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Preseason can be one of the harsh gray areas for fantasy football participants to over predict. Just because someone has a stellar preseason does not mean it will carry over into the regular season. Actual sleepers tend to come during the season and are because of injury. With Rob Gronkowski’s rehabilitation dragging into the season, many are quick to wrap their sights and take Sudfeld as a sleeper now.

Before you pull that trigger on Sudfeld lets calm the storm before you get tossed into it. It’s evident that Sudfeld would step into a significant role with New England. As Tom Brady has been one of the better quarterbacks in the league at diagnosing mismatches with his tight ends. The skill set that Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez had over Sudfeld is obvious. They were more athletic and possessed the speed to whirl by their opposing defenders. Seam routes were fantasy havens for owners of Gronk and Hernandez especially when it came down to red zone opportunities.

Defensively teams had to pick their poison on who was at-risk in one on one coverage especially when both Gronkowski and Hernandez were on the field at the same time. Their ascent to the rise of tight ends in the NFL was largely due to their complementary abilities of each other, and the fact that they were deemed elite tight ends coming out of college.

Before Brady had the duo of Hernandez and Gronk, Brady never had even close to the success statistically over the first nine years of his career. In the pre-Gronk and pre-Hernandez era Brady had unreliable fantasy tight end targets. Remember the names of Kyle Brady, Ben Watson, and Christian Fauria? I’d guess maybe ten percent of you had Ben Watson as your fantasy tight end during those bottom tier years of tight end significancy out of New England.
Watson’s top year receiving yards wise was 643 yards and he also topped out another year with six touchdowns. Christian Fauria and Kyle Brady were did not even touch the blips of waiver wire consideration.

My point with New England is they’ll likely figure out a shuffle of guys not just Sudfeld to make due for however long Gronkowski is out. The Patriots will not let it be known just yet what the time table for Gronkowski return is. More than likely the team will keep him out as long as possible to ensure proper prevention is met this time, as he has been unstable with injuries over the past year.

Sudfeld sure had an great performance in the first game of the preseason. Teams have no true game plans going in and sure as heck did not have Sudfeld in mind for assignment attention. Regular season will be a different story. If he is going to see twenty plus plays on the field, the opposing defenses will be ready for him. He is a big target at 6’7 with soft hands but does not possess the physical or speed attributes that New England had with Gronk and Hernandez.

Sudfeld’s three touchdowns in the preseason are bound to cause some fantasy football owners to reach out for Sudfeld as a *sleeper*. Others can buy low on Sudfeld as I do believe his three touchdowns in two weeks of the preseason are an aberration. Come the regular season I’ll be shocked if he reaches that touchdown total for the entire season.

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To the diamond Monday there is a favorable total in the matchup between the Cubs and Nationals. Jordan Zimmerman and Jeff Samardzija head to the mound and both have been pitching very well there last three starts. Zimmerman, who had a rough stretch at the end of July has only allowed three runs over his last three starts. Samardzija had one rough outing against Philadelphia in which he allowed nine runs, but he has had great starts other wise. The bullpen is always a worry with the Cubs and Nationals but I believe both Zimmerman and Samardzija will get to the 7th inning with a relative low score, 2-1, or 3-1. Take the under on today’s game.

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Speeding up the tempo of offenses has a knack to produce totals that tilt over in the regular season. Justifiably the same is occurring in the preseason. Yesterday the Jacksonville Jaguars and NY Jets both attacked aggressively with their first teams. The frenetic pace showed the defenses to be ill-prepared as the score was quickly 13-10. In the night game yesterday the same style was displayed in the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos, which toppled the over as well. A frenetic pace is just not good for the defense, but it tends to lead to big plays in other areas as well. Mistakes are more bound to happen with second and then third string players running in and out of the game. The current line of 41 is far too low for this style of play that we are accustomed to seeing from the Colts and Giants

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YESTERDAY ZACK HIT TWO MORE PRESEASON WINNERS WITH THE UNDER ON THE 49ERS/CHIEFS AND THE NEW ORLEANS SAINTS. THE SAINTS GAME ALMOST TOOK A HORRIBLE TURN AFTER THE SAINTS WERE UP 23-0, BUT THEY SQUEEZED OUT THE WIN. THAT BRINGS MY PRESEASON RECORD TO 8-3. TODAY I HAVE TWO MORE PREMIUM PLAYS OFFERED IN THE TODAY’S PICKS SECTION. FOR A FREE PLAY WINNER I’LL GIVE YOU THE GREEN BAY AND ST. LOUIS TOTAL OF 41. ST. LOUIS’S DEFENSE WAS TORCHED A WEEK AGO BUT I’M GOING TO UNDER PLAY THAT. CLEVELAND SHOWCASED THIS WEEK THAT THEY’VE BEEN MORE OF THE AGGRESSIVE STYLE OF OFFENSE THAN ANY PRESEASON TEAM THUS FAR, WHILE MOST ARE DOING THE BASICS. THEY’RE TRYING TO GET THEIR YOUNG QUARTERBACK BRANDON WEEDEN PREPARED FOR THE SEASON, AND ARE NOT AFRAID TO RUN THEIR PERSONNEL PACKAGES.

JEFF FISHER IS A DEFENSIVE MINDED COACH AND SURELY WAS ALL OVER HIS FIRST,SECOND, AND THIRD STRING DEFENSIVE PLAYERS ALL WEEK LONG. GREEN BAY ON THE OTHER HAND WAS THE ONLY TEAM THAT FAILED TO SCORE IN PRESEASON OF WEEK ONE. OFFENSIVELY THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE, AND ARE NOT GOING TO FORCE THE ISSUE WITH AARON RODGERS. I EXPECT ONE SERIES AND MAYBE TWO OUT OF RODGERS TODAY. THIS TOTAL SHOULD BE MORE IN THE RANGE OF 37/38, AND SHOULD BE AN EASY UNDER PLAY, AS VINCE YOUNG WILL LIKELY GET A QUARTER OR TWO OF PLAY IN HIS FIRST ACTION IN FOOTBALL IN OVER A YEAR.

By Zack Cimini
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Preseason football action is officially upon us. There are rules in handicapping that must be followed for proper preparation of the regular season. If not you can find yourself in a hole already before the regular season even starts.

The point spread is not created as sharp as it would in the regular season, especially in the first two weeks of preseason action. These are scrimmages testing the depth of teams rosters. Each and every team is trying to squeeze out their roster planning by testing the second tier, third tier, and future practice squad athletes on their current roster. Keep in mind that change over amongst coaching staffs is being implemented on eight different teams.

A season in football is truly from July all the way until a teams playoff elimination or eventual Super Bowl champion. When you hear a post Super Bowl interview a lot of athletes will reflect on the struggles they endured as a team during that season. Success does not happen in preseason game number one. There will be those type of teams that go 1-3 or even 0-4 in the preseason, but will be a completely different team in September.

Here are a few quick tips to keep yourself from getting buried this preseason. Follow me on twitter @cimini and stay tuned for weekly articles here at winningedge.com

Regular Season Success-

Do not be the type that stares at a preseason line and assumes a teams regular season success is indicative of how they will perform in the preseason. The New Englands, Denver Broncos, 49ers, and other high-profiled teams are going to look like a shell of the team they represent in the regular season in the preseason. Coaches tail back their game plans in the preseason with a vanilla playbook. Some of the matchups in the preseason end up being an actual matchup in the regular season. In those matchups the high school playbook will be ever more glaring.

Scrimmages-

It’s called a preseason game but when it comes down to it, it is a scrimmage. Coaches are not going to speed up the offense for a miraculous second half or fourth quarter comeback if they’re down a considerable amount. More than likely they’re going to be angry and unsatisfied with their current depth charts and axe lower to the next athlete for a substitute. You have to analyze a preseason game for it’s entire totality of value. That requires extensive research into the backgrounds of the depth charts. The athlete that catches or throws a fourth quarter winning touchdown for you from the Carolina Panthers, might be a roster cut in two weeks.

One Week Wonders-

In the regular season fantasy football owners are use to hearing the term one week wonder. It has meaning to the preseason as well. A favorable matchup can present itself at any given time. Maybe a receiver that has had a tough time breaking the top three on the depth chart the last two years is having to battle for the fourth or fifth spot. In a certain preseason game he gets the matchup of a lifetime against an undrafted rookie in the third quarter that is ill-prepared to match the invested multi-year NFL player.

The receiver could have been on the field for a quarter and a half already, while the cornerback just stepped in and may only see six to eight minutes of true game action. If you’re looking at a stats box and have not truly broken down and analyzed the preseason game, you might think the wide receiver had flourished. The next week you inflate the athlete and team as a whole because of the fantasy numbers. I know you’re preparing and doing fantasy drafts in the month of August, but do not let it break into your psyche for preseason lines.

Roster Cuts-

That deadline is looming as soon as a team steps onto the field for preseason game one. Probe teams online newspaper sites to see which position and who are the candidates for potential roster cuts. See how this athlete has performed in prior big games in college, or in big moments on the football field. The athletes on the borderline of being cut are what make the preseason. Key in on these athletes. Sometimes it may not even be a roster cut potential athlete and may even be someone warranting a higher depth chart position with their preseason play.

Early Rust-

This can trickle over to the third and fourth preseason games, and stay in your mind the first few weeks of the regular season. Early rust is going to happen with some athletes. Maybe they came in a bit under conditioned and out of shape. You’re going to get a sample size of that athletes capabilities in the preseason games if they’re a starter. Do not let five or ten throws dictate how you believe they’re going to perform the following preseason game. Blaine Gabbert looked outstanding last preseason, and where did that lead him in the regular season. Stick to analyzing an entire roster and probing for how coaches are game planning to play a certain preseason game.

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It is preseason week two with four games on the schedule today. My free play focus comes with the Cleveland Browns at home against Detroit, in which Cleveland is a slight favorite of just 1.5. I like the Browns in this scenario, as the team is feeding off the new atmosphere under first year head coach Rob Chudzinski. Brandon Weeden in limited action looked solid and comfortable in week one action against St. Louis. Detroit on the other hand has been vulnerable in many areas over the last year and a half. They have a lot to prove in multiple positions, and there is pressure mounting on Matt Stafford and Jim Schwartz. This is a good spot even in the preseason to ride a young team like Cleveland, that has no expectations and is at home. They’ll win the turnover battle amongst the starters and backups. Revamping is needed in Detroit and it will be ever glaring the entire season.