Eric Sorenson
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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 (September 26th) with the Fantasy Sports Writer’s Association Hall of Famer.
What are you biggest fantasy takeaways three weeks into the 2017 season? “Well, the biggest surprise has got to be Kareem Hunt. We talked about it in the pre-season. I loved him but I did not think he was going to be the second coming of Priest Holmes. He’s been tremendous and he’s going to end up being a league winner. When you look back at a lot of the owners who win their leagues he is going to be owned in quite a few of those because he wasn’t picked until probably the third or fourth round so if you did well with your first couple of picks and you got Kareem Hunt on top of that, you’re doing very well.”
Anything else really stand out to you early in the season? “Two things really. Number one, the tight end position has disappeared. Right between injuries and outside of Rob Gronkowski, even Travis Kelce last week had a stinker. It’s very hard to find a tight end that you can trust, week in and week out. If you drafted Zach Ertz than you’re very happy with that but other than that, between Jimmy Graham being banged up, Tyler Eifert is now out again, Jordan Reed you never know one week to the next if he’s going to be active or not active. That position has been hard to fill. On the flip side, look at the quarterback position. We’ve known that this is a quarterback-driven league and a lot of the rules are geared towards quarterbacks having success, but when you look at last week’s leaders: Case Keenum third among quarterbacks in fantasy points, Jacoby Brissett fourth, Blake Bortles fifth, Brian Hoyer seventh, Jared Goff ninth. It was unreal. 16 quarterbacks had almost 20 fantasy points last week. Marcus Mariota with 19.7 was 16th. In typical weeks, that a top-eight performance.”
On the flip side, we’re seeing some big-name quarterbacks really struggling. What do you make of Cam Newton? “At this point, I believe you can drop him. He doesn’t look right. I don’t know if the shoulder is still bothering him. He’s not accurate. When you play the New Orleans Saints at home, I get it’s a division game, but that defense looks awful in the first couple of weeks. Then to go out and score just eight fantasy points when you rush for a touchdown as a quarterback. That’s not good.”
Sticking with quarterbacks: thoughts on Tyrod Taylor in Buffalo? “Again, a matchup-based play. Week 1 had a good matchup against the Jets. Week 2 went to Carolina and did nothing. Now Week 3 last week you would think would have been a bad matchup and, on paper, it clearly was against the Denver Broncos but he still threw for two touchdowns. That one kind of came out of the blue. This week he’s got a road game against Atlanta. Could be some points put up in that game. Again, not a QB1 in my opinion. I like the way he can run with the football. That’s always been a huge benefit to him and Tyrod has been a Top 10 quarterback two-straight years but I do believe he’s streamable and potentially a potentially a nice flex option in those super flex leagues.”
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