Here you are projecting importance onto your Tuesday morning routine when football is nearly here. It’s cringe-worthy, seriously. The DOW is plummeting, Donald Trump is a legitimate presidential candidate, Kanye West is promising Yeezys in 2020 if he’s president, basically everything is falling apart. These are the ides of draft season.
We’re creeping in on Thursday Night Football. The “Golden Boy”, Tom Brady, wins yet another battle, so he’ll be under center. Le’Veon Bell and LeGarrette Blount are out indefinitely with suspensions and hopefully won’t be cruising around anywhere anytime soon. A guy named, Marvatis Bryant is also out. In today’s injury report the Steelers turned in a clean report as far as notables go, while the Patriots had starter Bryan Stork (Center) held out due to a concussion. Another notable on the report was Travaris Cadet, who fully participated, only making the Patriots RB situation even more murky for week one.
Thursday in Foxborourgh, MA, we should see rain and double digit wind. The forecasters seem pretty set that it will be raining on TNF, so the mystery will be if the wind will pick up going into the game—as of now 10-15 mph isn’t too problematic.
Since rain assumes run it’s appropriate to start out with the running game for each team. The Steelers project as a great run defense this year and with Belicheck’s historical disloyalty towards RBs, we can safely ignore any of the Patriots’ options. After losing Vince Wilfork and hearing about the rookie Malcom Brown having troubles on the defensive line, signs point towards the Steelers being able to get an effective run game started. DeAngelo Williams is 5,100 on DK (Draftkings) 9,900 on FDr (FantasyDraft), a bargain on both sites.
Both sites allow you to select eight players one defense. Draftking’s budget is 50,000 while FantasyDraft’s budget is double that. DK offers 3 WRs and 1 Flex. FDr offers 2 WRs and 2 Flexes.
The quarterback values go as follows: Big Ben 7,300 (DK) 14,900 (FDr) Tom Brady 7,700 (DK) 14,300 (FDr). They’re both great options, especially Brady on FDr. Take Brady over Roethlisberger this week because Pittsburgh will stifle the run game and force Brady to throw the ball, plus there’s the sense they’re looking to get back at Roger Goodell. Rob Gronkowski 7,000 (DK) 11,100 (FDr!!) and Scott Chandler 2,900 (DK) 6,200 (FDr) are going to eat up that Steeler defense. They were 21st fantasy-wise in stopping TEs in a division going up against the likes of Jordan Cameron, Dennis Pitta, and Jermaine Greshman twice a year. On the other side, Heath Miller 3,300 (DK) 6,800 (FDr), who happens to be facing a defense that performed worse than the Steelers at stopping TEs last year. Without Bryant and one of the better RB receiving threats in the league, Miller should presumably get more targets than he normally would.
Now, the guy to likely have the most targets in the game is Antonio Brown 8,900 (DK) 17,900 (FDr). The Patriots don’t have Revis anymore so throw out the stats from last year. In comes Malcolm Butler, Super Bowl 49 hero. All reports coming out of camp are positive about him. There’s nothing on if he’s shadowing #1 wide receivers a la Revis and Antonio Brown lines up everywhere. He’s the only worry in a generous Patriot secondary. When a player’s cost is as high as Brown’s, there’s the expectation he will score at least 25 or else money was seemingly wasted. It’s hard enough to keep in and out of breaks with Brown on a dry day, now imagine in the rain. He’s definitely playable, but he wouldn’t make it into The Optimus (Lineup of the week).
Brown isn’t the only receiver for the Steelers, but Markus Wheaton 3,800 (DK) 7,700 (FDr) is consistently disappointing. Much rather find a WR bargain elsewhere, than put him in a lineup.
For the Patriots when you look beyond Julian Edelman 6,600 (DK) 13,200 (FDr)— who may not even play Thursday due to an ankle injury—there’s no one that you could play with confidence.
Both defenses should score in the low single digits. Pass on both.
…and that wraps up Thursday Night Football, finally.
Lineup Optimus 