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Joseph Hutchins | Archive | Email |
Staff Writer


The Shot Caller's Report - Quarterbacks
Your Guide To Fantasy Lineups: Week 5
10/8/15
QBs | RBs | WRs


Nobody needs to be told starting Aaron Rodgers, Jamaal Charles, or Calvin Johnson is a good idea. Duh, right? You can’t have studs at every position unless you’re in the shallowest of leagues. This is where the Shot Caller comes in. Need help deciding which bargain basement QB to use and which to ignore on Luck’s bye week? Let’s talk. Looking for solutions at running back because AD is a game-time decision? Look no further. Need to know which of your unproven targets to start and which to sit since you ignored Brown and went RB-QB-Gronk in your first three rounds? You get the idea. Past results may not guarantee future success, but ignoring them entirely can ruin your Sundays in a hurry (maybe even your Mondays and Thursdays). Read on for a little history and, hopefully, a little sage advice.


Note: Fantasy points based on FF Today’s standard scoring system.

Bye Weeks: Miami, Minnesota, NY Jets, Carolina

Marcus Mariota

The Bills have faced some high profile QBs (Luck, Brady) but also gave up 5 TDs to Eli and Tannehill.


Grab a Helmet

Marcus Mariota v. BUF: Week 5 is deep enough into the season to start drawing real conclusions about our fantasy assets and to stop making snap judgments/overreactions based on a couple anomalous performances. It’s tougher in the case of rookies, however, as the sample size is still incredibly small. Do we trust they’ll consistently perform at the levels they’ve so far established? Or should we be worried NFL defenses will soon adjust and make things nightmarish for them? This is especially true for rookie QBs, so sometimes it comes down to a simple matter of faith. Faith is one thing I’ve always had in Mariota. I’m completely biased, sure, and absolutely a fanboy, but that’s because I spent three years watching him exasperate NCAA defenses just down Interstate 5 in Eugene. Trust what you see (25.4 pts/game, 4th overall) and keep believing in Tennessee’s great Hawai’ian hope against the Bills.

Jameis Winston v. JAX: “And I’m poor decision-making Marcus Mariota and I have cable….” We’ll never know why the Bucs’ brass opted for this Heisman trophy winner over that one, but it’s looking like the wrong decision based on early returns. Wrong for them, I might add, but not necessarily wrong for us. Winston’s turned it over eight times in four games and has looked mostly disastrous, but he’s still somehow managed to notch 83.6 fantasy points for make-believe GMs, good for 11th overall at the position. So, he’s basically the second coming of fantasy football guilty pleasure, Ryan Fitzpatrick, minus the Ivy League pedigree and the epic face blanket. Fitzy’s thrown one more TD and one less pick, but the two triggermen are otherwise separated by just 41 total yards and a mere four fantasy points thus far. If your league doesn’t penalize turnovers heavily, think about using Famous Jameis.

Josh McCown @ BAL: Up for another round of Player A v. Player B? Here goes…

  Completions Attempts Yards TD passes Interceptions Avg. Fantasy PPG
Player A 61 97 833 8 2 25.4
Player B 60 90 697 4 1 25.5

Player A, you might have guessed, is the aforementioned Mariota three games into his professional career. Player B is, surprisingly, none other than career journeyman McCown, scrubbed of his Week 1 stats (he played one series against the Jets). Yes, he’s averaging 30 completions, nearly 350 yards, and a couple scores per contest since reclaiming the Browns’ job from Johnny Manziel before Week 3. That wasn’t a popular decision in Cleveland, but it was the right decision for now. So long as the running game struggles and the defense remains the league’s worst (406.3 yds/game), McCown gives Cleveland its best chance of continuing to pile up excruciatingly narrow defeats.

Grab a Clipboard

Andy Dalton v. SEA: Will the real Red Rifle please stand up? Two years ago, Dalton took the fantasy FB world by storm, throwing for over 4,200 yards, 33 TDs, and 23.6 pts/game, good for 3rd overall at the position. Last year, he slumped to fewer than 3,400 yards, 19 TDs, and 17.9 pts/game, fringe QB2 numbers at best (18th overall). This year, he’s back to being a world-beater, on pace for career highs in almost every conceivable category through four weeks of action. I just got done telling you four games is enough to go on for the remainder of 2015, but now I’m making an exception. Dalton’s numbers are simply unsustainable and he hasn’t faced a great defensive unit to date. He will this Sunday when the Seahawks visit the Queen City. If I’m wrong again, I promise he won’t “grab a clipboard” the rest of the year.

Matthew Stafford v. ARZ: I’m not making that same promise here. It’d be easy to blame Monday night’s loss on the Legion of Boom and even easier to blame it on the referees, but the reality is Stafford and Co. did basically nothing on offense until that final drive. In fact, the Lions have mustered just 66 total points on the year, an embarrassingly low number for a squad employing Stafford, the most dominant receiver in NFL history, and some other really talented skill players (Golden Tate, Ameer Abdullah, and Joique Bell). Here’s the short list of teams that have scored fewer points than Detroit in 2015: Miami, Jacksonville, and San Francisco. Yeah, literally a short list. Better days probably lie ahead but with Arizona visiting the Motor City on Sunday, expect more trouble for Stafford and lots more of that look on Jim Caldwell’s face. You know the one.

Colin Kaepernick @ NYG or Michael Vick @ SD (Monday): If Michael Vick is the OG of dual-threat QBs, Kaepernick is probably Vick 2.0, for both good reasons and bad. While both men tantalize with explosive running ability, neither has ever managed to be a precise enough passer to truly terrorize the league’s defensive coordinators. If you watched Kap throw footballs into the Levi’s Stadium turf or consistently sail them over his receivers’ heads last Sunday, you know what I’m talking about. Russell Wilson, he most certainly ain’t. Neither is Vick, though at least he has the excuse of being long in the tooth and not really the guy Pittsburgh intended to have under center at this point. Don’t let these specimens beguile you. They’ve got seemingly good matchups, but San Diego and New York are sitting second and tied for third, respectively, in rushing yards yielded to opposing QBs.

Running Backs