All right, how many “old timer” fantasy readers are out there? I’m talking the guys and gals who used to mail in their fantasy rosters to their buddy, who then had to score them by hand like a baseball program. And then came Yahoo Fantasy Sports, which was like a dream come true. I kept drafting David Boston and hoping his hulking frame would bring me the fantasy glory. Then, ESPN came around, and everything kind of stagnated for another decade while fantasy managers sat on message boards and shouted at each other about Peyton vs. Eli Manning. Then, a new, brazen upstart came around: Fantrax. They didn’t have an internet search giant (remember when Yahoo was that?) or a massive Disney parent company supporting them. They were just: Fantrax. (sounds of air whooshing from my mouth, the sound of which was at one time a sound of awe and is now the sound of terrifying Covid emanation). And Fantrax wasn’t just about being a platform. Fantrax was all about having fantasy players that would join up with you and kick your ass into next Sunday. Try that, Disney! 

Welcome to the top of the Razzbowl, Mick Ciallela

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Everyone wants to get some booty. Living in my mom’s basement, I haven’t seen much booty. Pirate’s booty, I mean. What I wouldn’t do to get some of that swashbuckling plunder. The Bears, however, didn’t appear to want any part of the Buccaneers nor Tom Brady’s booty for most of the first half Thursday night. Then, late in the 2nd quarter, Nick Foles took off the eye patch, tossed his peg leg aside and began his quest for the Brady booty. Foles went 30/42 for 243 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception as he led the Bears to their 4th victory. It wasn’t exactly pretty, but plundering is an ugly business by nature. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday for fantasy football:

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It’s that time of the week again! Thursday night football will be played just hours after you read this. It’s week 5, which means the beginning of bye weeks. Bye weeks are another road block to go along with the plethora of injuries and COVID cancellations that are surely on the horizon. There might even be a cancellation this week between Buffalo and Tennessee. But we must trudge on and work with what we have. Hopefully you still have some healthy studs to get you through the tough times. 

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The Elites

Prev Rank Rank Name Team Avg Snap % Total Tgts Avg Tgts Non-PPR PPR Non-PPR/G PPR/G Rec Yds TD
1 1 Travis Kelce KC 0.88 33 8.3 41.7 65.7 10.43 16.43 24 297 2
2 2 George Kittle SF 0.98 20 10 30.4 49.4 15.2 24.7 19 227 1

What do you want here? They’re really good. They play every down. They get a bunch of targets. 

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Welcome to Razzball’s dedicated gambling column-Teasers and Pleasers! Each Thursday during the NFL season, at 11:00 am EST, TnP will post our top bets for the upcoming week. Just sit back and win some money with us in 2020.

Last week these best bets were 3-0 against the spread, and we were 4-1 ATS on the Week 4 Sunday slate. Things are have been profitable, as TnPers are 12-6 in our last 18 contests. Let’s keep the profit train moving.

Whether you play fantasy football or are in the business of making player prop bets, Rudy Gamble’s Razzball Membership Tools are a must-have. He is giving away a FREE 7-day trial of all the tools you need to cash this week!

Now let’s get to it! Week 4 picks for your betting pleasure.

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Week 4 brought us our first bye week due to the Covid cancellation of the Titans and Steelers game and fantasy managers scrambled to adjust. Thankfully, everybody is ok and the NFL had a simple fix issuing a bye to the teams and having an easy way to reschedule the game. With the recent news that there are still positive tests coming out of Tennessee, and unsanctioned practices being held as well (Morons!), I believe their week 5 game against the Bills is in serious jeopardy. Now we have planned and unplanned bye weeks and Covid uncertainty added to the flurry of injuries we’ve already dealt with, making it is even more important to find productive players to put in your flex spots. We have to be prepared!

As you know, every Thursday here on Razzball, I will be posting the weeks “Sexy Flexies” to give you a couple of players to consider starting in your flex spot. The objective isn’t to point out the obvious guys you’re starting in your RB or WR slots, but to take a look at a couple of players who are a bit more under the radar. These will likely be guys that you won’t start every week but will be good rotational pieces in the flex spot of your lineup based on matchup and opportunity.

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I just snuck out of a court ordered gambling rehab facility to write this post, so I’ll have to be brief. After I was arrested for stealing old ladies’ purses from the retirement home down the block to fund my string of Arizona Cardinals’ Super Bowl wagers (a 50:1 lock!), the judge sentenced me to 6 month’s of in-patient rehab. Since I’ll be releasing my weekly fantasy football rankings each Thursday morning for the duration of the season, I’ve decided to throw in some bonus bold Thursday Night Football predictions along with my expertly handicapped pick for the contest:

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-3.5) at Chicago Bears

Forecast: We’ve been killing it with these Thursday night picks. And by killing it I mean butchering it. Kind of like the Bears quarterback play. The turnaround starts tonight though—for our picks, not Da Bears QBs—as Brady rides The Gronk into the Windy City for another Thursday night thriller. Chicago will start with their 30 million dollar man, Nick Foles, at the helm but make the switch back to Trubisky to start the 2nd quarter. After one of the worst halves in the history of professional sports, they’ll turn to a quarterback committee of Khalil Mack, one legged Tarik Cohen and mascot Staley Da Bear. On the wings of vastly improved quarterback play, the Bears will storm back to tie the game late in the 4th quarter. But Brady will answer with a game winning drive culminating with Gronk’s 3rd touchdown of the night. Buccaneers 38, Bears 31

Wager:  Bucs -3.5 (1 Unit)

2020 Season: 0-4 (-3.85 Units) 

Anyway, here’s my fantasy football rankings for week 5 which will be frequently updated until Sunday kickoff:

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When I first started writing with Razzball, I was fairly convinced it was one of those MLM-schemes. You know, the kind of thing like scented candles, or really expensive vitamin patches, or leggings that don’t improve your yoga whatsoever. Because when I came into Razzball Headquarters for the interview, Donkey Teeth had all of that going on in his office. “Can I offer you a Cran-Razzle-Berry Tonic Water?” he started, his zebra-striped leggings leaving little to the imagination. “It’s fortified with Taurine!” I politely declined, reaching for a chair before DT pulled the splits to stop me. “Can’t let you sit in that before I cleanse it!” he said with a smile. He pulled out some sort of chicken feather duster and chanted as he cleaned the seat. I swore the chant was to the tune of the Super Bowl Shuffle. When the chair was properly cleansed, I took a seat and pulled out a folder that had my rankings inside, ready to do my interview. DT had no desk in his office, just a giant bench that I later found out he stole from the sidelines of Soldier Field before it was demolished. “Let me introduce you to my co-editor, Kerryon,” he said, gesturing to the Fathead of Kerryon Johnson on the wall. I laughed, which really didn’t help things. I handed over my rankings, proud of my #1 choice, Lamar Jackson. DT just laughed, and I asked what he found funny about my rankings. “There’s no hot takes in here!” he said, his zebra-striped legs man-spreading across the Soldier Field bench. “There’s promise, yes, but not a single hot take.” DT said he would bring me on board, as long as I started getting others on board with some bold takes. 

Four weeks later, Justin Herbert appeared in the top 12 of this ranking series. DonkeyTeeth, I hope I made you proud! 

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Your WR top 80 6.0 is here! Now we not only have to deal with injuries, we have to account for COVID inactives and postponements. Some shuffling in the top 12 but until the injured elites return, tier 1 remains a two man show.

This list is not league or format specific, but it is based on 2020 rest-of-season projection only. When thinking through tiers and rankings I asked myself simply – “all things considered who would I rather have on my roster?”

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Positive Covid tests and more injury carnage. Fantasy football is starting to almost be as stressful as following current events. “I thought fantasy football was an escape!” I yelled at the clouds. Immediately, lightning struck a tree branch and took out my ACL. It is a short sample size, but the major injuries to running backs have all happened on even numbered weeks. We had Saquon Barkley and Christian McCaffery get injured in week 2 and week 4 gave us injuries to Nick Chubb and Austin Ekeler. Oh, the horror of even numbered NFL schedule weeks. But there is good news! We are entering an odd numbered week. That means any running back taken in the first two rounds of fantasy drafts is safe from injury on Sunday. Wait. Are there any healthy running backs left? Meh, a few. Certainly not enough.

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On Monday Night Football (the second one, not the first one), Todd Gurley finally broke out for fantasy owners (kind of). By “broke out,” I mean that he found the end zone not once, but twice — despite averaging just 3.5 yards per carry. That’s as hot as a lukewarm cup of coffee — as sexy as assless chaps with patches sewn in. It was the kind of performance that you had to be pleased with if you had him in your lineup, but at the same time, you were probably also clapping slowly while shooting those around you sneaky glares out the corner of your eyes to see if they were equally excited. On the plus side, Gurley out-touched Brian Hill 17-to-six, one week after Hill appeared to be the much more explosive back even as Gurley rushed for 80 yards and a touchdown. On the down side, Gurley caught just one pass for the second consecutive week (Ito Smith and Hill combined for five grabs), bringing his season total to a measly four receptions. Gurley clearly isn’t the back he once was, however, he did show some elusiveness inside the green zone on his first rushing touchdown, even shaking a second would-be tackler for the score. This is the point we’re at with running backs in 2020, as both Austin Ekeler and Nick Chubb went down in Week 4 with significant injuries. I am actually, tentatively, kind-of excited about Gurley. This is not good.

On the opposing sideline, Aaron Jones enjoyed yet another strong week, rushing 15 times for 71 yards (4.7 YPC) and hauling in five passes for 40 yards and a touchdown. The Packers look like the cream of the crop in the NFC (right alongside Seattle), as the Super Bowl could (I said could) potentially pit two State Farm figureheads against one another in Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes. Can you imagine the marketing potential for State Farm!? Let’s all buy stock now! *does quick Google search* It’s already up 4.2% since Sept. 23 — people must really be catching on. Unfortunately, my popularity stock over on Reddit — and in life — is doing the exact opposite. My parents visited last week, and somehow, my father locked himself in the stairwell three different times. Again, this is 2020. This is real. And this is not good.

Before I lose everyone’s attention, let’s get into the Week 5 rest of season top 60 running back rankings. But first — a quick trip around the league.

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