Hi everyone,
Is Randy Moss ready for his trip to Revis Island? What’s Ines Sainz been up to? Find out in my latest football blog entry on The Huffington Post! Here’s the link: http://huff.to/cQJHVU
Enjoy!
The Sherpa
The Sherpa’s Fantasy Football Blog
@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter
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“4th & Inches with Jana and The Sherpa“, Wed. nights 9:30-10:30pm Eastern on Blog Talk Radio
Hi everyone, I hope your teams all survived the injury bug in Week 1. My condolences if you spent an early-round pick on Ryan Grant (as I did in most of my leagues). Matthew Stafford’s injury also wreaked havoc with my fantasy teams, as did Kevin Kolb’s. Fortunately, we’re early enough in the season that some shrewd waiver wire pickups, and perhaps a trade or two, can make up for any injuries your team has suffered so far. Here are my recommendations for Week 2 - all games are Sunday during the day unless otherwise noted:
Baltimore at Cincinnati (Sunday early) - Yes, Baltimore’s defense is as good as it looked Monday night against the Jets. No, their offense isn’t as bad as it looked Monday night against the Jets - give the Jets’ defense a lot of credit. Cincinnati’s defense is also better than they showed last weekend, but they may not be as good as I originally thought. There’s been a lot of trash-talking among the teams’ players via Twitter, but Baltimore will do most of the talking where it counts - on the field. Baltimore 24 Cincinnati 17.
Chicago at Dallas - Dallas fans are understandably miffed at Offensive Coordinator Jason Garrett’s play-calling during last Sunday night’s loss to the Redskins. Chicago fans are inexplicably still down on quarterback Jay Cutler, who passed for 372 yards with just one interception in last week’s victory that the NFL rulebook stole from the Lions. Both offenses strut their stuff in this game, but Dallas wins on the strength of a slightly better defense. Dallas 27 Chicago 20.
Philadelphia at Detroit - It’s somehow fitting that the two teams whose quarterbacks were knocked out early last weekend face each other in Week 2. Philly’s backup Michael Vick is more talented than Detroit’s backup Shaun Hill, and he’s surrounded by a better supporting cast. Philadelphia is able to overcome all of its injuries on the defensive side of the ball and muffle the Lions’ roar. Philadelphia 30 Detroit 17.
Arizona at Atlanta - Atlanta’s defense held up well against Pittsburgh’s offense (with one notable exception on the final play of the game). Arizona’s offense was predictably awful with Beanie Wells out, Tim Hightower fumbling, and Derek Anderson quarterbacking, but they did just enough to beat St. Louis. The wheels come off this week for Arizona, Atlanta wins easily, and Cardinal fans will be chanting for backup quarterback Max Hall at next week’s home opener. Atlanta 28 Arizona 14.
Kansas City at Cleveland - Don’t be fooled by Kansas City’s victory Monday night over the Chargers - their offense gained only half as many yards as the Chargers’ offense. Then again, the Chargers don’t have Dexter McCluster returning kicks, which explains a lot. Cleveland lost a game in Tampa it should have won, and now quarterback Jake Delhomme is hurting. Expect Cleveland to win a close game in the this week’s Battle of the Bottom-feeders (Part 1). Cleveland 21 Kansas City 20.
Buffalo at Green Bay - Buffalo looked terrible against a mediocre offense and defense. In spite of losing running back Ryan Grant for the season Green Bay looked good against an above-average offense and defense. Grant’s absence will hardly be noticed in this game as Brandon Jackson takes over and rushes for 100+ yards. Green Bay 38 Buffalo 10
Pittsburgh at Tennessee - Both defenses looked dominant last week, although Pittsburgh’s performance was more impressive, given the competition. Tennessee’s offense also looked impressive, but again, Oakland offered little more than token resistance. Pittsburgh will keep the clamps on Chris Johnson, but emerging quarterback Vince Young makes just enough plays to earn his team a hard-fought victory. Tennessee 17 Pittsburgh 14
Tampa Bay at Carolina - Tampa did just enough to win their opener against an unimpressive Cleveland team. An equally uninspiring performance against the Panthers will render them a tiny speck in the rear-view mirror. Carolina 24 Tampa Bay 10.
Miami at Minnesota - Miami’s unlikely to have any success rushing the ball against Minnesota, and Chad Henne’s performance against the Bills’ defense didn’t inspire confidence. Meanwhile, Brett Favre figures to have much more success passing the ball against the Dolphins’ defense than he did against the Saints’ secondary. Minnesota 24 Miami 14
St. Louis at Oakland (Sunday late) - Although neither of these teams will be playing in Dallas in February, this appears to be one of the more even matchups for Week 2 (even if it is the Battle of the Bottom-feeders Part Deux) . Do not expect anything remotely close to an encore performance from St. Louis WR Mark Clayton, who will likely be shadowed by Raider CB Nnamdi Asomugha (Questionable-groin). Oakland’s offensive line stops being offensive just long enough to allow quaterback Jason Campbell to make the plays necessary to give the Raiders the victory. Oakland 27 St. Louis 24
Seattle at Denver - It’s hard to believe Seattle is as good as they looked last week against San Francisco, and it’s hard to believe that Denver is as bad as they looked last week against Jacksonville. Seattle puts up a good fight, but Kyle Orton has a big day, and Denver wins going away. Denver 27 Seattle 17
Houston at Washington - Houston’s offense looked invincible last weekend against the Colts, but Peyton Manning exposed holes in the defense, especially the secondary. Assuming Donovan McNabb’s healthy enough to play, he’ll also exploit those weaknesses. Arian Foster will struggle for yardage against the Redskins’ underrated defense, but the Matt Schaub-Andre Johnson connection will come to life and allow Houston to staft the season 2-0. Houston 24 Washington 21
New England at New York Jets - This week The Slouch (aka Randy Moss) gets to spend the day on Revis Island. Don’t expect a big game from Moss, but Tom Brady has enough other weapons at his disposal that it won’t matter. New York’s Shonn Greene shows up for this week’s game, but Mark Sanchez will continue to show New York fans (and all fans, for that matter) that he’s not yet ready to quarterback a self-annointed Super Bowl contender (and probably never will be). New England 27 New York 14
Jacksonville at San Diego - Like Kansas City, San Diego’s Week 1 opponent, Jacksonville won last weekend in spite of gaining fewer offensive yards than their opponent. That will not be the case this week. Philip Rivers shows that he’s one of the top quarterbacks in the league with a dry football in his hands, and San Diego wins easily in spite of a couple of Maurice Jones-Drew touchdowns. San Diego 41 Jacksonville 21
New York Giants at Indianapolis (Sunday night) - The Manning brothers square off for only the second time in an NFL regular season game, and the scoreboard operators may have a hard time keeping up with the offensive fireworks. New York has the better ground game and the better defense, but that’s not enough to overcome Indy’s aerial advantage. Indianapolis 31 New York 27
New Orleans at San Francisco (Monday night) - Both teams’ offenses were dormant in their season openers, and San Francisco’s defense was AWOL too. All three units are back in business for this game, but New Orleans’ passing attack proves to be too much for the resilient 49ers to overcome. New Orleans 24 San Francisco 21
Good luck to your teams this weekend!
The Sherpa
The Sherpa’s Fantasy Football Blog
@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter
Fantasy Football Sherpa’s fan page on Facebook
“4th & Inches with Jana and The Sherpa“, Wed. nights 9:30-10:30pm Eastern on Blog Talk Radio
Hi everyone,
Our latest football blog entry has been published on The Huffington Post! Here’s the link: http://huff.to/biFs0V
Enjoy!
The Sherpa
The Sherpa’s Fantasy Football Blog
@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter
Fantasy Football Sherpa’s fan page on Facebook
“4th & Inches with Jana and The Sherpa“, Wed. nights 9:30-10:30pm Eastern on Blog Talk Radio
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to let you know that we here in Sherpaville just had our first fantasy football blog entry published on The Huffington Post! Here’s the link: http://huff.to/cvL1oW
Enjoy!
The Sherpa
The Sherpa’s Fantasy Football Blog
@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter
Fantasy Football Sherpa’s fan page on Facebook
“4th & Inches with Jana and The Sherpa“, Wed. nights 9:30-10:30pm Eastern on Blog Talk Radio
Hi everyone,
Fantasy football draft season is in full swing, and many of you have drafts coming up Labor Day weekend. One “trend” I’ve noticed this season is more and more fantasy football team owners using their first-round draft picks on QBs, with Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and even Peyton Manning often being taken by owners wanting to lock in top-tier production from their quarterback spot. Does it make sense to do this? Does the time-honored adage “always take a RB in the first round” still hold? Let’s take a closer look.
There are 2 commonly-used arguments to justify taking a QB in the first round:
Let’s take a closer look at both these arguments.
In response to the first argument, it’s undoubtedly true that the trend in the NFL over the past few seasons has seen teams moving away from the single workhorse RB approach and going with the RBBC approach instead. If we define the “single workhorse RB approach” to include all teams for which the lead rusher is projected to gain at least 65%-70% of his team’s rushing yards, then by my count there are 13 teams using the RBBC approach heading into the 2010 season, which is up from 10 teams heading into the 2009 season.
That said, the basic economic principle of supply and demand suggests that when the supply of a desirable commodity (in our case the workhorse running back) goes down, the corresponding demand for that desirable commodity should increase, not decrease. Thus, it would appear that drafting QBs earlier in response to the decrease in supply of workhorse RBs is exactly the opposite of what should occur.
The second argument is a bit trickier to deal with. First, let me bring up the idea of “position scarcity”. Unfortunately, this term is overused and abused in fantasy circles. To me position scarcity can be defined as the relative drop-off in fantasy value between the top-rated options and the mediocre options at each position.
If you accept this definition of position scarcity, then if you make a list of players’ projected 2010 fantasy points in descending order by position (using your league’s particular scoring system, of course), you’ll almost certainly find that there’s a greater decrease in fantasy values between top-rated and mid-level RBs (or top-rated and mid-level WRs) than there is between top-rated and mid-level QBs. This will be the case even though the increasing use of RBBCs has increased the fantasy values of mid-tier RBs relative to what they were just a year or two ago.
If that’s the case, the opportunity cost (i.e. - the value of the option you don’t choose when you make a decision) is greater for passing on a RB (or WR) in the first round of a draft than it is for passing on a QB. In other words, even though QBs generally score more fantasy points than RBs and WRs under many fantasy scoring systems, your fantasy team will be better off overall at the end of your draft if you start out by taking a RB (or a WR) than if you grab one of the top names at QB.
A quick caveat - in order to make this analysis complete, we would need to look at not only supply/demand and position scarcity, but also the relative consistency in actual vs. expected fantasy values among the top options across the different positions. That consistency, of course, will depend on the particulars of your league’s scoring system, but based on the analysis I’ve done, generally speaking the slightly greater consistency among top QBs vs. top RBs and top WRs is not enough to overcome the supply/demand and position scarcity issues.
So, unless your league has “highly unusual” roster requirements (e.g. - start 2 QBs and 1 RB) or point values (e.g. - 6 points for a passing TD, but only 3 points for a rushing or receiving TD), your fantasy team will still better off at the end of your draft if you take a top-tier RB (or WR) with your first round pick than it will be if you use that same pick on a top-tier QB.
Wishing everyone a great holiday weekend and good luck in your upcoming drafts!
The Sherpa
The Fantasy Football Sherpa’s Blog
@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter
The Fantasy Football Sherpa fan page on Facebook
“4th & Inches with Jana and The Sherpa“, Wed. nights 9:30-10:30pm Eastern on Blog Talk Radio
The fantasy value of team defenses is only slightly more predictable than that of Kickers. That’s why it generally makes no sense to draft a defense until the final rounds or spend more than a dollar or two for one if you’re participating in an auction.
Still, given that most leagues require you have a defense in your starting lineup, what’s the best way to go about picking one? The defensive events that produce the most fantasy points (i.e. - defensive and special teams touchdowns) are virtually impossible to predict. Events such as sacks, fumble recoveries, and interceptions are nearly as difficult to project. Thus, I find the most useful way to rank team defenses (with or without special teams included) is on the basis of total yards allowed (i.e. - rushing + passing), which is somewhat less random than total points allowed. Again, this is at best a reasonable proxy - you’ll almost certainly change defenses at least once during the course of a season due to a bye week, and perhaps more often based on your defense’s matchup for a given week.
With all that said here is my ranking of team defenses (with or without special teams) heading into the 2010 season:
One final point about defenses - many fantasy football owners like to draft a backup defense so that they’ll be covered during their primary defense’s bye week and/or have the option of playing matchups each week. I strongly disagree with this strategy, primarily because of the random nature of a defense’s fantasy value. It’s very difficult to predict this fantasy value over the course of a season and even more difficult to predict a defense’s fantasy value from week to week. My recommendation - pick one you’re comfortable with in your draft our auction, ride with it until the team’s bye week, then replace it via free agency. You may fret that you’re putting the second coming of the Bears’ 1986 defense on waivers, but that’s almost certainly not the case. The spot you’ll save by not carrying a second defense can be put to much better use by stashing another running back or wide receiver with high upside.
Until next time,
The Sherpa
The Fantasy Football Sherpa’s Blog
@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter
The Fantasy Football Sherpa fan page on Facebook
People generally have one of two mindsets when it comes to drafting Kickers for their fantasy football team: (1) take one of the “top Kickers” several rounds before the end of the draft, or (2) wait until the last round or two of your draft to take a Kicker and take “the best Kicker available” (or “any Kicker who’s available and still has a pulse”). Count me in the second group. Kickers undoubtedly differ in their innate skill levels, but the number of opportunities a Kicker’s team presents him with far outweighs the importance of the Kicker’s accuracy on 50+ yard field goals in determining his fantasy value. And predicting the number of opportunities a Kicker’s team is likely to give him is, to put it kindly, nearly impossible. The opportunity cost of taking a Kicker before the last round far outweighs the potential benefit (at least in this Sherpa’s mind).
So, if predicting Kickers’ fantasy values is a futile exercise, but you still need to pick one (or even two) for your team, what’s the best way to go about it? I suggest that you rank Kickers in the same order that you should rank teams’ offenses, by total yards (rushing + passing). There’s certainly a less-than-perfect correlation between the number of yards a team’s offense gains and the number of points it scores, and there’s also a less-than-perfect correlation between the number of points a team scores and the number of points its Kicker scores, but I firmly believe that trying to come up with a better system for ranking Kickers is a huge waste of time.
That said, here’s my ranking of Kickers for the upcoming season (which foreshadows my ranking of team offenses for the upcoming season):
Agree or disagree? Hit me with your best shot - fire away.
The Sherpa
The Fantasy Football Sherpa’s Blog
@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter
The Fantasy Football Sherpa fan page on Facebook
In case you haven’t had the pleasure yet of listening to “4th and Inches”, the Blog Talk Radio show that my co-host Jana and I recently started, the two of us disagree on many fantasy football issues (player values, strategy, etc). We thought it would be fun to shine some light on some of those areas of disagreement, so starting today, that’s just what we’re going to do. Every few days we’ll be posting a joint blog entry in which we debate a fantasy football topic. Most of the topics will be strategy-related, but we may occasionally throw in a post on specific players, teams, etc.
If you have any specific topics you’d like the two of us to discuss, please feel free to respond with your suggestion. Otherwise, sit back, enjoy the show, and let the fireworks begin!
Scott (The Sherpa)
The Fantasy Football Sherpa’s Blog
@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter
The Fantasy Football Sherpa fan page on Facebook
Dave Cymerman of TheFantasyGeek.com recently did a writeup for a 2010 fantasy football industry league we’re both in: http://bit.ly/dbp2zM
This draft was part of the proceedings at the Fantasy Sports Trade Association’s recent conference in Chicago.
Enjoy!
The Sherpa
Fantasy Football SherpaThe Fantasy Football Sherpa’s Blog
@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter
The Fantasy Football Sherpa fan page on Facebook
Hi everyone!
Just wanted to let everyone in Sherpaville know that Brad Berkowitz, successful entrepreneur and published author, wrote a great profile of the Sherpa and his business this past weekend for Examiner.com - I encourage you to check it out!
Brad is one of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet. After graduating with degrees from Penn’s Wharton School and NYU’s Stern School, he had a very successful career in the world of finance, most recently working for a hedge fund for seven years. However, last summer Brad decided to make a change, left the world of finance, and finished his book The 21st Century Guide to Bachelorhood, a humorous look at dating, sex and relationships from a guy’s point of view. He’s also started a company called LockYourDocs!, which enables customers to store all their vital documents online to make it easier to recover information in the case of theft, fire, unexpected death, etc.
Take a look at the article, Brad’s book, and his company’s website - in all three cases you’ll be glad you did!
Until next time,
The Sherpa
The Fantasy Football Sherpa’s Blog
@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter
The Fantasy Football Sherpa fan page on Facebook