Fabiano’s Fantasy Focus Week 12, Volume II

Arizona Sports News online

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Each week NFL Network and NFL.com Fantasy Football Editor Michael Fabiano joins Sports360AZ.com’s Brad Cesmat to share his insight on building and developing your fantasy team for success.

Here are some hi-lights from our most recent conversation (November 20th) with the Fantasy Sports Writer’s Association Hall of Famer.

What advice do you give fantasy owners looking to swing a deal late in the season? “Now it’s time to trade, say, two good players or two players you can sell high on for one really good player that you can start week-in and week-out because depth is nice during the regular season but once you get into the playoffs it’s time to gear up. Because these guys that are on your bench aren’t doing you any good when you’re sitting them down. You want to have the strongest possible starting lineup so you want to make sure that you don’t completely eradicate your team to bad depth but where you have a lot of depth, trade it away to improve a position of weakness.”

Any other general advice for owners ramping up for the home stretch? “There are certain things you need to look at. Schedules are one of them right now at this point and time where you want to get ahead of the game. I always talk about this. I told you to pick up Andre Brown. I told people to pick up Percy Harvin weeks before they were eligible to come back. Get ahead of the game. That’s what you want to do from a fantasy perspective because if you don’t do it someone else will grab the player you want and you’re going to be scratching your head thinking, ‘why didn’t I grab that guy when I had the chance.'”

Does Eli Manning look like a viable options for teams looking to add a quarterback? “It’s really all about the match-ups and let’s face it Brad, he has not been good this year but the schedule plays out well for him…so I’d pick him up and I’d play him based on the match-ups but also you’re not benching your stud guy at the quarterback position to play Eli Manning because, let’s face it, there has been games this year where Eli Manning had a very good matchup and didn’t produce and also remember he has to play the Seahawks in Week 15 so you’re not going to ride Eli Manning throughout the fantasy playoffs but his schedule is pretty favorable so don’t be afraid to pick him up if your QB1 is not an elite player.”

Do you like Tony Romo’s schedule down the stretch? “Yeah, I do. It’s really, really favorable…on Thanksgiving he’s got the Raiders and the Raiders defense as we all know can be really suspect at times this season…then you’ve got the Bears…then he’s got the Green Bay Packers in Week 15 and in Week 16 Romo’s playing the Redskins. The Redskins defense has not been that good. Romo is one of the more attractive quarterbacks who is not considered elite in fantasy leagues based on the schedule.”

To hear the rest of the interview click here.