Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Fantasy Football Pickups And Drops Week Four 2011

Another week in the books means it's time for new pickups for your fantasy team.  While the studs on your team are important (so important that I have a whole weekly column talking about them) it's also very important to optimize your bench every week, and keep yourself in good shape in the case of an injury to a starter.  That's the purpose of this column, to give you the information on the best guys to add to give your fantasy team the depth of a championship team.  Be sure to check out the prior columns in this series, as some guys aren't covered here that might still be available in your league.

This week we have a few speculative plays due to starting running back issues, and a few receivers that could also step up going forward....

The Reality Of Fantasy Football - Week Three 2011 Fantasy Recap

The week four pickup column is live as this posts, but this is the more important weekly fantasy column on Big Derf Sports in my opinion.  The Reality of Fantasy Football takes a look back at last weeks results and what they mean to the players on your roster already, and what you should take away from this week and use to better your team for the rest of the year.  It's a game by game look at what the fantasy-rostered guys did this week.

The week three wrap up is a good companion piece to this, as it includes information about other players and the teams in general that isn't included in this column as it's not directly fantasy analysis, but can still be fantasy relevant.

We start with an explosive fantasy game for multiple players...

The BDS Week Three NFL Wrap Up

Week three was very interesting.  There were comebacks and upsets galore in the early games followed by a bunch of predictable results but close games the rest of the day (well, except Ravens-Rams).  It's been an interesting first three weeks here in the NFL, but I'm going to cover the big picture around the league in my power rankings later this week, so for now I'm just going to get right into the game by game breakdowns...

Saturday, September 24, 2011

NFL Week Three 2011 Game Picks and Over/Unders

Week Two Totals
Straight Up Picks - 12-4
Picks vs Spread - 10-4-2
Over/Unders - 5-10-1
"Bankroll" - -0.4 Units

Season To Date Totals
Straight Up Picks - 20-12
Picks vs Spread - 17-13-2
Over/Unders - 14-17-1
"Bankroll" - -2 Units

After helping an otherwise bad picks day in week one, my Over/Under success rate plummeted in week two. That's life sometimes. Hopefully I can bounce back this week and get back up to even on the year. I'm technically 31-30-3 on "bets" but the vigs have taken their toll on the "bankroll".

Week three should be another good week here, the some of my undervalued teams are starting to see the line movement catch up to them, but there are still plenty of good spots for us to get value.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The Reality Of Fantasy Football - Week Two 2011 Fantasy Recap

While people love pickup columns, it's also important to look back at last week's results when evaluating your fantasy roster, and that's what the Reality of Fantasy Football is all about.

Unfortunately, I lost half of this column and it's companion piece about the real life implications of each game to computer problems, so this is going to be a little shorter than usual, and definitely a shorter introduction than I'd like...

The BDS NFL Week Two 2011 Wrap Up

Plenty of action in week two to cover, both here and in the week two fantasy wrap up, and I already wrote half this column and the fantasy column that goes with it and had it lost computer problems, so I'm just going to get right into it....

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Fantasy Football Pickups And Drops Week Three 2011

Doing things in a bit of a different order this week, this fantasy pickup column is coming before my week two game reviews because last weeks page views showed this column was most popular.  Have to give the people what they want, and what you all want seems to be my amazing fantasy advice.

Last week in this column, the recommendations included Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ben Tate, and Devery Henderson, who all turned in strong games in week two and are now owned in too many leagues to be recommended in this column.  Hopefully we can hit on a few solid names again this week to keep your rosters in tip top shape moving forwards.

As always, the cut off for available players for the purposes of this column is the 50% owned mark.  While other guys around 70 or 80% owned might be better options, they should be owned in all active leagues already, so I offer only players below the 50% mark...

Friday, September 16, 2011

NFL Week Two 2011 Game Picks and Over/Unders

Season To Date Totals
Straight Up Picks - 8-8
Picks vs Spread - 7-9
Over/Unders - 9-7

Week one wasn't great, but it wasn't awful.  If you played all of my spread picks and my over/unders it came out to an even 16-16, though you lost 1.6 units on vig.  Week one is a bit of a crap shoot though, and the picks should improve this week, now that I've seen more than half the games from last week myself and have results for all sixteen games to help me judge each team....

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

NFL Game Rewind Notes - Week One - Falcons at Bears

Each week I'm going to be watching a few of the previous week's games on NFL Game Rewind, and learning what happened in the games I didn't get to see.  I'm watching the games to help keep me informed as an NFL writer, but it made sense to post some notes up here as I watch each game and help you all understand what happened beyond the box score.

I chose this game because while I expected the Bears to win this game, I expected the game to be much closer than the 30-12 final score, and expected the Falcons to score more than six offensive points.  Then I looked at the box score, and saw the Falcons ran the ball just 14 times compared to 52 passes, and I had to see this game....

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Fantasy Football Pickups and Drops Week Two 2011

You should have already read my Reality of Fantasy week one recap column and if you haven't go do that before you start here in the pickups and drops column.

This column is going to be very straight forward.  I'm simply going to go position by position and offer my pickup recommendations, listed in the order I would pick them up.  Then each position will have a section of guys who are owned in more than 50% of leagues that I would be comfortable cutting for the guys on the pickup list.  At some positions the lists will be longer than other positions, and the lists will vary greatly from week to week.  These fringe players only need a slight uptick or downtick of value to make them rosterable or unrosterable, so some of these players are going to bounce back and forth from rosters to free agency all season long.

All that out of the way, onto the content...

The Reality of Fantasy Football - Week One 2011 Fantasy Recap

Before you can look at a pickup column, you have to evaluate what happened in week one, the effect reality had on your Fantasy team.  Now that we've seen some things from players, we have to figure out which performances we can believe in and which ones we need to throw out as fluke games.  You have to evaluate your roster before you can make changes to it, and that's what this column is for.  This column is going to discuss players that are owned in most fantasy leagues.  The pickup column coming out later today will evaluate the surprise performances from the first week....

Monday, September 12, 2011

The BDS NFL Week One 2011 Sunday Wrap Up

Thank god for football.  How good does it feel to have the NFL really back?

It was a fun week one, even if none of the afternoon week one nationally televised games were amazing.  The outcomes were pretty interesting and there was a solid Sunday night game on a day where we learned plenty and even more changed in the NFL.  I'm going to get right into it and just touch on each of the Sunday games.  I'll be sure to let you know what games I've seen and which I'm judging based on box scored.  I'll also let you know which games I'm going to be taking a look at this week with NFL Game Rewind to really learn about...

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Week One Running Game Notes

For those who don't have twitter, running a coveritlive session here that is going to condense all my twitter updates to one place.   Check it out after the jump....

Saturday, September 10, 2011

2011 Playoff and Super Bowl Predictions

There isn't going to be a separate column with explanations for all of my NFC playoff teams like the AFC column,   As you can see this column is posting Sunday morning, just trying to get it squeezed in out there before the Sunday games start here in week one.  Just going to give you the predicted games with winners....

NFL 2011 Week One Picks and Over/Unders

Season Totals
Straight Up - 1-0
vs. Spread - 0-1
Over/Unders - 1-0

Sorry this is late guys.  Had a power outage here that set me back.  No internet meant no ability to research or get up to date lines, nonetheless post this, so it's coming in here Saturday night, which is far later than I'd like it.  Luckily, it still give you plenty of times to get either your pool picks or bets in well in advance of kickoff.  NFC preview/Playoff Predictions are coming later tonight as one column, but should be up before kickoff tomorrow.

And the picks...

Friday, September 9, 2011

2011 AFC Playoff Team Predictions

As promised, here are the AFC predictions.  NFC predictions and playoff predictions will follow as we approach the weekend here.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

NFL 2011 Week One Prediction - Thursday Night Game 9/8/11

Just getting in a prediction for the Thursday night game before the full week's slate of games is predicted here on Friday or Saturday....

NFL Week One Fantasy Football Player Rankings

Hey there guys.   AFC and NFC predictions are still works in progress due to some miscommunication between Skillet and myself, so I'm going to get right to posting my fantasy football rankings at each position for this week. It's week one, so obviously this is going to be extremely speculative and based heavily on offseason rankings, but it should still be helpful for those making their last minute lineup changes.  Very little explanation will be offered because of the sheer number of players that require ranking.....

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

2011 NFL Player Award Predictions

It's prediction week here as we ramp up into week one, and along with NFC and AFC predictions to come from me and Skillet, today I'm going to release my predictions for the player awards this year.  This will include traditional awards MVP,Offensive Player, Comeback Player along with non-traditional awards including things like LVP and of course MVFP, Most Valuable Fantasy Player.

This is an obviously straightforward topic, so I'm just going to dive right into it, mixing in traditional awards with more fun options to keep things interesting....