DEFEND YOUR MOVES 2017 WEEK 3 CLASSIC!!!

Total Moves this Week: 15

Dumpster Diver of the Week: DEFEND YOUR MOVES DOT COM

L’Shana Tova and a Happy 5778, Special Ed!!! Today is Rosh Hashanah so that means Yom Kippur is on a Saturday.  Saturday YK’s are the best. College football really helps kill time and break up the day. Then the cold ones on Sunday go down extra smooth.

DEFEND MY MOVES

For Defend Your Moves, the season doesn’t really start until we drop our QB. We’re always ready to drop or trade a QB, but even I didn’t think it would happen this soon. Sometimes after a bad Football Sunday you need to treat yourself to a little something on Monday morning to get your week started on the right foot. So I got myself a Taylor Ham Egg and Cheese and dropped Kurt Cousins!!!

When you have a lot of young players on a fantasy roster it’s important to control your messaging in the locker room. Frustrations at DYM camp were palpable after the week 2 loss. So we figured a little QB competition would be a great way to let our guys know that nobody’s job is safe. We got a couple QBs in the building this week, kicked the tires. It’s all part of the process, got to get your future QBs some reps with the 1s in practice. As of press time, Cousins is back in the DefendYourMoves.Com lineup. He’s got a solid matchup this week against the Raiders, but there are very few such positive matchups left for the R-words, and Cousins doesn’t look like he’s going to put this team on his back anytime soon. Just gotta make sure some of these bums don’t get too comfortable. Looking at you, Cooks.

There actually were a lot of contenders for DDOTW this week. But the dumpster must be running low cause TWO pass catchers from the Colts, one Jet and one Brown were picked up this week, woof. LETS BREAK IT DOWN:

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Paul made two high quality moves this week. He dropped two players who were both placed on IR, so this isn’t true Dumpster Diving but Paul gets the Football Watcher of the Week award for grabbing Evan Engram within moments of the rookie’s first career TD. I went shopping for a TE later in the evening and Engram was nowhere to be found. TY Hilton will be a bench stash until Andrew Luck comes back. Is this a keeper league? I forget.

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Matt made the right move swapping JJ Nelson for T.Y., but didn’t get him into the starting lineup. Sorry Matt. I started Cooper Kupp over JJ Nelson in FanDuel too. My bad.

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Rob made some fun mid-week moves. He was the third team this week to add a TE. He also did a nice job catching that early injury report on Rob Kelley. I dropped Perine too. I do hope Kells plays this week with that rib injury tho. If they get him into a XXXL size flack vest he’s gonna look like the Kool-Aid man out there.

LAZOR FOCUSED

The Bengals look like a bottom 5 team in the NFL this year. But they fired their Offensive Coordinator this week and promoted QB coach Bill Lazor. So there’s still a chance they could get back into that mediocre tier where they belong. As a Mixon owner, and a potential future Dalton owner, we’ve been following the situation closely. Normally NFL teams don’t like to say a lot to the media, especially nothing revealing about their game-plans. Some believe it’s a fool’s errand to go reading a bunch of local newspaper articles about a team to try to guess what different players’ usage will be on Sunday. But if you can read between the lines, these guys often let out a little more than they intend to.

ON SCORING:

The “message” from the Bengals this week, and its inherent irony, was best summed up by right tackle Jake Fisher: “You build on what you’re successful at and then you can expand … As of now, we haven’t really been successful at much. Obviously we haven’t been able to score a touchdown.” For now, we gotta stay focused on the not scoring touchdowns, that has worked. Maybe later we can expand to scoring touchdowns. Got it.

ON THE RB COMMITTEE:

As O-Coord of the Dolphins in 2014-15 the Lazor-beam used Lamar Miller almost exclusively in a pass-heavy system. Everybody knows this, so he was asked what positives he saw in having three capable RBs sharing time: “When they all run for a 100 yards in a game, I view that as very positive. I haven’t done three in the past, splitting it equally.” Mixon himself seems aware of that history, saying “We’ve got three really good running backs in our room so whatever they’re comfortable doing – if they’re going to play one or play two and one of us has to sit out…”

Bye, Gio.

ON THE PASSING GAME:

The best news from all this non-news is for AJ Green owners. Green was by far the most vocal with his frustrations after last week’s loss. He went full Keyshawn Johnson on these reporters:  “We are playing like shit right now. We got to find a way to get our playmakers the ball … I feel like – no disrespect to nobody else – that ball should be mine somewhere somehow … I want the ball.”

Fortunately Lazor is a players’ coaches’ players’ coach and he really wants AJ to like him. “Some players get a lot [of input] and some players get a little [input] in what’s happening. When guys earn the ability to have input, that’s probably the best way. I don’t think there’s anyone around here who doesn’t trust A.J.” He knows where his bread is buttered. How many targets you want AJ? 12? 15? Anything you want big guy! Don’t be mad at me!

SAMMY WATKINS WANTS TO BE KYRIE IRVING SO BAD

https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/20/sammy-watkins-los-angeles-rams-earth-flat

AMERICAS GAME OF THE WEEK

SAQUONS HEISMAN vs. DEFEND YOUR MOVES DOT COM

Every year when the Special Ed schedule is released, there’s one or two dates that I circle on my calendar. Those are the weeks when my team is matched up against The Commish. Ours is one of the greatest rivalries in all of Special Ed history. Through some scheduling quirk, we have played eachother twice every year since 2012. Just like classic divisional foes that familiarity has bred a deep contempt.   Chris won the first 5 times we met, but since 2014 (the Keenan Allen era) we have taken four out of six games.

This year Chris’ team is not as “bad” as it once was but it still seems like a low-upside squad with nearly every player either being over 30 years old or dealing with a nagging injury (Q status). We expect Chris’ Guy Devante Parker to show up for this one and Amari Cooper will likely shake off the rust for the Revenge Game. But he has a real decision to make between Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen.

We were looking to include a new Kareem Hunt nickname/meme here. So we put “BIG GAME HUNT” in a google image search. The results were not what we wanted. Did you guys know people hunt giraffes? Fucks wrong with these people, man? There are a lot of funny things on the internet but pictures of dead animals posed next to happy white people is not one of em. smh

Prediction:

DefendYourMoves.com – 118.01

Saquon’s Heisman – 94.89

2017 AGOTW Predictions Record: 0-2

SPECIAL ED WEEK 3 MATCHUP PREVIEWS

15 Yards of Badwin vs Bitchslapped

Abby is 2-0!!! Just in case you thought this wasn’t dumb luck, Allen Robinson is still on her team.

BALDWINS WINS

Team Meh vs Polk High Panthers

This is the only matchup with no players in the 9:30am London game. Good for you guys, go get yourselves some breakfast.

PHP WINS

White Walkers vs Golden Richards

WW has the second highest projected score although they are yet to break 100.

GR WINS

iQue Lastima! vs Randall Cummingham

DYM’s FANDUEL PICK OF THE WEEK: Zach Ertz is the #1 TE in fantasy this week!!! But Randall Cumminghams RBs will dominate for the second straight week

RC WINS

HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYBODY!!!

https://defendyourmoves-wixsite-com.filesusr.com/html/2403cf_95ad0300587f517532d6fcb186748dde.html

1 comment

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Wow! A “Defend My Moves” section. That’s a first.

CZAR 20 days ago Reply 1 likes currently

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I think it is a DYM first. Astute DYM Scholars like Ceasar know this is supposed to be Defend YOUR Moves.

But the High Holy days are a time of repentance. Defend My Moves is a solemn reflective contemplation on the moves we made this week. We ask Kirk Cousins for forgiveness, and hope he is blessed with good fortune in the week to come.

DYM Editorial Staff 19 days ago

DEFEND YOUR MOVES 2017 WEEK 3!!!

OK, so another week of shit NFL matchups is in the books. Looks like next week should be more fun, we'll talk about that Thursday. Right now its time for a new DYM segment:

FANTASY REVENGE!!

One of the most painful moments any fantasy owner can have is The Fantasy Revenge Game. That’s when one of your favorite fantasy players is on someone else’s team and they go off on your ass just for old time’s sake. That’s what DYM.com faced this week: My TE is Delanie Walker. Walker was a guy who I owned in 2013 and 2014. In ’14 I made a last minute switch to get him in to my Super Bowl lineup and he got me just enough to pull out a 2pt victory. I owe that SESB title to him and he’ll always be my favorite fantasy TE. But I had to play against My TE’s new team using some young TE I barely even know. DW extracted his revenge this week to the tune of 14.2 points including a RUSHING TD.

Everybody that has played fantasy football for a few years has certain players who are “their guys.” Maybe they were on your first team, maybe they were on your best team, maybe the guy keeps falling to you in every draft. One way or another certain guys stick with us and they become a part of our fantasy identity.

I want you guys to be ready just so you don’t have to have your hearts broken like I did. So here’s the guys that I always feel like are each of Your Guys. If I missed anybody, or you feel like somebody is Your Guy let us know in the comments!!!

DYM:

Most of my other guys are WRs who I discovered in their rookie years. I am a proud three-time Torrey Smith owner, he was a member of our first 3 Special Ed teams. I’m really glad to see him on the Eagles now and BACK on the fantasy radar. In 2013 I picked up Keenan Allen, he’s My Guy. Been waiting a long time to get him back in the building. And obviously Amari Cooper is My Guy too, Chris is going to get sweet sweet revenge on us next week.

Doug:

Doug’s guys are very well known to DYM readers: He is a 3 time Doug Baldwin owner, a 3 time Gronk owner and I’ve always felt like Demarco Murray was His Guy too. But Doug really needs to watch out for his matchup with former team-name-sake QB Russell Wilson. Russell relishes the fantasy revenge game like none other. He used to be My QB until he joined Doug’s team and defeated me in the SESB. He could seek revenge again in Week 5.

Dave:

The all-time Dave guy is definitely Ryan Mathews. Dave loved That Guy, but he never revenged anybody. Dave is also a three time Frank Gore owner, that might be Dave’s favorite current player. I still feel like Mark Ingram is Dave’s guy too. I think I traded Ingram to Dave once and he liked him more than me. I shoulda started him this week.

Rob:

Rob’s only been in the league one year, so we don’t know all his tendencies yet. One thing we know for sure is CJ Anderson is definitely His Guy. I also feel like Jamis Winston is His Guy, just cause he hasn’t started for any other Special Ed team. He’ll have to face Jamis in weeks 4 AND 13.

Matt:

Matt is only a one-time Odell Beckham Jr owner but he picked up OBJ during his rookie year and took the kid all the way to the DYM AWARDS, so that’ll always be Matt’s Guy. He comes back to town for a week 6 Revenge matchup. Matt also owned Calvin Johnson the last two years of his career, so I’ll always remember him as a member of the Polk High Panthers.

Abby:

Believe it or not TY Hilton used to be good, back in those days Abby owned him 3 times. He lives forever in the hearts of the Bitchslapped. Abby also owned Matt Ryan in two of his best career years, but now that she’s got Brady on the squad she’s moved on. Brady is Her QB now.

Mike:

Mike is another shameless homer, but he represents the Steelers, as well as any player who hails from Western PA. Mike is a three time Big Ben owner and two-time Heath Miller owner. His WR is would-be Nittany Lion QB Terrelle Pryor. Penn State fans all still love Pryor from when he was in high school. Mike’s matchups with Rob in weeks 4 and 13 will be DOUBLE REVENGE, definitely AGOTW material.

Paul:

Paul’s perennial WR was Victor Cruz. I was really surprised when he offered me Cruz in a trade last year. That’s Your Guy! But ever since the rookie explosion of 2012 I’ve always associated Paul’s teams with the Redskins. RGIII and Alfred Morris are Paul’s Super Bowl Guys forever. But the association was really set in stone in my mind when Paul went and got Matt Jones in 2014. Samaje Perine might look to get revenge in Alf and Matt Jones’ memory in week 8.

Chris:

Aaron Rodgers is Chris’s Guy from way back. Chris has had the #1 overall pick 3 times and picked Rodgers twice. Dave has another chance at a revenge game win over the Commish in week 8. But His #1 Packer is definitely Randall Cobb. Chris is a four time Cobb owner and I still see a little twinkle in his eye anytime I mention his name. Chris is also a two-time Alshon Jeffery owner, and it’s no mistake that he reached way up in the draft to get the New Alshon, Devante Parker.

Ertz:

Well, Ertz's Guy is Ertz. Jeff might go undefeated this year with no Revenge Games looming.

Matt Harmon: DEFEND YOUR BRAND!!!

So, I picked up Rashard Higgins yesterday. “Who?” you say.

Rashard Higgins was a draft prospect I read about last summer, who didn’t do much last year as an NFL player. But more specifically, Rashard Higgins was once the favorite WR prospect of a guy who was once my favorite fantasy writer. This Sunday in Indianapolis, both of those titles will either be victoriously reclaimed or shamefully abandoned FOREVER.

http://www.thebackyardbanter.com/reception-perception-rashard-higgins---never-tell-me-the-odds.html

As you all know, last season was an historically abysmal showing for yours truly and it all started with an absolutely horrendous draft. So this year I made some tweaks to my pre-draft process, including cutting out a number of the fantasy podcasts and blogs that had steered me wrong last year. One of the outlets I don’t fuck with anymore is NFL Network’s NFL Fantasy Live. There’s a lot of different people on that show that seem to disagree with each other. But the weird thing is that they’re ALL wrong so often. It turns out there are more different ways to fuck up a fantasy team than ways to not fuck one up, and NFL Network has all of those bases covered.

One particular NFL idiot who I used to like is Matt Harmon. He’s a newer guy on the NFL Network shows and still maintains his own site at thebackyardbanter.com. The flagship of his brand is an analytic tool called “RECEPTION PERCEPTION”. He charts every route a receiver runs and the coverage he faces, and calculates success rates for every player in a variety of situations. He claims that these rates are highly predictive of fantasy success.

I read a lot of his stuff and allowed myself to be talked into a whole bunch of these WRs. Allen Robinson, Josh Gordon, Donte Moncrief, Travis Benjamin and Will Fuller all played significant roles in making a shambles of my fantasy season, and all were above average players by the Reception Perception metrics. The only reason this guy hasn’t yet been cut out of my life completely, along with the rest of NFL Fantasy Live, is because I respect the fact that he has a process and he trusts it. There are some clear short-comings to Reception Perception as an analysis tool but I appreciate that Harmon remains aware of those short-comings and has the ability to critique his own work. Case in point being the article linked above:

“The goal of the methodology is to cut through outside factors, and isolate the player alone to best discern just who they are as an individual performer. That’s why there is no adjusting for competition, what passer they play with, what system they exist in and certainly why there will never be a cumulative overall Reception Perception grade.”

The primary fault in Reception Perception is its singular focus on route-running against coverage. Very particular aspects of the game are analyzed very acutely, but there are both extrinsic factors in a particular game (like level of competition) and intrinsic factors in particular players (like combine measurables) that Reception Perception willfully ignores because, the theory is, these things don’t matter as much as we like to think. It’s a bold and spicy brand and I respect that about it.

Overall I’d say I got a much better lineup by ignoring Harmon than I did by following him and though my WR1 is not a Harmon favorite, he still stinks, so we’re once again open to suggestion. But we just want everybody to know that these guys are on thin ice. Higgins surely knows that if he fucks up next week, he can be right back on the practice squad by October. But this is the last chance for Harmon too. I swear, I will unfollow this guy and never look back.

THEY SAY THIS IS A BIG RICH TOWN

We’re into Season 4 of Power now, and things don’t look good for Ghost. He’s in jail, Julio and Dre are selling drugs in his club, Turtle wants him to flip on Tommy and finally the real antagonist of the whole show is back in town and for once the biggest problem in his life might not be Angela.

This show is just delightfully written. Ghost is the “main” character but from day one he’s made such awful choices and been so generally unlikeable that it’s hard not to cheer for the bad guys sometimes. So like half way through season 3 you start to see that 50 Cent is actually mad smart, and you meet his cousin named JukeBox and she’s the BEST, maybe you start thinking you don’t want Ghost to win. But then 50 mugs an 80 year old woman in her apartment, and you’re like “oh yea he’s the bad guy”.

Power is really really dumb sometimes, but it’s fun to watch in part because there are some great characters that aren’t Ghost and Angela. So without further to do, DYM is proud to present:

POWER POWER RANKINGS: SEASON 4

1: Jukebox

2: Saxe

3: Tommy

3: The Asian prosecutor that doesn’t like Turtle

4: Tasha

5: 50 cent

6: Julio

7: That old white guy in jail

7: Father Jim Norton

8: La La Anthony

9: Dre

10: Turtle

Also, Ghost and Tasha apparently still have 3 kids. We hadn’t seen that baby for 3 years until they went to visit Ghost in jail.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYBODY!!!

DEFEND YOUR MOVES 2017 WEEK 2 CLASSIC!!

WELCOME TO DYM CLASSIC!!

THIS SPECIAL THURSDAY EDITION WILL BREAKDOWN THE TOP SPECIAL ED WAIVER MOVES AND PREVIEW EVERY MATCH-UP FOR THIS WEEK!!

LETS GO!!

Total moves this week: 16 Dumpster Diver of the Week: Saquon’s Heisman – 4 Moves

Great Job, Everybody! 16 is a lot of moves for week 1. But we can do better, I still see some highly droppable players out there. Like Allen Robinson. Too bad Abby doesn’t read this. Somebody shoot her a text.

Even though The Commish squeaked out a win last week he had already switched out three RBs and a kicker by Tuesday. Chris probably felt like he made a few mistakes in the draft. But now that he’s got TWO Bears RBs and TWO Cardinals RBs, this garbage squad is almost complete. I will never understand why, but the Commish does this every year. He loves having two RBs on the same team, even more so if that team isn’t very good. This always makes his start-sit decisions very interesting.

I also made four moves this week, but actually only replaced 2 players from my draft class. The emergence of Kareem “The Dream” Hunt as the NEW David Johnson went a very long way to soften the blow of losing the OLD David Johnson. We’re very far from panicking right now. The DYM squad still feels real strong even without DJ. We’ll hold our nose and start Quizz for a few weeks, then see if Ingram or Mixon are starters yet. We got some moves to make, but they might not be on the waiver wire.

Here’s some food for thought:

DJ comes off IR the DAY BEFORE the Special Ed Trade Deadline. And since he can’t get any more injured between now and then, the longer I hold him the more valuable he gets, right?

So, who wants to buy a dream???

You guys know we’re always accepting offers.

SPECIAL ED YOUTH MOVEMENT!!

SIX (6!!) rookies were scooped up off the waiver wire this week. ROOKIES PICKED UP: Cohen, Golladay, Davis, Carson, Tavecchio, Kupp ROOKIES DROPPED: Zay Jones, D’Onta Foreman

•    The first move of the year was Team Meh adding a last minute starting QB. Meh dropped Eli Rogers to get Rivers in the door. That’s smart because Rookies are the shit out here, but NOT 2nd year players. They are almost never good. Just ask Keenan Allen. That rookie hype can take a real toll on a player, sometimes it can take a Sexy Rookie 3 or 4 years to regain his old form.

•    A waiver claim was also placed for Zay Jones on the first day of free agency. But Randall Cummingham learned quickly that although Zay earned the job, the “Bills #1 WR” might not be a fantasy viable position this year. We’ll never forget the day Zay was dropped for another rookie, albeit one with a much less funny name, TEN’s Corey Davis!

By The Way:

On Monday we were in a meeting at work and this guy told us it was his birthday. We were like “Wow your birthday’s on 9/11?! Well at least people will NEVER FORGET your birthday, eh? eh?” He just stared at us and shook his head. We got no laughs. Too soon?

•    On Sunday, The Commish and I may have been the only ones watching football, cause The Ultimate Semite and Golladay Stylez were the clear breakout stars of the week and obvious free agent priorities.

•    Golden Richards added to his rookie RB stable this week. Carson Daly is the only Seattle player that got any positive buzz this off season. Russell and Doug are known quantities at this point which, in the NFL, means they’re in decline. Rawls isn’t really back yet and Lacy is fatter than Zeke. If SEA o-line can manage to not be awful, then Carson has a real shot to be productive as a starter for the Seahawks.

•    The Polk High Panthers got up early this morning with a very very interesting move. Cooper Kupp could be for real. He kinda looks better than Sammy Watkins, but more importantly he might be a better fantasy option for PHP than TY Hilton. But more importantly for all of us, Rob Kelley was dropped. So now the entire Washington backfield is unowned, seems like there might be an opportunity there for a team that lost their #1 overall pick to a wrist injury last week.

•    Giorgio Tevecchio has a beautiful, lyrical Italian name. Just a pleasure to say. He’s actually not a rookie, technically, but last week was his first ever regular season NFL appearance, so he makes the list. Bravo Giorgio! Congratulazioni!

AMERICAS GAME OF THE WEEK

Polk High Panthers vs. Randall Cummingham I feel bad for these guys cause they have a lot of action in some ugly ugly NFL mathcups.

•    TY Hilton’s Colts play Arizona. A very bad matchup for TY, Matt may bench him for the Rookie Cooper Kupp. But can you believe the over/under on this game is 44?? That’s about 40 points too high.

•    Mike Evans makes his 2017 debut against the receiverless Bears. This might not be a high scoring affair either.

•    Randall has two guys, and Matt may have one rookie, in the Rams vs Redskins. Washington looked very bad last week, and the Rams are well known to be bad, despite the youth movement. If you don’t have a lot of action, I’d recommend a 4pm nap this Sunday.

•    But first, the Thursday night game this week is classic stinker, but these guys will each start a Bengal and Matt will likely start a Texan as well.

Fortunately they both have Kickers in the ATL vs GB Sunday nighter, so strap in for that one!

I see Big Ben having a bounce-back game at home, and Mariota being overwhelmed by the new-look Jags defense. If Matt sacks up and benches Hilton for Kupp he will be greatly rewarded.

Prediciton: PHP – 101.12 RC – 95.90

WEEK 2 MATCHUP PREVIEWS:

White Walkers vs. DefendYourMoves.com DYM faces Special Ed’s newest Kicking Expert in week 2. I was watching Joe Mixon highlights on youtube yesterday and the comments said he’s better than Le’Veon Bell. I should probably start him here.

Saquon’s Heisman vs. Bitchslapped Abby has a real shot at a once unlikely 2-0 start with three Patriots rolling into a shoot-out in New Orleans. She still needs to actually open that Yahoo! App and get Allen Robinson out of the flex first, tho. WAKE UP ABBY, YOU’RE WINNING!!!

15 Yards of Baldwin vs. iQue Lastima! These two teams own 45% of the league’s quarterbacks. Maybe they should trade for an RB with an injured wrist?

Team Meh vs. Golden Richards Wow. It says here Hopkins got 16 targets last week. That’s a fucking LOT of targets. He’s on pace for 256 targets on the season. Hopkins career high was 192 in 2015, that season he only topped 15 in a game once.

I’m working from home today so I’ll be available all day taking your start/sit questions on twitter or chat with me RIGHT HERE on defendyourmoves.com!!

I’m also planning on drinking early tomorrow to get ready for the season’s first Color Rush, THERE’S GONNA BE ORANGE!!

HAVE A CLASSIC WEEK EVERYBODY!!