Challenge Contests — by Justin Eleff

A few weeks ago I started doing a regular free-advice feature at the Fantasy Index Facebook page. Every Thursday, readers submit questions about which players they should start and sit for the upcoming weekend's games, and I spend a few hours giving the best answers I can. I take the exercise seriously, not because I think I can get every answer right -- I can't; there's way too much luck involved; anyone who says otherwise is lying -- but because I do think I can give the right answers.

Maybe the distinction between those two (getting the answers right and giving the right answers) exists only in my head. What I really mean is that I can give honest answers based entirely on sound thinking -- based on everything I know and believe about what is more and less likely to happen in every game.

The results will be whatever they'll be, whether I recommend Jahvid Best and he combines for 232 yards and 3 touchdowns, or I recommend Joe Flacco and he throws for 154 yards and 4 interceptions -- both of which happened in Week 2. But the thinking behind my recommendations will always be sound. That's the whole gig. I have faith in my own approach to making fantasy decisions, and I share enough of the approach to allow the question-askers to decide to share my faith or not.

In answering their questions, I've focused most carefully on what they've told me about their leagues' scoring systems -- much as I've always focused these columns on the differences between challenge formats. That's obviously the starting point for any fantasy analysis. Knowing the rules is knowing the game. Ignore how the scoring works and you might as well pick your players at random, as my girlfriend does with a Fantasy Index Super League entry that I won't name until she has a really good week.

NOTE: It's coming. I beat her by 9 points in Week 3. Although I'm not sure she knows about bye weeks.

So the advice I give at Facebook winds up being vastly different than the advice I give you here. Hell, it winds up being vastly different than the advice I give at Facebook in response to other questions. In most fantasy formats these days, C.J. Spiller is just useless. He touched the ball on five offensive plays in Week 2, then on seven in Week 3. The Bills are a mess; the quarterbacking and blocking are awful; Chan Gailey may be featuring Marshawn Lynch because the team is looking to trade him, or maybe he just can't figure out how to get Spiller free in open space because, again, the quarterbacking and blocking are awful.

But a couple of weeks ago someone asked me about Spiller in context of a league in which 25 kick-return yards are worth 1 fantasy point. Lo and behold, three weeks into the season Spiller has returned 12 kickoffs for 374 yards and a touchdown, earning 20 points for doing so (the TD counts as 6 points). That's the equivalent of almost 70 rushing yards per game, or more than 1,000 for the full season. And since the Bills are so bad that they're allowing scores -- and thus returning kickoffs -- as often as almost any other team, Spiller is a viable starting option in that format even without hitting ten offensive touches per game.

I know none of this pertains directly to the challenge games we're all playing -- Spiller has been one of my keenest disappointments in those games so far -- but there are lessons to be remembered here.

Week 3 was tough, with a bunch of the usual challenge suspects not playing (Ryan Mathews) or putting up surprisingly poor numbers (Matt Schaub, Miles Austin, others). My teams moved as little as I can remember them doing in a given week -- from 369th overall to 341st in Fanball's Football Challenge, 132nd to 137th in the $35K points game -- and I consider myself lucky to have held my ground.

I'm sure several of you were not as lucky. I'm sure several of you are getting panicky about your rosters and your current places in the standings. I know you are, because I keep getting the same question from Football Challengers:

What about Michael Vick?

Well?

What about him?

I hope it's clear that what I'm trying to do with this column is link the process I use for answering Facebook questions to the process you use for answering challenge questions. They ought to be similar. You'll have to decide whether you have faith in me, and separately you'll have to decide whether you have faith in Vick. No getting around this; the first question that will decide our 2010 seasons is whether Vick, who costs a piddling $1120 in the Football Challenge -- just 63 percent as much as the cheapest QB left on my roster, the unplayable-for-now Carson Palmer -- belongs on our teams or not.

If you'd asked me to answer that question at Facebook on Thursday, this is what I would have told you:

Vick has started two games this season, and in those two games has passed for an average of 288 yards (at 8.8 yards per attempt) and 2.5 touchdowns, and has rushed for an average of 34 yards (at 5.6 yards per attempt) and .5 touchdowns. Those numbers are beyond useful, in any format. One of you asked me whether Randall Cunningham's numbers from 1998 are now realistic to expect out of Vick in 2010. Cunningham's numbers: 247 yards (8.7 per attempt) and 2.3 touchdowns per game passing, 8.8 yards (4.1 per attempt) and .1 touchdowns per game rushing. In other words, is Vick -- in Andy Reid's pass-first system -- suddenly a vastly different player than he was in Atlanta, where he ran often and his best-ever passing season came to 196 yards (7.0 per attempt) and 1.1 touchdowns per game?

Answer: I have perfect faith in Vick -- by which I mean that I have zero faith in Vick. I bought him last week in the points game, where his rushing production can always offset an off passing day, but I will not buy him in the Football Challenge, and if my "perfect" faith proves to be misplaced, I will lose to those of you who go the other way. I have faith enough not to leap.

I think buying Vick in any game in which both passing yards and passing average count as categories -- especially if those are two of just eight categories -- is asking to find yourself in a tough spot very soon. He'll have a bad game, and you'll fall behind teams that own better-throwing QBs. Then you'll have to decide whether to start him the next week, and risk compounding the problem. Then when he has another bad game -- whether it comes immediately or not -- you'll have to decide whether to use a second purchase to replace him. Not that he'll be easy to replace, mind you, because he is so cheap; it's always easier to dump guys who cost more. And meanwhile I will have zoomed past you in the standings.

Bottom line: I do not believe Vick is meaningfully different as a passer now than he used to be. ESPN.com's KC Joyner, who does interesting work with football numbers, reported last week that Vick threw seven passes in Weeks 1 and 2 that could or should have been intercepted (none were). Perhaps even more telling is this: Vick averaged 17.1 yards per completion in Week 3, but only 9.4 yards per attempt. The huge spread means that his 291 yards came on big plays, but he completed just 54.8 percent of his passes. His career completion percentage is 54.0. The difference between Sunday and the rest of his career? DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin are better than Jacksonville's defensive backs. Duh.

Vick faced a good defense in Week 1 (relieving the concussed Kevin Kolb against Green Bay), and he lost to that defense with 175 yards passing and 103 yards rushing. That is Michael Vick. Then he won games at Detroit and Jacksonville through the air. Those teams rank 26th and 29th against the pass in 2010, respectively. They ranked 32nd and 27th in 2009. It's a 32-team league.

Washington is this week's opponent; the Hogs' rankings are 31st in 2010 but 8th in 2009. Maybe this is suddenly another putrid defense that Vick can light up in Week 4 -- but the old Vick was no sure thing against a bad defense, and my faith is full and complete. Eventually, this "new" Vick will prove that he has not changed (on the field) at all.

Have faith in the new Vick and you might beat me this week.

Have faith in me and you might lose this week, and might even lose longer-term. I have gotten answers wrong before. But now is the time to make your choice. Leap or not?

I promise not to take offense if you go against me. But I have the right thinking behind my recommendations, whatever the results will be.

Justin Eleff has written for Fantasy Index for more than a decade. Follow him on Twitter or you risk hurting his feelings.

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