Big Derf Sports is Back!

Welcome back to blog loyal readers.

As I explained via my twitter(@bigderfsports), my old laptop was having major problems and had fallen off from inconvenient to outright unusable for writing.  That forced me to put the blog into a hibernation of sorts for a while while I was saving up for a new laptop.  My pimp new HP dv6 Laptop came in last week and is a dream to use and type on, and I spent a week getting it generally set up and just plain playing with it before I decided that it was time to bring back the blog today.  I've spent far too long not getting my opinion out there.

While the NBA is in season now, I'm primarily going to focused on gearing up for the NFL off-season and the Fantasy Baseball season.  I've got a few large scale plans in mind for this baseball season, led by the return of last year's daily spot starting pitching column, as well as in depth looks at different fantasy strategies throughout the year.

I'll also be rolling out plenty of NFL off-season coverage, including rapid reactions to player movement and fantasy analysis at every step.  Last season I endeavored to touch on all 32 teams throughout the off-season and that proved too much, so this year I'm going to instead try to take a look player movement through a more case by case lens, including the obvious Peyton Manning column at some point.

Not that I'm going to be leaving the NBA alone, I'm just going to be covering it from a different angle.  I'm admittedly not an NBA expert, and have been following the NBA for much longer than I've actually been watching games, so unlike with the NFL, my on-court analysis is going to be basically non-existent.  Instead I'm going to take on the NBA from much more casual angle, likely saving my "analysis" for raving or complaining about my Knicks (yeah I'm still a homer).

Also, despite this being Big Derf Sports, you'll likely also see at least a handful of television columns on the horizon, as that is my other big love, and I doubt I'll be able to stay quiet about it for too long.

Thanks in advance for reading.

-Fred "Big Derf" Tobin

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Week Six NFL Game Wrap Up - Jets 24 Dolphins 6

Whew, twelve down, one to go here with my game wrap ups for week six.  Finally time for the Monday Night Football game here, Miami at New York.  Like all of the other wrap ups available here on this blog, this post is going to touch on the game from both a fantasy perspective, and a real world perspective.  And like the rest of the wrap ups, there isn't a need for a big introduction...

Week Six NFL Game Wrap Up - Bears 39 Vikings 10

Second to last game to wrap up here from Week Six, the Sunday Night game, Minnesota at Chicago.  You can find all of the other wrap ups here on my blog already, and they are all structured like this one, containing both real life analysis and fantasy information.  Not much to say in the introduction though, so I'm getting right into the wrap up....

Fantasy Football Pickups And Drops Week Seven 2011

It's pickup and drop time here for week seven.  The pickups are a little late to help most of you with your waiver claims, but it should still help you navigate free agency throughout the week.  Not all of these moves need to be made, and you should always consider your team before doing anything, but here is a short list of guys for you to be picking up or dropping this week...

Week Six NFL Game Wrap Up - Buccaneers 26 Saints 20

Just three more games left to get to this evening as I go game by game through everything that happened in week six in the NFL.  The prior entries are available on the blog, and like this one include both real life analysis and fantasy football analysis.  This entry is for the last afternoon game I have to cover, the Buccaneers and the Saints...

Week Six NFL Game Wrap Up - Patriots 20 Cowboys 16

Yesterday, I ran through all of the morning games, and this afternoon I'm running through all the late and night games from week six.  Right now, it's time for the Dallas at New England game.  This wrap up itself is going to have both a look back at the game for real life purposes and is going to explain the fantasy implications of each game.....

Week Six NFL Game Wrap Up - Giants 27 Bills 24

I'm going game by game again this week, and it's time to wrap up the Buffalo at New York match-up here this week.  Each game has it's own post here on the blog where I break down the game from both a real life perspective and fantasy perspective.   This is one of the games that I got to see this week, so this post is going to be longer than some of the others from this week...

Week Six NFL Game Wrap Up - Packers 24 Rams 3

I'm going game by game again this week, and it's time to wrap up the St. Louis at Green Bay match-up from this week.  Each game has it's own post here on the blog where I break down the game from both a real life perspective and fantasy perspective.   There isn't much to say in terms of of introduction though for any of these posts, especially for this snoozer of a game, so I'm just going to start it here right after the jump...

Week Six NFL Game Wrap Up - 49ers 25 Lions 19

I'm going game by game again this week, and it's time to wrap up the San Francisco at Detroit match-up here this week.  Each game has it's own post here on the blog where I break down the game from both a real life perspective and fantasy perspective.   There isn't much to say in terms of of introduction though for any of these posts, so I'm just going to start it here right after the jump...

Week Six NFL Game Wrap Up - Bengals 27 Colts 17

I'm going game by game again this week, and it's time to wrap up the Indianapolis at Cincinnati match-up here this week.  Each game has it's own post here on the blog where I break down the game from both a real life perspective and fantasy perspective.   There isn't much to say in terms of of introduction though for any of these posts, so I'm just going to jump right into it here after the jump...

Week Six NFL Game Wrap Up - Falcons 31 Panthers 17

I'm finally getting these game reviews in on time this week.  I'm starting here with the Carolina-Atlanta game, and am going to be posting reviews of every game right through Miami-New York all night tonight into tomorrow morning.  Also will have the fantasy pick up column out tomorrow morning to you can get all of your waiver claims in in time.

Not much else to get into here in the introduction, so click through the jump for my game opinion and of course, fantasy advice...

Fantasy Football Start/Sit Answers - Week Six

I've answered a bunch of questions this week on my twitter account, but I know everyone isn't following me there, and it's hard to follow responses on a timeline, so I'm going to run through all of the questions again here with more detailed answers. I'm also going to do my twitter followers a favor and clean up the spelling on the tweets. If anyone is vigilantly following me on twitter, there is still new content here, as I'm going to mix in some start/sit questions from my own teams....

Week Five NFL Wrap Up - Steelers 38 Titans 17

Doing individual posts for my Week Five wrap up this week, and am on to the Pittsburgh and Tennessee game from this week.  This was supposed to be a coming out game here for the Titans and the nail in the coffin for the Steelers, but it ended up as a bounce back win for the Steelers.  We'll look at the game from both a real life perspective and a fantasy perspective to cover everything...

Week Five NFL Wrap Up - Raiders 25 Texans 20

Wrapping up Week Five before i move onto the Week Six picks for Friday evening. I'm going game by game to make everything easier to read, and am up to the Raiders and the Texans.  Both real-life reactions and fantasy reactions from Sunday's game coming up.....

Week Four NFL Wrap Up - Bengals 23 Bills 20

As I mentioned in the week five fantasy pickup/drop column, I'm doing the week four wrap up differently this week. Rather than have two big posts, one as game reviews and one for fantasy information, I'm going to instead write little posts for each game that include both my game reactions and fantasy football opinions.

I'm writing about the games in the order they are listed in on the schedule at nfl.com, which means I'm going to be discussing the Bengals upset win over the Bills first...

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 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...

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...

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...