| It has become quite rare, and yet some leagues still
haven’t gotten with the times. Playing in Week 17 often evolves into a lot of
arguing and complaining about what teams and what players are just mailing it in.
But there are a few leagues that insist on playing in the final week of the season,
despite the fact that it is the week that is often the most skewed in terms of which
players are actually the most valuable in fantasy circles.
Stars sit out second halves when the outcome has been decided, while teams fighting for
their playoff lives will often use their few predictable sources of offense until the end
rather than experimenting with other avenues of offense.
This often leads to some interesting playoff lineup problems. Do you play your stars
and hope for the big half, or do you play marginal players you are certain will get the
brunt of the offensive workload?
I cannot stress this enough: Play your stars! They are the players who got you there,
and nothing hurts worse than watching a big day go uncounted because you were trying to
get cute with the lineup card.
Consider other factors in choosing your lineup when you aren’t sure what to do.
Look to utilize players on teams fighting for playoff position. This is the week to play
Vikings, Cowboys and Redskins.
This is not the week to play Colts, Rams and Jaguars.
But, of course, this doesn’t mean benching the superstars on the aforementioned
teams. Play those guys, especially the backs, although you might want to consider benching
the quarterbacks because odds are they won’t be able to rack up gaudy yardage totals
before getting some of the afternoon off.
It’s a silly quandary to be in, but it is one where you can limit the damage if
you make the smart choices and assure yourself as much scoring as possible with as many
potential scorers as you can.
Here are my hunch plays for Week 17:
Quarterback: Chris Chandler, Atlanta.
Running back: Priest Holmes, Baltimore.
Wide receiver: Jason Tucker, Dallas.
Editor’s note: This is Steve Soucie’s final column of Monday observations
this season. We hope you found it useful. |
