Fabiano’s Fantasy Focus: Week 8, Volume II

Whether you’re a first timer or an experienced fantasy football veteran, NFL.com has the league for you. Set up your FREE and customizable league on NFL.com today!

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 (October 24th) with the Fantasy Sports Writer’s Association Hall of Famer.

Who are some players you absolutely missed on this season? “Look, I don’t mind eating crow sometimes and speaking of crow, I was wrong about Isaiah Crowell. I thought he’d have a better season and it ended up being Duke Johnson who’s been a better player from a fantasy perspective. I was wrong about Terrelle Pryor. I thought this was a guy who could give you 1,000 yards and somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eight touchdowns. He’s not even close. I thought Marcus Mariota was going to be this year’s Matt Ryan and maybe he still will be, we have a lot of games left. But, he’s banged up and he hasn’t look great over the last couple of weeks. The player who has been this year’s Matt Ryan? Alex Smith. He’s the number one player in fantasy football which, to me, is absurd because Alex Smith has been in the league for so long. For him to come out and have a breakout season this deep into his career, I don’t know how often that’s happened in any sport. I think everyone has been wrong about Alex Smith because no one saw this coming.”

What do you make of Jordan Reed in Washington? “There are a number of players who were ranked highly who have not produced in the stat sheets. [Monday] night Jordan Reed finally had a big game but before that, this was a player who had done next to nothing.”

Let’s stick with quarterbacks. How about Kirk Cousins in Washington? “He’s one of the best quarterbacks in fantasy football and another quarterback who is amongst a long list of players at that position that you should have waited to draft because this is where you get that value. 12 touchdowns. Right now he’s seventh in points among quarterbacks and he barely cost you a mid-late round selection. What’s amazing to me about Cousins is that he’s doing it without Terrelle Pryor. He’s doing this with Jordan Reed really only having one big game. Cousins is doing this spreading the ball around. Boy, Chris Thompson has been tremendous too for the Redskins. He has really been good.” 

What’s been your mid-season analysis of DeMarco Murray? “I thought he’d be better than he’s been so far. He’s still been an RB2 but he hasn’t been a very god RB2. But we say this every year. There are very few things less predictable than fantasy football and the National Football League.”

How much does losing Carson Palmer, potentially for the season, hurt the Cards’ skill players from a fantasy perspective? “I get that the Cardinals are coming off a rough week, you lose Palmer. That is going to have a negative impact on every single player in that offense including Adrian Peterson. Not that I’m telling people to drop Adrian Peterson but all of a sudden, we’re going to see what happens with the Cardinals’ pass attack because I would think with Drew Stanton under center they’re going to want to run a little bit more. That could be bad news for John Brown and Jaron Brown, as well.”

Safe to say you could assume the same in Green Bay with Aaron Rodgers out and Brett Hundley in? “You saw what the Packers look like without Aaron Rodgers. Randall Cobb could be a guy who’s going to be released at some point soon, same for Martellus Bennett. I was bad. The combination of Martellus Bennett, Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb and Davante Adams has seven catches combined. Tedd Ginn had seven catches by himself. Not good.”

For more, click here.