Sports
Patience will let you find fantasy football sweet spot to draft tight ends
In the second of a six-part fantasy draft preview series leading up the NFL season, Fantasy Insanity discusses tight ends, defense/special teams and kickers. Next week: quarterbacks.
All fantasy positions are not created equal. Some produce more points than others. Some are deeper. Some have greater disparity between the top scorers and potential replacements. And some, essentially, just don’t matter.
For example, does your league still use a kicker? If so, may I ask why? The best of the bunch doesn’t score that much more than the worst, the production is next-to-impossible to project from week to week and there is always a more useful bench guy at a primary position available in during the last round of the draft. Get your commissioner to drop kickers and add a bench spot.
Or defense/special teams. We don’t despise these as much as we do kickers, because there can be strategic advantages if you look hard enough into specific matchups — particularly in DFS. But they aren’t so valuable that you should ever pick one before the last couple of rounds of your draft.
Which brings us to tight ends. This position takes a huge leap into relevancy, but still falls into the low-impact category. You don’t, and shouldn’t, have to wait until late in the draft to pick one, but we prefer this route to using a high choice.
It would be great to have Travis Kelce or Mark Andrews or Darren Waller, sure. But we would rather have a an additional starting running back or wide receiver at the point in the draft those top tight ends normally go — in the top six rounds.
Instead, the Madman prefers to wait it out. We would rather avoid this season’s 2021 Waller and try to find this season’s Dalton Schultz. Some of our primary targets are Schultz, Dallas Goedert, Dawson Knox and Mike Gesicki. Schultz finished top-three among tight ends last season, yet is being drafted as TE7 this season, though the Cowboys lost Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup’s return from an ACL injury is uncertain.
The problem with getting Schultz is the high volatility of his draft position. He averages middle-fifth round, but he can often go as high as early fourth or as late as early eight. We don’t want him at the high end and everything has to go just right early for us to be comfortable in the middle of his range, but we love him at the back end.
The Eagles’ addition of A.J. Brown gives them a legitimate NFL pass-catching threat, which could lure coverage away from others, including Goedert. Gesicki is in a similar situation in Miami, with Tyreek Hill the new defensive distraction.
We think Knox can turn in a top-10 TE season. He made a nice step forward last season, and can further build on that this year. You do have to worry about QB Josh Allen robbing Knox of some red-zone catches by rushing for touchdowns, but in such a high-powered offense, we’ll take our chances.
If we miss on all of these, we don’t mind taking Cole Kmet fairly late.
Granted when we wait as long as we often do for a TE, we prefer to grab a second to give us some flexibility. And we have a couple of super-late guys who make us smile when we pick them: Tampa Bay’s Cameron Brate or Kyle Rudolph.
Tom Brady no longer has Rob Gronkowski. With Chris Godwin returning from an ACL injury, his health and production will be iffy. But someone is going to be catching passes in this offense. And we like either one of the Buccaneers’ TE options to be touchdown producers, even if they don’t rack up a lot of yards.
So feel free to sit tight before grabbing a tight end. But you don’t have to wait all the way till the end.
Read the full article here
The NBA’s longest win streak is finally over after the Knicks suffered their first loss in nine games on Wednesday. Expect New York to start a new streak Friday against a team it dominated the last time they faced off.
The Knicks were playing like the best team in basketball during their lengthy win streak, posting the league’s best net rating (+17.3) with six double-digit victories in that eight-game run. That included a 23-point beat-down of the Bulls exactly a week ago, when New York drained 17 3s and saw three players score at least 22 points in an easy win.
Knicks vs. Bulls (7:30 p.m. Eastern) prediction: Knicks -5.5 (Caesars Sportsbook)
Risk Free First Bet up to $1,000 with NPBONUS
New customers only. Must be 21+. AZ, CO, IA, IL, IN, LA, MI, NJ, NY, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY only. (Welcome Offer not available in NY & PA) Full T&C apply.
First bet up To $1,250 On Caesars
New users only, 21 or older. NY, CO, DC, IA, IN, IL, MI, NV, NJ, PA, TN, VA, WV only. Full T&Cs apply.
No Sweat First Bet up to $1,000
21+. New customers only. AZ, CT, IA, IL, LA, MI, NJ, NY, PA, TN, WV, WY only. T&C apply
That game marked the worst offensive showing of the season for Chicago (91 points), which has struggled with chemistry and spacing issues all year long. The Bulls rank dead last in 3-point attempts per game (28.8) and third-worst in offensive rebounding rate (23.6%), which leaves very few easy scoring chances for one of the NBA’s worst offenses.
Betting on the NBA?
It’s the opposite story for the Knicks, who boast three legitimate shot-creators and also rank among the league leaders in points in the paint. Julius Randle (31 points) relentlessly attacked this Chicago defense in their first meeting before allowing RJ Barrett (27 points) to lead the way in the second affair — his fourth of five straight games with at least 22 points.
I don’t see this Knicks attack slowing down against one of the league’s most inconsistent defenses. And until Zach LaVine returns to his All-Star form, I’m skeptical of the Bulls’ offense showing up on Friday, too.
Knicks vs. Bulls pick: Knicks -5.5 (Caesars Sportsbook)
Read the full article here
After starting the season 21-4-1, it looked like the New Jersey Devils were going to run away with the Metropolitan Division as one of the very best teams in the NHL.
Not only were the Devils cruising, but their underlying metrics were elite. New Jersey was the best 5-on-5 team through the first quarter of the season.
Three weeks and one six-game losing streak later, and the Devils have fallen back to earth and are now two points behind the Carolina Hurricanes in the Metropolitan Division.
The Devils were able to get off the schneid with a win over Florida on Wednesday, but the task doesn’t get any easier with the league-leading Boston Bruins in town.
New Jersey is a slight +102 home underdog against Boston starting at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN+ and the NHL Network.
Risk Free First Bet up to $1,000 with NPBONUS
New customers only. Must be 21+. AZ, CO, IA, IL, IN, LA, MI, NJ, NY, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY only. (Welcome Offer not available in NY & PA) Full T&C apply.
First bet up To $1,250 On Caesars
New users only, 21 or older. NY, CO, DC, IA, IN, IL, MI, NV, NJ, PA, TN, VA, WV only. Full T&Cs apply.
No Sweat First Bet up to $1,000
21+. New customers only. AZ, CT, IA, IL, LA, MI, NJ, NY, PA, TN, WV, WY only. T&C apply
Bruins vs. Devils prediction
Even though the Devils have struggled to get results over their last 10 contests, their underlying numbers don’t suggest there’s all that much wrong with how they’re playing. New Jersey isn’t posting the pace-setting numbers it did through Thanksgiving, but it’s still skating to the fifth-best expected goals rate and high-danger scoring chance rate in the league over its last 10 contests.
Those numbers should help ease any sense of panic that New Jersey could continue to fall back further into the pack as we head toward the New Year.
So if New Jersey is still tilting the ice in the right direction, what is the issue for the Devils?
For one thing, the Devs are struggling to find the back of the net like they did when they were rolling. New Jersey has scored just nine goals in its last five games, and four of those tallies came in a 4-2 victory over Florida on Wednesday. Over their last 10 games, the Devils rank 25th in the NHL with a 6.56% shooting percentage.
Additionally, the Devils are not getting the goaltending needed to stabilize them. New Jersey’s netminders were always thought to be the team’s biggest weakness, and that has started to show lately as the Devils rank 23rd in the NHL in 5-on-5 save percentage over the last 10 games.
Betting on the NHL?
The Bruins, meanwhile, continue to roll. Boston is 7-1-2 over its last 10 contests and ranks third in the league over that span in expected goals rate and fourth in high-danger chance percentage. The Bruins pace the NHL with a +54 goal differential, which is 25 goals better than the team in second (Toronto).
But as impressive as Boston has been over its first 31 games of the season, the Bruins are playing on a back-to-back on Friday, while the Devils were off on Thursday night.
The Bruins are the better team in a vacuum, but this is a good buy-low spot on the Devils, who are still playing solid hockey but are just not getting the results.
Devils vs. Bruins pick
New Jersey Devils +102 (FanDuel)
Read the full article here
The F.D.A. Now Says It Plainly: Morning-After Pills Are Not Abortion Pills
Sister Patricia Daly, 66, Dies; Took On Corporate Giants on Social Justice
ElonJet is (sort of) back on Twitter
This Off-the-Shoulder Sequin Top Is Perfect for New Year’s Eve — On Sale Now!
Families can make a tax-free rollover from 529 plans to Roth individual retirement accounts starting in 2024
The F.D.A. Now Says It Plainly: Morning-After Pills Are Not Abortion Pills
Sister Patricia Daly, 66, Dies; Took On Corporate Giants on Social Justice
House Clears $1.7 Trillion Spending Package, Averting Shutdown
She Worked for Twitter. Then She Tweeted at Elon Musk.
