Start ‘Em and Sit ‘Em, Week 11: Dodge Ingram Pickup

Have the Saints finally figured it out? No, not things in general, as their 4-5 record indicates, but do they finally realize the type of talent that Mark Ingram has when given the opportunity? For years, the Saints went with a stable of backs, and the only ones who have fantasy dependable were Darren Sproles and Pierre Thomas (last year). But as the injuries have mounted this year, Ingram finally got his chance to shine after teasing us for years. Sucks for the Saints that he’s in a contract year, huh?

There’s no guarantee that Ingram will stay healthy — he already missed three games this year due to injury — but while he’s healthy and Thomas and Khiry Robinson are out, fantasy owners have to ride Ingram until the wheels fall off.

Ingram has carried the load for the Saints in recent weeks, and on the season, he has 551 yards on the ground (4.8 ypc) and six scores. With another juicy matchup on the schedule this week against the Bengals at home, who just surrendered three rushing touchdowns last Thursday to the Cleveland Browns, Ingram is a no-brainer start of the week.

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Handcuff Report, Week 11: C.J. Hot Hands Montee’s Ball

by: Geoff

Damn these Broncos keep me busy. It seems they’re in a 5 alarm Running Back crisis every three weeks. I’m of course talking about Ronnie Hillman‘s recent foot injury that will likely keep him out for the next two to three weeks. Over the last four games, Hillman had been a savior for Montee Ball owners, like myself. He’s actually been the 9th best Running Back in RCL’s over that time, and that includes last week’s 6 carry game. If we removed week 10 and replaced it with week 6 it would be even higher. Unfortunately it was short lived due to the aforementioned injury.

We now turn to C.J. Anderson and begrudgingly Ball in some cases. Anderson blew up last week gaining 163 total yards and a TD on 17 total touches. He’s also been touted as the team’s “Best Running Back” by Mike Klis of the Denver Post. Outside of one game against the Raiders and the endorsement of a beat writer, there’s not a lot to draw from. He’s had just over 20 career carries and gets mentioned on deep league watch lists from time to time. Will Anderson stick as the starter in what’s been called a “Hot Hand Situation” by coach John Fox? That’s a question I can’t answer. But I do know this, Monte Ball’s never had hot hands, ever. In fact I’m pretty sure even wearing fleece mittens in a sauna he still has chilly paws. Doesn’t mean he won’t find a way to suck value away from Anderson though. Ball has a way of ruining everything, in fact I heard he gave Hillman a hug only moments before his injury last Sunday. Starting to make sense now, right? Yes, Ball is a nuisance and we’d all be better off without him for a long time. Then again, maybe this is his shot for redemption. His chance to provide weeks of value going into the playoffs. Maybe winning over the hearts and minds of the Fantasy Football Collective. Wow, the Fantasy Football Collective sounds like a non-profit organization aimed at saving under maintained fantasy teams. They would all wear button up knit sweaters, and have dumpy bodies, with awkwardly groomed facial hair. Then again these fearless guys and gals are doing the lord’s work, so maybe I should cut them some slack. Oh sorry about my A.D.D there, back to Ball, so maybe this is his shot at redemption, and maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss him for flavor of the week Anderson. This is a former 1st round pick from 2013, which is only a year ago. One that was highly decorated in college, being voted an All-American in back to back years at Wisconsin. His career YPC isn’t horrible either at 4.2, though that’s heavily supported by last year’s 4.7. He’s got a real shot to do something if Anderson slips up. So the question remain the same with Ball, “will he finally step up and take the job he’s been handed so many times?” I guess the next few weeks will tell us.

Note: Don’t forget to come visit me on the new Razzball Fantasy Soccer home everyday of the week. Smokey and I have leagues registering now. If you’re not familiar with the format, NBD, relax, you got us. Smokey and I are giving you the best Fantasy Premier League coverage out there. If you haven’t tried fantasy EPL, you’re missing out. So sign upand use us as your guide.

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Streamers, Week 11: Like a Carr Over Troubled Bridgewater

November 13, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Football, Roster Strategy | 27 Comments

by: Nico

It’s rookie quarterback week in the Streamer Department… apparently. Things are getting thin out there on the waiver wire, folks. Bye-weeks, injuries, underperformances… All of these factors are resulting in the once-streamable players now being widely owned. Have a look at Ryan Tannehill (62%), Miami’s DST (76%), and Dwayne Allen (78%). …And the list goes on! But no need to fret, our job here in the Streamer Department is to look deeper. Last week, we hit 5 of 6 Top-12 streamers. In Week 9, we hit 4 of 8 Top-12’s, with 3 more streamers falling at either 13 or 14 on the list. Let’s keep the trend going!

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Battle Flex, Week 11: D. Adams Says to Get Smart

November 12, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Football, Roster Strategy | 54 Comments

by: J-FOH

Last week turned out to be quite a week for the wide receivers in this post. I got some questions answered and made a good call for once. I want to jump into the bad news first. On the running back side of it, you could say I missed it by that much. None of them played particularly well, but I still believe in you Lorenzo in a Benzo! I did good on my Martavis Bryant call, but Odell Beckham Jr. was also a stud. He scored less than Bryant, but confirmed he is the number one guy in New York. He even impressed Richard Sherman with plays like this. Keep it up ODB!

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Start ‘Em and Sit ‘Em, Week 10: Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch

November 8, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Football, Roster Strategy | 41 Comments

by: waterloo

When a starting quarterback goes down for a team, it’s usually catastrophic. Sure, you’ll have your Kurt Warner/Trent Green and Tom Brady/Drew Bledsoe stories, but more often than naught, it means a big blow to the team. That’s not the case for the Philadelphia Eagles. Sure, no one wants to see anyone get hurt, but this is fantasy, baby. It happens, and you look for the new shiny toy to come in and lead you on a run to the championship.

This week, that new toy is Mark Sanchez. Yes, that Mark Sanchez. The butt-fumbling, hot dog eating, former quarterback of the New York Jets. With a fractured collarbone, Eagles’ quarterback Nick Foles is expected to miss quite a bit of time. For fantasy and real life purposes, that’s perfectly fine.

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Handcuff Report, Week 10: Boobies, Bobbys, and Jonas.

November 7, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Football, Roster Strategy | 29 Comments

by: Geoff

Over the past few weeks we’ve had handcuffs breakout as temporary starters (Jeremy Hill), handcuffs keep the seat warm (Bobby Rainey), handcuffs to handcuffs become starters (Boobie Dixon), and practice squad players become viable fuzzy handcuffs (Jonas Gray). It’s a crazy mixed up world this handcuffing game, but us real hustlerz stay on our grind. Snatching your handcuffs, before you can get mine. It’s the way to championships and riches, we brought you Justin Forsett, Chris Ivory, and Denard (Robinson) Snitches! Liffy Out! Sorry for the random freestyle, but I needed to put you up on game. Lifshitz is so street that I have hood passes witout expiration dates. That’s another story for a never time..Yes, I meant to type never, because I’m not telling you….nan-never-ever. You want to fight?? That was street right? Hay-Zeus I’m rhyming again, oops. On to the handcuffs!

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Streamers, Week 10: Vote For Pedro

November 6, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Football, Roster Strategy | 8 Comments

by: Nico

Truth is, I used to be a Mark Sanchez apologist, and perhaps I still am. As a Jets fan coming off of two AFC Championship games, he was easy to like. Then, we got to know the real Mark Sanchez. Dancing with his pants off, the butt-fumble… need I go further? But overall, the Jets weren’t exactly a catalyst for his success. I blame them. Now, Mark Sanchez is born again with renewed hope as a follower of the Chip Kelly system, and I’m buying into it.

Full disclosure, I don’t think we see a far departure from the Sanchez we knew in New York, but I think we see improvement. He will still throw interceptions. He will still struggle in some situations, and I truly believe he will once again dance without pants, but I think the Eagles give him an excellent chance to succeed, like they did with Nick Foles. Sanchez might not be able to throw a football over them mountains, but he might be the Pedro to Nickfoleon Dynamite. A solid one-two punch.

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Battle Flex, Week 10: Lorenzo Rollin in a Benz-o

November 5, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Football, Roster Strategy | 56 Comments

by: J-FOH

Last week’s boom or bust plays busted all over my screen. Andrew Luck goes for 354 and 4 TD’s without giving any love to Donte Moncrief. Oh good grief! The Colts talk him up, and then fail to pass the memo onto Mr. Luck… and all of us who played him got fu*ked. Oh well, we move on and get ourselves ready for Week 10. There are a lot of flex-filled teams on the bye this week, and I’ll be honest, I’m having trouble putting a positive spin on it. The Colts, Texans, Vikings, Patriots, Washington Football Team and Chargers are all chillin’ on sofas this weekend, leaving us scrambling to the wire or calling up a”stash” on our bench to fill the void.

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Start ‘Em and Sit ‘Em, Week 9: The Book of Eli

November 1, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Football, Roster Strategy | 62 Comments

by: waterloo

Writing the Start ‘Em and Sit ‘Em is usually pretty easy, if I’m being honest. You never want to say to start DeMarco Murray and bench Geno Smith, because that’s too obvious. Even still, there are enough options based on matchups that make for a pretty easy article. Not this week, though. No, it’s the return of Bye-Mageddon, Bye-Nado or whatever clever name you want to give it. There are six, yes six, teams on bye this week. The Bears, Titans, Packers, Lions, Falcons and Bills are off, and all of the aforementioned teams except the Titans are loaded with fantasy relevant players.

With so many viable options on bye, it’s hard to suggest that you bench anyone. But alas, the show must go on.

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Handcuff Report, Week 9: Handcuff Blind Date

October 31, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Football, Roster Strategy | 24 Comments

by: Geoff

I planned on writing this post about how no one knows who their starting running backs are anymore. How they’re a bunch of no names. Problem is, I’ve been writing about that for two months. No one is safe from the Runningbacklypse. The long and the short: it’s not a fresh angle. Then again, it does seem like I’m on a blind date with a different running back each week. Some weeks it goes well (Jerick McKinnon, Jonas Gray, Ronnie Hillman, Branden Oliver) other weeks…not so much (Brandon Bolden, Bishop Sankey, Lorenzo Taliaferro, Panthers of unknown origin). Anyone remember the show Blind Date? I always loved it when the kids got together. Especially after starting at a Tae Kwon Do lesson, followed by a trip to the candy shop, followed by a trip to Sea World, followed by dinner. And if the ladies were really into the guy, sometimes they’d stay over… scandalous! What does this have to do with running backs? Yeah… nothing. Well we have a few more blind dates to set you up on this week. So click that button below and meet this week’s eligible bachelors

Note: Don’t forget to come visit me on the new Razzball Fantasy Soccer home everyday of the week. Smokey and I are Hustling like Rick Ross, and giving you the best fantasy Premier League coverage out there. If you haven’t tried fantasy EPL, you’re missing out. So sign up and use us as your guide.

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Streamers, Week 9: Chillin’ Out Maxin’ Recappin’ All Cool

October 30, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Football, Roster Strategy | 21 Comments

by: Nico

Good Afternoon, my three loyal friends! We’re midway through the season, and I wanted to take a chance to analyze our streamer performances over the last eight weeks. Are our streamers weak like your gramps complains about, or are they strong like a young stallion?! That’s what we want to find out here, kids. To start, I went back and looked at the ownership rates of players at our four streamer positions to figure out how many players at each position were owned by over 50% of teams. I found some interesting information:

QB: 20 TE: 16 K: 12 DST 17

In most leagues, 20 QB’s, 16 TE’s, 12 K’s, and 17 DST’s are held on teams over 50% of the time. These are the baselines to which we need to compare our streamers, since we are giving you players that are under 50% owned. We want our picks to outperform the Top-20 QB’s, Top-16 TE’s, Top-12 K’s and the Top-17 DST’s. So how did our streamer performances stack up against the averages? Overall, our average QB’s ranked 16.6 each week, TE’s ranked 21.2 each week (A Niles Paul 47th ranked week killed us), K’s ranked 17.5 each week, and DST’s ranked 14.8 each week. When you look at our ranks, you can see that we’re exceeding the baseline with our QB and DST picks, but underperforming in the TE and K department. We’ll look to rectify and improve these numbers in the second half of the season.

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Battle Flex, Week 9: Donte’s Inferno

October 29, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Football, Roster Strategy | 66 Comments

by: J-FOH

I’m going in a different direction this week, and staying out of the running back game. I’m going to battle four wide receivers at once, and give you a little mini-ranking at the end. We got a preseason darling that has been testing the patience of his owners, a rookie who has opportunity and upside, a third-year break out playing as a WR3 regularly, and lastly, a fourth year player who has been a little lost in a sea of rookies. What’s the Logic here? It’s just me playing shenanigans. I’m kidding, have a sense of humor. But really let’s get serious.

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