Ian Allan answers your fantasy football questions. In this edition. What to expect from Percy Harvin the rest of the way. Fill-in quarterback possibilities. And trying to sort out a keeper league with a fuzzy rulebook.
Question 1
What are your thoughts on Percy Harvin both for this week and the rest of the season? I know we don't have any body of work lately to compare but I'd to know what you anticipate? Considering his history, he could be a serious difference maker is the stars align.
Johnny Bazzano (SANTA ROSA, CA)
He’s an explosive guy. He looked very fast on his 58-yard kickoff return, and he had the one big catch. But I don’t think he’s different enough than the other receivers they have. Golden Tate, Doug Baldwin and Jermaine Kearse. Those guys can all play and I think they’ll continue to use them pretty much like they’ve been using them. I think Tate will catch the most balls of these four receivers. If the Seahawks have the ball at the 35 and decide to throw a ball down the sideline into the end zone, I think that’s Kearse. He’s a little taller than those other guys and has shown some ability to make those kind of catches. With Harvin, you’re kind of hoping he’ll return a kickoff for a touchdown, but there are typically only about 8-10 of those in the NFL for the entire season – maybe a 2 percent chance for an average team to score a kickoff return touchdown in any given game. The Seahawks run a conservative offense, too. In my eyes, Harvin isn’t a guy you’d really want to use. Definitely not in a PPR league. Maybe you roll the dice on him in a standard or PPR format.
Question 2
After 18 years of standard draft style we switched to an auction last year. We added a keeper policy where any player that has a value of $1-$3 can be kept. The problem we are running into in year 2 is that I didn’t go into details on players who were drafted, dropped and then picked up as free agents. This year a owner smartly dropped Arian Foster at a price tag of $54 and picked him up a week later for $1 since he was out for the year ... no one else thought to grab him. The League is up in arms, but the rule I wrote was definitely not specific enough. Should drafted players who are dropped be allowed to be kept or should their original draft price hold through? Should free agents who were never drafted but picked up be allowed to be kept? What do a majority of other leagues do?
ERIC FEINGOLD (GARDEN CITY, NY)
Both ways work fine. I personally like the system where only players selected at the August Auction can be protected. Throughout the year, dozens of free agents get picked up for $1 or $2 – think Zac Stacy and Andre Ellington. I’d prefer to see those guys enter the auction in August with everyone having had a chance to look at said player’s body of work and mull what he might be worth long term. I don’t want teams sneaking off with big-time players because they happened to get lucky with a $1 claim during the regular season. With this approach, it makes $1 and $2 players selected in August more valuable. Had somebody selected Stacy or Ellington, for example, those guys weren’t doing much early in the year, but there would be the dimension of not wanting to give up on players too early. Once a guy enters the regular-season waiver pool, he would become a different class of player. Going this route also will result in more players being available each August. But that’s just how I would have felt if you’d sent in the question in August. For your league, the question is what should be done. It’s really one for the attorneys to sort out. Get out the rule book, read it over, and decide what you think the 12 owners, acting like reasonably prudent people, should have thought the rules were. Certainly the guy who released Foster and re-signed him for $1 thought he was operating within the rules. And it appears that some of the other 11 owners thought that such as cut-and-sign move was out of bounds (or they would have bid $5, $10 or $20 on Foster).
Question 3
I wrote you a few weeks ago about my QB problems. Hasn't gotten much better. I have Ryan and ended up picking up Keenum and dropping Pryor. The position is keeping me up at night! How do you feel about Carson Palmer going forward? He's available, as are Tannehill, Alex Smith, Flacco and Eli.
Mike Koffski (CHICAGO, IL)
If you want to go the George Bush route and just go off your gut, than Carson Palmer. He’s been heating up recently; the entire team seems to be getting on a roll. But when I look a the various matchups and project out the numbers, Alex Smith (who would not be chosen by George Bush) comes out a notch ahead of Palmer-Flacco-Tannehill, who are all pretty much interchangeable. Smith and Tannehill, note, are scramblers. Flacco and especially Palmer are not. Palmer has games left against Seattle and San Francisco, and also one against Tennessee, which has allowed a league-low 8 TD passes. Probably best to pick up a couple of these guys and use a mix-and-match approach.
Question 4
I have secured a wildcard playoff berth, and I may very well earn a week 14 "bye". I want to maximize my roster for weeks 15 and 16. 12 Team PPR with a flex. My RB corps is set – Shady McCoy, Eddie Lacy, Chris Johnson, Shane Vereen, and Donald Brown. My WRs consist of Jordy Nelson, Antonio Brown, Harry Douglas, and Danny Amendola. I am thinking a lot about Michael Crabtree -- by week 15, could he be the key to a successful playoff run? But I cant wait long -- one good game from him and he'll be off the waiver wires. I am thinking about dropping Amendola or Donald Brown and picking up Crabtree. Is this worth doing, and if so, who should I drop to get him?
Andrew Napoli (SPRINGFIELD, VA)
I think it’s worth bringing in Crabtree for a looksee. Maybe he develops into something. He was a top-10 receiver during the second half of last year. The guy to cut, I think, is Amendola. The way they’re running that offense in New England, you simply can’t rely on him. You could also part with Donald Brown. With the talent you have at running back, he’s not going to play any games on your team.
Question 5
Ian, I completely disagree with your prediction in this week’s redrafter. I think Philadelphia can and most likely will lose 3 of their last 5 games and maybe only win one. Arizona, Detroit, Dallas, and Chicago, will most likely win. We play total points through Week 17. In your opinion will Andre Brown continue to pound the ball or will they rest him going forward if they are out of the playoffs? Thanks
BEN HOGEVOLL (SILETZ, OR)
They’re not going to rest Andre Brown. This is his chance, in the last month of the season, to show what he can do – to show that he can be their starting tailback in 2014. But now that the Giants have slipped to 4-8, I worry about the wheels kind of falling off that entire team. That’s happened a couple of times before under Coughlin. And the closing schedule isn’t particularly favorable.
Question 6
I love your magazine and your weekly columns. Been reading the magazine for 20 years and with much success. In a distance league, I need to pick up a QB for the rest of the season. Ryan, Flacco and Campbell are available. Who would you recommend?
JOHN TREANOR (VENICE, CA)
With Ryan, I think you’re at best looking at one viable game – Week 15 at home against Washington. That team (Atlanta) seems to be playing with one eye on the offseason, so I’m not even sure Ryan will be off much value in that game. Campbell has been the best of these quarterbacks recently, but he has a concussion and won’t play this week. Three of his final four are on the road against teams with some defensive ability – Patriots, Jets, Steelers. He also looks like a spot-duty guy. So Flacco, I guess, is your guy. Gets one of the weakest defenses in the league next week (Minnesota). They play at Detroit, then return home for the Patriots. Both of those teams are leading their divisions right now, but the Lions have been soft at times defensively, and that game will be played indoors. The Ravens have tended to play well against New England.
Question 7
Trade question for you. This is a TD + Yardage league format. Just was wandering if this would be a fair trade for both parties involved in your opinion? AP, Julius Thomas, and Mason Crosby for Marshawn Lynch and DeSean Jackson. Just let me know what your thoughts are.
CHAD GILL (JUNIATA, NE)
I think it’s a “fair” trade in that I don’t think the teams are colluding. Nobody here is trying to undermine the league, and neither guy is just a dumb jackass who doesn’t know what he’s doing. Both guys are just trying to make their teams better, and they’ve presumably got their reasons. In rough terms, I like the side of the trade with the two Cal players. Peterson (according to my projections) will be about 7 points better than Lynch over the last five weeks of the season. But Jackson I have as 14 points better than Thomas.
Question 8
Kind of surprised you didn't adjust the Weekly to account for D. Moore being ruled out - having Streater as an option, it would have been nice to see how your projections would shake out with Moore not in there. Oh well, I think I'm starting him anyway ... Happy Thanksgiving!
Scott Anderson (LAKEWOOD, CO)
Apologies. That was an oversight. Moore was addressed in the team capsule, but that didn’t get properly carried over into the stat projections. Rod Streater should have been a few slots higher, Andre Holmes took that starting spot – he should have showed up near the bottom of the rankings.
Question 9
Should I spend all my money on Monte Ball – do you have a guess where you'd rank him this weekend, in a PPR league? I won't hold you to it – just a guess? I'm thin at RB, just LeVeon Bell and Ben Tate.
Andrew Beach (Toronto, ON)
Knowshown Moreno has returned to practice. It’s looking like he’ll play (meaning Ball should get at most a third of the work in Devenr’s backfield).