It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday

You probably recognize the title of this article as the name of the 1991 Boyz II Men song. As well as the soundtrack to my awkward junior high school slow dances, this song title also describes a common fantasy football phenomena. A player takes on a special quality in our minds simply because he is ours… because we chose him to fill one of the coveted spots on our precious rosters. We forgive our players’ poor performances and wait patiently for our players to realize their “potential.” The players we drafted in August may no longer be the sure-fire studs we eagerly anticipated. In order to be successful in fantasy football, you need to be prepared to bench or perhaps even drop the heroes of yesterday in favor of the contributors of the present.

NFL coaches like fantasy managers are under a lot of pressure to ride the hot hand, and play the players who will perform today. The savy manager who picked up Shaun Hill last week likely defeated the owner of Peyton Manning. Hill is an inconsistent, back-up, journeyman for one of the worst offenses in the NFL. Manning is a future Hall of Famer, and perhaps the best quarterback of his generation. But the fantasy gods do not care. Manning threw an unspectacular 244 yards with an interception and no touchdowns. Hill threw a remarkable three touchdowns and 227 yards with no interceptions. In most scoring formats, Hill tripled Manning’s fantasy point production 30 to 10. Does this mean you should play Hill over Manning going forward? Of course not.

Like you, I am prepared to dismiss Hill and Manning’s Sunday performances as simple flukes. But my opinion would change if Hill clearly took over the starting job from Stafford and posted four straight weeks of multi-TD/zero interception games, and Manning posted four straight weeks of zero-TD/multi-interception games.

Jerome Harrison, Lee Evans, Justin Gage, Steve Breaston and Steve Smith should now give way to Peyton Hillis, Steve Johnson, Kenny Britt and Hakeem Nicks. The jury is out on whether Ryan Mathews, Shonn Greene, and Chad Ochocinco will continue to play second fiddle to Mike Tolbert, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Terrell Owens.

We are five weeks into the season, which means we have sufficient evidence to discern the patterns from the mere flukes. The shrewd fantasy manager must scour the waiver wire and closely monitor player progression and regression. While it’s hard to say good-bye to yesterday, the opportunity for future fantasy success will make it worth your while.