Fantasy Football Sniper

We are entering the last of the bye-weeks for the season. This should help with sit/start questions in all formats moving forward, but for this week, it's still pertinent. Between bye-weeks and injuries, it's making the landscape a bit rough for many teams. Fantasy Football isn't won at the draft, it can be lost there, but it's not won there. It's won through roster management, whether that be trading for a slumping star, or getting rid of someone you know won't keep up a historic pace, *cough*  Will Fuller *cough*. Waiver wire can be a solid place to find solid fill-in players. The deeper into the season we get, the less likely you'll find a solid week-to-week contributor, but we actually have one of those in this week's article. Let's dive right in to this week's edition. Week 11: Sneaky Picks for Fantasy Football  Dontrelle Inman - Wide Receiver - Chicago Bears  Dontrelle Inman joined the Chicago Bears and made an immediate imp...

Last Week's Results This week was little rough on my projections for sneaky players to start with only one player of the four meeting expectations. This goes to show that it's a hard gig to analyze the player, team, match up, and try to extrapolate a viable assessment. It IS difficult, as I'm learning. Just ask my money-league team that's still suffering from the loss of  David Johnson So before we get into this week's sneaky picks, let's have a look at last week's and see how I fared. Austin  Seferian-Jenkins My projection: Eight targets, 7 receptions for 59 yards. Actual Stat-line: Four targets, four receptions, for 46 yards. I was a little off on this one. ASJ has 10 targets through his first two games back. He's worth a stash and a start during bye-week streaming at what has been arguably a poor season so far for the position. Jaron  Brown My projection: Seven receptions for 71 yards. Actual stat-line: Eight receptions on 12 targe...

Another week in the books, and we are starting to see track-able trends beginning. I like starting this post with the results from the previous week's projections. It shows the ones I got right, the ones I got close, and just as importantly; the ones I whiffed on. So keeping up with that trend, let's take a look at last week's sneaky picks and how they fared. Last Week's Recap Andy Dalton : My projection: 289 yards, two touchdowns, one interception. Actual stat-line: 212 yards, two touchdowns, zero interceptions. Close enough for the stat-line and for the re-emergence of Andy Dalton as the Red-Rifle instead of the Red-Regret. Andy Dalton was someone I was high on heading into this season. He's got some serious weapons in a healthy A.J. Green and the (hopeful) emergence of rookie running-back Joe Mixon . If Tyler Eifert could stay healthy, he would also be in that conversation. Moving forward with Dalton, he's a streamable QB2 with upside. I believe h...

If you read last week's entry, and took any of my advice, you were probably fairly happy with the results. Fantasy Analysis is a similar to being a weatherman, you can properly interpret all the data and get some right, and some wrong. Last week, I had them mostly right. Before we get into this week's sneaky picks, let's go over last week's projections and results.  Antonio Gates:   My projection: five receptions for 68 yards and one touchdown.  Actual stat-line: Two receptions for 11 yards and one touchdown. So, I got the touchdown. He only had two receptions, but he WAS targeted five times, so it was certainly close in the reasoning.  Jaquizz Rodgers:  My projection: 18 carries for 71 yards and one touchdown.  Actual stat-line: 19 carries for 68 yards and one touchdown.  Nailed it.  Chris Hogan:   My projection: I didn't have an actual stat-line projected for Hogan. I simply projected he was the sleeper target...

Welcome to week two of the NFL season! Week-one certainly had some surprises. No one could have predicted that Alex Smith would top the charts as the best fantasy QB in the league or that Andy Dalton would almost complete more passes to the opposing team than to his own wide receivers. Kareem Hunt came out and showed everyone why he belongs in the NFL. Le'Veon Bell owners were severely disappointed by a poor fantasy output. To quote Aaron Rodgers R-E-L-A-X...relax. It's only week one. So as we enter week-two (at the time of writing, Thursday night's stinker of a game is already over) let's take a look as some sneaky players heading into week-two's games. 1. Antonio Gates  LA Chargers - tight end Yes, he's old for an NFL player that has sustained the kind of punishment that constantly going over the middle brings. Mr. Gates is still a fantasy relevant tight end. This week the Chargers take on the Miami Dolphins at home. This is a special game...

We are in drafting season for fantasy football. Some of you may have already had yours, some of you are viciously prepping for one, and some of your may be a week or two away. For what it’s worth, I’m a long-time advocate of waiting until the last week of August  and even into September for the most current news, camp battles, and injury reports. Preseason is underway, injuries are occurring and most importantly, we are seeing who’s passing the “eye-test” at their positions. So this week, we’re going to lock in on some sleeper candidates you should be looking at, and why they may be a hot value for your team. Robby Anderson: WR - New York Jets There’s really not much positive going on where the Jets hang their helmets. Brandon Marshall is gone, Eric Decker has shuffled off to Tennessee, and just when we all starting to warm up to Quincy Enunwa, he’s out for all of 2017 with a neck injury. This brings us to Robby Anderson. He’s got some talent, and he’ll be targete...

Player Profile: Marvin Jones If it isn’t here for you and your league yet, draft day is on it’s way. For me, this is like the Christmas season. Instead of decorations it’s player projections. I’m not listening to Christmas Carols, I’m listening to expert podcasts. It’s not hot cocoa with marshmallows, it’s coffee to keep me awake whilst I crunch stats and run my projections. All leading up to that glorious evening and the auction draft to kick it all off. In my continuing series, we take a look at another player who’s going for value prices/picks in mock drafts so far. In 2016 Marvin Jones came out of the gate on fire. After the first six weeks he was in the top 3 receivers behind only Antonio Brown and Julio Jones. In week two he had 118 yards on 8 receptions.  In the third game of the season he torched Green Bay’s secondary for 205 yards on only six receptions and had two touchdowns. For people who were wondering how Stafford would handle being without Megatron, i...

  Set the way back machine for 2013. It was my 2nd year with my main auction fantasy league. I was coming of a decent 2012 season and felt pretty confident that 2013 was my year to win it all. The younger Mr. Manning had something to say about that. In fact, he had 27 things to say about that.     I don't recall what I paid for him in our auction draft, but it was way too much. That season Eli threw 18 touchdowns to his 27 interceptions. Soak it in. Twenty-seven interceptions . I'll be the first to go on record as saying there's no way I could throw 18 touchdowns in the NFL. No way. But, I'm pretty sure that if I set my mind to it, I could toss up 27 interceptions and for a lot less money than Eli made that year.      Needless to say, I didn't win that season and haven't drafted him in snake or auction formats since. So why in the heck did I decide to write an article about why he's not only draftable, but looks to be a solid value pick in...

It's August...therefore Fantasy Football is upon us! I'm continuing to break down some players that may have positive fantasy impacts. There has not been much excitement about the San Francisco 49'ers in the last couple of seasons, and rightfully so. The phrase "dumpster fire" comes to mind. It would be one thing if the team was merely mired with poor play on one side of the ball. Unfortunately, both offense and defense have been pretty poor. In the 2016 season The 49'ers only converted 78 out of 222 3rd down conversions. That's an abysmal 35.1 percent. Did I mention dumpster fire? I have pages and pages of notes that preceded last year's fantasy draft. One of them was simple, succinct, and required no further explanation. NO 49'ers! In my mounds of research for the 2017 season, I dug deep into one player's stats and was a little surprised by what I found. Carlos Hyde is a good running back. Granted, a good player on a bad team is ham...

MAKING A CASE FOR DIGGS Over the next several weeks until we inch closer to kick off, I’m going to be doing some articles based on specific under-the-radar type of players that could have positive fantasy impacts. Everyone is hunting the big names, so we won’t be talking about those. What I’m going to focus on is the players you can pick up later in drafts, or on the cheap in auction formats that can contribute to your team’s success. This article is going to focus on Stefon Diggs. In 2015 as a rookie, Diggs led the Vikings in targets with 52 and yards with 720. While those numbers aren’t eye-popping to begin with, it’s worth noting that he didn’t play the first 3 games. He wasn’t even the starter until injury forced him into the role, once there, he quickly made a name for himself as someone to watch. In 2016 Diggs started off on fire putting up  285 yards in the first two games. Then he quieted down for several weeks before going off again for 164 yard...

For as far as my memory can go back, I've wanted to be a writer. Most of my daydreams involve writing fiction. I'm constantly jotting down little ideas that may or may not ever turn into anything substantial. I remember sending a short story that I wrote, and was very proud of, to a national magazine. Weeks went by, and I didn't hear anything back. I had come to the conclusion that no one even read it, that it was simply discarded. Well, it did get read and almost six-weeks after sending it, I got a response. I remember seeing the envelope with the magazine's logo stamped across the front and my heart racing as I opened it. It was a standard rejection letter. The interesting thing, is that once over the initial disappointment, I was rather proud of the moment. In my mind, a rejection letter is one step closer to an acceptance letter. I framed the rejection letter and it's still hanging on the wall behind my computer monitor as a constant reminder. Don't st...

In this week's article, we dive into running backs, and which ones to potentially avoid for the 2017 season. Not all of these are going to be ones necessarily to avoid drafting, some are simply ones to avoid drafting too high, or paying too much on auction day depending on which draft style you're a part of. 1. Ezekiel Elliot. I'm not saying to avoid this one, I am saying to be cautious taking him too high or spending too much on him based on one blurb that came out this week. In a Sirius/XM fantasy show earlier this week, Adam Schefter had this to say about Ezekiel Elliot: "I would just say this. It's definitely a factor, and if I were drafting today, I would be hesitant to. (draft him) I've spoken to some people within the league who, during the course of the offseason, got a sense that some form of discipline could happen."   via Jimmy Kempski of Phillyvoice.com This is not a sophomore slump situation, this is a possible league discipline f...

It's time to open up and share a little. I don't like draft day, I love it. More than Christmas, more than my birthday, more than opening night of a new Star Wars movie. Draft day is king for this guy. I approach it with equal parts study, anticipation, and butterflies in my stomach. Anyone who's played fantasy football knows that there's an unavoidable element of luck required to be successful. If you can catch a lucky break once in a while, and have made informed smart decisions from your draft and moving forward, you can usually find yourself in a positive spot on you leagues standings. I can't help you with luck. Ask my league mates, my own luck is a bed-ridden cancer patient who's somehow contracted leprosy. So what I'm trying to offer is some help with some commonly made draft mistakes. That way, if the bad luck train hits you it doesn't de-rail your season. Now, this article is going to focus on snake drafts primarily, and I may cover auc...

The Raiders have been patiently waiting for a franchise QB to come along, and now it seems like the wait has been worthwhile. In a monster of a deal worth $125 million over 5 years and making him the highest paid NFL'er to date, the Raiders have signed Carr to a contract extension. Carr has had a fantastic start to his career, throwing for over 11,000 yards and 81 touchdowns versus 31 interceptions, and has continued to show improvements to his game and abilities. The Raiders playoff hopes last season ended with Carr's broken fibula.

 The Tight End position, in my opinion,is one of the more overlooked positions in fantasy, once you get passed the top 3 or 4 guys. Gronk, Reed, Kelce, and Olsen. Last season, we saw some solid production from a couple of rookies. While it's always a challenge to predict how a player's skill set translates to the NFL level, let's see if we can't get a baseline of the player, and where they ended up. So let's break down the rookie class of tight ends taken in the first two rounds. 1. O. J. Howard - Tampa Bay Buccaneers   Pick 19 of the NFL draft and a tight end was off the board. The Bucs already have Cameron Brate, and now they've added Howard to the mix. Howard is an absolute beast of a tight end. Six and half feet, 251 pounds and ran a 4.51 forty yard dash. He's big and athletic and could bring a lot to the game in Tampa Bay. Hard to predict where his role will land him for this season as Brate still has the TE1 job locked up for the time being. So,...

No one can deny the importance of the role of running backs on your fantasy roster. Trying to analyze which rookies are going to be productive is a daunting task outside of a the Zeke's that come along every so often. Zeke Elliot was the right pick for the right team and he had an excellent rookie campaign while last year's number one rookie RB Todd Gurley disappointed owners in his second season. This is how fantasy goes and makes it difficult to predict. While I am not new to fantasy football, I am new to blogging about it and I look forward to revisiting this post in the middle of the fantasy season to see how we fare with my rookie analysis. Let's take a look at this years rookie running backs. 1. Leonard Fournette -  Jacksonville Jaguars With the 4th pick of the draft, a running back was off the board, and it was no surprise who it was. Fournette is a punishing style runner that may not make too many defenders miss but he'll muscle his way around corner...