A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
This past weekend featured two highly anticipated quarterback matchups – Brady v Tebow and Manning v Rodgers – and a third that unexpectedly ended up being the most thrilling of the weekend – Brees v Smith. And as quarterbacks are wont to do after competing on the field of football battle, these duos all met at midfield after the game for quick makeout sessions in front of the leering press.
Wait…what?
The second set of games on Wild Card Weekend starts off with a great matchup, as the Atlanta Falcons are going on the road to face the New York Giants.
The Saints easily defeated the Lions yesterday, so the winner of this game is heading into Lambeau to take on the 15-1 Packers.
Well, at least the fun will last for a week.
If you paid any attention to professional football in December you know that 2011 was a historic year for quarterback productivity.
Here is a list of the many passing and receiving records that were broken or tied during the 2011 NFL season:
Postpone taking down that Christmas tree and cleaning up the mess left behind by relatives and enjoy your weekly dose of Monday Night Football.
Watch the New Orleans Saints (11-3) host the Atlanta Falcons (9-5) to wrap up the last of the Christmas weekend games, and hopefully the holiday lights will not surge all the electrical power from the Superdome like last week at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
I am skipping an introduction this week because I’m too mad at fantasy football.
In my league of 14 teams, I finished right in the middle of the pack in terms of points…but because I had the third most points scored on me, I missed the playoffs…by a lot.
I finished second to last.
Lame.
Sometimes, fantasy football goes that way. I will spare you my three heart-breaking losses of the year because, quite frankly, we all have them…and nobody else cares.
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.
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.)
How many teams would trade their current QB, right now, for Cam Newton?
This is a question I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past several weeks, as I continue to be more and more impressed (and surprised) by how well Cam Newton is transitioning to the NFL in his first season.
It looks like this is the week of the missing quarterback as owners have to deal with the bye weeks of Ryan Fitzpatrick, Tom Brady, Eli Manning and Michael Vick. This is a turning point of the season for a lot of teams and fantasy owners alike. Those who are 5-1 feel good, while the 1-5’s may have chalked the season up as a loss already, and those who are 3-3 are biting their nails like LeBron James. (I wonder how he would do as a fantasy tight-end…)
Staying on the topic of quarterbacks, this week we will see some newcomers who will be thrust into the starting role. Though you shouldn’t hold your breath waiting for Christian Ponder to make headlines in Minnesota, we’ve got other names to know for you in this week’s Stock Report.
This has got to be one of the most confounding fantasy football weeks I can remember.
With some many teams rich in fantasy talent (Patriots, Giants, Eagles, Bills, plus the 49ers and Bengals) observing their bye this week, it means that we all are having to dig deep into our benches and even onto the waiver wire just to field complete lineups. During such weeks is when start/sit advice is its most valuable, and as always we have you covered here at MSF.
There are two undefeated teams left in the NFL heading into Week 5, and both are in the NFC North. The Packers and the Lions are those two teams, and Green Bay will attempt to keep their perfect record alive this Sunday night in Atlanta.
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.
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.
Week Three is here, and hopefully you aren’t 0-2. Don’t worry, it’s still not panic time…but it very well could be time to shake some things up. As always, let’s recap last week’s predictions before looking ahead.
Because we at MSF try our best to get you our Start Em, Sit Em picks before everyone else, we have to take a few chances. One of the downsides to coming out with these picks on Tuesday is that we won’t know all of the injury updates that come out later in the week. We answer your questions and update our predictions accordingly as more information comes out.
However, a few predictions didn’t pan out this week because of injuries (either during the game, or because guys with nagging injuries didn’t end up suiting up on Sunday)…so out of fairness to me, we are going to throw out Michael Vick, Felix Jones, and Dez Bryant.
So besides those guys who caught the injury bug, I went 29 out of 46 overall…a little under 65%. I improved from week one…and that’s exactly what you should try to do from week to week in fantasy.
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.
