Fantasy Football Preview: 9/7/2010
By Jason Collins
It’s the end of the summer and the time to gather your friends and office buddies for your fantasy football leagues, we’re just a few days away from the regular season There is nothing more entertaining than sitting around a group of tables, eating your favorite snack, listening to your friends talk smack about last years league and how they could have and should have won. Chances are the winner of the league is talking more smack than anyone else. Whether you’re playing for money or just playing for fun the fun starts when you start thinking of your draft strategy. A lot of those draft strategies start as soon as the fantasy season ends after the Super Bowl is over. Magazines even come out in May and June making bold predictions and assumptions before training camp starts. Fantasy football is generally the luck of the draw. Which fantasy manager’s team can stay healthy, who can get the best sleeper off of the waiver wire. There are a lot of questions going in to your fantasy football league. Like every year, who will be the huge disappointments and waiver wire heroes to rear their heads? I have been playing fantasy football now for 14 years, and that same question always comes up every year, “who will be a fantasy bust”? Your main focus as a player is to stay away from injury prone players, guys who are on the tail end of a running back by committee, and those wide receivers who’s QB needs to be coaching a peewee team instead of being on the field throwing ball to ridiculously talented WR’s (i.e. Matt Leinart to Larry Fitzgerald). Later on I will give a few of my picks to be a bust and those who will bust out.
What does it take to be a fantasy football champion? As I stated earlier it takes a lot of luck. I am not a firm believer in luck per say in most circumstances, however in fantasy football I think luck has a lot to do with it. You can draft a team that on paper looks like the dream team, and with a couple of injuries or a bad week or two and you are stuck wondering what happened to your team. Or you can have a team you draft and are concerned about, but you hit matchups just right and roll through the season like a breeze. There is nothing worse than having that team that goes 13-1 and you roll into the playoffs with nothing but the fantasy football trophy in your way only to lose in the first round to the wild card team, or the team with the worst record that made it into the playoffs. I speak that statement from prior experience last year. As I stated earlier injuries and bad luck will kill your chances of taking home that grand prize of being called a “Fantasy Football Champion”.
So the question remains what strategy should you go with? Well the first answer is go into your fantasy draft with a strategy. Those who go in knowing nothing will take those players that were ranked in March by some magazine that they paid $8.99 for. They’ll end up with guys who are injured and will not have any fantasy worth like a Donnie Avery who tore up his ACL, or a Sidney Rice who will not have any fantasy worth until week 6 if that soon. Or maybe they’ll stay away from a Wes Welker, or an Arian Foster because the Magazine thinks Welker will be out due to injury and Ben Tate will be the man behind Steve Slaton in Houston. If you actually do some research before your auction, chances are you might have talked yourself into the balanced team strategy at some point. While, I don’t think this strategy is a disaster like the “I have no strategy” approach, I do think it is flawed. The main issue I have with it is too much depth on a roster. One might say, what’s wrong with too much depth, my guys get hurt every year and I need solid backups. While I agree with that in theory, the problem lies in your lack of flexibility. I found this out first hand when I took this approach early in my fantasy career. You end up with such a stacked bench relative to everyone else; you’re completely handcuffed to make any moves. Simply put, you can’t make any additions via the waiver wire because you have no one to cut. Also, once the bye weeks start up, you will run into issues with filling positions you don’t have a backup at (probably kicker, defense, TE and maybe even QB depending on your bench size). So you then have to cut someone that you shouldn’t be cutting and then end up strengthening your opponent via waiver wire. Personally, I think a lot of the fun during the season is picking up players that come out of nowhere or have a lot of upside once a key starter gets injured. Last year nobody knew much about Jamaal Charles at the start of the season, but once he got the starting job, he was a guy you could ride to the championship. The same can be said for Mike Sims-Walker, he was a top wide receiver at the end of the season, that no one had barely even heard of. If you insist on creating a balanced team with depth, at least leave yourself one spot that you can cut without feeling too bad about it for a bye week pickup or a waiver wire gem.
With all of that info to soak in for a while here are a few of my sleepers/breakout players and busts for this fantasy football season.
Sleepers: At the WR position I think Johnny Knox will have a very good season even though he has Jay (I am better than Elway) Cutler throwing him the ball. Knox has a teammate that may surprise this season as well in Devin Aromashodu. Both of these guys success depends on the success of their RB Matt Forte.
At the RB position I think Jhavid Best of the Detroit Lions will have a solid year, as well as Arian Foster of the Houston Texans.
QB: It looks like Joe Flacco is poised for a breakout season. The addition of Anquan Boldin and the emergence of Ray Rice set Flacco up for a good year. Also I like Carson Palmer. He has killed me in the past, but with TO in town as well as Ochocinco and Cedric Benson running the ball I think if he stays healthy this will be his best year statistically.
TE: I look for Jermichael Finley to be an absolute beast for Aaron Rodgers this season I also like Brent Celek from the Eagles who seems to be clicking with his roommate Kevin Kolb.
Team defense is always a tossup because they depend on injuries just like our fantasy teams do. I think the San Francisco 49ers will be a nice surprise to pick up in later rounds.\
For the Busts:
QB: Whoever starts in Arizona. I just don’t think either of the contenders are that good this year. Also Donovan McNabb. I like him as a person and he has great heart, but I don’t think he’s the main man anymore. There is a reason his beloved Eagles gave up on him after all the good he did for them over the years.
RB: Steve Slaton. He was once a very good sleeper pick about 2 years ago, but now he is no more than a waiver wire pickup. Also Marion Barber from the cowboys. He has a lot of heart and toughness but when you are in the mix of a 3 rb set it is kind of hard to stand out as a stud.
WR: I can’t believe I am saying this but Larry Fitzgerald. As I stated earlier he has no one to throw him the ball accurately and effectively, and losing his counterpart Anquan Boldin doesn’t help either. If Arizona makes a trade and gets a solid QB I take him off of this list, but for now I see bust in his future. The Jets WR’s. Who gets the ball in this passing scheme. Cotchery, Holmes, or Edwards. There is a lot of talent here but also 3 guys who want balls thrown their way. For that I say all 3 will have decent but not solid stats.
TE: Greg Olson from the Bears who was on the sleeper list last year is on my bust list this year I just don’t see him doing much in that system.
Kellen Winslow from Tampa Bay had a decent year last year, however his ability to stay healthy and productive will be his downfall this year.
I hope you all enjoy this fantasy football season as much as I will. I encourage each one of you fantasy guru’s out there to stay tuned in to Sports Carolina Monthly throughout the season for more fantasy football updates.
