Fantasy Football

Alright, given our content with how the past week of NFL contests went, it can only mean one thing: That those of you who were having great seasons are now eliminated from your playoffs (assuming you have a playoff). We do not like to be too self-indulgent on this website, so here are five players that gravely disappointed you on Sunday. We do not want to trigger any flashbacks, so if the weekend was particularly difficult for you, it’s best to turn away.

1) Brian Westbrook
Given that they won 30-10, one would assume his stat line has to be askew: 67 total yards and 3 receptions. But no, I watched that game in its entirety and that is accurate. Are The Browns so god awful now that one dimensional offenses like Philly can veer away from that one dimension and still win handily? I’m afraid so. It looks like Westbrook used up all his garbage points in that four touchdown game that slaughtered me on Thanksgiving. So, in other words Westbrook owners, you’re not getting any sympathy from here. As long as the Eagles win, I could give a shit how if I’m devoid of any of their players for fantasy.

It's probably had to believe that this symbolizes the glory days for any entity, but it does for the Browns.

2) Chris Johnson
He should really be in the top spot because he doesn’t have Westbrook’s excuse, his team lost. To an inferior opponent. But since he sort of splits carries we’ll let it slide. What’s worse is that everyone knew it would happen. That’s right, everyone knew a 12-1 team was going to lose to a 6-7 team because…they were on the road? I have no idea. But I do know one thing, his 65 rushing yards and two yards on two receptions didn’t help matters.

3) Larry Fitzgerald
Now that his team has been properly exposed as a fraud, do you think there’s a chance he’ll close out the last two weeks of the season strong? I guess they have to be playing one of the ten worst teams in the NFL at home to expect much out of all the Cardinals. What’s even more mind-boggling is that on the heels of this extraordinary loss to the Vikings, the pro-bowl starters were announced yesterday, and Kurt Warner got the nod at quarterback. As well as Boldin and Fitzgerald at receiver. That’s right, your starting receiving corps. and quarterback for the NFC all come from the same team. Anyhow, I hope that makes you feel better as a Fitzgerald owner after his 5 catches for 52 yards. Him and his counterparts have shammed their way into an all-star game that no one wants to play in. Congrats.

4) Brandon Marshall
Is it too much to ask that a pro-bowl receiver has two games in a row? Can this Denver team not blow a division championship to a team that can at best go 8-8? If Brandon Marshall can’t stem together two games in which he doesn’t disappoint fantasy owners, their is a good chance of it. 5 catches for 48 yards doesn’t get your team into the playoffs in weeks 16 & 17. At this point, we’re actually rooting for the Chargers. We don’t really give a shit either way, but if the Chargers are winning that means Vincent Jackson is probably performing. And much like the Chargers themselves, Jackson is the X-factor on my fantasy team.

5) Jason Witten
What happened? You used to be so dependable and were considered the best tight end in the league with the predictable premature decline of Antonio Gates and Tony Gonzalez (whom never actually declined). Yet you only have one touchdown in your last eight games, and that was the one game you tallied more than six catches. The Giants have a stifling defense, but you’re a tight end. You’re supposed to be the last, safe option when your QB is facing a tenacious pass rush. I guess you were probably blocking and Romo is afraid to throw to you lest Owens gets jealous. But still, 5 catches for 44 yards? It’s amazing you guys won so convincingly.

Honorable mention: Cris Cooley (6 catches, 51 yards, one fumble lost), Tim Hightower (20 rushing yards 20 receiving yards), Anquan Boldin (6 catches, 34 yards, one fumble lost), Eli Manning (2 INT’s, no TD’s), Terrell Owens (3 catches for 38 yards, how the hell did they win this game?), TJ Houshmenzadeh (3 catches for 19 yards)

We watched virtually no football yesterday as we were driving back from Atlanta and it we would have needed to score about 5,000 points in addition to needing a loss from another game to have even a prayer of finishing in the money. So even when we finally got back home we didn’t really do much overview as to what happened. But it looks like just from glancing at the scores in my league, it looks like production was down throughout the league. And this brings me to one dilemma with playoffs in not just fantasy football, but all fantasy sports.

Too often is it that in the waning weeks of a season, teams already securely in or out of the playoffs a team’s star player(s) will see more and more of the bench so as to avoid needless injury. I can understand this line of thinking, but when you have a fantasy playoff in the last two or three weeks of the season everything is adversely effected by things completely beyond your control.

There isn’t much anyone can do about it, other than use your own prognostication before your draft and select players from teams you think will still be vying for a playoff spot when week 17 rolls around. But some of the following options which a lot of leagues do but certainly isn’t the norm are worth considering if this bothers you like it bothers me.

1) Avoid a playoff altogether. Depending on how you distribute winnings in your league, the bulk of the prize money should go to the regular season champ. He/she went through 14 or 15 weeks of relentless threats to eventually end out on top. So why not just extend it a few weeks and make it for the entire season? That way, the end result will only be moderately effected by the last two or three weeks. And instead of giving either the majority or a substantial amount of prize money to someone who lucked out with roster changes, you can give it to someone whose season was only partially improved or worsened by league formalities.

My only issue with this is the money distribution is too top heavy. You generally only payout two people in a ten person league, and it doesn’t provide those with an opportunity to deem the season a success, or even a chance to break even. While this might seem like Commie fantasy football, we’re still only rewarding 30% of the league, and it just offers the middle-tier regular season teams with an opportunity at turning a profit out of it. Obviously the teams that win the regular season make the playoffs, so we’re not denying them the chance to cash out even more. But just granting opportunity to those who didn’t.

2) Adjust your playoffs to coordinate with the NFL playoffs. This will have to be made abundantly clear to the rest of your league before the draft so people can adjust accordingly. Personally, I am not in favor of this because no one knows who will make the playoffs in such a parity driven league, but it is an alternative. Not to mention that come week 16 or 17 of the NFL season, it would create a mad dash to the waiver wire that would be predicated mostly on luck. Most people in favor of this tend to have tremendous egos, so you might be able to capitalize on that somehow.

If you wanted to use the NFL playoffs as the playoffs for your fantasy league, one option is to re-draft amongst the teams that got into the playoffs. Obviously you would have to decrease roster sizes so they’re proportional with how many eligible teams there are to draft from and how many teams you are drafting with. But this still has its setbacks because the people drafting are also being asked to predict NFL outcomes instead of just individual performances, which is what fantasy football has always been about.

If I was to opt for one of the following three options, I’d probably go with ditching the playoff format and just extending the regular season. But certainly moving the playoffs provides an interesting twist, if not a familiar one. All fantasy leagues seem to operate under a different set of circumstances, personally, I tend to think that each of these formats has their faults and prefer the one I’m already using. But given the size of your league and how important the distribution is to you, you might disagree.

Back with more tomorrow.