What's Luck Got to do with It?

    If you read my first post, Getting Things Started, you remember that I believe fantasy football is at least 50% luck.  We have little to no control over what actually happens on a given Sunday.  All we can do is start who we think will have the best days.  I wanted to write a short post here to prove to y'all that the best team will not always win.  The luckiest team however, will always win.  I'm going to present you with two teams and I can guarantee one team will look way better to you.  You will crave and wish you could possess such a wonderful team.  Yet, when the championship was on the line, this team of supposed studs fell short to a rag tag team of free agents and surprises.

The Final Step to Winning Fantasy: Bringing it All Together

   Alright, you've got some sweet running backs, wide receivers, a QB you don't hate, a TE that has a resounding sameness to everyone else's TE, and you're rolling into the final rounds deciding when to grab a defense and a kicker.  In this final post on my fantasy strategy I'm going to bring all the steps together and tell you how to finish strong.  A lot of analysts claim that waiting until the last two rounds to grab a defense and kicker is the way to go, but I beg to differ.  Like I've said this is a game about advantages, and I feel that the defense/kicker advantage almost always goes overlooked.  The total points they amass may be only slightly different (with the exception of the Bears' D last year), but extra points are extra points, so there is no reason to pass up on them.  Wait til the end for a D?  Not on my watch:

The Fantasy Five: Wide Receivers

Wide Receiver, like quarterback, is a very deep position this year in fantasy.  There are the Calvin Johnsons, AJ Greens, and Brandon Marshalls of the world, but after that there are tons of really good options.  However, I feel like a lot of these middle round guys have some question marks, and aren’t necessarily much better, or any better than the receivers you could get late.  If you want to take a number 1 receiver early I don’t blame you, but I’m waiting until I’m totally set at running back and maybe tight end and quarterback too before I start dipping into receivers this year.  Here are some potential key later round picks, and since fantasy football is all about value, these are guys whose late-round value could carry you to a fantasy championship.

The Fantasy Five: Quarterbacks

There are 11 really good options at quarterback this year for fantasy.  That means that in a 12-team league, only the very last team will be stuck choosing between risky or questionable options.  Since the top 11 are all really good and I would be happy with any of them, I’ll choose 5 later quarterbacks in case you want to wait or need a second quarterback for some reason.  Because even past those initial 11, there is a lot of potential at this position.

Step 4 to Winning Fantasy: To QB, or not to QB; This is the Answer

   See what I did there?  A little humor for you English majors out there.  All horrible jokes aside, today I'm going to talk about the most important position on the football field, the quarterback.  Quarterbacks always lead the league in fantasy points scored, and this year sees an incredible depth at the position.  With breakouts such as Colin Kaepernick, RG3, Russell Wilson, and Andrew Luck bringing up the REAR of the top ten, you know it's a special year.  More and more often I have seen top notch QBs drop in mock drafts, and I suspect it is because people are reading my articles on RBs and WRs.  Not really, but let's pretend that's the reason.  Regardless, top tier RBs are disappearing earlier, so what should you do when all the RBs are gone and you have managed to look away from the sexy wideouts?  Let me tell you:

The CFL: It is What You Think It is

    The Canadian Football League; I assumed they only play games during the winter because, you know, it's Canada and what not, but here we are in the middle of July, and the CFL teams are four games into their season.  Saturday nights shouldn't be boring.  They're the night to go out and grab a drink with some friends; that is, unless all of your friends are in other cities or states.  So there I was flipping channels, desperately trying to find something entertaining, when I saw there was football on.  Maybe I'm just desperate for the NFL, or maybe I just wanted to give those loveable Canadians a chance, but either way I gambled and spent the next three hours watching the Montreal Alouettes take on the Calgary Stampeders.

R.I.P. Yankees

The New York Yankees’ 2013 season is over.  It just is.  I hate to say it, but trade Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain for some prospects, don’t bother appealing A-Rod’s suspension whenever it comes down, and start scouting that 2014 free agent pool.  When I turned on Sports Center this morning only to see the news break about five minutes in that Derek Jeter was heading back to the DL, I took it not so much as bad baseball news as a sign.  Whose fault is it that the Yankees will miss the playoffs this year for the 2^nd time in the past 19 years?  Well, partly it’s the fact that the Red Sox, Rays, and Orioles are all awesome and even the bottom-dwelling, under-achiever Blue Jays are stacked for any given game.  But it’s not Joe Girardi, or the Cash Man, or A-Rod, or the inability to hit that inexplicably killed them in last year’s playoffs.  No, as lame of an excuse as it is, the Yankees have simply been killed by chance and injuries.  Let’s break it down a little bit.

Step 3 to Winning Fantasy: The Easiest Step

    Readers are easily lured in when I tell them something is going to be easy.  I like that.  I promise this step will be easy, for the most part.  If you've gotten to this point you hopefully read my first two posts.  If not, here are the links: http://firstandfantasy.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-secret-to-winning-fantasy-football.html, http://firstandfantasy.blogspot.com/2013/07/step-2-for-winning-fantasy-those-sexy.html.  This step will help you to understand when it is appropriate to pick, or reach for, a tight end.  There are two great TEs, three upper-middle class, and then a lot of common folk.  I have to agree with the Talented Mr. Roto here, I either want to pick my TE first, or last.  As I've mentioned before, you want to have as many advantages as you can in fantasy football.  Tight end offers perhaps the biggest advantage week to week if you grab the right guy.  Let's check it out.

The Fantasy Five: Running Backs

1. Adrian Peterson

            …Alright just kidding I’ll go a little deeper.  But seriously, if you have #1 just draft him. You don’t want people laughing at you...

Step 2 for Winning Fantasy: Those Sexy Wideouts

    Alright, if you've made it this far you must really want to win fantasy.  This is going to be the hardest step in my undetermined amount of steps program.  Wide Receivers are the sexiest picks, but will they help you win?  Do you need the top tier guys to win your league?  The quick answer is no.  The long answer is also no.  Look away from how cool Calvin Johnson is!  He may be the coolest guy in the room, but this is a room full of guys who are only slightly less cool, and can do the job almost as well without any sacrifices.  Are you still looking at Megatron??  What did I tell you?  Time to learn why it's cool to be less sexy; but first we gotta know where everyone stands.