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This week in our Ask the Geeks post we take a look at the flex spot and who makes a good play:
Paul asks: Hey Guys a quick ? for you, just finished draft I took Josh Morgan (Flex) to go along with Colston, V. Jackson, R. Williams and S Moss. Jamaal Charles and Donald Brown are still available. Should I add one of those 2 running backs and ditch one of the receivers? Thanks for your help and advice. have a good season
Yesterday was the live draft for The Hazean‘s Blogger League, which he’s hosted for the past few years and features many fantasy football bloggers from across the web. Unfortunately for team FFGeekBlog.com, I logged in about two minutes before the 8 PM start time, only to realize that Java needed to be updated on the laptop I was using! By the time I actually got into the draft room, Rams running back Steven Jackson had already been selected as my first pick (#4). At first I was a little discouraged by this pick, but as the other bloggers reminded me, this is a PPR and S-Jax should see all the work he can handle this season in both the running AND passing game (he had 90 receptions a few years ago!), so it should be alright. Anyways, here is the team I ended up with, along with the round I made the pick in parenthesis. (Note: The league plays a QB, RB, WR1, WR2, TE, WR/RB, K and DEF.)
And so it begins: McNabb danced around the issue with the press and didn’t come right out and state the obvious – that Vick’s presence last night was as disruptive for the Eagles as it was for the other team – but it was telling that he repeatedly said how important it was to spend the second half playing “our offense” – e.g., the real Eagles offense, the one without Vick.
The season’s two weeks away. It’s hard to blame McNabb if he’s frustrated that instead of focusing on fine-tuning the Eagle’s effective, proven offense, Andy Reid is devoting large portions of a preseason game to experimenting with Vick.
Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall has been suspended by the team, although the duration has not been specified yet, reports Mike Florio from ProFootballTalk. The maximum length of the suspension can be up to four games and if that is the case, his fantasy football stock takes a major hit. However, Eddie Royal and Brandon Stokley’s stock should be boosted quite a bit. Our wide receiver cheat sheet has been updated accordingly.
Update: Looks like his suspension is only for the remainder of the preseason, but I’m not quite sure how that benefits the team at all unless they simply want to prevent him from distracting the rest of the team. He’s just going to know less of the playbook and have ZERO chemistry with Kyle Orton. Maybe he’ll get traded? I can’t move him up our rankings until some positive news comes out regarding Mr. Marshall.
A tweet from YahooFootball just now:
Holla indeed. Great news for Yahoo! users with iPhones and Crackberries. I hadn’t heard the news and tried to figure out why Yahoo! thinks we might already know. All I could dig up was this press release from August 12 which mentions the mobile apps:
This year, Yahoo! fantasy football enthusiasts will be able to track their favorite team’s success right in the palm of their hands. On September 8th, Yahoo! Fantasy Football goes mobile, launching three different ways to stay on top of their game. Included in the Yahoo! Mobile offering will be an iPhone app, a BlackBerry app, and a version for the mobile web. With mobile fantasy football you can get real-time scores and player stats, the ability to bench and start different players, and even the ability to trade with others in your league – all through your mobile device.
If there’s one thing I’m a bigger dork about than fantasy football, it’s my iPhone, and all my leagues are on Yahoo!, so this is pretty much the perfect storm of awesome. I’ll get a review up here as soon as I get my grimy mitts on it.
When I read Mike Florio’s (from PFT) headline, “Brandon Marshall officially is an idiot”, I was slightly offended. I never like someone mentioning my name and being “an idiot” in the same sentence…even if it’s not actually me being referred to. However, after watching the video he linked to on TheDenverChannel.com, I might have to agree with his statement about the disgruntled Broncos wide receiver. If you were considering drafting Brandon Marshall as your top receiver, you better have a good backup plan for when that blows up in your face.
While Michael Vick admittedly looked pretty solid in his limited work tonight, I’m not ready to make too much of it just yet. The Eagles may have just been giving the fans what they clearly wanted. I find it hard to believe that Reid is truly planning to blow up a proven offense led by a top-notch QB and replace it with some sort of Wildcat-centric scheme centered around a guy who hasn’t played any kind of professional football in years. I don’t see how Vick is going to have any kind of consistent fantasy value – in my eyes on draft day, he’s basically an older Reggie Bush, except even less reliable.
Of course, Andy Reid could prove me wrong – after all, he pulled a fast one on everyone by even picking Vick up in the first place. But you won’t see me drafting him unless we get some sort of concrete sign that he’s going to be a major piece of the offense once the games actually count.
So far tonight Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew has a lowly five rushes for just 12 yards…but he also has two receptions for 58 yards! His versatility is what makes him so valuable to your fantasy football team.
In other news, Michael Vick is four of four for a whopping 19 yards…oh yeah, he has one rushing yard as well.
This week in our Ask the Geeks post we take a look at the first pick in a keeper league:
Adam asks: Quick question for your wisdom-ness: In a keeper league, 8 teams. Turner, Peterson, MJD, Forte, and Jackson are out at RB. Fitz, Calvin Johnson, and Greg Jennings are out. I have Randy Moss and Felix Jones on a 1 year contract. Question is – do I take Andre Johnson, DeAngelo Williams, or Tom Brady with the first pick. Second draft pick needs a QB, so I am guessing Brady will be gone (as Brees, Manning, Warner, Rodgers are all gone). Thanks!
With Jacksonville cooking up a deal to get quarterback Tyler Thigpen from the Chiefs, I thought it was interesting to note that in our league last year (passing TD’s worth 6 points), Thigpen was the 9th ranked quarterback at the end of the season. He was ahead of names like Tony Romo, Eli Manning, Matt Ryan and Brett Favre. It helped that he had a receiving touchdown, along with almost 400 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns I guess, but now he’s now the third string quarterback for Kansas City?!!! I guess fantasy stats don’t always translate to real life.
With draft day approaching for many fantasy football leagues out there, I figured it’d be somewhat helpful to give a glimpse of how the beginning of your draft might go down. I quickly ran through the first four rounds of a simple 12 team, snake-style mock draft to get an idea of which players will be gone by which round. Hopefully this will prevent you from being caught completely off guard when your draft begins and will help you see the different teams you can end up with based on your draft strategy.
Note: You could make the case for a couple of the top wide receivers going towards the end of the first round, but because it’s a snake-style draft, they’d get drafted in the beginning of the second round (to the same teams) anyways.
Please feel free to comment with your thoughts on which team looks the best (and worst) to you.
Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer will possibly miss the rest of the preseason with an ankle injury that he’s been dealing with for about two weeks already. The team claims he will be fully healed by the start of the regular season, but given his track record with injuries, who knows how that will work out. He almost fits the mold of a “sleeper” this season, as you can get him pretty cheap as your backup quarterback and with a healthy Ochocinco and a non-currently-suspended-for-arrest Chris Henry as wide receivers, he could put up some decent numbers…as long as he’s on the field.
Tampa Bay running back Derrick Ward seems to think the team will be using a 2-2-1 rotation in the backfield this season. This means he would get two series, then Earnest Graham would get two series, and finally Cadillac Williams would get a series (with random carries throughout the other two players series’.) While Ward says this will keep all of the running backs fresh and that it seemed to work with the Giants last year, it’s probably not the news you wanted to hear if you had already drafted (or planned to draft) any of these guys for your fantasy team. At this point Ward and Graham make for borderline RB2 plays and are probably more suited as bye-week fill-in’s or injury insurance.
Breaking: Mark Sanchez has been officially named the Jets’ starting QB.
For future reference, one light = retired, two lights = unretired.
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Some quick notes from the past day or so…
Our running back cheat sheet has been updated to factor in the latest news on Edgerrin James, James Davis, T.J. Duckett, Glen Coffee and Leon Washington. Make sure to check it out before you draft!
Edgerrin “the Edge” James is back in the NFL, after signing a one year deal with the Seattle Seahawks. I find it a bit surprising that it took this long for him to find a team that was in need of his services, but he found one where he will immediately compete for playing time with starter Julius Jones. James was fairly effective down the stretch for the Cardinals last season and should help the Seahawks running game quite a bit…although I bet Julius Jones isn’t too happy (and he is immediately a bit less appealing in your league’s draft.)
Now that we’ve got two weeks of preseason stats, the leaderboard is starting to get a little more interesting and realistic from a fantasy football point of view. Historically, the third week has been where the starters play the longest, but here’s a glimpse (compliments of NFL.com) of the leaders after two games so far…
Just a few notes from the weekend preseason games…
