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 2 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. Fear the ROO

It don’t matter if you win by an inch or if you win by a mile.  Winning is winning.

That’s right – I just quoted Vin Diesel.

And thanks to the Seattle Defense completely shutting down Anquan Boldin for the first 50 minutes of Sunday night’s game, ending with only 1 catch for 7 yards on the night, I was able to squeak out a victory in Week Two to put my first one in the win column of the season.  Other special thanks goes to my opponents’ kicker, Randy Bullock of the Texans, who actually posted -1 points.  If he hadn’t gone up to kick any field goals during the game against Tennessee last week, I would have lost.

I found myself in a set of very rare circumstances as two of my three running backs in the starting line-up left their respective games early with injuries (Ray Rice and Maurice Jones-Drew).  Thusly, my leading point scorer for the week out of my three starting running backs (who I used my first three picks on) was Stevan Ridley with 4 points.  The three of them combined together for just 9.3 points.  Then factor in my Tight End Fred Davis only posting .3 points and that’s 4/9 starters combining for under 10 points.  And yet, MY TEAM STILL WON THE GAME.  Who else can say that they picked up a win under those kinds of circumstances?

Carson Palmer matched Tom Brady’s score exactly at 10.8, which was key.  Any time your QB doesn’t get outplayed against one of the elite QBs, you kind of feel like you dodged a bullet.  The Patriots Defense he played pummeled the hapless Jets for 17 fantasy points, but my Broncos defense came up with some key interceptions that kept that category close.  And then my WRs, Randall Cobb and DeSean Jackson were able to carry my team on to victory with scores of 18.8 and 25.3 respectively.  Janikowski came up big for me also, kicking for 13 fantasy points, compared to Bullock’s -1.

I was very proud of my team’s depth this week. I had my 7 bench players go off for a total of 73.1 points.  The 7 guys on my bench would have beaten the starting 9 of 2 other teams in the league this week.  That’s some significant depth.  Plus, I just picked up Eddie Royal to add even more receiving depth and switched around my tight ends.  This week the Canton Heroes bid farewell to Tight End Fred Davis and Wide Receivers Rod Streater and Dexter McCluster.  Welcome to the team, Eddie Royal, Charles Clay and Coby Fleener.  Depending on the health of Ray Rice on Sunday, I may be plugging Eddie Royal in at the Flex this week and I’m plugging Clay in at TE right away against the Falcons porous pass defense.

Next week, I face the team I pulled off a preseason trade with, acquiring Stevan Ridley for Brandon Marshall.  That team is now known at Marshall Law.  Right now, it looks like his starting line-up will feature Matt Ryan at QB, DeMarco Murray and Chris Ivory at RB, AJ Green and Brandon Marshall at WR, Antonio Gates at TE, Vincent Brown in at the Flex option with Matt Prater doing the kicking and the Packers defense.  His team is the only 0-2 team in a league that has had a lot of parity over the first two weeks of the season.  There is only one unbeaten team out of 12 and only one winless team with everybody else falling at 1-1.  The race to the playoffs is going to be a tight one.

Week Two Box Score

Canton Heroes – 91.5

QB – Carson Palmer – 10.8

RB – Ray Rice – 2.5

RB – Stevan Ridley – 4

WR – Randall Cobb – 18.8

WR – DeSean Jackson – 25.3

TE – Fred Davis – 0.3

Flex – Maurice Jones-Drew – 2.8

Defense / Special Teams – Denver Broncos – 14

K – Sebastian Janikowski – 13

Fear the ROO – 91.2

QB – Tom Brady – 10.8

RB – Chris Johnson – 9.7

RB – Reggie Bush – 6.9

WR – Dez Bryant – 20.1

WR – Jordy Nelson – 18.6

TE – Owen Daniels – 8.4

Flex – Anquan Boldin – 0.7

Defense / Special Teams – New England Patriots – 17

Kicker – Randy Bullock – -1

(Updated Canton Heroes Roster)

QBs – Carson Palmer, Jay Cutler

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

WRs – Randall Cobb, DeSean Jackson, Pierre Garcon, Cecil Shorts III, Eddie Royal

TEs – Charles Clay, Coby Fleener

D/ST – Denver 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