You may recognize ‘Fitzy’ from YouTube. He’s a huge Pats fan and often goes on rants about this or that. This week, he’s reviewing the first episode of “Hard Knocks,’ which is covering the New York Jets training camp. The language is rough, so take the kids out of the room…
Category: Fantasy Football (Page 63 of 324)
Originally published 8/27/09
Updated 8/16/10
Snake drafts are simple, easy to understand and organized.
Auctions are not.
They are haphazard and chaotic, and that’s part of what makes them so much fun.
Want Chris Johnson? He’s yours…if you’re willing to pay. You’re not beholden to a certain draft slot or to the whim of the guy picking in front of you. It’s your team and the decisions you make will completely shape your roster, for good or for bad.
Auctions come in all shapes and sizes, but for the past couple of seasons I’ve played in one where each team has a $400 salary cap and a roster of 20 players. It’s a slow online auction. Every day, each owner is responsible for nominating one player along with an opening bid, which can’t be seen by the other owners in the league. Bidding is open for 24 hours, unless the high bidder changes, in which case the clock is reset. At any particular time there might be 20 or 30 players up for bidding, but the slow format gives owners plenty of time to consider their options.
I generally budget 85-90% of my total cap for my starters. This way, I have already accounted for some extra funds to acquire some cheap backups in the later part of the auction. This might seem like a lot to spend on your starters, but these are the guys that are playing week in and week out, so it’s smart to put the vast majority of your resources to that end.
Last year, I ended up with Tony Romo ($14, very smart), Adrian Peterson ($111, smart), Brian Westbrook ($71, dumb), Larry Fitzgerald ($84, smart), Brandon Marshall ($21, very smart), Steve Smith 2.0 ($11, very smart), Owen Daniels ($10, smart until he went down) and Marshawn Lynch ($30, very dumb), with Jason Elam ($2) and the Eagles ($3) rounding out my starting lineup. My backups weren’t great, but I snagged Tim Hightower for $8 and Eli Manning for $6. I also had the Jets for $3.
Hightower stepped in for Westbrook when he went down, and this team cruised until I lost Daniels to a knee injury. I spent the next three weeks trying to replace him, trading away some depth and burning all of my bidding bucks in the process. I ended up taking third place after losing in the semis.
When approaching an auction there are two prevailing strategies to consider when bidding on players:
Fantasy football drafts are starting to ramp up, and we’re here to answer your questions about who to keep, which players to target and anything else that might be troubling you.
Fire away.
Tate suffered a broken ankle in the 19-16 preseason loss at Arizona. He’s expected to undergo surgery on Tuesday.
Tate, the second-round pick from Auburn, was third team behind Foster and Slaton. Kubiak wanted to see him play for two quarters against the Cardinals. Tate was injured at the end of a 12-yard run when he was tackled by rookie linebacker Daryl Washington.
Tate will be placed on injured reserve.
I was already a fan of Arian Foster this summer, but with Tate out, I like his chances even more. Here’s what I wrote in my sleeper RBs piece.
Of everyone on this list, Foster could very well turn out to be the best value if things break his way. Houston’s offensive line is decent, and Foster had a couple of nice games late last season — 19 carries, 97 yards, TD versus Miami and 23 touches, 145 yards, 2 TD against New England — giving him some momentum heading into 2010. His head coach called the 23-year-old ‘mature beyond his years’ and says he’ll be tough to unseat atop the Texans’ depth chart. Meanwhile, rookie Ben Tate ‘has a long way to go’ while Steve Slaton is spending time in camp working on his kick return skills. This points to Foster as the opening day starter. As long as he doesn’t fumble away the job, Foster’s ADP is bound to move into the middle rounds as the preseason wears on.
With Tate out, I’m now targeting Foster in the 7th or the 8th round. He should make a solid third RB and could be a RB2 in a pinch in a flex league that only requires two RB starters. Kubiak lost confidence in Slaton last season and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Foster crack the top 20 assuming he stays healthy and doesn’t start coughing up the ball.
Here’s a quick look:
I tend to shy away from Randy Moss on draft day, mainly due to the reputation that he earned in Oakland of being a malcontent. But the Raiders will make anyone a little crazy, right?
After watching some video of how he spent his summer, I’m definitely considering taking him in the late first/early second.
Tim Martin, who has trained Moss the past eight years and is the innovator of the workout, believes the Patriots receiver doesn’t get enough credit for how well he’s maintained his body over time, and how hard he’s worked to stay at the top of his game.
“Yeah, he is very talented, but he outworks 99 percent of the NFL,” said Martin, when reached by phone last week. “I heard Jerry Rice talk about how hard Larry Fitzgerald works. I’ve seen his workout … if people take a look at what myself and Randy do, you’ll see a lot of things you don’t see other people doing. I’d put our regimen up against anyone else’s.”
During camp, Moss has had that quick first step and extra gear, particularly on the long bomb routes, as he’s easily beaten many of the younger corners, Darius Butler and Devin McCourty. The past few days during the joint practice sessions with New Orleans, he also made the Saints secondary look slow.
You can see highlights of his workout regimen here.
Since joining the Patriots, Moss has averaged 83-1255-15.7 in three seasons. Even if we throw out his monstrous ’07 campaign (98-1493-23), he has averaged 76-1136-12 over the last two years, and that included playing an entire season with Matt Cassel instead of Tom Brady. Brady returned in ’09 and Moss posted 83-1264-13.
If he’s healthy, and it sure looks like he is, there’s no reason to believe that he’s not capable of putting up similar numbers in 2010. This makes him an intriguing pick in the late first round/early second round as fantasy owners have to decide whether or not to go stud WR or take one of the second- or third-tier RBs that are still there.
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