The Shadow Coverage Report – Week 1

by: Bobby LaMarco

The Shadow Coverage Report – Week 1

Team: Minnesota Vikings

Opponent: Green Bay Packers

WR1: Adam Thielen

Shadow Coverage Match-up: Jaire Alexander

Historical Production vs. Shadow Coverage

Adam Thielen vs. Shadow Coverage
Opponent	Games	Rec	Yards	TDs	PPG
All Other Opponents	23	5.5	69	0.5	12.8
Vs. Shadow Coverage	5	5.8	76.8	0.6	14.2
Vs. Jaire Alexander	1	8	125	1	22.5

Season long Recommendation – Start

After a lost 2019 Adam Thielen looks to bounce back quick vs. division rival Green Bay and tier 2 shadow corner Jaire Alexander. Last season the Packers used Jaire Alexander to shadow Stefon Diggs, but with Diggs now gone Thielen will most likely draw coverage from the Packers top corner. The last time Thielen squared off directly vs. Alexander was in Week 12 of 2018. Thielen got the best of Alexander torching the Packers for 8-125-1. A big key for Thielen is he plays a lot of his snaps in the slot, and even vs. notable shadow corners like Marshon Lattimore he has shown he can win in these match-ups. This is why I got a Thielen that sitting him is a bad idea. Did you see what I did there…no…ok moving on.

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Sexy Flexies, Week 1: “I’m Sony Ms. Jackson”

September 10, 2020 | Fantasy Football Strategy | 9 Comments

by: JB Barry

Well my friends, we are finally here! We have made it through months of gushing over rookie running backs, watching Russell Wilson post videos on social media as “Mr. Unlimited” and analyzing based off shirtless workout pics of DK Metcalf, Austin Ekeler and Kahale Warring. Finally, week 1 of the 2020 NFL season is upon us!

Every Thursday, I will be posting the week’s “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 match-up and opportunity.

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Fantasy Football Podcast: Tight Ends, Not For OBJ

September 10, 2020 | Razzball Podcast | 2 Comments

by: B_Don

Week 1 is finally here! Are you ready for some football? Thursday night party! And by party I mean small gatherings of less than 6 people.

B_Don and Donkey Teeth have to talk about the recent Odell Beckham story to lead off the show. Then, we get into the tight end overview. Both of us have Kelce over Kittle and then we talk about DT’s infatuations, Darren Waller and Rob Gronkowski. We give our case for why we are lower on Tyler Higbee than the industry coming off his strong 2019 finish. B_Don then tries to talk DT off Jonnu Smith’s bum a**.

After the TE discussion, we take a look at some seasonal awards where we both give you our MVPs, draft values, SB predictions, sleepers, busts, breakouts, and ROY. We wrap up the show with a couple of fan questions from @AGrieke and @BensGotTweets as they prepare for week 1.

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Teasers and Pleasers: Week 1 Best Bets

September 10, 2020 | NFL Gambling |

by: Aaron Pags

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. Please sit back and win some money with us in 2020.

Anticipation is an unstoppable force in humans. Our brains work 24 hours per day; one portion of our brain, the cerebellum, controls our automatic processes. For example, breathing (thankfully!) and the feeling of anticipation is housed there. In other words, we are always anticipating something! We naturally desire more dopamine, the neurotransmitter that helps prevent pain. Dopamine stimulation happens when we expect good things.

Enter the start of the 2020 National Football League season! America’s dopamine receptors are on overload heading into the first NFL games of the season. Rudy Gamble’s Razzball Membership Tools will fill all of your brain’s receptors and more. Be sure to check out the FREE 7-day trial of all the tools.

No more anticipation. Let’s get right to it! Week 1 picks for your betting pleasure.

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Donkey Teeth’s Week 1 Football Rankings

September 9, 2020 | Fantasy Football Rankings, Weekly Rankings | 45 Comments

by: Donkey Teeth

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:

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Weekly Fantasy Football Rankings: MB’s Week 1 Rankings

September 9, 2020 | Fantasy Football Rankings, Weekly Rankings | 37 Comments

by: MB

It’s here and we haven’t seen a single preseason snap. I have to go off of twitter videos, coach speak and instinct. Eh, that’s alright, I feel like I have a pretty good grip on things. I’m pretty conservative this week when it came to moving people around. A lot of it has to deal with the unknown, but a big reason is that you should be starting your studs. There is no reason to get cute. Week 1 is not an absolute must win (although it would be nice to get one, right?”)

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Top 60 Running Backs: Preseason Edition

September 8, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Rankings, Rest of Season Rankings, Top 60 Running Backs | 10 Comments

by: Hobbs

Two days, football fans! Two days! That means the 2020 NFL Season will be upon us in a smaller span of time than your average game of cricket. Quicker than your seven round NFL Draft. And much faster than it takes Kirk Cousins to get rid of the ball on a typical pass play. Just two days and we’ll have NFL football. Two days until you get to turn months of research and late-night draft parties into something that actually matters as all the projection slowly turns into production. Today, we’ll begin with the former as I reveal my top 60 running backs heading into week one of the 2020 season. As a general baseline, I’ll be using half-PPR scoring for these rankings. Moving forward, I will continuously update these 60 backs on a weekly basis to provide an up-to-date snapshot at the top options at the position moving forward. Before we get into the actual rankings, here are some highlights from the opening list.

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Green Is Money

September 8, 2020 | Fantasy Football Strategy, Fantasy Football Targets | 3 Comments

by: Son

With the stock market going nuts recently, I thought it appropriate to harken back to my trading days. Some traders utilize tape reading and technical analysis to study price action and figure out the momentum of a stock. Buy high and sell higher is usually the mantra. Or sell low and buy lower. On the flip side, there are value investors who scour 10-Qs, listen to conference calls, and dive into all the fundamentals of a company. Price-to-earning ratios and book value are numbers often utilized. When a stock continues to go up or down, momentum traders are more apt to keep riding the train until it stops. Value investors, on the other hand, look for spots to buy/sell when pessimism or optimism are too high. Fantasy football participants are no different. There are those place emphasis on the most recent results, while others look for bargains or spots to fade when sentiment gets out of whack. Will A. J. Green keep getting hammered by momentum traders or will he be money for value investors?

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Stealin’ Or Dealin’ Week 1: Get Your McLaurin To The Starting Line

September 8, 2020 | Buys & Sells | 50 Comments

by: MB

Welcome to week 1! The coffee and takes are hot here at Razzball headquarters. Yes, Grey let’s us have coffee in his basement, but only when it’s the regular season. We need caffeine for this hamster wheel and he knows it. But AHHHH, it’s great to have real football back! You know, real football to add up scores for our fake football teams.

I’ll be writing a buy/sell this season. It may be weekly, it may be bi-weekly. I’ll leave it up to a basis of necessity. I’m also going to be writing the Sunday Primer, putting out weekly rankings, and writing the start/sit column this year.

Before your season starts, you might be interested in a trade to sure up your roster. This is the sharpest week to get a lot of value. Not everyone in your league may be privy to the upside of the players that they drafted. Your league mates might also be thirsty for early carries while you are playing the long game with your bench spots. Vacation is over! The markets are open! TRADE TRADE TRADE!

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Fun With Small Samples: NFC East And South

September 7, 2020 | Fantasy Football Strategy | 18 Comments

by: al_FF_red

As we prepare for the 2020 season, there are tons of hot takes swirling around the internet. Some are baseless tweets and articles meant to stir up conversation and clicks. Others are bold predictions that do have some foundation in reality, even if it’s a long shot. I plan to make this article somewhere in the middle.

Football is set up for small samples with only 16 games in a season and roughly 55-65 offensive snaps per game. In football, even a player with “a lot” of volume may only participate in a fantasy relevant play on 20 of those snaps. Contrast that with baseball where each hitter on a team sees 600 at bats in a season!

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ESPN’s 2020 Fantasy Football Draft Rankings: A Review for Stu

September 6, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Rankings | 68 Comments

by: Donkey Teeth

Remember when the news was actually legitimate news instead of a constant stream of propaganda and fear porn? Nah, me neither. But I do remember watching old school ESPN SportsCenter. The GOAT Stuart Scott (RIP) had catchphrases for days:

“Cool as the other side of the pillow!”

“Holla at a playa when you see him in the street!”

“It’s your world, kid … The rest of us are still paying rent”

“They Call Him the Windex Man ‘Cause He’s Always Cleaning the Glass”

My personal favorite was when Kenny Mayne busted out his classic, “Bring the finest meats and cheeses in all the land!” Ahhhh, simpler times when we didn’t have to wear underwear on our face or keep tabs on protests and “counter protests.” Alas, the good ole days of Stew yelling “Booya!” and “Holla!” are a thing of the past. And while a new more enlightened world may be on the horizon, ESPN’s draft rankings have no place in that world. Anyway, here’s a chart of the biggest values from ESPN to me (Booya!) and the players that ESPN overrates (You Ain’t Gotta Go Home, But You Gotta Get The Heck Outta Here) compared to my 2020 fantasy football rankings:

P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to Rudy’s in season tools it’s only $17.99 for the entire season!

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Donkey’s Advocate: Kareem Hunt, Gardner Minshew and Cam Akers

September 5, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Donkey's Advocate, Razzball Podcast | 5 Comments

by: Donkey Teeth

The innovation machine never stops here at Razzball. Except for that one time when I tried to use it to heat up some leftover pizza. What a disaster that was! In the modern world of pandemics, riots and keto diets, we know it can be hard to find time to listen to 30-60 minute fantasy football shows. Oh, there’s a squirrel! Sorry, what was I talking about? Right, we’ve created a short-form video series for those of us with the attention span of a puppy. On Donkey’s Advocate, I’ll be bringing on many of the top fantasy football industry experts to sell me on one of their favorite 2020 fantasy football draft targets while I play ~~devil’s~~ donkey’s advocate. All of this will take place in a two minute rapid fire segment. In this week’s batch I was joined by Heath Cummings, Scott Pianowski and Danny Kelly to discuss Kareem Hunt, Gardner Minshew and Cam Akers:

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