Fantasy Football Week 9

I promise, another poker post will be coming soon, and it won't be about freerolls. In the meantime, enjoy another post about fantasy football.

Looking at my roster, I'm amazed that I'm 8-1 right now. I wish I could attribute it all to skill, but undoubtedly, I've been very lucky this year. This week was more of the same - a little bit of foresight mixed in with a lot of luck.

Starters

Derek Anderson - I fought with this choice all week. Most FF sites were recommending Manning over Anderson this week. Instead, I went with Anderson at home against a Seattle D that tends to be weaker on the road. After the first half, it looked bad for me, but a couple of Manning miscues & an explosive 2nd half from Anderson made this the right choice by about 5 points. Just imagine if Anderson added some TDs to his total.

Brian Westbrook - Honestly, I'll take Westbrook over Adrian Peterson any time. I appreciate AP's big play value, but I want consistency from my RB. I want to know that my RB is going to give me 15+ points every week, not 45 one week and 7 the next. There hasn't been a more consistent running back this year than Westbrook.

Marshawn Lynch - This guy has been pretty good this year too, and he finally had one of those games that's been predicted of him for the past 4 games or so.

Reggie Wayne - I really didn't expect too much from him this week - I figured NE was going to shut him down. I just didn't have anyone else to put in his spot.

Chris Chambers - My latest waiver wire addition. I was hoping for a better game against one of the worst pass defenses in the league.

Heath Miller - No yardage, but another TD. I picked up Ben Watson just in case, but as long as Miller is still scoring, Watson stays on my bench.

Kris Brown - Bah. Kickers.

Wash D - I honestly was SO close to picking up Detroit's D, but instead I went with the higher ranked defense. I should've paid closer attention to recent play - Detroit's D has been on fire, and they were going against a struggling Broncos team. At least Washington didn't end up negative points.

Bench

Peyton Manning - He'll be back in my lineup next week. Although it only gave me an extra 5 points, I'm kinda proud of my decision to bench him. I don't know of many people who'll bench Peyton in any week, but I just felt that he wasn't the better play this week.

Joey Galloway - I'm so sick of Joey Galloway. I never know when to start him because he's so damn inconsistent. He's probably going to continue to go off until I play him again, and then he'll revert back to his 12 yard games.

Waiver Wire

As I've mentioned before, my league has a liberal waiver-wire policy. You can make as many moves as you want, and after Monday, it's first-come, first-serve. Since my league is only fairly active, and most of them don't have a clue, I usually get fresh pickings. I lost out on M. Colston last week, when someone claimed him before Monday, and they had better waiver position than me. This week, I didn't see any claims, so I'm dropping Wash D, K. Brown (bye week) and D. Bowe for B. Engram, E. Graham, and M. Crosby. I thought about picking up Detroit's D, but I have Seattle at home against SF this week - that's a must play.

Other Notes

Schaubs left a comment last week asking about what sites I use. Honestly, I don't really use that many. I read most of ESPN's stuff on a weekly basis, but what I care about most are two things - points against stats & injury reports. Most of my roster is already set by default - Westbrook, Lynch, Wayne, Miller are always starters. Manning is most of the time. Where I usually need info is when I'm deciding which Defense to start, or who to start at my 2nd WR spot. I use the points against stats to see who's giving up more points at the WR spot. It's not my sole factor in determining who to play, but it plays a big part. I usually rely on NFL.com early Sunday morning to see if there's any injuries I need to know about (i.e. is Andre Johnson coming back yet?). At this time in the season, I don't really rely on much info to make my decision - you usually know who your horses are at this point, so you run with them. I usually start gathering more information as it gets closer to the end of the season. As the playoff picture starts developing, I need to know who's still running their starters, and who's getting benched. But right now, decisions are usually easier to make, so I don't invest a lot of time making them.