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Were you one of those people who liked report card day back in school? I wasn’t but not for reasons that you might think. Being the youngest of five my parents really didn’t care what kind of grades I got because at that point they had seen it all. Even at a young age I had a thirst to learn and to know. I would pay attention to the things that I wanted to learn about and drift off when the class was talking something I didn’t care about. This happens in fantasy sports all of the time except now I am the teacher, which sucks a lot more than I thought it did by the way. But I realize now that people will often say I am wrong or stupid because of one piece of advice that may have gone wrong in a given day or week. They say that because this was the one piece of advice that they really cared about. But the fact is that I give out thousands of opinions and recommendations every single day. As much as I hate to admit it, I am not always right either.
So each week I will be going over all of my rankings, projections, lineup advice and strong opinions and letting the record speak for itself. Obviously this is a risky proposition considering if I am wrong too much it could be a severe hit to my career. But I have confidence because fantasy football is something that I love and have a desire to learn about every single day. So despite the risk, I accept this challenge.
Here is another edition of Right, Wrong or Indifferent taking a look back at NFL Week 2:
RIGHT
I wasn’t planning on putting Gates name in here for the second week in a row but I figure after a 7 catch, 96 yards & 3 TD performance I should boast a little more. The thing about tough matchups is very rarely do you avoid all parts of a tough matchup. Meaning I fell into the trap of lowering Keenan Allen in my rankings this past week and I wasn’t high on Phillip Rivers either. But as far as TE’s went the Seahawks don’t have the big, speedy LB’s to matchup with elite level “move” TE’s like Gates. Thus, I held firm all week on Gates as a TE1 despite playing the defending Super Bowl champs and this call worked out in spades.
I say it all of the time and I stand by the fact that the more you know the ins and outs of the game of football the more it will help you put together a great fantasy team. This allows you to be able to breakdown each individual matchup and uncover the players that will benefit potentially from a teammates lack of involvement or poor matchup.
This is one in which I REALLY want to use the MF’er word over and over again but will refrain (for now). Shane Vereen is simply not an every week starting RB in fantasy football. Does he make for an intriguing FLEX option in PPR formats? Absolutely. But a RB that doesn’t carry the football and is solely used for his pass catching ability CAN NOT STAND!! Vereen’s 6-40 yards rushing is insanely good production considering his tiny workload on Sunday.
When the Patriots have a lead there is simply no role in the offense for Vereen and his pass catching skills. Sure when they are playing catchup as they were in week one, he will be a popular check down option but that is just not something I want to put my main fantasy RB eggs in. You can and should do better at the RB position going forward.
I hope that as you read this you are either greeted with one of two possible emotions. Either joy, in that you listened to your trusted friend over here that not only would Marshall play but could be productive against the 49ers on Sunday Night. The other emotion is that of anger because you didn’t listen to me tell you all week long that Marshall would play despite a sprained ankle because “he is a warrior.”
There is no way in hell that I would have predicted that Marshall would have three TD’s in this matchup but that really wouldn’t matter. I had Marshall in the top 11 of WR’s this week and told every single one of you that asked that you should start Marshall this week. I was wrong about Alshon Jeffery playing but that didn’t really seem to matter as Jeffery was basically a ghost for most of that game.
The bottom line here is that Stacy is the Rams best RB by a wide margin and thus he is going to be a workhorse this season. If Benny Cunningham poised a real threat to him then maybe I would reconsider my faith but that just isn’t the case at this point in time.
Going into week two many were hesitant to start Stacy despite a pretty solid matchup against the Buccaneers. He responded with 19 carries, 71 yards and a touchdown. Cunningham only carried the rock six times for 15 yards which should be an expected amount going forward.
WRONG
Wow. I guess that I will take the blame on this one but Jim Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman deserve to be whipped for their playcalling against the Bears on Sunday Night. The 49ers averaged close to six yards per carry against the Bears yet they dropped back to pass on 49 of 72 offensive plays. If the 49ers put that game in the hands of their offensive line, Frank Gore and Carlos Hyde they win by 20+ points.
But the Hyde call is my fault and I take the blame. I talked many of you into starting him this week and that was obviously now the wrong decision. I am very tempted to come back with Hyde next week knowing that the coaching staff will rectify their errors and run the damn ball more but you can bet your ass that I will be a bit more hesitant to rank Hyde so highly again.
The Patriots/Vikings game went about how I thought that it would. Except that I figured Brady would connect for some big plays with his finally healthy TE in Rob Gronkowski. As it turned out the Pats had no need to throw the ball against the Vikings and unlike Jim Harbaugh and company, they played it smart.
I am beginning to worry about my investment in Tom Brady this season. I had figured this offense for a strong comeback thanks to one more offseason getting used to all of the weapons at Brady’s disposal. What I see thus far this season is exactly what I saw last year however. The only receivers Brady trusts are Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski. Although it didn’t work out this week, I am still extremely high on Gronk’s value this season.
History is going to prove me right on Donnell eventually but for now he goes into the loss column. The reason I am putting him here is because not only was I not a fan of him this week (TE rank #19) but I also advised many of you to not touch him on the waiver wire.
For the record I just don’t see how if Victor Cruz and Ruben Randle cannot be productive receivers in this Giants offense with an erratic Eli Manning, how Larry effing Donnell can be. But much to my dismay Donnell has gotten 113 snaps so far this year while all other Giants TE’s have gotten 33 combined.
What a mess I got myself into with Hunter this week. Let me be clear in that I still LOVE the kid for the rest of the season but this entire Titans offense was a mess on Sunday. Against the Cowboys secondary I would have thought that Hunter’s six targets would have got him at least 4-67-1 on the day.
I briefly got excited late in the game when Jake Locker missed Hunter open over the middle within falling distance of the endzone which was his second interception of the game. Then again when I thought it was Hunter who caught a late TD which turned out to be Nate Washington which turned out to be ruled out of bounds anyways. I had Hunter in a lot of my weekly fantasy lineups as well which paired with A.J. Green didn’t turn out very well.
INDIFFERENT
On my show last Friday night I predicted that Fitzgerald would rebound this week against the Giants and catch a TD pass from Carson Palmer. Well, Palmer didn’t play but Fitzgerald did catch a TD pass from backup Drew Stanton…kinda. The touchdown was reviewed and ruled that Fizgerald was out of bounds at the ½ yard line instead. Jonathan Dwyer punched it in for the TD leaving Fitz and my prediction empty.
Still, Fitzgerald’s 10 targets and six receptions were enough to remind everybody that bailed on him after week one, that Larry Fitzgerald is still a viable fantasy WR. I could have taken credit for this as a win but the reversal of a TD and only 51 yards receiving makes it indifferent.
Another stake I would love to claim as a clear victory this week but despite exceeding most people’s expectations, I wanted more from him this week. The passing yardage was very solid at 281 yards but just one TD and 19 yards rushing make these result vanilla.
The thing to always remember about superstar players is that there is a reason they are superstars in the first place. Cam Newton can’t just simply not run the football. He is built differently than us and will do things others wouldn’t in similar situations. I was happy that he took off with the ball when it presented itself but I honestly expected a bit more. Of course if Kelvin Benjamin doesn’t drop those three passes we would be talking about over 300 yards passing and two TD’s this week and a clear victory for those of us that started him.