Week 3: Planning your team

Time to move past Week 2 and look to Week 3. Loads of player movements already going on but if you're wondering about whether to bench or start then maybe these articles can help. Or just add to the general confusion of fantasy planning.

There were loads of injuries in Week 2, so it pays to check the roster and see what's going on. The Farnsworths will definitely need to make some moves after posting three zeros. Notable injuries include Jamaal Charles, Ryan Matthews and RG3.

Start em or Sit em: QBs
Start em or Sit em: RBs
Start em or Sit em: WRs
Start em or Sit em: TEs
Start em or Sit em: Kickers
Start em or Sit em: Defence

Top 11 Sleepers

If you are looking over your roster and want to know more about a player just click on their name or face and their profile will pop-up. The profile will say whether the player is injured, starting and what their points per week have been like:

Endless owns Charles and will need to swap him out for Week 3. As the note says, he has a high ankle sprain and won't play this week, probably not for a couple of weeks. 

The Farnsworth's will need to keep AP on the bench as he is not due back anytime soon because of his, ahem, legal issues:

The Lighties beautiful QB is an obvious starter, look at that consistency: 22 and then 21 points. But the bye is in Week 4 so he'll need to swapped for Week 4's action.

Thankfully (for Agent P) the Lighties have Tony Romo as their back-up QB and can readily swap Manning for Romo:

Oooh, 9 and 11 in two weeks, maybe the Lighties need to look at Free Agency for a different back-up? Kirk Cousins could be ideal if he performs well in Week 3. Big IF though.

Updating your roster

So you've pushed and pulled and done some hard drinking thinking sessions, but no matter what, your active players and benched players just don't add up: the time has come for different players.

There are two ways you can replace your current duds with some new studs: trade with another player and free agency.

Trade

See someone sitting on someone else's bench who is better than your starter? Offer a trade.

Let's use Doof's Playinator's as an example as their Running Back stocks are thin, and that is putting it nicely (poor drafting if you ask me)!

The Head Coach can look around the VP3 league and see if there are any decent RB's on other teams. Ahuh: Marceline the Vampire Queen is sitting on Steven Jackson. But does Doof have something that Marcy might accept in return? Marcy's team is tight, possible studs in every position. The only question mark is her QB: Cam Newton. Cam might be awesome this year, or he might suck. The analysts are not sure and at Week 1 there is no way to know. But Doof is sitting on Russell Wilson, maybe Marcy would trade Steven Jackson for Wilson? WTF? There is no way that Doof is going to offer that trade - Wilson's value to Doof, on the bench, is higher than Jackson's points potential. As long as Doof has both Rodgers and Wilson as QBs he is going to be of two-minds every week, not knowing which QB stud to start. The QB competition will drive him crazy, but he won't give it up. Not yet.

Doof can keep looking at the other teams and try to find a suitable trade partner. Maybe Endless would trade Darren Sproles for Michael Bennett? Maybe not.

Or Doof can move to Free Agency.

Free Agency

All the players that are not currently on a roster are still available. Head Coaches can swap their drafted players for undrafted players at pretty much any time they like, with a few exceptions.

Clicking on the Players tab will show the list of available players. The list can be filtered to show All Players (including those on teams) or just Available. The list can be filtered to show each position. You can see the Players stats and their projections. Before Week 1 there are no stats, only projections.

Doof needs a new Running Back - but before Week 1 there is really no one in Free Agency that Doof is willing to select. The draft assigned all the top RBs to teams, and the second stringers, and some of the third stringers. The RBs that are left are no better than the one's Doof has.

However, RBs are not Doof's only problem. The draft allocated Doof the Buffalo Bills defence. According to the projections the Bills have a good change to score some good points. But Doof does not trust Skynet with its pro-Bills projection. Instead, having read plenty of Fantasy news, Doof is eyeing off the New Orleans Saints. They are not projected as highly, but when has convention stopped Doof in 2014?

Doof makes the trade, adding the NO Saints and dropping the Buffalo Bills. A strange message appears, something about a waiver wire. Clicking back on his team Doof sees that the Bills are still there. WTF? Skynet?! And this stupid message just under that adorable portrait:

Team Notes

• Pending Waiver Claim: New Orleans Saints for Buffalo Bills pending until the morning of Wednesday, September 3, 2014 [ Delete Waiver Request ]

Waivers

For the first 1-2 days after the Week finishes (and in this case after the Draft finished) Free Agency Players are effectively in purgatory. They are just floating around not doing anything and can not be immediately selected and added to a team. When Doof adds the Saints to his team he tells the Gatekeeper of Purgatory that he wants the Saints. The Gatekeeper makes a note of the request and sits tight. He doesn't respond to Doof's glares, stomping around, shaking of fists, pouting, threats and eventual tears. 

Another Coach, Agent P, approaches the Gatekeeper. Not happy with the Rams she also looks to add the Saints and gives the request to the Gatekeeper. There are now two requests for one Defence, but it can only go to one team. Doof v Agent P: locked in their perpetual struggle. 

After 1-2 days the Gatekeeper opens the gates and releases the Free Agency players to the world. He checks the notes, Doof's note says he has Waiver 9, Agent P has Waiver 6. 

Because Agent P is higher up the Waiver list than Doof the NO Saints are assigned to her and Doof goes home with the Bills (and a furrowed brow).

Why is Agent P higher? Because when the draft allocated the picking order Doof received Pick 2 and Agent P received Pick 5. To make it fairer, because Doof did well in the Draft order he lucks out in the Waiver wire. Swings and roundabouts.

The Waiver system is designed to make things fairer. Every Head Coach has the chance to select a player after the Week has finished. The Head Coach with the highest Waiver will go home with the goods. After the Waiver period is over it is a free for all and the Free Agency Players will be added immediately. 

Identifying players on Waiver

When you look at the Players list you will see who owns the player. It may say Doof's Playinator's, Agent P or W (Sep 3). A W indicates that the player is in Waiver Purgatory and the date indicates the date he will be released. You can select the player, but you have to wait for the Waiver period to end before you know whether you get him or not.

The date is ET time, New York so the real time (AEST) is a little unknown.

In my example, Agent P swaps the Rams for the Saints. The Rams are now available to be selected in Free Agency. Doof swoops down on them greedily, Agent P's cast-offs are still better than the Bills!

But again Doof is thwarted: the Rams are now in Waiver Purgatory. A cast-off player will sit in Waivers for 24 hours, allowing all Head Coaches to express an interest. No one else wants the Rams because everyone else is already stocked. 24 hours later Doof goes home with the Rams and the Bills head to Waiver Purgatory.

Next week we'll look at reading the stats sheets.

Managing the roster

So you've got your seven skilled starters, your kicker, your defense and your six players on the bench. They are all ready to go. Now what?

Between the Draft and Week 1 there are two things to do: check your active and benched roster and check the players that were left behind. In this post we'll consider managing the active roster.

Active v benched

The system has automatically put your best players in the active spots and left your second best players on the bench. But that is the AI, and who trusts skynet? Moving active and benched players around is your right as Head Coach. There are many reasons why you might move players around: like/dislike of a certain player, how the player matches up in real life, how they match up in fantasy, or just a gut feeling.

Let's look at Breesus v Agent P for some inspiration. In the Game Center we can see each teams players, the players projected points and the teams projected points. Game Center projects this game to be a close one, Breesus 127.9 v 125 for Agent P.

Agent P's roster is tight. Kaep is currently her starting QB and her backup QB is Rivers. Kaep's projected score is 25 vs Rivers of 18. According to the AI she should start Kaep. Kaepernick is playing the Dallas Cowboys (@DAL) while Rivers is playing Arizona (@ARI). As an NFL-junkie I know that the Cowboys defense is not rated as highly as the Arizona Cardinals defense, so it is more likely that Kaep will play well against the opposition that Rivers will as he has an 'easier' defense to play against. But how does a non-NFL-junkie now that?

We can open up the Research tab and then look at Fantasy Points Against. This tab gives us the breakdown of how well different positions perform against defenses. Let's look at Cowboys vs QB and Cardinals vs QB. The Cowboys v QB gave up on average 21 points to a QB in 2013. The Cardinals gave up on average 16 points to a QB. I want the higher rating for my QB so I'm going to pick the QB vs the Cowboys.

My crystal ball says that Agent P has the right starting quarterback.

Looking down Agent P's list there is a mismatch. In the Flex spot she has Ryan Matthews with a projection of 6.5. But on her bench she has TY Hilton with a projection of 12.3 and Brian Hartline with a projection of 12.1. She could swap Hilton or Hartline for Matthews and increase her projected score by 6 points, putting her team projection over that of Breesus. Should she?

Using the same logic we can check to see whether Hilton, Hartline or Matthews is the better option.

Matthews first. Fantasy Points Against - Cardinals vs Running Backs has an average of 11.
Hilton plays WR for the Colts and they are playing the Broncos, so FPA has Broncos DEF vs WRs as 24.
Finally, Hartline. WR for Miami versus the Patriots. Patriots DEF vs WRs is 21 points.

On face value you'd select TY Hilton. But, neither Hilton or Hartline are the primary receivers for their teams. Their QBs have other options to throw to. Hilton has to travel to Denver to play there (@DEN) while Miami is playing at home (NE). Does home field advantage make a difference?

AND these stats are for last year. How has the Cardinals, Denver and New England defense changed in the off-season?

Most of these questions don't have answers before Week 1 starts. It's all just guess work, going with the gut and hoping you're right.

In this case the AI projection is most likely where you pin your gut: TY Hilton. Although Denver is a tough match-up Hilton is a star receiver and is more likely to score points than the other two.

My crystal ball recommends Agent P swap Ryan Matthews for TY Hilton.

Let's look at Breesus. As the reigning World Champion Breesus needs as little assistance as possible, but let's analyse his team anyway.

The first thing to notice is there is no QB competition here, only one QB on the roster. Breesus will need one eventually, the NO Saints have a bye in week 6. But Breesus will pick up a QB off Free Agency to cover that gap (I'll cover this in the next post). Provided Breesus stays healthy for the year he is a guaranteed starter week in and week out.

There is one gap in the roster, Anquan Boldin has a projection of 14 compared to the two starting WRs that are 12.6 and 12.7. Is it worth swapping one of them? Pierre Garcon (12.6) is playing the Houston Texans and Randall Cobb (12.7) is playing the Seattle Seahawks.

FPA for the Texans v WRs is 18.6. For the Seahawks its 14.25 and for the Cowboys, who Boldin is playing, it is 24. Based on this you might consider starting Boldin in place of Cobb.

But Breesus knows this is risky - any one of those WRs could be good on the day, any one could suck. In Week 1 it is harder to know than normal.

If Breesus did put Boldin in the game then he is faced with a supporter conundrum: for Boldin to score points he needs his QB to score points as the QB needs to throw him the ball. Boldin's QB is Kaepernick, the starting QB for Agent P. For Breesus to score big off Boldin then Agent P will score big too. Quite the conundrum.

My crystal ball recommends Breesus leave Boldin on the bench and take his chances with Cobb and Garcon. But is that the crystal ball, or my own gut calling the shots?

In the next post I'll cover trading players and the waiver wire.

-D

My crystal ball comes without warranties and any changes made because of its forecast are entirely the decision and responsibility of the head coach.