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.

Fantasy Football Librarian

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

Fantasy Football Librarian

Choose one NFL team to win each week. You can’t choose the same team to win in following weeks.

The Fantasy Football Times » Fantasy Football News Rumors Rankings Draft and Cheat Sheets and Picks

I’m an owner in a 12 team PPR league hosted by myfantasyleague.com. I hold the 3rd overall pick (22, 27, 43, 51, etc…)

Of course I’m looking for value in each round. But what is your take/recommendation on the 2008 fantasy season and the positions (or players) that will be available in each round?

The Fantasy Football Times » Fantasy Football News Rumors Rankings Draft and Cheat Sheets and Picks

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.

Fantasy Football Librarian

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.

Fantasy Football Librarian

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…

Fantasy Football Librarian

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!

Fantasy Football Librarian

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.

Fantasy Football Librarian

Watching the Giants get utterly destroyed by the Saints on Monday Night Football forced me to dwell on one of my mistakes this season — I never should have dropped Victor Cruz.

While he looked like a fluke after his big breakout performance, Cruz has come through the byes as one of the best wide receivers in fantasy football. If you started him in Week 12, I’m sure you’re happy with the result.

Unfortunately, at this point in the season, a lot of the pickups are like Cruz. You may have dropped them, but if you’re lucky, you’ll find them on the waiver wire this week as you move towards the playoffs. Rather than divide the pickups by position, I’ll include them all in one list this week since we don’t have too many to talk about.

ROY HELU (Redskins)
Could it be? Has Shanahan finally handed the lead back duties to his most productive back? It certainly seems that way, and Shanahan is at least saying what we’d expect him to say if he was going to give Helu his chance to shine.

At first glance, you’d still want to be skeptical about Helu’s chances, but Shanahan might as well see what Helu can do with consistent touches every week now that the Redskins have nothing to play for but next year. His quarterbacks aren’t going to win Washington any games down the stretch on talent alone.

Helu should have his chance to shine, and he should excel in his remaining favorable matchups with his involvement in the passing game. While he might never reach sure-thing RB2 status, Helu could be a strong flex option in the fantasy playoffs.

GREG LITTLE (Browns)
He finally found pay dirt in Week 12, and while he’s not likely to do that again…at all…the rest of the season, he is one of the most targeted receivers over the last few weeks. If Colt McCoy puts up a fight in the tough stretch the Browns are about to enter (and tries to convince the Browns that they already have their quarterback of the future), Little could finish the year on a high note. Little faces Arizona’s weak pass defense in Week 15. At the very least, he should be a useful fantasy backup if you need him then.

DAMIAN WILLIAMS (Titans)
I’m not a huge fan of the Titans passing game, but you can’t argue with a playoff schedule that includes the Bills, Saints, Colts, and Jaguars. Williams has been getting the looks that count in Tennessee for the past few weeks.

MARION BARBER (Bears)
The Bears will continue to run the ball even more than they have been to keep Caleb Hanie from losing games for them. As a result, Barber should be more reliable as a fantasy flex play. He’s been getting the touchdowns, and now he might get enough yardage to make it worth retaining him for the fantasy playoffs. If Matt Forte were to get hurt, Barber would be a great asset to have.

KYLE ORTON (Chiefs)
We can’t know for certain when he’ll take over in Kansas City, but Orton’s got a nice schedule when he does. If you’re looking for a QB2 who could potentially spot start for your team during the fantasy playoffs, Orton’s not a bad stash right now.

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS D/ST
They play the Colts. That is all.

Read more: Caleb Hanie, Damian Williams, fantasy football playoffs, free agents, Greg Little, Marion Barber, Mike Shanahan, New England Patriots, pickups, Roy Helu, waiver wire, Washington Redskins

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