Week Eight: Handling injuries in DA Fantasy

Welcome back DA Fantasy fans!

Come back often as I blog about all things DA Fantasy at Dafffy.com and point out DA Fantasy nuggets (using a data-based approach!)  to help you manage your dynasty auction rosters this year and get the slight edges you need to win.

A lot of people are complaining that this season their rosters are getting decimated with injuries and I am sure it’s a factual statement. However, football is a violent sport, injuries are a significant part of the game.

Each year, fantasy teams are crippled by injuries and if your team is lucky enough to be spared it is merely good fortune, not super-genius GM work.

Many years ago, a friend in a seasonal league told me he was giving up fantasy football because the variability of injuries was too random. He’d built a strong team, he said, but then his WR1 goes down with a season ending injury in week 11 and he loses. What he said makes sense. There is a lot of variability in fantasy.

Unmentioned in this conversation was his making a strong case against seasonal fantasy and towards DA Fantasy where larger rosters can mitigate these concerns somewhat.

But I countered that the variability of fantasy injuries is one big reason this game is so challenging and strategic. I find the strategic element to be the most fun of all the reasons to play DA Fantasy.

If you lose your WR1 in week 11 and backfill with whatever the waiver wire has available, you are not playing fantasy football as strategically as you could.

We all need to plan for injuries and your comfortability of risk plays a factor. Even in DA Fantasy leagues your last 2-3 roster positions, depending on bench size, should be flexible – meaning solid depth players on single year contracts at good values that can be dropped to upgrade the position.

This is your Injury Mitigation Strategy – you should have multiple backups to plug and play so you are not caught completely short on a critical week. Can you replace AJ Brown in week 11? Unlikely. But let’s look at some factors that can help you avoid such a situation.

First, we need talented players, even our non-starters have to be talented. Always, always, always, start with talent.

Then we need to factor in opportunity, volume, and upside, each of which are components of the coaching systems being used as well as the team’s success so far this year.

A run first offense such as PIT, SEA or BAL is not the system to look for a backup WR. They likely have only 1-2 WR’s worthy of play each week and they are currently rostered by others. George Pickens, Zay Flowers and DK Metcalf / Jaxon Smith-Njigba are dominating targets and receptions for their teams but will not be available if you need them and the other wideouts on these teams are dart throws for productivity.

Bad teams need to throw the ball more, so when targeting depth / upside WR, seek them on bad teams who are often down in the second half. The offense needs to throw to have a chance to win, so volume and opportunity become greater factors than a pass first system, for example.   A WR2 on a bad team can supplement your lineup if he is always getting five 4^th quarter targets each week.

The bad team approach needs to use caution, nothing is absolute.

They are bad teams for a reason. Your WR may be talented, but is his QB? DeShaun Watson (pre-injury), Gardner Minshew and Will Levis are not good QB’s. I love Diontae Johnson, CAR, but he has no one throwing to him. There is a fine line to walk here, which makes the long term research and strategic approach more valuable in DA Fantasy than seasonal leagues due to larger roster sizes

Players like Ladd McConkey, LAC, and Michael Wilson in AZ and Cade Otten, TB (for those that lost either Mike Evans or Chris Godwin) were readily available in week 8 are who I want to use as examples.

The wideouts are talented players, both play on middling teams that are often down in the second half, and McConkey and Wilson generate solid targets each week (McConkey, 6 targets/gm.;  Wilson 5 targets /gm.). I own each of them in separate leagues.

Dafffy is looking to perfect the game of fantasy football and bring users as close to managing an NFL franchise as possible. Trash talking your friends is still a part of the DA Fantasy game because that’s what DA Fantasy is - the best parts of seasonal fantasy BUT with a whole lot more.

I targeted McConkey early on during my rookie research. See our rookie WR report here. And so, I knew the talent was there. I, like many people, was not sold on Justin Herbert, and like MIA no good backup behind Tua Tagovailoa, neither does LAC (Taylor Heineke). As I paid attention each week I noticed that Ladd put up more targets that other WR (predominantly Quentin Johnson) and was finding the end zone.

Michael Wilson is a similar story. Wilson is talented, sees good targets and has talent, but all the hubbub was about Marvin Harrison Jr, and rightly so. But a week to week look at targets showed even with MHJ on the other side Wilson averaged 7+ targets in wks. 3-5. Because ARI ranks 29^th in defense, a few contributing factors came together.

I put Cade Otten here specifically to illustrate how to use injuries to your advantage even if only for 3-4 weeks. I love me some Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, but when they both went down, who was the next man up?

A lot of people went with Jalen McMillan, who may end up being the best choice for the remainder of this season. I was not sold. And I viewed the situation differently because Cade Otten already had the confidence of Baker Mayfield, (yup, dure do love me some Baker!). Otten averaged 6+ targets in weeks 3-5, before the injuries. For me, he was the logical short-term replacement and remember Mike Evans may come back in wk. 12 for the (fantasy) playoffs at which point McMillan could fall off the map.

This illustrates the strategic way we need to manage injuries. Planning long term, but ready to act in the short term as opportunities present themselves. It’s what the NFL GM’s do and why DA Fantasy brings you closer to the real game than ever before.

Always be watching, always try to understand the situation, track the talent and be open to flexibility at the back end of your roster.

Everyone has their own style (another really cool thing about DA Fantasy is the variety of team building strategies is endless) so there is no single way to manage a DA Fantasy team.

If Otten helps me win 3-4 games, he is a great short-term filler, which are terms you don’t usually hear in DA Fantasy.  He sure helped in week 8 with 10 targets, 9 reception, 81 yards and two TD’s. The cat is now out  of the bag, but he should still be available in many leagues as a good short-term filler.  Get him for teh next four weeks... unless a better option becomes available in the next few weeks....

Check back often as I will be publishing my “Vibes”  article later this week.

Thanks for reading and checking us out.



Warm Regards,

Da Commish