Tag: Fantasy football 2018

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Why I love Keeper Leagues – Sports Fanatics play Fantasy SF-49

Player Appreciation

I’ve been playing Fantasy Football from the very beginning of it’s development.  I always enjoyed it, but it wasn’t until the advent of Keeper Leagues that it became a true love of mine.  Being a part of a league that allows you to retain a couple players from season to season provides you with a small taste of what it feels like to be a general manager in the NFL.  How long do you continue to keep that Star Player that’s done so well for you year after year?  When is it time to let go, and grab a young hungry player with talent looking to make a name for themselves?  What if your Star Player gets hurt and misses the second half of the season?  Do you trust that he will come back healthy, or do you trade him while there’s still some Managers willing to gamble?  These are all questions that you will have to answer at some point if you are in a Keeper League.

Draft Pick Value

Another key aspect to Keeper Leagues that make them far more appealing to me is the ability to trade Draft Picks.  Each year leading up to the Fantasy Football Season you can find loads of information on the perceived Draft Value of each Player.  What you won’t find is how much each of your future Draft Picks could be worth during the Regular Season.  This makes understanding how many Star Players are about to enter the NFL at each Fantasy relevant position next Season.  It’s also important to know how many top level Fantasy Football Players there are in the League.  To make it easier to understand why I’ll provide you with an example.

Lets assume that there will be one Star rookie Running Back, and one Star rookie Wide Receiver entering the league.  Currently there are 30 Top level Fantasy Football Players in the NFL already.  There are also 2 Star Players returning from injury.  Now assume that you are in a 12 team league that allows you to keep 2 Players.  That would mean that 24 of the Top 32 projected Stars are already spoken for.  Depending on how much you trust Players returning from injury.  It would only leave a possible 10 Star Players remaining.  Once those Players have been selected the remaining Players available are Second level Players, and you estimate that there are at least 30 of them.  This means that your 2nd Round Pick has a similar value to your 3rd, and maybe even your 4th Round Pick.  It also means that the last two Picks in the first Round actually only have a 2nd or 3rd Round value to them.   

Now what does this mean to a Manager in a Keeper League?  Well if you have already secured a Playoff spot in this League, but 1 or 2 more wins will guarantee you a First Round Bye.  It might be worth it to trade your 1rst Round Pick and a Player off your bench for a 3rd Round Pick and a Star Player.  Provided you make the Final in this League your 1rst Round Pick will be one of the last two.  In other words the 11th or 12th.  This means that it’s actual value isn’t much better than a 3rd Round Pick anyways.  If you don’t trust Players returning from injury than you could get knocked out in the Semifinals, and still feel good about your trade.  It also provides you with one more option of who to keep for next Season.

Division Rivalry

It’s possible to develop rivalries in Redraft Leagues.  It’s just not the same as having Divisional  Rivalries in Keeper Leagues though.  In a Redraft League it wouldn’t bother me to make a fair trade with a Manager that defeated me last Season.  In my Keeper Leagues though I’m wary of trading a potentially dangerous Player to a Manager in my division.  I’ve actually accepted worse offers from Managers playing against my Rivals in order to hopefully provide them with a win over my divisional opponent.  If a Star Player on a Rival’s team gets injured.  I check the waiver wire to see how many decent replacement Players are available.  If there’s only 1 or 2 I’ll try to snatch them up.  That way my Rival is forced to either make a trade from a position of weakness, or accept having a very weak spot on their team.  No way I go to that extent in Redraft Leagues.

Bragging Rights

There’s nothing worse than joining a Redraft League when there are only 4 ridiculously obvious Fantasy Football studs and you unfortunately get the 5th Pick.  Ultimately when one of the Managers who were lucky enough to get a pick in the first four wins.  They can’t resist bragging about how much of a Fantasy genius they are.  Well in Keeper Leagues winning requires a lot more than luck.  Your draft position is determined by the Season before.  You had better have made the necessary moves to ensure your next Season isn’t a losing one.  That could mean trading for a fantastic young Player to fill a Keeper position for years.  It could mean trading out of the first or second Round to get more middle Round Picks in order to build a team with a lot of depth.  If you really want to be successful in a Keeper League, moves must be made.  If that’s not your thing?  By all means join a Redraft League.

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Play the Percentages or Trust your Gut – Sports Fanatics Play Fantasy SF-47

Draft Capital

Every Fantasy Sports website, or Fantasy Football analyst prepares for each Season by making a list.  Some like myself make many lists, but they all have the same purpose.  The goal is to arrange each and every fantasy relevant Player from the most valuable to the least.  Then we presume to decipher where the optimum position to draft them is.  Now maybe you choose to rely on our analysis or you don’t.  Most likely you take what the most popular websites decide, and then make slight adjustments due to personal bias.  However you choose to make your draft board.  Each Player you end up selecting has a perceived value attached to the Round you selected them in.  So what happens when you are setting your line up for the week, and the Running Back you selected in the first Round is facing the Top Run Defense in the league?

That Gut Feeling

How often should we trust our Gut when it comes to Fantasy Football?  To arrive at a suitable answer I’ll use both a top level Running Back from last season, and a top level Wide Receiver.

Todd Gurley – Last Season Todd Gurley finished as the Top Player in Fantasy football.  In the PPR league I run he finished the Season with a little over 400 fantasy points.  He averaged a little over 25 fantasy points per game.  Of course that’s what he averaged.  There was that game against the Seattle Seahawks Legion of Boom defense where he only gained 50 yards, lost a fumble, and didn’t score a touchdown.  He finished that game with 6 points.

So obviously you need to pay close attention to what your Gut tells you right?  I’ll get back to that question in a moment.  First lets take a look at the Wide Receiver from last year.

Julio Jones – For the past few Seasons Julio Jones has continually been drafted as a top 3 Wide Receiver.  Last season was a bit of a down year for him but he still averaged a little over 16 points per game.  Of course there was that game against the Minnesota Vikings where he had top cornerback Xavier Rhodes shut him down to the tune of 2 catches for 24 yards and no touchdowns.  4.4 measly Fantasy points for the game.  So once again your Gut might have been right. So obviously you should listen to your gut right!

Actually you shouldn’t

What I left out of my analysis of both Players is when they went on to have huge Fantasy games against top defenses.  Sure on occasion your best Players that cost you early Round picks will have bad games.  The reason you picked them so early is because more often than not they have good games.  Even when they are faced off against top defenses.  It helps to understand floor and ceiling probabilities as well.  A top tier Wide Receiver is always going to get targeted with a few passes, and have a reasonable opportunity to receive a touchdown.  The third Wide Receiver on the depth chart can play an entire game and not even get one ball thrown their way.  I don’t care who is covering each receiver.  The opportunity is still greater with the top tier pick.

There are exceptions

I actually had Julio Jones on my Fantasy team for a portion of last season.  If you are wondering if there were any games that I chose to sit him.  Well the answer would be yes.  Sounds like I’m going against my own advice right.  Well before you label me as a hypocrite.  You need to know a little bit about my roster.  I was fortunate enough to have 3 excellent Wide Receivers on my roster.  In order of their value from first to last they were Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, and Jarvis Landry.  I started Antonio Brown for every game.  My league requires two Wide Receivers to start so sometimes I would sit Julio Jones to start Jarvis Landry I drafted 2 Rounds after him.  The starting lineup also has a flex position so sometimes I started all three.  The point I’m trying to make is if you have another option that’s almost as good as your primary choice in a far more favourable match up?  Then choosing to follow your Gut makes total sense.  Your second option will have a far safer floor, with only a slightly lower ceiling.

Good Luck in Week 1

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The Truth about Fantasy Football Drafts – Sports Fanatics Play Fantasy SF-46

The 50/50 Rule

If you have been playing Fantasy Football for a few years you’ve probably heard of the 50/50 rule.  Basically half the Players you draft won’t be on your roster by season’s end.  This isn’t necessarily a fact but you can bet that your final roster will look different if you plan on remaining competitive.  As an example I won my Fantasy Football league last year with three key Players on my Roster I didn’t draft.  I picked up Alvin Kamara, Jerick McKinnon, and Alex Collins during the Season.  On most teams in a 12 team league that Running Back trio would have been amazing.  Did I mention that I had drafted Leonard Fournette in the first Round last year as well!  Now you should also know that this is in a PPR Keeper League and my Keepers were Antonio Brown and Julio Jones.  How could I lose?  Well I did trade Julio Jones away midseason.  It would be impossible to draft a team that strong.  I just made the right trades and waiver wire picks when the opportunity arose.

This year’s draft has already been completed. You can see the condensed online draft with all of my selections on the Cobe Life YouTube channel.

Already my roster has gone through some significant changes.  I felt pretty good about landing Jerick McKinnon with my only pick in the first two Rounds.  That was until he went down with a torn ACL during San Francisco’s last practice of the preseason!  I took a flyer on Martavis Bryant because Oakland gave up a third Round pick to acquire him.  Well I guess Oakland is in the habit of giving away third Round picks because they cut him on final cut day.  In case you haven’t already figured it out, so did I.  I also drafted Dez Bryant, planning on stashing him on my Bench for up to 4 weeks with the hopes a decent team would sign him.  Unfortunately with the injury to McKinnon and my best Running Back on the bench being Mark Ingram (In case you weren’t aware Ingram begins the season on a four game suspension) I was forced to abandon my plan and drop Dez so I could pick up McKinnon’s potential back up Matt Brieda.  With my initial draft strategy in shambles I also decided to hedge my bets at Quarterback by replacing Martavis Bryant with Alex Smith.

So before the season has even begun I’ve already changed 3 of my players from a total of 15 on the roster.  What are the odds that I end up switching four more players over the course of the season?  Pretty damn good.

Safe floor vs High ceiling

There are many Fantasy Football pundits that will talk about the importance of choosing Players with a High ceiling.  Now there are a number of Players with exceptionally high ceilings that are guaranteed to score you a fair amount of points every week.  The more of those Players on your team the merrier.  But what about the Players with High ceilings and seriously low floors?    It’s great when your Flex Player gets you 15 points, but it isn’t much of a picnic when they get you 1.3 points.  This is where Safe Floor Players come in.  In order to understand what your mix of Players should be in your league you need to understand how many points are required to win on average each week.  In my PPR Keeper League it usually takes about 125 points to have a decent chance to win each week.  Your starting roster requirements are 1 Quarterback, 2 Running Backs, 2 Wide Receivers, 1 Tight End, 1 Flex (RB, WR, TE) 1 Kicker, and 1 Defence.  Breaking it down by position the average amount of points you are looking for are QB-20pts, RB-15pts, WR-15pts, TE-10pts, K-7pts, DEF-8pts.  So a totally average week would net you 120pts. So somebody on your roster needs to exceed their weekly average to help guarantee your victory.  Of course some of your players could under perform as well.  So what is the best way to prepare for the inevitable?  The answer is having two thirds of your starting roster as Safe Floor Players.  I would rather a Running Back or Wide Receiver that gets me 10 to 12 guaranteed points every week as my number 2 or Flex than a Player that gets me over 20 points once every four weeks, and less than 10 points the others.  Just cause they have a high ceiling doesn’t mean they are Fantasy gold.  The rest of your roster should be filled with High Ceiling hopefully Safe Floor Players.  A great example of a Safe Floor Player is the Number two Slot Receiver on any team with a decent offense in a PPR league.  They might not catch many touchdowns but they generally catch around 5 passes minimum every week for over 50 yards.  A good High ceiling Player to target is the deep threat Wide Receiver or Bell cow back on a High scoring team.

Don’t Stream just Target

People preach streaming Defenses, Kickers, and even Quarterbacks.  I won’t knock their choice because I’ve done it myself.  It can work provided you find yourself in the right situation to do it.  First of all you won’t have success streaming a particular position if two or more other Managers are streaming that position as well.  You don’t want to find yourself fighting to claim Ryan Tannehill off of waivers because he happens to be playing the New York Jets.  Secondly you need to temper your expectations.  Just because somebody is playing in a favourable match up doesn’t necessarily mean they will finish with a favourable result.  Especially if they aren’t a Top tier talent.  Thirdly it’s sometimes a lot more work thsn it’s worth.  While you are trying to decide which Defense to stream that week your opponent noticed that Carlos Hyde pulled a Hamstring during practice and quickly snatched Nick Chubb as a free agent.  There’s enough to think about during a Fantasy Football season.  Why give yourself more?

Some positions don’t matter

This is one of the most idiotic beliefs in Fantasy Football.  Don’t worry about which Kicker you draft because you can always pick one up in Free Agency.  That’s total horse shit!  Wait until you lose because your kicker on that high scoring offense finds himself in a heavy snowfall in November and finishes with 1 point, while your opponent was laughing his way into the winners column with New Orleans Kicker playing at home inside the Superdome.   Just wait on a Defense because they are too unpredictable from year to year.  Another totally daft statement.  You want to talk unpredictable?  Lets talk about starting Running Backs!  I won my league last year because a number of Top Running Backs got injured.  The Dalvin Cook injury made Jerick McKinnon a marquee starter. Mark Ingram wasn’t at 100% so Alvin Kamara progressed faster than anticipated.  The Top Team in my league on paper lost their considerable advantage when David Johnson injured his wrist in the first game of the season.  You would think that might be enough to scrap the entire season for that team.  Well she still made the Playoffs and won her division.  You know how she did it?  She did it by dominating on Defense.  That’s right!  Not only did she spend a mid Round pick on the Jacksonville Jaguars.  She also picked up the Minnesota Vikings when another Manager dropped them because he was streaming Defenses.  For the rest of tbe season she switched back and forth between the two Defenses depending on which one had the better match up and averaged WR2 numbers!  When did you draft your WR2?  I doubt if it was in the 10th Round!  While everyone else in the league was getting 6 to 10 points per week from their Defense, she was getting 11 to 15.  She drafted Carlos Hyde as her third Running Back because he was undoubtedly the number 1 in San Francisco (safe floor) and he was a serviceable replacement for David Johnson.  So what did that all add up to?  Fantasy Football victories!

Don’t listen to the “Experts”, just use common sense and you’ll do fine.

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Questions that need answering – Sports Fanatics Play Fantasy SF-45

Changes are afoot

There were a number of surprises in Fantasy Football last year.  Rookie Running Backs were flying off the waiver wire every week.  The Quarterbacks that went late in the draft became some of tthe Top performers.  Injuries to key Players happened early and often.  Fantasy Football was simply fantastic last Season.  So what should we expect this Season?

Plenty of Comeback Candidates

There are a few Players that missed a lot of time or even the whole Season last year that are primed to have huge Seasons this year.

Deshaun Watson – If you follow Cobe Life on YouTube, you will already know that Deshaun Watson is the highest QB on my draft board.  That’s right, I’m predicting him to be the Top QB in Fantasy Football.  He was already on his way to achieving that last year before he went down to injury.  I expect him to come back fully healthy and well rested.  Draft him with confidence.

David Johnson – David Johnson missed all but one game last Season with a wrist injury.  Before that he was considered to be the number 2 Running Back in the league by my rankings.  Wrist injuries generally heal well, and have very little effect on future performance.  David Johnson is the Arizona Cardinals offense.  I don’t expect a drop in touches.  Actually after being off the field for practically a full Season, he should be raring to go.  He’s my number 3 Running Back on my draft board.

Dalvin Cook – The Minnesota Vikings are a powerhouse team in a powerhouse division that’s in the powerhouse conference.  Dalvin Cook has already proved that he fits their powerhouse offense quite nicely.  Coming back from injury to a team that actually upgraded at Quarterback in the off-season.  Dalvin Cook is sure to find a lot of running room this year.  Snag him in your draft when the opportunity arises.

Julian Edelman – If you take a really good look at the New England Patriots roster you’ll notice something somewhat strange.  You won’t find many star players on it.    That’s what makes the return of Julian Edelman so huge.  On the offensive side of the ball there are three obvious stars.  Two of which (Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski) will be extremely difficult to draft unless you don’t mind reaching.  That leaves the returning Edelman as the only star on the Patriots that could fall below his true draft value.  I’m not even close to being a fan of the Patriots, but if Edelman falls in my draft.  I’m taking him.

Rookie Breakouts

Saquon Barkley – Saquon Barkley is for real.  I don’t take what I see in the preseason too seriously.  What I have seen from him will definitely carry over into the regular Season.  He’s elusive, has a great burst of speed through the hole, runs hard, runs fast, and has sure hands.  Barring a complete New York Giants breakdown, Saquon Barkley should finish as a Top 5 Running Back.  In most drafts he’s the 8th Running Back off the board.  Go ahead and reach.

Royce Freeman – Nobody really knows what to expect from Denver.  With Case Keenum ar Quarterback and the stacked Defense they already have, they could look a lot like last year’s Minnesota Vikings.  If that’s the case Royce Freeman could be in line for a lot of fantastic opportunities.  He has the potential to be one of those Rookie Running Backs that helps you reach the Fantasy playoffs.  There is some risk here, but if the Broncos can get a few leads in games Freeman will have an amazing season.

Calvin Ridley – First off I should mention that I generally don’t draft rookie Wide Receivers. It takes a while to learn a new offense, than get in sync with the team’s quarterback.  The calibre of cornerback they face from week to week is significantly higher.  It just takes awhile for Wide Receivers to adjust.  There is the odd exception though.  In this case it’s in the form of a pedestrian number 2 Wide Receiver, and a number 1 Wide Receiver that demands double coverage.  Calvin Ridley could serve as a decent bye week replacement or flex starter during the season.  If either Sanu or Jones gets hurt then he becomes highly valued.  I might draft him as insurance or trade bait when the time is right.

Wild Cards

There are a few key changes at the most important position that could flip this fantasy Season on it’s head.

Patrick Mahomes II – What will the Kansas City Chiefs offense look like in 2018?  I’ll tell you what it won’t be, boring.  Watching Mahomes play is like watching high school football.  He seems to hold on to the ball too long for the NFL but somehow gets away with it.  I’ve watched him ignore the easy dump off to his Running Back to attempt a deep throw downfield and let his Wide Receiver attempt to make a play.  Alex Smith he is not!  Now is that a good thing for the Fantasy Players you drafted on the Kansas City Chiefs?  I really don’t know.  I’ll tell you one thing.  I don’t expect Kansas City to win as many games as they did last year.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t make the playoffs.

Kirk Cousins – I expect Cousins to eclipse 4000 yards passing and throw for at least 30 touchdowns.  In other words he will be a Top 5 Quarterback this year.  His receiving corps is significantly better than who he had in Washington.  He got a huge contract and will be expected to earn it.  Look at the season Case Keenum had behind that offensive line.  Just imagine what Cousins will do.  As a result of his signing I’ll draft Vikings offensive players every chance I get.

The Countdown is on.

The first week of the season is drawing near.  I hope you’ve done your research because it’s sure to be another wild and crazy Fantasy Football year.