Fantasy Football: Advice and Discussion

The 1st rule when compiling a team for fantasy football is you need to be blind to everything but statistics. You don't pick guys just because they play for your favorite team unless they actually are the highest rated guy left on the board, and you don't avoid guys that play for your arch-rival if they are the highest rated guy left on the board. Similarly, you don't avoid dog-killers if they are good. Michael Vick could be an admitted dog rapist, and I'd still gladly take the 57 points he scored for my team Monday.

 

Aldeth,

Like yourself, my nephew had Vick, McCoy and Akers going. He was down by 65. He ended up with a smashing victory! He has been talking smack to not just his opponent(his little brother, how fitting) but to the rest of the league as well. He's lucky he lives in NY or I would be lumping him up for talking crap, just on principle mind you he is my nephew after all, but since he doesn't, he gets to live in glory.....this week!

 

Vick is probably going to be the pickup of the year. The only other person I can think of that maybe comes close would be people who picked up Arian Foster with a later round pick. This has a lot to do of when you drafted. If you drafted in early August, you probably could have got Foster for a 10th round pick. If you didn't draft until the week before the season started, he probably cost you a 3rd or 4th round pick.

Of course, it's not like anyone expects numbers like that from Vick again this season. Heck, I saw an article on ESPN that Vick's numbers are historically good. Not only was his performance the biggest output of any player this season, but it was the 3rd largest in the last 10 years. (The top performance was by Clinton Portis about 7 or 8 years ago - he had over 250 yards rushing, 4TDs, and 50-something receiving yards. It turned out to be a bit better score than Vick, because you get a better return on points for rushing/receiving yards than passing yards.)

ESPN also looked through the annals of football and discovered the best fantasy performance ever. I forget the guy's name, but it was someone I had never heard of from the 1961 season. He had well over 100 rushing and receiving yards and five TDs, and ended up scoring 60-something points.

That having been said, I do believe that whichever owner acquired Vick has an excellent team going forward, unless they really screwed up their draft and other acquisitions. I'm actually fairly confident I can run the table in at least one of my leagues, now that we're through the bye weeks and my team has recovered from injury issues. About the only QBs I'd rather have at this point are the Brees/Manning types, and I do no think Vick's production going forward will be notably different than those guys.

 

A few years ago, Barry Sanders had 212 yds rushing and 3 TDS but was eclipsed that week by Jacksonville's James Stewart who had 100+ yards rushing and 5 TDs, versus my beloved Eagles to boot! I have been playing Fantasy Football and Baseball for over 20 years and that is the most memorable week I can remember.

 

Thanks to a marvelous effort by Wes Welker last night I have clinched my division and probably the 2 seed in the playoffs.

In my other league I'm holding on to the 4th and final spot in the playoffs with one game to go.

 

I won two tie breakers (based on total points) to squeak in the playoffs in two of my leagues by the hair of my chinny-chin chin.

EDIT: Both of the leagues I play in have 13-week seasons, so the playoffs start this weekend.

 

It's amazing how much pickups matter in FF. Every year, I look at the waiver wire MVPs, and it's usually true that if you're in the playoffs, you have at least one of these guys on your team. By definition, in order to qualify as a waiver wire MVP, you have to go undrafted in most leagues. Brandon Llyod had a fantastic season for Denver, and exceeded all but the wildest expectations, but since he usually WAS drafted, he can't be a WWMVP.

Here's the list this year:

QB - has to be Vick. I'll give honorable mentions to Sam Bradford and Josh Freeman - much better than a lot of QBs who were drafted, but Vick went from undrafted, to a top 5 fantasy QB.

RB - again this is a no-brainer. It's Peyton Hillis. Honorable mentions to Chris Ivory and BenJarvis Green-Ellis, but like Vick, Hillis has turned into a top 5 guy at his position.

WR - There have been a ton of WRs that have greatly exceeded expectations this year (the aforementioned Lloyd, as well as Bowe and TO), but they were all drafted. I'm going ot give this award to Stevie Johnson of the Bills, as he wasn't drafted by anyone. I was inclined to pick the Tampa version of Mike Wallace, but he was a late round sleeper. He's definitely exceeded expectations, but I don't think he went undrafted in a lot of leagues. Honorable mention to Deion Branch - doubt he was drafted much.

TE - this one is easy as well - Jacob Tamme. Drafted in zero leagues, and a top 5 guy.

Ini both of my playoff teams, I have at least one of these guys. I have Vick on both teams, and I have Hillis on one of them. I had the opportunity to pick up Tamme in one of those leagues - granted I would have had to pick him up before he even played a game, but the opportunity was there. I'm still kicking myself, as my TEs are Hernandez in one league, and Benjamin Watson in the other.

The only one I don't blame myself for not going after was Johnson, simply because my WR turned out really well this year. In one league I wasted a 2nd round pick on Moss, but I did get DeSean Jackson, Santonio Holmes, and Hines Ward later on, so I'm OK there. In the other league I have Bowe, Holmes, and Fitzgerald, and since I only have to start two, it's unlikely I would have started Johnson much there either.

 

Even though I was holding the last playoff spot going into the final week, I won adn still was dropped to 7th place. Aargh! We had a 4-way tie betweeen the 4 thru 7 spots. I was knocked out of the playoffs by having 1.5 total pts scored compared to 6th place. Though I beat him twice in the season, since it was a 4-way tie, total pts became the tie-breaker, not head-to-head matchups.... sniggutz!

 

Blades,

In the vast majority of leagues I've played in, total points, and not head-to-head is the first tie breaker, as it is better representative of how your tam performed over the course of a season. The problem with head-to-head is that with injuries and bye weeks your best players may not have been on the field for that single matchup, especially if you play in larger leages (12+) where it is likely that you'll only play a given team once over the course of the year.

That obviously sucks for you, and I know my words will be of little consolation. Just take some comfort in knowing that the way your league handles tie breakers is the most common method - it's not some arcane rule that is used in a small percentage of leagues.

 

1-1 in the playoffs this weekend. Which is to say I advanced in one and was eliminated in the other. (The guy had MJD and RunDMC as his starting RBs in the league I lost. That went... poorly.)

 

In my money league I'm the 2-seed and I play my first game this week. Bounced from my friendly league by a point. Curse you Desean Jackson and your insane game

 

Happiness is...

Playing the top seed in the playoffs who has Aaron Rodgers as his QB...

Not sure who he has decided to replace him with, but it certainly isn't anyone particularly good.

 

Turned out to be David Garrard, who was not craptastic yesterday. It's going to be close. I have a decent lead right now, but he has the Bears D/ST tonight, which is obviously, a pretty damn good defense to start this week.

 

Through the power of Mike Vick, and Witten I'm in the championship.

 

Oh yeah - Vick is the only guy on my team that showed up yesterday. My 3 RBs - McCoy, Bradshaw and Hillis, didn't do a heck of a lot. The only reason I have a chance tonight is because of Vick.

 

And so it ends - 26 points by Bears D/ST dooms me to a 5 point loss, and a 3rd place game next week.

 

I'm up by 19 points. I still have Vick to go and he has Maclin and Roddy White. This is going to get interesting. I scored big time by picking up the New England defense. I would love to win this championship.

EDIT: I'm up by 6.53 points and I have Vick and he has Maclin. So much for getting to bed early tonight.

 

That's in the bag my friend. Unless something ridiculous happens like every single TD Vick scores occurs on a pass to Maclin, you should win easily. I don't know the scoring system in your league, but unless it's something really odd, there's no way Maclin can earn points without Vick earning points, while Vick can earn points independently of Maclin, by running or throwing to any receiver not named Maclin. I would not be worried.

I'll probably win my 3rd place game tonight - damn it all - but especially the Bears defense last week. My score will likely be high enough after Vick and McCoy play tonight that I would have won the championship.