fantasy judgment – The Fantasy Sports Coach

Ryan Braun Problems

Well folks, we are headed into the All Star break and it’s time to take stock of the first half of the fantasy baseball season. I am currently leading or in second place in all of my leagues, but I am in no mood to celebrate.

Why, you ask?

His name is Ryan Braun.

I was unlucky enough to pick third or fourth in four different leagues this year, and you guessed it…I drafted Braun across the board. I reassured myself with every draft that Braun is a beast. “Don’t worry Dennis, even if anything comes of this PED stuff it won’t be until after the season,” I said to myself. My mutterings became like white noise in the background as I was walking out of drafts with an ACME sized anvil hanging over my head.

You are probably saying, “Hey buddy you knew the risk. Why should I listen to you complain?”

You don’t have to listen. You can go back to your cozy beds filled with the Miguel Cabrera’s of the world. I’ll just be tossing some of my worthless Barry Bonds 1987 Fleer Rookie cards on the fire and reminiscing about times gone by when fantasy owners didn’t have to also be labor lawyers in their spare time.

It’s true that I knew the risk when I drafted him, but who can blame me? I’m a gambler at heart and I have the ATM receipts from Atlantic City to prove it (NOTE: I seem to have misplaced the massive deposit slips I promised my wife though). I saw a mark and I took it down. How could I turn down the clear cut 2nd or 3rd best player at #3 or #4 overall in every draft? It’s like Braun and I were destined to be together.

That last part scares me a little.

The entire reason I stopped doing fantasy baseball back in the late 1990’s in the first place was because of guys like Bret Boone and Barry Bonds. Drafting back then was like playing a dart toss carnival game at the Jersey shore. You would show up to a draft and toss a dart and hope the balloon (player) was filled with juice. Your eighth round pick might break records that were set during the Deadball era. They were wild times.

Now you have to check in Vegas’s black book as well as your draft day cheat sheets just to make a pick. (I think only NBA players are in that actually – see Charles Barkley and Antoine Walker).

I wouldn’t even be sweating the Biogenesis stuff so much if Braun could just play. When he was playing early in the season he wasn’t himself, but he was still very useful. Since then he’s been on every list possible. The disabled list, the bereavement list, the cheating-lying scumbag list. Oh wait that list hasn’t been announced yet, but has been leaked more times than if Pam and Tommy did another sex tape.

Braun has his injured thumb for an excuse, but it’s his head I’m worried about. How do you stare down a 90 MPH fastball when you know your entire legacy and life’s work hangs in the balance of an ongoing investigation? If it is proven that he cheated, Braun will face the biggest backlash the sport has ever seen, hands down. The common fan will never forgive Braun for going after his specimen collector Dino Laurenzi, Jr at a press conference when he happened to win his appeal.

I am more worried about the Brewers than my own fantasy baseball teams. It’s not like they can whip out a Yankee-sized checkbook and replace him. The way their farm system looks makes Mets’ fans pump out their chests. A season-long suspension might single-handedly kill baseball in Milwaukee. The Brewers chose to make him the face of the franchise. He rewarded them with an MVP and they rewarded him with the biggest contract in their history. Now he may kill their playoff hopes for the next ten years.

Don’t cry for me Argentina! Oops, I meant fantasy baseball gods. My fantasy teams won’t be in as bad a shape as the Brewers if Braun gets suspended. I made back-up plans. I even made back-up plans for my back-up plans and should at least keep my head above water. I traded for Chris Davis in the leagues that I could get him early and at a reasonable rate to make up for the homeruns and RBIs. I traded for Desmond Jennings and Starling Marte to make up for the stolen bases. I even took a shot on Jason Heyward using an ultimate buy low package where I sent two waiver wire pick-ups for Cole Hamels and Heyward.

I may be able to fill out a line-up, but I was much happier when Braun was stashed on my disabled list and I didn’t have to think about him every day (like the Yankees with Alex Rodriguez rehabbing in Tampa). Now he’s on the bereavement list and I can’t even clear a bench spot. In my three daily lineup change leagues that has become a big problem.

Braun is in fantasy roster limbo. He could come back after the break and play like an angel delivering my team to a championship while he fights to defend his name. He could be a demon that gets cast off of my roster when his appeal goes down in flames. Or he could just hang around my bench popping his head in and out of my lineup from day to day resembling a shell of his former self.

Either way, the torture of fielding terrible trade offers for Braun has put me in my own little circle of hell. You wouldn’t believe the names that have filled my inbox. At this point I would be happy if I got offered B.J. Upton for Ryan Braun. Not that I would take it. It would just be nice to be offered someone that was actually drafted instead of picked up off the waiver wire the day before.

This article originally appeared at www.fantasyjudgment.com as part of an ongoing diary series.

Fantasy League Commissioner Wanted

You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone. While Cinderella’s early 90’s power ballad may have made me queasy at the time, truer words were truly never spoken. I had no idea how lucky I was that my buddy from age five had been our fantasy football league commissioner for all these years. He was truly unbiased and thoughtful in every situation. Whether it was rule changes, votes for new members, or controversial trades, he always put the integrity of the league first. Over these last 15 years, I now realize I have taken him for granted. I never knew how much he improved my quality of life until I started venturing out into new leagues recently.

I feel like all three major sports leagues in the U.S. could take some notes from my old commissioner. Roger Goodell with the NFL has put himself front and center in all things and only cares about his own legacy. Bud Selig has made MLB an old buddy-buddy league that is full of underhanded dealings and biased rulings. David Stern walks around believing that he made the NBA a must see league, even though it was the league that Magic, Bird and Jordan made. I’m not talking about Gary Bettman because, well this isn’t Canada. Is it?

I have joined a bunch of different leagues the last few years and found the commissioners have closely resembled at least one of the big three. In one league, rules were changed after the draft that clearly benefited the commissioner and his cronies. His Bud Selig impression was not appreciated and I was quickly a one and done league champ. The worst situation was when I joined a dynasty fantasy football league that was clearly run by a Roger Goodell clone. Every correspondence was rank with arrogance. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when he traded for Jimmy Graham and Dez Bryant and gave up Eli Manning and Michael Turner. I died a little inside when I emailed the entire league to ask for some back up with my protests to this trade-rape, and found no backers. When I pressed one league member about why he didn’t protest the trade he said, “It wouldn’t matter if we protested, the commissioner has complete autonomy over the league and will beat down any challenges in the ranks.”

Situations and priorities change, and so does life. Three kids later, an ever growing workload, and free time that would only be envied by an indentured servant has made it impossible for me to take on the responsibility of being a league commissioner. I feel like I would be unbiased, fair, and decent, but alas I am not available for the job.

The ones that are available sadly don’t measure up. Think about it…who in their mid-thirties to early forties has time to run fantasy leagues? Single guys in their thirties or forties have the time, but do we really want them in charge? They are probably single for a reason. They have either never had their stuff together long enough to impress a mate or have been found wanting by the opposite sex (or same sex) when given the chance. Whether they lied, cheated, or stole none of these traits make for a good commissioner. Ideally, you want your commissioner to be like the dad from Growing Pains, not Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons (Worst Commissioner Ever).

My real frustration comes from the laziness that has permeated some of these leagues. Instead of having an honest commissioner make fair decisions on trades, I have been forced to deal with league votes. How can a league vote ever be fair to a team in a playoff position? It’s like having ten angry jurors deciding your fate. Teams ahead of you have the bias of not wanting you to catch them. Teams below you want to catch up to you and will not be happy if you strengthen your squad. Then there is the team you are playing that week that has the ultimate bias.

Recently I made a trade that had to be put to a league vote. The GM that I was playing that week told me he was voting against the trade solely out of spite. The trade would have given me a little more power and he didn’t want me to make up a disadvantage in homeruns that week. I had to sit on my hands and hope everyone made a fair and unbiased decision. It was gut-wrenching, but it eventually passed. (P.S. Chris Davis hit a two-run homerun on Sunday for me to tie in homeruns and give me the RBI category)

So if you are reading this and feel you are a man among men, please step up to the plate and be a league commissioner. Fantasy leagues need you, I need you, and more importantly, America needs you!

This article also appears at www.FantasyJudgment.com as part of a weekly series called Coach Esser’s Diary.

Don’t Drink The Sand

The perception of starting pitching depth on a fantasy baseball team is the same mirage that exists with respect to depth at running back in fantasy football leagues. You are always one pitch or one carry away from being in a bind. With pitchers, it could be age and frailty such as with Andy Pettitte and Jake Peavy. Or perhaps it is flawed mechanics that have caused your fantasy ace, Stephen Strasburg, to start drawing comparisons to Mark Prior. From forearm tightness to sore shoulders, fantasy GMs are constantly trying to avoid season-ending injuries to their starting pitchers. On the other hand, running backs are just a few fumbles or a lethal hit away from being relegated to the bench. The mere sight of your player on the week’s injury report will send many GM’s running to the waiver wire. In the end, GM’s who thought they had plenty of depth at the position realize how shallow their rosters really are.

Coming into this fantasy baseball season, the best advice I received was to grab as many quality starting pitchers as possible. Sure, draft the great position players early but make sure I stockpile as many arms as I could because you never know when injuries may occur. I heeded this advice throughout the season thus far and picked up additional quality starting pitching even though I thought I had sufficient depth at the position to start the year. I drafted Adam Wainwright, Max Scherzer, Jake Peavy, Brandon Morrow, Julio Teheran, Andy Pettitte, Jason Hammel, and Dan Haren. I quickly dropped Hammel and Haren for Shelby Miller and Justin Masterson. I then dropped Pettitte for Patrick Corbin as I didn’t want another injury prone starter in my rotation.

We all knew Peavy was eventually going to be on the disabled list…we just didn’t know when. Drafting Peavy was the equivalent of drafting Ryan Mathews or Darren McFadden in a fantasy football league. Doing either of these things requires you back them up with quality options. Peavy had been performing well up until his last two outings. I was relieved it was an injury (non-displaced rib fracture) and not ineffectiveness that caused his recent poor outings.

Well, the dreaded time has come for many fantasy owners including myself. While I lost Peavy to the DL, he was not alone. Johnny Cueto, Stephen Strasburg and Brendon Morrow were also placed on the disabled list. Morrow’s DL stint is a blessing after the way he has pitched. But for Cueto, he just recently came back and started to look like his old self. However, Strasburg is the one that scares me the most. He was likely drafted very high and was counted on to perform at an almost Verlander/Kershaw level. That hasn’t happened up to date and now he is injured again. I’m pretty sure GM’s are cursing at themselves watching Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki tearing it up while Strasburg is on the mend.

I am happy to roll out my rotation week after week and try and weather this injury storm. I am reluctant to trade my pitching because this is what can happen. I may think I’m six deep at quality starters, but I’m always one pitch, batted ball, or slip in the shower away from combing the waiver wire.

This article was originally featured at www.FantasyJudgment.com

A Reactionary Tale

Patience is the name of the game when waiting for a top draft pick to play up to their potential. While MLB teams try to boost their prospects’ confidence with long stays in hitter-friendly minor league destinations or playing them in low pressure situations in the big leagues, fantasy GM’s are not afforded such luxuries. We do not have the ability to drop our struggling draft picks in the batting order or send them to the minors to work it out (hey Ike Davis, I’m talking to you). We can only banish them to our bench and hope they eventually play themselves back into our good graces.

A lot of GMs are demonstrating the patience of a two year old while waiting for their players to get back on track. I have seen last year’s NL Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey actually come across the waiver wire in one of my leagues. While Dickey’s WHIP is not what it was with the Mets last year (1.31 vs. 1.05), his strikeout rate has been getting better over his last few starts. I think the adjustments to switching leagues, as well as early season injuries, have gotten Dickey off to his rocky start. Who knew knuckleballers could suffer minor injuries that affect their statistics? If Dickey can cut down on the walks and stay healthy he can make it back to the top of a fantasy rotation.

Julio Teheran was every experts’ pick to be the next big thing coming out of spring training. While Matt Harvey and Shelby Miller have performed like fantasy studs to start the year Teheran has slowly built up a little steam. He showed poor command and little fantasy value as he started the year cold. He started the year with a whimper as he shelled by the lowly Cubs. He was able to escape without a loss thanks to the Upton brothers and Carlos Marmol, but his next few starts were not much better. He has slowly worked his way back to fantasy relevance ever since. His 9.00 ERA has come down to 3.99 and his record is a respectable 3-1. His 5.4/9 K rate and 1.35 WHIP show that he is not yet a fantasy star as many predicted, but if his current form continues he could be a nice pitcher to have on your roster (especially when he faces the offensively-challenged Mets and Marlins within the division).

Whenever I look at a surprise name on the waiver-wire I am reminded of a fantasy football all time blunder in one of my fantasy football leagues. The year was 2001 and everyone and their mother were looking for the next Terrell Davis to take them to the championship. Priest Holmes had moved from the world champion Baltimore Ravens to the Kansas City Chiefs and looked like he could be a nice RB2 if he was given a chance. After week two of the NFL season Holmes had a combined 51 yards rushing with zero touchdowns. A very good friend jettisoned him to the waiver-wire and the rest is history. Holmes rushed for over 1,500 yards with 600 yards receiving to go along with ten touchdowns. He went from a waiver-wire refugee to a fantasy football stud.

I refuse to be the next guy to drop a future fantasy MVP before the season even heats up. I saw my friend desperately try to make up for his big mistake, eventually trading for Holmes a few years later just so he could put that miss-step behind him. I will place Josh Hamilton and B.J. Upton right where they belong, sitting next to each other on my bench while I weather the storm with the Jason Kubel’s and Dominic Brown’s of the world. Just because your guys go through a cold streak or are at the top of Yahoo’s most dropped charts doesn’t mean you have to panic. Just try to be patient and think of Priest Holmes running into the end zone for someone else’s team.

This article was originally posted at www.FantasyJudgment.com

Bad Trades = Cell Phone Voicemails (How to ignore and discourage both)

Is there anything more annoying than a terrible trade offer in one of your fantasy leagues? The only thing comparable would be voicemails on my cell phone. I avoid responding to both out of sheer principle.

One has become an epidemic since I last played fantasy baseball in the 1990’s. The other is a dinosaur that should be avoidable with all of the easier ways to say “hello” or to see how I am doing. Hasn’t anyone ever heard of even trades, email, text messages, Google chat, or even Facebook messenger?

Bad trade offers were much tougher to even attempt when everything was done face to face or over the phone. If someone offered me Edward Mujica for Troy Tulowitski in a bar, I could at least make them buy me a beer for having to listen to that nonsense. If they tried that over the phone, I could actually hang up and let them know how offended I was. But now sitting behind a keyboard, fantasy GMs have no conscience when sending out their offers.

I understand the impulse to ask for the ridiculous. You never know unless you ask. But the anonymity of the computer age has made leagues almost unbearable. A fellow GM offered me two waiver pick ups (who should still be on the waiver wire BTW) for my best starting pitcher. He then got offended when I didn’t answer back in a timely manner.

I’m sorry I didn’t know I was holding up his attempt at league domination by not responding to the crap currently in my inbox. I have even got the halfhearted messages explaining to me how this awful trade makes my team better. Really? A fourth closer for the number one fantasy shortstop is my ticket to a championship? Who knew? I guess all that work I do breaking down numbers and trying to make my team the best it can be is all for nothing. I should just have this guy put together my team and the league championship is all mine.

I could have instantly rejected the idiotic trade offer, but I chose to avoid it like the long-winded drunken catch-up voice mail from my old college buddy currently blinking away on my cell phone. I am keeping both for posterity. The next time I see someone from my league, I will whip open my phone and say “look at this!” Can you believe he actually tried that? Then we will try and one up each other with all the bad offer stories we have from our multiple leagues.

I guess it goes to show that there is a feeling out process when joining a new league. People don’t know each other all that well and feel like they need to try and see who the sucker is. I understand that we all have made terrible trades when we first started playing fantasy sports. Mine was trading Jerome Bettis for Reggie Rivers (the man who took over for Barry Sanders) when I was introduced to fantasy football. I have never forgiven myself and have never done business with that GM again. That was almost 15 years ago and it still stings like it was yesterday.

Luckily nowadays, newbies to fantasy sports are protected by league votes and impartial commissioners. If both are in cahoots, you can even go to an arbitrator to try and reach a resolution. I know if there was a problem in my league we would immediately go to fantasyjudgment.com and let someone outside of the situation rule on a league controversy.

You didn’t have that back in 1999. All you could do was complain to an uncaring bartender at your local watering hole and learn from your mistakes. I don’t know which I prefer; the old face to face handshake deals or the faceless emails. Both have their pro’s and con’s, but I think I miss sealing a trade over a nice tall Yuengling Lager.

The Challenge of Running Into Hot Fantasy Baseball Players

It appears that my luck (or lack thereof) has followed me from fantasy football into fantasy baseball. I feel I drafted a very solid team, but my early season results have been nothing to write home about. I drafted Ryan Braun with the third overall pick and he has been as good as advertised. Braun is a fantasy stud who can carry a fantasy team throughout the year. My infield is very solid with the likes of Adrian Gonzalez, Ian Kinsler and Evan Longoria. Besides Braun, my outfield consists of some late round gems such as Dexter Fowler and Starling Marte. My top starting pitchers are Adam Wainwright, Max Scherzer, and Jake Peavy. But my closers have been a mixed bag. Sergio Romo has been excellent thus far, but Joel Hanrahan seemingly has lost his closing duties to the reinvigorated Andrew Bailey in Boston.

While trying to figure out why my team was not dominating in the early going, I quickly found some players to blame. I missed the boat towards the end of the draft with selections such as Brandon Belt and Aaron Hicks who were quickly sacrificed to the waiver wire. In hindsight, I really regret picking Brandon Morrow over Jon Lester. I also rue the day of my gamble on Corey Hart’s injured knee and not targeting a solid right fielder earlier in the draft. Hart’s placement on the 60-day DL has forced me to play Adrian Gonzalez in right field and start one of my bench players (Todd Frazier and Matt Carpenter) at first base. I am losing significant power numbers when Carpenter is slotted at First Base as opposed to filling in at other positions periodically.

Before the draft, I targeted Paul Goldschmidt and Matt Moore but missed out on them by a pick or two. I have been scrambling to make up for missing out on both players ever since. That is probably why I reached for Belt and reluctantly took Brandon Morrow during the draft. I blame my poor time management for drafting Morrow, as I was down to the final five seconds on the draft clock.

Despite those shortcomings, I have made some quality early season pick-ups such as Jed Lowrie and Kyle Seager to partially offset those draft day mistakes. I even took a flier on Mark Teixeira who was dropped after the draft. Hopefully he does come back and can fill my all-important first base slot. He and Hart are stashed on my DL waiting to be utilized in June (fingers crossed). I also picked up Jose Valverde to fill the closer slot vacated by Hanrahan, and Shelby Miller to add some strike out power to my pitching staff.

Being honest with myself, I really cannot blame my team for some of my early season losses. Instead, I had the misfortune of playing against some players who produced extraordinary results. Two that come to mind are Carlos Gonzales who battered and abused the Mets, as well as Mike Napoli when he was doing his best Tony Conigliaro impression. I swear, the Green Monster is a magnet for that guy. I watched him rain double after double off that little league fence with the bases seemingly always loaded. Then incredibly, I was up against Anibal Sanchez last week when he decided to set a Tigers’ record of 17 strikeouts in one game.

Weeks like that reminded me of some fantasy football weeks your quarterback throws for 300 yards and 3 touchdowns in the early game, only to be outdone by Drew Brees and his videogame-like numbers later in the day. Or if Chris Johnson (that would be CJ2K of the Tennessee Titans and not the pasty third baseman on the Braves) finally breaks out for you with a 100-yard day and a touchdown only to be outscored by Adrian Peterson during one of his record-breaking romps. I guess I didn’t realize that this type of misfortune also applied in fantasy baseball.

However, running into a couple of hot teams and players during the early part of the season is not going to get me off my game. I am going to stick to my strategy of playing match-ups and making some shrewd moves on the waiver wire. I will not hit the panic button and make a bad trade just to just to get a shaky closer or retread first baseman. After all, the fantasy baseball season is long and my luck is bound to even out. Right? Right???

Fantasy Football 2012 Post Season Awards

After a long and grueling season, it is now time for Coach Dennis to hand out his awards for unique and completely fabricated categories.

The Least Sexy Pick of the Year

Winner: Marshawn Lynch (RB-SEA)

On draft day you would probably heard a lot of people say good pick as you put Marshawn’s name on the board. Not great, but good is the moral of this story. No one was super excited about drafting Lynch with an unknown commodity starting at QB in 2012. The smart GMs saw the late season matchups and knew the offense would run on Marshawn slipping into “Beast Mode” if the Seahawks were to reach their potential. Marshawn put up ten 100 yard rushing days and 12 total touchdowns during the season. His biggest games came at the most important times for fantasy GMs. Weeks 13 through 16 Lynch put up huge numbers carrying GMs into the playoffs, and onto the winners stand. Lynch averaged 109.75 yards rushing and 1.75 touchdowns during the most critical weeks of the year, earning him a Post Season award from yours truly, and a place in the hearts of Fantasy GMs around the country.

The Dennis Green “They are what we thought they were!” Award

Winner: Michael Turner (RB-ATL)

The entire world was ready for Michael Turner to fall off the list of must start running backs, and he did not disappoint. The talking heads on TV and even the guy at your draft that shows up with a draft guide printed in April all knew to stay away from this aging former fantasy stud. His decline in production was a perfect storm of factors for the Atlanta Falcons. The team was finally full of healthy weapons all over the field, and was moving more to a pass first offense, which did not bode well for the old war horse. The continued maturation of Jacquizz Rogers was just another nail into the coffin. While Turner did produce 11 combined touchdowns, he only totaled 800 yards rushing while only topping 20 carries once.

Same Team, Same Stats, Different Guy

Winner: Steven Ridley (RB-NE)

Stevan Ridley’s 1,263 rushing yards were well beyond Benjarvis Green-Ellis’s last few seasons in New England, but the 12 touchdowns was exactly what you could count on from the law-firm in his final two years in New England. Ridley was a steal as a top notch Running Back 2 in most leagues as he topped 100 yards four times and was the consistent goal line back piling up 12 touchdowns (when he was not in Belichek’s doghouse for fumbles). While he may not be Adrian Peterson, he is definitely the most talented back to feature for the Patriots since Corey Dillon.

Different Team, Same Stats, Same Guy

Winner: Peyton Manning (QB-DEN)

Peyton Manning was a steal in most drafts. He would have easily been the fourth or fifth quarterback taken if not for his career-threatening injury coupled with an address change to Denver. Manning was snapped up in the middle rounds in most drafts and threw 37 touchdowns, placing him third in the league while also eclipsing his totals during his previous two healthy years (2009-2010). He also threw for over 4,600 yards without breaking a sweat and seemingly getting better as the season progressed. Manning single-handedly made Demaryious Thomas and Eric Decker a dynamic receiving duo. Having these receivers and a solid running game, Manning’s renaissance is not a one-year wonder and he should return to the top of draft boards in 2013.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Darren McFadden

Winner: Darren McFadden (RB-OAK)

While fantasy owners constantly salivate over Darren McFadden’s potential and raw skills, he has proven again and again that he cannot hold up over the course of a season. This year proved no different as he missed four games due to constant foot and ankle injuries. Even when he was in the lineup, he had trouble adapting to a new zone read scheme. McFadden registered 700 yards rushing and just three touchdowns after being a late first or early second round pick. Two of his three 100 yard rushing days were against the Chiefs – enough said. I know there are a lot of you reading this cringing like a girlfriend constantly scorned, but I am willing to bet that you will probably draft him again next year based on potential.

Worst Deep Round Sleeper

Winner: Titus Young (WR-DET)

No matter where you looked, everyone and their mother were touting Lions wide receiver Titus Young, the second-year pro out of Boise State. I was almost swept up into the madness until I realized that he had more personal fouls during his rookie season than the entire New York Giants defense. Not exactly the calm, cool under pressure young receiver I wanted for my team, to say the least. With Calvin Johnson constantly seeing double coverage, Young was supposed to reap the rewards. Young was expected to almost double his 2011 stats of 600 yards and 6 touchdowns, but instead he cut that in half as he regressed into a banished draft bust. Young is the first receiver I have ever seen who purposely lined up in the wrong position, as well as ran the wrong routes in protest of how he was being used in the Lions’ offense. I believe everyone deserves a second chance, but I think his will come on the waiver wire both in the NFL and in fantasy leagues.

Most Valuable Surgeon

Winner: Dr. James Andrews

Dr. Andrews once again worked his magic as Adrian Peterson came back from a torn MCL and ACL to come within 9 yards of breaking the all-time single season rushing record. Peterson was only held in check by his own coaching staff as he was eased back into his workhorse role. He was a man amongst boys from Week 7 through Week 17 as he averaged 159.8 yards rushing and just over a touchdown per game. Peterson was nothing short of phenomenal as he carried many fantasy owners to the Promised Land.

(Honorable Mentions must go out to the surgeons for Jamaal Charles and Peyton Manning as they returned to their old selves sooner than anyone could have anticipated.)

The Curse of the Playoff Bye

Congratulations to everyone in fantasy land who have made it to the playoffs. A big gold star goes out to those of you who managed to get first round byes thanks to your successful regular seasons. While a week without fantasy football stress sounds like the perfect antidote to pressure endured over the last few weeks of the regular season, beware. A weekend of lounging comfortably and relaxing with your family while others are glued to their televisions, computers and smartphones can actually be your undoing.

Bye weeks for actual NFL players are spent on the golf course or catching up on long neglected household chores. Clean yards and gutters are fine and dandy for NFL players, but yard and gutters will remain a blight on my neighborhood until the league championship is mine.

While you occasionally glance at the scores and check the updates on Monday for injuries, your opponents will have the upper hand of firsthand knowledge. While you adjust your starters based on box scores and injury reports, your opponents will be using their eyes and ears to help them gain an advantage. The box score does not tell the entire story of a game. For instance, you would never know about a snowstorm in Buffalo or a torrential downpour in Miami by reading the stats. You might just be looking at the stats with blinders on, not realizing the starting quarterback was knocked out in the second quarter leading to your receiver having a terrible day.

John Skelton turning it over, again

I suggest you play the week. Pick your starters by doing your homework. Watch the games with a keen eye. Spend your weekend looking for trends such as Denarious Moore being benched again, or Steve Smith getting more targets with Brandon Lafell on the mend. Has Colin Kaepernick actually found a go-to receiver in Michael Crabtree? Does John Skelton throw the ball to Larry Fitzgerald constantly, or does he get hooked faster than I would while performing at the Apollo Theatre?

Injuries are a huge part of the sport and a huge obstacle for fantasy owners. If you have been playing musical chairs with your second running back, you may want to give the job to Montell Owings this week. His bruising style and fresh legs might just be the answer to your RB2 prayers. Danario Alexander is obviously the guy to start if you have injury concerns at receiver. I would have pushed for Cecil Shorts III to overtake any of your other WR2 options, but a concussion suffered against Buffalo has me, and everyone else who rode his hot streak into the playoffs, concerned. If I were the coach and GM in Jacksonville, I wouldn’t risk a possible superstar when we have nothing to play for.

Russell Wilson has been consistent enough to overtake Phillip Rivers, and quite possibly Eli Manning, as a starter for your fantasy team. I would ride him one more week if you have Ben Roethlisberger on your bench. I wouldn’t play him over Tony Romo, Cam Newton, or even Colin Kaepernick yet.

Good luck, and hit me up on Twitter @Coachesser for any start/sit questions you might have.