News:

Another insanely busy week here at Clan McDonald fantasy headquarters, so much so that I am going to need to go with an abridged version of the newsletter.

First and foremost a reminder – today is American Thanksgiving and there are three games on tap so make sure to set your line-up if you have any players involved in those games. One thing I like to do when it makes sense is to move early players into starting slots instead of flex slots – that way if anything happens later in the week with injuries, you retain a bit more flexibility to make future line-up changes.

Random Thought of the Week:

You know what’s worse than losing a prominent player to a serious injury? When the team goes into “wait and see” mode and doesn’t put the player on IR.

My first taste of this in 2023 was Goedert with a fractured forearm. It sucks but at least you can drop or move him to IR right? Not if the team thinks he can come back in less than four games. That means he stays on the active roster and is listed as “Out”.

Granted you can temporarily park “O” players in an IR slot but if their status were to change for any reason (even briefly) Yahoo will force you to move them out of that IR spot before you can make any other roster or line-up changes. As a result, it becomes your call to make (and risk to take) – either hope the IR slot works out or drop if you think you need the roster spot more than the player.

Last Thursday it was Burrow and Andrews – both with serious injuries yet neither is on the IR as of Tuesday morning (nearly a week later). Burrow’s own coach has been quoted as saying he’s done for the season yet he’s still showing as “Out” on Yahoo. Why? Just IR the guy so we can confidently move on! Now they are saying Andrews has an outside chance to play again this year and he may still be put on IR but as of this morning he still wasn’t. I know the NFL doesn’t care about our fantasy teams but if injuries continue to rise and they keep playing reindeer games with the IR designation, we might need to revisit the IR topic in the off season.

Shark Move of the Week:

Some honourable mentions this week… Archie’s choice of Lawrence over Geno proved to be critical to his victory. Brian survived Old Man Murray due to an otherwise solid line-up and last but not least, Ken gets a nod for posting up 175 points. Buffalo’s DEF had been looking a bit wobbly but there’s nothing like the Jets’ offense to give you a “get right” game I guess.

Guppy Move of the Week:

I’ve been calling Tyler Bass one of the best real (and one of the worst fantasy) football kickers and sure enough he rewards me for benching him by putting up 17 points. Thank-you fantasy gods…

Welcome to Fantasy Football Hell Award of the Week:

This was the weekend after most leagues have seen their trade deadlines come and go and some call it “Black Sunday” – not because there are more injuries than usual or worse injuries than any other week but because there is a deeper impact to them. We’ve seen a decent number of trades this year by our standards but in some leagues there is a lot of wheeling and dealing done as managers try to decide which horses to bet on for the home stretch.

Whether six trades or sixteen, rosters are now more or less what they’re going to be, so you tend to hold your breath a little longer when Geno Smith heads to the blue tent or Justin Fields has blood dripping off his finger in the huddle or Kupp limps off the field. We can also add Walker, Achane and Aaron Jones to this list as well. Now that I think about it, maybe there are more injuries than usual? Yikes…