Fantasy Football 2017

Seven leagues. Made the playoffs in four and was second-leading scorer in a fifth league in which I didn't make playoffs. Not a bad year so far. Unfortunately, two of my playoff teams had Wentz. Now I have to make do with Cam and Cousins.

 

That's pretty broad success. Would you say you have similar players across your leagues, or do you make an effort not to draft the same players to different teams (I struggle with this yearly - if I like players for one league, why wouldn't I want them in another? But if those players get hurt, it kills me in multiple leagues, etc.).

I missed the playoffs badly in our SJ league. I really didn't pay enough attention to the scoring prior to the draft.

In my other league, I started 3-1, lost Rodgers and four games in a row to fall to 3-5, then made a couple trades and have since won four straight (hopefully five tonight). My team is pretty dangerous right now and I've been one of the high scorers for the last few weeks. But I also have some guys who can lay eggs any given week (Lynch, Demariyus Thomas jump to mind), so it's precarious.

 

I usually target 2-3 favorites in the draft and end up doing the same with FAs. So my teams usually have a little overlap but not too much.

For instance the two teams that had Wentz, the rest of my usual starters are as follows:

(Standard w/ bonuses)
Bell
Kamara
Cooks
Thielen
Tate
Ertz

Hyde top bench player

AND

(Full-point PPR with bonuses)
Ingram
Hyde
Thomas (Saints)
Tate
Henry
Smith-Schuster/McKinnon

 

Kicker and defense should be the last 2 picks of any draft. I stream every week as well, it's all about matchups.

I can't see a reason to ever carry two kickers or defenses.

 

If the benches are deep enough I will carry two of each on occasion if I see enticing matchups weeks ahead. This is especially true of defenses.

 

I could see that with defenses in a real deep league if you are basing it on matchups.

 

If I can grab an extra defense knowing the Browns, Colts, etc. Are on the horizon ...

Also, I like to try and stash a defense that might not be on anyone's radar early on but shows promise. That's how I ended up rolling out the Chargers in multiple leagues over the past month-plus.

 

I used to be a member of a league where you could cut a guy on your bench during the middle of the game and pick up someone else as a free agent and put them on your bench. You couldn't cut a starter, and you couldn't put the new guy in the lineup that day, but you could sign him for the next week.

So, if you happened to see a top running back get carted off, you raced to the wire and grabbed his backup and voila, you now have a starting running back for the rest of the season.

Thankfully now, every free agent is now a waiver claim until Wednesday, which has cut out the frantic Sunday mid-game signings.

 

In a money league where the top scorer and top seed -- a guy who ran away with the regular season from the start -- enters the playoff opener without Wentz, McCown and Elliott.

 

Yahoo numbers have Zuerlein accounting for 210 points this year. Vinatieri for 110. Blair Walsh 91. Mason Crosby 77. Zuerlein worth 133 points more over 13 weeks than Crosby.

Somebody holding onto Zuerlein has a pretty major advantage. Look, it's the same thing as grabbing a catcher early. They aren't going to finish top 10, but you can really create separation if you get the right one.

 

That last part is the key, though, and kickers are far more of a crapshoot than catchers.

Zuerlein scored 76 points last year and 89 the year before (according to my league's scoring). He's more than doubled his 2016 total already this year with 154 points. It's great if you get that guy, but Zuerlein, for instance, wasn't even drafted in my league. In fact, of the top four kickers (Zuerlein, Gostkowski, Boswell, Lutz), two were undrafted and only Gostkowski was drafted prior to the last round. Why spend a mid-round pick on a kicker when you're just as (or more) likely to get a top-5 kicker on waivers than you are in the last round?

 

Now predict that at the beginning of the year and you're onto something.