A Fantasy Throwdown Playoff Football Fix

FantasyThrowdown.com is keeping fantasy football and the playoff party rolling with this weekends fantasy fix kickoff contest. So for some the fantasy season still has yet to come to a screeching halt. Actually, with more thought, it seems as if for some the fantasy season never comes to a halt with the dynasty league formats this day and age. Nonetheless whether you’re a die hard fantasy football aficionado, a novice, or simply of the voyeur variety then drop in at FantasyThrowdown.com and check out the game play.

Moving on to a bit of last weeks business before following up with this weekends calamity. Going into last week Justin Blackmon was primed for a fantasy throwdown grand finale going into his match-up versus the Tennessee Titans. Well the good news is that Blackmon held true to his +/- 50% catch rate reeling in six of his 12 targets for 79 yards and a touchdown. The Jacksonville Jaguars rookie also carried the ball one time for 11 yards rounding out the top ten among scoring wide receivers in both standard and ppr scoring formats. The bad news is Blackmon compiled those numbers all in the first half and only a single catch, resulting in zero yards, in the second half. Blackmon was on pace for an extreme grand finale entering into half time. Credit theTennessee coaches for the half-time adjustments and the Titans secondary for executing the second half game plan versus Blackmon and the Jaguars.

Moving on to this week’s playoff match-ups and the four games on slate over at FantasyThrowdown.com one hot contest could be the squaring off of two rookie QB’s and two hot RB’s. The Seattle Seahawks travel to the nation’s capitol for what could equate to a fantasy bonanza. An accumulation of 7 TDs over the span of the last five games has Marshawn Lynch tied with Washington Redskins RB Alfred Morris for tops in the league among scoring RBs. These two backs have out-performed both Adrian Peterson and Arian Foster on the touchdown front over the past five weeks and could continue to do so during the Sunday late game. Lynch looks to keep his four game 100 yard rushing streak alive versus the Redskins. The Redskins, RB, known as Alf looks to keep his own four game streak alive versus a stingy Seattle Seahawks defense. Morris has reached the endzone in four straight games while the Seahawks have allowed only one TD on the ground over the past five weeks, keeping the likes of RBs such as Steven Jackson, Frank Gore, and Matt Forte from scoring rushing TDs.

For obvious reasons, namely the same stingy Seahawks defense as mentioned before, we like Lynch over Alf but wouldn’t be disappointed to use either during a Throwdown game. Two solid QB’s with RGIII and Russell Wilson both have exceeded expectations and both finished the fantasy football season ranked fifth and 11th in points. However, over the past five weeks the rookie in Seattle ranks first in fantasy scoring with 126 points averaging out to 0.88 points per drop back (PPDB). On the pass catching side of the ball, while Golden Tate has actual outscored his receiving teammates in fantasy points it’s actually Sidney Rice who leads the Seahawks in fanasty points per opportunity (PPO) over the past five weeks.

It looks as if both Rice and Tate will play despite playing sparingly over the past two weeks and over the timeframe in which both Tate and Rice have played sparingly it's been teammate Doug Baldwin with his 0.43 PPO average who leads the teams receiving core in targets, receptions, and points. At some point the Redskins and RGIII will get WR Leonard Hankerson more involved in the offense. Over the last 5 weeks Hankerson by no means is a target monster but he utilizing the opportunities he gets as his PPO indicates. At 0.49 PPO Hankerson leads the Redskins receiving core while being second in yards over that span yet doing it on the least amount of catches. Hankerson has only managed to be on the field 39% of the time over the last five weeks but at some point the Redskins 2nd year player could breakout and it maybe necessary in order for the Washington Redskins and less-than 100% RGIII to advance past the first round of the playoffs.