Fantasy Football Week 4 Flex Rankings
Fantasy football is great. Bye weeks are not great. I loath the bye weeks. I consider it the most undesirable aspect in all of fantasy football. The NFL season is 17 weeks long. The fantasy football season is usually 16 of those 17 weeks. For most leagues the playoffs start in week 14. A few others week 15. Starting in week four and going through week 12 each NFL team will take one week off.
Ugh. Sigh. Gasp. Groan. Howl. Murmur.
These are all sounds I will make while setting my starting roster this week and each week until the bye weeks are over. It’s annoying. I want my stud QB and my stud WR to play on the same week when I play everyone in my league. I envision many of you probably feeling the same. No matter how much we groan, sigh or murmur about it bye weeks are here to stay and they aren’t going anywhere.
I realize the bye weeks are necessary. The players need a rest. There’s no use complaining about them. We all have to deal with them. So at least I am not alone. I can take some solace in that.
This week there are six teams on the bye; Arizona, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Seattle and St. Louis. That leaves a lot of really viable fantasy options on the shelf. If you only included the Broncos there are at least seven roster spots left blank in your league as a whole. Adding in the rest of the teams on a bye there are now 28 missing.
Let’s say you’re in a ten team league. With a standard roster of 16 spots there are 160 players (team defense included) that will be drafted. If you use some simple math skills you see the list just dropped down to 132 for the first bye week. That’s an 18% drop off in personnel. Luckily, the NFL has scheduled only three of the nine bye weeks to include six teams. Besides week four, week nine and week 10 will have six teams on a bye.
Sep 21, 2014; Charlotte, NC, USA; Carolina Panthers wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin (13) catches a pass in front of Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor (24) during the second quarter at Bank of America Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports
The NFL does recognize the importance of fantasy football. It’s probably why the bye weeks are split up more now than they used to be. When the Panthers were getting blown out by the Steelers on Sunday night the only people who didn’t bail on the T.V. coverage was fantasy football players. Maybe a few die-hard fans as well. Notwithstanding, it was Kelvin Benjamin owners were the ones acting like a bunch of crazed dogs. Panther fans already left the stadium. If they can more eyes on a game, especially if it’s a blow out that equals more dollars and cents. The NFL loves dollars and cents.
This weeks flex rankings are obviously affected by the absence of so many players this week. It shouldn’t look so barren next week when Miami and Oakland are on a bye. For now, we deal…
Remember, I use a standard ten team format for coming up with my rankings. These are only the flex options. Another way of saying it is that I didn’t rank any QB’s, kickers or defenses. That’s not a good title though. It’s easy for most of you to decide on a quarterback, you probably only drafted one or have one clear favorite over another guy. Either way they need their own rankings. Defenses can get tricky and they also need their own rankings. Kickers are.. I mean.. You aren’t looking for kicker rankings, are you?
Anyway, look and enjoy. Then go to the bottom to sigh, groan, complain, murmur or whatever it is you do. I’ll be in the distance muttering to myself.