Fantasy football advice, NFL playoffs 2015: FanDuel and optimism

Sometimes it can be tough to look past the pitfalls and select a player. This week is one of those times.Click here to get a 100% deposit bonus on FanDuel

by Daniel Kelley

Jan 9, 2015, 4:30 PM UTC

David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports

My girlfriend, a doctoral student in psychology, has been on my case lately about being too down on myself, being pessimistic about other stuff, all that jazz. I can admittedly be a downer on occasion, and she keeps trying to encourage me to look on the bright side of things more often.

(If you think that intro paragraph wasn’t just an excuse to say I have a girlfriend, you’re crazy.)

That tendency, though, bleeds over into fantasy evaluation on occasion, and did so particularly heavily in picking my FanDuel rosters for this weekend's playoff games. I kept looking at guys, pondering on them a moment, and inevitably focusing far too often on the pitfalls rather than the bright spots.

Take quarterback, for example. Aaron Rodgers is amazing ... but his injury worries terrify me. Peyton Manning is tremendous ... but not so much lately, and he might be injured as well. Joe Flacco has been ridiculous in the playoffs ... but he's also Joe Flacco. Tom Brady can light up the Baltimore secondary ... but not if the Ravens' defensive line dominates New England like it did Pittsburgh. Andrew Luck is great when he gets time ... but against Denver he might not be getting that time.

In a way, that's helpful. I'm not blinded by being a Colts fan, because I can see the worries in Dan Herron's fumbles and Coby Fleener's reduced production with Dwayne Allen back. I can even be objective about the Ravens despite the fact that they have been my least favorite team ever for 80 years now, and I am well aware that neither they nor I has existed that long.

But it also means that I will click back and forth through a FanDuel roster, and end up scowling at my choices far too often.

It’s part of the reason that every week, I list my rosters here on Friday, and end up going back later in the weekend and at a minimum reevaluating them, at the most scrapping the whole dang thing. I say all that, but if you recall my rosters from the wild-card round, you’ll remember that I was all in on Jeremy Hill’s prospects for the round. Even if I ended up wrong, the point is that sometimes -- ever so rarely, not nearly often enough according to Katherine -- I do go whole hog on some guys.

This week, Rob Gronkowski is the guy I'm excited about. The Ravens have a bad secondary. The rest of the tight ends have issues similar to the drawbacks I listed among the quarterbacks, but I just couldn't find anything to dislike about ol' Gronk.

But is he on both my rosters this week? Well, let’s look. Thoughts to follow:

I'll start with the tight ends. I mentioned Gronkowski above. The one black mark on his status this week, for me, is his price -- Gronkowski costs $1,500 more than the No. 2 tight end and $2,500 more than the No. 3. I like him on my first roster, but using him there really hamstrung the rest of my roster. So, for my second roster, I went with Tim Wright. I've been touting Wright all season as a lower-tier option -- after the best tight ends, every tight end has the potential for a two-catch, 14-yard game. Or worse. That includes Wright, who has zero-target downside. At that level, you just want a guy who can stumble into the end zone. And for that, from that tier, there's no better option. I might get a zero from Wright. But I might get eight points on just one catch, and I used the savings elsewhere.
Of all the quarterbacks, Romo is the one who somehow scares me the least. Flacco, meanwhile, I hate and can't stand and all that because he's a Raven, but I'm willing to take the chance on that "Flacco in the playoffs" thing being real.
C.J. Anderson, Marshawn Lynch and Eddie Lacy don't require a whole lot of justification. They're great, they have matchups that don't terrify me, studs are always nice. Shane Vereen, though, needs some defense. He has been on a downswing of late, has been injured, and is facing one of the league's single best run defenses. My thinking, though, is that Vereen is three grand or more cheaper than the stud running backs, and while the Ravens will likely bottle up the runners like LeGarrette Blount and Jonas Gray, the pressure offered by their offensive line will likely lead to some serious dump-off chances for Vereen.
The absence of Star Lotulelei from Carolina's defense line helps Lynch, to be sure. To me, though, it also helps the team's receivers -- Doug Baldwin and Paul Richardson are my choices -- by giving Russell Wilson more time to get the ball to them.
One of Baltimore's Smiths is going to draw Darrelle Revis Saturday, but as it stands it looks like that will be Steve Smith Sr., while Torrey Smith and his going-all-the-way-downfield-ness will draw Brandon Browner. Browner's no schlub, of course, but he's also no Revis, so I'm comfortable grabbing Torrey.

Pretty much everyone agrees that the Seattle-Carolina game is likely to be the week’s lowest-scoring one. The game’s two defenses, then, are very attractive options -- particularly Seattle’s, which has re-established itself as elite, plays at home, isn’t missing any players, and faces a team that has a penchant for turnovers.