Category: Fantasy Football (Page 151 of 324)

      Matt Cassel has Patriots’ offense rolling

      November 23, 2008 /

      Matt CasselFor the second week in a row, Patriots’ quarterback Matt Cassel threw for over 400 yards, only this time his effort wasn’t wasted as he led New England to a 48-28 victory over AFC East foe Miami.

      It’s safe to say that New England has its offense back on track and Cassel is obviously a huge reason for that. It appears that Bill Belichick has taken the training wheels off of his quarterback, who has definitely earned the right to attempt more downfield passes.

      The emergence of Cassel has made the Pats a dangerous team again, although their defense has been suspect the past two weeks against the Jets and Dolphins. Nothing against Chad Pennington because he’s been great this year for the Dolphins, but there’s no way a playoff caliber defense allows him to throw for 341 passes and three touchdowns. Although hey, at least Belichick figured out a way to defend the “Wildcat” formation after Ronnie Brown tore the Pats’ defense a new one in these team’s first meeting.

      Has it just been two bad weeks for the Pats’ defense or have the Jets and Dolphins exposed a weakness?

      Fantasy Football, NFL

      Favre, Jets make previously unbeaten Titans look silly

      November 23, 2008 /

      New York JetsThe Jets not only handed the Tennessee Titans their first loss of the season – they made it look easy in the process, cruising to a 34-13 final.

      Let’s not go overboard on this loss for the Titans and even remotely suggest that they’re overrated. They’ve looked outstanding for 10 weeks and every team is entitled to have a bad game. But this was quite an impressive win for the Jets, who lead the entire game and essentially did whatever they wanted to one of the best defenses in the league.

      Jet Favre was amazing, completing 25 of 32 passes for 224 yards and two touchdowns, as were Thomas Jones and Leon Washington, who combined for 178 yards rushing and three scores. Laveranues Coles also finished with seven catches for 88 yards and one touchdown.

      Though the Jets’ offense was awfully impressive, their defense was the key to victory. They completely took away the Titans’ running game and forced Kerry Collins to attempt 39 passes, which is never a good sign that things are right with Tennessee’s offense. Over the last couple years, the Jets had major issues stopping the run but games like this provide an example of how much they’ve improved in that area.

      With Denver, San Fran, Buffalo, Seattle and Miami left on the schedule, the Jets are in great position to win the AFC East, although the Pats beat the Dolphins on Sunday so they remain just one game behind New York. This is going to be a great finish.

      Fantasy Football, NFL

      Can we trust Ben Roethlisberger?

      November 21, 2008 /

      As a fantasy owner that has Ben Roethlisberger in a number of leagues, I can attest that this has been a frustrating year. He was the fifth or sixth QB off the board in most drafts, so his owners were expecting solid starter-quality numbers from him. Over the first six games, he averaged 195 yards passing, 1.5 TD and 0.5 INT. The touchdowns were decent – he was on pace for 24 on the season – but the yards were pretty unimpressive, especially considering that the weather is a whole lot better at the start of the season than it usually is at the end.

      Then came the four-game lull in the mid-season. Over that span he averaged 208 passing yards and threw just one TD against eight (eight!) interceptions. Granted, three of those games – the Giants, the Redskins and the Colts – were against tough pass defenses, but other than a few nagging injures, there really is no excuse for his performance during that span. In the fourth game (versus San Diego), he started to look like himself again, throwing for 308 yards on 31 of 41 passing.

      Many owners were justifiably hesitant to start him this week, as evidenced by his 49% start percentage in all ESPN leagues. The Bengals’ defense is better than usual this year fantasy-wise and a big game for Big Ben was no sure thing. But for the second straight week, Roethlisberger looked pretty good. He completed 17 of 30 passes for 243 yards and a TD, and also ran for a TD in the fourth quarter. His numbers would have been even better if not for a couple of dropped passes and a costly offensive pass interference play that brought back a big gainer by Hines Ward.

      So can we trust him? Well, sort of. His upcoming schedule – @ NE, DAL, @ BAL and @ TEN – looks worse on paper than it does in person. The Patriots, Cowboys and Ravens all have injury issues on defense, so Roethlisberger should be able to post decent numbers over that span. I wouldn’t plan on starting him in Week 16 against the Titans, however. That’s just asking for trouble.

      Fantasy Football, NFL

      Devin Hester loses kick returning duties

      November 21, 2008 /

      In one of the more surprising falls from grace this season in the NFL is Devin Hester. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Danieal Manning will take over Hester’s old job as Chicago’s No. 1 kick returner Sunday when the Bears travel to St. Louis to take on the Rams.

      Devin HesterHester, who has five career kickoff returns for touchdowns (including Super Bowl XLI), has yet to return a kick or punt for a score this season. The pressure of having to produce after being rewarded with a four-year, $40 million contract extension ($15 million guaranteed) evidently has taken a toll. The burden of trying to develop into a top receiver likely has done the same.

      So in steps Manning, whose 26.5-yard average per kick return is almost 5 yards better than Hester’s (21.8). Manning averaged 44.2 yards during the preseason including a 75-yarder against San Francisco. His career average is 24.9.

      “When you have a guy like [Manning] sitting on the bench, you have to use him,” special-teams coordinator Dave Toub said. “It gives Devin a chance to maybe recover. He’s playing a lot of offense. He’s doing the punt returns. It’s a luxury to have someone else to go to.”

      Quite frankly, I don’t blame Hester for falling off the map. The Bears did nothing in the offseason to boost their sagging receiving corps (unless you really, really like Marty Booker) and they put the onus on Hester becoming their No. 1 deep threat. Not that he can’t excel at everything because he is a fantastic player, but the Bears really asked Hester to do three jobs – No. 1 receiver, kicker returner, punt returner. Some may lump the two return jobs together, but it’s really two different positions.

      People may criticize Hester, but the guy is learning a whole new position – his kick returning abilities were bound to take a hit.

      Fantasy Football, NFL

      Fantasy football teams are like a-holes, everyone’s got one…

      November 20, 2008 /

      I actually have 11.

      Back in September, I explained why I decided to join so many leagues. I like to spread the risk around and once I joined multiple leagues, I quit sweating the minute-to-minute stuff and can actually enjoy the games.

      A few years ago, I went in as a co-owner on a big money team at Antsports. The other owner, Joe, is a former co-worker of mine whose fantasy football expertise I respect. Neither of us lets the other get too high or too low on any particular player, and when one of us wants to hold a grudge against a guy like Chris Chambers or Lee Evans, the other is the voice of reason (or in Chambers’ case, the voice of confirmation).

      We did pretty well in that big money league but the competition was fierce and we lost our second round pick to injury, so we finished in third place. It was a decent payday, but we thought it might be better to spread the risk around amongst several $50 leagues. We also liked the Antsports “victory points” format which awards two points for a win, two points for the top four point-scorers and a point for the #5-#8 point-scorers. Under a VP format, even if your team has the bad luck of having teams go off against it on a regular basis, you can still make the playoffs.

      So this season we joined six $50 leagues and two $100 leagues at Antsports. They were all email drafts, which are slow enough so that if a pick comes up that we’re conflicted about, we have time to get on the phone and discuss it. Like most fantasy football leagues, the drafts are the most fun. I’d wager that over the course of those eight email drafts that we pretty much discussed every meaningful fantasy player in the league. Also, once the drafts are done, we split up the day-to-day operations so that we don’t have to discuss every single roster move or transaction.

      In those eight leagues, our teams are a combined 54-34 (.614). While that’s not an awe-inspiring record, it includes one team that has had horrible luck (i.e. most points scored against, by far) and has a 2-9 record. So, without that team we’re winning at a 68% clip.

      Of course it’s not fair to simply eliminate your worst team when talking about a combined record, so let’s talk about that unlucky team for a minute. Ironically, this was the team that Joe and I felt best about coming out of the draft. It was the only league where we had a pick in the top five. In fact, we had the #1 overall pick, so we were excited about drafting LaDainian Tomlinson there. While he is currently RB8, he hasn’t had the kind of season we were expecting. Still, he’s not the problem. At 2.12 and 3.01, we drafted Ryan Grant and Torry Holt, and I think it’s safe to say that both players have underperformed. Our fourth round pick, Ben Roethlisberger, has also been disappointing, so even good/solid picks at 5.01 (Calvin Johnson), 6.12 (Chris Cooley), 7.01 (Donald Driver) and 8.12 (Jay Cutler) couldn’t save this team.

      Through 11 weeks, that team has 1,076 points, which is 9th in the league, so we should be fighting for a playoff spot instead of dwelling the cellar. Oh well, there’s always the consolation bracket!

      In the other seven leagues, we drafted all over the back half of the first round. We drafted #6 twice (Barber, Gore), #8 once (Addai), #9 once (Barber), #10 twice (Gore, Portis) and #12 once (Brady). Clearly, that Brady pick didn’t pan out, and Addai has been pretty spotty all season, but those two teams are currently in first and second, respectively. In the Brady league, we also drafted Aaron Rodgers (11.12), which totally saved us, while the Addai team also features Rodgers (12.05), Reggie Bush (2.05), Anquan Boldin (3.08) and Dwayne Bowe (5.08).

      Of those seven teams, four are currently in first place and one is in second. The other two teams are fighting for a playoff spot and are currently in sixth and seventh. (These are all 12-team leagues, so six teams go to the playoffs.)

      I also have three teams on my own. One is in a league that Joe and I started several years ago that is made up of a few friends and friends of friends. It’s a 12-team keeper league and each season we get to carry four players (and sometimes one prospect) over to the next season. I was fortunate to win that league last season and am doing pretty well (8-3) this season.

      This season, I was determined to try an auction league so I got into some random $125 league with a guy on the internet. Sounds shady, I know, but everything’s on the up and up. I am currently in third place with a 7-4 record and would be 8-3 if not for boneheadedly benching Matt Cassel last week for Phillip Rivers. (You know, the week Cassel threw for like 400 yards and three scores, while Rivers had his first bad game in forever? Grr.) I actually had Cassel in my lineup and took him out on Thursday afternoon deciding that Rivers has just been too good to bench. (It’s a two-QB league, so I’ve been making do with Rivers, Cassel and Matt Ryan.) Anyway, I feel pretty good about that team heading into the playoffs. I just made a trade – Michael Turner, Larry Fitzgerald and Kellen Winslow for Marion Barber, Donald Driver and Antonio Gates – which looked pretty bad last week, but given Winslow’s shoulder injury, it’s starting to look a little better. Turner has a brutal playoff schedule and I had a lot of depth at WR (Reggie Wayne, Wes Welker, Dwayne Bowe, DeSean Jackson), so I figured Barber will return to his man-eating ways once Romo gets back into the swing of things.

      Finally, I’m in an Industry Insiders League hosted by the Fantasy Sports Writers of America. My team is 7-4 and its 1431 points is the fourth-best out of 48 teams, which were split into four 12-team divisions. The playoffs start this week and it’s a total points format, but each team starts with their season average, so I have a little bit of an advantage over 12 of the 15 other teams that made the postseason. Even if my team takes a giant dump over the next month, I feel pretty good about making the playoffs given the stiff competition.

      I was in 10 leagues last year, so 11 was no real shock to my system. Since I spend so much time researching fantasy football, I figured why not put that research to my advantage? Once all these leagues are complete, I’ll update everyone on how we did. For now, I’m pretty content with my 76-45 overall record, even if Chris Chambers managed to screw me in one league…when will I learn?

      Fantasy Football, NFL

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