Fabiano’s Fantasy Focus Week 7, Volume I

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Every Wednesday during the season NFL Network and NFL.com Senior Fantasy Analyst Michael Fabiano joins Sports360AZ.com’s Brad Cesmat to share his insight on building and developing your fantasy team for success.

Here are some hi-lights from our most recent conversation (October 14th) with the Fantasy Sports Writer’s Association Hall of Famer.

With Tom Brady playing better would you start Brady, Cutler or Rivers or does it all depend on the match ups? “Rivers has sort of become a must-start every week unless you have Rivers and [Aaron] Rodgers or Rivers and [Drew] Brees or Rivers and [Andrew] Luck which is very possible because Phil wasn’t drafted until the late-rounds in most leagues. Cutler has sort of become a must-start, too. He’s been very good in that offense. He stays healthy so he’s up among the top five, top 10 quarterbacks in fantasy right now. I don’t think Brady is there yet. You have to be encouraged by what he’s done the last couple weeks. He scored over 50 fantasy points his last-two games. In his first four games he hadn’t even scored 40 fantasy points combined so you’ve got to like what you’re seeing there…I want to see more…two games though is a nice streak for Brady.”

Players like Maurice Jones-Drew and Matt Asiata are back on waiver wires…are these running backs still worth stashing on rosters? “I actually am not against dropping any of those guys. Chris Johnson: he’s a name. He’s not producing. It looks like they’re phasing him out of the offense. C.J. Spiller is just a name. He’s not producing and if you can pick up a hot free agent and you have to drop one of those guys I don’t feel bad about that all it’s been six weeks. We have a pretty good sample size of what these guys have done this year and you can’t hold on to names. I’ll give you an example: Keenan Allen. He’s had one good game this year with double-digit fantasy points. Malcolm Floyd has been much better than him in fantasy. So I would be adverse to dropping Keenan Allen and picking up Malcolm Floyd at this point because Allen has a six-game sample size where he’s not producing…this is a trend. This isn’t a one or two-game fluke let’s put it that way.”

Who are some must-starts in Week 7? “I really like Colin Kaepernick this week against the Broncos. Look at his numbers on the road. They have been phenomenal. He proved that against the St. Louis Rams on Monday Night Football. I also like Tony Romo this week against the Giants. He’s averaging over 308 passing yards with 14 touchdown passes in his last six games against the G-Men…Justin Forsett. Alfred Morris is a great start at running back…at wide receiver guys I like this week: Emmanuel Sanders, Mike Wallace, Golden Tate, T.Y. Hilton.”

How about guys to keep on your bench this weekend? “Quarterbacks that I would sit this week: Matt Ryan. Don’t like him on the road. Don’t like him in Baltimore a very tough matchup. I’m not saying that you’re going to sit Drew Brees but I’ am telling you this: if you have Philip Rivers. If you have another quarterback that you have a lot of confidence in, I would sit [Brees] against Detroit. Detroit is the best defense in the entire league. They’re nasty at home and Brees has not been good on the road in his career and that’s definitely been the case this season. So I’d definitely consider sitting Drew Brees.” 

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