Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

6/24/14, Tight Ends, GRONK SMASH, Graham Score, Cameron Crows

Tonight we enjoyed a few 2XONE's from Southern Tier Brewing and they were excellent. We've gone through the QB's, the RB's and the WR's over the last three weeks, so now it's time for the last two-letter position, the TE's.

As has been our tradition, we came up with our top 10 Tight Ends going in to the 2014 season.

1. Jimmy Graham

2. Julius Thomas

3. GRONK SMASH

4. Vernon Davis

5. Jordan Cameron

6. Jason Witten

7. Greg Olsen

8. Jordan Reed

9. Eric Ebron

10. Martellus Bennett

We wound up talking a lot more about tight ends, about just how damn big they're gettin' these days. We also discussed second year tight ends, which are much slimmer pickings compared to the other positions.

This week, there was no particular TV show we came to the table to break down, but we went over a bunch of shows we've seen recently. Then Dave went down a list of network shows that I think both of us agree that we won't be watching. Maybe next week, we'll talk about some good cable shows, including "The Leftovers", so make sure you watch that one.

Make sure to join us next week, live at 9pm CST on blogtalk radio (www.blogtalkradio.com/drinkfive). You can now sign up for our newsletter on the side panel of our website. We will send you direct updates during the season including all the info you need to set your lineups. Send us your questions and we'll answer them on the podcast. Ask us on our Facebook page, follow us on twitter (@drinkfive), or send us an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can also grab the podcast on iTunes.

With the conclusion of Week 6, we are now almost halfway through the fantasy football regular season. The next few weeks are both crucial (getting those tough wins to secure a playoff position and tiebreakers) and difficult (bye weeks, injuries, and now CVD-IR to deal with). Best of luck as we trudge through the rankings and hopefully find some jewels in the rough to pick up from the wire or start from your bench and pull out the win in Week 7! Listen to or watch the Fantasy Finish Line podcast to stay on top of the latest news and analysis - we broadcast live on YouTube weekly on Wednesdays at 9pm CT.

Guys that jump out to me this week to overperform expectations: Drew Brees, JaMycal Hasty, Mike Williams, Rob Gronkowski, and Cincinnati Bengals (DST).

Pay attention to these rankings throughout the season, as they will continue to evolve based on the latest injury updates, news, and player analysis. Have any specific lineup questions? Feel free to tweet us @drinkfive with any of your questions or comments!

Not all that glitters is gold. We're all familiar with the adage, but often as fantasy football team managers it's all too easy to get caught up in the momentum of a player and/or his circumstances without looking forward into how things will progress throughout the season. For these specific examples below, fantasy points may well follow for a couple more weeks but all are headed to a place closer to a benchwarmer on your roster than a starter. Why not take the advantageous route of offering these overperforming players to other managers in your league and getting some more consistent, higher-floor players back in return? That's my plan. Either way, good luck out there!

• Sammy Watkins - Here we go again with Sammy. Drafted this year as WR 89, the ‘Week 1 Wonder’ put up 11.6 fantasy points as WR37. He led the team in targets (8) and yards (96), and looks very much to be the Ravens #1 WR going forward. This may be a hit or miss kind of situation based on how much of a shootout the Ravens are involved in from week-to-week, but this is a player that - when healthy and featured - will have fantasy value throughout the season as a flex start. That said, I think those situations will be few and far between so I’m not buying into Watkins this year.

• Melvin Gordon - Gordon finished as the RB6 in Week 1, with 19.3 points. But take away the 70-yard TD run that he had in the fourth quarter and that number drops to only 6.3 points. In fact, Gordon actually had less carries during the game than rookie RB Javonte Williams. Those team managers that didn’t pay attention to the specific stats of this game may be clamoring to start Gordon but I think we’ll see his usage wane as the season progresses.

• Ty’Son Williams - Williams rushed 9 times for 65 yards and 1 TD on Monday Night Football making him the RB9 in Week 1. He also caught 3 passes for 29 yards and a total of 16.9 points. I don’t want to take a single thing away from his performance because he looked great, showcasing good speed and breaking a few tackles - but this is not likely the usage that he’ll continue to see over the course of the season. Newly signed veteran RB Latavius Murray took the majority of the carries in the second half (in fact, Williams only had two), and Williams missed a blitz pickup in overtime that led directly to Lamar Jackson’s fumble and the Ravens’ subsequent loss. No doubt Williams is talented, but those kinds of mistakes on top of Murray’s already split usage and Le’Veon Bell likely headed to the active roster to assist in 3rd down pass protection situations will result in much less fantasy production going forward than many are expecting.

• Deebo Samuel - An impressive outing from Samuel, he finished as WR3 with 27.4 points. That’s 9/12 for 189 yards and 1 TD. Yeesh. Clearly Samuel is not a ‘flash in the pan’ player as he totaled more than 800 yards receiving in his rookie year with the 49ers, but there are a few things to note here: 1) Brandon Aiyuk (hamstring injury) will be eased into this offense and take some targets away from Samuel as the season progresses and 2) The Eagles defense that he will face in Week 2 profiles as much better than the Lions - Calvin Ridley only chalked up 51 yards on 5 catches. Samuel and Gronk (who I’ll get to next) are clearly the best of tonight’s fantasy fool’s gold segment, but I think it’s important to understand that they have likely played their best games of the season already and we should expect regression. I expect 5-6 catches for 50-80 yards this week, which aligns more closely with the WR2/3 numbers we should anticipate on a weekly basis from Samuel. Consider week 1 a lucky spin.

• Rob Gronkowski - TE1 with 25 points. Is Gronk back to his glory days? In a way, yes. Same relationship with Brady, same kinds of plays and mismatches we’ve seen in the past, etc. But we know that Gronkowski’s gears were already getting rusty and that injuries tend to crop up over the course of a football season that prevent the big guy from playing at 100%. I will admit that it looked like Gronk drank some water from the fountain of youth out there against the Cowboys secondary, recording 8 grabs for 90 yards and 2 TDs but - like plastic bags - that’s simply not sustainable. We will see a major drop-off from Gronk going forward, but we may not see it this week against the Falcons. Their less-than-stellar secondary gave up plenty of fantasy production to the tight end position last week. So trot Gronk out there as a TE1 once more, but that will change starting with the Rams in Week 3. Mark my words!

Welcome to Statistically (in)Significant, the place to find great stats that probably only matter at the water cooler (or bar). Each week I'll dig through the stats of the week gone by and deliver you some choice conversation starters. All fantasy stats are half PPR scoring unless otherwise noted.

6 Receptions

Sunday in Seattle, Derrick Henry had a career-high 6 receptions, his previous high-water mark was only 4 receptions. He now has 9 catches in two games this year – his career-high in a season are 19 catches in 2020.  Perhaps, however, I am burying the lead, much like Henry buried the Seahawks defense in the second half of the game. Henry finished yesterday’s game with an absolutely gaudy (albeit overtime aided) stat line. 35 carries for 182 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns, 6 receptions on 6 targets for 55 receiving yards. This gave Henry a final fantasy total of 44.7 points, a single-game total that’s nearly 10 points higher than any other player in the NFL this season. Congrats on the win, everybody who has Derrick Henry on their team. Henry holds the lead in fantasy points among all non-QB players, and also leads the league in rushing yards, carries, rushing TDs, and touches. He’s picked right up on the pace he had last season and even has expanded on his receiving game, making it possible for him to be the #1 RB in all of fantasy football this year, even with a healthy Christian McCaffrey around.

2.01 Christian McCaffreys

Or would it be McCafferies? It’s not important. Just geeking out on Henry’s amazing 44.7-point performance, which just more than twice as many points as the second-best RB of the week, Christian McCaffrey. McCaffrey does lead the league in yards from scrimmage with 324 already (170 rushing, 154 receiving) – only one other RB, Kenyan Drake, has over 100 receiving yards through two games. Among other players who scored nearly half as many points as Derrick Henry were Tony Pollard, Cordarrelle Patterson, and J.D. McKissic – none of whom are rostered in our drinkfive.com league. Now, this is mostly me calling out our league, since both Pollard (75% owned) and McKissic (58% owned) should really be rostered. Cordarrelle Patterson was definitely a surprise to fantasy players this week, finishing with 21.4 fantasy points and scoring both on the ground and through the air, the first time he’s done that since his rookie season in 2013.

50.84 Fantasy Points

Through two weeks, the QB5 on the season is Daniel Jones, and he’s still only owned in 50% of Fleaflicker leagues. Jones is third in rushing yards among QBs, has 2 rushing scores, and perhaps most importantly, has just one fumble and zero interceptions on the season. Jones is taking clear steps forward in improving his game, at least as far as fantasy football goes. I suppose that fans of the actual New York Football Giants might have differing opinions. Elsewhere at the QB position, Derek Carr and Kirk Cousins both find themselves in the top 10 of fantasy points, outscoring guys who were drafted way ahead of them like Josh Allen, Dak Prescott, and Ryan Tannehill. As of the time I’m writing this, Aaron Rodgers hasn’t played in his Week 2 game yet, so it’s not really fair to pile on to his 3.32 point performance to open the season (though to be fair to me, that’s a really small target to try and pile on to).

4 Receiving Touchdowns

Rob Gronkowski is the early league leader in receiving touchdowns, nabbing two in each of his first two games. He’s also got 12 receptions through those two games, and he’s never finished a season above 5.6 receptions per game. It’s hard to say that this is a renaissance for Gronk, since nearly everyone expects his production to fall off at some point due to all the wear and tear he’s had through the years. I will, however, keep rolling him out at TE until he shows me that he’s going to slow down. Currently, he’s the TE2, but only behind Travis Kelce by 0.1 points, making them essentially both TE1’s on the year. They are way ahead of Darren Waller’s impressive 30.5 points on the year, who is in turn way ahead of the rest of the pack, which is in the low 20’s (pending T.J. Hockenson’s performance tonight).

12 Kickers with Double-digit Points

I avoided them last week, but you can’t dodge a kicker forever, so let’s see how they’re doing. This week was excellent for kickers, with a cool dozen players scoring 10 points or more, so great news, right? Surely, you started one of those kickers. Well, maybe not. In our drinkfive.com league, only 3 of those 12 kickers were rostered for last weeks’ games. 7 of those kickers were owned in 12% of Fleaflicker leagues or less, proving once again that this is probably the hardest position to predict on a week-to-week basis. Week 2’s leader, Graham Gano, is a name that has been around forever, yet he is on only 12% of teams, while going a perfect 5/5 on FGs and 2/2 on XPs for 23.2 total fantasy points. Remember folks, don’t just go for the guys who have big names, go for the guys who are on teams that cannot score touchdowns! Like Gano or the K3 on the week, Nick Folk of the Patriots. Of course, Folk missed an extra point, so his job is likely in jeopardy with a coach like Belichick.