Hello everyone! For those of you that are new to my work, I have the privilege this year to be taking over the “Start ‘Em, Sit ‘Em” series each Saturday morning for the 2016 NFL Season. I’m very grateful for this opportunity, and I can’t wait to get started! A little bit about myself, I currently live 15 minutes away from Raymond James Stadium in beautiful Tampa, Florida, but I was born in the north end of Boston. I’m a pretty big Pats, Bruins, Sox and Celtics fan. [Jay’s Note: Yikes!] I’ve been playing fantasy football for a good while now, and my greatest memory is making the playoffs in my main league on the final day due to a tiebreaker after starting out the year 1-6. That was pretty freaking cool. This is my second season writing for Razzball after doing a bit of Daily Fantasy work last year, and now I can’t wait for what the 2016 season will bring. What I do know is my goal for this season, which is to be as accurate as I can, giving advice for who to start, who to bench, and maybe even some streaming analysis. Along the way, I’ll answer any questions that are asked, and have a good time while doing so.
So let’s get started with a Primer for the upcoming season…
Start ‘Em
The name says it all. Each week, I will be providing the “starts” of the week, or players who I think should be in every starting lineup if possible.
Obviously, I won’t be writing about the guaranteed names like Aaron Rodgers, Todd Gurley, or Rob Gronkowski, but out of our 13 or so guys, we have to make the right decisions to start someone, so I will be helping with the not-so obvious plays.
I will start out each article with my “Start of the Week”, which is pretty self-explanatory. The title of the article will probably be related to this player. For example, in Week 7 when he travels to Philadelphia, the title of my column will most likely be “Start ‘Em, Sit ‘Em Week 7: Diggs Out for Harambe”.
I’ll definitely adapt or change it up if I need to, or depending on the week, but my goal is to list 3 starts at each position. If I feel I need to add more players, I will, but there should at least be 3 at the absolute minimum.
In terms of general strategy of players who I believe should be starting in your lineups, seldom will I put a player who is considered a fantasy “stud” based purely off of matchup. The reason why I do this is because of one philosophy of which I swear by but still never end up doing: “You can’t bench your studs”. If I get really nervous of one player, I might come out and say that I’m worried about them, but these are our top players, and in most cases, a worrisome matchup does not hurt them in any way. We saw this last year with Antonio Brown torching the Denver Broncos defense, or Greg Olsen tearing up the Seahawks.
Sit ‘Em
Again, pretty self explanatory. Each week, I will be providing the “sits” of the week, or players who I think should not be in our starting lineup if at all possible. Like I mentioned before, unless I’m feeling really bad about one of those players, rarely will I put a player in this category who is considered a fantasy “stud” based purely off of matchup.
I will definitely have a similar criteria for these players, and usually, it’s based off of a mixture of:
- Bad matchup
- Unfavorable game script (as in, their unlikely due to get enough targets/touches to become relevant)
- Injuries (not just personal injuries, but if there are injuries to other players on their team, that could possibly lead to them being put on the bench)
- Favorable teammates that will steal targets/touches
Usually, a player will at least fall into one of these criterion, possibly even multiple categories.
Like the starts, I’ll adjust if necessary, but I’m planning on doing 3 “sits” for each position.
Streamers
I won’t have an individual section for these players since we’ll have a series dedicated to this, but I’ll definitely add my own thoughts when necessary. Many are starting to feel like the QB, TE, K and D/ST positions are somewhat worthless, or maybe so deep that they passed completely on a QB in order to stream week-to-week, or until they find a starter in the list of streamers. We’ll definitely have this year’s Ryan Fitzpatrick or Benjamin Watson.
When selecting which streamers as “starts” this year, I will usually take one of the following into consideration:
- Very favorable matchup
- Newly discovered opportunity due to injury/other
- Possible outcome of a high-scoring “shoot-out” game in the current week
The “starts” of the week at the K and D/ST will most likely be considered all streamers, but I will definitely outline the specific streaming plays for the week under the QB, and TE positions. Ideally, you shouldn’t have to stream at the HB and WR, and if there is a hot new commodity, I would definitely check out Matt’s “Through the Wire” series for more info on that.
Other than that, I don’t have much else to say in terms of general strategy for lineup construction during the year. If there is an important topic that comes up for discussion before the season, I will definitely address it. Other than that, I am very excited to get started this year, and I wish everyone good luck as drafts should finish out this Labor Day weekend. Speaking of the weekend, hopefully everyone will have a safe and happy one.
As always, if you have a question, or agree/disagree on an strategy point made, please do not hesitate to leave a comment below.
You Can Follow Zach on Twitter @ohuhave12
