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Folks, it is already June and we are within double digit days from the regular season.  When you’re in a dynasty league, the season never ends.  I’ve been thinking about the 2017 season for my dynasty team since the day after week 16 ended.  I guess that I’m like Bill Belicheck with four fewer titles.  I may have won the championship, but I was 3 weeks behind everybody else in the fantasy football offseason.  I’m just joking (kind of), that would be a bit obsessive.

Before I get into a few stand out players, I have just a little bit of house keeping.  Zach and I started a podcast called Razzblitz and it’s really easy to find.  If you subscribe to the Razzcast on iTunes or whatever app you download podcasts on, our podcast will be on that thread.  Or, if you just click on the football side of the Razzball blog, our podcast will be up as posts as well.  Zach and I want to provide you with as much fantasy knowledge as possible and keep each episode pretty digestible time-wise while doing so.  We have two up so far this off season with Episode 3 and beyond coming soon…

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It was finally nice to see some great prime time football for once last week! Seahawks versus the  Patriots was an absolutely fitting battle where the Seahawks flipped the script of their Super Bowl XLIX defeat, and Bengals vs. Giants was a tight game until the end. It would’ve been nice to see a bit more flash on Monday Night Football with stars like Odell Beckham Jr., A.J. Green, and Tyler Eifert on the field, but viewers and fantasy owners can’t be too disappointed with how things turned out. Even though we didn’t see much in the way of explosive, flashy plays, wasn’t Beckham’s rendition of Thriller beautiful to watch at least? Last week I wrote about the good ole’ days of football where touchdown celebrations used to make the games better, so the fact that he didn’t get flagged made it all the better. After briefly speaking about the celebration in his post game interview, Beckham got me thinking when he mentioned he was inspired by Conor McGregor’s UFC 205 victory. How ironic is it that Beckham, one of the feeblest minds in the NFL, can be inspired by Conor McGregor, one of our generation’s most prolific trash talkers? I mean, just imagine if Conor was a cornerback slotted to go against Beckham. How many plays do you think it takes for it to escalate to the Josh Norman level of 2015? Two? Three? Either way, I’m sure his fantasy owners don’t care who inspires him as long as he keeps producing. Now it’s time to look at this week, where I take you through all the guys that should be inspiring you to start them.

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If you’re like me and you’re not into the current political talk, boy have I got a great read for you. I promise the most election-like references I’ll make in the entire post have to do with locker room politics. Instead, let me focus on the cause of what’s wrong with football lately, Roger Goodell. The man in the high castle seems to be too busy counting all the TV revenue money and player fines to worry about how bad ratings are. But don’t we, the public, deserve more from one of the most influential sports in America? I can’t be the only one eating member berries and thinking back to the good ole’ days. Remember when players were free to take cheerleader pom poms for a dance and pull out phones to call and tell their buds they scored? Hell, if Goodell is afraid of “sportsmanship” maybe he ought to implement a more stringent policy on performance enhancing drugs. You know, like the HGH policy that hasn’t caught a single player since the rule’s inception. Hopefully, we can make football great again someday soon and start the fun again. Till then, I guess dancing at home when your sketchy Flex play scores is going to have to do. I’ll do my part and give you a few names to help get you to that victory dance.

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Welcome to another week of fantasy football where everything’s made up, but the points actually matter. Matchups are the name of the game this week, as I’m sure just about everyone is scouring the waiver wire with so much talent on bye. That’d be said, look no further than the Packers who square off against an embarrassing Colts defense. Rodgers is going to toss touchdowns galore in this one, so be ready for quite a few Lambo Leaps. I’m not sure the Colts’ strategy of letting the opposing offenses score as quickly as possible so Andrew Luck can have the ball back is logical, but hey, I’m no defensive coordinator. If it’s too late to snatch up Packers, don’t worry, there’s plenty more juicy matchups to exploit on the docket. And as a bonus because I’m such a good guy, I also have a few secret stashes for those looking to deepen their benches. Let’s get to it!

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When I saw that Jay Ajayi (28 CAR, 214 YDS, 7.6 AVG, 1 TD, 53 LONG and 1 REC, 2 YDS, 2.0 AVG, 2 LONG, 1 TGTS) broke the 200-yard rushing barrier yesterday, I assumed it was a career-total type of thing… I mean, what kind of timeline have we been transported to where something like this could happen? We went from:s: It’s Arian Foster, it’s Jay Ajayi, it’s I think I’ll take a pass, to whatever we call this. Arian Foster (3 CAR, 5 YDS, 1.7 AVG, 3 LONG and 1 REC, 4 YDS, 4.0 AVG, 4 LONG, 3 TGTS) is probably safe to ignore now (though I might hold if possible, just because the Dolphins are a weird team that does weird things whenever they can). So now, one has to tackle (see what I did there?) the possibility that we’re seeing Devonta Freeman 2.0. True, the Bills probably wouldn’t be able to tackle Rex Ryan standing still if they tried yesterday, and yeah, the Steelers run defense has somehow morphed into the Colts run defense from the 00’s (zeroes or oh’s?… I have no idea), and that shows up in the numbers: Ajayi has broken as many tackles on 54 handoffs over the last two weeks (13) as Ezekiel Elliott has on 148 touches this entire season. But it’s hard to ignore two 200-yard games in a row, even with caveats. Only three other players have done that: O.J. Simpson, Earl Campbell, and Ricky Williams. Granted, you probably want to most be like Cambell here, in terms of the law (Simpson) and career longevity (Williams). Don’t kill people and get high, maaaaan… But how do we really know that this is legitimate? Well, since the majority of us didn’t see Freeman’s 2015, we can certainly see some similar parallels with Ajayi forming. In 2014, Freeman was one of the top running backs in the draft (like Ajayi was in 2015), and as a rookie for the Falcons, he was relegated to third string duty, totaling just 65 rushes and 30 catches the entire year. He was unspectacular, and his potential finally forgotten en masse when Tevin Coleman was drafted. The exact same could be said with Ajayi last year, as Lamar Miller’s presence limited him to just 187 total rushing yards and 11 catches. And then, Kenyan Drake was drafted and Arian Foster was signed. While it’s hard to say if Ajayi can sustain RB1 numbers for an Adam Gase and Clyde Christensen run offense that has never drawn up a sh*tty play that they didn’t love and do over and over again, it’s certainly apparent that when you make the lazy comparison that Jay Ajayi is the next Devonta Freeman, it might actually turn out to be right. And then you find yourself wondering, can Devonta effing Freeman be the next Jay Ajayi?… And then you wonder how the NFC West didn’t win a game yesterday, even though the Seahawks and Cardinals played against each other… and then you wonder why your head hurts so much.

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2008-Green Bay Packers' Aaron Rodgers walks off the field after losing to the Atlanta Falcons 27-24. The Green Bay Packers hosted the Atlanta Falcons at Lambeau Field Sunday October 5, 2008. Steve Apps-State Journal.

Greetings! Oh how I wonder… will the Elder Gods bless me this week? Will they take the six pounds of Mexican schwag as a gift in place of my usual animal sacrifice, or will they rain piss down upon me as if they were R. Kelly (only if he had a full grown African elephant chonger) for not coming correct with some high-grade blueberry kush? Only time will tell, but what is time really anyway? Just a creative way of recording our meaningless existence on this earth as we build this fascinating technology-driven world, only for us to be eventually wiped out like the courageous dinosaurs before us, obliterated like krill being sucked up by a massive blue whale. Oh, to be young again. Building forts, playing General Chaos on Sega Genesis, catching frogs, measuring dick… And what is life now? Fantasy football?  Help me.

I am Lord Tehol Beddict and this is Disgrace/Delight! Take head!

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Ahh, it’s that refreshing time of year when the scorching heat is finally dying down, and the weather is turning cold enough to completely forget about the summer. With the middle of the season approaching, the fantasy outlook, like the weather, is rapidly changing.  Sure you may have had one of the best teams in the league when Eric Decker and DeAngelo Williams were still producing, but those days are gone and their positions have been filled. This is true for many of the players you drafted, whether they were once putting up great numbers or not, and it’s about time to adapt to the changes. Get ready to trust in players you never thought you would, in this week’s Beyond the Numbers.

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ST. LOUIS, MO - NOVEMBER 15: Todd Gurley #30 of the St. Louis Rams carries the ball in the first quarter against the Chicago Bears at the Edward Jones Dome on November 15, 2015 in St. Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)

Welcome to Week 6! This is my favorite time of the fantasy year. We get to reflect on the last five weeks, figure out the missing pieces that are needed to take our fantasy game to take the next step, and act upon those missing pieces. If things have gone bad for you, don’t worry about it, and if things have gone pretty terribly, don’t worry about it as well. Some situations such as those with C.J. Anderson and Devontae Booker have fantasy owners asking themselves, “Who do I stash?”, or “Who has the better future in hold”? Questions like these might make or break your fantasy year based off of timing and effective Waiver Wire maneuvering. However, not all running backs are being threatened of workload to an up-and-coming rookie in the fold. Some backs have the job locked up, and are even moving on to an increasingly larger workload based off of numerous factors. So let’s head out to L.A. and get started!

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I have to say, during yesterday’s “Dress Like an Empty Seat Day” game in San Francisco, it dawned on me that if you were to do it all over again, I’m pretty sure David Johnson would be your number one overall pick. I’D DRAFT HIM AT BIRTH SON. Obviously, that was literal, but even if you take it figuratively, and probably you’d still go Antonio Brown, but who else is there? And to be fair, I think there were probably more question marks with Johnson than that of Todd Gurley entering the season, but what we’ve seen here is a perfect storm of Bruce Arian’s random play-calling, a passing attack that thinks consistency is a dirty word, and an unwillingness by the other team to do something as fundamental to football as tackling. And all of these things were on full display last night, starting with a first quarter that convinced me the game would end in a 0-0 tie. Granted, I think it became a watchable game after three hours of CBS promotions, but even by Thursday Night Football standards, it was pretty terrible. Are you ready to whine and moan about the quality of the game and everything associated with it it but still watch it every week? These are the tough questions folks. That being said, Jeremy Kerley became a thing. So I guess it’s 2012 again.

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Yesterday we had a little bit of everything, didn’t we? After voluntarily waking up early for a Colts-Jaguars game in London, I wondered: What happened to my life that would make me do such a thing? I mean, you’d think after all we’ve done for the United Kingdom over the years, they’d have the courtesy to be on the same time zone. And we had plenty of expected outcomes like my Chargers once again clutching a loss from the jaws of victory, the Browns being their usually Brownsy selves, a boring Sunday night primetime game, Cam Newton concussing (a word?) himself again, and, of course, DeAndre Hopkins showing us where all hope goes to die. And then something… majestic happened, something rare. (Some say it only happens once a decade…) But we, as a nation, for the first time this season, witnessed the first Patriots loss of the year. And it was to the hapless Bills. What a time to be alive. In fact, both (or one, or none, who knows?) of the Ryans coached a defense that shut out the Patriots for the first time since 2006, and the first time in New England since 1993. Seems good. But as someone once said, you don’t know the sweet unless you’ve tasted sour. The sour? The Rams and Raiders, the current and former Los Angeles football teams, are currently in playoff contention. One team is coached by Jeff Fisher, and the other by Jack Del Rio. Soak that wierd sh*t in for a second…

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Atlanta Falcons v New Orleans Saints

Welcome back to the Week 3 edition of By The Numbers. I’m writing this from one of my favorite cities on the entire world – New Orleans. In fact, I’m in a bit of a haze as I pen this. Maybe it was all the huffing, or quite possibly the hookers, who knows? Either way, The French Quarter never disappoints. After I’d had my fill of the “Vieux Carre” I was deep in thought as I traveled back to my humble Midwest estate. It came to my attention that the Saints were playing host to the Atlanta Falcons this week. If you’ve followed the numbers at all the past few years then you’re well aware that it doesn’t get much better than Drew Brees at home. Maybe he adds an extra dose of NyQuil into his lean on Saturday nights or Sean Payton really knows how to whip up some magic jambalaya. Whatever the case, he’s absolutely nails in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Over the past two seasons Brees has averaged 324 yards and 2.87 touchdowns per home game, while producing 292 yards and 1.87 touchdowns on the road. That extra production has helped New Orleans win 68.9% of their home games since 2010, while winning just 52.2% of road contests during that same period. This week he’ll feast on a weak Atlanta pass defense which allowed 299 yards through the air and three touchdowns to Derek Carr in Week 2. Two weeks ago this was the same group that yielded four touchdowns and 281 passing yards to Jameis Winston, while generating zero sacks. With just two weeks worth of data to sift through, Atlanta has already given up seven passing scores against zero interceptions. The Falcons are allowing the third most fantasy points (28.7) in the league to opposing QBs, 12th most fantasy points to WRs (24.9) and they’re ranked second-worst in the league in points allowed to opposing TEs (15.7). In other words…..They’re way below average. Whether you’re playing the daily game or season long fantasy (or both) you obviously want a piece of the Saints’ passing attack in you lineups if possible. Don’t let last weeks low scoring affair scare you away from Brees’ and his tiny hands. He was still able to complete 65 percent of his passes against the Giants and he dropped back 46 times in that contest. This is perhaps the most pass happy attack in the league – averaging 343 yards and 2.5 scores through the first two weeks this year. This game currently holds the highest O/U of the week at 53.5. Hopefully that excites you like it excites me. I currently have a Drew Brees rager you could hang a hat on. Anyway, remember to check out Jay’s rankings and Rudy’s “Pigskinator” to help you dominate your league. They’re without a doubt two of the best in the industry. Without further delay, here’s a look at some stats and facts that might help you win your matchups this week:

Last week I conducted an experiment with The Stats Machine in an attempt to project fantasy points. While I haven’t had a chance to do a thorough examination of the results, at first glance it didn’t appear to be a total failure. Once I dive deeper, I will take what I learn, tweak the machine and come back to you with round two. This week, however, we are back to our regularly scheduled programming as we find out which players aroused TSM last week. Strong fantasy football performances are a natural aphrodisiac in the world of The Stats Machine.

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