Fantasy Football

Well, I hope everyone who owns any Saints feels vindicated. Even Marques Colston manage to make his week 12 performance look respectable. In short, when a team drops fifty-one points in a Monday nighter, everyone involved should be happy. Including those who put money on the over, against the line and any fantasy owners. I’m pretty sure that if they played every game in New Orleans, they’d win the Superbowl.

If you’re looking for assistance on how to set your roster for fantasy football, a team’s record is a good indicator. What style of defense do they struggle against? Are they reliable against good defenses? Do they perform consistently? Does injury to the starting running back effect the quarterback and vice versa? In other words, what have these teams shown you that can assist you in making an educated guess about setting your roster?

We keep repeating it, but look at the NFC South and their road record vs. their home record. All four teams. The collective home record is 20-2, versus a road record of 8-14. Now, most teams are more comfortable at home and their is usually evidence to support that, but these numbers are abnormally lopsided. Not to mention that some of the road wins include the Bucs needing overtime to beat the 1-10 Chiefs (also a road win against them from the Saints) and the Bears, Two more of them come from the Panthers against the Raiders and a last second win against the Chargers, and a three point win from the Falcons at Lambeau. Basically the NFC south has turned into the SEC.

Admittedly, it's not an easy place to win at.

All six of the aforementioned road wins were tightly contested and for the most part low to average scoring. If they go a different way, you’re looking at a 2-20 record on the road, the exact opposite of their collective home record. What this generally tells you, is if you have any fantasy players on either the Saints, Panthers, Falcons or Buccaneers and they have a road game that week, unless it is against an incredibly shitty defense (and even then Tampa managed to lose to Denver on the road), I recommend seeking out alternatives. Sure, their are mainstays that you always start like Brees or Steve Smith, but the Muhammad’s, Garcia’s, Colston’s, Jenkins’ and Moore’s of the world are replaceable on any given Sunday. Or Thursday, Saturday or Monday.

Other than that, there wasn’t much else to take away from the game. Green Bay will fluctuate in performance every week just like Chicago and Minnesota, and it will come down to a tiebreaker to determine who wins the division. I hope the NFL is happy with their salary structure. It could literally be a coin flip to determine who makes the post-season and no one could really complain. I missed the post-game analysis, but I imagine everyone was claiming Green Bay is going to miss the playoffs in favor of either Minnesota or Chicago because they’re “too young” or something, despite the fact they split the season with Minnesota and mercilessly devastated the Bears two weeks ago. One has to love the failed long-term memory of 90% of NFL talking heads.

Hopefully back later with something.