Time to rethink fantasy beliefs
HUMAN nature can be a difficult opponent — the old facts versus feelings dilemma.
Sometimes they feel strongly about one thing. Then they see something that reinforces that one thing. When that happens, it can become easy to ignore all types of other things that conflict with that one-thing belief. It is a tough truth to untangle when the evi-dence doesn’t all point to the same conclusion.
Belief: The Jaguars’ offense is going to produce for fantasy.
Reinforcement: Calvin Ridley, Travis Etienne and Trevor Lawrence all turned in strong Week 1 games, so our Jags presumptions were correct.
Conflict: The past three weeks.
Conclusion: Feel free to bench Lawrence until he starts posting consistent numbers, but the Madman still thinks that will happen.
When it comes to Etienne and Ridley, chances are you don’t have bench options who are better, even at these lowered standards. They remain fine Flex plays. Sometimes, you can believe one thing strongly, then see so much overwhelming evidence to dispel this notion that you have to adjust your belief. Yet, a new conflict emerges that conflicts with this adjustment and reinforces the original belief. How do you internally reconcile this new information?
Belief: The Bears‘ offense is going to produce for fantasy.
Conflict: Justin Fields, DJ Moore and the Chicago offense were laughably bad the first three games.
Belated reinforcement: The Bears were who we originally thought they were in Week 4 against the Broncos.
Conclusion: At this point, the one good game was the anomaly, not the three bad ones. Taking this as our new belief, it is reinforced by the fact the one good game came against a defense that a week before gave up a historic 70 points.
Keep your primary Bears on the bench. But don’t drop Khalil Herbert yet. We still have faith one of our beliefs — he will become the primary Bears RB — can come true. And even if his efficiency isn’t what we envisioned, the volume still could be.
Sometimes, there are reams of historical evidence to support a belief. Then evidence starts rising to challenge that long-held belief. At what point do you have to shift your mental paradigm?
Belief: The Bengals are good. History: The Bengals have been good.
New evidence: The Bengals are not good.
Conclusion: It could be Joe Burrow’s calf. It could be an offensive line, thought to be fixed, has not been fixed. It could be apathy by the players themselves. It could be one of these, some combination of one or all, or none of these and something completely different.
It is hard to identify a specific catalyst, but it is easy to identify the utter badness. And the latest dud came against one of the league’s worst fantasy pass defenses.
They’ve been too good for too long, though. Don’t cut these guys, just bench them — except for Ja’Marr Chase, he stays in our lineups.
Overall conclusion: Try to keep your scales for fantasy justice weighed properly based on all the evidence.