Catching Up (Consolation Playoff Push)

First off, allow me to apologize for not keeping up to date on the weekly recaps, but I felt that at that point in the season to do so would have been pretty repetitive every week.  However, we have reached that portion of the season where I am playing meaningful games again, even if they are only my opportunity to climb out of the cellar in the consolation playoffs and avoid losing the bottom rung game of the consolation ladder on the final week of the season (AKA the Toilet Bowl Game).

To briefly recap up to this point why I’m in jeopardy of playing in the toilet bowl next week – my top 3 draft picks, all running backs, got off to incredibly slow starts.  My fourth pick, Randall Cobb, broke his leg early in the season.  My strategy of waiting until the late rounds for a quarterback while adding depth at other positions did not pay off.  When I tried to alter that course by trading for a quarterback, I landed Robert Griffin III, who has run hot and cold all season long and that Redskins team supporting him ended up falling well, well below expectations and now he is benched for the last 3 games of the season.  Stevan Ridley, who at one point got to be very reliable, suddenly wasn’t and got himself benched.  And once my team ended up at 1-6, I began the process of rebuilding for next season at the price of futilely competing down the stretch this year.  If it does end up that I finish in last place, I am perfectly okay with that because I got paid handsomely for the pieces of my team that I sold off and I am in great position for next season.

Here is the outlook on the members of my team for the final two games of this fantasy season.

QB – Nick Foles, tremendous matchup this week in the dome at Minnesota against a very poor defense.  I think Foles has a very good chance to be the top point producer at quarterback this week anywhere in the NFL.  Against Chicago next week, Foles is a maybe play.  My backup option now that I’ve jettisoned RG3 (even in a keeper league, he’s definitely not worth using a pick in the first three rounds to retain) is Alex Smith, who gets to rough up the Raiders this week and then maybe earn a start over Foles on my team when he plays the Colts in week 16.

RB – Maurice Jones-Drew has easily been my most reliable guy at RB the past 4-5 weeks.  However, during his 103-yard rushing performance against Houston last week, he pulled his hamstring and has sat out of practice all week and is listed as doubtful.  The fact that he might not play on a week where he has an outstanding matchup against a Bills defense that has performed horrendously against the Falcons and Buccaneers the last two weeks is a real shame.  However, I picked up Jordan Todman to play in his place should he be declared inactive because my other options this week are CJ Spiller, Stevan Ridley and Ray Rice, none of whom I have any confidence in this week.  In fact, I have a lot of confidence that Ray Rice will do next to nothing against the Lions on Monday night.  Ridley isn’t really playable until Hobo Bill stops Belichicking Ridley owners and gives him back his lead back status and Ridley proves he can handle it without getting himself benched again.  Right now, if MJD is active, he plays and Spiller is my 2, simply because he’s the lesser of all the other evils and believe it or not, he has the best chance for success and the smallest chance of a major breakdown compared to Rice and Ridley this week, in my humble estimation.  However, next week Rice gets the Patriots, who have not been up to their usual levels on defense in past weeks, so maybe Rice could put together a big game next week, but this week he rides the bench for me.

Wide Receiver – My three healthy or semi-healthy options are Cecil Shorts, Julian Edelman and Da’Rick Rodgers, who broke out last week in a big way against the Bengals.  However, he’s still very unproven.  I also have Randall Cobb, if by some miracle he gets cleared to play in either of the next two weeks.  Shorts and Edelman are my two guys this week with Rodgers as play B if Shorts, who is listed as questionable, is declared inactive this weekend.  Or if by some miracle the Packers magically clear Cobb and put him on the field against the Cowboys, he may become a must play for me at my weakest position.

Tight End – Charles Clay has a very good game against the Steelers and a solid game against the Jets the week before that and he matches up against the Patriots this week, who have proven to be weak over the middle lately.  I am very excited about his prospects this week.  And due to some poor matchups and unreliability issues at running back and wide receiver, I will be starting two tight ends this week with Coby Fleener in the flex against the Texans, who have given up the tenth most points to tight ends over the course of the season and he continues to lead the team in targets in recent weeks despite Rodgers emergence last week.  I also have Dennis Pitta on my bench, who is potentially a great play next week when he also matches up against the Patriots.

Defense / Special Teams – Detroit Lions.  I picked up the Lions this week because they match up against Turnover Joe and the Ravens, whose offensive line sucks.  They can’t move the ball on the ground unless they’re matched up against horrible run defenses like the Bears or Dolphins (the two teams that Rice went over 20 points against this season).  Plus, Flacco throws more than his fair share of interceptions and when they get down to the red zone, it always seems like they’re having to settle for a field goal.  So, I figure they should be held to less than 20 points easily with a couple of interceptions and maybe Earnest Ross can return a kick for a Touchdown and boost their point total.  Plus, the Lions play a horrible Giants team next week.  I’m not scared to play them despite the Eagles having a huge game on the ground against them in the snow last week.  I think that was a huge outlier for a defense that has been tough on the run all year long.

Kicker – I already played Nick Novak this week against the Broncos and he got me a respectable 9 points.  Maybe I’ll stick with him next week against the Raiders or maybe I’ll find an option I like better.

So, here is how it shakes out.  I only need to win this week or next week and either win means I don’t finish in dead last.  A win this week would be preferable because it automatically moves me out of the toilet bowl game altogether and a win is definitely doable this week, though I am a little scared that my opponent has Russel Wilson, Marshawn Lynch AND the Seahawks defense, all against the New York Giants dumpster fire squadron.  A good sign is that he still has Tavon Austin in his lineup and he is very questionable this week, so it’s looking like a 0 in that spot for my opponent and your opponent putting up zeroes is never a bad thing.

*Fingers Crossed* for luck for my team this week and best of luck to all of you, whether your champions hopes are still alive or whether you’re trying to avoid finishing in the cellar like me.

Week 10 Recap – Rebuilding, Retooling, Reloading for 2014

Not that it’s going to surprise anybody with me clearly building a team for next year, but I lost again to drop to 2-8.  I’m now 3 games off the playoff race with just 3 weeks left in the regular season, but I’ve given up on the playoff race for almost a month now since I traded away DeSean Jackson and DeAngelo Williams for picks.  And since then, Jonathan Stewart has returned to the Carolina backfield, turning them into a three-headed monster with Stewart, Williams and Tolbert and most experts want no part of any of them now that they have to split carries among three different backs and with Tolbert getting the goal line work, but the fewest carries most likely going forward.  Whereas Jackson would easily still be starting for me every week, he wouldn’t have made a difference in any of the losses I’ve suffered since trading him, so I don’t feel bad about auctioning him off at all, especially since that 4th round pick I got in exchange for him is going to be a big help.  And the 6th round pick I got for Williams feels like a steal now that he’s trapped in a 3-way time share and has just 2 touchdowns all year.

And now working for next year has taken on more than just trading away valuable player for draft picks, but I’m acquiring potentially phenomenal keeper options for next year. Just barely getting a trade processed before game time, I traded away a 9th round pick for C.J. Spiller and I think I got a real bargain here.  While Spiller is having ankle issues and trapped in a time-share situation with Fred Jackson, he would presumably be 100% by the start of next season and Fred Jackson would be 33, so odds are real good that Spiller takes a very firm control of that backfield next year, if not by the end of this year once Jackson’s batteries run out down the stretch.

Disaster struck in the Monday night game as Mike James fractured his ankle and has been placed on injured reserve along with teammate Doug Martin.  As a result, I dropped him for his replacement Brian Leonard and am currently trading Leonard for injured reserver Arian Foster (pending league approval) in the hopes that Foster will recover from off-season back surgery and return to his elite status next year.  With Ray Rice’s star fading a bit, Maurice Jones-Drew trapped behind a horrid Jaguars offensive line and Ridley getting Belichecked up until a couple of weeks ago, it feels great to have all 5 of these guys fantasy fates in my hands for next season (I can keep up to 3 of them and wait and choose which 3 part of the way through the preseason) along with a great amount of high draft picks.  The future looks pretty bright right about now for this team.

Roster Update

QB – Robert Griffin III, Nick Foles

RB – Ray Rice, Stevan Ridley, Maurice Jones-Drew, CJ Spiller, Arian Foster (pending review)

WR – Randall Cobb, Percy Harvin, Marvin Jones, Cecil Shorts, Aaron Dobson, Mario Manningham

TE – Coby Fleener, Charles Clay

D/ST – Houston Texans

K – Graham Gano

Updated Draft Pick Info

Keeper Rounds – 3 picks

4th Round – 2 picks

5th Round – 1 pick

6th Round – 3 picks

7th Round – 1 pick

8th Round – 1 pick

10th Round – 1 pick

11th Round – 1 pick

12th Round – 2 picks

15th Round – 1 pick

I won’t bore you with further details of my team’s poor performance this week, but you can check it out for yourself here if you like.  http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/boxscorequick?leagueId=27211&teamId=9&scoringPeriodId=10&seasonId=2013&view=scoringperiod&version=quick

Week 7 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. KU’s Only Football Hope

1-6, pretty much time to throw out any delusions of making it to the Shiva Bowl.  As such, I’ve entered into rebuilding mode with a pretty good amount of success over the past week.

Last week I added Brandon Jacobs and just 3 days later traded him away for a 6th round pick.  I then used that empty roster slot to add Green Bay Wide Receiver Jarrett Boykin, who had a very solid first day for my team although he was on the bench.  He’s going to be pressed into duty for the Heroes this week though because I’ve dealt away DeSean Jackson for a 4th Round pick (which is the first round after the keeper selections in this league), Cecil Shorts isn’t healthy enough to be really trusted to play, though you may see him in my starting lineup this week, Percy Harvin is up in the air as to whether or not he’ll play for the first time this season on Monday and I’m not enthusiastic about going with Mike James or DeAngelo WIlliams against each other tomorrow night (also, I’ve agreed to trade DeAngelo WIlliams away for a 6th and 12 round pick and am waiting on that trade to be processed sometime tomorrow afternoon).

New additions since my last update – Jarrett Boykin, Mike James, Cowboys D/ST, Graham Gano, Eddie Royal

Departures – DeSean Jackson (Trade), Brandon Jacobs (Trade), Lions D/ST, Blair Walsh, Bernard Pierce

I go with Gano this week primarily because Blair Walsh is far from healthy and the Vikings offense is on the skids.  The Cowboys have been very impressive the last two weeks against the Redskins and Eagles, so I’m excited to see if they can hold up one more week against Detroit.  Mike James of course takes over for Doug Martin at Running Back in Tampa due to Martin’s torn labrum (shoulder) that may keep him sidelined for the remainder of the season and Boykin gets the chance to shine in Green Bay’s awesome passing game with Randall Cobb out with a fractured leg and James Jones’ return still in question for this week after he sat out last week. Eddie Royal has been boom or bust this year, but I like he chances to have a couple of more boom games, especially with matchups against the Redskins and his former team, the Broncos coming up the next two weeks after his bye this week.

Week 7 Box Score

Canton Heroes – 60.2

– QB – Robert Griffin III – 25.4

– RB – Ray Rice – 7.4

– RB – DeAngelo Williams – 5.9

– WR – DeSean Jackson – 2.1

– WR – Greg Jennings – 4.1

– TE – Charles Clay – 6.7

– Flex – Coby Fleener – 9.8

– D/ST – Lions – -1

– K – Blair Walsh – 0

KU’s Only Football Hope – 88.6

– QB – Andrew Luck – 29.9

– RB – C.J. Spiller – 0.7

– RB – Eddie Lacy – 16.8

– WR – Demaryius Thomas – 14.2

– WR – Steve Johnston – 6.1

– TE – Tony Gonzalez – 3

– Flex – Brent Celek – 0.3

– D/ST – Chiefs – 12

– K – Ryan Succop – 5

And while some might think my roster is somewhat depleted after trading away Jackson, Cobb being injured and potentially trading away DeAngelo Williams as well, it’ll be well worth it when I put together an incredible team next year with my amazing draft picks I’ve gotten in return for Jackson, Williams (pending) and Jacobs.  Here is what my 2014 draft looks like currently

1st Round – Keeper Option

2nd Round – Keeper Option

3rd Round – Keeper Option

4th Round – My Pick

4th Round – From KU’s Only Football Hope

5th Round – My Pick

6th Round – My Pick

6th Round – From Marshall Law

6th Round – From KU’s Only Football Hope

7th Round – My Pick

8th Round – My Pick

9th Round – My Pick

10th Round – My Pick

11th Round – My Pick

12th Round – My Pick

12th Round – From KU’s Only Football Hope

Yeah, the idea of having 2 4th Round Picks (First Round after Keepers) and 3 6th Round Picks (Third Round after Keepers) as well as having my entire team drafted by the end of the 12th Round (16 Picks), is pretty darn exciting.  I have a lot to look forward to for next year.  In the meantime, I’m going to hunt the waiver wire to try to field a competitive team each and every week and try my best to avoid the toilet bowl game at the end of the season (our version of the Sacco, for my fellow fans of The League).

Week 6 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. Muffin Stuffers

Man, when the injury bug bites – it bites hard.

I’m not the only one who got bit, but I’m probably the one that it hurt the most because it puts me at 1-5 and hands me my fourth consecutive loss of the season.

Randall Cobb broke his leg and is out until at least December.  Cecil Shorts didn’t hurt himself as badly, but his injury knocked him out of the game the first and only time the ball was thrown to him against Denver’s very poor pass defense (though they do force quite a few interceptions, they also give up massive amounts of receiving yards and TDs).  Thus, Justin Blackmon got to have an even bigger day than he would have with Shorts getting his usual amount of targets and what should have probably been a very lucrative day for Shorts fantasy wise, he instead gives me a 0 from the flex position this week.

I probably wasn’t going to win anyway because Stevan Ridley finally decided to put up more than 4-7 points per week, but because he’d been such a poor performer, sat out with an injury last week and was stuck in a timeshare, I had sat him on my bench where up until last week he belonged.  (He’s probably going to stay there again this week because he has a rough matchup against the Jets while Ray Rice, DeAngelo Williams and my newest running back Brandon Jacobs have very favorable matchups against Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Minnesota respectively.)  Add to the mix that Marshawn Lynch went over 150 yards with a couple of TDs for my opponent and I was pretty much sunk no matter what I did.

I’m still not ready to trust Ridley or MJD to not put up less than 5 points on any given week and maybe I should not be trusting Ray Rice to help out since he went for under 5 against Green Bay this week.

Anyway, it’s looking like I have a lot of work to do to make up the 2 games I’m off the Playoff pace, even though maybe a 5 or 6 win team could make the cut the way things are looking.

New additions – Brandon Jacobs, Lions D/ST

Farewells – Eddie Royal, Broncos D/ST

Week 6 Box Score

Canton Heroes – 64.6

– QB – Robert Griffin III – 12.7

– RB – Ray Rice – 5.9

– RB – DeAngelo Williams – 11.7

– WR – Randall Cobb – 5.3

– WR – DeSean Jackson – 18.4

– TE – Coby Fleener – 1.6

– Flex – Cecil Shorts – 0

– D/ST – Broncos – 6

– K – Blair Walsh – 4

Muffin Stuffers – 93.5

– QB – Colin Kaepernick – 15.8

– RB – Marshawn Lynch – 27.5

– RB – Trent Richardson – 5.3

– WR – Tavon Austin – 0.3

– WR – Julian Edelman – 5.7

– TE – Jason Witten – 2.7

– Flex – Andre Ellington – 15.2

– D/ST – Seahawks – 12

– K – Greg Zuerlein – 9

Week 5 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. Narnia Creations

I played Peyton Manning this week and he beat me almost single-handedly.  It happens.  We move on to the next week.

I knew Peyton was going to be in trouble against Dallas and my own QB, Robert Griffin III was on a bye week, so I needed a QB who could deliver in a shootout.  I ended up choosing Brian Hoyer.  If he doesn’t tear his ACL because nobody in Cleveland could teach him how to slide properly, I probably come out of this week 2-3 and 1 game off the playoff pace instead of 1-4 and 2 games back.  That Bills defense is exactly as bad as I thought they were, as evidenced by the fact that they gave up a 37-point game to a team whose quarterback tore his ACL on his team’s second drive of the game.  However, had I stuck with Geno Smith or Ryan Tannehill, I still could have won this week.  That’s just the way this season has gone the first five weeks, even when I gauge the situation correctly, I still end up on the losing end.

I also played the wrong Tight End this week.  Sunday morning, I decided that if the Colts were going to beat the Seahawks like I thought they would, they were going to need a big game from Coby Fleener, so I started him over Charles Clay.  End result, 11.2 for Clay, 1.5 for Fleener.  Judgment – BAD move.  I should have just slept in instead of waking up early and deciding to make that one line-up change.  I lost by 7.4 points.  If Clay is in instead of Fleener, I win by 2.3.  But those kind of what ifs, I don’t like to fall back on because the other guy always has guys on the bench that scored better than the guys that he played also, so if you get into that what if game, it only causes you more headaches.  The best advice I can give any of you and take myself is to not think that way.  Don’t dwell on it and move on to making your team the best it can be for the next week.

Speaking of which, my team is stacked full of great matchups this week.  ESPN projects my total at 113 points, but that could end up being very very light if Ray Rice and the Ravens run the ball like they did last week.  And they are playing Green Bay, so that’s not that much of a stretch so long as they don’t get bombed early by Rogers & Co.  They learned from the game against the Bills that no matter what the score is, throwing the ball 50 times and running it 9 times is never going to win you a game no matter how bad the other team is.  If the Ravens had committed themselves to giving the ball to Ray Rice against Buffalo, even when they were down 2 TDs early, they could have probably salvaged a win.  (I mean Bilal Powell did run for 120 yards against the Bills, they stink at defending the run.)  But instead, the Ravens played into their hands and lost by a field goal.  Lesson learned – Ray Rice got 27 carries against the Dolphins in Week 5 and 2 TDs.  Expect more of the same moving forward, my fellow Ray Rice owners because Mr. Harbaugh is not a stupid man.  He must have had a massive cerebral flatulation Week 4, but that isn’t going to happen again.

As for my team, look at what some of my key players have coming up.

QB – Robert Griffin III vs. Dallas, Chicago, Denver and San Diego the next 4 weeks.  The Bears defense is far from what it once was (as the Lions and Steelers both proved recently) and the rest of those teams have been terrible against the pass this year.  Sure, the Broncos will still get some interceptions and usually salvage a positive fantasy score (and usually put up double digits going into the 4th quarter until garbage time TDs drag them back down to the 9-10 point range for the week – I would know since they are my defense, though this week they just flat out sucked, Peyton not only killed the Dallas defense, he killed his own defense as well as they struggled to keep up with a pass happy Cowboy attack.)  But, back to RGIII, the only bad week he should have left on his schedule is Week 12 against San Fransisco (maybe Week 14 against KC).  Plus, he has Atlanta and the Cowboys again Weeks 15 and 16, which in this league are the last two weeks of the playoffs.

RB – Ray Rice vs. Green Bay and Pittsburgh the next two weeks, DeAngelo Williams against the Vikings and the Rams, MJD against the Broncos and Chargers.  All 3 of those guys returned to at least decent form this week and Ray Rice put my team on his back and would have carried us to victory if not for pesky Peyton and the game where nobody played defense.

WR – Randall Cobb takes on Baltimore (the team that gave up 7 TDs to Peyton) and Cleveland and has a pretty easy schedule against the NFC East and the rest of the NFC North the rest of the way.  DeSean Jackson of course gets to play everybody from the NFC East again and although he gets stranded on Revis Island this week, he’s got Dallas, Cleveland, Oakland and Green Bay coming up.  Greg Jennings and Cecil Shorts are both good plays this week against Carolina and Denver respectively, but they after that Jennings gets the Giants and his old team the Packers while Shorts gets San Diego next week (he plays the 49ers the week after that, so he’ll probably be on the bench that week although he gets lots of balls thrown to him regardless because the Jaguars are always throwing the ball because they’re always behind.)

My Broncos Defense gets to pick on Jacksonville this week.  They are projected at 9 points and while Shorts and Blackman will probably score high, the rest of the Jaguars (including MJD) probably won’t because Henne is going to throw interceptions gallore and MJD probably won’t get a lot of carries because the Jags will be down 3 scores by the end of the first quarter probably.

Here are the roster updates.  Brian Hoyer is gone because he’s out for the year and even if he wasn’t, he was just a one time only play while RGIII was on his bye.  Sebastian Janikowski is also gone, not through any fault of his own, but because Blair Walsh of the Vikings was sitting there and he’s averaging double digit points per week while kicking indoors for a team that has a very very strong running game and he already had his bye week.  You can’t do much better than that.  I also picked up Jonathan Stewart a week early since he is eligible to come back next week against the Rams (not that he will for sure), but since I have DeAngelo and have not been able to rely on MJD and Ridley continually, another option at RB was welcome over adding more WR depth like Terrance Williams of the Cowboys or Rueben Randle of the Giants who were my next two choices.

Updated Canton Heroes roster

QB – Robert Griffin III (my only QB from here on out barring injury or a very stupid dropped QB by my counterparts)

RB – Ray Rice, DeAngelo Williams, Maurice Jones-Drew, Stevan Ridley, Bernard Pierce, Jonathan Stewart

WR – Randall Cobb, DeSean Jackson, Greg Jennings, Cecil Shorts, Eddie Royal, Percy Harvin (IR)

TE – Coby Fleener, Charles Clay (Bye)

D/ST – Broncos

K- Blair Walsh

Even though I’m 1-4, I don’t feel like it this week.  This team is capable of keeping up with Rob’s 5-0 Alderaan Players (a name I gave him BTW) for the rest of the way so long as my Running Backs (Ray Rice in particular) don’t go back to putting up 2-3 points per week.  With the matchups my guys have going forward, we are still very much a threat.  The hard times are OVER.  Everybody else better beware.

Week 5 Box Score

Canton Heroes

– QB – Brian Hoyer – 2.1

– RB – Ray Rice – 20.2

– RB – Maurice Jones-Drew – 8.6

– WR – Randall Cobb – 10.7

– WR – DeSean Jackson – 19.2

– TE – Coby Fleener – 1.5

– Flex – DeAngelo Williams – 6.9

– D/ST – Broncos – -2

– K – Sebastian Janikowski – 12

Narnia Creations – 86.6

– QB – Peyton Manning – 35.2

– RB – Arian Foster – 11.8

– RB – Ronnie “Weaksauce McFumbles” Hillman – 5.9

– WR – Torrey Smith – 12.1

– WR – Andre Johnston – 3.9

– TE – Scott Chandler – 4.9

– Flex – Sidney Rice – 0.8

– D/ST – Ravens – 8

– K – Nick Novak – 4

Week 4 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. off alot

Another bad week from me.  Another week of underperforming running backs lands me with the lowest score in the league for the second week in a row.  It happens.

By the way, if anybody wants to know, I won the championship in four out of the five fantasy baseball leagues I played in this year.  I was in the third place game in the fifth league, but devoted my time to the other four and didn’t pay much attention to it and still ended up with a 5-5 tie, but lost the tiebreaker and thus ended up in 4th place there.  4 1sts and 1 4th – Yeah, I’ll take that every single year please.

Back to football.

Let’s start with Ray Rice, who granted we all knew was going to be limited due to his injury, but the entire Ravens running game was overly limited in that game against Buffalo, who had just given up over 120 yards to Bilal freakin’ Powell the week before.  The Bills defense is obviously a doormat, or if they aren’t they’ve got me fooled.  But even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while and the Ravens pretty much stuffed a handful down their throats and helped them out this week.  The Ravens still only lost by a touchdown, but I have to think that if Ray Rice or Bernard Pierce either one is healthy for that full game (Rice’s hip and Pierce’s strained calf) that they don’t have to rely on the throwing game so much so early and then Flacco doesn’t throw the five interceptions that he threw and the Ravens score a couple of more touchdowns and win that game by at least two scores.  Despite those five interceptions and Rice only getting 5 carries and Pierce only getting four carries, the Ravens still only lost that game by a field goal.  The Bills are not that good a team and don’t get fooled by the obscenely low fantasy numbers the Ravens guys put up this week.  So, the fact that I played Ray Rice, expecting that even though he was limited, 40-50 yards and a TD or maybe even 2 TDs wouldn’t have been surprising at all.  Instead, he only got 17 yards.  He did almost get a touchdown catch at the end of the game, but Flacco must have thought he was throwing to somebody else because he threw it a mile over poor short little Ray Rice’s head.  Way to justify your big contract, Joe.  Your team was in a game they should have easily won, but because of you they were behind in the final two minutes and you lead them down to the red zone and have a chance to redeem yourself and you throw a 12-foot high pass to a 5’8” running back.  Get the ball down a little bit for Rice or throw it to somebody else.

Try as I might, I just can’t get Stevan Ridley on the bench and keep him there.  With Randall Cobb and DeAngelo Williams on their bye week, I was kind of forced to play Ridley at the Flex behind Rice and MJD as my lead two backs and Ridley actually outperformed them with his best game of the year so far (though he has set the bar incredibly low there).  So, things are a little more promising for Stevan Ridley, though it seems like everyweek somebody wants to jump on the bandwagon of one of his back-ups in the timeshare.  Last week it was Brandon Bolden, but he was a non factor.  This week, they’re jumping on LaGarette Blount because he managed to break a 47-yard touchdown run.  That’s what we call a lucky break.  Look at the rest of his stats for the game.  You take that one run away and he’s got 8 carries for 17 yards, barely over 2 yards per carry.  He’s not going to be fantasy playable.  He’s just eating up a spot on your roster that could be better used.  Hell, you’re probably better off with a back-up kicker than you are with Blount.  Unless you’re desperate or stupid, you’re not putting him in whereas while I don’t advocate holding two kickers, you would at least presumably use your second kicker and you should not be using Blount.  Even if Ridley gets hurt, that job goes to Bolden or Vereen if healthy.  Blount might get a bigger share in the run game this next week because of that lucky break making his stats look all pretty, but don’t expect more than that 2.2 yards per carry from him moving forward.

Now, you could notice that I’m 1-3 at this point and just disregard some or all of the advice above, but this is common sense stuff I’m talking about here.

To recap some of the roster moves I made over this past week, my trade for Robert Griffin III went through, so the Heroes wave bye-bye to Pierre Garcon and say good riddance to bad rubbish in the form of Jay Cutler via that trade.  Now, it’s RG3’s bye week, so I need a quarterback and since I’m up against Peyton Manning this week, I need lightning in a bottle and I can’t rely on Geno Smith after his terrible day against the Titans this week, so I’m going with Brian Hoyer and hoping the Browns / Bills game tomorrow night ends up being a shootout and I get proven right about how crappy that Bills defense is.  Don’t get fooled by the week they had against the Ravens.  Remember what they did two weeks ago against the hapless Jets’ offense which prompted me to add Geno Smith on the off chance he used that game for a launching pad for a hot streak (he didn’t).  But hey, that was before I had RG3.  After this week, unless he gets hurt, I shouldn’t need another quarterback for the rest of the season.

With that 2-for-1 trade going through, I had an empty spot on my roster, which I used to grab Percy Harvin, who should become the Seahawks #1 target for Russell Wilson rather easily once he’s healthy.  And since he’s hurt, I got to stash him on my IR slot and create another open space on my roster, which I used to grab Greg Jennings, who Fear the Roo made the mistake of dropping.  Unfortunately, I didn’t play Jennings because of the Vikings QB situation, but I knew that having Matt Cassel take over for Christian Ponder would be a beneficial move for Jennings.  I just wanted to see it in action for a week before I trusted him enough to plug him into the line-up.  He’ll probably be seeing plenty of playing time for the Heroes moving forward presuming that Christian Ponder doesn’t get handed the reins at QB again.

So, here is an updated look at the Heroes roster for Week 5.

QB – Robert Griffin III (bye), Brian Hoyer

RB – Ray Rice, Maurice Jones-Drew, DeAngelo Williams, Stevan Ridley, Bernard Pierce

WR – Randall Cobb, DeSean Jackson, Greg Jennings (bye), Eddie Royal, Cecil Shorts

TE – Coby Fleener, Charles Clay

D/ST – Broncos

K – Sebastian Janikowski

And so you all have the opportunity to laugh at my misfortune, here is my Week 4 Box Score.

Canton Heroes – 60.7

– QB – Robert Griffin III – 14

– RB – Ray Rice – 1.7

– RB – Maurice Jones-Drew – 2.8

– WR – DeSean Jackson – 3.4

– WR – Eddie Royal – 4.2

– TE – Coby Fleener – 13.7

– Flex – Stevan Ridley – 7.9

– D/ST – Broncos – 12

– K – Sebastian Janikowski – 1

off alot – 93

– QB – Tony Romo – 18.5

– RB – Adrian Peterson – 26

– RB – Alfred Morris – 7.1

– WR – Calvin Johnson – 10.4

– WR – Hakeem Nicks – 3.3

– TE – Tyler Eifert – 3.9

– Flex – Lamar Miller – 12.8

– D/ST – Bengals – 4

– K – Garrett Hartley – 7

Week 3 Recap: Canton Heroes vs. Marshall Law

I’m not going to go on at length too much about what happened with my team this week because frankly, they stunk up the joint.  A little of it can be blamed on bad match-ups, but in order to win, you have to beat the good teams and not just beat up on the Raiders and the Jaguars.

Chief among my disappointments was once again Stevan Ridley and hence he will be sitting on my bench until he proves that he can be a legitimate fantasy scoring option (4-5 points a week ain’t cutting it).

Carson Palmer rewarded my faith in him this season by putting up just 3 points against the Saints, who are playing at a vastly higher level defensively than they should be able to in the early weeks of the season given that they have a pretty poor pass rush.  Granted, the Cardinals have pretty much the worst pass blockers in the league, so Palmer remains a given to have bad weeks here and there.  However, I’m changing things up at QB and rolling the dice on Geno Smith, who I picked up this week and I’ve also worked out a trade pending league approval that lands me Robert Griffin III, who should have a monster week against Oakland this upcoming week.

On the bright side, in addition to my new QB look, my bench peformed better than was to be expected, though they still wouldn’t have been able to get me the win since Marshall Law’s team performed well above their means and got the second highest score of the week.

Next Week vs. off alot (Tony Romo, Adrian Peterson, Alfred Morris, Calvin Johnston, Hakeem Nicks, Jermichael Finley, Lamar Miller, Bengals D/ST, Garrett Hartley)

Week 3 Box Score

Canton Heroes – 48.9

– QB – Carson Palmer – 3

– RB – Stevan Ridley – 4.3

– RB – DeAngelo Williams – 11.7

– WR – Randall Cobb – 5.4

– WR – DeSean Jackson – 6.2

– TE – Charles Clay – 4

– Flex – Pierre Garcon – 8.3

– D/ST – Broncos – 3

– K – Sebastian Janikowski – 3

Marshall Law – 115.5

– QB – Matt Ryan – 15

– RB – DeMarco Murray – 26.3

– RB – Bilal Powell – 15.8

– WR – AJ Green – 10.6

– WR – Brandon Marshall – 5.2

– TE – Antonio Gates – 11.5

– Flex – Vincent Brown – 1.1

– D/ST – Falcons – 13

– K – Matt Prater – 17

Updated Canton Heroes Lineup for Week 4 (Pending Trade Approval)

– QB – Robert Griffin III, Geno Smith

– RB – Ray Rice, Maurice Jones-Drew, DeAngelo Williams, Stevan Ridley, Bernard Pierce

– WR – Randall Cobb, DeSean Jackson, Eddie Royal, Cecil Shorts III

– TE – Coby Fleener, Charles Clay

– D/ST – Broncos

– K – Sebastian Janikowski

Week 1 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. Chudley Canons

So, you had a bad day week one?  I sure did.

When you use your first three draft picks on top of the line running backs, you expect for them to put up more than 20 total points between the three of them.  With Stevan Ridley getting benched in the first half after a fumble to end up with 2.6 points and Maurice Jones-Drew suffering from the Jaguars overall horrible offensive week one output for just 4.5 points, I was in a huge hole that the rest of my team was unable to pull me out of.

So, overall I don’t think I have anything to be worried about.  With Shane Vereen out until Week Eleven with a broken hand, Ridley is far and away the most reliable ball carrier the Patriots have to rely on and they should be running the ball quite a bit in Week 2 once they build up a lead against the hapless Jets (who somehow managed to not stink up the field as badly as Tampa Bay did in Week One for a 18-17 win.)

I have several things to be happy about.  Randall Cobb and DeSean Jackson both showed in Week One that they will be integral parts of their teams’ passing attacks this season and while Pierre Garcon and Cecil Shorts were a little disappointing, my late round wide receiver picks (Dexter McCluster and Rod Streater) I think showed a lot of promise and will be integral parts of offenses that will not be nearly so bad as they were a year ago.

Carson Palmer put up numbers I was very happy with against a very respectable Rams defense.  In fact, he outperformed my opponents QB Cam Newton and he should continue to perform well enough to keep me in contention barring getting exploded on by Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady in future weeks.

Tight end is looking like a definite weakness early with Fred Davis being my only guy at the moment, but it’s too early to panic and there are some decent options on the waiver wire if it looks like Davis isn’t going to be able to put up decent numbers.

Vernon Davis having a big week against me (21.8 points) vs. Davis’ extremely sub-par 2.2 points, plus my running backs being abnormally unproductive in week one lead to me posting just 87.2 points, the third worst week one score in the league.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.  I’m in pretty good shape moving forward.  Look for Ridley and MJD to not disappoint nearly as much next week against the Jets and the Raiders respectively.

Week One Box Score

Canton Heroes – 87.2

– QB – Carson Palmer – 17

– RB – Ray Rice – 13.1

– RB – Stevan Ridley – 2.6

– WR – Randall Cobb – 17.4

– WR – DeSean Jackson – 16.4

– TE – Fred Davis – 2.2

– Flex – Maurice Jones-Drew – 4.5

– Defense – Broncos – 10

– Kicker – Sebastian Janikowski – 4

Chudley Canons – 120.5

– QB – Cam Newton – 12.8

– RB – Matt Forte – 15.1

– RB – Frank Gore – 12.5

– WR – Larry Fitzgerald – 20

– WR – Steve Smith – 11.1

– TE – Vernon Davis – 21.8

– Flex – Miles Austin – 7.2

– Defense – Rams – 11

– Kicker – Justin Tucker 9

Week Two Match-up – Canton Heroes vs. Fear the Roo (Tom Brady, Chris Johnson, Reggie Bush, Dez Bryant, Jordy Nelson, Owen Daniels, Anquan Boldin, Patriots, Randy Bullock)

Draft Recap – 2013 Let the Wookie Win

Coming in, I was set up really well at Running Back with Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens and Stevan Ridley of the New England Patriots, but with the way RBs ran off the boards with the rest of the keeper selections, I couldn’t let Maurice Jones-Drew of the Jacksonville Jaguars pass me by with my 3rd round pick because despite all of the injuries last year, there seem to be very little doubts that he’s all set and ready to reclaim his elite status, so in a league where you can start 3 running backs – why wouldn’t you take him in the third round if by some miracle he was still there?  So, I did.

Following that, I was really hoping people would be passing on Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals in the early rounds and I might be able to snag him with the 2nd pick of the 4th round, but he was taken one pick ahead of me and I went with option B – Randall Cobb of the Green Bay Packers, who if you watch the show Firefly from which my team draws it’s name, you can’t really have a Heroes of Canton team without a man called Jayne, or barring that the best player in the NFL who shares Jayne’s last name – Cobb.

After that, I was thinking that I might be able to get a good quarterback in the 5th round, but I wasn’t really expecting any of the ones I would take that early to get back to me (Colin Kaepernick of the San Fransisco 49ers, Robert Griffin III of the Washington Redskins, or Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts for example).  Instead,  I selected a second wide reciever, DeSean Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles with the next to last pick of the fifth round.

Then, in the sixth round I made a questionable choice, taking a fourth running back in a league where you can only start 3 running backs at a time.  However, I consider having a fourth running back with a starting job on lock down to be a great trade piece later in the season.  Perhaps once some of the teams who waited too long on Running Back will look at my 4 starters and decide that my fourth running back, who happens to be Deangelo Williams of the Carolina Panthers, is looking pretty good and they might want to trade for him after watching the teams with 2-3 solid running backs run roughshod over them in the first few weeks of the season.  By the way, Williams no longer has to sit behind backfield running mate Jonathan Stewart because Stewart is injured and out for the season.

In retrospect, I probably should have taken Matthew Stafford of the Detroit Lions or Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks over Williams to fill my quarterback position, but I thought at the time that with so many QBs already off the board via keepers that there were some other teams out there waiting back on quarterbacks and one of them might make it back to me.  But since I had no intention of drafting either of the next two QBs on most people’s boards – Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys and Michael Vick of the Philadelphia Eagles, I probably should have pulled the trigger on Wilson there instead of Williams.  We’ll see how this plays out over the season, but if Maurice jones-Drew winds up not being over his injury or if Bill Belichick goes back to thinking he can win a Super Bowl without a running back who goes for more than 600-700 yards in a season, I will wind up being very happy that I have Williams sitting on my bench and ready to step up.

Fast Forward to the next to last pick of the seventh round, and of course Stafford and Wilson are both off the board, but sitting there is Washington Redskins receiver, Pierre Garcon, who I very happily grabbed to go along with Cobb and Jackson.  I followed up three picks later with another receiver, who despite having to catch his passes from Blaine Gabbert, should expand on his breakout season last year and that’s Cecil Shorts III of the Jacksonville Jaguars.  And if MJD winds up returning to his elite status of old, he’s going to take a lot of heat off the skittish Gabbert and allow for an even bigger year for Mr. Shorts.

In the 9th round, I couldn’t afford to wait on a quarterback any longer, what with Romo and Vick going off the board, leaving no more buffer between the quarterbacks I couldn’t let get past me any longer and the out-of-towners on autopick who would take them out of my starting line-up and place them on their bench without even realizing it.  So, I grabbed Carson Palmer, of the Arizona Cardinals, who I look at this year like an older and only slightly less desirable alternative to Matt Stafford since those offenses figure to be among the most pass-happy in the league.   Not to mention the fact, that he now has Larry Fitzgerald to throw too, which gives him a far greater weapon than anything he had to work with in Oakland last season when he still managed to be fantasy-relevant.

In the 10th round, I played it safe and backed up Ray Rice by taking Ravens’ back-up running back Bernard Pierce, as he was nearing the top of the basic best available boards and would be autopicked before making it back to me 20-some picks later.  With 4 starers and a handcuff for the best one, my running backs were more than set for the season.

In the 11th, I figured that since I was the last one to take a quarterback and since some teams had in fact selected two quarterbacks before my one, I thought it would be prudent to grab a backup quarterback, something I might not normally do.  So, I grabbed Jay Cutler, thinking he could have a big year or at the very least provide a serviceable tag-in for Palmer on weeks where Palmer faces a tough defense.

After that, I played to get around the autopickers again, taking a defense higher than I normally would before the out-of-towners started grabbing back-up defenses.  I got the Broncos defense, which ended last season ranked number 2 at the position.  They’re an older squad for sure and have depreciated in value, but with 6 games against the other 3 struggling offenses in the AFC West (Kansas City, San Diego, and Oakland), I figure that’s 6 weeks of decently easy games for them, which translates into plenty of points for me and some of those divisional games will be coming in playoff weeks.

At this point, I still don’t have a starting tight end or a kicker, but a kicker picked before the last round is a wasted pick, so I took Fred Davis of the Washington Redskins as my starting tight end, figuring he could wind up being a break-out star at a weak position across the boards and if not, I can find a replacement off the waiver wire to tide me by.

Then, we reached the part of the draft where people start taking a flyer on random players that probably 10-out-of-12 team owners in the league probably weren’t even thinking about taking.  My 14th and 15th round flyers were both Wide Receivers since I figured my 5 running backs were stacked and there was a greater potential for letdown at receiver.  So, I took Dexter McCluster of the Kansas City Chiefs and Rod Streater of the Oakland Raiders.  McCluster is the kind of weapon Andy Reid can make great use of and Streater is a guy that has caught the attention of some experts while winning the number two receiver job in Oakland where he could become a favorite target for quarterback Terelle Pryor.  I also think that if anything happens to Jamaal Charles, given Knile Davis unproveness in the league, we might just see McCluster get a long hard look at the job.

I finished up with my kicker, Sebastian Janikowski, “The Jankster”, of the Oakland Raiders and my team will probably feature a variety of kickers over the season until I settle on one for the playoff push.

Here’s how my team lines up.

Quarterbacks – Carson Palmer, Jay Cutler

Running Backs – Ray Rice, Stevan Ridley, Maurice Jones-Drew, Deangelo Williams, Bernard Pierce

Wide Receivers – Randall Cobb, DeSean Jackson, Pierre Garcon, Cecil Shorts III, Dexter McCluster, Rod Streater

Tight Ends – Fred Davis

Defense / Special Teams – Denver Broncos

Kickers – Sebastian janikowski