Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

As the longest sports drought of any of our lifetimes stretches on, we’re all desperate for some kind of content. The modern NFL is a 12-month a year league now, but even so, we’re stuck in the slow part of the season. The draft is complete, and now it’s a long (possibly very long) wait until the season starts. Let’s try to quench our thirst and have a look at what changes the 2020 NFL season will be bringing us.

The Raiders are now the Las Vegas Raiders. This is probably a move that we will get used to quicker than Chargers moving to Los Angeles. I’d put money on hearing “San Diego” more than “Oakland” on podcasts this season.

Fantasy Impact: Probably not much, however I do wonder if players will be a bit more hungover than usual when playing a road game in Vegas. Players could run into some heat issues with early season day games, but we’ll have to check out the schedule when it’s released tomorrow.

The Rams and Chargers are expected to begin the season in their new stadium, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA. Finally, both teams will have a permanent home after years of squatting when they moved to Los Angeles.

Fantasy Impact: Again, not much at all, although the Chargers will probably go from the crowd being 50% away fans to being about 80%. Once fans are allowed to attend games again, that is. Until then, maybe the Chargers have a slight advantage over the league for the same reason – they’re used to not having any fans.

One more team from each conference will make the playoffs. With the new system, only the top seed will have a bye week. This will likely result in more teams having something to play for, whether it’s seeding or a playoff berth, through weeks 16 and 17.

Fantasy Impact: Short term, I don’t see much change. Hopefully, this gets rid of any questions of players resting during week 16 (which always makes for a difficult sit/start decision). Long term I could see some leagues extending right to the end of the regular season, if the final week of the season winds up being more reliably competitive. Of course, this will all get rebalanced again next year when they introduce the 17 game schedule, which will definitely change the fantasy football season length.

There’s a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and the NFLPA. There is no threat of a lockout or strike for another 10 years, so, there will be no repeat of the 2011 offseason.

Fantasy Impact: Aside from the additional playoff teams and 17 game schedule, there will be 2 more active players on each team each game day. These players are at the end of the roster and will generally provide depth and not be impact players, but this could affect the bottom end of deeper leagues, spreading out the work that a 4^th receiver or a 3^rd running back might see. On the flipside, you might end up seeing more specialists making the active roster, specifically guys who do not contribute on special teams, but now may find a small role on game day.

Rule change proposals are set to be voted on at the spring meetings, currently scheduled for May 19-20. There are not any major changes, but some noticeable ones include not recommending renewing the pass interference replay review (no vote needed), adding a “sky judge” style official, and eliminating Bill Belichick’s dead ball foul trick to burn time off the clock.

Fantasy Impact: The only rule changes that could impact fantasy football are the return of the OT period to 15 minutes and the option of a 4^th & 15 play from a team’s own 25-yard line in lieu of an onside kick attempt. Again, none of these changes are official yet, they are just the ones that have been recommended by the Competition Committee.

The international games for 2020 have been cancelled. The Jaguars were scheduled to host two home games in London, as well as one for Miami and one for the Falcons. The Cardinals were also scheduled to host a game in Mexico City later in the season. Understandably, international travel has been cancelled for the NFL this year due to Covid-19.

Fantasy Impact: No more worrying about 8:30am (Central Time) starts! No more missing setting your lineup because you went out on Saturday night. Everyone has an equal home game schedule this year, so no wondering what it’s like for players having to travel all the way to London and how they deal with the jet lag.

Bit of a rough week going 1-2 on the drinkfive best bets last week. Let’s look to bounce back in week 3 with a little bit more knowledge and some great trends to take advantage of. Underdogs regressed a little bit in week 2, however on the season dogs are an impressive 21-11 ATS. It’s still early in the season but there is a trend worth noting that is gaining some legs in the sports betting community; home field advantage does not seem to be as much of an advantage. Home teams are 16-16 straight up and 13-19 ATS through the first two weeks. What is eye opening, and worth tracking, is that home favorites are only 5-13 heading into week 3. 11 of the 16 games in week 3 have home favorites. High performing dogs plus underperforming home favorites; it’s a contrarian’s wet dream!

Miami +4.5 at Las Vegas:

The line for this game has been all over the place this week as both teams had questions regarding their quarterbacks. As of writing this the line is up to 4.5 and I am jumping on what I think is a severe over reaction. Miami got shut out last week and the Raiders are 2-0 so immediately there is contrarian value. Even though this line has bounced around due to injury concerns it opened at 5.5 and, even with clarity on the starting QB situation for both teams, it's down to 4.5. Despite having a backup QB start and only 26% of the tickets the line has never come close to going back to the original open of 5.5. I also see this as an overreaction play. Miami was shutout last week while there is suddenly, and embarrassingly, MVP talk surrounding Derek Carr after the Raiders 2-0 start. If that doesn’t scream over reaction I don’t know what does. The icing on top is Gruden’s 31% ATS record after multiple straight up wins.

Green Bay +3.5 at San Francisco:

There is some recent history between the Packers and the 49ers out in San Francisco. This will be the fourth meeting in 3 years at Levi’s Stadium. In 2019 the 49ers took care of business, while last year the Packers got their revenge. This is a rare popular dog with 63% of the bets coming in on the Packers and the line movement reflects that after dropping from 4 to its current line of 3. Tracking the line, I have seen what appears to be sharp buyback at 3, which is why I am recommending this pick at 3.5. As of writing this the line is juiced -120 to the favorite so I think there is a good chance 3.5 shows back up. There are a couple of trends that help tip the scales for me in this one too. Shanahan is only 22% (2-7 ATS) in his first game at home after coming off a multi-game road trip and he is only 31% ATS as a favorite in the last 27 games. Ultimately it would not surprise me to see Green Bay win this one outright, so of course I am going to take the points. San Francisco is dealing with tons of injuries and has not had a particularly confident win yet this season. Green Bay may have let the Lions stick around a bit longer than anticipated, but in the end, Aaron Rodgers did what future Hall of Famers do and found a way to confidently win the game with what was given to him. 

Tampa Bay -1.5 at Los Angeles Rams:

Tampa Bay is the public play and I am jumping on the bandwagon. There is a pro system that I like to follow on this one too; that is the dog to favorite system. Tampa Bay opened up as a +1.5 point road dog, however this line has been flipped and now Tampa is the -1.5 favorite. The dog to favorite system can be tricky, but ultimately it boils down to line movement and the public rarely moves lines, sharps move lines. The line currently sits at 1.5 and honestly, I am going to wait until the weekend to see if there is some buy back on the Rams now that it has moved so much. Aside from the line movement the Buccaneers are playing great football and are enjoying a 10 game winning streak dating back to last season. The Rams have looked good being led by Matt Stafford this year, but ultimately, they don’t have a signature win yet. Wins against Chicago and Indianapolis aren’t enough for me to fade the GOAT and reigning Super Bowl Champs. 

There is a profitable 0-2 ATS trend worth considering this week with 5 teams starting the season 0-2 ATS. Over the last 5 seasons teams that start 0-2 ATS are 26-12 ATS in week 3. Washington, New York Jets, Kansas City, Jacksonville and Atlanta all fit the trend this week. I could make an argument for Atlanta +3 at the New York Giants and Washington is clearly the sharp play at Buffalo after opening +9 and being bet down to +7/+7.5. Kansas City joining that list is honestly what makes the Chiefs Chargers game tough for me. KC has been bad ATS for longer than 2 games and ultimately, I do think the Chargers have value at 6.5, so do the books apparently who are not moving the line to the key number of 7 despite 71% of the bets and 79% of the money on the Chiefs.