Site icon Sports360AZ

Fabiano’s Fantasy Focus: 2017 Pre-Season, Volume XIII

Whether you’re a first timer or an experienced fantasy football veteran, NFL.com has the league for you. Set up your FREE and customizable league on NFL.com today!

Every week during the season NFL Network and NFL.com Senior Fantasy Analyst 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 (August 29th) with the Fantasy Sports Writer’s Association Hall of Famer.

So…I drafted Julian Edelman last week. Advice moving forward? “The first thing you do is look and see if you can instantly grab Chris Hogan, although the distributions and the targets in New England are sort of unpredictable. You still have so many good options there. You have Malcolm Mitchell who could see more targets. Danny Amendola. I don’t think Amendola is really rosterable at this point, unless you’re in a deeper league. I think Hogan is the guy that you go out and pick up. But the fact of the matter here is Edelman had 150 targets last season but no Rob Gronkowski, now he’s back. You have Brandin Cooks in the mix. I think this helps Cooks a little bit. I moved him up maybe one or two spots.”

What do you make of Kareem Hunt taking over in Kansas City? “You know I’ve been all in on this kid. I thought he was going end up taking over the job from Spencer Ware at some point in the regular season, didn’t expect it to happen this soon. The uptick in his value is ridiculous. He was a top 40 running back going into last week. When Ware went down, all of a sudden Hunt is a top 15 back. If you look back at the running backs who have had success under Andy Reid you get excited: Jamaal Charles, Brian Westbrook, Duce Staley, LeSean McCoy. Hunt is in that mold. Versatile guy who can catch the ball out of the backfield…as long as he can pass protect ok. He’s going to be on the field a lot for Kansas City so I’m projecting him right now as a third-round pick, maybe fourth round in some leagues.”

What’s Jacquizz Rodgers’ floor to ceiling filling in for the suspended Doug Martin in Tampa Bay? “If you look at his numbers last year, I think there were five games where he had 15 or more carries and he was averaging well over 20 touches a game and he was putting up 12-13 fantasy points a game which is pretty good. Now Charles Sims is back, he’s in the mix as well. It’s probably going to be a two-headed monster but Rodgers does have that sort of low RB2 potential in those three games that Doug Martin is out due to that suspension. Now when Martin comes back I believe Rodgers goes back to the bench and becomes a secondary back in this offense but, for the first three games, especially if you’re someone that drafted Ezekiel Elliott, Rodgers could be very useful.”

Where do you slot Larry Fitzgerald out here in Arizona heading into 2017? “I have him in my top 15 wide receivers in PPR leagues. Despite his age, he is going to get peppered with targets. Just peppered. He’s certainly a player who has been an elite wide receiver in the past. I don’t know that he’s elite now but in PPR leagues, people may look past him. He’s still a pretty good wide receiver and his statistics from last season will absolutely reflect that. I was able to draft Larry as a WR3 in a PPR league and I couldn’t have been happier. He’s certainly a WR2 in a PPR league and probably going to be a WR3 in most standard scoring formats.”

For more, click here.     

A Valley native, Eric has had a passion for the Arizona sports scene since an early age. He has covered some of the biggest events including Super Bowls, national championships and the NBA and MLB playoffs in his near 20 years in local media.

Exit mobile version