Ian Allan answers your fantasy football questions. In this edition: is there any chance Adrian Peterson will play in 2014? Why the snake draft format is inferior to the new-and-improved "third round reversal". And when is it time to push the panic button on the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Tom Brady and Eddie Lacy?

Question 1

Let me apologize in advance, Ian, because this may sound like a rant. I like watching and reading various FF programs and sites to get opinions of others even if I don't take the advice given. What has driven me crazy both last and this week are the "experts" that say to start so-and-so at WR this week because they are playing against the team that is 30th against the pass. Only two/three weeks have been played---that team with the low rank could have played high power passing teams for those weeks. Do you agree or disagree – the rational of starting a player based on the defense he is playing against cannot be accurate until at least 5-6 weeks into the season, minimum. Thanks, I feel better now.

James Graefe (TAMPA, FL)

Good point. At this point, we have opinions about which defenses are good and bad. But those should be influenced not only by the pure stats of the first three weeks. Many of those numbers have been heavily influenced by scheduling. Maybe a team happens to have played against three really good quarterbacks, or has benefited from playing three teams that simply don’t run the ball much. So those opinions should be supported by other factor. How good do you expect the defense to be in the preseason? Which players were added or lost in the offseason? And how did the defense rank in 2013?

2 Comments | Add Comment

Question 2

Just got the redrafter for week 4. Can you please explain why you have Larry Fitzgerald ranked as highly as you do? He's 18th in a yardage and TD format, 17th in PPR, and 14th in TD only. He's been terrible. Whenever I watch the Cardinals, it's the Michael Floyd show with special guest stars: the receiving Browns (John and the other dude). What has Fitzgerald done to inspire any confidence to be ranked that high? I'm very close to referring to him as "the ghost of Larry Fitzgerald."

ED HAYES (Lisle, IL)

You’re talking crazy. He’s played only three games, and two of them were with the starting quarterback out. Fitzgerald actually caught a touchdown at New York; it was overturned by a replay. He’ll be fine. They have some other guys there, of course. Michael Floyd is a faster, better downfield threat. And John Brown is a good, explosive No. 3 receiver. But Fitzgerald has that great veteran savvy and those phenomenal hands. He’s the guy they feature when they’re around the goal line (which is why he scored 10 touchdowns last year, while Floyd caught only 5). You definitely stay the course with Fitzgerald.

Add Comment

Question 3

I was curious about the positives of 3RR vs snake. I want examine it for my league. 15 rounds and how having keepers and keeper round would be impacted.

Jay Monahan (Cincinnati, OH)

The snake format is inherently flawed. By definition, the first round is more valuable than the second. All of the 12 players selected in the first, after all, were selected before any of the guys in the second. In theory, those 12 guys should all score more points than the 12 who get selected in the second. So when someone is given a choice or whether to pick higher in the first or higher in the second, they’ll usually pick the first. There are exceptions, of course. Maybe some smart guy has observed that for this year’s draft, there are 15 really similar superstar players at the top of the draft board. So this might be an exception year where it’s best to selected 10th, 11th or 12th. But in general, it’s best to select early in the first round and late in the second. Most people agree with that conclusion. Now set that aside and start over with the third and fourth rounds. The third round is then like the first, and the fourth round becomes the second, and we’re just repeating the same error over again, giving the same advantages to the same teams again. That’s why it makes some sense, I think, to look at the Third Round Reversal. With that format, once you finish the second round, everything gets turned on its head. Starting with the third round, all of the remaining picks are reversed. That is, if you were picking 1st in the third round, you’re now picking 12th. If you were picking 11th in the fourth round, you’re now picking 2nd. That seems to help close the gap some. I ran my own projections for the first eight rounds of both formats, and Third Round Reversal came out better.

In both formats, the average strength of a team after eight rounds is 384 points. They’re picking the same 96 players. But in the Snake, three teams are at least 6 points ahead of average, and four teams are at least 6 points below average. Note in the chart that with the Third Round Reversal, all seven of those teams are moved closer to zero, which is where we want them. In the Snake format, teams are a collective 89 points away from average. In the 3RR, they’re only 61 points away from average, a sizable improvement. It’s not a huge deal, of course. I think both methods are fair enough. And neither addresses the issue of some teams having to wait 20-plus picks between selections. I would prefer a drafting order where after the initial 80-100 players have been selected, the draft defaults to a standard, NFL-style order, with no team having to wait more than 11 choices between picks.

2 Comments | Add Comment

Question 4

Love your stash alert for Marvin Jones, confirmed my drop/add I did 5 minutes before I read that part of the weekly. I had been planning it for the last week. I have always stashed guys, prior to anyone else grabbing them. Given the injury/suspension debacle this year, can y'all please institute a Stash Alert column? I am already planning the pickup of Josh Gordon, but since a lot of people will be tracking that one, he might be worth a pickup 3 weeks prior. I would love the thoughts of your incredible staff. Thanks to the Index, my wife and my teams have been at the top of our 10 team league.

Bob Phipps (Orlando, FL)

I will continue to try to work stash alerts into the weekly newsletters. I think you’ll need to move earlier if you want to get Josh Gordon. He’s returning in Week 12, and he should be a productive, helpful receiver in those final games. Another possible target is Isaiash Crowell. Four games in a row he’s been more productive than Terrance West. Now the Browns have him getting practice reps ahead of West. Ben Tate will be their starter coming out of their bye week, but there’s no way he’ll stay healthy for all 13 of their remaining game. I expect Crowell will be their change-of-pace guy, and I believe he’ll start some games before this thing is through.

Add Comment

Question 5

What's the difference in D rankings on the Yardage Sheet vs. the PPR Sheet?

RUSS FIEGER (Stilwell, KS)

The standard defense rankings use the scoring system of 6 points for touchdowns (including special teams), 2 for each takeaway and 1 for each sack. With the rankings on the PPR sheet, they also include points allowed. If a team is projected to allow 24 points, that’s average – no points. If we think they’ll allow 20 points, than they get 2 fantasy points. If we think they’ll allow only 14 (which is about as low as we would ever go) they’d get 5 points – 1 point for ever 2 NFL points under 24.

Add Comment

Question 6

Let me start again by saying you have a fantastic product and appreciate the time and effort you put into projections and analysis. Do you see any value in updated rankings coming out Saturday night or Sunday morning instead of or in addition to Friday afternoon? Case in point, Arian Foster was inactive this morning and you alluded to him being questionable on Friday but didn't seem to update projections in the event he didn't play. Curious where you would have slotted Blue with Foster inactive? Perhaps there isn't enough of these circumstances that change projections that much but it sure seems this year that we have more uncertainty going into the weekend with players than we have in the past.

WILL SAYRE (Sacramento, CA)

Agreed. There were too many up-in-the-air and late changes last week, with Foster, Bernard Pierce and Jamaal Charles not playing, and DeSean Jackson active. In general, when there is a small, manageable number of injuries, those should be addressed with a post on the website. When there are enough changes, there should also be a re-updating of the draft projection file, which would then loaded onto the site. We can do that. We did it a week ago Thursday, when it became apparent that Roddy White and Doug Martin wouldn’t play. Going forward, if we get into a deal where there are too many players moving around on Saturday or Sunday, I will update the stat projections and put them on the site.

Add Comment

Question 7

I have Brady, Lacy and Fitzgerald and am 0-3. I'm not a panic too early guy, but let me what to do with these players as far as giving up on them and trading for something at least.

Gary Gesnaldo (Naples, FL)

I think you stay the course with those guys. Brady and Fitzgerald will get things turned around, just like they have many times in the past. They’re Hall of Fame players. Lacy should also be fine. He’s had the misfortune of opening against three of the very best run defenses – Seahawks, Jets, Lions. I’ll grant that he hasn’t been playing well (the backup there, James Starks, is averaging almost 2 more yards per carry) but I’m sure he’ll get things turned around.

Add Comment

Question 8

I followed your advice and waited to draft Kyle Rudolph (got him in round 7). Now of course he's out for most of the season with a groin tear. Even when he comes back, I suspect he'll be a shadow of his potential. I've got a ton of bye week issues on Week 4 (Russell Wilson, Gio Bernard, Jeremy Hill, Wes Welker) and major injuries I need to carry on the roster (Mark Ingram, Ryan Mathews). Basically, my entire bench this week consists of bye weeks and injured guys. I have no backup TE. Owen Daniels, Ladarius Green, Travis Kelce, and Jermaine Gresham are available free agents. My opponent this week had Dennis Pitta. So I suspect he will blow a significant chunk of his $100 free agency budget to pick up Owen Daniels. I already had to blow a lot of money to get Donald Brown to replace the injured Ryan Mathews, so my free agent budget is down to $54. My team is 2-1. Question: Do I get ruthless and blow like $24 to try and snake Owen Daniels from my opponent and force him to get a lower quality replacement? Or do I conserve my free agency resources and allocate like $14 for Ladarius Green or $7 for Jermaine Gresham? I'm going to have to drop Kyle Rudolph in any event. I may try and pick him back up later in the season if his recovery seems to be moving faster than expected.

Andrew Napoli (Springfield, VA)

I like Daniels. He might be just as good as Dennis Pitta was going to be. There’s some value there. He’s got good hands, he’s knows that offense, and Gary Kubiak loves using tight ends around the goal line. In his last three years in Houston, his tight ends caught 28 of the team’s 61 touchdown passes. Only three teams had more tight end touchdowns in that span, and only two had a higher ratio of touchdowns going to tight ends. Only slight flaw there, you might notice, is that Daniels was in that offense and wasn’t a great scorer (12 touchdowns in 35 games). He got hurt a lot, and a lot of those scores went to other tight ends who weren’t even starters. Joel Dreessen caught 6 one year, I believe. So Daniels is the guy I would go after, but I wouldn’t break the bank for him. If you need to settle for Ladarius Green, he should work fine.

4 Comments | Add Comment

Question 9

Have questions about a couple players you had high in the magazine going into the season and have yet to do anything. The first is Justin Hunter. He has 21 targets after 3 games, but only 8 recs for 126 yds. What’s the deal here, does he drop that many balls? I drafted him late for upside, but with Jordan Matthews coming on I am thinking of dropping Hunter in my Dynasty league for someone with more upside like L. Murray or D. Freeman. Also, I picked up both Glennon and Mallett for upside to go with Brees. After the horrible games by McCown and Fitz, do you see these guys having any upside. Don't compare to Brees, we start two quarterbacks in this league.

CAL HOSKISON (Carpinteria, CA)

Hunter is a talented dude. Big, fast, playmaking kind of guy, and we’ve seen flashes of that talent. In a few games last year, he simply took passes away from guys. He caught a pair of touchdowns in the preseason game at New Orleans. He’s got that same kind of body type as Randy Moss and A.J. Green. So I would be very reluctant to cut him loose for a bag of beans in a dynasty format. Who’s quarterbacking that team in 2015? As for the quarterbacks, I like Glennon a lot better than Mallett. I think Glennon will start most of Tampa Bay’s remaining games. With the Texans, I would fear that if there’s a switch to Mallett, a switch to Tom Savage probably isn’t far behind.

Add Comment

Question 10

I have Adrian Peterson in my Yahoo! league and could use the roster spot (I'm not desperate, but just sayin'). With the way the NFL is going now, who knows what will happen? Would you go ahead and cut Peterson, or is it worth waiting. Your best guess, please.

Dave (MOJO) Smith (Walls, MS)

In general, I think Peterson is good enough that he probably should be on somebody’s roster in a typical 12-team league, but he’s one of the very last guys. With 20-man rosters, there are 240 players, and Peterson might be in the last 40. There is a value in having roster spots to shuffle through the weekly prospects that pop up – Lorenzo Taliferro, Owen Daniels, guys like that – so I would probably waive Peterson if I needed a roster spot to bring in somebody who might help. My gut tells me that Peterson isn’t playing this year.

Add Comment

Question 11

Rashad Jennings had a huge game this week vs Houston. He also had a huge workload with 34 carries and has a short week to recover with the Giants at Washington on Thursday night. I'm curious to know how other RBs have fared in the Thursday game after that many touches (say 25+) on Sunday.

James Wimmers (Lincolnton, NC)

Good observation, and I think it’s reasonable to conclude that if a back carries a big workload in a Sunday game, they might look to spell him a little more on Thursday. That seemed to be the case last night. I saw Andre Williams replace Jennings for the third series of that game. I think the intention was to spell Jennings a little bit more. Then New York got way ahead and took that opportunity to pull Jennings and give Williams some extra work. In the first half of that game, Jennings had 10 carries and Williams had only 3 (they were on pace for their usual kind of workloads). In the second half, they went to Williams a lot more and he actually ended up with slightly more carries.

Add Comment

Question 12

Why the long-term love for Denver?

RAY SCHMITT (Normal, IL)

They’re definitely in the mix to potentially win it all. That defense is a lot better now than it was last year. And Peyton Manning hasn’t fallen off nearly as much as I was expecting. Right now he’s on pace to throw 43 touchdown passes. They’ve got to get their running game figured out, but that’s a very dangerous offense.

Add Comment

Question 13

I have a bit of a bench dilemma. It's a 10-team standard league, but with only 4 bench spots per team. I'm trying to think of the future. Right now I have Jordan Cameron benched for the bye, and Josh Gordon as a long-term trade chip stash. Niles Paul is my fill-in TE, but I have a feeling I should probably view Cameron as the better long-term play and hold onto him. So for this week I have to pick 2 from the following; Taliaferro, Sankey, Knile Davis, Ryan Mathews. I'm leaning Taliaferro/Sankey and Mathews, but I feel like I've gotta give Knile another week or two just to make sure Charles stays upright. I'm pretty thin at RB (Forte and Joique are the two I'm hanging onto) so that's why I'd be willing to give up Cameron and keep either Paul or Kelce for a while so I could add RB depth. Thanks!

Drew Bankston (Tyler, TX)

You have to hang onto Gordon, I think. He could give you a nice boost starting in Week 12. He’s practicing with the team. Niles Paul can now be dumped. When Washington returns from its bye, Jordan Reed (hamstring) should be ready, making Paul just a bit player (plus he appeared to suffer a pretty serious concussion last night).

Add Comment

Question 14

Long-term tight end fill-in Quarless, Donnell, or Daniels?

Chris Winder (San Ramon, CA)

You saw Larry Donnell on Thursday night; he looked like another Jimmy Graham, catching 7 passes and 3 TDs. Right now he’s on pace to finish the year with 100 catches. With Owen Daniels, you’re trying to tap into Gary Kubiak’s history of using tight ends on play action around the end zone. Daniels caught a pair against the Steelers. I just hope that the Dennis Pitta injury doesn’t oddly work against Daniels. Two weeks ago, Pitta was perceived to be the primary threat. That may have played a role in Daniels sneaking free for those touchdowns. Now that Pitta’s gone, Daniels becomes the main guy, and surely there will be games coming up where we’re all kicking ourselves when it’s instead Crockett Gillmore who catches the 4-yard touchdown flip. Quarless has been growing on me. I saw him catch a touchdown in the preseason, and on the next play they isolated him outside as a wide receiver and threw to him again (he didn’t catch that pass, but a pass interference penalty moved the ball to the 1). There seems to be some trust between Quarless and Aaron Rodgers. On that touchdown at Detroit, Quarless isn’t really open. He lines up, runs the slant route, and Rodgers drives it in there anyway. That wasn’t a Daniels-type deception play, where the intention was to trick the defense into leaving him uncovered – they were going to Quarless all the way (just like on the 2-point conversion against the Raiders in August).

2 Comments | Add Comment

Question 15

I see where you have Marvin Jones ranked on your redrafter, but what do you think his production will look like when he comes back from his injury? Are you going to be picking him up for your teams?

Paul Karrmann (West Chester, PA)

I think he has some value, and I believe he’ll play in Week 5. So if you move on him now, you potentially could use him in a fantasy lineup in Week 6. He was pretty good last year, with 10 touchdowns. Four of those came in that one game against the Jets (ironically, the one team that once selected a Marvin Jones in the first round of the draft) but he seemed to be coming on late in the year. He scored in three of his last four games. He caught 5-plus passes in only five games, and four of those were the last four games of the season. I remember Jones playing very well in the playoff loss against the Chargers, catching 8 passes for 130 yards.

Add Comment

Question 16

Standard League. I was recently offered Doug Martin straight up for Cordarrelle Patterson. It's amazing how far Martin's fortunes have fallen that my first reaction was "HECK NO," considering Patterson hasn't exactly lit it up this year. I'm very thin at RB after Forte (Joique, Knile, Sankey and Taliaferro), but I'm equally as thin at WR after Julio (Garcon, Patterson and Josh Gordon). Is this a good trade that I shouldn't be talking myself out of? Or is Martin not the back he used to be?

Drew Bankston (Tyler, TX)

I think it’s a fair trade. They have similar value. For me, I’ve got Martin inside my top 20 among running backs, while Patterson is just outside my top 20 at wide receiver. So I would go with Martin.

Add Comment

Question 17

I still have Adrian Peterson on my team. There is a team owner who is will to trade Keenan Allen for him. Should I make the trade or should I hold our for the hope Peterson plays this year? I am in a PPR, 12 team league.

DAVID BOZZELLI (Indianapolis, IN)

I would take Allen. No question about it. He’s a productive player who’ll start some games and help your team along. That’s enough to put him ahead of the flicker of hope that Peterson somehow gets back on the field this year. As I understand it, the Vikings have decided to deactivate Peterson until his off-field legal issues are resolved. It will take considerable time for those to work through the court system, and even then there probably will be a six-game league suspension waiting for Peterson at the end of that process (unless the league gives him credit for sitting out these current games).

Add Comment

Question 18

10-team, non-PPR. Due to byes & suspensions, I'm faced with taking a zero for one WR spot, or dropping one of these to pick up a one-week WR: A.Peterson, J.Gordon, J.Bell, S.Vereen, A.Bradshaw, D.Brown, K.Robinson. Was planning to start Brown & Robinson this week. Leaning towards cutting my #1 pick A.Peterson.

DONALD VANDENBORD (Jacksonville, FL)

Agreed. Release Peterson and bring in a replacement receiver.

Add Comment