Nobody Wants To Hear About My Fantasy Team: Week 4

Posted on by

This thing is a work in progress to say the least, but I think it makes much more sense to put these posts out in the days leading up to my matchup, rather than write half of it ahead of time, and the rest on the Tuesday after.  Also, keeping a set schedule will make things easier on me, so look for this post every Thursday, with the Week 4 results coming up NEXT Thursday.  This will, if nothing else, make it less confusing to read.

Well, the BYE weeks are upon us, and already my team is affected.  I have one healthy tight end – Jordan Reed – and he’s on a BYE this week.  I have a number of bench players I really like – Kenny Golladay, Robert Woods, Adrian Peterson – and given my less-than-stellar quarterback situation, I feel it’s only prudent to keep everyone I’ve got (Wentz, Carr, Dalton, and Fitzpatrick) and play the best two based on matchups; or, at the very least, get someone of value in return, from one of the handful of teams in the league in desperate need of improvement at their own quarterback positions.  Ergo, I’m pretty committed to just not playing a tight end this week.  Because of all the reasons I just listed, plus I don’t think I’ll be one free agent tight end’s worth of points away from winning this week.  Either the rest of my team will pick up the slack, or I’ll lose so bad that the missing 4-10 points won’t even matter.

((for what it’s worth, here’s a smattering of available tight ends:  Benjamin Watson, Eric Ebron, David Njoku, Austin Hooper, Jesse James, Cameron Brate, Austin Seferian-Jenkins, and George Kittle.  None of these guys are even REMOTELY focal points of their respective offensive attacks; they’re all touchdown-dependant fliers who are otherwise worthless because they don’t get NEARLY the amount of targets as the wide receivers on their teams do.  They’re all essentially akin to buying a lottery ticket from the gas station, which is essentially akin to setting my money on fire.  I’d rather not risk losing players of actual value and bite the bullet for one week))

The downside is that I’ll be in this same pickle in a week’s time, because the Bears will be on a BYE in Week 5.  I similarly don’t have a backup defense on my bench, and I REALLY don’t want to drop the #1 defense in our league.  But, we’ll get to that next week.  There are always potential injuries to worry about.

Thankfully, I don’t have Jimmy G in this league (though I do have him on another team, and am scrambling accordingly).  But, an unforeseen affect of his injury is that my kicker – Robbie Gould – isn’t as un-waive-able as he once was.  I wanted to pick up Detroit’s kicker, but someone put a claim in for him.  So, it looks like I’ll stick with Gould for now and just hope the 49ers are able to move the ball based on their head coach’s expertise alone.

Here’s this week’s lineup:

  • QB1 – Carson Wentz @ TEN
  • QB2 – Andy Dalton @ ATL
  • WR1 – Tyreek Hill @ DEN
  • WR2 – Adam Thielen @ LAR
  • RB1 – Ezekiel Elliott vs. DET
  • RB2 – Leonard Fournette vs. NYJ
  • TE –
  • FLEX – Demaryius Thomas vs. KC
  • K – Robbie Gould @ LAC
  • DEF – Chicago vs. TB

My bench is:  Fitzpatrick, Carr, Peterson, Woods, Golladay, Reed, and Olsen.

I opted for Dalton over Fitzpatrick based on matchups.  I never like the idea of putting a quarterback in there against the defense I’m also playing, and I truly believe Chicago’s defense is a monster and could pop the bubble that is FitzMania.  Everything else is pretty self-explanatory.  I will say this:  I’m one more mediocre performance out of Demaryius Thomas away from benching him for either Woods or Golladay (who have been out-playing him all year and really deserve to be starting on an every-week basis).  Considering the Broncos are playing the Chiefs, I expect this game to be high-scoring.  As such, I expect the Broncos will be throwing the ball a lot.  So, if I was ever going to give somebody one final chance, this is the scenario in which to do it.  If Thomas can’t get me 20+ points in this game, then he’s probably not worth holding onto.

My long climb to fantasy relevancy doesn’t get any easier this week, as I go up against Korky Butchek.  He doesn’t have anyone on BYE this week and is stacked at just about every position:

  • QB1 – Jared Goff vs. MIN
  • QB2 – Matthew Stafford @ DAL
  • WR1 – Antonio Brown vs. BAL
  • WR2 – DeAndre Hopkins @ IND
  • RB1 – Alex Collins @ PIT
  • RB2 – James White vs. MIA
  • TE – Zach Ertz @ TEN
  • FLEX – Matt Breida @ LAC
  • K – Stephen Gostkowski vs. MIA
  • DEF – Seattle @ AZ

He’s also got Mike Williams on his bench, as well as T.J. Yeldon (in case Fournette is held out yet ANOTHER week), just in case he wants to swap out his flex or RB2 at the last minute.

I dunno, I don’t feel great.  Wentz’s favorite target is Ertz, so that right there pretty much wipes out my best player.  I should have a pretty good idea of how my week’s looking before we even get to the Sunday afternoon games.  I have Hill and Thomas going on Monday; while he’s got Brown and Collins going Sunday Night.  Either my guys blow their expected points out of the water (right now, Yahoo has me losing approximately 161 to 149), or I predictably shit the bed and start my season 1-3.  The way my year’s going, both of our teams will somehow underperform, yet I’ll still get my ass waxed.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *