Players are making significant incomes in the daily fantasy sports realm. In fact, a new site has come along in the fantasy space just to celebrate the daily fantasy players – RotoGrinders.com. They are pretty serious about daily fantasy – check out how detailed their Fanduel Review is, for example. On this site you can look up the stats of any player on any daily fantasy games site. Do yourself a favor and search for Kaiseroll13. He plays heavily on quite a few sites, but look at his results on FantasySportsLive. He is a mad man. As of August 12th he has already recorded over $100k in winnings on that site alone. Of course that data does not include his losses – the daily fantasy sites will not give out that info, but the number is very impressive nonetheless. Rumor has it that he is banking five figures per month. Check out their rankings system to get an idea of who are the best players in the industry.

A cursory glance at the Fanduel leaderboard for July gives one an idea of the insane volume of games being played on Fanduel right now, with Baseball being the only sport running. Nine players registered over 100 wins for the month. Two of those players had over $10k in winnings, and an insane 28 players won over $1000. This is all happening in an industry in it’s infancy. Baseball pales in comparison to football, both in the real world and in fantasy. I predict these numbers to multiply once football season rolls around.

We’ve also heard that FanDuel recently received a large round of funding – over $1,000,000! That is the kind of capital that could catapult them into the main stream. Just think if there are weekly $10,000 fantasy football tournaments. How about daily $1,000 fantasy baseball contests with a $10 buy in? The sky is the limit for these games. We’re going to see the professional fantasy sports playing community blow up huge over the next few years. Other big daily sites, like SnapDraft and FantasySportsLive, could also emerge as leaders. Only time will tell.

Click here to visit FanDuel and see if you can do any damage. Who knows, maybe you’ll be at the top of their leaderboards and the number one ranked player on RotoGrinders.com before you know it!

What You Can Do:

Manage Lineups: On the first screen you login using your Yahoo ID and password. Then you’re taken right to your All Teams page. Click one to see your lineup for that team. You can click on any players name to get information on that player, such as his stats that week or for the season. Click the “Edit” button in the top right to manage your line-up. The player switch feature on the app is different from the drag and drop movement on the website. This app is actually easier, working like the “move player” feature on ESPN. You click a player and the available spaces he can be moved to appear (Bench, WR, WR/RB/TE). REMEMBER: After you make all your line up changes you must hit the little blue submit button in the top right. The first time I tried to edit my lineup I didn’t see that button and thought the changes were already made. After hitting the submit button I checked my lineup on my actual laptop’s browser and the change was reflected immediately, so don’t worry about lag.

Add/Drop Players: The player search functionality isn’t nearly as robust as the web version, but its good enough. You can only search for available players. You can filter by position, season stats, and projected stats. After filtering out your list click on a player and you can view stats or add him to your roster by dropping another. It’s all slick and easy to use.

Watch Yahoo Expert Videos: This is superfluous, but a nice addition. I’d like to see a link to the RotoArcade blog as well.

Get Live Scoring: I guarantee you I will deplete my iPhone battery with this feature at least four weeks this season.

What You Can’t Do:

Trade Players: Hopefully this will be included in the next update. There are no trade options and no ability to view trades you’ve offered or been offered.

View Other Teams’ Lineups: On the league page there is a box by each team that looks like it should be clicked to view more, but nothing happens when I click it. You can, however, view your current week’s opponent in the “Matchups” Tab.

View Your Schedule and Past Weeks’ Results – Another easy upgrade that should be available in future versions.

Props to Yahoo for getting this out. They’re doing enough to stay the market leader in this space even though the competition is coming on strong. If you can think of anything else this app needs please post it in the comments section below.

My mind has been consumed the past two days with the “Draft all players with the same bye week” strategy. Riley and I have been discussing its merits and doing some mocks. It’s a strategy I’ve never really given serious thought, but the more we talked about it the more interesting it became. The idea is to gain an edge in the Wins column by running your team at full strength all season against teams weakened by the byes. You will most likely lose when all your players are on bye, but that may be avoidable as well with sharp drafting. I think I’m going to try this strategy in one of my upcoming drafts just to see how it goes.

To start considering this strategy check out which combo of teams are on the same bye:

4: ARI, ATL, CAR, PHI
5: NO, SD, GB, CHI
6: DAL, IND, MIA, SF
7: BAL, DEN, DET, JAX, SEA, TEN
8: CIN, KC, NE, PIT, TB, WAS
9: BUF, CLE, MIN, NYJ, OAK, STL
10. HOU, NYG

Strangely, the three weeks that have six teams on bye didn’t produce any home run teams by my projections. Weeks 4 and 5 did produce some interesting teams, with week 5 having the most potential. Your projections and rankings could make one of the other byes more suitable for your own Same Bye Strategy. Just make sure you have at least two backup plans in each round. At round 9 you can really open up and go for sleepers because your All Bye starting team will already be secured.. For example, I’ll be looking for Josh Morgan, Leon Washington, Ahmad Bradshaw, Chris Henry, and Chaz Shilens in those rounds regardless the draft strategy I’m using. Also keep in mind matchups for the week that your players are on bye. You want to draft a backup group with solid matchups that week so that you don’t automatically lose. Focus on RBs – in week 5 Parker plays DET, Bradshaw plays OAK, and Maroney/Taylor plays DEN. These cheap RBs could be week 5 monsters.

So, here’s a team I was actually able to get in a mock using this strategy, and I like it quite a bit. I’ve got pick 3 in an upcoming PPR Draft so I chose to mock from that spot. In parenthesis are other week 5 bye guys that may be available at that pick:

Mock Draft Results:
1. Forte (LT)
2. Jennings (Grant, Thomas, Colston)
3. Thomas (Grant, Colston)
4. Rivers (Gates, Bush, VJax)
5. VJax (Gates, Bush)
6. Willie Parker (vs det week 5)
7. Greg Olsen (Moore, Hester, Cutler, Driver)
8. Devin Hester (Moore, Cutler, Driver)
9. Ahmad Bradshaw (vs oak week 5)
10. Josh Morgan (Just a guy I target in all drafts, could start over Hester)
11. Chris Henry (another guy I target)
12. Laurence Maroney (vs den week 5, Taylor or Maroney usually here in the 12th)
13. David Garrard
14. Visanthe Shiancoe
15. Chaz Shilens
16. Dallas D

I can’t expect a real draft to go exactly like this, but this is about the right range for these guys. None of these picks were reaches or great ADP values. Week 5 offers enough options in each round that you can pretty safely field a team without making bad reaches. The real danger is that Rivers, VJax, Gates, and Bush all go before my picks in rounds 4-5. If that happens in a real draft I would deviate from week five byes to take the best available QB so as not to be left with Cutler later.

My full strength, every week line up is:
QB: Rivers
WR: Jennings
WR: VJax
WR: Hester, Morgan, or Henry
RB: Forte
RB: Thomas
RB/WR/TE: Parker, Bradshaw, or Maroney
TE: Olsen or Shiancoe

This is a very strong lineup that I would not want to face with one or two of my best players on bye.

With this draft in week 5 I would be running:
QB: Garrard vs Sea
WR: Josh Morgan vs Atl
WR: Chris Henry vs Balt, ugh
WR: Chaz Shilens vs Giants
RB: Willie Parker vs Det
RB: Bradshaw vs Oak
WR/RB/TE: Maroney vs Den
TE: Shiancoe vs Stl

If those RBs produce vs those matchups this team has a fighting chance to win on week 5.

There are seven bye weeks, so you’re doing all this to gain a significant edge in six games at the expense of a huge disadvantage in one game. There are many other issues with this strategy that make it a great one for debate.

I’d love to discuss this with people! I opened up a forum discussion on this topic here, please let me know your thoughts: http://fantasyfanatics.com/streams/all/draft/preseason/900

I couldn’t take a screenshot of my draft because I did it on MockDraftCentral, but Riley grabbed one from one of his mocks on FantasyFootballCalculator. He’s also in the three spot and using the Week 5 Bye strategy. This mock was not done in PPR format, though, so it’s a bit different:

Some interesting new material for Favre fantasy analysis came to my attention today. Thanks to StilettoNole on FantasyFanatics.com for posting this note on his easy early schedule: http://fantasyfanatics.com/forums/thread/656

He’s officially huge trade bait now that I’ve been made aware of his first five opponents – Cleveland, Detroit, San Fran, Green Bay, and St. Louis. Favre could easily be a top five QB at the end of those five games. He may even be able to avoid reinjuring his gimp rotator cuff for that long. QBs can become overvalued quickly during the season when an owner panics after losing his starter to injury. Shop Favre early and often and you may land a starting WR or RB.

By the way, while you’re reading Fanatics please sign up an account and enter your Preseason Rankings Game picks. The WCOFF is giving away an $1800 2010 Main Event seat to the Preseason Game winner. There are only 50 entries submitted so far, so you have a great shot at winning!

Fantasy Football Rankings Game

StilettoNole also points out that Favre’s schedule clears up nicely down the fantasy stretch:

Week 10 vs DET
Week 11 vs SEA
Week 13 @ AZ
Week 14 vs CIN

Favre is panning out to be a big factor in this fantasy season.

Ahmad Bradshaw’s ADP is early 9th round. Brandon Jacobs ADP is early 2nd round. This is ADP for non PPR leagues, but that is most likely the list your non savvy competitors will be looking at come draft day. I think that ADP is too low for nonPPR, but for PPR league its insane. These two players can easily end up with a non significant separation in points, just like Jacobs and Ward shared last year. Add Jacob’s injury propensity to that and Bradshaw’s ADP looks even rosier. Bradshaw can be a savior for teams that grab a QB and TE early. Reach for him in the late 7th, early 8th as an RB3 that is just as good as those taken in the 5th and 6th rounds.

I don’t mean to discount Brandon Jacobs too much, but he’s not a first round pick in PPR leagues. Pass catchers like Steve Slaton and the stud WRs should push him down to the mid second round. The odds of Brandon Jacobs catching a pass in any game are about as good as Eli Manning not making five goofball decisions.

As the Giants RB3 last year Bradshaw managed 400 yards and 2 TDs. When Jacobs did go down Derrick Ward took over pretty much the whole workload. When Brandon Jacobs goes down this year it remains to be seen if the 5′9″ Bradshaw takes an every down role. Giants personnel are high on Danny Ware as the RB3. He will have limited success even when Jacobs and Bradshaw are healthy, but an injury could throw him into the spotlight on one of the league’s best rushing teams. Keep him in mind for your deep drafts. He’s not on any radars so you won’t have trouble grabbing him as an RB6.

While member rankings are our main concern, our rankings games also produce some very cool content. We “Crowd Source” all of our members rankings into one consensus list. Right now we just have Preseason Rankings, but during the season we’ll have Weekly Rankings, Breakout Player Rankings, and Waiver Wire Rankings. You can sort the Crowd-Sourced lists by all members, top 10% FSQ, top 1% FSQ, etc. We hope that our readers will find these rankings lists a valuable resource as the season moves along.

Fantasy Fanatics also hosts a separate “Media Rankings” list. Anyone who operates or works for a sports-oriented site is welcome to post their URL in their profile and be included in this list. We just launched this two hours ago and we already have six site representatives signed up! This section has potential to distinguish which sites/experts are the best of the best. We also hope this section will serve as great publicity for those that participate on the site. I’ll keep working to get more media to sign up!

Riley and I have never been fans of standard forums so we build a pretty unique and interesting one for this site. We’d love to get some feedback on its functionality. We’ve tried to make our forum both more visually pleasant and easier to follow. We’ve integrated a lot of Twitter ideas and a nice automated tagging system. Posts are tagged into categories like “Draft Talk” or “Injury Update” so that you can sort to exactly what you’re interested in. Member stats, such as FSQ and awards won, are also posted in each thread. This helps give you an idea of the relative skill level of the person responding to your posts.

Each member has both a Profile Page and a Games Page. Profile Pages allow you to view at a glance all of that member’s recent activity on the site. You leave a message for that member, view his historical rankings, and just learn more information about him. On the games page you can view that member’s current and historical picks. If you encounter someone on the site that you really respect then you can visit his game page often to see his thoughts each week.

Sign up an account and enter your Preseason Fantasy Rankings! Maybe you’ll be the one to rise to the top of our Leaderboard!

Maclin has to compete with DeSean Jackson, Kevin Curtis, Reggie Wayne, Hank Baskett, and Jason Avant for looks (also Brent Celek, Cornelius Ingram, Brian Westbrook, and LeSean McCoy, for that matter.  Harvin will be a factor in his offense, but he’s a bit of a wildcard.  It may take the Vikes a while to figure out how to use him as he competes for looks with Bernard Berrian, Sidney Rice, Bobby Wade, and Visanthe Shiancoe.  Nicks could end up being a super sleeper if he earns significant time at flanker, but he’s got a long way to go to supplant Hixon.

Robiskie has already had a strong OTA and should be able to beat out Mike Furrey, David Patten, rookie Mohamed Massaqoui and return specialist Josh Cribbs as the WR2.  He is a polished route runner with phenomenal hands.  I’m sure everyone rooting for Browns football will like that after watching ButterFingers Braylon lead the league in drops last season.  The Browns are the front runners for finishing dead last in the AFC North.  If they are playing from behind as much as I think they will be then there will be plenty of receptions to go around.  With Winslow gone, Steve Heiden and Robert Royal are the receiving options at TE.  They aren’t nearly as lethal and will need to spend significant time blocking this season anyways.  Robiskie will make for a great possession receiver right out of the gates.  His involvement in the Red Zone (if the Browns ever make it there) is a bit of a mystery, but he should be snatched up earlier than his current ADP in PPR leagues.

Robiskie’s ADP as of June 30th is 163.  The fantasy community isn’t taking him very seriously yet, but he is on radars.  Grab him sometime in the late 12th, early 13th for a chance to beat your opponents with a rookie WRs while Harvin and Maclin rot on their benches.

Here is some more Robiskie and Brown WRs reading:

http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/blog/index.ssf/2009/06/terry_plutos_talkin_about_clev.html – Terry Pluto talks of Edwards and Robiskie as a 1-2 punch.

http://www.rototimes.com/nfl/player/7728 – RotoTimes profile page documents Robiskie’s offseason rise.

Yes, there really is a new football league called the UFL and they had their first draft last night.  No, Vick was not drafted, but it would be fun to see him play here – it would be instant legitimacy for the UFL.  In fact, the NFL may be more likely to take him back just to keep him out of the UFL.  These experimental leagues usually fail, but the UFL is taking a new approach.  They’re focusing their efforts on strong front offices and coaching staffs. They will need smart management to survive, so I’m a supporter of this approach.  Jim Fassel, Jim Haslett, Denny Green, and Ted Cottrel are the coaches of the initial four teams in the league.  To get more info on the UFL, check out their official site at: UFL-Football.com (they have a dash in the URL, meaning they weren’t fast enough to get uflfootball.com – maybe their management isnt as good as I thought, lol)

Each team drafted 24 players, so the final rosters are no where near set.  The rest of the roster spots will be filled by players released from NFL teams during training camps.  The talent in this league will be decent.  I really wish they could hold their games during the offseason so that we could have fantasy football year-round, but there’s no way that they could do that if they want to get along with the NFL.

Some of the guys in this league may have been on your fantasy football rosters in recent seasons – Chris Perry, Brooks Bollinger, LaBrandon Toefield.  There are plenty of former NFL players on these rosters and more will be coming as they are released by the “Big Leagues.”  Will careers be revived?  Will BJ Sams find his place here?  Will UK’s Shane Boyd be the next Kurt Warner?  No, but it should be fun to watch none the less.

It’s too early to do a mock draft, but whenever the 60 man initial rosters are set I’ll do a mock draft in this space just for the hell of it.  With the hundreds of companies out there offering fantasy games I’m sure some opportunist will pop up with a game.  I’ll play it.  Why not?  I could always use more football in my life.

Please leave comments with your thoughts on the NFL, I’d love to have some discussion on this new league.

Quarterback: Brett Favre at 202, behind Jake Delhomme, Brady Quinn, Chad Pennington, Joe Flacco, Marc Bulger, Sage Rosenfels, and Jason Campbell (and just ahead of both rookies)

This is the absurdiest of the absurd.  Absurdilicious.  Favre is going to play this season.  Nearly even major pundit with the balls to make a prediction agrees.  Let’s say there is a 75% chance Favre plays, which may be an underestimation.  That 25% chance of getting a year long zero from your Favre draft pick definitely cuts into his value, but how much?  He’s a low end QB1 if he plays.  That’s great trade bait, or a great matchup play to pair with another low end QB1 like Cutler, Ryan, or Schaub.  You’ve gotta be Wacco for Flacco to take Joe Flacco over Brett Favre.  All of the QBs I mentioned above have potential to be bye week fill-ins at best.  You can easily get Favre in the 13th round right now, even after grabbing your first backup QB.  He is the clear cut steal of the draft as of June 10th.

Runningback: Pierre Thomas at 36, below Ronnie Brown, Ryan Grant, and Kevin Smith:

From what we know right now, Thomas has Peyton’s confidence and is going to be the lead ball carrier on a ridiculously prolific offense.  On November 16th, 2008 Pierre took over the majority of the carries and produced a monstrous stretch run.  In six games he rushed 93 times for 475 yards and 6 TDs.  He added 19 receptions for 212 yards and 3 TDs during that same stretch.  Take out the Ronnie Browns Wildcat game vs. NE and Pierre outproduced Brown’s entire season in just 6 games.   Sure there are questions with Pierre, such as will Bush or Mike Bell take a bigger role or will they sign an outsider.  To me, those are the questions that keep him from going in the first round, not the questions that put him behind guys who can’t even sniff his upside.  The RB position is deep and Pierre Thomas has enormous upside, especially in PPR leagues.  Take him in the late second, early third and you’ll still be able to grab a solid RB3 in the 5th or 6th.

Wide Receiver: Michael Crabtree at 77, over Donnie Avery and Hines Ward

I like the rookie and plan to roster him as a WR4 on a couple of teams, but I’m going to be reasonable about it.  Crabtree is an injured rookie that might be platooning and, even worse, might have Alex Smith throwing him the ball on a run-heavy offense.  Physically he’s ready to be a big time NFL receiver, but pretty much everything else limits his upside.  Hines Ward gets it done year in and year out and will be a weekly contributor on any fantasy team.  Donnie Avery is a sleeper who could break out huge this season.  The Rams want to be run first, and they will be in the four games they are competitive in, but in the other 12 games Avery is going to get plenty of looks as the Rams play catch-up.  Jackson and Avery will be that entire offense.

Tight End: Chris Cooley at 86, well behind Kellen Winslow and Greg Olsen

Cooley is a great value at TE this season because he only had one TD last season.  That was an anomaly.  He got the highest reception and yardage totals of his career, with 83 catches for 849 yards.  In the four previous seasons hes scored 6-8 TDs.  Look for him to post similar yardage numbers but bounce back up to at least 5 TDs.  He’s the fifth best fantasy TE this season in my opinion, and you can get him three or four rounds later than the studs.  I may end up rostering him on many of my teams this year.  I like Winslow and Olsen, I would just rather take another RB or WR at their draft positions and grab Cooley a round later.

Defense: Baltimore Ravens in the 8th Round?

Every defense on this list is taken too high, in my opinion.  I’m a traditionalist – draft a good one late and then play matchups.  The Steelers are averaging the late 7th round, which I also think is absurd, but they have a great case for being the top ranked defense at least.  Baltimore, however, should experience a decline.  Rex Ryan and Bart Scott were key leadership components, and they are both in New York.  Baltimore defense should still be top 10, but there’s no way I’m taking them with all the position skill talent still available in the 8th-10th rounds.  I’ll take Dallas in the 14th and build depth everywhere else.

Kicker: All Kickers not taken in the last two rounds.

Kicker is such a silly position.  Just take one whenever your draft board is so desolate you have no other options.  Sample the waiver wire and play matchups each week.

If I’m going to convince you of his sleeperness you should start your Jones research with this article: Could Greg Knapp bring a new style for Seahawks offense? This article is predraft, and the Seahawks did not address starting RB in the draft. Jones is the starting RB on what could be a run heavy team. It looks like he’ll also be the back on most passing plays simply due to lack of competition. If the offense gets back on track under a healthy Hasselbeck there could be a ton of yardage heading Jones’ way. TJ Duckett will snipe the short yardage plays, but it remains to be scene if he is still effective enough to merit a large share of the RB load. I’ve seen estimates of a 60/40 split, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more like 70/30 in Jones’ favor. Of course the killer is that Duckett will get all the short yardage TD opportunities.

Jones still has the talent and ability to improve. Like his brother Thomas, he may just need the right situation to really break out. I think his upside is 1500 yards and 7 scores. He probably won’t reach that, but he’s still a great pick as your RB3 or 4. At that point in the draft (7th-10th round) he simply has no downside. If one of your top 2 RBs picks is a bit shaky on the risk level take Julius to even things out.  I believe his ADP will climb as we get closer to the regular season, but in current drafts you can usually get him as a 4th RB after the 9th round.  He’ll be a steady weekly producer in yardage leagues. Here are some other analysis pieces found throughout the web:

RotoWorld:
Julius Jones believes that the Seahawks’ new one-cut running scheme suits his skills better than Mike Holmgren’s power-based system.
“Downhill and off to the races,” he said. “That definitely fits my style of running a little bit better.” Julius was a dancer towards the end of his Cowboys career. He showed some improvement last season, averaging a career-high 4.4 YPC, but his 2009 role won’t be clear until after the draft.
Source: Seattle Times

Yahoo RotoArcade Mock Draft:
Round 7, Pick 7 – RB Julius Jones, Seattle Seahawks

Last I checked, Jones was still the No. 1 RB in a fairly potent offense, which makes him a great value in Round 7. While a lot of his TDs could get vultured by T.J. Duckett this season, Jones should get enough touches to reach 1,000 yards and score at least a few times. (Michael Blunda)

FantasyFootballStarters.com:
Jones didn’t have the type of season in 2008 that excited fantasy players, but there were several factors in that. The constant injury concern to Matt Hasselbeck throughout the season, a slew of injuries on the offensive line, and the team’s constant shuttling of Maurice Morris in and out taking time away Jones all combined to really hurt Jones’ production in 2008. Things will be different in 2009 for Jones. Morris is gone so the only threat to Jones for carries is really T.J. Duckett. Duckett is a prime fantasy football sleeper in TD only scoring formats as he should excel in that capacity this season, but most of the carries should go to Jones. Jones averaged 4.4 yards per attempt in 2008 and in the only games where he got more than 20 carries, he rushed for 127 and 140 yards respectively. Not surprising that it was in those two games where Jones scored his only TD’s. Jones should average between 15-20 carries per game in 2009 and a 1,000+ yards is realistic. His TD’s may only be around 5, but for a RB you should be able to get in round 5 or 6, Jones has fantasy football value pick written all over him this season.

2009FantasyFootball.com:
Julius “Orange Julius” Jones is an Ass-Kicking Son-of-a-Bitch.  It is rumored that Jones asserted his lead carrier dominance during OTAs when he made TJ Duckett lick white dog poop after a team viewing of Will Ferrell’s “Stepbrothers.”

Rave Reviews.  Jones is going to be a solid producer this season. Even detractors think he will close in on 1000 yards. If you want someone you know will have the ball in his hands, think about Orange Julius. He’s falling to the 8th through 12th round currently, but don’t be afraid to reach if there are other savvy owners or Seahawk fans in your league.