Rest of Season Top 30 Quarterbacks: Playoff Edition

December 9, 2020 | Fantasy Football Strategy, Top 30 Quarterbacks | 3 Comments

I woke up the other morning with visions of Flacco in my head. I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. “You’re a Super Bowl winning quarterback with millions in your bank account, not the backup QB on a winless team that’s tanking! Go get ’em tiger!” I put on my Pumas and raced outside, not quite realizing it’s 15 degrees when I stepped out the door. Still, I ran. I ran like Rocky ran, sweat-banded and sweat-shirted. And when I cross the mile threshold, I told myself, “It’s three weeks until the fantasy championships! All your friends will validate you! They’ll say you’re handsome and smart and five years from now they’ll remember that Kirk Cousins brought you the fantasy championships!” I looked around, slightly crazed and slightly lost, and realized I was far from home. But aren’t we all. With Joe Flacco on my mind, I started to retrace my steps, one-by-one. Russell Wilson started strong. James Robinson was a fluke FAAB win that brought me to the playoffs. Derrick Henry surged through the defenses while Ryan Tannehill sliced secondaries. And all the while, Corey Davis grabbed first down after first down. There were so many Titans I couldn’t figure out if I was talking “Attack on” or “Remembering the.” But one thing stuck with me: it was the fantasy friends I made along the way. If I made you a fantasy friend of mine or the site, please show some love by getting an ad-free membership or checking in on the basketball or baseball sides and following the fantasy fun all-year round.

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Rest of Season Top 60 Running Back Rankings: Playoff Edition

December 8, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Rest of Season Rankings, Top 60 Running Backs | 6 Comments

by: Hobbs

All season long, we’ve been grinding through the top-60 rest of season running backs. There has been a lot of turnover, an excess of movement both in and outside of the top-24, and a heck of a lot of injuries and COVID-19 to navigate around — both in the fantasy realm and the real world. But, alas, we’ve finally made it to Week 14. Hopefully, for many of you, this means the start of a successful playoff run, as Weeks 14-16 is when the vast majority of fantasy playoffs occur. For this very reason, I find myself feeling sentimental as I write this. At times, I led you stray, and at others, I did my job well. Now, as we leave the regular season behind and enter the postseason threshold, I have the opportunity to provide you with one last set of running back rankings as it relates to the 2020 season. In this final installment, I’ll be focusing on the set of matchups each running back faces over the next three weeks, as I’ve replaced the previous “bye” week component in the rankings with a look at each respective player’s “upcoming schedule.” And before you ask, yes — I do have David Montgomery ranked as a top-10 rest of season, fantasy playoff run option for that very reason, among others.

But before we get to the rest of that top 10, let’s take one final, albeit emotional trip around the league together. Feel free to bring a pack of Kleenex or, if you wish, simply deploy your own makeshift snot sleeve. Personally, I haven’t cried this hard since I said goodbye to my foreign exchange student in 10th grade. It was emotional. We played a lot of ping pong together. To fully appreciate this last ROS top-60 segment, I highly recommend playing the song “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack. Blast it from the speakers as you digest the fickle words to follow.

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Rest of Season Top 30 Quarterbacks — Week 13

December 2, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Rest of Season Rankings, Top 30 Quarterbacks | 12 Comments

by: everywhereblair

Well, well, well. Week 12. Do I need to introduce what ended up being one of the weirdest weeks in NFL history? From a fantasy perspective, we watched Patrick Mahomes chase the Chiefs’ record for single-game passing yards (held by Elvis Grbac, you Trivial Pursuit maniac), while also watching Denver Broncos practice squad wide receiver Kendall Hinton make his NFL debut as a QB. One of those situations did not end well. On top of all of that, we’re looking forward to ~~Tuesday~~ Wednesday Night Football. In case you forgot, when Tuesday Night Football that happened earlier in the year wreaked havoc on stats providers who hadn’t prepared for “Y2K,” and some fantasy providers went weeks without accurate scoring. And now we’ve got a WNF, which is also the name of my favorite Korean boy-band. SEW (<- not a boy band). I’m giving you the best information that’s available at the time of writing, and hopefully Week 13 will be a bit easier to navigate. Next week will be the final installment of the rest of season QB rankings, so if you’re hoping to follow me here at Razzball, I’ll ask you to navigate over to the basketball section, where I’ll be doing a weekly player highlight column.

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Rest of Season Top 30 Quarterback Rankings — Week 12

November 25, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Rest of Season Rankings, Top 30 Quarterbacks | 22 Comments

by: everywhereblair

Who’s ready for Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving means three things: Matt Stafford, the turkey and contentious political commentary. Wait, what’s an Oxford comma again? OK, that was one thing. Hopefully you’ll be safe in your mansions this week. For the rest of us, let’s take a look at the thing keeping us hopeful: the upcoming fantasy playoffs and the quarterbacks that lead our teams through darkness.

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Rest of Season Top 30 Quarterback Rankings — Week 11

November 18, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Rest of Season Rankings, Top 30 Quarterbacks | 4 Comments

by: everywhereblair

When Covid isn’t flattening QBs and teams left and right, massive windstorms have completely shut down QBs several times this year. In Week 10, another Vortex Giant (CR25 for you nerds) stomped into many stadiums, leaving giant killers like Nick Chubb and [checks notes] Ben Roethisberger (hmmm) to save the villagers. I’ve asked fantasy managers to be proactive about rostering useful streaming QBs, if not to provide options in case of Covid or weather, but at the very least to deprive your opponents of a starting QB. This last week, your opponents would have gotten useful streaming games from bottom-tier QBs like Alex Smith, Kirk Cousins, and Philip Rivers. Now, I’m not applauding their games. But when other QBs are facing off against sustained 25MPH winds, gusts to 50MPH, and rain/sleet, those fair weather QB streamers look awfully nice.

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Week 11 Waiver Sherpa

November 17, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Waiver Wire | 16 Comments

by: al_FF_red

The week 11 waiver wire looks like a bunch of desperation bye/injury fillers. I’d get more aggressive with your FAAB now, as there’s probably not much to be saving it for.

I group the adds by position and then within the position, rank them in order of preference. The sherpa will only advise players who are rostered in less than 50% of ESPN leagues.

This went to press before the Minnesota/Chicago game.

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Thielen The Viking Plunders The Red Zone Targets

November 17, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Daily Notes | 9 Comments

by: Donkey Teeth

Most who are educated on Viking lore are familiar with the legendary Lief Erikson, the first European to ever set foot on the North American continent. But generations before Lief raped and pillaged his way across the ocean, there was one even more historic Viking: Ragnar Thielen. You won’t read about Ragnar in any of those propagandized history books. He was the most peaceful of the Vikings. Instead of collecting skulls Ragnar spent his time knitting with the skin of pig. That’s right, old Ragnar Thielen created the first football back in the year 969. Fast forward 1,051 years and his great-greatX20-grandson Adam Thielen showed how the pigskin runs in his veins as he snatched 4 catches for 43 yards and his 8th and 9th touchdowns. Viking lore aside, I’ve been saying since summer that Thielen is a first half player. In the last two seasons he’s caught only two touchdowns in 12 games after the first week in November. This could be the year he bucks the trend, but I’m not betting on it. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday for fantasy football:

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Rest of Season Top 30 Quarterbacks — Week 10

November 11, 2020 | Fantasy Football Strategy, Top 30 Quarterbacks | 9 Comments

by: everywhereblair

Earlier in the summer when I was ranking pitchers over on the baseball side, there was a moment early in the baseball season when less than 60 starting pitchers had played; the rest were injured or quarantined or got caught at the club and sent home. The starting quarterback landscape is increasingly looking that way: tons of injuries are taking their toll, and the NFL has a baffling Covid policy where they’re punishing teams for practicing during the week yet still marching teams out every Sunday rather than delaying the games. Was Tuesday Night Football really that bad? I mean, other than screwing up the fantasy scoring systems for like two weeks. ENYWHEY. Outside of Dak Prescott, most of the injuries and quarantines haven’t affected the bulk of fantasy managers playing in standard leagues. Those who are in deep leagues, dynasty leagues, or superflex leagues, however, are probably in massive frustration mode. Here’s how I’m seeing the QB landscape unfold.

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Rest of Season Top 30 Quarterbacks — Week 9

November 4, 2020 | Fantasy Football Strategy, Top 30 Quarterbacks | 7 Comments

by: everywhereblair

I like it when there’s a penalty in football. The ref comes out, takes center stage on national television, and in avuncular tone, tells us what exactly went wrong and what the consequences will be. There’s a sincere clarity to a football penalty. It’s like my team’s on-the-field problems are my own. When my team’s cornerback interferes with a pass, it’s like I was getting vicariously handsy with the receiver. Then the ref comes out and tells me I was a bad boy, and that I better keep my hands to myself next time. But then the ref says “Half the distance to the goal,” and I think to myself, I haven’t gotten any of my goals achieved. Now I’m halfway there!

Thanks to you ref, maybe I’ll achieve something this year.

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Rest of Season Top 30 Quarterbacks — Week 8

October 28, 2020 | Fantasy Football Strategy, Top 30 Quarterbacks | 11 Comments

by: everywhereblair

Here at Razzball headquarters — which is actually Grey’s basement in a rambler in Toledo, Ohio — the writers have been preparing for Halloween. You would imagine that a bunch of guys who use cartoon avatars would be really good at costumes, but with the world stricken by seven months of the piranhavirus, we’ve run out of crafting materials in the basement. Our running back guru, Hobbs, was pretty easy to cover in ketchup and coal dust to make a worthy facsimile of Hobbes the Tiger. And because we’re really committed to our imaginary games, we quickly put the writer Hobbs into a toy chest and ignore his calls for extra Pop Tarts. Donkey Teeth, of course, dresses the part of Donkey from Shrek, like, all the time. Did you know they made a Shrek 5? If you scour the Filipino black markets of DVDs, you’ll see our own Donkey Teeth starring in his self-created fan-fiction where a donkey gets psychic powers and finally — finally! — wins the Draft Kings Mega Millionaire. Myself, I’m dressing up as my hero, Big Nick Power, because he inspires me to treat everyday like a Hail Mary. If enough people get injured and struggle, I could be a New York Times columnist!

If you would like to contribute to the Razzball Halloween candy fund — they might even buy the candy fresh this year! — be sure to check out our other writers’ rest of season rankings, and consider getting an ad-free membership or a Roto Deluxe membership.

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Rams-Bears Were Out To Prove Garfield Was Right About Mondays

October 26, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Daily Notes | 29 Comments

by: Donkey Teeth

I hope for your sake that you were busy Monday night and unable to watch the Bears vs. Rams puke fest. Here’s how bad the game was: the undisputed player of the game was Rams’ punter Johnny Hekker. In all fairness to Hekker, the man can punt with the best of em. All five of his kicks pinned the aimless Bears offense inside the 10 yard line, and he booted a 63 yarder down there too. Needless to say, if you own Hekker in a punter league—I’m sure these actually exist—then you had a great fantasy night; unlike the rest of us. Fantasy Lord willing, this will be the last time I ever write an intro about a punter. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday for fantasy football:

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Rest Of Season Top 30 Quarterbacks — Week 7

October 21, 2020 | Fantasy Football Strategy, Top 30 Quarterbacks | 11 Comments

by: everywhereblair

Part of being a fantasy analyst is that you’re always, at least to some degree, a contrarian. And being a critic and being contrarian are two different things: the former involves the deployment of data to make an argument, and the latter is going up when others go down [wait, what site am I writing for again?]. The most effective moments in fantasy analysis are when criticism and contrarianism connect, and the fantasy analyst makes a predictive move that could help readers win their fantasy leagues.

Now, I’m not claiming oracle status, but I will claim a short victory lap on Ryan Fitzpatrick, who I warned my readers to stay away from.

The (Fitz) magic disappeared on Tuesday, October 20, 2020, when rookie signal caller Tua Tagovailoa was named the starter for the Miami Dolphins.

Therein lies the vex of fantasy analysis: some of the stuff we say seems, well, loco. Fitzpatrick had been putting up pretty good fantasy numbers. But (and it’s a Blair’s been sitting here writing this update for too-long sized but), Fitzpatrick’s peripheral numbers were terrible. Last week, I pointed out that Fitzpatrick was struggling with moving the ball down the field, was throwing too many interceptions, and had an on-target percentage sandwiched in-between Trubisky and Haskins, each of whom had lost their starting job this year. And now, the Fitzmagic has disappeared.

Aye, I definitely am a bit crazy. But, if I saved you some cash by navigating you away from Fitzpatrick this season, then take a moment to consider an add-free subscription to the site, or, for less than $2/week remaining on the season, get a Roto Deluxe membership to get all of Rudy’s fresh projections updated for Tua Tagovailoa as the starter.

Please, blog, may I have some more?