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Season Review: Fantasy Football Studs and Duds

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via www.sportsfanlive.com


This is the last article I will post about fantasy football this season, as most leagues finished up their championship matches last Sunday. If you happen to be in a league that continues to play through week 17, well, you're on your own! I had a ton of fun researching week in and week out to make my picks for fantasy football, and if nothing else, it sure helped me with my own fantasy teams. Of the 5 leagues I participated in (3 of which were DN leagues), I finished in 1st place in the regular season in 4 of them, advancing to the playoffs in 4 out of 5 leagues. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far in the playoffs in most of them, and only won one of my fantasy league championships. So clearly, the studs and duds picks didn't help enough! Also, I finished the year under 50% for my picks, just barely missing my goal of trying to do better than 50%. But if you started the following guys on your fantasy teams last week, perhaps they lead you to the promised land, because they all scored 15 or more points: Ryan Grant, Lance Kendricks, and Doug Baldwin. And hopefully the following guys didn't torpedo your chances too bad, because they all scored 5 or less points: Darren McFadden, Ahmad Bradshaw, Chris Johnson, Frank Gore, Stevie Johnson, Victor Cruz, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Aaron Hernandez, Carson Palmer, Mike Wallace, Arian Foster, and Tony Gonzalez. Whew...that was a lot of names.

So, heading into the fantasy off-season, here are some of the things I learned this year:

1. It's still not a good idea to draft a TE in the 1st or 2nd round. For example, if you drafted a guy like Jimmy Graham in the hopes he'd produce like a WR, then you got a TE that would have ranked 22nd as a WR, which is terrible as a 1st or 2nd round pick and only a flex play in standard leagues. It's worse for Rob Gronkowski. Even Tony Gonzalez, who played all 16 games and was the best TE in fantasy in 2012 would have only ranked 19th as a WR.

2. Running QBs will not play all 16 games, as both Michael Vick and RGIII missed time, so make good back-up plans

3. Wide Receivers are still very hit/miss. Even with as heavy a passing league as ever, RB are still the more reliable option.

4. The top 12 scoring players in fantasy football for 2012 were all QBs, save one: Adrian Peterson, ranked 8th overall. Although there is still an elite top 7 tier (Brady, Brees, Rodgers, Newton, RGIII, Ryan, Manning), and then everyone else (Romo, Luck, Stafford, etc). There are about 50 points that separates the two Tiers (3 pts per game on average).

5. I still believe in the RB-RB draft strategy, and the 2012 season gave me no evidence to suggest this still isn't the best way to go.

Since there are no picks this week, I'll get straight to last week's results:

Week 16

Correct Picks
QB Dud Colin Kaepernick (Yahoo Projection: 17.57, My Call: 14.57 or less, Actual: 14.9, close enough!)
RB Dud Beanie Wells (ESPN Projection: 10.7, My Call: 7.7 or less, Actual: -1.7)
WR Dud Josh Gordon (EPSN Projection: 12.7, My Call: 9.7 or less, Actual: 0.7)
TE Dud Jermaine Gresham (ESPN Projection: 10.6, My Call: 7.6 or less, Actual: 3.8)

Incorrect Picks
QB Stud Ben Roethlisberger (ESPN Projection: 12, My Call: 15+, Actual: 9.1)
RB Stud DeAngelo Williams (ESPN Projection: 7.8, My Call: 10.8+, Actual: 4.8)
WR Stud Cecil Shorts (Yahoo Projection: 8.09, My Call: 11.09+, Actual: 5.4)
TE Stud Heath Miller (ESPN Projection: 4.8, My Call: 7.8+, Actual: 4.5)

Accuracy: 58 - 62 (48% Accurate)

Daily Norsemen Fantasy Teams
Death Star Vikings: 10-4 reg. season, 2-0 playoffs, League Champion out of 12!
Team CCNorsemen: 9-4 reg. season, 1-2 playoffs, 6th out of 10
Blair Walsh Project: 5-9 reg. season, 0-2 playoffs, 8th out of 8

                                                                                                                                                                                                               

This FanPost was created by a registered user of The Daily Norseman, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the site. However, since this is a community, that view is no less important.

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