stock Report: Blount, Flacco, more

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All the talk this year has mainly been of the struggles of Chris Johnson and Philip Rivers.  As painful as it is to watch, dwelling on the problems will set you back.

Six team byes have been scaled back down to four this week, so fewer players will be sitting out of your matchups, but it will still likely necessitate at least one or two touch decisions; decisions you shouldn’t take lightly, because while this may be the middle of the season for the players, our playoffs are right around the corner and crunch time is upon us.

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Fantasy Football Week 9 Start Em, Sit Em Advice & Projections

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Before we get to the Week 9 fantasy football start/sit advice, I want to add a couple more thoughts on my Tebow article from yesterday. (And don’t worry; I’ll analyze his fantasy prospects for Week 9 too.)

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Fantasy Football Week 7 Injury Updates: Reports on Peyton Hillis, Mike Wallace, Joseph Addai, Julio Jones, Antonio Gates, and more

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This has been a crazy week for injuries, but such is life as the season nears its midway point. Sometimes supposedly injured players practice, sometimes seemingly healthy players sit out, and then sometimes guys like Jimmy Graham gets placed on the injury report late in the week out of the blue. Let’s get started and see what this week’s key injuries look like heading into Sunday.

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Fantasy Football Week 6 Injury Report: Updates on BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Rashard Mendenhall, Daniel Thomas, and more

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We have lots of injury updates heading into week 6 of the NFL season, including the latest on running backs Rashard Mendenhall, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, and Daniel Thomas, so let’s get to it.

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Fantasy Football Week 5 Start Em, Sit Em: Start/Sit Picks, Player Projections, and Week 5 Lineup Advice

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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.

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Fantasy Football Week 2 Thanks and Shanks

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Welcome to yet another new feature, which I’ve decided to call “Thanks and Shanks”. The goal of this new weekly feature, to be published every Monday morning, is to make me, Jon, Andy, Zach, Drew, and anyone else who offers fantasy football advice here at MSF even more accountable for our recommendations than we already always try to be.

Here is how it will work: I will run down some of the recommendations I gave leading into the previous Sunday that worked as well as some that didn’t; then, more importantly, the comment section will then be yours to dole out “thanks” to any MSF writer who gave you a good recommendation or to call out a “shank” of a recommendation that hurt your team that week.

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Fantasy Football Podcast for Week 2: Start/Sit Questions on Blount, Tolbert, Green-Ellis, Plaxico, and many more

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I answer a host of reader start/sit questions in the Week 2 Fantasy Football Podcast. Among the names discussed: Mike Tolbert, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Plaxico Burress, LeGarrette Blount, and many more.

I also takes a look at ESPN’s rankings and picks out a few guys at each position that he agrees with and disagrees with.

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Fantasy Football Week 1 Start Em, Sit Em Lineup Advice, Player Projections, and Roster Q&A

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Week One is finally here. You have done all the research (you know, the usual: waiver wire picksinjury updatescomparing 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?

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Fantasy Football Running Back Rankings: Don’t Be Lured By Sleepers In 2011

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Everyone loves to draft a guy that he thinks is a sleeper.  Why?  Because it’s our way of proving to everyone else that, “Yes, I know more than you.” Beyond that, it’s simply quite fun to draft a guy that surprises everybody else.

Like I said before, it’s not that fun to draft Ichiro.  You know exactly what you’re getting.  (Or at least you used to know, before this season.) On the flip side, thinking about Jason Heyward’s upside gives us all visions of glory.

But when it comes to drafting running backs for your fantasy football team this year, save the “sleepers” for other positions.

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Fantasy Football Week 9 Start, Sit Picks and Projections

Last week I opened up the Start em, Sit em post by telling you about how was I was off to a strong 5-2 start in the P&G-sponsored Blogger Fantasy League*. With the stakes being two tickets to the Super Bowl, you can imagine how much focus I’ve put on doing well in this league.

This week, I must regretfully inform you that I lost in Week 8, falling to 5-3 with a 14 point loss. The worst part? A win was sitting on my bench.

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Fantasy Football Week 9 Sleepers and Waiver Wire Targets

In Week 9, we have a similar situation to Week 8. There are six teams on bye (listed below), which means that there will plenty of lineup gaps that you need to find worthy players to fill.

Last week I highlighted names like Matthew Stafford, Steve Johnson, Mike Williams, and the Kansas City D as solid sleeper targets. Who are the guys you should be targeting on waivers this week?

Solid options at QB, RB, WR, TE, and Defense are detailed below.

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NCAA Football 11 Review

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EA Sports recently released NCAA Football 11 and it has been getting great reviews.

The cover man for this year’s model is former Florida Gator Quarterback Tim Tebow (although I’ve heard that if you live in Oregon, you can swap the Tebow cover for Jeremiah Masoli’s mug shot).

In this post, I’ll take a quick look at the graphics, announcing, gameplay, and other features, and then I will render a final verdict on the game.

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I’ll Tell You This: The Meaning of Bradford’s Injury, ND’s Win, and Why the Jets and Lions are Making a Mistake

[Editor's note: This is the second installment of Big MB's weekly post entitled I'll Tell You This, in which he tells us all what in the sports world -- to quote the great Peter Griffin -- is grinding his gears. Enjoy...and stay tuned for an upcoming appearance by Big MB on the soon-to-be resume MSF podcast.]

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1. Sam Bradford

Sam BradfordThis past Saturday, Oklahoma was upset in new the Dallas Cowboys stadium by BYU. What’s worse is that last year’s Heisman Trophy winning quarterback, Sam Bradford, injured his throwing shoulder on his way to the ground. Sooner Nation stopped breathing for a moment, however with recent reports it seems that the Sooner’s Slinger will only miss 2-4 weeks.

I’ll Tell You This: For all of you skeptics of Mark Sanchez and other athletes coming to pro sports early, and for all of you haters of high schoolers jumping to NBA, this is the case against you. Bradford decided to stick around one more year when he could have been the #1 pick last year. What if this was a career ending injury? Even though it’s not at this point, what if it severely affects Bradford’s play?  Bradford would possibly never get to live his dream of playing pro football. And worse, what would be his future profession after dumping all of his time into becoming an A-level quarterback?

2. Saving Weis?

Charlie Weis and all of South Bend (and those who support the Irish) may breathe just a little easier after Notre Dame pitched a shutout against Nevada. Jimmy Clausen finally looked like the quarterback that he has been hyped to be, completing 15 of 18 passes for 315 yards and 4 touchdowns.

I’ll Tell You This: No coach in sports is under as much pressure as Charlie Weis is right now. Notre Dame MUST win, and look good in doing so. However, this was Nevada. It’s the first week of the season. The team that should have won did. Next week brings bitter rival the Big Blue of Michigan. Someone shoot Charlie a text and let him know his job is still on the line.

3. Al Davis Strikes Again

Once again, Bill Bellicheck is a genius and Al Davis is a fool. This past weekend the New England Patriots traded DE Richard Seymour to the Oakland Raiders for a first round pick in 2011. Seymour is getting older and has seemingly started to lose a step, but is still an upgrade to a porous Raiders D-Line. However, the question remains: is he worth a first round pick?

I’ll Tell You This: There is not a soul on the earth that can honestly tell me that Al Davis made a good move, or ever will. Seymour is a “right now” type of guy, and Oakland is FAR from a “right now” type of team. There is no doubt that the Patriots will likely be picking top 5 in the 2011 draft, and that is something that no one in the entire NFL (save for New England) wants to see (and it’s possible that Al Davis won’t even live long enough to see). Al Davis needs to let go of this historic NFL franchise or they will never succeed. It’s definitely the black hole….a place where NFL players and winning go to die.

4. The Rookies

NFL rookies take the cake this year as both Matthew Stafford of the Detroit Lions and Mark Sanchez of the New York Jets will both get the starting nod at quarterback for their respective teams this season.

I’ll Tell You This: Although I think both guys are talented and will be good quarterbacks in the NFL, both teams are making mistakes starting them. Yes, some quarterbacks do well when thrown right into the mix (see Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts). However, in many cases it hurls what may have been a talented superstar into the cursed pool of the draft day flops (See Ryan Leaf, Joey Harrington, and David Carr). And some never can turn it around afterwards. Both teams have respectable veteran starters in Daunte Culpepper (Detroit) and Kellen Clemens (NY).  I can only hope for the sake of these two QB’s that they follow Peyton’s path to success and not Ryan Leaf’s path to America’s Funniest Home Videos.

5. The Knockout Heard Round the World

LeGarrette Blount held back from going into standsEveryone has seen it. Most of us saw it every hour for 48 straight hours on every sport program on television. And while for a fan of MMA like myself it was somewhat exciting to watch, America was once again taken aback by another sports thug when Oregon standout running back LeGarrette Blount sucker punched Boise State’s Byron Hout after Hout spouted a little trash talk to Blount. Blount made things worse by almost going Ron Artest-style on a couple fans on his way to the locker room. It took 4 or 5 police officers and building security to keep him from broaching the stands.

I’ll Tell You This: Although it is very sad to see a player throw away his career for lack of ability to keep his attitude in control, I do find it funny that the game started with both teams meeting at midfield for a handshake in light of “Good Sportmanship Week.” What I also find funny is that Blount ran his mouth ALL week before the game and then after getting held in check and to career lows, couldn’t take what he had been dishing out. The senior received a one year suspension, thus ending his college career. What will he do with his time off? Maybe he should give the Winnepeg Blue Bombers a call. He can hang out with Pacman Jones. They would make a cute couple. Canada can have him too.

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You can follow BigMB on Twitter by going to www.twitter.com/mylesb3269.