Not too soon to think playoffs
Looking at the roster moves Wednesday morning in some leagues, and seeing teams making widespread changes.
Some teams are plugging bye-week holes, which is understandable. I cut three roster spots in the Herald league over the course of the last two years, because in a 12-team league, that was brutal. Bye weeks then meant you’re picking up total sparespares to fill out rosters. It gotot to the point where if you had injuries, you were toast. There simplyimply weren’t playerslayers available. Butut I think and I overcorrected overorrected will returneturn one bench spotpot next year. Hopefullyopefully COVID will be goneone by then.
Since the NFL isofcially
officially on the back nine now,ow, all roster moves haveave to go through the long-ong-game prism: The playoffslayoffs are near.
Now, my Herald tea team is all but done. Patrick Mahomes Mahom and DeAndre dre Hopkins have been bee as advertised, tised, but the rest of m my team is just too inconsistent. In football, when a team goes ba bad they fire the coach. Which is th the right idea: it’s the coach wh who instituted the failed strategy. Gu Guess I’ll fire myself!
No playoffs for us. B But for everyone eryone else, all your m moves right now have to be focus focused on either making the playoffs, or winning them.
To me, this means looking at matchups coming in just a few short weeks. If you have a shaky QB, look at who the they might be up against in your f first playoff week or two. If th those are not promising, you m might want to swap out or stash a player who ca can bridge you through a ro round or two. And you wa want to do that now.
AI: Firing Firin yourself?! Now that’s tha harsh. This season sea has been both unprecedented un and unpredictable u — just ju like 2020, so I guess it’s fitting fit in that sense. se You couldn’t be more correct that it’s time to start making moves to prepare for the potential of playoff berths. It’s the pivotal part of the season where you’ll see teams crash and burn or rise from the ashes.
Big names who have been stashed on IR the entire season are slowly moving into active territory... like Christian McCaffrey (who I had the pleasure, she says sarcastically, of playing this week for his return) and this week it’s looking like Nick Chubb will return to the active roster.
Plus — with BYES galore — it’s time to start prioritizing your depth charts and figure out if trades are in order — now — before it’s too late to trade.
But — to pull a Patriots mentality line — as a GM you have to focus — first and foremost — on the week-to-week picture.
With that being said — who are your top waiver pickups?
Here are my hands-down picks, by position (in order):
QBs: Teddy Bridgewater, Carolina; Tua Tagovailoa, Miami
WRs: Darnell Mooney, Chicago; Curtis Samuel, Carolina
RBs: Duke Johnson, Houston; Wayne Gallman Jr., New York Giants BC: Hate to be the bearer of bad news: McCaffrey’s been ruled out of Sunday’s game. Good thing I kept Mike Davis.
Not that long ago, Drew Brees was an annual top 5 QB; he’s still good, but now like a pitcher with a little off his fastball who still knows how to mix pitches and rely on smarts to cover the shortcomings.
He’s only topped 300 yards twice all year, but he’s thrown TDs in every game and has a TD-interception ratio of 17-3. I picked him up because he’s got the Falcons — the 31st-ranked defense in terms of passing yards allowed — twice in the next four weeks.
And this is going to make heads explode, but: If Baker Mayfield is ever going to deserve being the No. 1 overall pick, now is the time. Obviously I liked him better with Odell Beckham Jr. not out for the season, but the Browns are fighting for playoff spot. Chubb’s return should open up the passing attack some more. Mayfield faces five of the 10-worst pass defenses in the next seven weeks. The Browns are 8th in the AFC playoff standings, and need Mayfield to step up. I think he will.