Challenge Contests — by Justin Eleff

I made two new player purchases last week, in two different games. Bought a receiver in each case, and I had more than plenty of salary room -- so why'd I buy one megastud and one cheapo?

I've written many times about my general approach(es) to playing each kind of challenge game. You know by now that I think WR is a good place to look for an extra cheapo, for instance; you even know I'm not wholly opposed to taking a zero, leaving a bye-week receiver active, if it means getting the right guys in at other positions. You'd probably gleaned before last week that I think playing the matchups is more important at QB and RB than WR ... but even if that hadn't been clear, last week I wrote this: "If there's one key position where you have to trust that luck will come your way in time, [WR] is it; matchups just don't work the same way here as at QB or RB."

You know me by now.

But sometimes I have the same decision to make twice, albeit in different contexts, and I make it in two ways that almost couldn't be more different.

Here's why.

The following attempts to reconstruct my thinking as I made the two moves. I really hope you'll find broadly applicable principles here rather than merely self-indulgent (or even narcissistic) rambling -- but, if not, note that I've offered to address any topics you guys want, and no one put in much of a request last week.

FOOTBALL CHALLENGE

A week ago my team in this game sat at 3rd-21st-241st. Weakest category remained rushing average, as we'd discussed previously, and Pierre Thomas had been my most recent addition to (begin to) fix that.

Some of my decisions for Week 8 were easy -- even too easy. When you own six QBs, you'd like to have more than three options among them. But with Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger and Carson Palmer all on their byes, the starters became Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Joe Flacco. Wasn't crazy about all of the matchups, but nothing was awful enough to get me to burn.

About burns specifically: I'd used seven of them to this point, one more than I would've liked. You have to get through all the byes, and that eats into your reserves, but by Week 8 I'm really only thinking about three things where number-of-purchases-remaining is concerned:

One, I have to hold at least a couple of purchases back in case of disaster. Never want to be out of luck if (for instance) two of my four kickers hurt themselves. So I absolutely will not, ever, let myself get down to zero purchases before about Week 13.

Two, with that said, I also don't want to use my purchases too late. If a team has holes to fix, and using a burn or two seems to be the way to fix them, I want to be sure to use those burns when I still have plenty of time left for fixing the holes. At the bottom of this column I'll give you one name I think MUST be on your Football Challenge teams beginning right now, Week 9. That guy's going to be everyone's salvation down the stretch, and you don't want to give him fewer weeks on your squad than he gets on other people's. Bottom line: When you know you have a hole, you want to fix it right then, like I said two weeks ago.

Three, if possible I want to hold two purchases back for Week 17. No doubt a real team or two will clinch everything including home-field early, and a few stars will get some extra rest, and that may make fielding a functional lineup impossible come the last week of the regular season. I've written about my Week 17 plan several times already; it's aspirational; looks like I'll be able to do it in other games, but the Football Challenge depends on how many of those held-in-case-of-disaster purchases have to be used eventually.

OK, so 3rd-21st-241st; biggest hole plugged (in part, I hope) by Pierre Thomas; QB starts not up to me; five burns left.

I also wrote last week that it didn't look like the time to make any purchases at RB, because the best matchups went to some lousy guys. Steve Slaton was active for me in my office league. I won anyway, but enough said about that. (Except for this, maybe: Peter, I'm glad I told you C.J. was a no-brainer, but sorry I agreed that Slaton was, too. And the tie breaks against me -- I told you to start Ronnie Brown ahead of Michael Turner. Mea culpa.)

So RB wasn't much different from QB as far as my Week 8 flexibility was concerned. I had more than six RBs not on byes, but not too many more. No Cedric Benson, and I knew I didn't want Knowshon Moreno at BAL or Ryan Grant (even at home) against MIN, so that was that. The other six RBs I own are Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson, Matt Forte, Pierre Thomas, Felix Jones and Ray Rice. Those were my six.

Decisions at TE and K were comparably easy; at TE I always start Antonio Gates and Brent Celek ahead of Greg Olsen, and at K I've generally used Ryan Longwell, Lawrence Tynes and Steven Hauschka ahead of Dan Carpenter.

Which left WR. Where much, though not quite all, hell was breaking loose.

Start with this: I only owned eight players at the position, and two of them -- Randy Moss and Chad Ochocinco -- were on byes. The other six were Greg Jennings, DeSean Jackson, Devin Hester, Mike Sims-Walker, Mario Manningham and his teammate Steve Smith. Kind of a ragtag bunch when you type all the names out together; preseason I had Jackson and Hester as automatic, Jennings and Then-Just-Walker on my radar, Manningham and Smith not even as afterthoughts but as non-thoughts. Maybe I have a predisposition to cheapen my WR corps as the season wears on, but usually that's with one guy like Sims-Walker. Not three such guys.

Two things I didn't like about just using my six non-bye receivers:

First, that would have left my total team salary at $28,520 for the week, lower by more than $500 than I'd ever had it -- and under the cap by more than Marques Colston's $1470 salary. That was the first thing that occurred to me: I like Colston OK, and really like him in potential shootout games, which Monday's Falcons-at-Saints tilt might prove to be.

(His line in that game, as it turned out: 6-for-85, 14.2 average, 1 TD.)

Second, Manningham had hurt himself in practice on Thursday. It wasn't clear what the extent of the injury was, and Manningham swore he'd play (as late as 11:00 AM on Sunday, he was playing), but you never know.

The choice here was to burn or take a likely one-way-or-the-other, he-sits-or-he's-limited zero from Manningham.

I decided to burn. And Colston was no longer in play, either, because I wasn't just $1480 under the cap; I was $1480 plus Manningham's $400 under the cap.

I was under by Reggie Wayne ($1840; eventual Week 8 numbers: 12-for-147, 12.3 average, 1 TD).

I was under by Roddy White ($1720; 4-for-108, 27.0, 1).

I was under by Vincent Jackson ($1590; 8-for-103, 12.9, 1).

I was also under by Andre Johnson ($1750; 6-for-63, 10.5, 0), but his bruised lung made me too nervous to consider him. Also, note that I was under by either Moss ($1760) or Ochocinco ($1440), and thus that this might go down as yet another burn attributed to the murderous reign of the bye weeks.

And the winner was?

Miles Austin ($770; 5-for-61, 12.2, 1).

Miles Austin?

Look, I'm not one of these reactionary idiots who believe that whatever they just saw will continue to happen indefinitely. I did buy Danilo Gallinari for my roto hoops team after one week of the NBA season -- but mostly because he's cheap, not because I expect a bazillion threes in every contest. I didn't, like some of my leaguemates, use five basketball burns this week. I like to think I'm playing these games at a higher level than that.

So forget Austin's two-game, 421-yard, 4-TD tear. Instead, remember what I wrote in the preseason (before eventually dismissing Austin):

Roy Williams was putrid in 2008, no two ways about it. He was putrid in DET, where Calvin Johnson posted huge numbers, and he was putrid in DAL in turn. He was so bad that it's possible the Cowboys' best WR (Jason Witten doesn't count) is Miles Austin, who's been little more than a fly-pattern specialist to this point in his career.

How has this played out? Williams is still putrid, Austin is now on the field (and indeed going deep), and Tony Romo remains a one-target-at-a-time QB -- and I mean one-target-at-a-length-of-time-that-may-last-the-rest-of-the-year. Why did T.O. love Romo in 2007? Why'd he hate Romo in 2008? Romo locks on to one guy. Austin is now that guy.

I didn't believe a few days ago and don't believe now that Austin will score every week. Didn't and don't believe he'll go over 150 yards in a game again.

I believe he'll give me the same thing I expect from a healthy Manningham: 4 catches a week at a very healthy average, and occasional TDs. Enough that I'll never regret having him, and when I pair him with a more expensive player at a different position I'll beat those who use other pairings.

That last bit is the very essence of these games. You own combinations of players. You win in pairs, men-against-men, not man-against-man.

Burning for Austin instead of Wayne or White or V.Jackson or Colston is the first of two moves I plan to use as my Football Challenge endgame. I know what the second one is, too -- again, see the bottom of this column.

But if we're talking strictly about my burn for Austin, here's how it went down: I figured I needed a receiver to put in for Manningham (he didn't play after all). I had lots of salary room but still went cheap, figuring I'd need one more guy to pair with Thomas to fix my rushing average, and owning the extra cheapo at WR would allow me to take on salary at RB in time. That, as much as anything, is why none of the stud receivers joined my squad this week.

If you're wondering, I didn't drop Manningham, but followed my own advice from a week ago and dropped the third TE instead. Out with Olsen; Gates and Celek are now locked in, and I'll only need a third TE if one of them hurts himself -- hence the purchases held in emergency reserve. Note also that Gates' salary is no problem with so many cheapos at WR. I still think Gates will make a real difference for me over the second half of the year; he would have already had Anthony Gonzalez's injury not made an uberstud of Dallas Clark.

So ... how'd it work?

Too early to say for sure, of course, but 3rd-21st-241st is now 2nd-8th-127th. The teams ahead of me in league and division ought to be at least a little nervous.

$50,000 FANTASY FOOTBALL

Much less to say here -- good thing, lest the Internet run out of room -- as I've been much higher in the standings in this game. I'm running away with my league, and lately I've been bouncing between 8th and 12th overall.

Coming into Week 8 I had half of my purchases remaining, but I'll rarely eat a bye in a points game, so one burn was inevitable. I only had seven receivers, and that included Moss and Ochocinco -- both down for the week.

The salary cap here is $60,000, and the lineup I wanted came to less than $55,000 before my TBD receiver, so everyone in the league was comfortably in play. Larry Fitzgerald ($4230) is the game's highest-priced receiver. That's exactly who I wound up burning for.

Why Fitz?

This process was a lot simpler. I'm high enough in the standings that I'm not worried about any deficiency in my own team -- just looking to leapfrog the ones ahead of me. Also, I'm not having any trouble with the salary cap most weeks. I own four useful QBs with roughly the same middling salary -- Aaron Rodgers ($3750), Matt Ryan ($3510), Joe Flacco ($3460) and Matt Schaub ($3440) -- and playing the matchups with those four while spending nothing on defenses has allowed me to own almost everyone I wanted elsewhere.

A note on defenses: I keep saying defensive points are basically randomly distributed, and I know some of you still don't believe me. OK, but Arizona has been awesome against the run this year, and Sunday they were home against a team that continues to start Jake Delhomme at quarterback. 44 carries, 270 yards (6.1 per carry) and 2 rushing TDs later, ARZ had 0 defensive points for Week 8. Delhomme was 7-of-14 for 90 yards passing.

Going out of your way to own any defense, in any matchup, is just dumb.

OK, so 1st in league; in the hunt overall; no real holes; six burns left.

I bought Fitzgerald for three reasons:

One, he hadn't yet been the monster we all expect. That's true through Week 8, too -- as of today his pace is for 1,163 yards and 11 TDs. I thought, and still very much think, better is coming.

Two, his team didn't strike me as likely to clinch anything early. I suppose it's possible that they'll wrap up the division before Week 17, but it may be just as likely that they miss the playoffs altogether. On Friday I saw at CHI (Week 9), at TEN (Week 12), vs. MIN (Week 13), at SF (Week 14) and vs. GB (Week 17) as tough matchups for this team, and you add in the sense that the Cards' D had been playing over its collective head -- remember, this is before they got killed by the Panthers -- I dunno; 10-6 looked like their best possible record.

Three -- and this was most important to me -- the team on top of the overall standings didn't own Fitz. Every other team was within spitting distance, but one had started to pull away. That team had more purchases remaining than I did, and it was a good number of points up -- I needed to set my roster apart somehow. One good place to do that was at WR, where we both owned Moss, V.Jackson, D.Jackson, Sims-Walker and Smith, and he had A.Johnson, Colston and Santonio Holmes to my Jennings, Ochocinco and TBD.

Add Fitz and I'll take my chances at the position. Now I have to beat him elsewhere.

How'd it work?

Fitz was just OK, but I'm back up to 4th overall, almost exactly 80 points back. He has 7 burns left; I have 5. No doubt he's the favorite, but I promise to be a dogged underdog.

One player we'll both be using, and you should too, in every game that exists:

Remember how I left all of the Falcons off of most of my rosters because they had tough matchups before an early bye? And I said I'd certainly buy some of them eventually?

Didn't want Michael Turner on Monday night, because road teams down big in the second half don't run, and I thought the game might go that way. It almost did, but even so his first half was huge.

And now?

The following is Atlanta's remaining schedule. If I never do anything else for you, this should be enough:

Week 9 -- vs. WAS (118.6 rushing yards allowed per game; 22nd in the NFL)
Week 10 -- at CAR (127.6; 24th)
Week 11 -- at NYG (113.1; 19th)
Week 12 -- vs. TB (162.4; 30th)
Week 13 -- vs. PHI (103.1; 12th)
Week 14 -- vs. NO (102.1; 11th)
Week 15 -- at NYJ (108.1; 14th)
Week 16 -- vs. BUF (174.1; 32nd)
Week 17 -- at TB (again: 162.4; 30th)

That's nine games without facing a top-10 rushing D, and the worst matchup, at least statistically, is the rematch against the Saints. Which comes at home. After Turner went 20-for-151 (7.6 average) with a TD in the Big Easy.

If you don't own him yet, burn right now.

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