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On the latest episode of the Razzball Fantasy Football podcast, Keelin Billue joins the show to discuss the offensive players who will be 2023 free agents in the NFC South. The below article is a high-level overview that will show how much cap space every team has going into the offseason, the percentage of snaps, […]

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A decade ago, Michael Burry started posting his investment ideas on Reddit. He believed the housing market was in a bubble and ultimately shorted the housing market for a gain of over a billion dollars. This week, our dear commenter William Hung wondered if Rashaad Penny should be the waiver wire add of the week. Penny, I hear you thinking. Yeah, he’s been around the block, bypassed by Chris Carson, Alex Collins, Mike Davis, and basically every other semi-productive Seahawks RB in the past few years. With the likes of Russell Wilson finding their steam in the late season, it’s opened up the field for players like Penny who pay homage to Dicey, the God of Variance. Dicey is a generous yet vengeful god, one of the old souls from the chaotic beginnings of the universe. This week, Penny accumulated more yards on the ground than he had accumulated in the previous two seasons combined. Should you have started Rashaad Penny? Nah, just like you shouldn’t have ordered the sushi on Monday morning. But sometimes, the supply chain is running unusually smooth, or a team might be so focused on stopping somebody like D.K. Metcalf, that somebody like Penny can step in and earn another year on their contract with a wildly successful performance. Let’s see what else happened on Sunday for Week 14 of fantasy football: 

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I’ve never really been a gardener. Sure, I’ve cultivated a trio of kids and seen them through school and a pandemic and managed to throw my back out only minimally while doing so. But plants? Those things are hard. Kids grow up to move around and make their own choices and watch Avatar: The Last Airbender like you still want to do at age 40. But plants (part deux)? They just grow where they’re planted. My neighbor has hostas that he just walks the lawnmower over like it’s a horror movie. But sometimes, he gets generous and tears a couple out and leaves them out for some neighbor to transplant. The last time I tried to transplant some grapes from my best friend’s ancestral home in Central Europe, I killed them in a month. Sometimes organisms just aren’t meant to move. But this week, we saw our good friend Gardner Minshew make his Philadelphia Eagles debut in relief of Jalen Hurts. Jalen, who was…hurt… has been an exciting fantasy QB all year due to his proclivity to just air the dang ball into the air like he was being sponsored by Space X’s telemetry tracking systems. Now that former Jags’ QB Gardner Minshew gets to step in for a bit, we saw another exciting performance for fantasy managers lucky enough to risk their teams on The Constant Gardner. 

Let’s recap the Sunday games for Week 13 of fantasy football. 

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As Axl Rose once said:

And when your fears subside

And shadows still remain, oh yeah

I know that you can love me when there’s no one left to blame

So never mind the darkness, we still can find a way

‘Cause nothin’ lasts forever, even cold November rain

We’re in the darkness right now as a football community. Confusion, injuries, controversy, and most strikingly, tragedy. We’re surrounded by it right now and this is already generally a tough spot in “normal” football seasons but it seems obvious this is anything but normal. This has been a real tough one with some big highs and some of the lowest lows in a long time. 

And it’s my job to help guide you, as a fantasy football player, through these lows to succeed at this game we all love. Is the senseless death of a young woman something I want to cover in what should be an entertaining run-over of your roster options for Sunday football? No, of course not but the dice have unfortunately been cast and this is how they’ve fallen and I’d be remiss to ignore the 2000 lb elephant in the room. I’m going to go from here on without some of the sentimentality and just talk football because frankly, as callous as it sounds, that’s what you’re here for and that’s what I get paid patented Razzball Fun Bucks™ (Redeemable at participating Razzball locations) to do. And who really wants to hear me pondering on these deep ethical and moral questions this week have brought about? I spent most of last week’s article talking about the Monster Mash for crying out loud. 

With that being said, let’s jump into it.

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Ah, do you smell that in the air? No, it’s not the sweet hoppy smell of the IPAs flowing at Urban Meyer’s Pint House. No, that’s the smell of Football Sunday… and the smell of torn tendons and pulled hammys. That’s gotta hurt! Still probably can’t hurt as bad as I’m sure many of you out there in the ether are with depleted rosters. God bless the poor souls playing Davis Mills this week. You will be in my prayers. 

Anyway, let’s dive into this week’s injury headlines hot off the presses!

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Oh I am so glad as a NFC Northerner to see my dear Vikings get demolished by [checks notes] Baker Mayfield. Longtime readers of my articles (Hi Mrs. Donkey Teeth!) know that I am not a fan of Baker Mayfield on the gridiron, although I think his commercials are on par with the fairer works of Chris Tucker. Mayfield, you’re so magnetic, why can’t I learn to love you?! ENYWHEY. My team played some of the least interesting football I’ve seen in years and your teams probably fared slightly better. How much better? Let’s check the scores!

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No movie references or sarcasm this week. The fantasy football community lost someone truly beloved in Mike “Tags” Tagliere this week. As I sat on my bed and scrolled through my timeline on Saturday, I saw so many people thanking him for assisting them with their fantasy teams and how much he’ll be missed on podcasts. I also saw the messages from people in the fantasy sports industry who Tags helped get their start or was there to be a sounding board when needed. I never had the chance to meet him in person but I’ve heard from many people who knew and loved him well. The same people remembering and mourning are the ones who have encouraged, guided, and helped me. Tags never got to hear how much he was appreciated to the degree of what people are saying now. So let me encourage you, whatever you do in life, whether it be a stay-at-home dad, high school principal, or fantasy analyst: tell the people who have helped and encouraged you how much you love them and how much their help has meant to you. None of us know how long we have on this earth, but what we do know is how to say thank you. So while it might be too late, thank you Mike Tagliere for being a beacon in this industry and helping so many people. Thank you for your positivity which has rubbed off on so many of your listeners, colleagues, and fellow analysts. Your legacy is an everlasting ripple in this industry and you will be missed.

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Week 3, how about thee? I spent all day on the phone with Donkey Teeth as he narrated the Red Zone games to me, describing every play in detail. “Kyler Murray passes to Bryan Edwards! It’s 34-10 going into the half! No, now it’s 24-21 and the third quarter is halfway over. Chris Carson runs down the middle and gets Roman male enhancement pills!” Maybe it’s not the most effective way to cover the NFL. Does anybody know a better way than getting your colleague to narrate the games over the phone to you? If you do, list it down in the comments! Here’s the story that I got straight from the Donkey’s mouth: 

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The NFL has finally begun, and so have the injuries. If you are trying to patch a few leaks in your fantasy BO-AT or Buoyancy Operated Aquatic Transport, I have just he Flex-Seal for you! A Quarterback, two Runningbacks, two Wide Receivers, and a Tight End to help stem the tumultuous tides of thee fantasy football flood waters.

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Welcome to Stat-o-Matic where we will look at some advanced stats around the NFL. As a disclaimer, I am using this space to play around with some numbers and present some interesting findings. But, by no means is this validated or predictive data. I hope that it will lead to meaningful discoveries or it could inspire you to go down your own rabbit hole. We’re going to explore together, crunch some numbers and see what pops out. Stats courtesy of PlayerProfiler.com.

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Four more games left until most fantasy football playoffs begin. How are you looking? Playoff spot locked up or do you need to go on a run down the stretch?

Another quiet week, we avoided major injuries to our starting backs. Today, I’ll touch on a few handcuffs that are worth monitoring heading in to your playoffs.

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Donkey Teeth rediscovered gushers at Halloween and BraMy gushes about his love for rookie TE, Chris Herndon, on this Erection Day episode of the Ditka Pod. The guys also take a look at some Nick Chubb and Kenny Golladay film, sharing their analysis and expectations for both of these rising stars moving forward.

After the weekly LeVeon Bell check in (where BraMy continues to pray to Football Jesus for Bell’s return), your hosts then dive into a session of Buy the Sausage/Sell the Cheesehead/Hold the Ditka. Find out what to do with Tyler Boyd, Golden Tate, Amari Cooper and Cordarelle Patterson. The guys make 2 new stogie bets for the rest of the season. A battle of tight ends, Chris Herndon vs Kyle Rudolph; and they each take a running back for the Steelers. Suckle the sausage right here:

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