A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
If you’re reading this post right now, one of three things is happening:
One, you are in your league’s championship round and looking for some advice as you try to make the most important lineup decisions of the season. We congratulate you, and we’re here for you. Skip ahead and start soaking in the analysis as you go for your league’s equivalent of The Shiva.
Six teams have already played their games this week, but there are plenty of players who are playing today that will have major impacts on fantasy football teams. Here are some who will disappoint, and some who will surprise.
There are many different factors that make fantasy football difficult: bye weeks; injuries; random lucky days for your opponent; and worst of all, Chris Johnson.
In my opinion though, the hardest thing is staying in the present.
What do I mean?
The fantasy playoffs are approaching quickly, and decisions must be made to set a playoff-worthy roster. Picking up a player off waivers or deciding which star to sit could be the difference between making or missing the playoffs.
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.
Did you know that every team that is on a bye this week has a winning record? I’m not sure if that has ever happened before but I’ll send John Clayton an email and see what he says. One of those teams on the bye, the Bears, has a running back that has two labels thrown at him. Is Matt Forte underrated or undervalued? He may be both. The Bears front office better figure it out soon.
Now for this week we have some interesting picks for you, but a lot of them are on the down side of the stock. I had one person ask me how I could have DeMarco Murray down this week after his big game last week; easy. Just look at Adrian Peterson’s stats after he set the NFL record for yards in a game. Stay here: he scored 5 points.
We have a special treat for you in this installment of the stock report: kickers, tricks and more.
I’mmm baaaaaaccccckkkkk!
Did you miss me?
Jon has himself a busy schedule this week, so he texted me this morning and asked if I’d be up for reprising my role as the author of our weekly Start/Sit column here at MSF. I have to admit, as soon as I saw his text I was pretty pumped.
Doing these posts every week, week after week, can admittedly be a bit of a grind, as I learned over the last couple of years; so I was happy to let Jon take it over this year and focus my efforts in other areas. But I’ve missed the weekly challenge of poring over matchups and stats and trends to figure out which players to recommend to you as starts and sits.
So it’s good to be back in the saddle.
Anyway, It’s not like I’ve been totally absent. I still offer commentary on Jon’s posts, answer questions in the comment sections, and monitor the @FantasyMSF Twitter account. So I haven’t really given you a chance to miss me even if you wanted to. Now though, for the first time all year, I have to go on record with start and sit picks.
I’m ready. Let’s roll.
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.
Oh byes.
We don’t like them, but the players do need their rest. With the rest periods starting now, there are some crucial decisions that need to be made regarding your roster.
Who is going to fill in for Ray Rice? Issac Redman can’t carry the load for an injured Mendenhall…can he? And so many more.
Now is the time that we want to highlight players who might be on your bench or floating around on waivers waiting to be picked up in hopes that he can provide that stopgap service. Everyone knows that Jason Witten is good for your health but how about Brandon Pettigrew?
There are questions galore to be answered in the Week 5 stock report.
When I was a little kid, I thought that Reggie Miller was the greatest basketball player in the world.
I saw him hit tons of three pointers. I met him and got his autograph. I remembered him scoring like 130 points in 3 seconds against the Knicks.
For my entire life, all I had known was Reggie. I was used to him. I loved him. To me, he was the best. It was only later, when I stood back and objectively looked at the facts, that I realized there were better players. I had to forget everything I thought I knew, and actually look at what was really going on.
Well, it’s time for us to all do that again, only with our fantasy football players.
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.
The point of emphasis of this column is to go somewhat outside the box in regards in waiver wire pick-ups and beyond the usual recommendations. Another objective is to indicate whether certain players are worth a substantial bid in FAAB formats. As always, all feedback is very welcome in the comments forum.
Do. Not. Overreact.
If there’s one piece of advice I can give you following Week One, that’s it.
If a player on your roster had an off week (yeah, I’m talking to you DeAngelo Williams), ask yourself whether you would dump them if they did the same thing in the middle of the season. If so, cut away. Otherwise, trust your draft research and strategy for another week or two. Now, if you took a few late-round fliers and see someone on the waiver wire you like more, go for it.
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.
