Updates from January, 2010

  • Other thoughts on the NFL draft from a fantasy perspective

    Matt 2:28 pm on 4/28/2008 | 0 Permalink Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , NFL draft, ,

    • The Bucs must be feeling better about Carnell Williams’ surgically-repaired knee – the only RB they took in the draft was Cory Boyd in the 7th round. Cadillac, for his part, says it’s “definitely a possibility” that he’ll play in week one.
    • If going to Atlanta wasn’t the worst-case scenario for Matt Ryan, I don’t know what was.
    • Say what you want about Oakland, they stay true to form year after year. They take the most talented player available, regardless of how horrible a fit he is for their organization. That’s the McFadden pick in a nutshell – they’re more than set at RB already. Still… it might be fun to watch McFadden and JaMarcus Russell working together. Four guys you don’t want to run into at a night club this week: LaMont Jordan, Justin Fargas, Dominic Rhodes, and Michael Bush. You might also want to avoid any burly keeper-league owners who had high hopes for Bush in 2008.
    • The Jets did what we said they’d do.
    • Cedric Benson had to be happy when the Bears made the “no duh” move of taking an OL with their first pick. Then they wiped that smile right off his face with their 2nd-round pick, RB Matt Forte, who will undoubtedly steal at least a few carries and could challenge Benson outright for the starting job. Bears GM Jerry Angelo isn’t mincing words about it, either: “Maybe (Benson’s) not the featured back we thought he’d be.” Ouch.

    Lots more to talk about here but I’m out of time.

    Pixie
     

  • Newsflash: There was a draft over the weekend

    Matt 9:41 am on 4/28/2008 | 0 Permalink Reply

    Not that I watched it. Anyone who actually watches the NFL draft coverage should realize that they are on equal footing with the people who sit through an entire American Idol results show. Sure, I’m interested in the outcome (of the former, that is), but I don’t have such a burning desire to know who goes where that I need to find out right at the instant it happens.

    I’m pretty pleased with my Bills, who more than adequately addressed their needs at cornerback (Leodis McKelvin, 11th pick) and wide receiver (James Hardy, 41st pick). It’s exciting to have McKelvin, whom I’m optimistically going to dub Devin Hester 2.0 – Now Including Coverage Skills! Hardy was potentially the steal of the draft; perhaps he fell so far because he’s considered to be something of a character risk, but I’m not all that worried:

    Hardy certainly sounds like the sort who deserves everything he is getting, in a good sense. He grew up in desperate straits, with a father who spent nine years in prison for dealing drugs, and a mother who turned him over to relatives at age 13. He found himself living in a one-bedroom apartment with an uncle freshly released from prison.

    “I would just stay at school,” Hardy told the Buffalo News, “in the gym or on the field so I wouldn’t have to go home. That’s what got me here and I’ll be able to go home to my house and eat right and just be able to focus on being a professional. I take this very seriously.”

    He could be full of shit, sure, but at least he’s saying the right things for the moment.

    As much as I hate to get excited about the Bills offense from a fantasy perspective after getting burned by Lee Evans repeatedly and painfully last season, I’m at least cautiously optimistic at this point. Trent Edwards showed a ton of poise for a rookie and I fully expect him to take the next step this season now that he has two quality targets. Marshawn Lynch is one of the most exciting tailbacks in the game and is ready to be dominant behind the Bills’ above-average (albeit overpaid) offensive line. It’s a well-rounded offense with lots of fantasy potential between these four players. Lynch is a solid #1 RB, and Evans could credibly be used as a #1 WR (for the non-risk-averse). Hardy will absolutely start right away and could be an interesting, high-upside #3 WR. All of this, of course, depends upon the play of Edwards. Would I take him as my #1 QB? Nah… but you could do far worse for your #2.

    The Bills schedule, by the way, is a thing of beauty for the most part. I count at least ten (!!) games against teams that had crappy defenses in ‘07. Am much as I hate sharing a division with the Pats, getting to play the Fins and Jets four times a season almost makes it all worth it.

     

  • Brandon Marshall out for 4 months?

    Brandon 11:47 am on 3/26/2008 | 4 Permalink Reply
    Tags: , denver,

    In case you hadn’t heard the news yet, recently the Denver Broncos top receiver, Brandon Marshall, was injured in a freak “fast food bag” incident. According to Stats.com:

    Marshall could miss up to four months of off-season preparations after slicing his right forearm in a freak accident. Marshall said he slipped on a fast-food bag Saturday while wrestling with family members at a Florida resort and put his right arm through a home entertainment center.

    In a statement, Broncos head athletic trainer Steve Antonopulos confirmed reports Marshall “sustained right forearm lacerations to one artery, one vein, one nerve, two tendons and three muscles.” Marshall might be ready to resume football activities in time for the start of training camp in late July.

    (More …)

     

  • Is this the end for Shaun Alexander?

    Matt 8:37 am on 3/12/2008 | 2 Permalink Reply
    Tags: seahawks,

    I had fully expected him to spend the season splitting time with Julius Jones, and he’d probably be perfectly adequate in that role, but the Seattle Times is making it sound like the bell may be tolling soon:

    [Seahawks president Tim] Ruskell said that Alexander had not been released. When he was asked about Alexander’s future, Ruskell reiterated he had not been released.

    Alexander’s agent, Jim Steiner, did not accept phone calls at his office Tuesday, and the representative who answered the phone said there was nothing new to report.

    When the team president is saying that you haven’t been released, but not taking the next step to say that you will not be released, that’s not a good sign. Your agent refusing to answer his phone is an especially bad sign.

     

  • A few updates 'n' links

    Matt 9:50 am on 3/11/2008 | 0 Permalink Reply
    Tags: , , jesse chatman, , , , ,

    JaMarcus Russell is a big fatty.

    Warrick Dunn’s a Buc again. Could get interesting with Earnest Graham, who was arguably the biggest surprise of 2007. He probably won’t challenge Graham for the starting spot, but he could steal some carries and (especially) looks. (The question with Cadillac Williams isn’t whether he’ll start in ‘08 – he won’t – but rather whether he’ll ever start in the NFL again).

    Julius Jones is officially a Seahawk, and if he was getting half of the carries in a backfield shared with the man-beast that is Marion Barber, it seems pretty likely that he’ll get something similar in Seattle. One thing’s for certain: Shaun Alexander’s days of being a fantasy RB1 are long gone, never to return. (More …)

     

  • Oakland Raiders sign Javon Walker to HUGE contract

    Brandon 10:04 am on 3/05/2008 | 2 Permalink Reply
    Tags: , , , raiders,

    Apparently the Raiders have decided that Javon Walker is a better receiver than Randy Moss and have agreed to sign him to an insane 6 year, $55 million contract. If the Raiders couldn’t get it done with the greatest receiver of this era, then why the hell would they think they could with Walker? How can they justify paying Walker so much money, especially considering the fact that he’s coming off a season where he played in a whopping five games and that he’s only started every game in a season once in the past six years? Many questions surround this move by the Raiders, but one thing is certain…they will be a bad team again next year, unless JaMarcus Russell turns into Tom Brady over night.

     

  • Congrats to our favorite librarian

    Matt 10:22 am on 2/26/2008 | 1 Permalink Reply
    Tags: blogs, News and Media,

    Sara, AKA the Fantasy Football Librarian, is featured as a guest blogger on the NY Times football blog The Fifth Down this week. Her blog, if you haven’t checked it out already, is home to an absolute wealth of fantasy football information, so it wasn’t surprising that I learned something new from her Times post – apparently there’s a documentary about fantasy football out there. This I gotta see.

    Pixie
     

  • Sunday Wrap-up: Patriots, Moss and Brady inch closer to the records

    Brandon 11:30 am on 12/24/2007 | 0 Permalink Reply
    Tags: , , Jerry Rice, , , , ,

    With their victory over the Dolphins yesterday, the Patriots are now one win from reaching that undefeated mark. One game!!! Tom Brady is two touchdowns from breaking Peyton Manning’s single season record of 49, while Randy Moss is two scores from breaking Jerry Rice’s single season record of 22 grabs. If all of these records are broken in that last game, that will be pretty badass, I must say.

    But let’s get to the real stuff here…fantasy football league championships. Did you win? While there’s still one game left this week, with pretty big fantasy football implications, you probably have a pretty good idea where you stand right now. For example, in one of my league’s I need Brandon Marshall to outscore Antonio Gates by about 40 points, so that’s probably NOT going to happen, but I can always hope! Anyways, congratulations if you’re poised to be taking home the trophy this season. We can only hope that some advice from this site helped you get there. Let’s give a final recap of the key player performances that may have helped you get there…or may have prevented you from achieving greatness…

    Quarterbacks

    Kurt Warner (ARI): 361 passing yards, 3 TD
    Father time just keeps getting it done

    Peyton Manning (IND): 311 passing yards, 3 TD
    Maybe he could donate some of his touchdown passes to his brother

    (More …)

     

  • Not so Fast Willie Parker

    Brandon 10:30 am on 12/21/2007 | 1 Permalink Reply

    Willie Parker (RB-PIT): 1 carry, -1 yards, 1 broken leg

    Were you hoping Willie Parker would lead your team to the promise land? If so, you’re team just started off the weekend with a severe disadvantage. While I’m not in a championship, I am playing for pride in a third place game…and Parker did his best to ensure that my pride takes a beating this weekend. However, if you were really weak at running back and decided to throw Najeh Davenport in your RB2 or flex spot…you’re probably doing cartwheels right now…while myself and other fantasy owners are hating you.

     

  • Sunday Wrap-up: Miami finally wins...

    Brandon 11:06 am on 12/17/2007 | 2 Permalink Reply

    …and the big question is, do the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers celebrate? Or do they sink further into depression as the only winless team in NFL history? In other news, the Patriots won again (although not in the blow-out fashion that all the analysts expected) to move to 14-0. Only two more wins to reach that undefeated mark (fingers crossed)!

    In fantasy world though, the weekend was actually pretty slow in terms of stats. Consider this…in one of my league’s scoring formats, some of the players that made the top 10 list in fantasy points for their position include Cleo Lemon, Shaun Hill, Greg Camarillo, Roydell Williams, Aaron Stecker and Darren Sproles! Besides Stecker and maybe Williams, I challenge anyone to admit to starting any of those players at any point in the season. On the other hand, Tom Brady, Tony Romo, Antonio Gates and Terrel Owens had very poor games, which probably didn’t help anyone’s playoff hopes (unless they were playing against them). Anyways, let’s get to the top fantasy scores of the week…

    (More …)

     

  • Sunday Wrap-up: B. Marshall breaks out!

    Brandon 10:32 am on 12/10/2007 | 2 Permalink Reply

    On a day when the Patriots crushed the Steelers to move to 13-0 (can we take anything Anthony Smith says seriously now?), one of my proudest (and luckiest) moments was seeing my pre-season sleeper pick, Brandon Marshall, step up and go huge in the first round of my fantasy playoffs.

    Brandon Marshall (WR-DEN): 10 receptions, 115 receiving yards, 2 TD, 10 rushing yards

    Complementing those stats was the fact that in one of my leagues, I had also started Jay Cutler…so that worked out pretty well. Hopefully our readers had similar luck if everyone drafted Marshall like I recommended! Anyways, Sunday seemed to mark a return to great fantasy stats for most of the regulars, such as Brady, Manning, LT, Moss, and Trent Edwards. Hah…well maybe Edwards didn’t return to greatness, but he did have a great game. I guess that’s one things the Dolphins are good at…making the opposing quarterback look like Dan Marino. So that’s enough rambling, let’s get to the top performers of the weekend…

    (More …)

     

  • Quick player notes: Travis Henry avoids suspension

    Brandon 9:43 am on 12/05/2007 | 2 Permalink Reply

    In case you missed these, I just wanted to give you some updates on the following players…

    Travis Henry (RB-DEN): Henry has won his appeal and no longer faces a one year suspension from the league. Apparently his passing of a lie detector test and a hair sample test were enough to convince the league that they screwed up on their own drug test (which seems a little odd, but I guess could happen). This is good news for fantasy managers with Henry on their rosters, as he should produce fairly well as a RB2 or flex player through out the fantasy playoffs with Denver still in the hunt for a playoff spot.

    Roy Williams (WR-DET): Williams is expected to miss the rest of the season with a sprained knee. Owners looking to replace him in their lineup should look no further than the rest of the Detroit receiving corps, as Calvin Johnson and Mike Furrey move into the WR1 and WR2 spots on the team respectively, while Shaun McDonald will move in as the slot receiver. With Kitna completing around 23 passes a game, expect all three of those receivers to see plenty of balls going their way in the next few weeks, as the Lions fight for their lives to earn a playoff spot.

    (More …)

     

  • Marvin Harrison: Might be able to go on Sunday

    Matt 9:33 am on 11/28/2007 | 0 Permalink Reply

    From the Indianapolis Star:

    Colts coach Tony Dungy repeated the team’s expectation that eight-time Pro Bowl receiver Marvin Harrison could return for Sunday’s AFC South showdown vs. Jacksonville after missing six of seven games with a bruised left knee.

    "It’s hard to say," Dungy said Monday. "That’s what we’re hoping, that Marvin will be back and ready to go and practice. If he’s able to do that and play, that will be a big lift to us."

    Obviously, Harrison owners have been anxiously waiting to get him back into their lineups and will do so if he’s available on Sunday, so this news is more pertinent to Anthony Gonzalez owners. Gonzalez had a very nice game (6 catches, 105 yards) last week after returning from a thumb injury, but he’ll obviously be less involved if Harrison is good to go. If Harrison does play, I’d still consider Gonzalez an OK #3 WR option, since it seems unlikely that Harrison will immediately be able to participate as much as he normally would.

     

  • Well, that was quick

    Brandon 9:25 am on 11/28/2007 | 0 Permalink Reply

    After eagerly awaiting his return to the NFL, injury troubles in the Dolphins backfield gave Ricky Williams the chance to be the starting running back this past Monday. Six carries and fifteen yards later, his season is over. Williams tore his chest muscle and rehab will take over five months, but he should be ready for next season his agent says. Will he get another chance in the NFL? Probably. Will he ever be an effective running back in the NFL again? Probably not.

     

  • Sunday Wrap-up: Too close for comfort

    Brandon 11:11 am on 11/26/2007 | 0 Permalink Reply

    Wow. That’s all I can say after last night’s game, where the A.J. Feeley-led Eagles nearly accomplished the upset of the century. I have to give props to the Andy Reid and the Eagles defense, as they were able to make Tom Brady look nearly human with all their blitzing schemes and by somehow managing to contain Randy Moss. In the end however, it was not to be. Let’s just hope Baltimore doesn’t give the Patriots that much trouble next weekend though…I prefer the blowouts I think. Anyways, here are some of the fantasy standouts from the past few days (I’ve included the Turkey Day games as well)…

    Drew Brees (QB-NO): 260 passing yards, 8 rushing yards, 4 TD (3 pass, 1 rush), 1 INT
    Which Saints team will take the field next week? Jekyll or Hyde?

    Brett Favre (QB-GB): 381 passing yards, 3 TD
    Packers vs Cowboys…Favre vs Romo…Old vs Young…huge game next week for NFC supremacy

    (More …)

     

  • Priest calling it quits?

    Brandon 11:07 am on 11/21/2007 | 0 Permalink Reply

    It seems that after his latest neck injury, Kansas City Priest Holmes may finally be calling it quits. He is expected to announce his retirement this afternoon. With Larry Johnson still out with a foot injury, rookie Kolby Smith becomes an immediate waiver-wire/free agent pickup.

     

  • Welcome back Ricky Williams!

    Brandon 4:27 pm on 11/14/2007 | 0 Permalink Reply

    Our favorite Jolly Green Giant has finally been reinstated to the NFL after serving an 18 game suspension. However, it appears (at least initially) that the Miami Dolphins may not be interested in getting him out on the field this season. Instead, they may wish to keep him off the roster and trade him in the offseason. I’m not sure this would be the best move for a team that should be doing everything in its power to avoid going 0-16, but other than to avoid embarrassment, they really have no reason to play him. The team is obviously rebuilding (having traded Chris Chambers and announcing that John Beck will be the starting quarterback), and a 30 year old burnout is generally not considered part of a rebuilding plan, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens from here. If you’re a Jesse Chatman owner, I wouldn’t be too worried though (yet!)

     

  • Sunday Wrap-up: GO GO Detroit running game!

    Brandon 9:40 am on 11/12/2007 | 2 Permalink Reply

    Adrian Peterson hurt. St. Louis Rams finally win a game. These are a few of the headlines that caught my eye when I returned yesterday from a weekend trip to Culebra, a small island off the coast of Puerto Rico (with one of the best beaches in the world!) The Vikings got shut out by the Packers (which was awesome because I started Ryan Longwell in a few of my leagues) and I wondered why the team would only rush Adrian Peterson 11 times? I then realized that he got hurt!!! If the injury turns out to be serious and he is sidelined for a few games, the Vikings could be in some serious trouble. You could also say adios to any chance of Peterson breaking the single season rushing record. The Rams were finally able to pull one out against a Saints team that seemed to be on the rebound, but who knows where they’ll go from here. The one stat that I found the most amusing of the afternoon though, was the rushing section of the Detriot box score, which read like this:

    A. Cason: 1 rush, 1 yard (rushing leader on the team!)
    T. J. Duckett: 1 rush, 0 yards
    J. Kitna: 1 rush, 0 yards
    K. Jones: 4 rush, -4 yards, 1 TD
    S. McDonald: 1 rush, -15 yards

    Total: 8 rushes, -18 yards, 1 TD

    Of course, they set an NFL record for the least rushing yards in a game in the process, so they have something to be proud about.

    With the Patriots on a bye this week, it left the window open for other players to prove that they are pretty good as well, so here’s how the top players at each position ended up in Week 10…

    (More …)

     

  • Kenny Watson to start

    Brandon 1:40 pm on 11/04/2007 | 2 Permalink Reply

    While both Kenny Watson and Rudi Johnson are healthy, the Bengals will start Watson at running back today. Whether or not this factors into the percentage of carries each back receives is yet to be determined, but if you have a better option than Rudi Johnson available, you might consider going that route.

     

  • Sammy Morris put on IR

    Brandon 12:08 am on 11/04/2007 | 0 Permalink Reply

    In case you were hanging on to Sammy Morris with hopes that he would return from his chest injury soon, it’s time to cut ties with him. The New England Patriots placed Morris on the Injured Reserved list and he will miss the rest of the season. This will increase the workload of backup running back Heath Evans and third down back Kevin Faulk. With starter Laurence Maroney back to health though, their fantasy impact will still be limited.

    In other news, Chris Henry, the backup running back for the Titans, was found to have used a banned substance and could be suspended for four games. It appears that he should be able to play this week, as long as he appeals the suspension, but after that he could be on the bench. While he was originally on my waiver-wire pickup list, unless you plan to use him this weekend, you should most likely start looking for a better option at running back.

     

← Newer Posts | Older Posts →

c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
esc
cancel