Target Risers & Potential Breakouts, Week 17

Week 17 of the NFL season is always tricky for fantasy purposes. For this reason, most leagues wrap up fantasy action in Week 16. For a lot of us, the relevant games are over, championships having been awarded to Todd Gurley owners, and a handful of others I'm sure. Still, the somewhat chaotic and imbalanced […]

Target Risers & Potential Breakouts, Week 16

Well, we've reached Week 16. For most leagues, it's championship week. With that in mind, if you're still browsing fantasy football content at this point in the season, it likely means you've had a pretty good year and are playing for a title. Or maybe you're a go-getter in a third place matchup with some […]

Target Risers & Potential Breakouts, Week 15

By Week 15 of the fantasy football season, if you're still playing, there's a fair chance that you're a veritable encyclopedia of NFL statistical knowledge, at least for the current year. With so much data available, our takes just aren't as hot as they were back in the early part of the season. To the […]

Target Risers and Potential Breakouts, Week 14

Week 13 once again saw a handful of truly studly performances from staple fantasy commodities. Keenan Allen became the first player in NFL history to post three straight games with at least ten catches for at least 100 yards and a touchdown, but insofar as he's generated write-ups in each of the last two weeks, […]

Target Risers and Potential Breakouts, Week 13

With Week 12 in the books, there are quite a few names to get to, particularly at the wide receiver position, who managed to post noteworthy target totals, and in some cases week-winning fantasy lines, perhaps portending the kind of big December finish that can conclusively redeem an early season disappointment. With more players to […]

Target Risers and Potential Breakouts for Week 12

Entering Week 12, the theme of today’s column is players who have shaken off injuries, slumps, or downright bad starts to the season to hopefully get hot at the right time. As always, the NFL is an attrition league and injuries to other weapons can have a tremendous impact on the target share of the […]

Target Risers and Potential Breakouts for Week 11

The theme for Week 11 has been all about change in opportunity. Most of the names on this list have seen their situations change significantly from what they were in the early part of the season, whether because of an injury to someone else on their team’s depth chart, or by virtue of returning from […]

Do Not Cut Strategy for Playoffs - Endgame Special

Entering our last week of byes, and with the fantasy regular season dying down, we have a much better handle on player values than we did in the first couple of months of the NFL calendar. Before Mother Nature interfered, the plan was to have one more significant round of byes in Week 11, with […]

Target Risers and Potential Breakouts for Week 10

After an absolute whirlwind of a news cycle heading into Week 9, it was good to get some football tape to evaluate. We didn’t get a look at Kelvin Benjamin in his new home in Buffalo just yet, but we did get a glimpse of what the Panthers would look like without him. We also […]

Picking Up The Pieces After Deshaun Watson's Injury

Yesterday's season-ending injury left a lot of us in a severe state of fantasy football related depression, to the extent that that's a legitimate phenomenon (it is). Deshaun Watson was perhaps objectively the most exciting player in the NFL in 2017 and was found-money for a lot of our fantasy teams. If you owned him, […]

Target Risers and Potential Breakouts Week 10

After an absolute whirlwind of a news cycle heading into Week 9, it was good to get some football tape to evaluate. We didn’t get a look at Kelvin Benjamin in his new home in Buffalo just yet, but we did get a glimpse of what the Panthers would look like without him. We also […]

Week 9 Do Not Drop List - Don't Panic Yet

Now that we’ve passed the season’s halfway point, it’s much more difficult to come up with names for this list than it was in the early part of the season. The diamonds can only stay camouflaged in the rough for so long. There are still opportunities for players who have yet to contribute significantly to […]

Target Risers and Potential Breakouts for Week 8

Fantasy football is about two things: opportunity and talent. As you may know, targets are the lifeblood of fantasy value for receivers and many running backs in PPR leagues. In this week’s edition of Target Acquired, we’re going to take a look at some of the noteworthy players with the biggest and/or most unexpectedly high […]

Week 8 Do Not Drop List - Don't Panic Yet

In today’s installment, I want to give you a peek behind the curtain as to my motivation for writing this article each week, but I’ll start with a mea culpa on the Green Bay Packers passing game. My gut call on the Packers pass-catchers was that they were more likely to surprise in a positive […]

Target Risers And Potential Breakouts For Week 7

Fantasy value is born of a convergence of opportunity and talent. As you may know, targets are the lifeblood of fantasy value for receivers and many running backs, especially in PPR leagues. In this week’s edition of our target risers column, we’re going to take a look at some of the noteworthy players with the […]

Week 7 Do Not Drop List - Don't Panic On The Pack

This list is ordinarily exclusively about the players who are popular drop considerations from week-to-week who nevertheless have enough value to hold if you have the roster flexibility. I’m going to break format ever so slightly this week to discuss a group of players who I want to caution against selling low, and that group […]

Week 6 Do Not Drop List - Don't Panic Yet

As we leave Week 5 and enter Week 6 of the 2017 NFL season, we have a sizeable chunk of data to evaluate. With five games of film on the majority of teams, we’re reaching the point where slow starts or infrequent usage can no longer be ignored. Furthermore, we’re in the thick of bye […]

Target Risers and Potential Breakouts for Week 6

Week 5 of the NFL season was, in a target share sense, fairly heavy on the chalk. Only two players owned in less than half of Yahoo leagues had more than eight balls thrown their way, as we see usage stabilize throughout the league and quarterbacks perhaps re-focusing on their proven commodities. I expect we'll […]

Target Risers and Possible Breakouts for Week 5

If you play in as many leagues as I do, chances are at least one of your teams was ravaged by injuries in Week 4. Dalvin Cook, Chris Carson, Marcus Mariota, Derek Carr, Julio Jones, Rob Kelley, and Jordan Matthews all exited their team’s games early, and in some cases, won’t return this season. We […]

Week 5 Do Not Drop List - Don't Panic Yet

As we approach Week 5, the Broncos, Falcons, Redskins, and Saints are our first round of teams with a bye week in 2017. Fantasy owners with more than one or two players taking the week off, and/or fantasy owners in shallower leagues are, no doubt, going to have to make some very difficult add/drop decisions. […]

Monday Night Football Matchups Analysis (Week 4)

Happy Monday RotoBallers! While you might be back at work and/or on the grind today, there's always some solace in knowing that Monday Night Football awaits. And if yesterday's Sunday slate was a preview of what's to come tonight, we should be in for a good one. Kirk Cousins and the Washington Redskins travel to […]

Week 4 Do Not Drop List - Don't Panic Yet

It would be incorrect to say that fantasy football rewards patience without also noting that fantasy football just as often rewards haste. A successful fantasy owner is always looking for ways to improve his/her roster even while his/her team is winning handily. If you don’t pick up Week 3’s breakout player, your Week 4 opponent […]

Target Risers and Possible Breakouts for Week 4

Fantasy football can be a seesaw game of boxscore chasing, as throughout the season even the best players on our fantasy teams will likely take their lumps. In a feast or famine league, most players see a wide variance in their fantasy scoring from week-to-week, yet we ceaselessly hope to decipher whatever patterns we can […]

Target Risers and Possible Breakouts for Week 3

You know the drill. To succeed in fantasy football, you need players who will have ample opportunities to touch the ball from week to week. In the passing game, a reliable volume of targets is usually a prerequisite for consistent production. In this installment of Target Acquired, we'll take a closer look at some players […]

Week 3 Do Not Drop List - Don't Panic Yet

We now have two games of data to examine as we make our decisions of who is or isn’t expendable ahead of the upcoming round of waivers. While a pair of duds to open the season is sure to make a fantasy owner nervous about any player, I’ve compiled a list of guys who I […]

Corey Davis (WR, TEN) - Week 2 Waiver Wire Pickups

OWNED IN: 46% of leagues BALLER MOVE: Add in all leagues ANALYSIS: Corey Davis missed almost all of preseason with an injured hamstring, but that didn't stop him from drawing 10 targets from Marcus Mariota in the Titans opening contest against the Raiders. Davis caught six of ten passes for 69 yards, including a ridiculous […]

Carson Wentz (QB, PHI) - Week 1 Waiver Wire Pickups

OWNED IN: 63% of leagues BALLER MOVE: Add in 12-team leagues ANALYSIS: In the first four games of his rookie season in 2016, Carson Wentz completed 91 of 135 passes for 1,007 yards, seven touchdowns, and just one interception. The initial results were promising enough that he became a popular waiver add at the end […]

Coby Fleener (TE, NO) - Week 1 Waiver Wire Pickups

OWNED IN: 52% of leagues BALLER MOVE: Add in 12 team leagues ANALYSIS: After being overhyped during the summer of 2016, Fleener was a consensus top 7 TE in drafts a season ago. Having a disappointing season that saw him finish 14th among TEs, fantasy owners have approached the Saints TE with caution. Late in […]

Week 2 Do Not Drop List - Don't Panic Yet

Every NFL season, the early part of the schedule sees players dropped in fantasy leagues that wind up having hugely productive fantasy seasons for a team that didn’t draft them. It’s a phenomenon that is especially important to pay attention to early, as your impatient league mates might cut players that you want on your […]

Charles Clay (TE, BUF) - Week 2 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 12+ Team Leagues OWNED IN: 11% of leagues ANALYSIS: While Charles Clay has only just barely managed to crack the top 20 at the tight end position in each of his two years with Buffalo, there is reason to believe his arrow might be pointing up. Closing out the 2016 season […]