The Injury Report, Week 14: Tyler Eifert On The #NiceList

I don’t have a lot of injury analysis for you in this one. Just some quick hits and an amazing Tyler Eifert update. Tyler Eifert missed last week’s game with a neck injury… Perhaps he was malingering so he could do this instead of playing on Sunday:

I'd like a Super Bowl ring #Santa #NiceList pic.twitter.com/2CDBiPVsdq

— Tyler Eifert (@EiferTy85) December 9, 2015

Okay, not that the picture was taken on Sunday. I don’t think it was. But look, this picture is just.. weird. A grown man probably shouldn’t be sitting on Santa. So I hope this had some tie in to an official appearance or some kind of charity benefit. I wonder if his #NiceList refers to what he’s done for fantasy owners this year? Jay, maybe you need to get in the holiday spirit and come out with a “Naughty/Nice” list for fantasy football this year. You know, the list more commonly known as Bust/MVP. I’m not saying it’s a good idea, I’m just saying it’s an idea. Anyway… Tyler Eifert (neck) was “limited” for practice Wednesday after he missed last week’s game. So that makes me think he’ll play this Sunday. But they’ll probably want to be certain on this one so I wouldn’t be completely surprised if he missed. But I think he’ll play.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Injury Report, Week 13: Gronk’s Absence Leaves Gaping Hole

by: RotoLance

Rob Gronkowski’s sixteen game, standard scoring, fantasy point pace for 2015 was 214.4. That’s a hefty number. That’s a number good enough to keep the “is he, or is he not worth a 1st round draft pick” debate going. If there exists a knock against Gronk, it is most likely that he can’t stay healthy. Which is something that I think is technically true, but it also might be unfair. I think we need to acknowledge that most tight ends are injury prone. For whatever reasons, they just seem to miss more time than their wide receiver counterparts. This has been especially true for the most dominant tight ends in fantasy of the past several years: Antonio Gates, Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham, and Julius Thomas. Gronkowski and Thomas have missed the most games, while Gates and Graham have mostly managed to stay on the field, albeit often with lesser production as they struggled with injuries .

So it’s arguably not really Gronk being injury prone, per se, because the top tight ends as a whole get injured a lot. Other oft injured tight ends include Jordan Reed, Kyle Rudolph, and going back a little further to when he was useful… Owen Daniels. Going back even further, you have Dallas Clark. Arguably, Tyler Eifert and Jordan Cameron deserve to be labeled as injury prone. The only exceptions I can think of are Greg Olsen, Jason Witten and Tony Gonzalez, three truly durable players.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

You Can Take Rex Ryan Out of the Jets…

November 13, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Daily Notes | 36 Comments

by: Jay

…but can you take the Jets out of Rex Ryan? I think Ryan Fitzpatrick is saying… maybe? Or he’s just horrified at life.

Regular Razzball readers are quite familiar with my affection for NFC East derp, a very special and pronounced derp, to say the least, but sometimes all of us forget the unique derp that is produced by the non-Patriots AFC East. It’s as if the entire east coast can’t play a football game without producing a football-like product drenched with the aforementioned derp. And of course, last night, you have the Bills and Jets, two franchises, who in recent memory, you could only tell apart by the Bills sucking and the Jets blowing. True, it was rainy, it was windy in a short week, with two defense-oriented teams with mediocre offenses, but what we saw last night was the best this division has to offer. In this case though, we’ll call it the “lest”. Add in the bizarre (yet festive!) choice of jersey’s for both teams (shown above)… Not only was I in the mood for lime and salsa, but my left retina possibly detached. But hey, someday we’ll all get to tell our great-grandchildren that we were there for The Great Jersey Apocalypse of 2015. Unless you’re red-green colorblind. Then you’re the luckiest one out of all, because you saw nothing.

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Please, blog, may I have some more?

Through the Wire, Week 10: Tears in Heaven

November 10, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football Rankings, Waiver Wire | 89 Comments

by: Geoff

I woke up this morning with a pain in my heart. I couldn’t quite place what caused it, but it was there. So instead of indulging this pain by calling out sick, and moping around the house all day in those super comfy plaid fleece pants, I decided to go to work and go about my day as if the pain wasn’t there. But it was there, oh it was there. I was just in denial, I knew what the pain was, and I knew what caused it. But I was holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. But there I was, 1:30 pm EST in the front conference room at the office in a meeting with clients. My phone buzzed, and when I peered down at my screen it was just as I had feared “Dion Lewis out for season with ACL tear”. At that moment, I let out a primal scream that could only be matched by the sound of my mighty swinging scrotum pounding the inner-thighs of Tehol’s wiz. This is my fate for making light of all you Charles, Bell, and Foster owners in past weeks. In one awkward step a dream was lost, and a little piece of me died. I stand before you jaded and less innocent to life’s unfair twists, than I did a week ago. Now, as we always do, we pickup the pieces, recollect, and hit the wire…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Benchwarmers, Week 10: Dude, Where’s My Carr?

November 10, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, 2015 Roster Strategy | 5 Comments

by: Doug

A week where we saw an undefeated be beaten by the Colts (yes, THOSE Colts) and also some more major injuries, we are getting closer and closer to fantasy football playoffs times and knowing who to have and not to have is important. That is what I do, I tell you who to have on your benches, who to play, and who to drop as well. With some injuries at quarterback and running back, there will be some players who need to be stashed or even better, grabbed and potentially be worth playing. In the past three games, Derek Carr has thrown 11 touchdowns to only one interception and is quickly turning around compared to what he did in his rookie season last year. With a solid run game and two good wide receivers to throw to in Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree. He has thrown for at least three touchdowns in the past three games as well and thrown no lower than 289 passing yards in those games as well. He is quickly proving to be match-up proof and does not show any signs of slowing down as the season progresses. For owners who may have lost Ben Roethlisberger (again) may need a quarterback on the waiver wire to pick up the slack and there may be no better option right now than Derek Carr as he continues to rack up fantasy points like crazy. And with Matt Ryan, Andrew Luck, Philip Rivers, Drew Brees, and Eli Manning still having bye weeks coming up over the next two weeks, Carr could be the perfect plug-and-play quarterback.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Injury Report, Week 6: Jamaal Charles and the ACL Effect

October 15, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, 2015 Injury Report | 31 Comments

by: RotoLance

Is there still such a thing as an ACL injury after effect? Adrian Peterson famously rushed for over 2000 yards the year following a December ACL tear. Jeremy Maclin turned out to be a 2014 draft day bargain after suffering an ACL tear in the 2013 preseason. Rob Gronkowski also went undervalued in 2014 drafts after coming off an ACL injury. Now Todd Gurley is meeting or exceeding his expectations. The fact is that risk is always built into the value of post ACL tear players, but they have a pretty good recent track record. I literally can’t think of a single player that failed to come back from an ACL tear in the last few years. Recently the upside has outweighed the draft cost of buying a player coming off an ACL injury.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Late Games Live Thread, Week 5

October 11, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, 2015 GameDay Notes | 4 Comments

by: Jay

While I would normally highlight a marquee match-up during the late game slate, there really are none. The Cardinals and Lions is semi-intriguing, if only to witness the Lions progression into a complete dumpster fire. The Broncos visit the Raiders, which is probably going to be a lot closer than everyone thinks. And when you finally accept that the Raiders may be getting closer to a viable football franchise, they’ll do something totally Raiders. I’m going to say this time, it’ll be a ridiculous personal foul penalty at the end of the game to seal it for Denver. And the last game of the day is the Patriots traveling to Dallas. Typically, this would have been the marquee match-up of the day, but since half of the Cowboys are either dead or missing, New England will get to enjoy a free win. The only question is, will Belichick still keep his starters in when up by 100 points in the third quarter?

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Early Games Live Thread, Week 5

October 11, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, 2015 GameDay Notes | 80 Comments

by: Jay

The first month of the season is already gone (or I guess more accurately, one quarter), but however you’d like to describe the passage of time this football season, one thing is eminently clear: there are a lot of undefeated teams. Six in fact. They are the Bengals, Broncos, Falcons, Packers, Panthers, and the Patriots (because there is no God). Out of those teams, it is my ~~expert~~ pedestrian opinion, only two teams have staying power to continue at an elite level all the way through to the Super Bowl, and that’s the Packers and the Patriots (because of the aforementioned God being missing in action.) The Bengals will once again go 12-4 and then 0-1 in the playoffs (until they tell me otherwise), Peyton Manning’s arm will probably fall off once December comes around, the Falcons have feasted on teams that measure right below suck, and the Panthers are pretty beat up. Plus, I don’t believe the NFL accepts playoff teams from the NFC South unless they are under .500. This kinda-sorta (close enough!) segues into the interesting Seahawks/Bengals game. Can Dalton continue playing above the Dalton line? Will Seattle’s offensive line continue to be about as effective as what recovery water is to concussions? Learn the answers to these questions and more!

Rankings have been updated for today’s games and can be found here.

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Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Injury Report, Week 5: The Empire Strikes Steve Smith’s Back

October 8, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, 2015 Injury Report | 14 Comments

by: RotoLance

Some dude in black hit Steve Smith’s back. And he was off to a great start this year. For some reason I wasn’t watching the game last Thursday, I was following it though my Twitter timeline and FantasyCast. Which I think was something that actually heightened the “experience”. It meant being flooded with Joe Flacco “elite” Tweets, however. I mean, when I saw through FantasyCast that Joe Flacco had rushed for zero (or negative) yards on a 4th down play, if I recall, I immediately checked my timeline for the expected barrage of inevitable “Elite Sneak” Tweets. Like this one:

Elitesneak

— Jason Longfellow (@jaywrong) October 2, 2015

So how about actually discussing that Steve Smith injury.. Okay. In due time. Firstly, I want to remind all of you that I’m ordering this injury discussion from greatest impact to least impact on your fantasy teams. And Steve Smith’s leading off. Which is both good and bad. It’s good that we don’t have a more significant injury this week and bad for all the Steve Smith owners, because he was going to return value over his cost this year.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Early Games Live Thread, Week 4

October 4, 2015 | 2015 Fantasy Football, 2015 GameDay Notes | 90 Comments

by: Jay

I had always thought that spreading the sport of football to Great Britain was seemingly a waste of time. Finally, I can say that the NFL agrees with me. By sending the Jets and Dolphins to London it almost assuredly guarantees that the NFL will spread like frozen butter. Yes, that’s the best I could come up with. On top of having to wake up earlier than normal to start watching football (first world problems), we also have our first bye week to contend with, losing such powerhouse franchises like the Patriots and, uh… the Titans (THEY ARE THE BESTEST FRANCHISE EVER) this weekend. However, there are still some intriguing Early Game match-ups, including the Giants vs. Bills, and Derpfest 2015: Eagles vs. Washington. There’s also a Raiders vs. Bears game, just in case you needed more “stabbing your eyes with the nearest sharp object” in your life. So what I’m basically saying is, my alcohol consumption will be beginning at 9:30 A.M. EDT today. Thanks NFL!

Rankings have been updated for today’s game and you can find them here.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

FanDuel, Week 4: Green with Envy

October 2, 2015 | 2015 Daily Fantasy, 2015 Fantasy Football | 2 Comments

by: Zach

What a very interesting week. Big Ben could be out multiple weeks, Latavius Murray had a great game, Ryan Mathews had a great game when DeMarco was out, and Blount-Forced-Trauma was in full effect. And Buffalo took advantage of Miami without even buying a drink or driving her home. C’mon Rex Ryan. Be classy. Just like your coaches when you were representing the Green and White. Wisconsin beat Hawaii 28-0, if I am correct. Star running back Corey Clement is being selfish and needs surgery. He could be out 4-6 weeks, which got me thinking. Good for you, Razzball readers of these weekly articles. You guys don’t need injuries, because every week is like a new season. But you already knew that, because Fanduel never has commercials. This week’s (Starting This Week) Tip of the Cap goes to Oakland CB Charles “Chuck” Woodson. What a game-winning interception he had last Sunday to seal the victory against the Browns. His kids demanded, and he put the team on his back. Good for you Chuck. Oh, and before I forget. I don’t always write about how much I love Carson Palmer week to week. I figured you guys had enough. So just as an FYI, if you can put Carson Palmer in your lineup, put Carson Palmer in your lineup. I may not talk about how much I love Carson Palmer, but I do love Carson Palmer each and every week. I love you Carson Palmer.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Disgrace and Delight, Week 4: The Rodfather is Here, Kiss the Ring

September 30, 2015 | 2015 Buy/Sell, 2015 Fantasy Football | 161 Comments

by: LT Murray IV

Greetings! What a time to be alive! We’ve all been allowed to witness the glorious gift of the Elder Gods, Tyrod Taylor, make gizzards out of three opposing secondaries. This young legend was COMPLETELY left out of a certain ESPN analyst’s weekly quarterback rankings last week, and I for one believe he deserves to be fired for committing such a despicable act of disgracefulness. After Blake Bortles treated their secondary like a porta-potty the previous week, any respectable man would have to assume Tygod would drop a double-dose of feces on those peasants. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills! What are people not seeing?! This stallion has every skill-set imaginable and should only improve from here on out. I’m a TAD concerned with Taylor not having Watkins and McCoy in the arsenal this week against the Giants, but I believe he’ll make up for that just by taking off and running a lot more. By the way, the Giants are DEAD LAST in the NFL in pass yards given up. Suck that in for a second. Oooohweeee, the Rodfather is a top-5 option this week at QB and a must-own in all formats. If you wanna keep hating, I’ll grant you a front row seat into my induction into the “writers wing” of the NFL Hall of Fame (as long as Jay continues editing my work).

I am Tehol Beddict and this is, Disgrace/Delight! Take heed!

Please, blog, may I have some more?