Fantasy Forum Week 14: Studs/Duds

For most of your leagues across the ESPN and Yahoo! Fantasy football platforms the playoffs begin this week if you were fortunate enough to get that far. For all of you in the playoffs good luck going forward and for those of you who playing in the consolation bracket well there’s always going to be next year. Without further adieu let’s move on to your week 14 studs and duds.

STUDS

Carson Palmer QB Oakland Raiders vs. the Green Bay Packers

Palmer has actually been a pretty good starting QB for the Raiders and fantasy owners alike since being inserted in week 9. He hasn’t scored below 10 points in the 5 games posting lines of 19, 15, 16, 10, and 16, respectively. The Packers score points in bunches and force other teams to throw. Luckily for their opponents their secondary hasn’t been all that solid this year and has been giving up yardage at a record pace, luckily for the Packers the Patriots pass defense has been even worse thus they aren’t last in the league. I see the Raiders getting down early and Palmer being forced to the air early and often. It’s not going to be pretty but he’ll put up over 300 yards and a few scores.

Stats: 326 yards, 3 TDs, 2 Ints

Chris Johnson RB Tennessee Titans vs. New Orleans Saints

After sucking thru the first 8 games of the year Johnson has turned it on the past 4 weeks, minus a 2 point performance against the stout Falcons run defense, scoring above 17 points 3 times. In those three games Johnson has gone for at least 130 yards with 3 scores total. He’s always a threat to catch a few passes out of the backfield and the Saints don’t do an overly good job of stopping the run. The key for Johnson is the Titans not being forced to the air too early for him to be able to find running lanes cause they’ll be there. I’m thinking that the Johnson from the past two weeks and last season is going to show up again in week 14.

Stats: 22 carries, 126 yards, 1 TD, 4 rec, 32 yards, 0 TD

Dez Bryant WR Dallas Cowboys vs. New York Giants 

The Cowboys have been taking to the air in the recent weeks with Bryant and Laurent Robinson being the main beneficiaries. Tony Romo has been throwing TD passes at a pretty good clip and Bryant’s reeled in at least 1 score in 3 of the last 4 games. This week I don’t see being any different when you look at the Giants 29^th ranking against the pass. Miles Austin is returning this weekend but I only see that helping Bryant get open. I expect to see Bryant dancing in the end zone.

Stats: 6 rec, 89 yards, 1 TD

DUDS

T.J. Yates QB Houston Texans vs. Cincinnati Bengals

A rookie QB without his top WR against a top 5 defense? I’ll pass thank you very much. Yates scored in double digits last week, 10 points, but that was with Andre Johnson reeling in 4 catches for 97 yards before he was forced to exit the game after he hurt his hamstring. That hamstring is going to keep him out of this week’s matchup with the stingy Bengals defense leaving Yates to lean on TE Owen Daniels who’s been a no show all year and WR Jacoby Jones who can’t seem to grab onto the reigns as a number one wideout. The Texans are going to lean heavily on RB Arian Foster and keep the ball out of Yates hands. Sit him.

Stats: 159 yards, 1 TD, 2 Ints

Dwayne Bowe WR Kansas City Chiefs vs. New York Jets pass defense

Bowe hasn’t found the end zone in 7 straight games and he’s about to take a vacation on to Revis Island. Advantage: Revis and the Jets. Tyler Palko is also still going to be under center for the Chiefs after Kyle Orton hurt himself last week after 1 play last week against the Bears. That equals bad news for Bowe and the Chiefs. He’ll get targeted but I don’t see him reeling in too many of those targets and especially none in the red zone.

Stats: 4 rec, 45 yards, 0 TD

Pierre Garcon WR Indianapolis Colts vs. Baltimore Ravens

Garcon has had 3 huge games this year scoring over 24 points in each of them. The other 9 games he hasn’t been able to crack 8 points with outputs of 3, 2, 8, 3, 3, 6, 2, 4, and 3. He reeled in 2 TDs against the worst pass defense the league has ever known, the record books will confirm this at the end of the year, and racked up 150 yards on 9 catches. With Dan Orlovsky at QB attempting to become the first man to ever lead two teams to 0-16 records I don’t see Garcon repeating that success against the 7^th ranked Baltimore Ravens pass defense. The offense isn’t strong enough all around to support Reggie Wayne and Pierre Garcon having huge games and if I had to put my money on of them I’d take Wayne and his past success. Don’t look to either though to carry your team with a weak offensive line and Dan Orlovsky throwing the passes.

Stats: 3 rec, 36 yards, 0 TD

There you have it my faithful readers week 14 of the NFL is about to get underway and you now know who to start and who to sit. Good luck in the playoffs! Until we cross paths again.

Geoff Jablonski

NFL Playoff Picture Getting Clearer: AFC Breakdown

We’re now through 12 weeks and the playoff race in the AFC has started to take a more definitive shape. There are 9 teams vying for 6 spots, the cutoff is the Bills at 10 so sorry Buffalo but losing 4 in a row and your top offensive player in Fred Jackson doesn’t allow you to be vying for a playoff spot anymore. Of those 9 teams the Bengals, Broncos, and Titans all appear to shift from week to week on whether they are pretenders or contenders. I know that Denver starts Tim Tebow at quarterback and shouldn’t really be in this conversation but there’s not much else to say other than he’s 5-1 as a starter and the team, mostly the defense, rallies around him more and more each week. They can’t score a lick and I’m pretty sure John Fox has Tebow running a dumbed down version of the offense from “Football for Dumbies” but a win is a win. Back to the subject at hand this isn’t going to be a rant or rave about Tim Tebow but a look at all the teams, here is how the AFC top 9 line up currently:

1. Houston Texans (8-3)
2. New England Patriots (8-3)
3. Baltimore Ravens (8-3)
4. Oakland Raiders (7-4)
5. Pittsburgh Steelers (8-3)
6. Cincinnati Bengals (7-4)
7. New York Jets (6-5)
8. Denver Broncos (6-5)
9. Tennessee Titans (6-5)

Now let’s break these standings down and I’m going to throw at you how I think this race is going to shake out.

You are seeing straight that is the Houston Texans sitting in the top slot. A franchise that has never had a winning record is currently your number one seed though I see that changing in the near future with the news that Matt Leinart is out for the year and the team just signed Jake “Day Light Come And I Wanna” Delhomme. The Texans are still going to win the weak AFC South but I don’t see them holding onto the top spot over the likes of the Patriots and Steelers. They’ll settle in nicely to the 3 seed ahead of the (spoiler alert!) AFC West champion Oakland Raiders. The other shoo-ins as far as this blogger is concerned are the Patriots, Ravens, and Steelers. Those three teams know how to win when the mercury drops below 32 and the calendar turns to January, I don’t see that changing this year. All three sit at 8-3 with each having the possibility of running the table. The Patriots play an extremely weak schedule the last 5 weeks of the year so I see them penciling in as the 1 seed with a 13-3 final tally. The Steelers and Ravens will battle it out for the other bye and the 2 seed. I’m going to lean towards the Ravens since they’ve already beaten the Steelers twice thus owning the tiebreaker. All they have to do is play the Steelers even down the stretch and they get the coveted bye through the wildcard weekend. Steelers will finish either 12-4 or 11-5 securing themselves the 5 seed behind the 4 division winners. Between the Patriots, Ravens, Texans, and Steelers that’s four spots out of six locked down let’s take a peek at who might grab those final two openings.

Handicapping The Rest of the Field

We’ve now decided the definite lets look at who’s left and who is going to punch a ticket to the dance and who’s going to be left out in the cold. I’m going to eliminate the Tennessee Titans from the race right off the bat. CJ1K has been a ghost all year and has only had two really good games all year and they came against the porous run defenses of the Tampa Bay Bucs and Carolina Panthers. Against everyone else he’s struggled to break the 40-yard mark while Matt Hasselbeck has been firing off interceptions like it’s going out of style. They still have games against the Saints and Texans left I don’t see them cracking the 10 wins it takes to even sniff the playoffs. Titans are off the list.

Next team up that I’m going to eliminate is those pesky Denver Broncos. There hasn’t been a simpler offense run in the NFL since the ball was oval shaped and passing was considered awkward at best. The Broncos beat the Chiefs a few weeks ago after attempting only 8 passes, completing 2, and running the ball 55 times. This week they beat the free falling Chargers in OT with Tebow completing 9-18 and running the ball over 20 times. I personally fall under the belief that it’s more of an indictment on the Chargers and Chiefs not playing well than the belief that this high school option offense will have continued success at the NFL level. There’s a reason that option quarterbacks don’t transition from college to the pros if they did the quarterbacks of Army, Navy, and the Air Force would all be top 10 picks. Tebow is winning now but teams will realize he’s not a threat to pass the ball effectively and the magic will run out. Broncos land on the outside looking in.

Eliminating the Broncos means that I’m crowning the Oakland Raiders the AFC West champions as I mentioned a few paragraphs above. The Raiders have actually been playing halfway decent with Carson Palmer steering the ship and Michael Bush picking up the slack while Run DMC’s foot heals. When the Raiders get him back and have their entire WR corps healthy the Raiders will stand a punchers chance moving forward. They can hold off the Broncos and their Tebowing. They’re in as AFC West champions and the 4 seed.

Then there were two…the current 6 seed Cincinnati Bengals and the 7 seed New York Jets. It kills me to say this as a diehard Pats fan but I’m going to concede the 6 seed to the Jets in the end. They have an easier schedule down the stretch than the Bengals and though Mark Sanchez has done nothing to show he has a semblance of consistency he’s been to the AFC Championship game twice and can somewhat handle playing under stress. The Bengals are lead by a rookie quarterback who has exceeded all expectations in the redheaded fireball Andy Dalton. Dalton has had an extraordinary season by all accounts but I don’t think he can beat the Texans, Steelers and Ravens down the stretch while the Jets get the likes of the Redskins, Chiefs, reeling Eagles, Giants, and Dolphins. The Jets have a pretty good shot at winning out whereas the Bengals would do well to win 2 out of 3 of those games, their other two games are against the Rams and Cardinals I’m going to chalk those up as W’s. The Bengals have had a much better year than anticipated in year 1 of the Dalton experience and I think next year they’ll be dancing with the big boys but this year they’re going to be left waiting for a prom date. Jets wrap up the 6th seed and if there’s justice for being obnoxious ego inflated pricks they’ll be bounced in round 1 by the Texans. If not then hopefully the Steelers or Ravens can serve them papers in round 2.

There you have it folks that’s why I see the AFC playoff race playing out and stay tuned for my take on the NFC race tomorrow night. Let me know what you think.

Geoff Jablonski

Fantasy Forum Week 11: Studs/Duds with a little Sleeper action

Last week: 5-1

Season totals: 8-4

Week 11 has arrived folks and its time for this week’s Studs/Duds here at the Fantasy Forum brought to you by Views from the Couch. Last week was a strong week for yours truly nailing 5 out of 6 picks, thanks for not showing up for your meeting DeSean Jackson making me look like a genius appreciate it. This week we’re going to be bringing you a special edition with 4 studs, 3 duds, and 2 sleepers.

STUDS

Carson Palmer QB Oakland Raiders vs. Minnesota Vikings inadequate pass defense

Since being acquired from the Bungals and Mike Brown for 2 future 1^st round picks (nice trade Oakland) Palmer hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire. He’s thrown 5 TD passes as opposed to 7 interceptions and fumbled twice for good measure. Expect all of that to change this week however. Palmer has managed to sling the rock for 332 and 299 yards the past two weeks respectively and he’s now facing the 31^st ranked pass defense. Denarious Moore also appears poised to continue his ascent up the Raiders WR depth chart and Palmer loves lobbying it up deep to him. Expect big things this week in Minnesota for Carson.

Stats: 30-44, 325 yards 3 TD 1 INT

Brandon Marshall WR Miami Dolphins vs. Buffalo Bills pass defense

Buffalo is 25^th against the pass this year and is 31^st against opposing teams #1 wide receivers, which is exactly what Marshall is for the Dolphins. Since coming out of the gate on fire in the first 2 weeks and then slowing down for a few games Marshall has picked it up the past 2 games going for 8 rec, 106 yards and a score and 7 rec for 98 yards. He gets targeted on more than 50% of the Dolphins pass plays so opportunities are aplenty on a weekly basis for the man with the notorious case of the dropsies. He’ll get his yards every week the question as always is can he find the end zone and grab those 6 extra fantasy points. This week I’m going to go with yes.

Stats: 7 rec, 112 yards 1 TD

Brandon Jacobs RB New York Giants vs. Philadelphia Eagles atrocious run defense

With Ahmad Bradshaw already having been ruled out for the 3^rd consecutive week Jacobs is in line to get the lion’s share of the carries against the Eagles this week. The Eagles can’t stop anyone on the ground and Jacobs used to be a good back. I see the possibility of him regaining some of that old form this week against a run defense that is surrendering over 20 fantasy points a game to opposing backfields. He’s received 18 carries in each of the last two games I think he’ll get around 20 this game and make the most of them while finding the end zone to boot.

Stats: 20 carries, 85 yards, 1 TD, 2 Rec, 12 yards

New England Patriots D/ST vs. Kansas City Chiefs and starting QB Tyler Palko

The Patriots defense has struggled all year to stop anyone, which you already know if you live in the New England area and read the paper, watch TV, or listen to the radio. It’s well documented how the Patriots lack elite personnel on defense to create turnovers at the same clip they did last year when they finished a league best +28 in takeaways/giveaways. Insert the Kansas City Chiefs sans QB Matt Cassel and RB Jamaal Charles and viola all your defensive ills are cured. Last week against the Sanchize and the Jets the Pats D/ST racked up 17 points I think they can approach that number again this week. Palko was cut from NFL Europe a few years back, enough said. The Patriots defense will have a strong day for the second straight week.

Stats: 275 yards against, 7 points, 2 INT, 1 FumRec, 3 Sacks

DUDS

Andy Dalton QB Cincinnati Bengals vs. Baltimore Ravens

Last week Dalton somewhat came back to earth against a strong Steelers defense in an AFC North showdown. This week is another AFC North battle against a Baltimore Ravens defense that always brings the pressure and heat on opposing QB’s. In none of the past 3 weeks has Dalton thrown for more than 217 yards twice finishing under 200 I see that continuing this week especially with star rookie and favorite target WR AJ Green banged up and approaching the rookie wall. UPDATE: Green has been ruled doubtful for this weeks tilt against the Ravens making Dalton’s task even taller against the league’s number one pass defense.

Stats: 15-33, 167 yards 1 TD 2 INT

Beanie Wells RB Arizona Cardinals vs. San Francisco 49ers stout run defense

The 49ers have the top ranked run defense in the league and Wells is an enigma. After a few big weeks early in the year and a solid game against the Ravens 3 weeks ago (83 yards, 1 TD) juicy matchups against the Rams and Eagles seemed like great opportunities to rack up major points. Wrong. Bells ran for 20 yards and 62 yards putting 3 and 6 points, respectively, on the board fantasy wise. If he couldn’t run all that well against the weakest run defenses on the league I don’t see much reason why he’ll torch the best run defense. UPDATE: Wells has been ruled Questionable for this weeks matchup so if you have him I wouldn’t run the risk of starting him.

Stats: 14 carries, 34 yards, 0 TD

Darrius Heyward-Bey WR Oakland Raiders vs. Minnesota Vikings

Even though his QB, Carson Palmer, is in the studs category I’m going to put Heyward-Bey in the duds section. Since Palmer took over the starting job in Oakland Heyward-Bey has disappeared. He doesn’t appear to have any chemistry with Palmer causing him to put up back to back goose eggs. What’s so frustrating about that for fantasy owners is that the previous 4 weeks with Jason Campbell under center Heyward-Bey actually seemed like a guy worthy of being drafted 7^th overall in the NFL Draft, news flash he wasn’t. He had put up 11, 15, 8, and 8 points making it look like he was trending upwards but alas he is back to the Darrius Heyward-Bey who recorded to goose eggs thru the first 3 weeks.

Stats: 1 Rec, 7 yards, 0 TD

SLEEPERS

I’m not going to put up any stats predictions for the following two players but I am going to put a brief blurb on why the Couch thinks that it might be wise to grab the following two players for the stretch run.

Kendall Hunter RB San Francisco 49ers

If you own Frank Gore in any of your fantasy leagues I’d suggest picking up Hunter quickly before someone else scoops him up. With Gore ailing and the 49ers already having seemingly wrapped up the NFC West, they own a 5 game lead on the 2^nd place team with 7 to play I like their odds, Hunter is going to get some carries going forward. He managed to rack up 40 yards and a TD on 6 carries last week. He’s been getting 8 or 9 carries pretty consistently all year and I think that number will actually trend upwards in the coming weeks. Hunter’s going to see carries while the 49ers attempt to keep the ever-fragile Gore healthy for a playoff run.

Damian Williams WR Tennessee Titans

When Kenny Britt went down in week 3 with a torn ACL the Titans #1 WR spot was vacant waiting to be taken. At first it appeared that Nate Washington would step in and fill that role but he’s been somewhat of a disappointment and Williams is slowly catching up to him. QB Matt Hasselbeck is targeting and gaining more and more confidence in Williams each and every week. Williams has found paydirt in each of the last two weeks while also racking up 107 yards last week. He has 4 scores on the year and I don’t see Hasselbeck decreasing his targets moving forward. If he’s available in your league, he probably is considering he’s only at 7.2% ownership, scoop him up and reap the benefits.

There you have it folks another week here at the Fantasy Forum. We’ll see you next week for week 12’s Studs/Duds.

Geoff Jablonski