Ian Allan answers your fantasy football questions. In this edition. When is it time to starting "mailing it in" in a fantasy league? When will the Cowboys dust off Christine Michael? Finding the best values in one-day games. And whatever happened to Brian Quick?
Question 1
So a friend and I were discussing an etiquette question that came up for me last year. I had a team that started 1-6 or 1-5 (injuries and too much faith in Montee ball will do that). Once I was basically eliminated from the playoffs, I still presented a valid lineup (adjusted for injuries and bye weeks), but I discontinued using the waiver wire at that point allowing the other teams to grab the key guys filling for injuries and other hot commodities. I would only add players after waivers and then only to ensure I presented a lineup full of people who would actually play. With such a poor record, I had a high waiver priority and could have affected the playoff race, but it didn't feel right to me to do so. This was an unfamiliar position for me, and I was a little conflicted on how to act. I thought I'd throw it out to you and your readers. Is there a right or a wrong answer here?
Jon Rodningen (La Vista, NE)
I believe the correct moral course is to continue to go all out. You had the highest waiver priority, so it was your obligation (I believe) to claim those best players when they were available. Suppose, for example, that “Cameron Jordan Isn’t Jordan Cameron” had an 8-1 record. It was worried most about “Checking It Down With Alex Smith”, sitting at 6-3. If Jamaal Charles blows out his knee, making Knile Davis the coveted free agent, you could be altering the result of your league by intentionally looking the other way. That might allow Davis to land on the Checking It Down With Alex Smith franchise. Or maybe one of those teams defeats you only because you didn’t claim Davis. I don’t think you want to get involved in that. Plus I just like to win games. “You play to win the game.” Isn’t that what Herman Edwards once said.
Question 2
Do you think Christine Michael is worth a roster spot versus a handcuff (i.e. Karlos Williams, Khiry Robinson, etc). The Cowboys backfield is already crowded, but when he gets his shot, could be the potential bell cow.
Darrell Sooy (West Chester, PA)
I think Michael is worth a roster spot. I hope he is. He’s the last or next-to-last guy on my Lewiston Cattle Prods roster right now. Robinson doesn’t have much upside, so I don’t think he’s really in the mix – not unless we were talking about a player who must be in your fantasy lineup this week. Williams is off to a nice start in Buffalo. He’s a big, fast guy, and it looked like they didn’t want to tackle him on opening day. He had 6 carries for 55 yards against the Colts, with that nice touchdown, and he got a short-yardage score against the Patriots. If LeSean McCoy gets hurt, I think Williams would be pretty good there. So for now, I would rank these guys Williams-Michael-Robinson.
Question 3
I use your products every week to help me identify the best weekly values ($$$ per point) for my FanDuel lineups. When I download the Fan Duel player salaries each week, they list the players in Excel by first name as one column, and their last night is a separate column. You post your weekly stats by combining their first and last name into a single column. Would you be able and willing to bite the bullet for one week to list them separately and update your spreadsheets from there? It would make it a lot easier for us to match your Fantasy Index weekly projections to the salary values for those of us who play weekly games like FanDuel and Draft Kings?
Andrew Napoli (Springfield, VA)
This is the first I have heard of this issue. Are both Fan Duel and Draft Kings listing players this way? We might be able to make some adjustments on our end. Let me make some calls. But for this week, please use the “concatenate” function in Excel. That feature allows you to merge two cells into one in that spreadsheet. That is, if “Tom Brady” is represented as “Tom” in cell A1 and “Brady” in cell A2, please write in cell A3, ‘=concatenate(A1,“ “,A2)’ and you’ll get “Tom Brady” in A3. There’s some quote marks in the middle of that formula. That’s to add the space between Tom and Brady. You would need to do that for all players, of course, then use the “paste special” to change them from a fluid calculation to simply hard data. Then you could match up their dollar figures to our stat projections to see which players grade out as the best values. If you have problems flipping this around, send me an Excel file with the contest values and I’ll merge them with our stat projections.
Question 4
Some daily fantasy sports thoughts/questions. It is obviously on fire. You have fantastic insight each and every week. For example, from week one, you were higher on Benny Cunningham than most. His DK salary was the minimum of 3K for rbs. He ended up producing pretty much 6X his salary. I was able to make some strong lineups by using him paired with multiple studs and had a great DFS week. We can continue to apply this info to some DFS strategy but it would be great to get a DFS opinion tied in to some of the weekly capsules. Understand your time is stretched thin, so has the index looked at expanding at all to bring value to this segment of the market. Is it at least possible to get Draft Kings salaries on the excel spreadsheet with the projections?
WILL SAYRE (Sacramento, CA)
This is new to me. I haven’t been playing the one-day fantasy contests. I prefer the season-long saga, with rosters and about a dozen “franchises”. But now I’m getting two of these one-day fantasy letters in the same Mailbag. Maybe it’s a deal where I should take a half hour on Friday and blend the dollar figures from these games and then cross match them with our weekly projections, identifying which players represent the best relative values in those games.
Question 5
I drafted Quick knowing he was coming off an injury, but all signs during preseason looked promising. Now I see he has been a "healthy scratch". Is this just a matter of time, or is something else going on?
mark meyer ()
They seem to have soured on him. He’s healthy, but he’s not playing. I think they want to go with Kenny Britt and Tavon Austin for now. And Quick hasn’t even been a backup for them. They’ve got Chris Givens, who strictly runs deep routes (he had a couple of long touchdowns in the preseason), and they’ve got Stedman Bailey. There’s also very little upside. That is, if they change course and stick Quick in the starting lineup, it’s not as if you’re suddenly going to be sitting on a solid gold toilet seat. I would guess there are probably at least 20 guys sitting on your waiver wire that I’d rather have than Quick. You cut your losses and move on.
Question 6
Ian, I am in a quandry! I am in two leagues (both pretty much straight up TD Only) and I have Drew Brees in both leagues. Even if this shoulder injury is not rotator cuff related, it certainly could linger on a 36-year-old QB. Not too many choices left in either of my leagues but IF I cut him they would be Tyrod Taylor, Ryan Mallett or Marcus Mariota (after week 4 for Mariota). Quandry is should I dump Brees now? Or Keep him one more week so see he how he responds to treatment? Thanks! John.
John Randolph (Eagan, MN)
Do you have to cut him? Does the league not have backup spots? I would want to bring in another quarterback who can start – Taylor or Mariota but definitely not Mallett – give Brees a little time to maybe come around. Brees probably isn’t even playing this week. I wouldn’t be willing to keep an inactive Brees over Taylor or Mariota for Week 3, intentionally taking a zero in the hopes he’ll be really good later.
Question 7
What's your projection for Antonio Gates when he returns? Has Green done well enough to cut in to his playing time? Do you think Julius Thomas or Gates has more value the rest of the season?
JOHN RUPPE (Fort Myers, FL)
I’ll go Gates over Thomas. Gates and Rivers have a nice rapport inside the red zone. I don’t see Green cutting into that, and Thomas-Bortles aren’t on that level yet.
Question 8
I need a tight end to replace Dwayne Allen. I'm wondering why do you have Crockett Gilmore #20 on the redraft list. He is the #1 scoring FA TE in my league and #5 overall so far this year? What am I missing?
mike cavanaugh (Yakima, WA)
He’s not playing the Raiders every week. I think Gillmore is fine. He’s got a chance to maybe be a top-10 tight end. But he’s not a lock. I notice that they’re other tight end, Maxx Williams, is also playing a lot. They’ve got Breshad Perriman coming back. I just don’t see Gillmore as a featured cog who will be catching 5-6 passes every week.
Question 9
Hi Ian, first, thanks for all of your advise over the years. Been winning my leagues since 2009 with the exception of a 2nd place finish (by 2.5 pts!) in 2013, so you guys definitely know your stuff. Now to my question. Of course, I had Eddie Lacy. Losing a top draft pick (even for a few weeks) is gonna hurt but I'm hoping to get a jump on the waiver wire. Going off of the last redrafter I have the following available: G. Bernard, I. Crowell, and James Starks. Do I go for the a Handcuff or do one the others have a better future? My other backs are Doug Martin, Chris Ivory and Latavius Murray. Given it's probably only a few weeks with the x-rays coming back negative, should I sit pat and not bother? I've been steaming defenses but have two at the moment and will probably drop TEN (over GB) for the new pick up.
Michael Hess (Centennial, CO)
I’m of the school of thought that when you have one of the great backs, you must also carry the handcuff. Guys like Knile Davis, James Starks, Ryan Mathews and DeAngelo Williams must be on rosters. Starks is a need item for your. That said, I also think Crowell and Murray look like very good fantasy prospects this week for that anticipated Browns-Raiders tilt in Cleveland.
Question 10
Long-time reader here, been reading and subscribing to all your weekly updates since 2001. I was a bit underwhelmed by the weekly matchups breakdown the last few weeks. I am not seeing as much in-depth analysis on specific matchups as in the past. I picked up Marvin Jones last night and was hoping to see who he'll be matched up against on Sunday. Will Jimmy Smith be on AJ? Will that leave Jones with more looks? In the past the weekly column has had so much useful info but I was highly disappointed this week and last. The same goes for most players, I haven’t seen much actual breakdown of matchups. I will still be reading next week and hope to see a bit more than I have the last two.
Sean Chen-haider (Portland, OR)
It’s not my intention to give less analysis. I appreciate the feedback. One thing that will help as we go along is that we’ll have more data to work with. That is, for each defese, we can see where production is being allowed. Some stuff jumps out as being pretty obvious. After the way Tyler Eifert ripped up the Raiders, for example, it was pretty clear Crockett Gillmore had some value against that defense. As more weeks go by, we’ll be able to better identify those kind of weak spots in the various defenses. We’ll also be better able to identify which cornerbacks should be avoided. Guys like Darrelle Revis, Patrick Peterson, Joe Haden and Vontae Davis, for example, are all lock-down corners, but are they actually successful right now in shutting guys down? Sometimes with good wide receivers (Brandon Marshall, Calvin Johnson) the opportunity to work against a No. 1 cornerback like Haden or Davis might be better than being double-teamed by another opponent. Anyway, we’re working on it. Continue to give me feedback, letting me know what you like and don’t like.
Question 11
Very deep12 league standard yardage league and my only TE is Dwayne Allen. My options are slim, but the two that are still there that make the most sense to me are Escobar and Fasano. If the respective starters miss the game who do you like better? Feel free to throw out another name or two if there are any
JOHN RUPPE (Fort Myers, FL)
If Witten sits out, then I would be all over Gavin Escobar. He’s a good pass catcher. He scored in Week 1 and nearly scored last week. But Witten is the Brett Favre of tight ends. Including the postseason he’s played in 196 straight games. He says he’s playing on Sunday.
Question 12
Too early to start giving up on players. Lost Romo and have Brandin Cooks. As Brandin Cooks value is so low now, dont think i can get much in a trade for him. Thinking about going to offer him for Buffalo QB Taylor and maybe a throw in. Do I pull trigger, or work waiver wire and go for Johnny Football /Alex Smith or Fitzpartick. I would sub jarvis landry into my starting lineup for Cooks (which i might do anyway.).
ERIC FEINGOLD (Garden City, NY)
Cooks has been a disappointment, no doubt. But way too talented of a guy to start giving away for a quarterback like Tyrod Taylor. Correct course is to give Cooks a chance to turn things around.
Question 13
Victor Cruz is available in my 10 team league. Is he worth grabbing off the waiver wire?
kevin tschetter (SANDY, UT)
Not a guy I’m excited about, but probably good enough that he should squeeze onto somebody’s roster. He’s running and likely will return to action in Week 4.
Question 14
I've been offered Lynch for Julio. Standard scoring with extra points given based on the length of the TD. Besides Julio I have Jordan Matthews, Brandon Cooks, DeVonte Adams, Moncrief and Fitzgerald. At RB I have L'Veon Bell, Tevin Coleman, Andre Williams, Latavius Murray and Woodhead. Do I take the offer?
Tamra Britt (Canton, GA)
I’ve got them with similar grades, so it’s reasonable to thinking about it. But I believe I would hold for now. You’ve got Bell back, you’ve got one starting running back penciled in every week. I think I’d like to have the same with Jones. He’s starting every week, and then you can piece it together with the other guys. Now that Bell is playing, by the way, you might be able to acquire DeAngelo Williams without much trouble as an insurance policy.
Question 15
I've got a roster spot available for a 4th WR and I would like to use it for a player with some upside. Breshad Perriman appears to be close to playing and is available. What are your thoughts on him and where would you rank him among the rookie WRs for over the remainder of the season in PPR?
KEN STEPHENSON (San Clemente, CA)
Perriman is running now. He should return soon. Might even get on the field in Week 3-4. I imagine that for this year he will run a limited route tree, rotating in and primarily running vertical routes. They want to hit him on some long balls, and Joe Flacco can throw those. You mentioned PPR scoring, and you also mentioned how he would compare against other rookie receivers. Amari Cooper is definitely No. 1. By a mile. Nelson Agholor is playing regularly for Philadelphia. He’s No. 2. But there isn’t much else. Rashad Greene caught 7 passes in his first game with Jacksonville, but he’s on injured reserve now – will miss half of the year. Tyler Lockett is making an impact with Seattle, returning kicks and will hit some long plays. But doesn’t really fit the PPR format. Perriman, I think, would be the 3rd or 4th rookie receiver, I think if you were re-drafting right now.
Question 16
Back up QB two part question. 8 team league, 6 points/passing TD. Matt Ryan is my starter, Sam Bradford is my backup. 1) What do you think about Nick Foles? Foles has the Bears in week 10 (Ryan's bye), and has the Steelers this week. The Bears look chummy in week 10, plus it looks like a shootout with the Steelers this week at home. I'm concerned about Ryan at Dallas, as the Cowboys have been fairly rough on opposing QB's thus far. 2) Do you think I should ride with Bradford after his dreadful start, or go with Foles since he will only play possibly this week and week 10?
Jeff Carter (Franklin, TN)
I don’t have any confidence in Sam Bradford right now. He doesn’t seem to have any confidence throwing the ball downfield. Everything is a checkdown. The ghost of Trent Edwards. So for fantasy purposes, I would be comfortable cutting him loose to pick up a lesser quarterback with a good matchup – somebody who might help me in a game. Nick Foles could be one of those guys this week. But I looked at those games and slotted the numbers, and I don’t believe Foles (who’s a little banged up) is quite good enough to merit starting over Matt Ryan this week. It’s close, but I would be leaning toward the better player.
Question 17
Looking ahead to week 5 when Martavis Bryant is eligible to come back, where do you see him being ranked? I currently have Jones and Sanders as my WR1 & WR2 and Hyde and Ingram as my RB1 & RB2. Ivory and Tate are currently my RB3 and WR3, but I'm thinking of swapping them for either Blount and Hopkins or McCoy and Bryant. With our salary cap, I can't mix and match without going over. If I go with McCoy/Bryant, and try to trade Bryant down the road to upgrade my QB position, what do you think would be a fair return for him? My current QBs are E. Manning and Rivers. I may not even be able to upgrade the position given the salary cap restraints.
Roy Sherman (Columbia, TN)
I can’t speak to the exact cap issues, but I think Bryant is going to be really good. He’s big and fast, and I think he’ll catch a lot of long touchdowns. I would take the McCoy-Bryant tandem over either Ivory-Tate or Blount-Hopkins.
Question 18
PPR+1, 2RB, 2WR, 1Flex. Who should I add to help my bench more down the road...D.Jackson or B.LaFell. I have Cooks, Marshall, Hilton and S.Smith. Will drop Garcon to add.
GREG HOULETTE (Amarillo, TX)
I would go with DeSean Jackson. He’ll be back sooner, and he’s definitely a really good deep threat. With LaFell, we can’t say for sure when he’ll be healthy, and there’s the possibility Aaron Dobson will play his way into some kind of permanent role over the next month. Dobson played well a Buffalo. With the wide receivers you have, however, I’m not sure how often any of these guys will actually get on the field for you.
Question 19
I agree with your assesssment of Cooks . Had him last year and drafted him as my #1 and Drew Brees too. But I got Matt Ryan in the 10th round, pick 110. I'm thinking I'll bench my N. O. players until they show me they’ve pulled it together in their passing game. I can start Landry and John Brown. I'm set at running back. Any thoughts?
Donald DeKeyser (Green Bay, WI)
Sounds logical. With Cooks, he’s banged up, so we need to see if he’s even playing. He also might be playing with Luke McCown. I’m not positive that will be a bad thing. When Brees is out there, they’re rotating guys through and spreading the ball around. They’re four wide receivers all were heavily involved last week (including Willie Snead). With McCown, the offense might be simplified, and he might be more apt to lock in on their No. 1 receiver (who is definitely Cooks). McCown also probably has a stronger arm than Brees. He certainly has a stronger arm than an injured Brees. In the second half of the Bucs game, Cooks was open for a long touchdown, but the ball was badly underthrown.
Question 20
I received a trade offer in a PPR league of Percy Harvin and Gio Bernard for Brandin Cooks. I have been the highest scoring team in the league the first two weeks and currently have Foster, Ivory, Freeman, D. Johnson, A. Brown, Cooks, Marshall and S. Johnson and we start 2 RB, 3 WR and a Flex. Would you take the trade? Percy has been pretty involved in Buffalo and the Saints don't look like a good offense. Gio looks like he will be a nice RB2/Flex in PPR this year. It definitely helps my RB depth/starters, but I'm not sure I should give up on Cooks quite yet.
Kyle Wells (Arlington, WA)
I’m not a Harvin fan. I don’t think he’s even in Cooks’ league. I would stay the course. You will get a nice boost from Foster in a few weeks.
Question 21
I'm surprised that a couple of players that don't appear on your rankings, and wanted to hear your thoughts. LeGarrette Blount not on standard scoring? Then Rishard Matthews with 10 catches on 13 targets and 149 yards?
Doug Smith (Addison, TX)
Blount’s on there. I think you’ll see him around 15th among running backs. With Matthews, he’s pretty similar, I think, to a lot of the other Miami receivers. I have Jarvis Landry as their clear No. 1 – a guy with a good chance to finish in the top 20. I have Matthews next, but only slightly ahead of their others – Greg Jennings, Kenny Stills, DeVante Parker. Matthews was the #75 wide receiver on the board we released on Tuesday. On the pdf version, we have wide receivers and tight ends combined, so that would have kicked him outside the top 80.
Question 22
Has there been any news on the C Michael experiment in Dallas?
GENE MCNABB (Sturgis, SD)
Neither Randle nor McFadden has done much the first two weeks. If you’re holding Christine Michael, that’s good news. I imagine they’ll get him on the field before long. At the same time, if the Seahawks felt Michael was another DeMarco Murray, they wouldn’t have let him go.