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clip-2014-09-04 10;03;23 from Zack Cimini on Vimeo.
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Who to start and who to sit? The infamous weekly debate to be had in every worthy fantasy football league throughout the country. Part of the problem early on in the season is trusting your team as a whole. Do you lack confidence in a certain position or an unreliable likely starter? Probably. We all have holes in are teams, but their is a skill in diagnosing that and getting the most out of your team.
It starts with knowing who to sit rather than start. If you can diagnose to sit three to four names on your team, it leaves the rest of your roster breakdown manageable.
Lets take a look at week one and some names that I would sit.
Cam Newton
Newton is one of those quarterbacks that drives fantasy owners nuts early on in the season. But somehow he ends up being a staple towards the midpoint and end of season. Carolina just doesn’t have enough assets at receiver to deploy Newton as a starter week one. He has been slipping in fantasy drafts because of this. We also need to see how healthy Newton is out of the gate. I expect him to still be a top five quarterback by seasons end, but he has to be downgraded week one.
Tom Brady
If there’s one team in the division that Brady has struggled against it has been Miami. Both games last season could have easily been won by the Dolphins, as they teams split. With Rob Gronkowski on the field how will their chemistry be? It’s not easy to hit that on switch with limited on field experience in two seasons.
Marques Colston
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the youth develop quickly at wide receiver for the Saints, with Stills and rookie Brandin Cooks. Colston is still being picked as if he is Brees’s top weapon at wide receiver. Injuries and the dominance of Jimmy Graham have sort of balanced out Colston’s fading value. On one hand he has stayed in the limelight because of the attention Graham gets. On the other he should have been a much higher recipient if you actually break it down further. He hasn’t been and that’s why the Saints have spent picks trying to upgrade the position.
Jeremy Maclin
Eyes have lit up on buyers of Eagles players in fantasy drafts just because of the brand of football Chip Kelly plays. Lets tone that down a bit with Jeremy Maclin. He has been injury prone and has yet to establish himself in Kelly’s new offense or with starter Nick Foles. Over time he may be a solid wide receiver three starter, but until then Riley Cooper holds higher value for Philadelphia.
Others: CJ Spiller, Le’Veon Bell, Tony Romo, Michael Floyd, and Joe Flacco
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Daily fantasy leagues are starting to become the new fascination. They offer what participants in money leagues want and that’s the opportunity to cash in one day. A few times a week I’ll give a take on high reward guys to put in your lineup on specific days. The goal will be to look for blue chip salary cap guys that can give you a chance to boost your lineups.
Today we will go off of Fanduel.com’s MLB game for Saturday. To win in these style of leagues typically requires grouping together multiple players from one team. Predicting a team that is going to score a lot of runs means success for several guys on one team. Here are a few teams that you can group together for your fanduel rosters.
Here are a few guys I believe will be high reward players for their salaries Saturday.
Marlins position players and Jarred Cosart
Miami has been in a bind as of late, dropping some costly road trip games against Colorado, the Angels, and the first game against Atlanta. Still they’re in position to recover if they can win these next few games against Atlanta. Cosart has been phenomenal for the fish and was the catalyst in their last win in Anaheim. I’d expect Miami’s bats to step up a bit against Aaron Harang. Last month Aaron Harang gave up seven hits, with two walks, and two runs against the Marlins. Desperate times call for desperate measures and I’d expect players like Marcell Ozuna, Christian Yelich, and Casey McGhee to be low value high reward guys today.
Pittsburgh’s lineup
Pittsburgh seems to reappear and disappear in Criss Angel fashion up and down the standings. Right now they’re on the up swing as they’re putting the final dagger to the Reds playoff chances. They’ve won six of their last eight games and look to continue that tonight against the Reds. Alfredo Simon for the Reds went seven innings in his last start against the Braves. He is typically a five inning type of pitcher. Before his last outing he had only pitched seven innings once out of eight starts. I like the way Pittsburgh is coming together as a team and expect them to rattle Simon out a bit early. We all know the documented woes with Cincinnati’s ever-struggling bullpen.
Others: Baltimore and Mets
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Yesterday was a pretty straight forward day for most handicappers. Many have reported a great start to the season on Thursday. On to Friday though where the slate looks to be a bit more difficult. One game on the board is Villanova vs Syracuse. This game has had a shift in point spread movement.
Just a few days ago the point spread was 15.5 only to move yesterday to 18.5. Who knows what set off the spark but the line has since come back down to 15.5. It’s comparable to a hot stock that takes off and doesn’t have an end point. Once that end point is hit buyers realize it has exceeded its proper value.
Syracuse has been one of those .500 teams that sneaks into bowl games since the Doug Marrone era. They’ve done so by replicating the model of many up and coming teams, and that is too schedule early opponents that they can grab wins against.
This strategy has worked well for Syracuse over the last three years. Though there have been a few close calls, like a narrow win over Stony Brook a few seasons ago.
Villanova played decent against Boston College to open the season last year, losing 28-14.
Syracuse made it to a bowl game last year largely because of their defense and dynamic duo at running back. Using Jerome Smith and Prince Tyson-Gulley led to wins over NC State, Wake Forest, and Maryland. Second year quarterback, Terrelle Hunt, just didn’t play like a starting quarterback last season.
He was given the job over 5th year transfer Drew Allen, after Allen struggled mightily early in the season. Hunt wasn’t much better but he did not turn the football over. That ball control style worked against a weak ACC conference with a formidable Syracuse defense.
Syracuse did lose quite a few key players defensively. We saw last night in South Carolina that replacing defensive players is harder than it looks.
This spread would not be on my top plays for Friday, as the spread is too high in my opinion. I don’t have enough faith in Villanova’s offense or defense to back them either.
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A year ago the MAC definitely proved they were an unworthy conference for bowl representatives. The conference went 0-4 including Bowling Green, which lost 30-27 to Pittsburgh.
Western Kentucky was a team that was on its way up with Bobby Petrino. They had some exciting moments including an opening week win against SEC opponent Kentucky a year ago. But losing a coach of Petrino’s caliber detracts from the program. The departure of running back Antonio Andrews is also a hit a program like Western Kentucky doesn’t replace overnight. Andrews ran over 1500 yards his last two seasons in Western Kentucky. Senior quarterback Brandon Doughty will have to prove he is ready to lead this team with his arm.
Bowling Green was a team last year that got away with winning ugly. The MAC boosted that effort as the weak conference allotted for miscues and sluggishness. The team did thrive defensively though allowing just under 16 points a game. A mark that was 5th best in the country. This is key as the team returns nine upperclassmen from last years defense.
Where I expect Bowling Green to take big steps and to do so Friday is offensively. As stated they were often times sluggish out the gate of games. In the first quarter of the first nine games last year they only scored a touchdown in two of those games. Thanks to their strong defense they were able to comeback from deficits or be in a scoreless game.
Towards the end of their MAC schedule things began to change. Senior quarterback Matt Johnson started to find his rhythm earlier in games. They torched Ohio, Eastern Michigan, Buffalo, and Northern Illinois.
Look for Bowling Green to come out strong and perform well tomorrow on the road. Being a team from the MAC has this line shadowed down, but they have a clear talent advantage. Buy the hook down to 7.