mroban

I am not giving up on him but I have in my keeper/auction league and bought him for $18 whereas I could have kept Jimmy Graham for $10. What I should have done is kept Graham and bought Finley as well - we play with a WR/TE flex. So if both panned out I could have had the high class problem of playing them both every week. Good news is that my team is still pretty darn good: Romo (Hasselbeck) McFadden, Bradshaw (Sproles key backup) Megatron, Bowe, Steve Smith (CAR) (Santana Moss key backup) Finley (Gresham). still not too shabby

Bush played a lot today mostly when the game was a bit out of reach for the Raiders. I think the Raiders wanted to try and control the clock early so they had planned to use a lot of Bush but Bush also played a great deal when the Raiders were chasing the game. Curious strategy against the Patriots taking your best player out of the equation for huge chunks of the game. I really dont get it. the only other explanation is that they were being really cautious with McFadden this week and didnt want to overwork him because of the groin. He looked good running and never took himself out of the game. That would be my guess. He still put up decent numbers but the whole Bush thing is annoying.

shouldnt that be scored a fumble by Cadillac? yes, I am playing against him.

Cobb would be awesome for best ball leagues. Next year I am going to play in one of those. I would have drafted him, Julio Jones and Antonio Brown in every one of them. But we do have to remember he only caught 2 passes. Of course every time he touches the ball he looks like he is going to take it to the house...damn he was fun to watch. Warmup for Julio Jones...

As much as everyone loves Woodhead (and he is a huge fan favorite) neither BJGE nor Woodhead are exactly gamebreakers. Both hardworking over achievers. I agree BJGE is going to have a good year and hard to see him giving up his role just yet. But Vereen is a totally different type back. I guess we will see. BJGE is very underrated right now and Vereen is the guy with the upside (who could easily do nothing this year). Seems we are all pretty much on the same page here. I still think if Vereen is "getting it" he usurps Woodhead's role at a certain point and takes carries away from Law Firm too.

Since this is Belichick land, who knows how things will shake out, but here is how I see things: 1. Redraft Leagues: Law Firm still has the most value. He and Ridley play the same role essentially - big pile mover. Only Ridley probably is more talented. But for this year, Law Firm probably keeps the job and Ridley becomes next years Thunder guy. Vereen probably is a bit more interesting in redraft PPR leagues because he is wayyyyyy more talented than Woodhead (as much as we all love the little guy) and Faulk is past it. If Vereen is healthy and catches on, I see him getting alot of third down work eventually and certainly will be a change of pace guy. Vereen is easily the most explosive back they have on the roster and something the Pats are sorely missing. Vereen was a 2nd round pick because he is "undersized" but they said that about Maurice Jones Drew too. Nobody is going to be a bell cow here and there are sure to be lots of guess work every week. But gut feeling says you cant keep Vereen out of the lineup if healthy and up to speed on the offense and blocking schemes. 2. Keeper Leagues: In PPR leagues, I dont see how Vereen isnt the future in NE (unless of course he ends up being a bust, but I am talking about talent here and assuming Ridley and Vereen end up playing at least as well as their draft positions or exceeding). But Ridley probably at some point whether this year or early next moves past BJGE and we will see a Jacobs/Bradshaw type work share in NE giving both of them value but neither of them top 10 back type status. In a PPR I can see Vereen being a top 15 Bradshaw type guy and Ridley being a Brandon Jacobs type RB3 or RB2. Vereen is simply a very explosive type player who will thrive in a passing offense like the Pats. He can get deep too (watch his YouTube highlights to see how Cal utilized him) and you can see why the Pats took him in the 2nd round. Given the lack of explosiveness in the Pats backfield, Vereen is my bet to emerge this year as having the most value simply because he is the only game changer they have back there. Ridley will be battling Law Firm for the role of pile mover/short yardage guy while Vereen only has to battle Woodhead and Faulk for the role of change of pace/3rd down back and neither of those guys were ever considered game breaking talents. Vereen potentially is. Just my two cents in looking at that picture. Vereen probably doesnt do anything for the first 4-5 games but I can see him this season being a 7-10 carry 3-4 reception guy who pops a few big plays. Tough to plug a guy in to your lineup like that, but if Law Firm goes down with an injury that total could easily go up a great deal. Or Vereen could be as good as I think he is and by mid season be a guy that is hard to take off the field. I wouldnt be that high on a guy like Vereen in a lesser offense, but behind the Pats offensive line with that passing guy, his skills are tailor made to put up numbers and he could easily end up being the 2nd best rookie fantasy back behind Mark Ingram this season - or maybe even better. I am decidedly NOT a Pats fan though so Pats fans let me know if I am on glue or not. Either way, i picked him up for a buck with the last pick in my keeper/auction league and if I am wrong I am wrong. Not pinning my championship hopes on the guy.

Yeah that was always fun and for alot of the guys in the league the only time we would actually be together in the same room. We had laughs, beer, pizza. Made a whole night of it. Great times. But the upside is that we never could have kept the league together without an online capability. As we have gotten older, gotten married, kids, divorced, busy jobs, moving around the country, etc. the online capability is a godsend for fantasy players. Sure it isnt the same, but for us the alternative would have been no league at all. So thank you MFL

Makes sense to use your only playmaker as a decoy against an abysmal secondary.

Bye bye me. Thanks Skelton.

Is skelton even looking at Fitzgerald?

Is Larry playing? What the...

Well Swammi, I dont have a fancy "experts" title, so I guess I am just sniffing glue. As for the character stuff, the purpose of this thread was to stick to football. Whatever anyone feels about Michael Vick (and again, I am not a fan to say the least of his personal choices) if we had to choose football players to cheer for based on high character, we would probably be shocked to find we had a fairly small pool of athletes to choose from. As much as Vick deserved to go to jail there are NFL players that routinely are cited for a range of reprehensible behavior from DUIs to domestic violence and yet we pray they make it on the field next week so our fantasy teams dont suffer. Lets call it what it is - we love our fantasy teams and are willing to give players a pass on the personal stuff. Its fine, we all do it. Doesnt mean it is right. And it doesnt mean we are bad people because we want to win at fantasy football. Personally, I would rather know less about the players and just watch them play football. So Ill just stick for the purposes of this thread to hating Vick for all the reasons I listed when I started the thread. And Ill stick to my opinion that he will be touted as a #1 pick in most scoring formats next year. As Swammi said, he is single handedly winning championships for fantasy teams this year. He is like drafting a top QB and a RB2/3 to go with him. Yes, he is the fantasy MVP this season. I will say this though - defenses particularly those in the NFC East, will be spending the off season preparing for Vick. He will have a huge target on his back and I am not sure that he will make it through a whole season either next year. I wouldnt draft him number 1 myself but that also means whether or not I have the chance I will still be playing against him, not with him. So Michael Vick, you are my fantasy football enemy.

Which part did I imply that killing dogs is not a problem with me? I just started a "I hate Michael Vick" thread. I find the man to be repulsive. My point though is that I am only commenting on hating him for football reasons not personal reasons (which I already despise him for). I have no idea where you could have implied otherwise here. And I guess for Turf Smurf some remedial math - 1/12th of all fantasy players have Vick on their roster and likely dont feel Vick is the enemy. The other 11/12th of us do. Get a sense of humor dude and lighten up. this is fantasy football not church.

Ursa, its a "high stakes" online league (like WCOFF only this is through AFFL). You play in a regular 12 team re-draft but the regular season ends in week 11. The top 2 teams in each league advance to the championship round (there is a playoff in week 12 to determine the league champion and you win money for that too). In the championship round, all the advancing teams play against each other (150 teams). So yes, once you get to the championship round there are players on multiple teams. in fact, if you made it that far most likely you have some combination of Michael Vick, Arian Foster etc. You start the championship round with a total that is the average of your week 1-11 score. So if you did really well, you have a nice head start. I started in 6th place and was up to 2nd after last week (thank you McFadden) but I dont have Vick (my team is below). Basically if I dont win this thing, Vick and Gates are responsible With a healthy Gates I probably win this thing hands down. Just a bummer because who knows when i will ever get another chance to get to this point again. This is the first time I have ever made the championship round in one of these and I had a really good shot to win it all. Damn Vick!!!!! At least I dont have to feel dirty winning with him (heck, I wouldnt apologize though).

So yesterday I got "Vicked" in the 2nd to last week of a high stakes league. I was in 2nd place and now have dropped to 8th going into week 16 thanks to Michael Vick's absurd 4th quarter. Everyone ahead of me has Michael Vick. So basically, Vick is the bane of my existence in fantasy football right now. Right now, he will likely be the consensus number 1 pick in most fantasy football re-drafts next year and will be the "must have" guy next season. I play in a keeper league and 2 online high stakes redraft leagues. Since I have never in my life ever gotten the first pick in the draft (in fact, the highest pick I have ever had in a redraft is 5. In the keeper league, Vick was picked up for a reasonable price and is likely to be a keeper for the rest of his career (as long as he continues to be Superman thats for sure, and if not then who cares anyway). So basically Vick is now my enemy for the foreseeable future (at least next week and next season). Oh yeah, and he kills dogs. Plenty of reason to hate. Of course, at least 1/12th of us may feel otherwise after this weekend.