Fantasy Football is Won on Tuesdays

Another exciting week of Football and now it’s time to plan for week 5.

From a FFIWOT strategic point of view this is a slow moving week. Lets face it, our strategy is to pick diamonds in the rough at running back and sell them later int he season when their stock is high and other players have few viable options.

Another strategy is to wade through bye weeks and key injuries and offer solutions to competitors in a challenging position. If this were real estate they would be motivated sellers selling off their prized assets at a discount because of market and personal conditions.

Looking at the former strategy, we have already had a lot of play on the up and comers of the league. Good luck trying to get Aaron Rogers (QB GB), Matt Forte (RB Chi), or a DeSean Jackson (WR Phi).

There aren’t a lot of surprises from here that we don’t at least have a suspicion about. Lets face it, the first couple weeks of the season is all about discovering new talent and we have all been discovering. Most of the emerging talent yet to be spotted are sitting on benches waiting for an injury to happen. We’ll be ready for that but not right now.

So we are going to take a different tack. Before we get into that, lets look at our second main strategy above of being the right guy with the right offer when some poor sap is hurting because he didn’t prepare for his bye week or a key injury hit and his bench is thin. There isn’t a lot of that happening this week.

Byes for week 5 include: Cleveland, New York Jets, Oakland, St. Louis

That roughly translates to B Favre (QB NYJ), J Cotchery (WR NYJ), L Coles (WR NYJ), and S Jackson (RB STL) as key players sitting the week out. Yes there are other names but if you own Cleveland players you probably have them on the bench this coming week any way until they can prove something.

The bottom line is that there are just not enough key players effected by the bye this week to motivate a lot of sellers out there unless they did a really bad job of preparing after a bizarre alignment of players came their way.

So at first glance it would appear that we are screwed this week. Not really. When they zig we zag. People in the leagues I’m in seem to be grabbing the best talent available based on 4 weeks of performance. That sounds like a good strategy on the surface but it is the last thing you should be doing and not just because everyone else is doing it.

FFIWOT Rule: Every week, do an analysis of your running backs and wide receivers. Find the week you will be at your thinnest which will undoubtedly be a bye week. Plug in your substitutes and then look at the remaining (if any) players at that position. They should be diamonds in the rough. If they are sub par players, be ready to drop them if they are good players you should be looking for opportunities to trade them every week.

What I’m seeing with people picking up the best talent available is people picking up players who they would never start unless there were major injuries on their team and even then they would start them reluctantly on a team destined to loose.

Example: If you have a league that starts 3 wide receivers and you never have more than 1 on a bye from here on in and you have 4 good receivers, why in the hell would you pick up Ike Hilliard (WR TB) as your 5th? That is a wasted bench position as he is not suddenly going to be a consistent top 20 receiver.

In all likelihood he would remain on your bench not good enough to trade or even to start in your bye week. If you claim you are hedging against two injuries or an injury plus a bye then you are playing to loose. It is better to loose that week you are afflicted with bad luck than to tie up a valuable bench spot with dead wood.

You are much better off betting on a long shot in this position. Find a guy on a bench behind a talented wide receiver who has a history of injury or who your crystal ball says is going down. Maybe its a rookie who you think will become this year’s Calvin Johnson (WR Det).

The point is, while everyone else is picking up the Ike Hilliard’s and Derek Mason (WR Bal) because he had a good week, you need to look for people with huge upside. That brings us to my next point.

If you have no more up and comers to scout and grab, then pick up some down and outers. If you have some Ike Hilliard types (sorry to pick on you Ike, I’m a old Giants fan who grew up in Tampa so I like Ike, he just works for my example) then you should be looking to make deals for some of the following people:

Wide Receiver:

Randy Moss (WR NE)

Braylon Edwards (WR Cle)

Andre Johnson (WR Hou)

If you get an impatient guy then Marques Colston (WR NO)

and if you are a really optimistic gambler Chad “Ocho Cinco” Johnson (WR Cin)

Running Back:

Ryan Grant (RB GB)

Laurence Maroney (RB NE)

Selvin Young (RB Den)

Sure, probably none of the guys above are going to give you an immediate return and most are not (yet) on the waiver wire but if they are, grab them. If not you could trade your Ike Hilliards for some of them at this point.

These are proven entities that are having a bad start. Even if they take until mid season to turn things around think about what you will have at crunch time by taking a gamble with a bench seat now

One final word.

FFIWOT Rule: Most leagues will let you sort all players by some stat like fantasy points scored YTD. Do this for kickers and make sure there isn’t a much better kicker than the one you have sitting as a free agent.

This is of the most neglected positions in fantasy football and one of the most unpredictable. Just because a guy was good last year and so you ended up with him in the draft based on this doesn’t mean he is good this year.

With kickers, it depends a lot on their offense as well as their range and accuracy. Shop around.

Repeat the above exercise with defenses. I just picked up Tampa Bay as a secondary defense in one of my leagues without a competitor bidding.

Good luck

-Chris

The first three weeks are past us now and we have uncovered some sleepers like Aaron Rogers (QB GB) and complained about some superstuds putting up superdud numbers like Derek Anderson (QB Cle). He have seen Tom Brady (QB NE) go down and we have sung Kombayah until we can sing no more.

Week 4 is where we start to separate the men from the boys, the wheat from the chaff, the goats from thee sheep, the notes from the noise, the rice from the hulls, the peanuts from the butter, the pretenders from the contenders and where the FFIWOT strategy starts to kick in full throttle.

Suddenly, this morning, millions of fantasy football players logged in to see where they sit in their league. To the horror of many as they pulled up their roster and they suddenly discovered that 2 of their running backs have a bye next week and the third is injured! [insert scream here]

This is where our preparedness pays dividends. The guy who wouldn’t have traded his Kyle Orton (QB Chi) for your Peyton Manning (QB Ind) just a week ago will suddenly jump and an opportunity to get a Jason Campbell (QB Was).

FFIWOT Rule: During Bye weeks only offer trades that both solve the other players dilemma while upgrading your roster just enough to not send up warning flags.

If you have decent receivers on your bench and there are people with empty wide receiver slots because of byes and injury then for god sake don’t just sit there make an offer. People will trade the like of Ryan Grant (RB GB) for the like of a L Coles (WR NYJ) coming off his first and only touchdown. Now in week 12, when the Packers are looking toward the playoffs and the Jets are are scratching their heads wondering why in thee world they brought a 72 year old QB into a new system on a new team and expected miracles to happen, which of the aforementioned player do you think will be more valuable? This assumes you have a Wide Receiver to spare to make the trade to begin with…

Remember, even if this guy is desperate you still have to get this trade past the rest of the league. The goal is to be the problems solver for other players and in return for this community service you charge a small player upgrade fee. These upgrades compound during the bye weeks until you come out the other side a much more fordable team.

FFIWOT Rule: During bye weeks, offer at least one trade option for every problem you can solve and when possible, offer several versions and let them pick.

Throw as much spaghetti at the wall as you can and some will certainly stick.

FFIWOT Rule: Be willing to trade or add a player that will win you games down the road even if you have to leave a slot empty and loose a game early in the year.

Example: For a guy needing a to fill a running back slot, a Pierre Thomas (RB NO) is a life saver and worth the M Colston taking up space on his bench. He’s worried about right now and you’ll be thinking about the second half of the season when suddenly you find you have a healthy top shelf wide receiver and he has a guy averaging 22 yards per game and occasionally stealing a goalline touchdown.

FFIWOT Rule: Every year they say that the running back position is no long the most important because of early season apparent shortages at wide receive and/or quarterback. Every year it is the player who stocked up on running back talent who has a better team at the end of the year.

Pick up the young guys like the J Stewarts (RB Car) and the Steve Slatons (RB Hou) and take chances on guys like R Mendenhall getting his first start this weekend.

FFIWOT Rule: Every other year they talk about the emergence of the Running Back By Committee and they sing the death knell of the primary back and every year the majority of the RBBCs see a dominant back emerge. Backing the right guy early can be the difference down the road.

The two headed monster is not a myth. They exist but there just aint as many that last the whole year as it seem there will be in week 1. If I had to pick some good candidates from some of the RBBC teams out there I would look at S Young (RB Den), C Johnson (RB Ten), J Stewart (RB Car) and maybe L McClain (RB Bal). These are not locks but if you hedge your bets and pick wisely then toward playoff time you can have this year’s Ryan Grant (RB GB) or E Graham (RB TB) who both emerged from these kind of situation to be late season superstars.

-Chris

Wow, isn’t it funny how we are always surprised after week one by the wins and losses and how little it usually means in the big picture. The big news of course is Tom Brady (QB NE) out for the year. We’ll go game by game and analyze the fantasy impact and plug it into our strategy in out next post after we review our strategic goals at this point of the season. A good segue….

FFIWOT Strategy after week one:

Look at the big picture, keep realistic expectations and gamble based on some basic principals. Here are a couple rules that are relevant for this week.

FFIWOT Rules: Man your positions with as few players as needed except for Running Backs.

You need to learn to live with one Tight End, one defense (for this time of year), one kicker and two quarterbacks tops. If your number two and three guys at these positions are just so good you can’t drop them, then trade them. But maybe you point out that you will have no one if you top player get hurt or your defense starts stinking. FFIWOT may not be right for you unless you can get past this way of thinking.

If you have one of the elite tight ends then he is your starter and you ride his play for the year. Why have another pretty good guy to second guess yourself with, or worse, a sub par Tight end on your bench eating a roster spot. Beyond the elite top there is a deep pool of bland, “3 catches for 29 yard and 1 touchdown every 8 games” tight ends to go around. If your star gets hurt you will have to play tight end by weekly match up based on the free agents available.

Same strategy applies to kickers, quarterbacks (beyond 2 on the roster), and your defense (for this part of the season). The thing about defenses is they gel as the year goes by so I’m telling you there are some good defenses in the FA pool right now. Sometimes defenses, light on talent, benefit from their offense. Lets say Atlanta becomes a ball control and time of possession powerhouse which is not unrealistic given their running attack. Atlanta’s defense becomes a lot better just by virtue of not having to be on the field as much. The opposite could be said of Jacksonville and their offensive line problems. If they become a three and out team then that will put a lot of pressure on their defense.

Pick up as many Running Backs as you can without compromising wins by thinning out another position. You want an RB farm team of sorts so you can gamble on to three guys with the hopes (expectations really) that at least one becomes a fantasy stud. There is a good chance the other two will do nothing but when its time to move on (and not a week before then) we can dump that player and pick up our next prospect. Even if you are already set at running back when your farm stars arise, you will be prepared if one of your starters goes down to injury, as often they do. If you are lucky enough to have healthy running backs at the end of the year AND a rising star, then you will have a powerful and rare trading commodity to upgrade one of your other positions for the playoffs.

Our focus for the year is on the pool of Running Back and who may be a star four or five weeks from now. Examples of this right now would be Jonathan Stewart (RB Car) who will get more touches as the year goes on and may be found on waivers after an ok (fantasy-wise) 53 yard start.

We are looking for:

• Replacements to injured starters
• Young players who should work their way into the line ups
• Your favorite candidates of two horse races for the office of starting running back
• The back ups of injury prone players who are healthy for now

I know you are thinking, ” Yea that sounds good but everyone will be picking up these players”. You would think but it just ain’t so. Most of your opponents are undisciplined, impatient and overstaffed at the wrong positions. To be successful at this you have to have available roster spots for players who are unstartable for what could be several weeks. You must operate thin and be aware of your bye weeks.

FFIWOT Rule: For adds and drops we speculate on future value even at the cost of a short term win

Many Fantasy Football coaches loose sight of the goal which is to win the championship. Its nice to have an undefeated regular season but if your don’t win in the playoffs then so what. Sometimes you need to sacrifice a week so you can win several more weeks in the future.

FFIWOT Rule: Know your league rules!

Most leagues have pretty friendly rules for playoff entry where basically almost everyone is in and record just determines your spot in the bracket and thus who you play. In other leagues its the top four teams only, where a loss now could cost you a berth later.

FFIWOT Rule: With trades, Buy low and Sell High

We didn’t invent this saying but we live by it as a rule. You have to be willing to make some bad calls and live with them. You have to be patient and most importantly unemotional.

How can you possibly trade Willing Parker (RB PIT) right now when he is on a pace to to run for 2208 yard and 48 rushing touchdowns! That’s what your emotional self says. Your logical self says because he will do neither is why you would consider trading him right now while his stock is at it’s peak. You look at the fact that while Parker will no doubt have a good year, his carries will eventually decrease as Rashard Mendenhall’s (RB PIT) go up. Sure he had a subpar outing in the same game Parker blew it up but maybe Jacksonville is better suited to stop his style of running. Maybe it’s a bad idea to trade Parker, depends on you specific circumstance. The point is, if you were even going to entertain the thought, right now, today is the time to do it.

Today you should be printing out your league rosters and making trade offers like mad in search of the deals and steals that emotional, reactionary fellow coaches present.

Look for our game by game analysis with fantasy impact, later today

-Chris