Entries Tagged 'Fantasy Football' ↓

Back by popular demand!    For the details on how I do the scoring you can refer to last’s year’s fantasy football expert reviews.    The basic goal here is review the experts’ weekly recommendations on who to start and who to sit, so we can collectively determine if we should waste or time listening to what they have to say.

First up, ESPN’s Matthew Berry (week 1 picks)

Recommended Starts:

QB – Favre, Roethlisberger, Kitna, Hassleback, McNabb, Rodgers
RB – Portis, T.Jones, R.Williams, Parker, White, C. Johnson, E.Graham, S.Jackson, Addai, Forte, McFadden, Young, Hall
WR – Cotchery, Coles, Ginn Jr, Holmes, R.Williams, Ca. Johnson, Burleson, C.Taylor, Driver, Galloway, Crayton, Bruce

Recommended Sits:

QB – E.Manning, Pennington, Schaub, Garrard, V.Young, Brees, Anderson, Delhomme, Rivers, P.Manning, T.Jackson, Cutler, Russell
RB – Perry, Watson, R.Brown, L.Johnson, R.Bush, McAllister, D.Williams, J.Stewart, Grant
WR – R.White, Evans, Curry

Based on my scoring system, Berry went 34 for 56 with his recommendations in week 1, 61%.  Not a terrible performance and the Talented Mr. Roto does get credit for taking riskier pics (you wont’ see LT or Brady anywhere on list).

Worth heeding his advice? – I think so, if you can handle all the 90210 references.

I’ve been considering employing this strategy this year and came across a great article at the Scores Report.   I originally heard about this strategy from the guys at FootballGuys.com.  Their 2008 DTBC article is out if you are a paid subscriber.

The Scores Report article does a great job of explaining the defensive team by committee approach and also recommending some combos for this season.

The idea of drafting depth at WR or RB when the mad dash for team defenses begins is definitely enticing.   Might have to give it a try this year.

Here’s a quick list of the top causes of fantasy football arguments every season.  Address these issues with your league prior to the season and you’ll avoid headaches and endless message board debates.

1.   Return yards/TDs – Do these count for your WRs & RBs?
2.   If the opponent of your starting defense scores defensive points, does that count against your defense?
3.   How are field goals returned as TDs scored?
4.   Keeper eligibility – If your league has limits on the number of years a player may be kept, how are those limits affected if that player is traded or dropped?
5.   What happens when an owner drops out of the league mid-season?
6.   Does your league award partial points?
7.   If your league awards the incorrect point totals for a given week, and does not fix it, how will your league handle this?
8.   Last minute line-up adjustments – If a league owner contacts the commish after weekly lineups have been locked (or because of connectivity issues), can the commish process the change?
9.   Trade disputes – Does your league allow owners to trade future draft picks?
10.  Trade disputes – How does your league prevent unfair trades and collusion without also blocking the legitimate trades in the process?  – This is the big one.

The blogosphere is alive with the sounds of RBBC (running back by committee) as it seems everywhere you look you find someone offering their thoughts on the league-wide shift to this strategy and the subsequent detrimental effects on fantasy football.

Anyway, in my research this weekend, I came across a great fantasy podcast from Fantasy Football Empire that provides a very thorough team by team analysis of NFL runningbacks.  I’m still planning on doing a review and ranking of all fantasy football podcasts but you can bet this will be at the top of my list.   I’d consider this a must-listen for anyone in need of a complete overview on which runningbacks are sharing carries and which runningbacks will get 300+ carries.

During my first few seasons of fantasy football, I believed spending ten and a half hours glued to the tv every Sunday was my God-given right. Absent of any semblance of responsibility, I was free to focus on the important things in life like finding new ways to torment my Jets fan friends for drafting Kyle Brady at ninth overall or deciding who I should start at QB – Jeff George or Dave Krieg. Ah, the good old days, I can almost hear “Informer” blasting from my boombox.

Fast forward to present day, work and relationships have made it increasingly harder to devote one seventh of every week to sitting on my ass watching football.

If you have to work on Sunday you’re pretty much screwed. Sorry, it sucks and I feel for you. You are just going to need to get a new job. But if your girlfriend, wife, whatever is booking apple picking trips and dinner with the in-laws every weekend through December, well here I can help you.

Behold, thirteen effective and sometimes deceptive ways to ensure you presence from the first time Chris Berman says something stupid on Countdown all the way through the Sunday night wrap-up.

1. The Drunken Reverse: So the old lady has big plans for you on Sunday that will prevent you from watching the games? Good for her. Take her out on Saturday night to reward her for her diligent planning. And then just get her completely hammered. I recommend Jameson shots by the truckload. The goal is to ensure that she’ll be catatonically hung over until early evening Sunday. If you are successful, she’ll cancel Sunday’s plans, you’ll be free to watch the game and you may even pick up some brownie points if a commercial break coincides with her cries for the Pepto Bismol bottle.

Caution: If she can drink you under the table this is a very dangerous strategy as you could end up too drunk to function on Sunday. This may get you off the hook in the short term but she’ll have you locked inside Linens’ N Things for the next four Sundays as revenge.

2. The Pre-Emptive Planner: Nothing flashy about this technique. Simply sacrifice your Friday and/or Saturday by doing whatever your girl wants to do, thereby earning the right to spend Sunday at the bar or on the couch. Not a good choice if you want to watch College Football all day Saturday.

3. The Good Friend: You’re buddy needs your help. Maybe he lost his job, maybe his girl left him, maybe that sore isn’t responding to conventional medicine – bottom line, your friend is blue and it is your duty to cheer him up.   If it means sacrificing your Sunday to come to his aid, well then so be it. By the way, none of this needs to be true as long as it gets you out of the house. A solid option, if used infrequently, but it doesn’t work well if your girl is familiar with your friend in need.

4.  Gotta Pay the Bills:  Another relatively straightforward play call – a last minute cancellation of that scenic Sunday drive through the country due to an unavoidable work-related emergency.  Sure your significant other will be disappointed, but hey, so are you, right?  Sorry honey the mortgage doesn’t pay itself.  Very important to do the necessary prep work on this.  Mapquest the route ahead of time and makes sure she sees the direction printed out.  Research some romantic stops along the way, perhaps a vineyard, and jot down some phone numbers on the directions to show how pumped you are about the trip.   A little corny, yes, but it’s not like you are really going anywhere.  And well-worth the effort when you are live streaming games from your office PC on Sunday.

5. The Ultimate Sacrifice: If all else fails, kill off a friend or distant relative. Don’t ‘clip’ a close family member – your girl will want to go for support. You’ll need to plan a day or so in advance (to allow time for the funeral arrangements) – but who can argue with death? A little unethical but you can argue the same about furniture shopping on a Sunday when you’re battling for a playoff spot. Note: To clarify, the goal here is to fake the death, not actually kill someone – the Internet requires such clarifications to be plainly stated.

Stay tuned for part II.

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Let’s see how ESPN’s Eric Karabell’s week 5 recommendations turned out. Here are my rules on how Eric and other fantasy football experts are measured.

Week 5 Fantasy Football Expert Review: Eric Karabell, ESPN

Recommended starts:
QB – Schaub, Campbell
RB – Henry, LJ, Bush, Portis, Ward, Morris
WR – Colston, Bowe, Evans, Randle-El, Jennings

Recommended sits:

QB – Brees, Garcia, Rivers
RB – Benson, J.Jones, E.Graham, Lewis, Dunn/Norwood, Any Packers
WR – Crayton, D.Jackson, R.White, Jurevicius, V.Jackson, A.Gonzalez

Karabell was 2 of 5 on his QB recommendation, 7 of 12 on RBs, and 5 of 11 for WRs for a total of 14 of 28 or exactly 50%. Interesting results. I love this guy’s logic but in regards to Week 5 you could have saved your $6.95 per month ESPN Insider subscription and simply flipped a coin.

Following up on yesterday’s post, let’s see how another expert stacks up against ESPN’s Eric Karabell. Today I’ll look at Jamey Eisenberg, a fantasy writer for Sportsline.com.

Week 2 Fantasy Football Expert Review: Jamey Eisenberg, Sportsline.com

Recommended starts:
QB – Favre, Delhomme, Romo, Brees, Green, Hassleback
RB – A. Peterson, R. Johnson, Barber, Henry, McAllister, Jones-Drew, B. Jackson
WR – Walker, Chambers, Galloway, C.Johnson, Berrian, Driver
Recommended sits:

QB – Campbell, Schaub, McNair, Rivers, Bulger
RB – Lynch, A.Green, Dunn, Maroney, T.Jones, T.Bell, L.Johnson
WR – Curry, Coles, V.Jackson, D.Carter, Burress, Horn

Eisenberg went 6 of 11 at QB, 10 of 14 at RB, and 10 of 12 at WR – 26 of 37 overall or a success rate of 70%. A slight edge over Karabell’s 68% from yesterday’s post of fantasy football experts.

I think both experts took some chances with their picks – instead of recommending Peyton Manning as a start. I especially like Eisenberg’s rec’s to sit Maroney, Lynch, T.Jones and LJ – all quality starters – and all of whom performed poorly in week 2.

Here’s the real golden nugget of this exercise. In instances where both Karabell and Eisenberg recommended the same player to either start or sit (Favre, Brees, Barber, Galloway, Chambers, T.Bell, V.Jackson, Horn, McNair, Rivers, D.Carter) they were money – 10 for 11 or 91%.

Moral of the story – Cross reference the fantasy recommendations you read each week before taking action and you should do just fine.

As fantasy football owners, we are on an eternal quest for knowledge. Who to start, who to sit, which sleeper has a favorable matchup, which stud is destined for failure. We have preconceived notions about each player that we’ve developed from years of first hand experience but more often than not we do what any information-crippled individual will do when looking for answers – we ask the experts.

In response, blogs, podcasts, sports radio and Sportscenter have all increased their output of fantasy football advice, but how do we sift through this barrage of stats and tips – and who, more importantly, are these experts we entrust with our fantasy football seasons.

Week after week, it is easy to find advice on who to start and who to sit, but no one holds these experts accountable after the fact. Periodically this season, I’m going to review this “expert advice” and report back on how the predictions fared.

This week, I will start at the top and look at Eric Karabell’s recommendations for week 2. For my money, Eric is cream of the crop when it comes to fantasy football analysis so lets see how accurate his recommendations were.

This is how it works – I’m looking at QBs, RBs and WRs only. If the expert said to start a player and they ended up in the top 12 for QBs, top 24 for RBs or top 36 for WRs during a given week they get a point. Likewise they get a point if the recommended a sit and the player did not rank within the above metrics for the given week. As we continue this exercise we can start to adjust for which experts only offer safe picks and which experts take some chances.

Week 2 Fantasy Football Expert Review: Eric Karabell, ESPN.com

Recommended starts:
QB – Brees, Ben Roeth, Kitna, Favre, Schaub
RB – S.Jackson, L.Johnson, Barber, Bush, C.Brown
WR – Moss, A.Johnson, R.Brown, Galloway, Branch, Burress, Chambers

Recommended sits:

QB – Leinhart, McNair, Culpepper, Rivers
RB – R.Brown, D.Ward, T.Bell, B.Jackson, C.Williams, Norwood
WR – V.Jackson, Berrian, Horn, D.Carter

By the scoring system outlined above – which is based off standard scoring – Karabell went 6 of 9 at QB, 5 of 11 at RB, and 10 or 11 at WR – 21 of 31 recommendations overall or a success rate of 68%. Not bad, tune in each week to see how he stacks up against other experts.

Draft day is fast approaching and you are probably staring a hole in your monitor as you search for those fantasy football nuggets that will put you over the top this year. Unfortunately, you are forced to take breaks from your research while you work, drive, eat, sleep, etc.

Now you can spend 100% of your time prepping for draft day by downloading fantasy football podcasts onto your ipod so you can spend that hour commute more productively by learning about Top Tier WR’s and the like. Extra Points – The Fantasy Football Podcast has a weekly show that you can download as well as a regularly updated blog. One note, these podcasts are described by the owners of Extra Points as a “top-level” analysis so they provide mostly intermediate, rather than expert advice but its still very helpful.

Sportsline has a fantasy football podcasts, as does ESPN Fantasy Football Focus, and Fantasy Football Empire.  All can provide solid background info.  I really hate to plug the favorites but for my money, Eric Karabell and Tristan Cockcroft are the best in the business so for some detailed insight check out their EA Madden 08 Fantasy Draft Special

I’ve been running everyday so I don’t look like Deuce McAllister at my wedding and I absolutely hate it. Time on the treadmill seems to go by a little quicker when you learning about this year’s potential sleepers and busts. Give it a try.