Fantasy Football Fix July 21st 2010
ESPN New York writer Ohm Youngmisuk details the Hakeem Nicks-Mario Manningham battle as a key one to watch. Many fanalysts automatically assumed the job was now Nicks’ but apparently he will have to win the job again this season. Nicks is a game-breaker and is the most talented wide-out on this roster but much like last season an injury is slowing down Nicks’ push for the full-time starting gig.
Strength of schedule is an important factor to consider if you really intend on Winning Your Fantasy League. The folks at RazzBall have provided us with a easy strength of rush schedule chart which Seattle tops, which indicates that Forsett may indeed have the break-out season many pundits are predicting.
Want Fantasy Football stats from 07-09 in an easy to reference excel spreadsheet? Done. Thanks to the unbelievable crew at Fantasy Football Outsiders, the guys who are helping to lead the saber metric invasion of fantasy football.
Is Carson Palmer ready to return to form? Eric Karabell discusses and points out though he is currently ranked in QB2 territory that with a good pre-season he can easily be bumped up cheat sheets and re-enter QB1 conversation.
Dynasty league players take notice, the folks at dynastyleaguefootball.com have compiled a list of 72 sleepers dynasty league G.M’s may want to pay extra attention to this year.
Were Norv Turner’s predictions for Ryan Mathews total touches optimistic? Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union Tribune thinks so. We disagree as Mathews is indeed a feature back with good hands; Sproles will still get 100+ rushes and 50 + pass targets in this offense, there is plenty of love to go around, especially for team that is expected to be protecting leads in the majority of their games.
The folks at Pro Football Weekly have highlighted the key running back battles heading into the pre-season, they are: The Browns, Redskins, Seahawks, Texans and the Patriots; they chose Hardesty, LJ, Forsett, Slaton and Maroney as the battle winners. Steve Slaton is the only player I do not agree with as despite Arian Foster being the paper starter this is Ben Tate’s job to lose once he gets his reps up.
The Texans backfield picture is analyzed by NFLFanHouse writer Stephanie Stradler. She predicts that it will be Slaton and Foster who dominate early season snaps with Ben Tate being eased in as he learns the offense (he is behind due to a hamstring injury). We respectfully disagree and believe this is still Tates job to lose as intimated above, but this is reason enough to bump him down our cheat sheets a little bit and drop him into flex territory. Take note however that she also predicts that Tate will finish the season with the most yards.
We can’t get enough of Running Back Rankings….in the end we only consider three sites, but during preseason it is a good idea to get all sorts of perspectives, today we have the RB rankings from NFLSoup.com.
The only thing I disagree with in the top-20 is having Ricky Williams ranked over Ronnie Brown.
Are you one of those fantasy G.M’s that constantly likes other fantasy football owners to rate your team etc..? The cast at FantasyFootballGuys.com have a easy to use ‘Rate My Team’ application that you may wish to use once you have your team(s) drafted.
The folks at RazzBall released a PPR tier list that is a must-read for all PPR fantasy football G.M’s. The tiers are pretty good, and remember these are PPR tiers for those of you you may see a couple of names higher than you would have expected.
KFFL has released its RB Sleepers, Busts, Overvalued and Undervalued lists.
The RB Sleeper list is full of non-sleepers but they are all ADP values. The only real sleepers they mentioned were Cadillac Williams, who despite his 1000 yard potential is being drafted after backups, and Montario Hardesty who is all but set to start for the new Browns regime who view Jerome Harrison as a change-of-pace/third-down back.
The RB Bust list includes Ronnie Brown and Brandon Jacobs and we could not disagree more. Brown is one of the top fantasy running backs when healthy and his ADP presents minimal risk. Brandon Jacobs is destined for double-digit TD’s and unless you are in a PPR league you would be a fool to pass up on any running back who can amass 10+ rushing touchdowns.
The RB Undervalued list includes LaDanian Tomlinson and Thomas Jones, two backup running backs being drafted in flex territory that have extremely high upside and will likely garner 150+ touches a piece, with LT and TJ both being firmly fantasy relevant.
The RB Overvalued list includes Shonn Greene, Jamaal Charles, Jerome Harrison and Felix Jones. I agree with them all. Greene will still likely live up to his ADP despite LT’s presence in New York. Charles and Harrison however I am avoiding like the plague and there are absolutely no scenarios where I roster either player. Felix Jones on the other hand is just being drafted too early for someone who has to share the backfield with arguably, two equally as talented running backs.
