Burning Questions: Preseason Edition
Those of you with elephantine memories may recall my (sporadic) Five Burning Questions series from last season. Due to playing Madden 16 for at least 12 hours per day, I wasn’t planning to pen more entries this year, but our editor, Ken Kelly, had other plans. Through a series of elaborate schemes, he managed to kidnap my favorite Hawaiian shirt last Thursday whilst I was in a pulled pork induced meat coma. Safely back in his underground lair, my arch nemesis is using the pineapple adorned apparel to leverage weekly entries of the series throughout the coming season.
Fortunately, I have a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a lot of whiskey. Skills that make me a nightmare for editors trying to run a reputable fantasy football website. So, Ken, if you let my shirt go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not write articles with senseless, arcane references our readers don’t understand. I will not compare players to waste, human or otherwise, in print ever again. But if you don’t, I will write for you, I will talk about poo, and I will kill your chances of ever growing DLF’s membership ever again.
Is Brian Quick better than Jerry Rice?
If you follow me on Twitter (@FFJeffM), have looked at my wide receiver rankings, or are reading our 2015 predictions series, you are likely aware of my affection for the Rams’ receiver. The love is based on a number of things, but in the interest of brevity, let’s concentrate on a few key points.
Stat I’ve been screaming from the rooftops for months now: Quick started 2014 with a bang, putting up an 84/1288/12 pace over the first four games of the season. That alone is quite the feat, but I generally dismiss players who’ve do something similar over a small sample. The thing is, Quick has both the draft pedigree (he was the 33rd overall pick in the 2012 draft) and physical tools that lead me to believe those numbers weren’t entirely an accident.
But the real lure here is the asking price. In our August ADP, Quick was still on the board after pick 110 in four of six mocks, leaving him as the 51st wide receiver selected. This is a paltry price to pay for a player who was a WR1 into mid-October.
It is rare to see this potent of a mix of upside, opportunity and low cost. Don’t miss your chance to get a slice of the pie.
Oh, and to answer the Burning Question: Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he is. Jerry Rice is like 60 years old.
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If Brian Quick gave you a hug, what would happen?
Let’s just say I’d smoke a cigarette once he let go.
What one player disappointed you the most this preseason?
Is it weird if I go with Trent Richardson? I know expectations were low, but I had a bit of hope getting dumped by a team with Andrew Luck and picked up by a perennial laughingstock would be the kick in the behind he needed. It was with that in mind I spent next-to-nothing to add T-Poor (See what I did there?) in a handful of leagues. I guess next- to-nothing was still too much.
What is the most important thing to do between now and kickoff of Week 1?
Trade off hipster favorites who generated buzz.
Matt Jones, David Johnson, Buck Allen, Josh Robinson, Jeff Janis, Josh Hill, Zach Zenner….every year we end up with a list of young, lightly-regarded-in-NFL-circles players who owners and analysts use as reasons to dismiss incumbent starters. And every year they end up buried on the depth chart. Some of them inevitably find themselves being solid fantasy assets, but the vast, overwhelming majority don’t. If you can make a profit off players of this ilk, do it now, before people realize what’s going on.
Speaking of Jeff Janis, HAVE YOU SEEN HIS SPARQ SCORE?!?!?!?!?
We do this weird thing, sometimes, where we treat football like a track meet. I get that Janis has all these fancy metrics and combine numbers and college productions and stuff, but so did Stephen Hill. The issue here is the lack of actual, real life football skills. When your coaches consistently speak in the media about your lack of consistency, then stick you behind a rookie who is widely considered to be very unpolished (NFL.com’s draft profile compares Ty Montgomery to Cordarrelle Patterson), that should be a red flag to fantasy owners begging for Janis to get a shot. I can’t think of a single athletic freak who became worthy of a long-term dynasty investment based purely on measureables, but I can think of many, many players who despite being sub-par athletically became really good football players, ending up fantasy relevant as a result.
Do you miss Bocephus singing the opening song for Monday Night Football?
No, I do not. But I definitely miss his beard. Man, that thing was something else.
Which player’s value took the most irrational hit this preseason?
Kevin White got hurt. How that makes a player who was going as high as the 1.01 in some drafts routinely slip to the back half of the first round is a mystery to me.
The recent success of rookie receivers has people expecting freshman to perform. Historically, that isn’t always the case, even for future studs. When I draft a rookie in the top half of the first round, I definitely prefer early production, but Todd Gurley was expected to miss as many as six games and DeVante Parker, who is also battling injury, is on almost nobody’s rookie of the year candidate list, and their stock has either held steady (Gurley) or risen (Parker).
Fantasy value is a fickle mistress. Take advantage of White’s fall from grace and get yourself a discount.
Wait a second. That was way more than five questions. What gives?
When another man has your shirt, you will go to great lengths to get it back. As such, I’ve dropped the Five part of Five Burning Questions so I can answer as many or as few as I see fit. Of course, if things work out for me, the shirt will be back in my possession this time next week and Ken will be drinking his Ovaltine with a straw (Not because I broke his jaw, but because that is how criminal masterminds who’ve been defeated always drink their Ovaltine.).
Comic of the DayÂ
Our Fantasy Football Comics are brought to you by Brad Carey, @thefantasydraw. For more, make sure you check out thefantasydraw.com.
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