Keeper Selections

Acting upon a sudden desire to be kind, I have decided to let you in on my secret garden of fantasy football insight and knowledge.  I have decided to place myself in each manager's shoes and offer advice on what I would do if I were them.  I will call it: "What would Tim do?" Keeper Selection Edition.

I will warn you, however, that this is advice coming from the manager who placed 7th in the league last season, had the 2nd lowest point total for the season, and was ranked dead last in the season's final power rankings.  For some twisted reason, however, I still believe what I write will affect your decision, in spite of my obvious lack of credentials.  I guess that's what most blogging consists of.

I will also mention that I have decided to change my team name.  O'doyle has faithfully lasted me all of 9 seasons, but never was able to win me a championship - in the regular season or playoffs.  Inspired by the Hornets-turned-Bobcats-turned-Hornets-again, I have decided it's time for change.  To get my creative juices flowing, I went to Google and searched "Best Fantasy Football Team Names."  Here are the ones I found amusing:
1. Red Hot Julius Peppers
2. Forgetting Brandon Marshall
3. Belicheck Yourself Before You Rex Yourself
4. RG-3PO

I then thought of names just off the top of my head, and here are some I came up with:
1. I Like To Rock The Party
2. Mr. Narwhal
3. Derelicte
4. Ballers
5. Shot Callers
6. Peanut Butter Happiness Forever
7. Madphatbootyliciousfreakazoid

But after much consideration, I have decided on the perfect blend of intimidating yet fun, all the while embodying what I find to be the essence of Tim.  So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my new team name: Pinchers of Peril.

But I digress.  In a few weeks, teams will be deciding on their keepers for the 2013-2014 NFL Fantasy Football season.  Since this process can be intimidating, I hope to provide some solace through giving you all my advice on what I would do if I were you.  So here it goes.

Hornets - Ray Rice
Now that we've changed the rules a little, Abraham is at a slight disadvantage.  If he goes with Rice, he's guaranteed a decent RB in the 1st round.  If not, he gets bumped down to 10th pick, where Rice may not even still be on the board.  It'll be a tough decision, but if I were him, I'd stick with Rice, considering that as a #10 overall pick, that's a pretty decent bargain.  By the way, another team name I saw was "Rice Rice Baby" but I suppose that could be confused with Sidney.  Or Jerry.  Oh, and speaking of Laura's old team: "Somewhere Over Dwayne Bowe."  HA.

Kardashian Esk. Bros - Pass
Far from the clear dominance her team embodied the previous season, 2012-13 proved to be one of many struggles for Justina's team.  In my opinion, her closest thing to a keeper would be A.J. Green.  But is he worth the reach?  Especially now that she's pretty much guaranteed the first pick?  I would say no.  My gut tells me there will be better WRs available when she's up to pick in the first round, and even if she wants to go the RB or QB route, she'll have a better selection to choose from than what Green has to offer.

Sinni J - Adrian Peterson
Can we all say no-brainer here?  Jeff would be pretty much giving up the consensus #1 overall pick if he decided not to keep Peterson.  I'm more confused about his name change - can someone explain this to me?

Pinchers of Peril (previously known as odoyle RULES) - Pass
It's sad when the best keeper you have is Stevan Ridley.  Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit - he'd probably be considered an early-to-mid 2nd round pick in a 10-team league.  But still, it was time for the name change.  It was definitely time.

THE Pain Train - C.J. Spiller
This one was tough, because if Gabs believes that C.J. won't get in to the injury trouble he had to go through last year, this would be an easier choice.  However, I could understand if Gabs wanted to rid himself of Spiller in hopes of picking up a better RB that might still be on the board by this point.  With that said, if I were Gabs, I would keep C.J.  The combination of not knowing who will be available at this point (even though I'm sure it'll be a decent selection) and the fact that C.J. is a projected #6 or #7 RB makes me want to play it safe and keep him.

Terrific Tortoises - Pass 
With Jimmy Graham as his most worthy potential keeper, I would recommend that David pass him up and save the torture of making that same mistake again.  Sure, he is the best TE out there.  But I'm still of the belief that RBs, and even elite WRs, are hard enough to come by that you can let someone else pick up a TE earlier on and settle with a Dennis Pitta or a Greg Olsen.  Like I said, that's just me.

choubacca - Arian Foster
Another seemingly no-brainer, especially since if he passed, Aaron would most likely be looking at some slim pickings at the RB spot by this point.  Thank goodness he can't keep more than one player.  Victory point for quasi-fantasy-football-communism.

MUSCLE Hamster - Doug Martin
Eric has no choice.  He must keep Martin in order to keep his name.  Especially since Martin was such a workhorse for him late in the season last year.  I'm already calling it - Eric is a contender for the championship in 2013-14.  Why?  Because of his name, DUH.  It's so... scary.  And intimidating.  Have we not learned anything about the power of team names by this point in the post?

The Debbinator - Aaron Hernandez
Just kidding.  Or am I?  Dark horse pick right here, baby.  Ok, but in all seriousness, I'd argue that Brees is David's best bet as a keeper, and even though he's considered a #1 QB by some, I was never a huge fan of picking a QB so early in the draft.  Maybe it's my old-school-get-your-RBs-early mentality that has been killing me all these years.  I'm just of the mindset that decent QBs will still be available by rounds 4, 5, 6 that you can rely on throughout the season.  And there will be one or two break-out QBs that if you're lucky enough, you can reach for in rounds 7, 8, and 9 and still be better off (RGIII of last season, Cam Newton of the season prior, Matthew Stafford a few seasons back, Aaron Rodgers way back).

Spider Pig - Jamaal Charles
I told Luke he should keep Marshawn.  But the more I've looked in to it, the more I would probably go with Jamaal Charles.  Luke is probably aware of all the reasons why, so I won't go in to detail.  I will say though, that if Luke can pull off a repeat this season, I will be very impressed, and he will be deserving of much dap and props.  Why?  BECAUSE THE PINCHERS OF PERIL ARE COMING FOR YOU, PIGGY.

Keeper Analysis

As a teaser for our new season, yours truly is paying 20% attention to his work call to bring you this year's "keeper ape index" analysis. The logic goes as follows:

- Calculate each manager's actual draft position
- Speculate on what each manager's likely keeper is
- Reference some online mock drafts to calculate the draft value of each keeper
- Calculate the variance

And without further ado...

Red - time to flex those management skills
Yellow - manageable situation
Green - things are looking grood

What can we take from this analysis? It's that David has a great chance to flex his management muscles and King Joffrey might actually have a good year! Obviously this is just speculation with the first round and we all know that fantasy championships are won with savvy drafting in later rounds and the occasional advantageous trade.

Hope everyone is having a great summer.