Jeremy Maclin (concussion) missed practice on Wednesday. Occasionally you see a player suffer a concussion on Sunday and return to practice by Wednesday. At another extreme, you have players that miss several weeks with a concussion, something that seems to happen to players with a concussion history. To my knowledge, Maclin does not have a history of suffering concussions, but I suspect he’ll miss this week. I’m thinking it’s a one or two week injury, but with the Chiefs having their bye in week 9 expect him back no later than Week 10.
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The Injury Report, Week 6: Jamaal Charles and the ACL Effect
October 15, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, 2015 Injury Report | 31 Commentsby: RotoLance
Is there still such a thing as an ACL injury after effect? Adrian Peterson famously rushed for over 2000 yards the year following a December ACL tear. Jeremy Maclin turned out to be a 2014 draft day bargain after suffering an ACL tear in the 2013 preseason. Rob Gronkowski also went undervalued in 2014 drafts after coming off an ACL injury. Now Todd Gurley is meeting or exceeding his expectations. The fact is that risk is always built into the value of post ACL tear players, but they have a pretty good recent track record. I literally can’t think of a single player that failed to come back from an ACL tear in the last few years. Recently the upside has outweighed the draft cost of buying a player coming off an ACL injury.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Some dude in black hit Steve Smith’s back. And he was off to a great start this year. For some reason I wasn’t watching the game last Thursday, I was following it though my Twitter timeline and FantasyCast. Which I think was something that actually heightened the “experience”. It meant being flooded with Joe Flacco “elite” Tweets, however. I mean, when I saw through FantasyCast that Joe Flacco had rushed for zero (or negative) yards on a 4th down play, if I recall, I immediately checked my timeline for the expected barrage of inevitable “Elite Sneak” Tweets. Like this one:
Elitesneak
— Jason Longfellow (@jaywrong) October 2, 2015
So how about actually discussing that Steve Smith injury.. Okay. In due time. Firstly, I want to remind all of you that I’m ordering this injury discussion from greatest impact to least impact on your fantasy teams. And Steve Smith’s leading off. Which is both good and bad. It’s good that we don’t have a more significant injury this week and bad for all the Steve Smith owners, because he was going to return value over his cost this year.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Last week I may have said something like “the worst part is we don’t know how these injuries will affect the players’ performances”. Then Chris Ivory was active without receiving a carry, which is to say there was no performance to affect. Ouch. But on the plus side, hey, he could have re-injured himself had he played, right? In a way it feels like the fantasy football season hasn’t truly begun until something like this happens. Because it happens. Every. Year. This week we need to discuss the injury situations for newly injured players such as: Ben Roethlisberger, Davante Adams (newly re-injured), Sammy Watkins, Jonathan Stewart, Crockett Gillmore and others. We’ll revisit some other players situations with notes on players (finally) nearing their returns. And if you are wondering about the order, the first section is by biggest affect to least affect on fantasy teams, “On The Mend” is by team.
Please, blog, may I have some more? The Injury Report, Week 3: Drew Brees and a Plethora of Injuries
September 24, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, 2015 Injury Report | 28 Commentsby: RotoLance
Time for RotoLance to rise, and give useful information about players trying to rise and grind through injuries, and grind. Last week, Dez Bryant owners took a big hit and C.J. Anderson owners had a Thursday Night Football decision to make. This week we’ve got much more of the latter situation, players with injuries that may or may not keep them out a game, or two at the most. But the worst part is we don’t know how these ailments will affect the players’ performances. And if the player has a bad performance, we can blame it on the injury without necessarily having a good idea if it really was the injury or just the fact that the player isn’t going to be very good this year. Injury is just another variable making it difficult to know which players are going to fail to meet expectations through the course of the year and which have just had a couple bad weeks in Fantasy Football.
Please, blog, may I have some more? The Injury Report, Week 2: Dez Bryant Puts Broken Foot in Mouth
September 17, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, 2015 Injury Report | 27 Commentsby: RotoLance
Some players are just known for certain things. Dez Bryant’s “thing” is being passionate. Whether it’s yelling at a teammate or celebrating a victory, he really gets into it, putting his feelings out there for everyone to see. He’s been flagged for on field temper tantrums, often putting his foot in his mouth. This time it was an exuberant celebration… on a broken foot (NSFW: language). The NFL fantasy football season is brutal when it comes to injuries and as usual we’re off to a bad start. Here’s the lowdown on Dez Bryant and the rest of your Week 2 Injury Report.
Please, blog, may I have some more? The Injury Report, Week 1: An Introduction to the Report
September 10, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, 2015 Injury Report | 11 Commentsby: RotoLance
Welcome to the introductory edition of the Injury Report. The Injury Report will be your chance to get caught up on the latest player injury news every Thursday throughout the NFL season. (I would say “National Football League season” but I’m not a former National (w/emphasis and pause) Football (w/emphasis and pause) League (w/emphasis and pause) player. The most basic component of the Injury Report will be a run down of all the newly injured players, a suggestion for their recovery time, quick updates on previously injured players and the NFL practice reports. (I’ll be relying on all released reports via most media outlets for this portion of the post.) Some situations will require a more detailed analysis on what the injury means for the player and for the team. That will give me a chance to go over who benefits from the injury and who, other than the injured player, loses out. I’ll also be giving my thoughts on whether the injured player should be dropped or held onto through the injury. Another goal of the injury report will be to dig a little deeper, as in, deeper down the depth chart. That means I’ll also be noting when that fourth wide receiver on the depth chart sustains an injury, for example.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Risk Management, Part 2: Surprising Injury Risks
August 31, 2015 | 2015 Draft Strategy, 2015 Fantasy Football | 19 Commentsby: RotoLance
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?
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Please, blog, may I have some more? Risk Management, Part 1: Running Backs
August 24, 2015 | 2015 Draft Strategy, 2015 Fantasy Football | 17 Commentsby: RotoLance
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.
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Please, blog, may I have some more? The 6-Point Passing Touchdown
August 5, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Strategy | 9 Commentsby: RotoLance
The 6 point passing touchdown super-being (with bonus triangle).
I’ve played in 6-point passing TD leagues since I started playing fantasy football in 2002. Does it change how you should value QBs? Of course! (Well, a little. It’s not a massive change.) I think the main thing to keep in mind is finding a difference maker at QB helps your team just a little bit more than it would have if you found the same difference maker in standard scoring. For instance Andrew Luck had a great year last year, one that surpassed most preseason expectations. As much as he helped teams by being a good value in standard scoring, he was that much better in 6 point passing TD leagues. The stakes are higher for identifying this year’s Andrew Luck if you play in that type of league.
Please, blog, may I have some more? C.J. Spiller, (Still) Overrated
August 3, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, 2015 Overrated | 2 Commentsby: RotoLance
What a propaganda piece that Vine of 2014 C.J. Spiller is. For one thing, it could give the impression the result of the play was a TD. It wasn’t, in fact he scored zero rushing TDs last year. Instead it was his last snap of 2014. Yes, that’s the play he was injured on. This sums up why he must be one of the more frustrating running backs to own (I can’t say, I’ve never owned him). There is new optimism for him because he has left the Bills for the Saints and with that move comes some hope that he will be utilized correctly as a committee back who can make plays in space. In general the fantasy powers that be are ranking him about right — he’s the 23rd RB in FantasyPros ECR (expert consensus rankings). I think many folks rank him in the 24-30 range so the bump to 23rd comes from those experts ranking him in the 15-20 range and that’s too high for me. This post will explain why.
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