Robert Selden Duvall has had a role in countless films that have helped me enjoyingly pass the time over the last 30-something years. Most will remember him for his role as Tom Hagen in The Godfather and The Godfather II, but few will know that he actually won the Oscar for Best Actor playing country western singer Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies in 1983. Heck, I’ve never even heard of that movie. When it comes to good old Bobby Duvall, I am more of a Days of Thunder kind of guy. “You can drive through it Cole!” Damn, that’s a great flick. It’s like Top Gun with race cars. But it’s not the movie I’d like to mention today. In 1988, Duvall and Sean Penn teamed up to play cops in the C.R.A.S.H unit that patrols East L.A.. Duvall, as Bob “Uncle Bob” Hudges, a 19-year LAPD veteran, is partnered with rookie Danny “Pacman” McGavin as the two work to keep the peace in East L.A. by trying to keep the street gangs in line. The film tells us the tale of these two police officers and their approach to dealing the Bloods and the Crips.

Colors was an outstanding movie, but it is not the reason this post is entitled “Colors”. That reason would be thanks to Jonas “Gray” and Alfred “Blue”, whose colorful names lead a cast of relatively unknowns, or I should say “unowneds”, to come together as a team that combined for 191.04 points and would have easily beaten any other lineup in Yahoo! half point head-to-head leagues.

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Follow me, if you will, into the minds of the casual DraftKings player. Casual player sees Kyle Orton and how badly he played on Thursday Night Football. Casual player is disgusted by this. Casual player is even more disgusted by Kyle’s neck beard. Casual player is never playing Orton in any fantasy situation, ever. Well, sorry casuals but that’s how you lose: by saying never. That’s the great thing about this here game we play. It’s daily, not seasonal. You don’t have to own Kyle the entire year, you just have to own him for the right matchup and when the price is right, you’re even better off. Now I’m gonna discuss a bit of strategy. It’s a general way of processing or viewing your salaries over there on the DK. Take those salaries and divide them by 1,000. That should give you some kind of decimal point. For Kyle this week because he’s $5,400, that number would be 5.6. Now take that decimal number and multiply it by 5. For Orton, that gives you (5.6*5=) 28. Casual players don’t do this which is why casual players let a start at home against an opponent who’ve given up the most fantasy points per game to opposing QBs on the year slide by. To date, the Jets have given up 25 passing touchdowns to only 3 INT. Oh and the last time Orton faced them? He collected 4 of those TDs and zero of those INT, finishing with 26.12 DK points. Now I’m not making the promise he’ll do that again but here’s a little dirty DK secret. Those top tier QBs? Yeah, they’re priced about 9K most weeks. So for example, Aaron Rodgers is 9,900 this week. That’s nice. So for him to really reach a good value for you in a tourney, you either need (9.9*5=) 49.5 points from him – his highest point output this year is 39.6 – or you need to find values around him at much lower price tags that will go off. Trust me, I’ve been there and it’s hard to do. It’s much simpler to aim for a lower priced QB with a good matchup most weeks. It’s just too hard to find that blend and be that handicapped at the skill positions most weeks to warrant such a thing. I know, I know, none of this says Orton’s any good but was Austin Davis when he threw for 375 against the Eagles? Yeah, not so much. If given the opportunity to pay down at QB, most weeks follow Nike’s mantra and just do it. All this to say, if you can’t tell, I’m strictly calling Orton a GPP only play this week. Heck, he could get pulled at halftime after the kiss of death vote of confidence on Monday. But it’s hard to imagine that happening so I’ll be rolling with him plenty. But enough about neck beards, let’s get on with this. Here are my red hot takes for the week 12 DK slate…

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well try out this 10 team league of Razzball writers and friends to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It lets us know that you care!

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If you didn’t know the name Jonas Gray before 8pm Eastern Sunday night, nobody would blame you. If you forget his name when you’re putting in your waiver claims for the week, you’ll never forget it. Gray went off in huge fashion this past week with 199 yards and four rushing touchdowns against the Colts. It took him from fantasy afterthought to fantasy pick-up of the week status, and he certainly is that for us. Gray has managed to supplant Shane Vereen as the top man in the New England backfield and should be getting the majority of the work going forward.

You’ll have to put up with a tough week this week, as Gray and the Patriots take on a stiff Detroit defense. The defense held Arizona running back Andre Ellington to less than 50 rushing yards last week. After Week 12, Gray’s schedule turns much easier with games at Green Bay, at San Diego, Miami, at the Jets, and Buffalo to close out the season. (Keep in mind we put the full 17-game schedule out there when we talk about remaining games, since some leagues go the full distance.) Excluding the Dolphins, you’re looking at four of the top-12 rush defenses in the NFL for Gray. The match-ups are going to be tough, so you could pick him up now, let him go off against Green Bay, and try for a late sell-high deal depending on your league’s trade deadline. (Yes, most deadlines will pass in the near future but it’s still worth mentioning.) These games should be winnable for New England so Gray should get carries to keep the clock and the chains moving. Eventually, he will find the end zone, but don’t expect anything close to his output against Indianapolis.

This is also the final week of byes with Carolina and Pittsburgh sitting out this week. This is key for one reason. It’s time to get rid of the guys on your team who are non-producers and/or have poor match-ups the rest of the way. This is the time of year when you want your decisions on who to start to be incredibly tough since you have to pick from talent, talent or talent.

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Welcome back my lovelies!  It seems the Fantasy Gods continue to smile on yours truly, as I pulled out a 5-1 record this week again.  Yes, winning feels good, especially when you basically have a team held together with duct tape and the leaflets from the floor of a porno theater.  But alas, for many of you, my “Black Widow” curse feasted upon quite a bit of your RB1s, WR1s, and everything in between this week.  Hey, I warned you, my lust for man souls has become insatiable.  Sure, I also lost Hillman, Thomas, and Sanders in the process, but it seems this has allowed some rookie fresh meat to step into those shoes.  Mmmm, there’s nothing like a fresh, young rookie-meat to get my blood flowing, even if it costs me and I have to scramble to fill that slot.  So, as the title to this week’s article suggests, and as you may already know, I am a glutton for punishment.  And yes, some punishments can be oh so enjoyable.  So, gather up those hooptie lineups, grab some lotion and a box of tissues (ladies, stock up on batteries for your B.O.B.) and follow me down the path of depravity to this week’s Hit it or Quit it.

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What if we just combined the two best apps in the world and made a Fantasy Tinder app, where I swipe left to get rid of a sucky player, then I swipe right for someone amazing (cough… Jonas Grey… cough), and Tinder does some magical thing where it aligns exactly who needs to be in my life with which players I liked. [Jay’s Note: So, I guess I know who Cam Newton will be matched up with then…] The Finder app (see what I did there?) would help fill up your empty fantasy tank with players from the waiver, and my team could survive.

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Arguably the game’s best receiver last year will be rejoining the 6-4 Cleveland Browns on Monday. Josh Gordon, who had his season long suspension reduced to 10 games, will be set to make his season debut on Sunday in Atlanta against a Falcons team that is giving up the second most yards in the league to wide receivers at 288.8 yards per game, and the second most yards per reception at 13.1 yards per catch. That’s almost like a convicted pot smoker that’s jonesing for a bong hit getting out of jail to find out that they’ve legalized marijuana in his home state. [Jay’s Note: Uhh… if someone is jonesing for pot, they have deeper issues.]

He’s gonna light it up!

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Seriously… how many endangered birds live in Keisel’s beard? 48? 59? 1,085?

Mike Tomlin is 1-8 all-time against teams with a winning percentage of 0.200 or worse. Lucky for him and the Steelers, the Titans had a 0.285 winning percentage coming into last night’s Monday Night Football game. And since mathematics are unquestioned around these parts, mainly because I don’t understand what it is or what it does… obviously, based on all these facts, the Steelers won. Obviously. Something else that’s obvious is Le’Veon Bell is good at the game of football. And wouldn’t you know it? Ben Roethlisberger isn’t actually Aaron Rodgers, so the Steelers probably need other things to happen to make the playoffs. And wouldn’t you know it… a gun-shy Ken Wisenhunt punting on a 4th-and-4 in the 4th quarter with seven minutes remaining, down a field goal, with a 2-7 record, combined with Le’Veon Bell’s performance seemed to be just enough to qualify as those “other things” . The Steelers now have a 7-4 record and have… some control over the AFC North. Then again, they did also lose to the Buccaneers and Jets. Sooooo, yeah. Who the ef knows anymore…

BREAKING: Adrian Peterson has been notified today that he has been suspended for the remaining 2014 season. Granted, Adam Schefter is reporting this, so there’s at least an 89% chance that he starts this Sunday. Regardless, while he was a speculative add if you had a hole on your bench, he’s safe to drop at this point.

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Well, that was certainly a Sunday worth remembering. Especially if you’re like me and reset the ole’ memory banks with copious amounts of bourbon throughout the day. You could say these Sunday notes aren’t just for you, but also myself… So here we are, together in this. And together, we saw some interesting things… the Bucs, the 1-8 Bucs (in case you were confused) destroyed Washington. For context, the Falcons destroyed the Bucs. And the Panthers almost beat the Falcons. So according to that, the Panthers would probably beat Washington by 200 points. In fact, with the Raiders only mustering 200 yards of total offense, I’m pretty sure if they faced off against Washington, both teams would find a way to lose. And let’s not forget the Lions having a throwback game to the Matt Millen Era. Peyton Manning thinking it’s the month of January (to be fair, the weather has me convinced of this.) Mark Sanchez returning to form. And then there’s this… the Cardinals are now 9-1. They are now three games ahead of Seattle and San Francisco, and one has to naturally wonder, how is this possible? My answer? Two quick touchdowns and leaning on your defense for three hours… this has been done before many times. So I’m just going to go ahead and write the Cardinals in as a playoff team. In permanent marker. And then prepare myself for the end of the world.

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Wow,  the Patriots taking on the Colts… a match-up that’s unheard of in modern-day football! Rarely have we seen these two franchises play against each other. Maybe one day, a rivalry can develop between the two, giving all of us an illustrious and storied narrative for which we will be bombarded with ad nauseam. What a future that would be… perhaps we will get a taste of this wonderful new era during this Sunday Night Football match-up? It wasn’t too long ago that we had all fired Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, and we were ready to usher in the era of Jimmy Garoppolo. I don’t know about you, but the epoch of Garoppolo sounds very intriguing. Only because it sounds like a Lost episode. But the Patriots find themselves with a 7-2 record and back to where they usually find themselves, atop the AFC standings. The Colts, despite some defensive hiccups, like Ben Roethlisberger doing whatever he wanted (sounds familiar for some reason…) are still in control of the AFC South. Mostly because the division has the Titans and Jaguars, two teams that are both dedicated in trying to out Jets the Jets and operate the Raider way. With the recent prime time games being terrible, there’s a chance for this to be quite an entertaining game. Which means it’ll be an excruciating three-plus hours of awfulness.

Week 11 Rankings have been updated for today’s games, for all your roster needs. You can check them out here.

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I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most of you have never heard of nor seen an episode of the television sitcom My Favorite Martian from the mid 1960s. Who am I kidding, I was born in 1977 and barely know much about the show. I watched a random episode or two when I was much younger, and probably again about 10 years ago during a late night online poker tournament on PokerStars. Remember when it was legal to play online poker in the good old U.S of A.? Dem some good times. My Favorite Martian starred Ray Walston as Uncle Martin who was a human looking extraterrestrial from Mars that piloted a one-man spaceship that crashed near Los Angeles.  Tim O’Hara, played by Bill Bixby, discovered Martin and took him in as his roommate. The show centered around the two and their adventures as they kept Martin’s martian origin a secret. The first two seasons were filmed in black and white, while the third and final was in color.

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Week 10: 8-5, Overall: 63-53-1, Locks: 6-1

Greetings! What up doe!? It is I, Beddict, returning to your warm embrace after another successful lock of the week call. Imagine how much dough I’d have if I bet my entire Razzball salary on each of my locks and kept letting it ride! Enough money to get my mom out the hood, with enough left over for a state of the art, chicken coop, for my loving Beatrice. This week, I’m going all in. Join me or sit back from afar, either laughing at my demise or throwing rose petals on the ground, I walk as the Elder God blessed grand champion of gambling ATS. Have you witnessed the ESPN dude’s record this year, or last year for that matter? Yeeesh! I’m already 0-1 this week after foolishly putting my faith in the Bills, but let’s not dwell on the past by talking about how disgraceful the Bills offense was, or even how Ryan Tannehill ended my fantasy life by missing Mike Wallace on two HUGE plays. Seriously, Tannehill is gutter trash when it comes to throwing the football deep. It sickens me to levels beyond human comprehension… but as I said, let’s not dwell on the past…WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!!?!? F*CKING WHY!?!?!?!?!?

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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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