FDH Fantasy Newsletter: Volume I, Issue II

Welcome to our second-ever edition of the FDH Fantasy Newsletter, as we continue to bring you weekly fantasy sports updates in addition to our usual content on FantasyDrafthelp.com. If you missed it, we urge you to check out our premier edition from last week right here.

In this week's edition:

^ NFL Week 2 fantasy coverage
^ Tom Brady's injury: the somber truth
^ Other Week 1 NFL notes
^ Your first look at our brand-new fantasy hockey guide for 2008.

As always, we urge to you subscribe to this newsletter via the available feed options on Blogger. It has come to our attention, however, that there do not appear to be means to subscribe to this via any aggregate news readers at the moment; if that is true, it is because it is being published on the older Blogger platform. Our sister publication in cyberspace, The FDH Lounge Multimedia Magazine, is on the newer Blogger platform and can be subscribed to in that manner. As such, for the forseeable future, we will publish a link to this newsletter on The Lounge each week so that those of you who subscribe via aggregate news readers can have the content show up in the most convenient manner.

NFL Week 2

NOTE: Our advice, as it does on our FANTASYDRAFTHELP.COM INSIDER weekly program (Wednesdays, 7-9 PM EDT on SportsTalkNetwork.com), is based on helping you determine which of your marginal starters are worth a play this week. Hopefully, your initial draft/auction efforts were successful, because frankly, “playing the matchups” is far from an exact science regardless of what you will be told by other advisory services claiming to possess a crystal ball. But our weekly game notes are designed to try to help you maximize the potential of your situation. We will post this preface to the notes every week to remind you of the context of our advice. Also, each of our game previews links to the page for that game on CBSSports.com, with statistical information and a video preview of each game.

Sunday games

Chicago Bears at Carolina Panthers 1:00 p.m. Forte is not yet an every-week back based on the still-unproven passing game and the likely 8-in-the-box defenses he’ll be facing unless the WRs step up soon. Rosario is already somebody who merits a look here and likely almost every week upcoming.

Tennessee Titans at Cincinnati Bengals 1:00 p.m. Johnson is almost a legit #2 RB already and he’ll really clean up here – although don’t be too disappointed when he gets vultured by White on the goal line. For the Bengals, don’t overreact yet to Week 1 and bench anyone who you wouldn’t otherwise have benched, but if Perry (or somebody else) can’t get it going, this offense will really sputter this year.

Green Bay Packers at Detroit Lions 1:00 p.m. Rogers proved during Week 1 that he is a legitimate starting option from time to time and this is one of those times. Detroit WR Johnson showed already that he should be considered an every-week option.

Buffalo Bills at Jacksonville Jaguars 1:00 p.m. As far as what we said in the synopsis just above: consider Edwards a slightly poor-man’s Rogers fantasy-wise right now. This isn’t a good place to put him in the lineup. For the Jags, don’t draw any conclusions one way or another from what happened Week 1. This isn’t a good game for marginal plays.

Oakland Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs 1:00 p.m. All-out in terms of starting Raiders, while Bowe is the marginal play worth playing for KC. LJ should bounce back well from Week 1 here, while Huard at QB should help, at least slightly, Gonzalez and Bowe.

Indianapolis Colts at Minnesota Vikings 1:00 p.m. This is a strange game, because notwithstanding some big surprises in Indy Week 1, everyone on both teams should still be slotted just about where you had them going into the season. All-in on the marginal players for Indianapolis, all-out for the marginals on the Vikings because the passing game is still finding itself.

N.Y. Giants at St. Louis Rams 1:00 p.m. Go all-in with your Giants, except for anybody you envision as your #2 WR – because that position is still in flux. All-out on St. Louis after the debacle last week until this team can prove they are not as pathetic as they were in ’07.

New Orleans Saints at Washington Redskins 1:00 p.m. While the Saints’ WR situation is upside-down without Colston now, don’t bite on any of their starters nobody’s even proven worthy of #2 WR fantasy status yet. Also, don’t start any New Orleans RBs except Bush. And don’t start any marginal ‘Skins until they sort out their new offense.

San Francisco 49ers at Seattle Seahawks 4:05 p.m. TE Davis is the only marginal play worth a look from either team in this game, including Hasselbeck. Beware of him, with his injuries and his WRs continuing to drop like flies.

Atlanta Falcons at Tampa Bay Buccaneers 4:05 p.m. RBs Turner and Graham are now just about every-week plays. Galloway is the only other marginal play worth chasing in this game.

Miami Dolphins at Arizona Cardinals 4:15 p.m. All-in for the Cardinals, all-out for the Dolphins … but monitor Arizona, inasmuch as USA Today Sports Weekly correctly pointed out this week that Warner only really gets into a groove when the team deviates from its’ preferred run-pass balance.

San Diego Chargers at Denver Broncos 4:15 p.m. Stay with just the gimmes for San Diego inasmuch as the offense will probably be large ground-based against Denver. Royal and Marshall should obviously do very well together, but beware the RB platoon until somebody takes a more definitive lead role.

New England Patriots at N.Y. Jets 4:15 p.m. Try to put the Brady drama aside and treat all of your other Pats starters as you normally would, as the team won’t collapse overnight. For the Jets, only Favre looks good out of the non-gimmes as the team got off to a good start against Miami but still has much to prove.

Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns 8:15 p.m. All-in for the Steelers (based on both the Steelers and Browns Week 1 games), while it’s DA yes, Lewis no for the Browns (based on Lewis being banged-up and the likelihood that the Browns could be playing from way behind).

Monday night

Baltimore Ravens at Houston Texans 8:30 p.m. With a paucity of good offensive options for both teams and both defenses showing the capacity to play strong (notwithstanding Houston’s Week 1 bed-crapping against Pittsburgh), this is simply an all-out game for marginal players.

Philadelphia at Dallas 8:30 p.m. All-in for an East shootout!

Tom Brady: The Truth Hurts
We use that headline as a tribute to FDH Lounge Dignitary Bob Glassman, a good friend of ours. Essentially, if you have Tom Brady on your fantasy team, you almost certainly won't win your league this year.

The truth hurts. We have Brady on one of our fantasy teams. But football, as the fantasy sport most dependent on the production of one or two megastars per team and the one therefore most hostage to good and bad luck, is set up this way. Now, if your backup QB (let's say Kurt Warner) turns out to have the success of 1999 Kurt Warner and you drafted Darren McFadden and he turns out to have the success of AP last year ... well, then this somber note might not apply to you. But we always try to bring you the truth at FDH and the fact is that there is an extreme likelihood that your team will fall short this year in the absence of Brady. Other sites might blow smoke up your tailpipe and tell you that they can help you attain absolute glory even without him, but we never will. Frankly, most of your team's destiny for a season is shaped on draft or auction day and you can't make up for top picks that were spent on glaring holes. Tom Brady just became a glaring hole.

Keep trying, though, and keep checking FDH for more help. There is no shame in persevering on and making the most of what you have. There is complete and utter shame in lying down and abandoning your team and throwing off your league's competitive balance just because you suffered misfortune. Keep fighting. We certainly will!

Other NFL Week 1 Notes
^ As we told you on the fantasy show this week, keep in mind the nature of the sample size. Few things are ever as great or as horrible (with the exception of Tom Brady's 2008 production!) as they appear after the first game. We've already had a question put to us by a Laurence Maroney owner who is experiencing the "Here we go again" feeling after Week 1. That may well turn out to be justified, but how miserable would you feel if you cut him and he started to live up to his potential? Plus, the Pats will surely be more conservative without Brady, so that should accrue to Maroney's potential. That is a perfect example in a nutshell of why you should reserve judgement after one week.

^ Michael "Burner" Turner took the biggest stride towards becoming an every-week RB in the first week. Matt Forte is not quite there yet, inasmuch as the Bears need to prove they can establish the pass at some point to keep the talented youngster from facing 8-in-the-box the whole way.

^ Eddie Royal is for real, and our Senior Editor Jason Jones called it first!

Fantasy Hockey Draftology 2008
In conjunction with our friends at Sportsology, today we released our fantasy hockey guide for this season. This 100-page page bad boy contains info relating to the 2008 NFL Entry Draft and some other great non-fantasy content (including previews of the year's two hottest hockey video games and an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at one of them).

As a sneak preview of what we've got in there, check out our 2008 Fantasy Overview from Page 95:

^ As was the case in the FantasyDrafthelp.com 2008 mock draft (Pages 99-100), Crosby and
Ovechkin are going 1-2 in a great many drafts this year. Crosby is a slight bit better in allaround
production, but you really can’t go wrong with either or with any of the upper-first
round talent. When you get towards the end of the round, there’s a bit of a dropoff in value,
as is the case by the early third round as well.

^ PIM is always scarce for top players; we at FantasyDrafthelp.com have long compared
power forwards to the so-called “five-category studs” in baseball, because the combination
of grit and scoring ability is about as rare as the speed/power combo in baseball. Now, contrary
to the trend in baseball that is seeing stolen base value decrease relative to falling
power, there are even fewer players with high PIM this year towards the top of most draft
boards. Adjust accordingly.

^ Another trend that has something in common with baseball: the influx of youth towards the
top of many draft boards. Take a look at any baseball or hockey board for this year and
compare it to one from three years ago. We’re in the consolidation stage of a generational
changing of the guard.

^ Ottawa’s decline from the ranks of the Eastern Conference elite accelerates as key players
continue their migration from Ontario. Redden’s absence will hurt more than Chara’s did, at
least in a fantasy sense, because of everything he brings to the power play. This accounts for
the drop that you will see with the Sens’ “Big Three” on many draft boards this year.