TDCumm1608

According to the unwritten rules of coaching the winning team will pull their starters after the losing team does. In reality, both teams probably end up slowly substituting more of their reserves into the game at various positions, but if the losing team makes a mass substitution the winning team will surely follow suit. I didn't watch the NE/WASH game today, but I'd find it hard to believe NE kept their starters in if WASH pulled their first team. It is ultimately up to the losing team to decide when the game is over and the reserves take the field.

7 points from Nick Folk for the win!! C'mon field goals!

Haha. Another disgruntled Fast Willie owner here as well. The guy is at least 3rd in the NFL in rushing now averaging over 100 yards per game and has just 1 touchdown. Seriously, not 1 per game, 1 for the entire season. He is coming off a season in which he had 16 total TDs, who would have seen this coming?

Why does everyone think Griese is more of a possession QB than other quarterbacks in the league? His career completion % and yards per attempt is in line with Brady, McNabb, Brees, Favre, Hasselback, Delhomme, etc. The only QBs with significantly higher yds/att are Manning, Palmer, and Romo. I'm not saying he is going to sling it all over the field, but I think to claim only TEs or possession WRs will benefit may be buying into the older veteran stereotype a bit too much. Probably the primary thing to be concerned about is that he hasn't seen significant time on the field in a few years. Against Detroit this week I think Berrian has a very good opportunity for a good game.

I ran into the Donnovan McNabb, Anquan Boldin, TJ Houz, and Ronnie Brown week 3 buzzsaw. I need Drew Brees to score 80 fantasy points to avoid my first loss. So I guess I technically need a game along the lines of 500 yards passing, 60 yards rushing, 8 passing TDs, and a rushing TD. Probably just cashing it in and focusing on next week...

I started Pollard last week on my team and needless to say was disappointed by his goose egg. Any Seattle fans (or people who watched the game) have any thoughts on Pollard's lack of production? Did he even get many looks? He should have a good matchup this week vs. Cincy, but I'm not sure if I can count on him to get the looks.

I was recently in discussions with a few of my league members about the best time to have the draft and wanted to get this board's thoughts on the topic. In our league we have never put much thought into this topic before and have typically just found a date/time that worked for all members - we've usually ended up drafting about the 3rd or 4th week of the preseason. I feel this is more of preference issue, rather than a question with a clear right or wrong answer. I could see an argument being made for drafting before the preseason starts and using this time to make moves as roster changes, depth chart movements, injuries, etc. come to light. I could also understand if others prefer to hold the draft following the fifth preseason game at which time information about most teams and players should be pretty transparent. I guess ultimately at some point you just draft, make the best decisions you can with the information available, and adjust accordingly to new information. So, does your league have a specific date you hold your draft? If so what is your reasoning? I'd like to get your thoughts Thanks, TDC

In my league we do not count special teams TDs as defensive points (apparently we are in the minority) so I can't say that I've thought a whole lot about the return games of these teams - under our scoring rules Baltimore finished last season as the #32 producer and Chicago as the # 72. On the other hand, I should note that the #'s I pulled above included special team's touchdowns in the rankings (they were pulled from thehuddle.com's statistics section) - and it appears Baltimore and Chicago both finished around #40 according to the scoring system used for thehuddle's stats. I definitely see the point you guys are making about not being able to predict which defense will perform well in any particular season. If we knew for certain which defense would perform, under most scoring systems, the top couple defenses are a value selection late in the 6th round of a 12 person league. However, as history has shown, it is tough to make this prediction... I guess I just feel that both Chicago and Baltimore have a decent enough chance of repeating last season's success to make this risk worth it. If I had to pick 1, I'd go with Chicago because I believe there is a better chance they will repeat their 6 TD performance from the ST versus BAL getting 6 tds from their defense again... To your original question, Fox Sports is reporting that BJ Sams and/or rookie Yamon Figurs (WR - KSU) will be returning kicks for BALT this year (http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/4809684?CMP=OTC-K9B140813162&ATT=5). I could possibly be the one of the biggest Hester fans on the board, so in my mind, Hester is on another level from an other returner in the league (a huge homer pick there). Just from comparing defensive results from the 2 scoring systems - when special teams TDs are included BALT and CHI were virtually identical, but when ST are removed BALT finished almost 40 spots ahead in total fantasy production. This definitely makes the point that a strong special teams unit can be a bigger factor than a good defense when attempting to rank a combined D/ST unit.

Detlef - I pulled the fantasy results for defenses from 02-06 - I could not find any historical pre-season rankings so my analysis was based strictly on how the previous year's performance predicted the coming season. Of course, there are many factors which affect a team's performance from year to year which aren't captured within the #'s, so take it FWIW. Historical results show that it is very tough to predict a defenses' fantasy performance based upon the previous year. Looking at the top 3 Defenses- 2003: The top 3 defenses from '02 finished the year ranked 14, 16, and 15th (TB, Philly, GB) 2004: The top 3 defenses from '03 finished the year ranked 2, 3, and 30 (Balt, NE, STL) 2005: The top 3 defenses from '04 finished the year ranked 19, 21, and 30 (Buf, Balt, NE) 2006: The top 3 defenses from '05 finished the year ranked 26, 1, and 23 (Car, Chi, NYG) Looking at the top 10 Defenses- 2003: 2 top 10 defenses from '02 repeated in the top 10 2004: 3 top 10 defenses from '03 repeated in the top 10 2005: 5 top 10 defenses from '04 repeated in the top 10 2006: 2 top 10 defenses from '05 repeated in the top 10 Despite that the numbers tell me the chances are low - I still feel that Chicago and Baltimore are good value picks in the 6th round, anything beyond that is probably a crap-shoot in my book.

Thanks for looking that up... I have historically put little value on a defense unless they are a "lock" - this year, I feel Chicago and Baltimore with the possibility of SD may be "locks" (every week starters). In the past I have usually followed the strategy to claim a defense off waivers every week looking for matchups versus a weak, turn-over prone offense. In my leagues I have found that most teams keep just 1 defense on the roster, usually leaving the opportunity to grab a defense with a good matchup. I personally would not recommend drafting more than the top 3 defenses before the late rounds of the draft - I'd agree anything beyond that is a crap-shoot. I'd be interested to see how the so-called "locks" (top 2 or 3 projected D's) have performed from year-to-year.

That is an interesting study - I might have to look into it further. Based upon a standard non-ppr scoring system the top few defenses should finish in the mid 50's to early 60's in total fantasy points scored for the year. If you were satisfied with what you had assuming 2 RBs, QB, 2WR (or WR/TE) - I believe one of the top few defenses is not out of reach during round 6. This is of course assuming you can accurately predict those top defenses which, as Detlef pointed out, may not be as easy as initially thought. Still, I feel you get much more value from Baltimore and/or Chicago here than you can likely get from a #3 WR, #3 RB, or non top-tier TE. Detlef - If I have some time today, I am going to look into defenses year-to-year performances... should be interesting.

10 person, non ppr, all td's 6 pts, everything else standard... A buddy picked Steve Smith with the #10 selection - I thought that edged out Vinatieri at the 8.03 selection

This particular league was not ppr and beyond that everything was standard. I made my selection at #5. LT, Jackson, Gore, and LJ were off the board. I did most of my research on Addai, Parker, Westbrook, and Alexander for this selection. I ended up going with Parker, but had Addai ranked just below followed by Alexander. As I said I am conservative, so I really liked that Parker (and Addai) were young and did not have the history with injuries that Alexander and Westbrook did. Honestly, you probably can't really go wrong with any of these backs (barring injury), I simply was hoping to reduce my chance of a first round bust and didn't feel I was losing much, if any, upside by selecting Parker.

I agree with your points - there are many ways to look at the situation. I wasn't aware of James' poor conversion rate on the goal-line (in fact off the top of my head I couldn't say what a good conversion rate is). I attributed James' comparatively low TD numbers versus his yardage totals to Manning's willingness to throw the ball on the goal-line versus the average QB. Manning leads the NFL over the last 3 seasons in red zone (not sure if there are readily available #'s on goal-line passing stats) pass attempts, completions, yards, and TDs - of course much of this could just be because the Colts had a great offense and found the red-zone more often, but you can't totally discount the Colts ability to throw the ball near the goal-line. My reference to Parker being a safer pick than Addai was only based upon extrapolating their past performance to this season's results. Essentially I need to make a much more aggressive projection with Addai (compared to past results) versus a conservative estimate for Parker to put them on an equal level. Of course as you pointed out this is only part of the picture - I'll be actively watching how the Addai/Parker results pan out over the season, and can only hope my thinking led me to the right choice...

haha... I make no guarantees on results, but given the information we have now I was just questioning how close Addai and Parker actually are. Yes, Addai might end up equal or slightly better than FWP if he has a knockout season, but with your first round selection is the added risk of selecting Addai worth the small marginal upside he may have over Parker? I decided no, but I am a conservative person. I also believe one of the primary mistakes people make is getting caught up in the hype of a player versus what can be realistically expected.