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Week 16 is here!
Happiness and cheer!
Fun for all that champs they call
Their favorite time of year!

Let it just sink in. The nostalgia of that animated tune from 1965. You’ve heard it before right? Here’s a refresher:

So, I changed the lyrics a bit. What you’re looking for is a big ol’ ‘You’re Welcome,’ right? For real, though, you can’t watch that and not feel a certain je ne sais quoi for this time of year! It’s the best, hands down.

As you read this Christmas has come and gone, and in its wake we’re left with New Years Week 16 of the NFL Season, or as fantasy footballers call it: Championship Week! And if that doesn’t bring ‘happiness and cheer’ to each of you I don’t know what will. Huh? What’s that? Oh, you didn’t make your league’s championship? Well, poopsickles! Good news is this entire article is about to focus on how you can still play all of your football fantasies out in Week 16… FanDuel!

Each week we offer a 22-man Razzball-only FanDuel Contest that pays out the top-5 finishers! Think you’re good enough to operate beyond just luck and work your way to the top of the standings? Then put your money where your fingertips are and enter the $5 Contest for Week 16 (Sun-Mon Contest)!

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You can read part one here.

Here’s two players.  Player A played in 66 games in 5 years since becoming a starter, an average of 13.2 games (16, 13, 16, 8, 13 games played by season).  Player B played in 49 games in 4 years for his career (he’s been a starter his entire career), an average of 12.2 games per season (13, 16, 5, 15 games played by season).  Player A is a running back, Player B is a wide receiver.  Do they seem durable to you?  Injury prone?  What if I told you Player A is perceived as one of the biggest injury risks in the game, while Player B sometimes gets a free pass for his injuries.  Does that seem like the best way to judge these two?

Play fantasy football against me in the Razzball Commenter Leagues here!

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As promised, I have completed my homework for this year’s upcoming auctions and am back to share the results. In part 3 of my “Points Per Dollar” series (Part 1, Part 2), I have put together my 2015 projections, converted them to fantasy points and compared each player against his current going auction value. For this data I have gathered the results of thousands of completed 2015 auctions. It’s important to note that in determining a player’s PPD you must use their going market value. Many sites, Razzball included, publish a cheatsheet of each player’s auction values. This is helpful as a guideline, but that’s all they are. Guidelines. It’s one thing for an expert to say Aaron Rodgers is worth $36, but what I really care about is the fact that he is actually going for $44 in real auctions. That’s a more indicative value as to what Rodgers will actually cost me on auction day.

Take me on in the Razzball Commenter Leagues here!

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We are here today to point out the differences between the Razzball rankings and those that Yahoo has released to the masses. (Not to be confused with Yoohoo, which I do all the time. Then again, I usually confuse most things with chocolate drink. Totally normal.) Since we’ve already compared our rankings with ESPN, the next logical step is to have some amazing chocolate drink. Err, see what I mean? IT HAUNTS ME. I meant: the next logical step is to compare our rankings to Yahoo, THEN have some chocolate drink. Exactly. Maybe I’m just thirsty. Or hungry. Or all these things. All of the time.

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We are here today to point out the difference between the Razzball rankings and those that ESPN has released to the masses. The first difference you’ll probably notice is that there is no Mathew Berry in our rankings. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I’ll let you decide. Because, hey, I’m just that kind of guy. Beyond that, well, ESPN certainly likes the color of red in their logo. RED EVERYWHERE. Well, touché, we also like a color. And that color is mustache, which is totally a color. Just ask Razzball founder Grey Albright. Not be outdone, I do run around with a five-day shadow on my face on most occasions, which technically counts as facial hair, and a mustache is also facial hair, ergo, the color of mustache. And sure, you could say that I’ve added some yellow to the palette with my face, but then you’d be raycess. Now that the main differences have been established, we’ll move on to things that are more fantasy relevant, well, depending on the type of fantasy that is. Hey now. So after you clear your internet history, we’ll be comparing our rankings to that of ESPN’s and their new “What the ef is this? Facebook? Are you serious” interface. Get yer knives ready!

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If your league does not employ FAAB, then your commish must be a Commie! The traditional waiver wire process usually entails “rewarding” the last place team with the first waiver priority. I understand that it’s meant to “help” a team that performed poorly, but it amounts to a welfare system, as James Harrison so eloquently put recently. FAAB gives all teams a budget, usually $100-$200 for the whole season. Every team then has the ability to acquire any player on the waiver wire each week, contingent upon how much they are willing to pay for them. U-S-A!!! U-S-A!!!

Now that we’ve decided what the AMERICAN way to process the waiver wire is, here are some thoughts on how to navigate it successfully.

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A long time ago (about a year) in a galaxy (Razzball) far, far way…

Guess who’s back, back again. The Stats Machine’s back, tell a friend. Guess who’s back. Guess who’s back. Guess who’s back. Guess who’s back. Unlike most sequels that barely measure up to the original, the first two Godfather movies excluded, the second coming of the Stats Machine looks to build on a successful model, expanding and even deepening an already superb, numbers-driven effort. For those whom are unaware of, or need a refresher on the origin of the Stats Machine (TSM), you can find that here.

Take me on in the Razzball Commenter Leagues here!

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It wasn’t really my intention to write about this topic last season, but we were getting plenty of questions about this specific scoring format and I wanted to make sure we had a concrete answers to give. Though, I do prefer wood a bit more. (That’s what she said.) Plus, if a reader asks about this type of format and how it affects scoring, all I have to do is link them to this post. It’s always nice to answer things back in hyperlinks, because blue is a great color, you get a free underline, and you can interact with them! You only get one out of those three when paying $54.00 to go see the Blue Man Group. What. A. Steal. Regardless, we’re here to show data on how a 6-Point Passing Touchdown affects the scoring of your Quarterbacks, and how that changes where they sit in the rankings, all based on our Projections. In case you missed it, be sure to check out Lance’s strategy breakdown for this format before you check out the data below…

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Weighing risk versus upside when it comes to drafting a player is one of the most significant ways that value is determined.  The most obvious forms of risk are injury risk and age risk but we could also consider off the field concerns, situation risk (bad team, bad scheme fit), and playing time risk (competition at position) among other types of risk.  This series of posts will aim to shed some light on who the more risky players are and what you should do about it. I’ll start the series by focusing on the running back position and attempting to shed some light on how risk changes as the draft proceeds.  I’ll demonstrate which range (or tier) of running backs had the most risk as measured by their 2014 year end performances relative to their draft position.  Later posts will focus on age and injury related risks and make some suggestions as to which early round players might be overrated this year due to those concerns.

Play fantasy football against me in the Razzball Commenter Leagues here!

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Well, this is it, the last required information dump (hehe, dump) for the masses in preparation for your 2015 Fantasy Football Draft. And here it is, the auction values have been released. But I’m guessing you already knew that, because, of well, ^. For those of you who have never played in an auction draft, or for those of you who do nothing but make it rain when you here the words Jamaal and Charles in the same sentence, I’ll go over some pointers so as to facilitate moderate to heavy alcohol consumption without the fear of drafting Mark Sanchez.

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I had a scheduled laid out for the preseason where I would write four different streaming columns on quarterbacks, tight ends, defenses and kickers.  To be honest, though, if I were to write about just defense or kickers, it would be about 150 words total, which isn’t even enough to get the article picked up on Google News.  Kickers and defenses just don’t make good streamers.

So instead, let’s combine the two positions that mean nothing and put them into one article.  If you can’t tell by the headline, I hate playing in leagues that use team defenses and kickers.  It’s 2015, bro.  Get rid of them in your league.  It’s the old-school thought that we don’t want to venture into unknown territory.  That’s why you see resistance to auctions at first, or even two-QB leagues.  Team defenses and kickers have been a part of fantasy forever, and leagues continue to keep them around.

Why?

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As I’ve been alluding to in some past content, or peppering, if you will, and I might (because steak?), the projections, like winter, were coming. And since winter is here (in the Game of Thrones sense, not the literal sense), there is no more alluding anymore folks. DEATH TO ALL ALLUSIONS. Because someone once told me that time is a flat circle. Everything we’ve done or will do, we’re going to do over and over again. Alright-alright-alright. In this regard, I wouldn’t mind if this day kept repeating itself. Because of steak, the end of allusions, and the arrival of our 2015 Fantasy Football Projections. Could use more boobs though. I’ll look into that. (Life story bro.)

Now, before we get to the good stuff, I just wanted to go over a few things. First, these projections (for over 500 players!) aren’t just some random numbers put into random places for random people to look at. They are based on career performance, last year’s performance, the player’s durability, and so those three things are mixed, stirred, shaken, whichever you prefer, and then the math happens. I then take what the math did and put my own touches on it (legal touches), altering the numbers a bit here and there. Granted, we aren’t the big boys like ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS, but I’m very happy with our system this year. (And I should note that we beat out all three last season in ranking accuracy, including many other major outlets.) Second, you probably won’t see an exact correlation with our projections and our rankings. There will be matches, for sure, but think of the projections as a median for what we think the player will produce. While I went with a more conservative approach here, don’t be surprised if there’s a 10% (or close to) swing in either direction for some players who either end up over-performing or under-performing. Just the nature of the beast. And these projections will be updated if there are any major injuries or other shifting events, like Trent Richardson not sucking any more, and there will also be minor edits at least once a week, so be sure to check in here and there.

Note: I’d like to thank Rudy, for whom this would not be possible. I’m just going to assume dark wizardry was involved, and just keep my mouth shut. I shall sacrifice several Twix bars in your honor!

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