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.

Week 2: Planning your team

Time to look ahead to Week 2 and make sure the right players are in the right spots. As usual there is plenty of help around the place:

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
Mailbag: RB worries

And of course there is your own research using the Fantasy tools.

I've got a problem with my Defence. I didn't like the Bills Def that I drafted - no particular reason, I just don't trust the Bills. I took a shot hoping that the Saints Def would be better. They were reasonable last year and should have gotten better in the off-season. Sometimes it doesn't pay to know much about NFL: I got completely torched. But I could have known better, their Projection for Week 1 was 2 points, posting -1 wasn't far off. I chose to ignore the Fantasy Projection and follow my gut. Stupid gut!

So, looking ahead to Week 2, I head over to the Players tab at the VP3 Fantasy site and select DEF.
I then change the Status to All Players. The first screen shows me the points to date for all teams and who the teams are owned by. Owned by FA means they are immediately available via Free Agency:

The Vikings topped out Week 1 with an impressive 22 points, followed by Texans and 49ers. Looking at the Owner column, no one owns two of the top 3 teams from Week 1. 

Looking past is useful, as the season goes on we'll see how each Def or player has performed week in and week out. But lets look ahead, click on the Projections tab. You can see that the Packers are owned by W - Waivers. This is because I only just dumped them this morning and now there is a 24 hour purgatory period:

The Broncos and Redskins are both projected to score the highest points in Week 2. Endless owns the Broncos (lucky Coach) but the Skins Def is available. I note that the stupid Bills are ranked third. Whatevs. There is not much separating the projections and there are a lot available.

I refuse to pick the Bills on principle now, and the Saints have now and forever proven disloyalty as well. Now I'm going to head over to the Start End or Sit Em column and the 11 Sleepers column and see what the 'experts' are saying.

I've decided to go with the Titans. It started with what Adam Rank said in the Sleepers column: the Titan's are playing the Cowboys and the Cowboys gave up a lot of points to the 49ers last week. Also, the Titan's did very last week against the Chiefs. Good last week, against a poor opponent this week: I'll buy in.

Why not the Redskins - they are ranked 2nd? The Redskins did quite poorly last week against an average opponent and this week are playing Oakland. Oakland is not a good side, but they didn't give up many points to their opposition last week. It's a balancing act.

I've swapped out the Saints for the Titans (via a rather uncertain 12 hours while I had the Packers, before deciding against it).

Until sometime on Monday I'll be hoping I made the right call, and thinking I probably messed up. Again. Stupid Bills and Saints!

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.

Pre-draft rankings

My fellow coaches,

The draft is less than a week away and while I'm sure most of you are just kicking back waiting for the online draft to allocate you a team, a few Coaches are agonising over their pre-draft ranking: coaches like me.

Firstly, the draft will determine a draft order - coaches will be assigned position 1 to 10. Position 1 gets first pick in the first round. To make things... not necessarily fair, but more fair, in Round 2, position 10 will pick first, through to position 1 picking tenth. And it will keep snaking on and on until the teams are filled.

The online draft will allocate the highest ranking player in its ranking list. Currently, the top ten is:
RB Adrian Peterson
RB LeSean McCoy
RB Jamaal Charles
RB Matt Forte
RB Marshawn Lynch
RB Eddie Lacy
WR Calvin Johnson
QB Peyton Manning
TE Jimmy Graham
RB Arian Foster

The Coach who scores Pick 1 would be allocated AP and the coach left with Pick 10 is allocated Arian Foster. Do you want Foster? He was amazing in 2012, got injured in 2013 and has question marks on his game time for this season. A risk at pick 10?

How does the online draft pre-rank the players? Some arcane formula based on previous years scores, age, position and a projection for the coming season. Is it any good? Probably. But does it suit your style?

The long established wisdom is you take Running Back early, try to get a stud Wide Receiver and then a good QB and TE. This is because there are a few stud RBs that are more likely to put up high numbers than the large assortment of moderate to good WRs and QBs. There are easily 10-12 QBs that can fit in any team and post good numbers week in and week out. And you can only start 1. But you can start up to 3 RBs. So you need good ones.

But the NFL has changed over the last few years - stud runnings backs are becoming rarer because a teams are using 2 or 3 running backs in a game, spreading the precious fantasy points among the committee. For example, LeVeon Bell, RB for Pittsburgh Steelers, is set to do a bit of running in the open field this year. For a RB, 10 yards gained = 1 fantasy point. But the Steelers are set to use LaGarret Blount when the get close to the endzone, so its likely that Blount will score the TD. 1 TD = 6 points. In the old days, Bell would pick up, say, 30 yards rushing and the TD on the drive for 9 fantasy points. Now, Bell gets 3 and Blount gets 6 and neither are overly useful for the poor fantasy coach that has either Bell or Blount.

But that is just a projection of 2014. Maybe Bell gets all the carries and all the TDs. Or maybe Blount does.

So maybe coaches want to over-rule the online draft system and go for their own system. Maybe taking Peyton Manning in Round 1 is the way to go. Or maybe WR mega-stud Calvin Johnson. Or TE Jimmy Graham.

You can change your own draft order  by opening up the Fantasy site, going to your team and clicking on the Pre-Draft Ranking link. Click on Edit Overall pre-rank and you can create your own ranks, and also set a list of players you do not want drafted under any condition.

You don't have to pre-rank all 1,000 players, just select your preferred players and after those are used the online draft will revert back to the pre-determined draft order.

Team Doof is working against established Fantasy Theory this year and is not following the standard RB in the first round expectation. Will it work? Of course it will: Team Doof are gonna be World Champions this year!

Feel like dabbling in Fantasy Theory, see what the 'experts' are advising:
Draft Strategies: QBs
Draft Strategies: WRs
Draft Strategies: RBs
Draft Strategies: TEs
Need to know before drafting
Player Draft breakdown

Player Profile: Calvin Johnson

I'm going to take the opportunity to send some serious love to one of my favourite players. I've mentioned him before, but I can't get enough: Calvin Johnson.

Last night I watched Detroit Lions v Dallas Cowboys. In that game I watched my man catch for 329 yards - the 2nd of all time, a mere 7 yards behind the all-time single-game leader. In 2012 Johnson set the season-high receiving record with 1,964 yards, surpassing Jerry Rice. And that with broken fingers. His wikipedia entry puts him at 6ft 5, 107kg. He can run 40-yards in 4.35 and 100m in 10.23 seconds. His vertical leap in 2007 was 42.5 inches. Given the way he 'dunks' a ball over the cross bar, which is 10ft tall, I'd imagine he could easily reach 11+feet.

And you can have all that for a mere 8-year $132m contract.

A segued comparison, if you will. Lance Franklin is the same height, 5kgs lighter and $122m poorer. I'd love to know what Franklin's 40-yard and 100m times are, not to mention his vertical, unfortunately the AFL does not appear to record such interesting, comparative stats.

Last week we watched Megatron catch the ball between three defenders in the end-zone. This week he only had a 2-yard touchdown catch, but his highlight reel is extensive.

NFL Films has done me a solid and put together his catches in one 2:35 package. I strongly recommend watching it.  His fourth quarter catches are just extraordinary. Check out the one at the 1:30 mark - chest mark running with the flight of the ball between two defenders. And then he tacks on some more yards. And then the catch with about 40 seconds to go, again with the flight of the ball, again bumps off a defender. That catch put Detroit on the 1-yard line, 6 points down with seconds to go in the game. QB Stafford.. well, you watch how it ended.


In the game Johnson dropped two passes that both went to the Cowboys for turnovers. He just picked himself up, chastised himself quietly and got on with the game. No theatrics. His touchdown pass - just gently passed the ball back to the referee. I'm sorry to say that Dez Bryant, often compared to Johnson, was not so demure. Towards the end of the game he was remonstrating with team-mates because he didn't have the ball thrown to him enough. Sorry diva, you might be physically comparable to Megatron, but between the ears its a different story.

Calvin Johnson.