Fantasy Football MarketWatch 2011 Week 5: Ryan Torain Leads the LOOS
But you will see a few. There are always a couple girlfriends scattered around the place who have passed up an evening in watching
Watch What Happens: Live to go out with their boyfriends and his frat boy buddies. There also might be a cute waitress or two. And every guy in the place will spend more time looking at a cute waitress than they will at whatever random college football game is on that particular Tuesday night.This situation is a classic example of supply and demand. When there aren’t a lot of women at the bar, the ones that are there are in high demand.
Now let’s say fantasy owners go down to the Waiver Wire Watering Hole. If the only players in the place are a handful of running backs that are getting some carries, you can bet those backs are going to get a more-than-marginal amount of attention. Guys like
Stevan Ridley (3.6%), Ryan Torain (57.6%), Isaac Redman (2.3%), and Kendall Hunter (12.0%) are going to get some love this week.What you have to be careful of is something I like to call LOOS, the Lack of Options Syndrome. If there aren’t many ladies in the bar, the blonde across the room goes from the six she was during the day to an easy seven, maybe seven-and-a-half. You know how they say the camera adds ten pounds? Well a bar short on girls takes away ten pounds from the heftier of the two girls sitting at the table in the corner.
The LOOS running back of the week is definitely Torain. When listed with those other three backs, the Washington runner starts to look pretty attractive. What with his 135 yards and a score and all. But Torain really isn’t as cute as he looks. He didn’t have a single carry in the first three weeks. What’s more, he’s got a crazy father. If you picked up Torain off the wire and went back to his place, his daddy (aka Mike Shanahan) would take Torain’s hand from yours and send you to his other child’s room,
Tim Hightower.So while Torain looks attractive, I’d rather pick up one of the other available backs in Ridley, Redman, or Hunter. Especially when you consider how much more Torain should go for than the other three in this week’s free agent auctions. Of the other three, I want to go home with Ridley. Redman and Hunter might be good for a little fling, but they both have boyfriends (
Rashard Mendenhall and Frank Gore, respectively). Ridley is young (a rookie), sexy (averaging over eight YPC), and has yet to do anything that would make it seem he’s not as awesome as he appears.Now let’s say you take all the running backs out of the WWWH and replace them with tight ends. In that case, it’s more like a weekend night out at the bar. A lot of people have, and are there with, their significant others (like Witten, Finley, Graham, Gronkowski, Davis, Gates, Daniels), and everyone who doesn’t have someone has plenty of options.
Brandon Pettigrew is still available in about 1/3 of leagues. He’s averaging over ten yards per reception and almost eight targets per game. Even better, he’s bringing in just over 70% of his targets for catches. He has yet to score, but Calvin Johnson isn’t going to score two touchdowns every week.(*) When the scores start coming his way, Pettigrew may become one of the best tight end options week in and week out.
(*) It sounds crazy to say you should trade away the best outside receiver in football (tip of the cap to slot man Wes Welker), but Johnson’s value will never be higher. He simply can’t continue to score touchdowns at anything close to his current pace. If I could get an elite RB (which would include Peterson, Rice, McFadden, and maybe Forte for me), I’d trade Megatron in a heartbeat. If I didn’t have a top end QB, I’d do it for Rodgers, Brady, or maybe even Brees, too. And if I could get someone to overpay with a package of players, I’d obviously pull the trigger on that deal as well.
Other tight ends like
Ed Dickson (10.5%), Lance Kendricks (1.2%), Jared Cook (3.6%), and Jermaine Gresham (12.8%) are also potentially viable options. With Danny Amendola out in St. Louis, we’ve been waiting to see who would emerge as Sam Bradford’s preferred target. While we still don’t have a definitive answer, Kendricks led the Rams in targets in Week 4 with 9. Likewise, Cook may be the primary benefactor of Kenny Britt’s injury as he led the Titans in targets in week 4 and racked up 93 yards and a score. Finally, Gresham trailed only AJ Green in targets this week for Cincinnati, and he displayed how talented an athlete he is with a nice performance of 70 yards and a score.Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go talk to that blonde across the room.
Written by Brett Talley exclusively for thefantasyfix.com. Brett is a law student in Dallas who just barely managed to work in the words
supply and demand in this “market” themed article. You can follow him and/or ask him for fantasy advice on Twitter @therealTAL.(October 1, 2011 – Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images North America)
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