2010-11 Fantasy player discussion, sleepers, help

Marley2Hendrix · Post #1 » by **Marley2Hendrix** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 7:45 pm

Hey crew, if the mods don't mind I'd like to start a new fantasy thread (as the other seems to be more about organizing a board league) for us to discuss potential trades, FA pickups, waiver wire magic, and a discussion on sleepers.

Also, for those of us unlikely to encounter one another on the fantasy field, maybe even a general discussion of personal strategies going into the draft.

1st random thought that prompted me to start this thread, how do you all like Burleson as a legit #2 or 3 fantasy WR? Granted I play in a 2qb, 2rb, 2wr, 1 flex league, I tend to fill out the 2/3 wide-out positions last when building my team.

Burleson was a bit of a waiver wire steal for me, he typically posted very consistent numbers for a team that was anything but consistent. Now, playing with a developing stafford and opposite a presumably healthy Megatron on Best, I think Burleson will be getting a lot of sneaky TDs as well as posting solid yardages. My only fear with Det is that Megatron and Stafford look like constant injuries cases, but eh, maybe I'm too disconnected from the fantasy pulse, but I think Nate is going to far exceed the expectations for where I believe he will likely fall.

Also, in playing about 3 competitive leagues each year with different groups of close friends, I've noticed most teams fall apart because of their owners general inability to evaluate their own favorite nfl team. For instance, I have a vikings buddy who killed himself to draft AP, Rice, Favre, Harvin, and Schianco (actually worked out very well, came in 2nd to me), but also a chicago fan that had 5 chicago bears on his roster after the draft.

Where am I going with this, I'm saying yes, overvalue Rodgers, Finley, and grant, stray away from Jennings, Driver (unless he falls), or Jordicah/Jones unless Jennings tears a ligament.

Get it on everybody, let the fantasy discussions begin!

Capital Edge · Post #2 » by **Capital Edge** » Sun Jul 18, 2010 10:16 pm

AS a fantasy addict like most here I think this gonna be a great thread during the football season where we could ask each other and talk about things you mentioned above so thanks for bringing it up. As far as Nate Burleson goes, I would not take him unless it is a very very late round because he is on a terrible team. You bring up some good points but my philosophy is stay away from players on really really bad teams. Of course sometimes there are exceptions for example, lets say you had to make a decision between Stephen Jackson and Clinton Portis last year? Jackson is definitely the better choice even though both of there teams are horrible last year at this time Redskins seemed to be headed for a much better season and had more talent, while St.Louis was rebuilding. Another example, let's say you have Calvin Johnson and Roddy White, a decision I actually had to make. Johnson and White had similar numbers the previous year but Johnson had more TDs, he's bigger, more talented, and overall had more potential IMO. But Johnson was on a rebuilding team, had rookie QB, horrible O-Line, not much talent which led Johnson to get more double teams and more attention. While White was on a team basically the opposite of that. White had basically twice as many TDs and was more consistent. Now, I'm not trying to compare Burleson to these other WRs but I'm just giving an example. Let's say your deciding between Kevin Walter or Eddie Royal vs. Burleson? There is no doubt I would pass on Burleson and again some might not agree but I think there teams are in a better situation to succedd.

Ryan5UW · Post #3 » by **Ryan5UW** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:12 pm

If you're in a league that starts 2 WRs each week, and your #2 is Burelson, you're gonna be dead in the water. He's just not good enough that you can rely on him most weeks, and given the importance of WRs in fantasy football over the past several years, he simply cannot be your #2 WR if you want to win.

Marley2Hendrix · Post #4 » by **Marley2Hendrix** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 1:31 pm

well, I couldn't quite recall my roster, so i went back and saw that:

I won with

QB1/QB2 - Rodgers/McNabb
RB1/RB2 - 3 man rotation of Jamaal Charles, Joseph Addai, and Ryan Grant
WR1/WR2 - rotated between Miles Austin (I drafted him), Megatron, Moss, Burleson. I traded Michael Turner for Moss at the trade deadline, so up until that point (in lieu of Megatron's injuries) Burleson was playing quite frequently for me and doing well, but by the end, Austin/Moss were cemented in the starters spots.
TE - Finley
Flex - by the end of the season, usually between the 3rd rb or Megatron/Burleson depending on health/matchup.

So, looking back, I'd say Burleson is a great guy to pick up late as an emergency 2 or flex guy, but I'll agree, unless the other positions are stacked, it'd be tough to get by with Burleson as a #2.

Thoughts on Kolb? I snagged him last season during the weeks McNabb was out, watched the games and he looked like the 2nd coming of A.Rodg. While I don't think he is as good as Rodg or will be anywhere near as consistent, the eagles have some nice weapons, and Kolb should be a very nice pickup as a buy low, high reward #2 qb.

chuckleslove · Post #5 » by **chuckleslove** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 2:52 pm

I had Burleson last year and his inconsistency was maddening. Sure he had some big weeks where he put up 100+ yards, 1-2 TD, 7-10 catches(big if you are in a PPR league), but the other weeks he was nearly absent from the stat sheet, he was so hit or miss that I would recommend staying away from him. If you are taking a flyer on him later in a draft or as a free agent pickup that is one thing but I certainly wouldn't say he is a player you should target.

He could be more consistent with a new team, hard to say for sure, definitely doesn't hurt someone to line up opposite of Megatron but I just personally wouldn't waste anything other than a very low draft pick or picking him up as a FA for depth, I wouldn't want him as a regular starter, at least not early on in the season, I wouldn't mind having him stashed away on my bench just in case though

zmanishere11 · Post #6 » by **zmanishere11** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 4:00 pm

Wow 5 posts on Nate Burleson's effectiveness in regards to fantasy football, never thought that would be possible!!

Who cares about Nate, there are tons of great sleepers out there. Here's my list of a few:

Michael Bush, rb, Raiders - i know they keep saying they're going to split carries in OAK, but it's the first time he's played with a legit QB and he's clearly the better RB between McFadden.

Shonn Greene, rb, Jets - Not really a sleeper because he's going 3rd/4th round, but I think this year Greene cements a place in the top 5 of all fantasy football players, so to score him that late is a steal. I'm taking him in the 2nd of every one of my drafts this year.

WR's I'd rather take over Burleson, around the same spot he'll go - Pierre Garcon, Hakeem Nicks, jeremy maclin, I could go on.

Marley2Hendrix · Post #7 » by **Marley2Hendrix** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 4:05 pm

zmanishere11 wrote:Wow 5 posts on Nate Burleson's effectiveness in regards to fantasy football, never thought that would be possible!!

Who cares about Nate, there are tons of great sleepers out there. Here's my list of a few:

Michael Bush, rb, Raiders - i know they keep saying they're going to split carries in OAK, but it's the first time he's played with a legit QB and he's clearly the better RB between McFadden.

Shonn Greene, rb, Jets - Not really a sleeper because he's going 3rd/4th round, but I think this year Greene cements a place in the top 5 of all fantasy football players, so to score him that late is a steal. I'm taking him in the 2nd of every one of my drafts this year.

WR's I'd rather take over Burleson, around the same spot he'll go - Pierre Garcon, Hakeem Nicks, jeremy maclin, I could go on.

I love Nicks and Maclin. Advanced stats really like Nicks, but I just feel uneasy about anyone associated with eli manning for some reason.

ETA - also TMR's first entry into this FF season:
http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/footb ... rmanifesto

not to bad of a read

Capital Edge · Post #8 » by **Capital Edge** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 5:06 pm

zmanishere11 wrote:Wow 5 posts on Nate Burleson's effectiveness in regards to fantasy football, never thought that would be possible!!

Who cares about Nate, there are tons of great sleepers out there. Here's my list of a few:

Michael Bush, rb, Raiders - i know they keep saying they're going to split carries in OAK, but it's the first time he's played with a legit QB and he's clearly the better RB between McFadden.

Shonn Greene, rb, Jets - Not really a sleeper because he's going 3rd/4th round, but I think this year Greene cements a place in the top 5 of all fantasy football players, so to score him that late is a steal. I'm taking him in the 2nd of every one of my drafts this year.

WR's I'd rather take over Burleson, around the same spot he'll go - Pierre Garcon, Hakeem Nicks, jeremy maclin, I could go on.

Agree w/ most of the things you wrote but even though Greene will have a great season, I think Tomlison still has some left in him and will have profound effect on Greene's consistency. Anyway, I think the biggest sleeper this year will be Mike Thomas, second year WR out of Arizona. He had 453 yards and 1Td as the #3 WR and w/ Holt gone I expect him to have big year.

Marley2Hendrix · Post #9 » by **Marley2Hendrix** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 5:09 pm

Capital Edge wrote:
zmanishere11 wrote:Wow 5 posts on Nate Burleson's effectiveness in regards to fantasy football, never thought that would be possible!!

Who cares about Nate, there are tons of great sleepers out there. Here's my list of a few:

Michael Bush, rb, Raiders - i know they keep saying they're going to split carries in OAK, but it's the first time he's played with a legit QB and he's clearly the better RB between McFadden.

Shonn Greene, rb, Jets - Not really a sleeper because he's going 3rd/4th round, but I think this year Greene cements a place in the top 5 of all fantasy football players, so to score him that late is a steal. I'm taking him in the 2nd of every one of my drafts this year.

WR's I'd rather take over Burleson, around the same spot he'll go - Pierre Garcon, Hakeem Nicks, jeremy maclin, I could go on.

Agree w/ most of the things you wrote but even though Greene will have a great season, I think Tomlison still has some left in him and will have profound effect on Greene's consistency. Anyway, I think the biggest sleeper this year will be Mike Thomas, second year WR out of Arizona. He had 453 yards and 1Td as the #3 WR and w/ Holt gone I expect him to have big year.

Good call, also don't forget when evaluating Greene that historically Tomlinson gets a ton of carries inside the 10 and especially inside the 5. Tough to predict how that changes from SD to NYJ, but that could be the big fear for Greene owners going into next year.

Interesting call with mike thomas.

Capital Edge · Post #10 » by **Capital Edge** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:45 pm

Pierre Garcon, Hakeem Nicks, jeremy maclin will all have great years but let's not forget about Johnny Knox who will be a great steal.

RiotPunch · Post #11 » by **RiotPunch** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 9:01 pm

Jamaal Charles was my pickup of the century last year... he was just awesome. Really fun watching him develop at the end of the year. Ryan Grant was very, very solid for me last year as well. Mr. Consistent. Steve Smith was probably my best receiver when it was all said and done, drafted Colston pretty high (like an idiot) but he was super inconsistent just because Brees spreads the wealth so well.

PkrsBcksGphsMqt · Post #12 » by **PkrsBcksGphsMqt** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 10:35 pm

One of my leagues is a 10 team keeper league, where each team gets to keep any 4 players at no cost or loss of draft picks. Starters are 1QB, 1RB, 2WR, 1TE, 1RB/WR, 1K, 1D/ST. PPR scoring for RB/WR with some minor performance bonuses.

These are my players that are keeper worthy.
Rashard Mendenhall*
Ryan Grant*
Pierre Thomas*
Calvin Johnson*
Matt Ryan
Ben Roethlisberger

I made some trades last year, after I knew I wouldn't make the playoffs, in order to gain some picks in this year's draft. I traded some big time players including Manning. So now I am in a situation where I can keep 4 players from the above list (* indicates who i'm keeping as of now) and I have the following picks in the first 4 rounds (I only have one pick outside the top 4 rounds)...
2, 4, 10, 11, 14, 17, 18, 19, 24, 37

I don't have a list of players that will be available in the draft but I do know Joe Flacco will be available and there should be at least a couple of running backs available that are better than Grant/Thomas/Mendenhall and of course the rookie running backs like Ryan Matthews will be available as well.

This is a pretty weird situation with all of my picks in the early rounds of the draft and I'd appreciate any strategy suggestions about how to accumulate the most talent possible.

Capital Edge · Post #13 » by **Capital Edge** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 12:15 am

Charles stepped up big time last year and will be interesting to see how he does w/ Thomas Jones. The pick that really screwed me over last year was LEndale White in the 5th round. Probably my worst pick ever especially since I passed on Gates, Desean Jackson, Dallas Clark, and many others who had better season. Even though he couldn't get consistent yardage, they gave it to him all the time at the goal line the previous year and had 15tds so it seemed like they would do the same and would be worth it.

ReddRum · Post #14 » by **ReddRum** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 12:41 am

Hey guys - just interested to see what you all think about my team. Its an 8 man league so keep in mind our teams are fairly deep (we like doing live drafts so its hard to get more than 8 guys). We start 1 QB, 2 RB's, 3 WR's, 1 TE, 1 K, and 1 DEF. Let me know what you think the strength's and weaknesses are as well. Thanks and hopefully I can give my opinion of your team in the future.

QB: Rodgers
Cutler

RB: Turner
Shonn Greene
Beanie Wells
Stewart
Felix Jones

WR: Marshall
Rice
Sims-Walker
Maclin
Nicks
Holmes

TE: Celek

K: Crosby

DEF: Baltimore

chuckleslove · Post #15 » by **chuckleslove** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 2:45 am

Personally I'm not a big Celek fan, though with a young QB the TE is sort of a safety blanket so he could have a good year, I view your weakness at RB and TE. Not sure what sort of players are available as free agents in your league right now. Last year I played in an 8 team family league so was similar to you in that people had a deep team, I was able to pick up Vernon Davis as a FA after the draft and he ended up being my starting TE for most of the year, I think obviously Davis and our own Finley have had their fantasy stock rise quite a bit after last year.

I'm also not a big Shonn Greene guy. I do think Turner will probably have a bounce back year after being injured for a good portion of last year.

I love your WR, defense and QB situation though, Kicker is really all the same to me, there are about a dozen kickers that will put up similar fantasy numbers and its just a matter of getting lucky week to week with field goals instead of touchdowns.

Those are all just my opinions though, I tend to form opinions about some players and just stick to them and Celek could very well be a breakout TE this season for a number of reasons and I know a lot of people are high on Greene.

Capital Edge · Post #16 » by **Capital Edge** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 3:14 am

Speaking of Vernon Davis, I've drafted him every year since a was a rookie and last year when I gave up on him what does he do? It will be interesting to see if Alex Smith can do the same thing now that there is more stability.

Newz · Post #17 » by **Newz** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 2:32 pm

I'm pretty sure Kolb is going to be my QB in every league this year. I'm just going to snatch him up in the later rounds.

He's talented and he has a lot of talent around him. He'll be a very good fantasy QB, IMO.

Reddeye · Post #18 » by **Reddeye** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 7:49 pm

chuckleslove wrote:Personally I'm not a big Celek fan, though with a young QB the TE is sort of a safety blanket so he could have a good year, I view your weakness at RB and TE. Not sure what sort of players are available as free agents in your league right now. Last year I played in an 8 team family league so was similar to you in that people had a deep team, I was able to pick up Vernon Davis as a FA after the draft and he ended up being my starting TE for most of the year, I think obviously Davis and our own Finley have had their fantasy stock rise quite a bit after last year.

I like Celek a lot. It was against bad pass defenses, but he had 16 catches, 208 yards and a TD in the 2 games that Kolb was QB last year. There are 7 or 8 TEs that are potentially very good this year. Daniels is the ?. Can he come back from the knee injury and be close to what he was last year.

Capital Edge · Post #19 » by **Capital Edge** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 8:11 pm

Reddeye wrote:
chuckleslove wrote:Personally I'm not a big Celek fan, though with a young QB the TE is sort of a safety blanket so he could have a good year, I view your weakness at RB and TE. Not sure what sort of players are available as free agents in your league right now. Last year I played in an 8 team family league so was similar to you in that people had a deep team, I was able to pick up Vernon Davis as a FA after the draft and he ended up being my starting TE for most of the year, I think obviously Davis and our own Finley have had their fantasy stock rise quite a bit after last year.

I like Celek a lot. It was against bad pass defenses, but he had 16 catches, 208 yards and a TD in the 2 games that Kolb was QB last year. There are 7 or 8 TEs that are potentially very good this year. Daniels is the ?. Can he come back from the knee injury and be close to what he was last year.

Is it just me or does it seem like 90% of players who have a break out year end up having a sophmore slump and I mean a huge slump. I think Celek will fall into that category.

Reddeye · Post #20 » by **Reddeye** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 2:27 am

[/quote]
Is it just me or does it seem like 90% of players who have a break out year end up having a sophmore slump and I mean a huge slump. I think Celek will fall into that category.[/quote]

I don't think Celek will have a huge slump. He might drop of some, but I read the Eagles are going to use more of a typical West Coast Offense this year with Kolb at QB. Kolb doesn't have the arm of McNabb, but he is more accurate.

Do you think Vernon or Finley will drop off after having breakout seasons? I think Vernon will definitely come back to earth a little.