By JIMMY D / Jimmy’s Week 1 NFL and fantasy picks | Jimmy's archive

Setting your fantasy football roster like a pro is not as simple as plucking the highest-profile RB off your list of four players.

It involves probing injury reports for each player and most importantly, checking the team matchup scenario with each player’s opponent that week.

If your No. 2 RB is facing the Steelers (best against the run last year) and your No. 3 RB is facing the Lions (who couldn’t stop your granny, even if she has a bad hip and gimpy knee), what is your choice?

Do you have the smarts or guts to bench your No. 2 guy?

There are plenty of websites dedicated to bench vs. start analysis and ranking the projected fantasy point totals of all players. Jimmy has posted a few lists on his site that might give you a helping hand.

Drew Brees is ranked well ahead of Tom Brady this week. The Saints pivot gets the Lions while Handsome Tom gets the Bills, who were very tough last season and who know the Patriot system well. Donovan McNabb is well down the list this week as the Eagles face the tough Panthers.

It’s the same logic you apply to your NFL bets and Proline football wagers. You look at Thursday night’s season opener and see Tennessee vs Pittsburgh – a pair of potent defenses. You automatically think ‘bet under the total,’ which makes sense on the surface, but not after you scratch beneath it.

Oddsmakers know the public’s perception of these teams as well as the tendency to follow public sentiment, so instead of setting the total at 37.5, they put it at 34.5 (where it sat Monday night at odds aggregator OddsShark.com).
Now the under bet is tougher to win. Don’t think this is a legit trend?

The Steelers, long a defensive force, have played seven straight Week 1 overs.

Back to fantasy, great news for Yahoo! players. They are offering their StatTracker service for free in 2009. It means you can track all your players in real time Sunday so check it out when you join a league.

Pulling no punches in defending punch

On Saturday morning, Oregon RB LeGarrette Blount was a Heisman Trophy candidate and a projected NFL draft pick. On Saturday night, after a momentary lapse of reason and after being taunted by a Boise State foe, his season – and possibly career – are over because he popped a guy in the mouth.

You have doubtless seen the footage on Youtube. The game is over, Oregon has lost and a Boise player runs across the field, bumps Blount, gets in face, yells at him, then gives him a patronizing tap on the shoulder.

Blount punches him in the jaw (and then flips out a bit more while being escorted off the field).

True you need to be able to control your temper. But here’s Jimmy’s thought on the matter. Trash talk is part of the game. Within the game, the taunter can run his mouth and the tauntee has the chance to run him over, nail him with a check, score a goal on him, whatever.

Any player who disrespects and belittles a foe, his team and his sport after the game is basically saying ‘I deserve to be punched in the face. Please punch me in the face.’

So if someone obliges the taunter, Jimmy thinks that’s fair. Give the puncher a game suspension, let the tauntee learn there are consequences to running his mouth. The Boise player enjoyed what Jimmy calls ‘coward comfort’ – the safety of knowing the game is over and that he never has to face this player again, so he says and does what he wants.

It’s known in other circles as a poultry-fecal-matter move.

Jimmy D

jpoole@herald.ca