I know not everybody is into fantasy football, but as Sunday approaches, this is a really big week for playoff contenders. Most fantasy football playoffs begin Week 14, so this week and next week are all about final playoff positioning or just trying to climb into your top four, six or eight.
I've included a poll with this post as I'm curious how many NN people play fantasy football. Whether it's just one league you play in with some friends for fun, or if you've got five different money leagues, let us know. I do a little extra work for SB Nation helping to provide fantasy football advice and am always open to questions. I tweet fantasy football advice from @sbnationfantasy if you have a game-day question, or any sort of waiver/trade questions.
For folks that do play fantasy football, I'm curious what you think about the idea of projections and predicting sleepers. We have this deal with Vicks where we look at potential sleepers. Since the 49ers played on Thursday and provided a stinker of a fantasy performance, I thought we'd use this more for some general discussion.
Various websites provide fantasy projections that are specific to how many yards, touchdowns and other such numbers a player will garner in a given game. When I tweet out fantasy advice from @sbnationfantasy, I consider it more in the context of breaking down the matchups for a given player. If somebody asks me to help choose between various players, I mostly look at who the player is facing as opposed to their numbers in previous weeks.
I don't ignore previous numbers, but I think they need to be taken with a grain of salt. Laurent Robinson is an example of going with the hot streak as he has been on fire lately. He has seven touchdowns over the last five games and there is no reason to sit him for now. When Miles Austin returns there will be some questions, but until then, Robinson remains a great play.
When it comes to sleepers, the matchup really can make the man. Last weekend, Drew Brees was on a bye and I needed a QB to replace him for one week. Two months ago, when I saw the bye was going to be an issue, I took a quick look through the schedule. My eyes zeroed in on 49ers versus Cardinals. Among the available QBs, Alex Smith had the best matchup of the week so I picked him up specifically for that one game. He didn't blow things up, but he provided me with 20+ fantasy points, which is all you can really ask for from a backup player.
Do you have any sleepers you like heading into this weekend?