PHILADELPHIA — After a wild Week 3 that featured a 70-burger from the Miami Dolphins and Taylor Swift mania in Kanas City, here’s my look at Week 4:
What defenses are the best to have?
This is one of my favorite times of the fantasy season. First, you get a bunch of teams desperate to make moves because of 0-3 starts or 1-2 starts. Therefore, it is always a fun time to contact your friends who have bad teams.
Second, there are an incredible number of players who can help your team on the wire, but not in the usual spots. For example, if you look at the rankings of your running backs and wideouts available, the highest ranked guy you’ll find is probably in the 30 to 40 range. This position is usually stripped to the point where there is little value left.
In my years of playing, I have always found that in Week 4, on defense and kicker, there is a lot of value to be had. Currently, in our CBS league, there are five top-12 kickers available and two top-12 defenses.
Now that might not be an area to worry about, but say you have Jake Elliott, he’s leading the way with 40 points and averaging 13.3 a game. Let’s just say you’re holding out hope that Justin Tucker can keep things going. He is currently ranked 20th, has 20 points, and is averaging 7.7 points per game. I think Tucker continues, but right now, he’s costing me 5.6 points a game – and that’s a problem.
Another quick note. When looking at defenses and kickers there is no need to look for the highest defense score. An example of what I’m talking about is the Cowboys defense, which currently ranks first overall with a total of 54 points. We are three weeks in and this is how they are every week.
- Week 1: 40 points
- Week 2: 16 points
- Week 3: -2 points.
So almost 75% of their points came in Week 1. It looks like the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers, who are ranked second and third. But if you look at the Eagles and the Colts, you get a more evenly distributed point total and that’s what I’m looking for. The Eagles go 14, 8, 14 in 3 weeks and the Colts go 11, 9 and 12. So while monster weeks are good, give me consistent performances every week. Matt Gay is a perfect example of this among kickers.
The Dolphins
This has been the hot topic of the week so far. And why not? You drop 70 points in the NFL, even if it’s against the Denver Broncos, and all eyes will be on you. Unless you’re a Taylor Swift fan — and we’ll get to that in a moment.
The situation I find most interesting in Miami is the running back. Even though I have Raheem Mostert in a few leagues and get a win or two out of it, I don’t believe it will continue. He’s the top-ranked running back in fantasy depending on your scoring but he’s never going to be healthy.
In his nine NFL seasons, he has played a full season just once, though he did play 16 of 17 last year so that streak counts as two. I really thought De’Von Achane was the back-to-own in Miami, but until Mostert went down the two now every week games.
Strong mania
I will be completely honest. I don’t really follow Taylor Swift. I don’t listen to his music, don’t worry about the color of his lipstick and I don’t know who he’s dating. I’m trying to figure out a comparison to something that a lot of people care about in an almost crazy way that some people just don’t care about. After some thought, I thought of football.
Seriously, football fans have fantasy teams, jerseys, travel to follow their favorite team and spend tons of money to see them or be with them. Swifties are similar to football fans except their love and focus is on one person as opposed to 53.
So now we head into Week 2 of Swift Madness. Two worlds will collide again on Sunday when the Kansas City Chiefs visit the New York Jets with Taylor reportedly in attendance. Get ready for one of the highest scoring outbursts in league history. I want it to be close to the highest rated game when he’s there.
There are many stories that I hate, but there are also many stories that I like. I love that Travis Kelce took a shot and it went his way. I would love to see Mama Kelce again.
What do I like the most? Let’s give a shout-out to the greatest man of all time, Patrick Mahomes. You can think all the things you want about him beating the Eagles in the Super Bowl, his brother, and whatever else you can think of, but that guy was there for his son when he needed him.
The Chiefs went up 34-0. They don’t need the points and they don’t need to drop but there’s the MVP finding a guy who is possibly the most important first date of the 21st century for the most important meaningless touch since. Pat, you are always OK in my book!
Taylor should get a real Kelce jersey — at least by Nov. 20 when the Chiefs host the Birds.
