Week 8 is the halfway point of the football season, so a good time to take a look at who should be potential second-half stars. But, first a quick look at how our predictions for great plays in Week 8 turned out.
We predicted:
* Jason Campbell, QB: 220 Pass YDs, 2 TDs vs. Detroit
* Thomas Jones, 100 Rush YDs, 2 TDs vs. K.C.
* Steve Smith, WR: 120 Rec. YDs, 2 TDs vs Ariz.
Actual performances:
* Campbell: 328 Pass YDs, 1 TD
* Jones: 54 Rush YDs, 1 TD
* Smith: 117 Rec. YDs, 2 TDs
Okay, we were at least on the right track with Campbell. We were off the mark with Jones, and the Jets’ play selection in general is a mess. Brett Favre started the season strong, but his inconsistency means Jones should get more touches than the 14 he got Sunday against Kansas City. The Jets missed a huge opportunity, but I think you can look for Jones to get the ball more for the rest of the season. Smith was a bulls-eye.
Now, who will be our second-half stars? A look at some of the second-half match-ups, team news and performance trends gives us these potentially big second-half players:
QB
* Peyton Manning: With 10 TDs and 9 INTs, he is still not himself and not trending well, but he’s tough as nails, and will guide the Colts on a late winning streak that will see them miss the playoffs, but allow him to regain form.
* Tony Romo: He won’t have a full second-half, but he’s the key to the Cowboys season and his coach’s job. He’ll have Roy Williams as an option when he comes back, which also means more TDs to T.O. My prediction for Romo is he’ll deliver more second-half pass TDs than either Drew Brees or Philip Rivers, the top throwers of the first half.
* Kyle Orton: it’s true he’s getting better every week, and though he’s got two games left against Green Bay’s solid pass defense, he also has at least three games against teams in the bottom 10 on the pass defense ranks.
RB
* Frank Gore: Samurai Mike has taken over in San Francisco and doesn’t like his starting QB, his starting TE or the overall effort. That means we’ll see a lot more Gore.
* Adrian Peterson (The Viking version): He’s second in the league in rushing, but missed out on many chances in Minnesota’s messy offense. He’s got one more game against the Bears, which could be good for 150 yards alone. He’ll get the ball a lot more.
* Steven Jackson: St. Louis is still pretty bad, but starting to put its offense together, and Jackson is a notorious second-half stud.
WR
* Anquan Boldin: Back from getting his face broken, he had a huge game last week, and will start to take catches, yardage and TDs away from teammate Larry Fitzgerald. Arizona continues to have the second-ranked offense in the league and may grab the top spot from injury-plagued New Orleans.
* Andre Johnson: Has had two monster weeks in a row, and Houston’s offense is starting to click. He’ll see more of the end zone in the second half.
* Eddie Royal: Sort of a sleeper. Denver has been troubled, but still has a hot offense, and some teams leave him alone a bit too long because they over-play the Brandon Marshall threat. Started strong, and will get back down to business.
TE
* Tony Gonzalez: How many years has this been said: He’s Kansas City’s entire pass offense, and with Larry Johnson possibly out for a while, their entire offense, period. He’s been complaining a lot but won’t go anywhere, and should catch almost all of K.C.’s pass TDs from here on out.
* Dallas Clark: Manning will find himself and then find Clark, who is a key ingredient when Indy wins. He had 11 TDs a year ago, and only two this year so far, and Manning and the Colts probably will notice that as a way to right themselves.
* John Carlson: There are problems in Seattle between Mike Holmgren and Julius Jones, and it still remains to be seen which QB may see the most snaps in the second half, but Carlson was an early season constant, and Seattle probably will come back to him.
I know, a lot of these guys are taken, and if you don’t have them already, you may need to offer a lot for them. If you are looking for a second-half waiver pick-up that probably no one has jumped on yet, his name is Shaun Hill, and he’s very likely to start at QB for San Francisco after that team’s Week 9 bye. He certainly can’t be any worse than J.T. O’Sullivan has been. If he throws 10 INTs and loses 5 fumbles the rest of the way, he’ll still be an improvement for owners who started the year off drinking the O’Sullivan Kool-Aid. That includes me.
Hoops Poop
The Fantasy Basketball season started last night (so did the real basketball season) but unless you are particularly confident and incapable of regret, the time for second-guessing your fantasy team strategy began with the very first round of your draft.I drafted two teams within the last week, and neither of the drafts went as planned, though I’m not necessarily complaining – in fact, not at all. In one league, a Yahoo! glitch initially postponed the draft for a few days, but the real surprise was that a couple of people I had expected to register teams did not do so, and a league for which my draft strategy was designed around 10 teams became an eight-team league. That worked to my advantage, particularly in the first three rounds. I drew fifth and got Dirk Nowitzki in the first round. My 10th-ranked pick, Caron Butler fell into the second round, where I happily claimed him, and in what I hope to be my draft coup, Dwight Howard, who I was sure would not make it past the last pick in the second round, fell to me in the third round.
The entire league moved on big men early, as Chris Bosh, Kevin Garnett and Elton Brand all went in the first eight picks of the draft, while Shawn Marion, Dwyane Wade and Deron Williams fell to the second round. The downside of my draft was that I abandoned my previous commitment to take from the top ranks of a shallow point guard pool early in the draft. Carlos Boozer was too good to pass up in Round 4, and Rudy Gay’s 20.1 points-per-game seemed like a steal in Round 5. Unfortunately, that meant I missed out on Chauncey Billups, Derrick Rose, O.J. Mayo and my particular favorite, Brandon Roy. Instead, I picked up the aging Jason Kidd, still available in Round 6 as other owners were going for the younger stars and would-be stars at PG.
My second team, in a 12-team league where we used an auto-pick draft, the results were intriguing. I picked up King James at the Number 3 spot in Round 1, and got Dwight Howard near the end of Round 2. The latter made me wonder – am I valuing this guy too high? Marcus Camby and Andrew Bynum went right before him. Howard is supposed to be at least a marginally better free throw shooter this year, and I see all other categories nudging upward, but I guess some owners aren’t buying the argument.
Otherwise, I saw right away that I had been too focused on ranking rebounders like Greg Oden and Spencer Hawes strategically ahead of where I thought most other owners would rank them. I missed out again on Roy and other PGs I wanted because I had left mid-draft PGs too low in my rankings. So, now I have two teams lacking PG depth enough that I’ll need to work the waiver wire early and develop some trade ideas.
My rosters (in the order players were drafted):
League 1
* Dirk Nowitski, PF/C
* Caron Butler, SF
* Dwight Howard, C
* Carlos Boozer, PF/C
* Rudy Gay, SF/PF
* Jason Kidd, PG
* Lamar Odom, SF/PF
* Corey Maggette, SG/SF
* Andre Miller, PG
* David Lee, PF/C
* John Salmons, SG/SF
* Francisco Garcia, SG/SF
* Raymond Felton, PG/SG
* Tayshaun Prince, SF
League 2
* LeBron James, SF
* Dwight Howard, C
* Rashard Lewis, SF/PF
* Rasheed Wallace, PF/C
* Hedo Turkoglu, SG/SF
* Greg Oden, C
* David Lee, PF/C
* Kevin Love, PF/C
* Raymond Felton, PG/SG
* Tayshaun Prince, SF
* Mike Conley, PG/SG
* Spencer Hawes, C
* Luis Scola, PF/C
So, besides Howard, Felton and Prince are the common players. Felton was in the top 10 in assists last year, which makes him a great late-rounder for a team owner that didn’t draft better point guards earlier. Prince is a consistent scorer on a boringly effective team, who gives a decent number of rebounds and blocks from an unlikely position.
Who should I go after if I want PGs? These guys are available in both my leagues, and I’m betting, in many more:
* Jamaal Tinsley: 8.4 assists per game (Injuries an issue)
* Earl Watson: 6.8 APG (The NBA’s Mighty Mite)
* Anthony Carter: 5.5 APG (Will start for Denver)
* Steve Blake: 5.1 APG (Will start in Portland)
* Antonio Daniels: 4.8 APG (With Arenas out, will start in Washington)
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Dan O’Shea’s Fantasy Fix appears weekly, analyzing fantasy football and basketball trends with the goal of helping you become the envy of your league, the ire of your spouse and the winner of one of those little virtual trophies. Send him your gripes, compliments, suggestions and broker’s fees.
Posted on October 29, 2008