Greetings from the cold, barren edge of the Earth! Had a mishap last week and had to spend the last 10 days in the infirmary. Turns out, boiling water is not the best way to warm up frostbitten toes. Believe me I'd much rather spend that time out on the mountain where I'm in control of my own destiny instead of being at the whim of those doctors. The good news is that I'm back and ready to lead our motley crew up to the summit!
Monthly Archives: October 2019
Dak Nearly Loses Finger While Feeding Zeke
October 21, 2019 | Fantasy Football Daily Notes | 11 Commentsby: Donkey Teeth
It's a well known fact: Ezekiel Elliott has an insatiable appetite. The star running back has been begging anyone and everyone to feed him since all the way back to Pop Warner, but the hunger has never subsided. This past September the Cowboys finally broke down and gave Zeke a little grocery money of his own. But the Dallas RB hasn't been able to locate the Whole Foods Market in his neighborhood and continues to ask for handouts. Fortunately, his best bud Dak Prescott (21/27 for 239 yards, 5 carries for 30 yards and 2 touchdowns) continues to be charitable, feeding Zeke the pigskin 22 times for 111 yards plus another 6 thru the air for 36 more yards and his 6th touchdown as the Cowboys trounced the Eagles on Sunday night. Watch those fingers Dak! Anyway, here’s what else I saw during yesterday’s late games in fantasy football:
Chasing The Dragon In The Arizona Backfield
October 21, 2019 | Fantasy Football Daily Notes | 32 Commentsby: MB
You have to love when two guys have career days and the starting percentages are probably pretty low on them. I say pretty low because I'm sure there were people in bad bye week spots or in deeper leagues that had to start Chase Edmonds or Marvin Jones Jr. Marvin Jones is a solid WR3 for fantasy but I don't think that many were elated about slotting him in against the Vikings. For those that were savvy enough to start Jones Jr., he rewarded them with 10 catches, 93 yards and 4 touchdowns. That is a best ball format wet dream. In the leagues that I own Jones Jr., I can't see myself leaving him on the bench again against the Giants next week.
Chase Edmonds was a different type of situation. David Johnson was named active going into the game and he took one carry for 2 yards and didn't touch the ball again for the rest of the game. I'm guessing that the majority of people that heard Johnson was active took Edmonds out of their lineup. Well, Edmonds carried the ball 27 times for 126 yards and 3 touchdowns. Incredible. Let's get to some other performances from the early slate on Sunday.
Six weeks down and seven weeks to go for the regular fantasy football season. The weather forecasts are looking pretty decent across the board outside of a few possible spurts of rain. During the early games we have what could be shootouts between the Atlanta Falcons and the Los Angeles Rams and also the New York Giants and Arizona Cardinals. In the late afternoon games we have a couple of grinder Big 10 type football games between the Saints and Bears and also the Titans and Chargers. Let's get into the injuries and rankings.
I have really been pounding the keyboard this week, but it is a labor of love. Zach will be back next week for all of your start/sit needs, and I have you covered today. The two most disappointing quarterbacks are on a bye along with the season's WR1, among others. The starts and sits are more crucial than ever as we head into the middle weeks of the fantasy football regular season. Let's get those wins! We'll start with quarterbacks.
The so-called “toilet bowl” was… actually pretty exciting.
The fashion in which the Dolphins lost to the Redskins last week was absolutely hilarious. The poor guys played their hearts out in what may have been their lone realistic shot to win a game all season long and actually put themselves in a position to come from behind and tie up the game.
And then they came literally nowhere close to converting the game-winning opportunity as opposed to forcing OT. Oh well. Such is life for a Miami Dolphin. Why they’re continuing to roll with Ryan Fitzpatrick is an entirely different discussion.
The other thing that came out of this game was a fantastic performance from Terry McLaurin, a name featured in a good amount of winning daily fantasy lineups despite his questionable availability heading into the game. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find the Scary Terry's of Week 7 in this week’s DFS Guide.
RazzBowl Revelations: Pour One Out for Our Fallen Mahomies
October 19, 2019 | RazzBowl | 4 Commentsby: Donkey Teeth
It's with great sadness that I write this weekly RazzBowl update. Team Donkey Teeth has just lost one of it's best less than 48 hours ago. Fortunately, although my Mahomey is down, it seems he may not be out for the count. My emergency Mahomes prayer hexagon assembled yesterday and has succeeded in saving the top QB's season, at least for now. The joy of football Sunday's won't be quite the same for the next couple weeks, but rest assured my team will persevere. I'll be taking the rest of the guys apple picking today to lift their spirits and next week I've arranged for a nude body painting class—team morale will soon be at all-time highs. Things are pointing up, if you know what I mean.
Shifting our attention over to the RazzBowl overall standings, Pat Fitzmaurice of The Football Girl has reclaimed the top spot in the standings once again with a 13 point lead over Adam Ronis of Fulltime Fantasy and Sirius XM. Michael Stepney of The Fantasy Authority hangs onto 3rd place as our top 3 have separated themselves from the pack with a 37 point drop off to Danny Kelly of The Ringer in 4th place. With only 3 weeks remaining until the bottom half of every league is eliminated and the playoffs commence; it's time to buckle down!
What makes the RazzBowl especially unique compared to other best ball formats and industry leagues is our addition of a $10 FAAB budget for the entire way season with a minimum of $1 bids. This allows teams to cycle out dead roster spots (e.g. Andrew Luck, Lamar Miller, etc) but it also means each team will only be allowed a maximum of ten moves for the entire season. Every dollar of each competitor’s free agent budget is just as precious as a Bill Belichick smile.
When teams choose to pony up their FAAB, it’s worthwhile to take a look and see why. There could be a goldmine of speculative adds buried in the RazzBowl transactions this season.
Here were the top buys from the FAAB-poor RazzBowlers this week, along with some donkey thoughts:
A clash of the top two NFL quarterbacks in total pass attempts and two offenses that rank in the top 10 of receiving yards per game. We are set for a treat in the early slate this Sunday, when the Los Angeles Rams make the cross country trip to the A-T-L to face the dirty birds- the Atlanta Falcons. Matt Ryan leads the NFL in pass attempts with 258, followed by the visiting team QB Jared Goff with 246. Let the fantasy fireworks commence....
Data Domination Week 7: The Real OBJ Will Brb
October 18, 2019 | Fantasy Football Strategy | 5 Commentsby: Pat
You see the struggles of the Cleveland Browns. You see the incompetence of Freddie Kitchens. You see the public turning on Baker Mayfield.
I beg of you. Please don’t sell Odell Beckham Jr.
The list of wide receivers in the last 2 years who finished top 10 in targets and top 5 in overall air yards that didn’t finish in the top 10 of fantasy football wide receivers is blank. Beckham is currently tied for 9th in targets per game among wide receivers. He is 5th in overall air yards. He is currently the 22nd rated WR in PPR. It is incredibly unlikely with the usage he is receiving, even factoring in a poor schedule, that OBJ doesn’t end the year as a WR1. Do not bail! In the interest of full disclosure I predicted Beckham as my fantasy MVP in the pre-season so I’m going down with this ship, but I've provided a really compelling argument to go along with my bias!
The biggest story line coming out of Thursday night will be Patrick Mahomes’ knee. From the sounds of it as I write this, there isn’t a fracture to go along with the dislocated kneecap so that is not the worst news in the world if you depend on Mahomes in fantasy football.
I’ve started writing this at the end of the 3rd quarter. At this point the Broncos are lifeless and Flacco has been sacked 7 times. Nevermind, now it’s 8. Flacco is a corpse out there with zero mobility and the offensive line is not doing him any favors.
I saw this game going quite a bit differently. I thought that Denver had all of the momentum coming into this game off of two straight wins and KC with two straight losses. These teams were playing on 4 days rest and Denver’s roster was a lot healthier coming into the game. Kansas City can’t stop the run and coming into the game, they only had 11 sacks on the season. It turns out that this Denver offense is completely lethargic and unprepared.
| 2019 Accuracy | Rank | QB | RB | WR | TE | K | DST |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 6 | 81 | 74 | 118 | 28 | 76 | 76 | 37 |
| Week 5 | 58 | 68 | 8 | 113 | 41 | 10 | 39 |
| Week 4 | 83 | 37 | 64 | 90 | 120 | 77 | 80 |
| Week 3 | 89 | 86 | 117 | 32 | 106 | 27 | 13 |
| Week 2 | 2 | 17 | 9 | 26 | 39 | 69 | 35 |
| Week 1 | 47 | 81 | 31 | 49 | 76 | 26 | 24 |
| Cumulative | 46 | 40 | 48 | 45 | 82 | 35 | 20 |
What are you ranking? Everything! You get a ranking, you get a ranking, everybody gets a ranking! You’ll find my Standard, Half-PPR, and PPR rankings below.
What are my rankings bona fidas? Well, there’s finishing in the FantasyPros Top-10 Draft Accuracy (7th Place) in 2017, Top-25 Weekly Accuracy (23rd Place) in 2017, Top-5 Draft Accuracy (3rd place) in 2016, Top-10 Weekly Accuracy (10th Place) in 2016, Top-25 Weekly Accuracy in 2015 (21st Place) and on average we’ve finished in the Top-10 Draft Accuracy (9th Overall) and the Top-20 Weekly Accuracy (18th Overall) for the past four years and finished 30th overall for our Draft Rankings with a 32nd overall finish in Weekly just last season. And this is out of over 100+ industry sites and experts year-after-year. I’d like to think we’re pretty good at this stuff…
What does the word bona fidas mean? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, bo·na fi·des ˌbō-nə-ˈfī-ˌdēz , ÷ˈbō-nə-ˌfīdz means 1 : good faith : sincerity, 2 : the fact of being genuine —often plural in construction, 3 : evidence of one’s good faith or genuineness —often plural in construction, 4 : evidence of one’s qualifications or achievements —often plural in construction. On a separate note, I think it would make a great name for a cat.
What’s my ranking process? I’ve actually written about this in the past, and instead of working hard for new and enlightening content, I have chosen the more efficient (lazy, ahem) method and dropping in a link to that post here. Honestly, my process hasn’t changed much at all (the ole “don’t fix what ain’t broke” proverb comes to mind) and so my “A Day in the Life of a Fantasy Football Ranker” story still remains relevant to this day. (The TL;DR is: I’m lazy as fudge. Well, I mean the other “f” word, but I’m hungry.)
How should I use your rankings? The same way your mother does. Which actually makes no sense. (Unless your mother is in the running to always finish top-3 in your Fantasy Football league. And if that’s the case, say hello to her for me.)
Ambulance Chasers, Week 7: All The Wide Receivers
October 17, 2019 | Fantasy Football Injury Report | 5 Commentsby: Zach
As we get deeper into the season, more and more players are landing on their team's injury report. However, with more and more teams also having their bye weeks, players are getting extra time to recover.
A bunch of wideouts have landed on the injury report this week, and even more are on the mend, trending towards playing in the coming weeks.
Let’s talk about some of the players who landed on the injury report this week.
