Fantasy Football Librarian

Let the experts confirm your fantasy thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:07:00 +0000

Our nearly 20-month-old son is totally a dangerophile. He started walking a little bit on the early side and pretty much from the second he became mobile I think he eagerly sought out every conceivable way of finding danger. I assumed he was just being an explorer like many little kiddos but secretly wondered if maybe he somehow acquired a stuntman gene. I definitely have calm-kid-envy when I see other kids peacefully playing on the floor and not seeking the highest possible surface from which to climb and then plunge down...so I must say I felt a little bit validated when our son's daycare teachers reported that he is an absolute daredevil at school. It's always nice when an expert can confirm your suspicions and it's no different with fantasy football. Do you have some thoughts about who might be a sleeper or bust this year? Or are you starting to create your own 2012 rankings even? Take a look at what the experts are thinking about the 2012 season at this early date and see how it all meshes with your own thoughts.

NFL.com's Michael Fabiano complies another one-man mock draft that goes through round 5. Some interesting things here with so much more positional variety in the first round than we've seen in past years. And of course the whole Gronk thing going so high this year.
Speaking of more mocks and more interesting Gronkowski tidbits, find out which TE John Hansen took ahead of Gronkowski in his First Mock Draft of 2012 where you can see his picks in a 15-round, PPR, 14-team league.
I've got a couple of articles that look specifically at IDPs:

FantasySharks.com's IDP Chutes and Ladders: Post-Draft edition for a look at whose value is rising or falling.
Back to rookies, IDP Guru has a 2-part series on 2012 IDP Rookies to Watch - Part 1 and Part 2.

For a focus on this year's rookies and who you should keep an eye on, read 4for4.com's Identifying Impact Rookies.
The Fake Football advises you take a second look at Matt Ryan and open your eyes to all of the potential he has this season in Matt Ryan, Fantasy Breakout Player.
Onto rankings:

FFToday.com's Early Fantasy Football Rankings Version 2.0: Quarterbacks
If you've been around this blog for long enough, you know that I love, love, love offensive line rankings. Can't get enough. The posting of Rotoworld's 2012 Offensive Line Rankings is a beautiful thing.
National Football Post's An early look at our fantasy top fives is a quick review of the top 5 players at each position. Obviously not a deep look into next season but a nice way to get your brain thinking about next year. I'm not on the Marshawn Lynch train though, I must say.

Post-Draft look at 2012 season

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:10:00 +0000

Oh there's so much draft goodness to link to today. I hope you all enjoyed the weekend full of draftiness and are ready for a whole series of updates below:

First up, if you're looking for some draft recaps, try one of these articles:

Try National Football Post's succinct Nine best 'bang for the buck' draft picks
One of my favorites is Matt Waldman's 2012 Post-Draft Skill Player Impressions, Part I, which takes a team-by-team look at what each team is planning with their draft picks. Keep in mind that Part II/latter part of the alphabet is still to come.

There are plenty of sites cranking out rankings:

Fantasy Alarm's 2012 Post-Draft Rookie Rankings 1-15
ESPN posted their top 200 players ranked with a smidge of commentary
RotoExperts.com reviews the Top Five Rookie Values
The Pigskin Guy's Updated 2012 Fantasy Running Back Rankings

Here are two articles that take a look at the big playmaker rookies:

The Fake Football's It's Getting 2012 NFL Drafty in Here
Rotoworld.com's Draft 2012: Impact Rookies

Meanwhile if it's the undrafted players that you're interested in getting more info on, no problem. Yahoo's Shutdown Corner has us covered with The best undrafted players of 2012 - or scope out this link for the best undrafted defenders.
To track those undrafted players, Dynasty League Football keeps us updated with their Undrafted Rookie Free Agent Tracker.
In case you missed some of the analysis that came out last week once the schedules were released, this article from CBSSports.com does a nice job recapping and analyzing some schedule perks and pitfalls: Fantasizing about 32 schedules.

Tick tock goes the draft clock

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:04:00 +0000

I thought of you this morning, Steelers fans. My son's daycare is doing a school-wide parade today with each of the classrooms dressing up as a group/animal/theme. Our son's class will be marching as a group of bees (taking bets on whether or not our son will leave his bee tentacles on his head for longer than 3 seconds) so all the kids was asked to dress in their best yellow and/or black. As I dropped our son off I noticed one kiddo rocking the mini Steelers jersey and thought that was a nice nod to NFL Draft season as well. Kudos, parents, kudos.

Anyway, we are indeed getting down to crunch time here: the NFL Draft is nearly upon us. Somehow I'm traveling again this weekend, which makes it the 3rd or 4th draft in a row that I've been on the road...but at least I've got plenty of time on Thursday night to take it all in. If you want to live chat with other draft fans, head on over to Dynasty League Football's chat on Thursday or Friday night. Now let's take a look at today's links:

IDP Guru has been busy with lots of 2012 IDP love. I've got overvalued players and sleepers for you, not to mention the 2012 IDP Strength of Schedule.
Have you been busy this winter and perhaps just not on top of your fantasy football game? No problem. Catch up with The Hazean's Recapping Free Agency for Fantasy Football Owners and demonstrate your knowledge to all the other drafties you hang out with this weekend.
ProFootballFocus.com also has you covered with the top needs for each team in the league - Eve of the Draft: AFC Needs and NFC Needs. Note: not a fantasy focus here but clearly informative nonetheless for fantasy owners.
However, should you be in the market for a fantasy-focused draft piece or two, look no further than 4for4.com's 2012 NFL Draft Fantasy Preview Part I and Part II.
Or scope out ThePigskinGuy.com's Updated 2012 Fantasy Quarterback Rankings, which were just updated today.

Now it's time for me to roll out and watch our little man buzz along in his school parade. Happy Draft everyone!

Heavy helping of 2012 Draft links and beyond

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:28:00 +0000

Greetings, fine readers. Once again I feel the need to apologize for my disappearing librarian act here. My mom had major back surgery a few weeks ago and I just spent some time back in Virginia with her to try and lend a hand as she slowly, slowly gets back to normal. Anyway, I know we're coming up on the draft and we've got lots of good material out there related to the Draft and just the 2012 season in general. So gear up, time for some Friday links...

First up, here are a few draft-related links:

FantasySharks.com has a quick and dirty overview of each position and players to keep an eye on - 2012 NFL Draft Guide.
ProFootballFocus.com's Tier 1 and Tier 2 Draft Dynasty Prospects
Rotoworld's Draft 2012: The Wide Receivers

Several links with IDP material:

ProFootballFocus.com's Pre-draft 2012 IDP Player projections
I'm a big fan of IDP Guru's 2012 Every Down Linebackers - an ongoing and evolving list of three-down guys who you'll really want to focus on for high-level fantasy production.
IDP Guru has also posted their 2012 IDP Draft Rankings (Redraft) up - this link will take you to the top 2 tiers of DBs, DLs and LBs.

Razzball.com takes a look back at RB stats from the past 3 years to see what's happened from the 5 yard line in - Goal Line Running Back Stats.
Gridiron Experts discuss a handful of guys that you might want to zero in on once the studs are out of the picture come fantasy draft day - Fantasy Factor: Second Receivers with Huge Value.
The offseason is prime time for articles like this one from Fantasy Douche: How Old is Too Old for a Fantasy Running Back?
There will be plenty of articles to come that analyze the 2012 season schedule, which was released earlier this week, but for now if you just want a schedule overview week-by-week, TOFantasySports.com has you covered.

Ramping up the 2012 fantasy football advice

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:13:00 +0000

Happy spring, my football friends. It has already hit 85 degrees several times here in east Tennessee, the Masters is over, and NFL Draft Day talk is really ramping up. Ahh, April, I do love you. I've got a handful of links for you today and hope to be back around on a more regular basis starting in the next few weeks.

As the 2012 season speculation begins, Razzball.com's Who to Follow for Fantasy Football Advice on Twitter is a solid, helpful piece. You'll see some Rotoworld names but also some less mainstream dudes/chicks as well. Definitely found a few people here that I didn't know about, which is always a good thing.
Speaking of Rotoworld, Unfilled Voids scopes out the top 10 positions across the league that haven't yet been addressed yet (or have the Luck/RG3 speculation) and how exactly Rotoworld sees them fulfilling these needs.
Last week Mike Clay from ProFootballFocus.com introduced a new stat: Average Depth of Target. Per Clay's article, it trumps yards-per-reception, yards-per-target, yards-after-catch, and any other pass catching stat you can think of. Interesting food for thought.
Matt Waldman is rolling out his annual look at incoming rookies for The Fifth Down, starting with RBs. I'm just going to link you to the main Fifth Down page since the Times is now limiting free articles even more, so I want you to land somewhere where you can scroll down and pick which rookie to read about.
4for4.com takes a look at players who were able to produce with limited targets in 2011 in order to help in Identifying Breakout WRs. Good list here, prepare to see many of these names a lot this summer.
As we start to see more and more output from our favorite fantasy prognosticators, this is just a reminder that FantasyRundown.com does an awesome job of gathering all the rankings out there and notes the date of posting so that you know just how recent those rankings are; that's crucial for this time of year.
Smitty from FantasyFootballXtreme.com is launching a new site, Draft Calc. It will launch on May 1st but until then the forum seems pretty active for those of you itching to chat about the 2012 draft or season. In fact, scope out 4 rounds of a mock draft that occurred on the forum.
On a mock draft note, I like how Dynasty Football Warehouse is creating a library (of course I dig it) of mock drafts they participated in so far this year with other experts in the industry. Keep building that list up, I say - should be an excellent resource. By the way, DFW is a new-to-me site and I would encourage any of you out there who have found an awesome site that I don't link to (or created an awesome site) to e-mail me the link to let me know. Eventually I'll read my e-mail and love sharing new sites with you FFLibrarian readers.

There are plenty of mock 2012 NFL Drafts out there (that's real draft, not fantasy draft) - are those of interest to you all? If so, let me know in the comments and I'll get some links up to those.

And an aside for those of you into fantasy baseball - FantasyPros.com is doing awesome stuff for baseball season. Two things I wanted to highlight are the My Playbook function which lets you import your teams (for free) and they tailor advice and news to fit your players. And of course their Articles page is right up my alley and everything is conveniently tagged and sorted by topics and sources. Good stuff.

All the Peyton links you need

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 01:01:00 +0000

You guys just knew I had to post after today's big Broncos news. For those new to this blog, you should know I'm a huge Broncos fan and my husband (who grew up in Knoxville, where Peyton went to college) is a serious Peyton Manning fan...so our two worlds collided today when Peyton began negotiations with the Broncos. Does our son stand any chance at all of being anything BUT a Broncos fan??

For those who are sick and tired of Peyton news, this probably isn't the place to be. I've got lots of Peyton fallout links here so read on:

First up, a few articles that look at the fantasy impact of Peyton signing with the Broncos:

Rotoworld.com's Rocky Mountain High
NFL.com's Manning's move to Denver has major fantasy implications
Or go video-style with ESPN's Peyton Manning's Fantasy Impact as a Bronco

Where oh where shall Tebow go? NFL.com's Tim Tebow stock watch: Where will he play in 2012? sums up the latest thinking on the Tebow front. And a note for those of you who (like me) are fans of Rotoworld's Gregg Rosenthal - take a look at this byline and you'll see that Gregg has moved on and is now writing for NFL.com.
An interesting tag on to all the talk about Tebow to Miami is the recent news from PFT that David Garrard has joined the Dolphins.
Months and months ago, before the 2011 season even, super talent-spotter Matt Waldman wrote up this nice piece on why Eric Decker is worth keeping an eye on - this argument is of course only stronger with another year under his belt and Peyton at the helm.
And for those who are eager for non-Peyton news, scope out Roto Arcade's Free Agent Frenzy: Meachem tops list of biggest winners or Razzball.com's 2012 Free Agency Fantasy Impact.

Thanks for being patient with me while I've been slow to post this offseason. I'm taking a breather to make sure I stay and fresh when the season starts to ramp up again. All is well in my world: I'm enjoying all the cuteness and chaos that our 18-month-old brings and starting to finally feel at home in our new house in Tennessee (and yes, we totally considered trying to stalk down Peyton while he was here in Knoxville practicing for the Titans over the weekend). I hope you all are enjoying the offseason and of course a little March Madness!

Going all fantasy baseball on you

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:54:00 +0000

Thanks for bearing with me while I've been missing in action here. I wish I had a great excuse but the good news is that I have lots of links for you fantasy baseball fans. That's right, baseball. I'm not a fantasy baseball player so I may need your help filling in the gaps a bit - if you've got a favorite fantasy baseball site, leave the URL in the comments for others to check out. Football fans, never fear - I'd never forget the football links - just skip ahead a bit.

Fantasy Baseball linkage:

Rankings and projections:

FanGraphs' 2012 Projections - this link goes to the ZiPS projections but you can pick from Marcel, ZiPS, Fans, or RotoChamp.
Fake Teams' Fantasy Baseball 2012: Final position rankings
Athlon Sports' 2012 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: The Big Board - this is great, includes player rankings from 8 sites (including their own rankings) to create a consensus ranking. You guys know how I love consensus rankings...
And speaking of one-stop shopping for tons of rankings, FantasyRundown does an exemplary job with that (not surprising since they were one of my go-to sites for football rankings, too).
FantasyAlarm.com's Positional Player Rankings

Other draft advice:

CBSSports.com's has both Draft Prep: Auction strategies as well as mock drafts to peruse.
If it's mock drafts you want, Mock Draft Central is the place to be, though their mocks and ADP info require a login. You can always get some quick info from their blog though, like this post on ADP Trends on the Top 20.
Matthew Berry's Draft Day Manifesto 2: Electric Boogaloo
Rotoworld has plenty of draft strategy for you include a series on players that have changed teams, and what you can expect from them - so far you can scope out New Ballpark, New Pitcher? or New Ballpark, New Hitter?

Now to the fantasy football links for you, too, since football is obviously the best choice when it comes to fantasy sports.

Need a combine recap? Yeah, me, too. The Fifth Down has us covered with Catching up on Combine; 346-pound man runs like deer.
CBSSports.com is tackling some offseason analysis with vigor - see their TE tiers for 2012 or WR tiers or QB tiers or RB tiers.
For those of you wanting to keep up with the latest Peyton Manning news, scope out Manning is hot topic of conversation. Sounds like we'll all know a lot more by March 8th or so.
Once again this offseason I feel like ProFootballFocus deserves a reward for their continued commitment to producing articles during the deadest of times. So let's scope out some of their quality material:

Projecting How Jamaal Charles, Others Return from ACL Tears
A couple of dynasty pieces - 2012 Dynasty Wide Receivers on the Rise and their Dynasty Roundtable for the month of February, which discusses guys who could have a big impact in free agency, figuring out how to value rookies, and determining which guys might be major value grabs.

Turning our thoughts to free agency

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:39:00 +0000

Please pardon my disappearance here over the past few weeks - I did a classic post-fantasy-season collapse. Turns out I'm running on fumes by the time January is here and I've taken the past few weeks off to enjoy a little down time that includes absolutely no blogging whatsoever. Down time is at a premium with a kiddo in the house and of course I need to spend my spare time marveling over the pure brilliancy of our son and then cleaning the floor beneath his highchair for the thousandth time. But now, back to blogging. I should be around a little less often during the offseason, especially during the month of February, but rest assured I'll be here sending you links to all of the quality offseason material being published.

On a rather personal note, I've spent some time taking better care of myself this winter and scheduling long overdue doctors visits. One such visit was to a dermatologist since I'm of the pale-and-burns-often variety, and I've been telling myself to get a skin/mole check for years now. I finally went and lo and behold there's a severely dysplastic mole (has a tendency to turn to melanoma) hanging out on my calf; the mole and surrounding area are being removed later this week (with a football-shaped incision!) and like any good librarian I've done my research and feel like this is a very minor deal, but for the first hour or two before I got the info I needed, it felt like quite the gut punch. I'm now strongly encouraging my loved ones to hit up the dermatologist and since you all are my football family of sorts, I suggest you to do the same if you can. I'm sure there are plenty of health measures to be taken and doctors to be seen for us all, and isn't it always better to have minor issues be the worst of your health problems?

I've got a handful of links for you today and I'm sure there will be more churning out as we get closer to free agency, which begins in a little over a month on March 13.

Take a look at Rotoworld's Free Agent Master List to track some of the upcoming roster moves.
Or SBNation's Team-by-Team Look at Free Agency is being fleshed out, so scope out what they've got up here already.
The IDP Guru has the other side of the ball covered with their 2012 Notable IDP Free Agents: Linebackers.
Rotoworld is cranking up their 2012 keeper thoughts - take a look at their top 50 keepers and also a few thoughts on those who just missed the cut: 2012 Keeper Rankings.
CBSSports.com's RB tiers for 2012 includes tiers of course but also a little bit of draft strategy. Already. Gotta love it.

2011 Results: Accuracy in Preseason Rankings

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:42:00 +0000

I've been remiss in getting this post up, my apologies. I've been busy with the usual: toddler, work, and more toddler. And of course there's the gray cloud of Just-One-More-Game-Left-This-Season hanging over my head...congrats, Pats and Giants fans. We had our son decked out in a tiny Welker jersey that my Patriots-loving sister sent our way so I guess I'm pulling for the Patriots. Mostly though I'm just hoping for an entertaining game.

Last week I posted the results to the 2011 preseason rankings accuracy contest that I run each year - take a look at the write up on The Fifth Down: Fantasy Football Accuracy Rankings for 2011. There were 46 sites that participated this year and I have them all list below in alphabetical order:

4for4.com
Ask the Commish
Bruno Boys
CBSSports - Dave Richard
CBSSports - Jamey Eisenberg
Cheatsheetwarroom
Draft Analyzer
Draft Sharks
ESPN
FantasyFootball.com
Fantasy Football Nerd
Fantasy Football Sherpa
Fantasy Football Starters
Fantasy Football Trader
FantasySharks.com
Fantasy Shrink
Fantasy Think Tank
FastPoint Games
FF Guidebook
FFCalculator (ADP)
FFGeekBlog
FFManiaxs
FFToday.com
FFToolbox
FootballGuys
FootballOutsiders
FOX Sports
Hatty Waiver Wire Guru
The Huddle
Junkyard Jake
KFFL
NFL.com
NFLSoup.com
Pigskin Addiction
Power Play Fantasy Sports
ProFootballFocus.com
Pyromaniacs
Razzball.com
Real Time Sports
RotoProfessor
Rotoworld
SI
StocksJocks
USA Today
XML Team Solutions
Yahoo

The winner across all 4 positions looked at (QB, RB, WR and TE) was John Paulsen at The Fantasy Shrink. You can also find John on Twitter - @4for4_John. The top site at each position is as follows:

QB:
Fantasy Football Maniaxs

RB:
CBSSports.com (Jamey Eisenberg's rankings)

WR:
ESPN

TE:
The Fantasy Shrink

You can find the top 15 sites overall and top 10 at each position on the Fifth Down article. I'll be adding this year's results together with other past results to build upon the aggregate results spreadsheet I started a few years - and that is one chock full document, my friends. Definitely something you'll want to get your hands on before Draft Day 2012. I'm exploring new options of how to deliver this info to you all since I know many of you are very curious about which expert has the best advice, so stay tuned on that front.

On a similar note, if you haven't seen the FantasyPros.com results for their own accuracy competition, I highly recommend swinging by Fantasy Football Expert Accuracy Scores. FantasyPros.com takes a look at weekly start/sit recommendations rather than preseason rankings and if you combine these two assessments, I think you have a ton of advice in terms of the experts you'll want to focus on in the future. Good stuff.

Advice for Conference Championship week

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:25:00 +0000

Welcome to Conference Championship Week, my friends. I've been extremely busy over the past several days doing number crunching for my 5th annual rankings analysis. Every September I join forces with the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) and put out a call to fantasy football experts inviting them to submit their preseason positional rankings. I then compare the experts' rankings to the actual fantasy rankings at the end of the season and determine which expert was the most accurate.

The results of the contest will be posted here with all sorts of detail on the top sites at each position and overall across the 4 offensive skill positions. There were 46 sites that participated this year and most of my favorites were included, so it's been a really fun contest to run yet again. The winner was announced at the FSTA conference late today and news will be flying around on Twitter I'm guessing. But come on back here for the details later in the week - stay tuned!

In the meantime, I've got a handful of links for those of you that are playing playoffs fantasy football. And by the way, kudos to the overall leader in the FFLibrarian Playoff Challenge, Amuk. Also, this past week's top player in our challenge was Lethal Arsenal. Keep up the good work!

Conference championship week info:

LestersLegends.com's Conference Championships Fantasy RB Rankings
If you're in need of a playoffs QB now, as tempting as it is, maybe taking Brady isn't the smart way out? Think about your playoffs strategy with NFL.com's Time to take a chance on Flacco or Smith?
FFToolbox.com's Week 20 Who to Start Rankings/Projections
ProFootballFocus.com's Championship Week Projections

Or turn your mind toward 2012 and CBSSports.com's Top 12 RBs for 2012 - I'm interested in your thoughts about Jamaal Charles at #10. Too low for such a potential stud who could be back to 100%? Too high for a guy coming off a big injury? Or just right? I'm still trying to decide (and probably will take the next 6-7 months to firm up my opinion) but I'm not sure I'd let him sit there until the 10th pick came along...

Divisional Round advice plus 2012 thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:11:00 +0000

Earlier this week I flew to New York City for a meeting at work - I still work for a museum library up there even though I'm now living in Knoxville. It was surprisingly awesome to be back and I was a bit taken aback by how much I missed the city. But it also left me with zero spare time for blogging - and you all know how eager I was to write and celebrate the Broncos' victory last week. I won't blab on and on about it, don't worry, but I was truly impressed with the caliber of play from several guys and am excited to see what they pull together this weekend.

I've got a handful of divisional round links for you as well as a few items on 2012. Read on:

Divisional round advice:

ProFootballFocus.com's Here Comes Stevan Ridley
FantasySharks.com's Player Projections - Division Weekend
Or more projections at ProFootballFocus.com - Divisional Playoffs - Projections/Rankings
FFToday.com's updated positional Playoff Fantasy Rankings
For IDP advice this weekend and beyond, scope out one of the following:

FantasySharks.com's IDP Cheatsheet: Divisional Round
ProFootballFocus.com's IDP Fantasy Football Players to Target on Divisional Weekend
CBSSports.com's Under the radar: They're not stars but could play key role in playoffs

2012 thoughts:

NFL.com's Three and out: Turner has bust written all over him
FantasyFootballXtreme.com's 2012 Fantasy Football Rankings & Cheat Sheets Updated - redraft rankings, dynasty rankings, PPR rankings, etc.
Matthew Berry's First look at 2012 fantasy football ranks
FantasySharks.com's Early 2012 rankings
CBSSports.com's Top 12 QBs for 2012

For those playing in the FFLibrarian Playoff Challenge, it's great to have all 300+ of you around for the fun, and in particular, kudos to the top 3 teams so far: Casanovanauts, Tones, and Katphiche!

Pulling for a Broncos victory

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:59:00 +0000

My husband is out of town for an economics conference in Chicago this weekend and just realized that he'll be flying home during the end of the games on Sunday. Sad for him. I'm planning on putting my son to bed for the night by 4:30 on Sunday so that I don't miss a second of what I assume will be a brilliant Broncos victory. Kidding, kidding, my son wouldn't go for that...and perhaps a Broncos victory isn't in the cards. But we shall see! A Bronco fan can hope, can't she?!

A few more rankings and musings for the playoffs:

Pyromaniac.com's Player Rankings for Playoffs Week 1
TOFantasySports' Wild Card QB Rankings
NFL.com has a series that goes through the debates you might be having at who to start at each position - this link reviews the conundrum of who else to start at WR in the AFC other than Welker.
ProFootballFocus.com's The Playoff Predictor gives advice on who to start at each position be it this week or in the weeks beyond.

I can't get enough of seasonal analysis, especially comparing how players did at season's end to how they were predicted to do. Razzball.com examines this year's QBs in 2011 Quarterback ADP vs Reality and reminds us all yet again what a great grab Cam Newton was...and how on target Brady's ADP was.
If you truly can't get enough of analyzing football data then you'll want to head on over to Advanced NFL's 2011 Regular Season Play-by-Play Data.
In a look ahead to 2012, FFToolbox.com is rolling out their 2012 NFL Mock Drafts Database. Not fantasy mocks, mind you, but in the offseason this will seem like a juicy steak for the fantasy-starved.
In Free agents on the move, CBSSports.com reviews some of the key free agents and what the most likely scenario will be for the 2012 season for each player, including a note on their 2012 fantasy value.

Time to bring in a pro

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:56:00 +0000

After living in our new house for 5 months and only managing to paint 1 of the 6 rooms that needs a new coat of paint, we finally decided it was time to bring in a professional. For the past few days a dude has been here painting (and cutting us an awesome deal) - since I have been at home with our son (who is now finally feeling back to normal again) and also work from home, I've been immersed in paint fumes...let's hope those fumes aren't forcing me to make crazy lineup decisions for the Wild Card weekend games in the FFLibrarian Playoff Challenge. Fortunately the experts are out there with advice to help us through this weekend and beyond.

For projections, scope out FantasySharks.com's Player Projections - Wildcard Weekend
Those of you who play in uber leagues with IDPers will appreciate ProFootballFocus.com's 2011 Playoffs IDP Rankings.
The Football Outsiders crew reviews a recent FO staff 8-round draft for the playoffs in Scramble for the Ball: Playoff Fantasy Draft.
Or see what FFToday writer Doug Orth has pulled together for his 5 leagues in the postseason in Road to the Super Bowl. This is full of some good analysis behind his picks for those who appreciate the detail.
Finally, if it's 2012 that you really care about then you'll want to take a look at Rotoworld's Final Target Watch article with a summary of all the targets and touches throughout the 2011 (and 2010) season. I love this sort of summary that looks at trends over the course of the season but also the past several years. Good food for thought.

Wild Card Round prep

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:32:00 +0000

Happy postseason to you all. Glad to have you here and I'm assuming you're all playing in some sort of playoff fantasy league since you just can't get enough of this great game. If you need a playoffs league to play in, join the 250+ of us playing in the FFLibrarian Playoff Challenge (e-mail me if you'd rather have an invitation e-mailed to you).

We've had a sick baby on our hands for the past few days and things took a turn for the worse this morning with multiple rounds of baby puke. So we're on the slow recovery train here and I haven't had a ton of time for blogging - hopefully this link dump will make up for my absence over the past few days.

First up, these articles offer up a little advice on how to approach a playoff league:

CBSSports.com's Up for a challenge? offers up a potential lineup for Wild Card weekend
NFL.com's Rodgers, Brees could lead you to Super Bowl XLVII! outlines some of the rules for the NFL.com playoff game, which is the host of the FFLibrarian version so it might behoove you to scope it out pre-game time.

All sorts of playoff rankings:

FFToolbox.com's Week #18 Who to Start Rankings
Roto Arcade's Shuffle Up for the Playoffs: Second Season Cheat Sheet
Razzball.com's Playoff Fantasy Football Rankings
ProFootballWeekly.com's Second season is for redemption (video starts immediately)
ProFootballFocus.com's Playoff Player Rankings - or if you've got IDPs in your playoff league, check out their Wild Card Playoffs - IDP Rankings/Projections.
LestersLegends.com's Wild Card Round Fantasy WR Rankings

Consensus start/sit for Week 17

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:55:00 +0000

Welcome to the final week of fantasy football and thus the final installment of the consensus start/sit picks for the 2011 season. Hope you all found this feature helpful. There were far fewer start/sit articles out there this week so the following list is based on a more limited pool of sites. Good luck to those of you still playing!

Oh and Happy New Year to all!

QB
Start: Ryan Fitzpatrick, Philip Rivers
Sit: Aaron Rodgers, Matt Moore, Andy Dalton, Joe Flacco

RB
Start: Khalil Bell, Ryan Mathews, Rashard Mendenhall, C.J. Spiller
Sit: Arian Foster, Shonn Greene, Cedric Benson

WR
Start: Steve Johnson, Malcom Floyd
Sit: Antonio Brown, Brandon Marshall

TE
Start: Brandon Pettigrew, Brent Celek
Sit: no consensus

DST
Start: Falcons, Dolphins
Sit: Cowboys, Bengals

Kicker
Start: Alex Henery, Robbie Gould
Sit: Graham Gano

Help for Week 17 lineups

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:29:00 +0000

Today a close friend from college is driving through Knoxville with her family en route back to their home in Athens, Georgia, and they'll be making an overnight pit stop at our place. I couldn't be more excited since it has been too long since I last saw her (and have yet to meet her son who is about my son's age) - plus, how often does someone come through Knoxville? Pretty much never. When we were living in NYC I got pretty spoiled with the number of visitors we had - Knoxville isn't exactly the same hub of activity. Plus we've got family coming to town this weekend so we've got fun times ahead - hope you all do, too. An early Happy New Year's to everyone!

In the meantime, on to today's links:

Start/sit suggestions for Week 17:

Fifth Down's Week 17 in Fantasy Football: Favorable and Unfavorable Matchups
Matthew Berry's Love, Hate and a torn sleeve
CBSSports.com's Week 17 Start 'Em and Sit 'Em
NFL.com's Rivers, Mathews have attractive Week 17 matchups

ProFootballWeekly.com's So long to 2011; hello to 2012 does a good job of reviewing some of the early news items for the 2012 season, with an eye on players to focus on next year (note, a video starts up immediately on this page).
Or scope out the next article in Roto Arcade's Exit Interview series - this time with a look at WRs including some of next year's rookies that you'll want to keep an eye on as well as sleepers for 2012.

With an eye toward 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:33:00 +0000

I kind of love this week between Christmas and New Year's Day - things are a little bit more mellow, lots of family and friends around, college football is on almost non-stop, and there's always the feeling that change is impending. I dig it. What I don't like is the end of the standard fantasy football season and I'm sure you all feel the same way. Just a reminder that I'll keep blogging throughout the off-season with plenty of info for the 2012 season.

I also hope that you're all planning on playing in the FFLibrarian Playoff Challenge this year - this link should help you set up a login or you can just e-mail me for an invitation.

Finally, those of you who have been participating in the weekly accuracy start/sit challenge run by FantasyPros.com should be pleased to know that we came in 4th place - check out the results here. Many, many thanks to those of you that played each week. Meanwhile if you want to see how the experts did, scope out the results which have one of my favorites, Chet Gresham of Razzball fame, coming out on top.

But I know there are plenty of you out there looking for Week 17 help, so read on:

First things first, CBSSports.com's Who's in and who's out does a great job zeroing in on which players we can expect to see in action this weekend. For more on that front, Rotoworld's Who Can You Trust and Roto Arcade's Playing Hard or Hardly Playing: Deciphering Week 17 offer similar helpful advice.
Start/sit for Week 17:

FantasySharks.com's Start/Bench List
FFToolbox.com's Week 17: Sit 'em
FantasyFootballXtreme.com's Week 17 Start 'em and Sit 'em Advice

A few waiver links for IDPers:

FantasySharks.com's IDP Waiver Wire: Week 17
ProFootballFocus.com's IDP Waiver Wire - Week 17
Or take a look at FFToday's IDP Notes: Week 17

NFL.com's Foster big 2011 could lead to bigger things in 2012 is a quick look ahead at next year.
Or for more on 2012, scope out Roto Arcade's Exit Interview: RBs' ongoing decline leaves many questions; it's part of a series that will focus on each position - plenty more of this type of prognostication to come.
A few rankings for Week 17:

ESPN's Week 17 Rankings: Quarterbacks
The Fantasy Shrink's Week 17 Fantasy Football Rankings
As always, swinging by Fantasy Rundown will give you the rankings mother lode for Week 17

Get your Week 17 prep here!

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:42:00 +0000

Welcome to the post-Christmas chaos. We've had a busy 36 hours or so in our family - we celebrated Christmas with my family in DC and then hopped on a mostly empty plane back to Knoxville to spend the rest of the holiday with my husband's family. Sadly once we got to Knoxville our poor niece and sister-in-law got the pukes and our various plans for dinner, presents, etc got mostly postponed until tonight. So we're doing Christmas part 2 tonight. Fortunately we'll have an interesting Saints vs Falcons game to keep us entertained if the puking returns. Fingers crossed that they both feel better stat (what's sadder than a puking baby AND a puking mom?) and that the rest of us remain puke-free...there's lots of baby slobber going around so frankly we'll be lucky to get out of this week unscathed.

Anyway, I'm pretty certain I'm about to have a 2011 fantasy championship under my belt this year and hope you all are facing equally good news. But if your league carries into Week 17, have no fear, the links are here:

First up though, some Week 16 game recaps and injury updates:

Rotoworld's Au revoir, AP
FootballOutsiders' Audibles at the Line: Week 17
Razzball.com's Tony Romo Splits With Fantasy Owners

Week 17 waiver wire links:

FootballDocs' Waiver Wire Advice NFL Week 17
Bruno Boys' Pick Them Up
Bleacher Report's Which Week 16 Heroes Are Worth Picking Up
FFManiaxs' Week 17 Waiver Wire

If you lost the championship this week, don't worry, there's a place for you here, too. Roto Arcade's Runner-up rant: Five terrible ways that fantasy titles were lost is where you can turn for solace and a soft touch.

By the way, many of you are participants in the gigantic FFLibrarian League and I will be crowning a winner tonight in that league. Stay tuned for a hearty pat on the back to that savvy owner. Also, another reminder that I'd love to have you join the FFLibrarian Playoff Challenge. Shoot me an e-mail if you'd like an invitation but that link should work just fine. So far there are 119 of us playing - looking forward to it!

Cultivating champions here at FFLibrarian

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:02:00 +0000

Today marks the start of Christmas celebrations in our house since one batch of family members is rotating out to see the rest of their family later today; so let the first wave of present opening begin! I've got our son down now for what I hope will be a long, long nap (thanks, 5:45 AM wake-up call) to be followed with an afternoon of wrapping paper and boxes to keep him entertained. Hope you're all enjoying the holiday season so far...now onto the remaining essential links for this championship week. And no worries for those of you who carry on to Week 17, I carry on, too, and will be here with plenty of links next week.

Week 16 start/sit (should have the consensus list up by tonight, I hope):

Fantasy Football Nerd's Where to Put 'Em
Fifth Down's Week 16 in Fantasy Football: Favorable and Unfavorable Matchups
Matthew Berry's Love/Hate (how can I not link to something that has a little extra love for fantasy-football-loving wives?)
FakeTeams' Week 16 Start 'Em Sit 'Em
RotoExperts' Hold em or Fold em
BrunoBoys' Start ems
TOFantasySports' Play em or Lay em

For rankings this week I'm just going to send you on over to FantasyRundown.com since they really have the bulk of the key rankings for Week 16 already fleshed out for you by position. Awesome, no?

Back on the FF scene

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:09:00 +0000

Greetings football friends - thanks for bearing with me this week. We headed up to the DC area on Tuesday to spend some pre-Christmas time with my family and things have been a bit busy. My 92-year-old grandma arrived yesterday and we have a complicated family plus a couple of babies here - so four generations of mostly good times have been keeping me busy. Definitely didn't mean to leave you all hanging in your time of playoffs need, so let's get right down to it with a few quick notes to start things off.

First up, don't forget that this is a funky week with a game tonight, most games on Saturday, and two more on Sunday and Monday nights. Love having the NFL on during so many days of the week but it certainly keeps you on your fantasy toes.

Next up, this is our final week to prove our fantasy worth in the FantasyPros.com weekly start/sit accuracy challenge. I'd love it if you took a few minutes to answer these 10 start/sit questions and represent for FFLibrarian.com.

Finally, remember to join the FFLibrarian Playoff Challenge again this year - looks like there are 75 of us playing already and just to let you know, I've got a prize ready to go for the winner of the challenge. Should be a good time.

And now on to the meat and potatoes:

Start/sit suggestions:

Roto Arcade's Flames: "Jingle Bell Rock," Bears RB could put trophy under tree and Lames: Ho, ho, no! Eli to play Grinch in battle for Big Apple
CBSSports.com's Week 16 Start 'Em and Sit 'Em
NFL.com's Ryan can lead fantasy owners to a league championship
FFXtreme's Week 16: Start and Bench 2011
FFToolbox.com's Week 16: Sit 'Em
FantasySharks.com's Start/Bench Week 16

Week 16 rankings and projections:

ESPN's Week 16 Rankings
The Fantasy Shrink's Week 16 Fantasy Football Rankings
Fleaflicker.com's Projections for Week 16 at flex spot
Razzball.com's Week 16 Fantasy Football Rankings
AthlonSports' FF Rankings: Week 16
FakeTeams' Week 16 Running Back Rankings
FantasySharks.com has both your IDP Cheatsheet and Player Projections
KFFL.com's RB - Week 16 has your PPR needs covered

I'll be back tomorrow (I hope!) with more start/sit and rankings advice. Enjoy tonight's game!

Misdialing in Week 15

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:44:00 +0000

One of our son's favorite toys is our home phone - we have a land line since I work from home and need it for conference calls, and it's a good thing we do since he loves that thing. Obsessed would be putting it mildly. But until this morning he's never actually called anyone other than our voicemail - he's dialed a ton of numbers, he's just never hit the crucial "talk" button to pull it all together. But this morning he managed to get it on speaker so that my husband and I both heard the recorded voice that suddenly came on: "Hello there, I can offer you a massage..." is roughly all we heard before we could get to the phone, and we just both stood there stunned and cracking up that oh yes, my friends, our son called some sort of phone sex line. What are the chances?

Probably about as small as the chances that the Packers would lose to the Chiefs and the Colts would finally tally a win - though of all the unlikely things I guess I should've seen Drew Brees and his 5 TD, 400+ yards performance coming. I mean seriously Brees? Knocked me out of the championship game for sure.

I'm still alive in another league (pending total chaos tonight in the MNF game) so I'm all about reviewing the waiver wire this week just in case there's still something out there. And of course I've got your Week 15 recaps, too, so read on:

Week 15 game reviews:

FootballOutsiders' Audibles at the Line: Week 15
Roto Arcade's Sunday Scene, Week 15
Razzball.com's Playoffs?! Yes, shut up!

Week 16 waiver wire links:

Bruno Boys' Pick Them Up
2MugsFF's Hot Garbage Waiver Wire Week 16
FootballDocs' Waiver Wire Advice

Good luck to anyone whose Week 15 success rides on tonight's game!

Week 15 consensus picks

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 16:40:00 +0000

The season is winding down and with it, our consensus start/sit lists are starting to reach their expiration date...but don't worry, we've still got a few more weeks of consensus wisdom to read up on. As usual I went through this weeks start/sit list and tallied up below are the players with the most start or sit votes.

Good luck in the playoffs and hope you all enjoy watching the Broncos beat the Pats!

QB
Start: Matt Stafford, Tim Tebow, Rex Grossman
Sit: Alex Smith, Ben Roethlisberger, Carson Palmer (he also got several start votes though), Michael Vick

RB
Start: Chris Johnson, Beanie Wells, Cedric Benson, Felix Jones
Sit: Rashard Mendenhall, Ryan Mathews, DeAngelo Williams, C.J. Spiller

WR
Start: Demaryius Thomas, Jabar Gaffney, Santana Moss (gotta love a 2-Skins start list...)
Sit: Anquan Boldin, Michael Crabtree, Vincent Jackson

TE
Start: Owen Daniels, Jake Ballard, Jermichael Finley, Anthony Fasano
Sit: Jermaine Gresham, Heath Miller, Dustin Keller, Vernon Davis

DST
Start: Lions, Bengals, Cardinals
Sit: Broncos, Chargers

Kicker
Start: John Kasay, Stephen Gostkowski
Sit: Billy Cundiff

Join the 2012 FFLibrarian Playoff Challenge!

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:01:00 +0000

It's a big week for those still in the 2011 FF season and most of this post will cater to you all, don't worry, but I know many FF players have seen an end to their season already. Perhaps you're still lurking around the site even though you're out of the playoffs? Glad to have you and keep in mind that I'll be posting throughout the offseason with advice and thoughts for the 2012 season so I hope you'll stick around. But that's jumping way ahead...so I'll just jump a little ahead instead to the NFL playoffs, which are only a few weeks away. I'm running the FFLibrarian Playoff Challenge through NFL.com again this year and I hope you'll join me (if that link doesn't work for you, e-mail me and I'll send you an invitation). I'm working on a prize for the challenge winner, too, if that sweetens the deal at all.

But now back to Week 15 prep. Have at it:

Week 15 start/sit links:

NFL.com's CJ2K can lead you to fantasy championships
The Hazean's Start & Sit, Week 15: Fantasy Playoff Advice
Kind of a big sit list really (for the duration of the playoffs) - FantasyPros.com's Who will disappoint in Week 15?
Fantasy Football Nerd's Week 15 Where to Put 'Em
ProFootballWeekly.com's Start or Sit: Week 15 (video starts up right away)
TheFootballGirl's Startability Index Week 15

Week 15 rankings:

The Fantasy Douche's Week 15 RB Rankings
FakeTeams' Week 15 Wide Receiver Rankings
WalterFootball.com's Week 15 Fantasy Football Rankings

Getting jolly

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:29:00 +0000

Spotted: one heavily-makeuped woman donning a Santa hat, counting out a huge wad of cash in the car parked next to me in a suburban grocery store parking lot. All I saw were $1 bills though it felt extremely wrong to be staring at her and her cash stack so maybe my quick peeks didn't see the whole story. In fact, would love to know the story there in general. Then on the drive back to my house, in the span of 3 blocks I saw 4 cars with the whole reindeer antlers and rudolph nose on the front of the car and I started muttering to myself about why it seems this whole town is being all cutesy with their holiday car decor....and then I started wondering what happens if you have one of those get-ups and you see another car next to you with it, too, do you smile and wave to acknowledge the bizarro holiday antler club you're in together? Or do you play it cool like you aren't mortified that every other driver on the road had your same Christmas car idea? Right, clearly I was in a jolly mood. So I de-scrooged myself by buying our cats their first ever Christmas stocking. Yeah that's right, I have cats (7 to be exact. Ha. Kidding, just two cats, but you believed it though for a second, right? Crazy football lady might just be crazy cat lady...). And now they have a stocking. Full of awesome cat stuff that I also bought and spent a small fortune on. Apparently I might still be in that less-than-jolly mood...so moving on to today's links.

Start/sit advice:

Matthew Berry's Ya just never know, mate
CBSSports.com's Week 15 Start 'Em and Sit 'Em
RotoExperts.com's Hold 'em or Fold 'em
BrunoBoys' Week 15 Start 'Ems
FootballDocs' Start Sit Advice
Fifth Down's Week 15 in Fantasy Football: Favorable and Unfavorable Matchups
Roto Arcade's Lames: Don't expect Lynch to 'Taste the Rainbow' in Chicago
FakeTeams' Week 15 Start 'Em Sit 'Em
TOFantasySports' Play em and Lay em Week 15

Rankings for Week 15:

FantasyAlarm.com's Week 15 Running Back Rankings
Athlon Sports' Fantasy Football Rankings: Week 15
Pyromaniac.com's Player Rankings for Week 15
Razzball.com's Week 15 Fantasy Football Rankings
Fleaflicker's Weekly projections at the flex spot

Finally, there's a Tim Tebow beer coming...love it.

Almost forgot! Don't forget to jump into the FantasyPros.com weekly accuracy challenge to show how dominant FFLibrarian readers are - just answer these quick 10 start/sit questions.

Enjoy tonight's game!

Play smart in Week 15

noreply@blogger.com (Fantasy Football Librarian) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:42:00 +0000

Every year my husband's family does a college bowl pool and every year I absolutely tank...as in I perform alongside the family pets whose picks are based on school mascots being a cat, dog, etc. Or I do about as well as my aunt who participated one year and just picked whichever school was in a state that she had lived in or visited before. That's the level of effectiveness I've got going in the bowl pool and it's fairly embarrassing. Though I think I've finally figured out why I do so poorly: I'm just like my aunt, I pick with loyalty. I'm a total sucker for picking teams that I care about. No chance in hell am I picking against my Northwestern Wildcats, my sister's Stanford Cardinal, or my grandma's Michigan Wolverines, just ain't happening. I'm guessing many of you can relate and perhaps have made similar decisions in your fantasy football lives. Now I realize you've made it to the playoffs so you're obviously savvy and probably don't need this reminder, but don't get all emotional with your fantasy football picks now that we've hit Week 15. Be smart, roll with players that have given you consistent points each week, and of course remember to sprinkle in a dose of expert advice. You can't do much better than FantasyPros.com's Bold Predictions for the Fantasy Playoffs, particularly if you've seen an injury bug or have a scrappy team that somehow has made it this far. And of course we have our daily linkage to cover...

Week 15 waiver wire advice:

FakeTeams' Waiver Wire Scoops
Razzball.com's Waivering Wire Week 15
IDPers, we've got ProFootballFocus.com's IDP Waiver Wire Week 15
CBSSports.com's Waiver wire: Recycle your tight ends

Week 15 rankings:

The Fantasy Shrink's Week 15 Fantasy Football Rankings
ProFootballWeekly.com's Week 15 QB Rankings (video starts right away)
FFJungle.com's Week 15 QB FF Player Rankings
NFL.com's Player Rankings: Quarterbacks - Week 15

Or scope out start/sit advice:

FantasySharks.com's Start/Bench: Week 15
FantasyFootballXtreme.com's Week 15 Start 'em and Sit 'em advice
FFToolbox.com's Week 15: Sit 'Em