Fantasy Football Librarian

Here you go, squeezed in just before the Halloween fun begins, I hope...consensus on starts and sits for Week 9. Based on all of the many start or sit links that I've provided this week, here are the players with the most start or sit votes, listed in no particular order. QB Start: Kyle Orton, David Garrard, Chad Pennington, Matt Ryan, Marc Bulger Sit: Derek Anderson, Brett Favre, Jason Campbell, Matt Cassel, Tyler Thigpen RB Start: Ronnie Brown, Matt Forte, Earnest Graham, Maurice Jones-Drew, Michael Turner Sit: Ryan Grant, Jamal Lewis, Cedric Benson, Steve Slaton WR Start: Plaxico Burress, Calvin Johnson, Donnie Avery, Kevin Curtis, Devin Hester, Anthony Gonzalez Sit: Donald Driver, Santana Moss, Terrell Owens, Bobby Engram, Joey Galloway, Randy Moss TE Start: Owen Daniels, Zach Miller, Greg Olsen Sit: Alex Smith, Heath Miller, Kellen Winslow Kicker Start: Stephen Gostkowski, David Akers, Robbie Gould Sit: Nick Folk, Mason Crosby D/ST Start: Eagles, Giants, Jaguars Sit: Cowboys,...

Happy Halloween, fantasy tricksters. I can't remember the last Halloween that was as warm and sunny as it is in Colorado today - it will be almost 80 today. Weather insanity. And it will still be really pleasant on Sunday when I head to Invesco Field to see the Broncos play the Dolphins. Can't wait. So here's the start or sit listing for today - I'll be back later this afternoon with my weekly consensus of all the start or sit lists I've linked to, so check back later today for more. NFL. com's Start 'em or Sit 'em for Week 9 FanNation's Start 'em, Sit 'em The Hazean's Start & Sit: Week 9 CBSSports ' Week 9 Start 'em and Sit 'em Bruno Boys' Start em & Sit em - Week 9 SportingNews . com's The Decider: Week 9 Starts and Sits FootballDocs ' Start Sit for Week 9 Pigskin Addiction's Weekly Studs and Duds Ask the Commish's Sit or Start Junkyard Jake's Bench/Start Fantasy Football Whiz's ...

The Thursday content continues to roll out so here are some links to a bunch of quality articles and videos: Starting on the video note, check out Hatty Waiver Wire Guru's Bye Week Blues video - Hatty lists 5 guys at QB, RB, WR and TE that could fill in nicely for you this week if you're in a pinch. I'm loving Hatty's optimism for Bo Scaife to be a top 5 TE for the week. The Fantasy Sports Forum has their Top Matchups to Exploit: Week 9 post up - I'm debating whether to start MJD or Tim Hightower ; both have sweet matchups and while I can't believe I'm considering sitting MJD for Hightower , MJD has just been so up and down this season even against pretty weak run defenses. The FSForum lists both guys as starters so I think I need to research this dilemma a little further... For more matchup exploitation suggestions, see ProFootballWeekly's Week Nine matchups to exploit or avoid - note that since this article was written, news has surfaced t...

This morning as I walked to my early voting polling place (yea for voting! just had to get that in there) I probably spent far too long contemplating which football player I felt I was most similar to in terms of my recent bowling performance. I'm going with Ryan Grant and here's why. Last year Grant showed us that he had the skills, he could be a top back (no, probably not elite, but still a solid player for your fantasy squad); I, too, have shown promise with some definite flashes of bowling prowess. But this year for Grant there have been questions about what happened to his explosiveness, maybe his injuries have been more daunting than first imagined, maybe his fumblitis is messing with his psyche, maybe the o-line is the real problem? As for me, my bowling skills have tanked over the past few weeks and I've been blaming everything from a blister on my foot to the bowling alley ball. But I think there's hope at the end of the tunnel for Grant and this bowling libra...

I can't help but feel for Taylor Mehlhaff - if you knew that by missing an extra point you would be fired, wouldn't you want that missed kick back with every ounce of your being? I mean sure, missing an extra point is egregious in the world of kicking but the guy hasn't been a disaster; he had made three of four field goal attempts and nine of ten extra points. I imagine there must've been something else going on there (maybe kickoffs?) since it just seems unnecessarily harsh to boot a guy after one missed extra point. Or maybe I'm just sensitive since it's bowling night and I fear my bowling team might send me packing if I don't get my act together. The woman who was originally on the team who injured her hand and thus led to my participation is now back. Since I've played with the team for a month though we're going to do a rotation that includes both of us - so I've gotta bring my A-game tonight before I go on a bowling bye for a week or two...

Greetings fantasy footballers, welcome to Tuesday. It has been a rough reality football season in my house lately - the Broncos fell apart last week; my Northwestern Wildcats lost to Indiana ( what?! ) while injuring their top two players; my husband's Tennessee Vols are a shadow of their former selves; and his Colts just lost a tough, tough game last night. Sad times for us in Boulder. I've reminded my husband that at least he's 8-0 in one of our FF leagues (I don't know anyone else in any of my 7 leagues that is 8-0 by the way; seems like more a rarity this year than usual) and I'm 7-1. He's more of a reality football than a fantasy football kind of guy though so I think that didn't help his spirits a whole lot. Fortunately my football sorrows can be assuaged by those sorts of comments so now I am focusing my energy on my fantasy teams. And my bowling form, don't you worry... Check out today's links, which are chock full o' waiver advice and ot...

With Halloween quickly approaching, last night we made our candy purchase for trick or treaters. We went with the monster bag of Starbursts and Skittles (btw, it is impossible to find a reasonably sized bag of candy for those of us who have about 6 trick or treaters max), which involves little packages of two Starbursts at a time - perfect for the snacker needing a quick sugar hit; not so perfect for me, the Starburst eater who really just wants the pink Starburst. I'd really rather not waste my time on the yellow, orange and red Starbursts, so when I've hit the double pink package, I feel like I've won a tiny lottery. In fact, in the past my husband has been known to open up a double pink package and trade me those two gems for about 17 Starbursts of different flavors. With fantasy trade deadlines on the horizon, this of course makes me think about fantasy football. Seriously, is there anything that doesn't make me think of FF? I would implore you all to think about f...

The RotoExperts' RotoRadio show starts at 11 am eastern and I will be on as their guest starting around 11:15. So give it a listen and send or call in any questions that you might have about starts and sits for the week. Or really anything else fantasy football related. Good luck today!

I've found a few more sites with start/sit suggestions to add to the list: ProFantasySports . com's Week 8 Start 'em/Bench 'em Report TheFantasyAdvisor's Start 'em Bench 'em Guru Gridiron Report's Bench/Start Advice I've looked at 16 start or sit advice sites that I've linked to throughout the week and done a tally of those players that are most frequently mentioned. They are as follows, in no particular order: QB Start: Matt Schaub , Jake Delhomme , Donovan McNabb , Jason Campbell, Jeff Garcia Sit: Eli Manning, David Garrard, Matt Ryan, Brad Johnson, Marc Bulger RB Start: Steve Slaton , Chris Johnson, Thomas Jones, Maurice Jones-Drew, LenDale White Sit: Darren McFaden / Fargas , Brandon Jacobs, Willie Parker, Dominic Rhodes, Michael Turner WR Start: Lee Evans, Randy Moss, Santana Moss, Vincent Jackson, DeSean Jackson, Antonio Bryant, Marques Colston Sit: Marvin Harrison, Torry Holt, Steve Breaston , Roddy White, Roy Williams TE Start: Owen ...

NFL. com's Start 'em or Sit 'em for Week 8 FanNation's Start 'em, Sit 'em The Hazean's Start & Sit: Week 8 CBSSports' Week 8 Start 'em and Sit 'em Bruno Boys' Start em & Sit em - Week 8 SportingNews.com's The Decider: Week 8 Starts and Sits FootballDocs' Start Sit for Week 8 Pigskin Addiction's Weekly Studs and Duds Ask the Commish's Sit or Start Junkyard Jake's Bench/Start Sports Outlaw's Week 8 Start 'em Sit 'em There are a couple of sites that don't have their start/sit advice up quite yet, so when those are available I'll do my weekly tally of which guys are listed most frequently for start or sit and will post again later today. In the meantime, if you need more reading material, check out my column for the Fifth Down this week, Fantasy Football, the Film .

My bowling performance last night was an unmitigated disaster. The only way to truly describe my actions would be very un-family friendly so instead just use your imagination. Think Denver Broncos on Monday Night - it was that bad. The worst part is, I don't even have an explanation other than the freaky left spin on the ball I've developed, but I think I'd need to see a bowling technique expert to get that ironed out. I need a motivational bowling speech, I think. I've busted out the Any Given Sunday "Inch by Inch" speech but now I'm just psyched for football to start this weekend. So any motivational speeches that will inspire me to bowling greatness next Wednesday are much appreciated. In the meantime, there are fantasy football challenges to be won, playoffs to be reached. So let's take a look at a few of my favorite articles for the week: Oh the starts and sits are rolling in my friends - try on RotoExperts' Start and Sit: Week Eight for siz...

I think my brain is only half-functioning this morning. It could be the wintry temps here in Boulder or it could be the fact that I was staring at an Excel doc for way too long last night - my husband is finishing up a PhD in the spring and is applying for jobs likely researching/teaching at a university for next fall. I'm helping him track all of the job openings because, get this, there are already 180 jobs that fit his parameters. Can you imagine that?! It's stunning really. So I'm dusting off some of my old mail merge and label-making skills to give him a hand. Unfortunately both my eyes and brain glazed over by the end of the night and I'm not sure I've recovered yet. If I don't finish sentences or have improper grammar ( no!) don't be surprised. Fortunately, there's a lot of good material out there. Waiver wire articles abound... Oh the Maniaxs . Despite their improbable spelling of maniacs, every week they pull through with some waiver advice for...

I've been postponing my blog for today because I just can't stand to type these words: the Broncos looked awful last night. What a disaster. Ugliest game I've seen in a long time. However, and I might be a little overly optimistic here, but at least it pretty much has to get better from here. Give the Broncos a little time to recover and hopefully not dwell too much on the absolute mess of a game they played last night...and they'll be a better team for it come Week 9. Now from a fantasy perspective, going into last night's game I was pretty sure I would be 6-1 for the week in my 7 fantasy leagues. The Cutler disaster ravished my teams though and I lost by 0.21 points in one league and 1 point in another. At least in a 3rd league I won by the skin of my teeth (0.9 points) and I ended up going 4-3 for the week. Let's take a look at some waiver wire and pickup advice for Week 8: Gregg Rosenthal's Pancake Blocks blog has a list of waiver adds in Updated Waiver...

I love a Monday Night Football game that involves the Broncos. And it's even better now that I've spent a long weekend with my sister and her fiance who are Pats fans; guaranteed I'll be texting some trash talk their way when the Broncos start scoring big. Speaking of teams that scored big - um, my Northwestern Wildcats thrashed Purdue this weekend. Nice! We are already bowl eligible; this is a crazy, mixed-up world that I'm not used to when Northwestern is bowl eligible in mid-October. But back to fantasy football. I might actually pull out a win in the league where I'm 0-6. I don't want to jinx it but if everything goes well, I should be 1-6 by tonight; sad that that makes me happy. I do have Sammy Morris and Wes Welker in that league so I'll be pulling for a big mess of scores tonight that somehow still ends in a Broncos victory... I know many of you are trying to figure out what to do with some remaining bye week holes in your lineup, so read up on thi...

Holla fantasy fans. Here are the consensus start or sit picks based on advice from 16 fantasy football experts that I linked to over the past few days - in no particular order, these players are the ones with the most start or sit votes from the experts. QB Start: Matt Schaub , Brad Johnson (though he also had a few sit votes), Trent Edwards, Jake Delhomme Sit: Jason Campbell, J.T. O'Sullivan , Chad Pennington RB Start: Steve Slaton , Chris Johnson, Sammy Morris, Ryan Grant Sit: Willis McGahee , Ronnie Brown, Julius Jones, Jamal Lewis WR Start: Lee Evans, Bernard Berrian , Torry Holt, Derrick Mason, Randy Moss, Wes Welker Sit: Dwayne Bowe , Devery Henderson, Bobby Engram, T.J. Houshmandzadeh , Lance Moore, Chad Johnson/ Ocho Cinco TE Start: Owen Daniels, Zach Miller Sit: John Carlson, Todd Heap, Tony Gonzalez, Vernon Davis, Alex Smith Kicker Start: Josh Brown, Kris Brown, Matt Bryant, John Kasay , Rob Bironas , Lawrence Tynes Sit: Jason Hanson D/ST Start: Texans, Dolphins, Bucs...

Here's a short & sweet look at the Week 7 start and sit recommendations out there. Remember that the FFNerd is out there, gathering an average of starts/sits if you're looking for one-stop shopping. Later tonight or tomorrow I'll be posting my consensus starts/sits, too, based on the links I've provided this week. The Hazean's Start& Sit CBSSports' Week 7 Start 'em and Sit 'em Fantasy Football Whiz's Start 'em - Sit 'em Week 7 Bruno Boys' Start em & Sit em - Week 7 SportingNews.com's The Decider: Week 7 Starts and Sits FootballDocs' Start Sit for Week 7 Fighting Chance Fantasy's Who to Start, Who to Sit Pigskin Addiction's Weekly Studs and Duds Fantasy Football Maniaxs' Week 7 Start/Sit The Mac Bros' Start or Sit Week 7 Rankings ProFootballWeekly Start or Sit Not a start/sit column, but here's a link to my weekly article from the NY Times, Fantasy Football: Wisdom of Elders . And some IDP advice co...

Greetings from Grand Rapids. I'm enjoying the Red Sox v. Rays game with some of my family after a rocking 90 th birthday dinner for my grandpa. But don't think the birthday dinners stop here - there's another dinner tomorrow night and then a party on Saturday night, which will involve 47 people. It's clear my grandparents are the most popular people I know. I mean 47 people?! That's incredibly impressive for a 90 th birthday. Anyway, thanks for being patient with the links for today. Read on for some of the excellent start and sits out there - I'll be back with more tomorrow afternoon as well as my consensus start/sit list. ProFantasySports . com's Start 'em/Bench 'Em Report is precisely the place to go if you're looking for a thorough analysis of each game and the players you should be starting and sitting. This (as always) impressively addresses each matchup . Kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of thoroughness is Ask the ...

So I'm gearing up for my final trip during what I'm what I'm referring to as Sara's Month of Excellent Adventures - on this trip I'll sadly be back in coach but have my husband's company to keep me entertained as we head to good ol' Grand Rapids, Michigan, for that 90th birthday extravaganza I mentioned. I'm probably cursing myself by saying this, but of my three trips in the past month so far, every single flight has been on time or early. Can I keep the streak alive?! Speaking of keeping streaks alive, I've got a bit of a winning thing going on in one league with some other fantasy football industry folks (5-1 baby!) but have a few bye holes to plug up - so let's take a look at some of the waiver wire suggestions and start/sit advice out there: The RotoExperts' Waiver Wire Tips: The Pickup Artist article takes some serious creativity. Read it for its entertainment value (though I can't actually recommend you use any of the pickup lines...

I grew up in northern Virginia and used to try to work my but-I'm-still-south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line roots by listening to country. Didn't work, my true southerner husband laughs if I claim I'm from the south but I will still listen to country when the mood strikes. So last night I beat my good friend Pat in one league by 0.14 points (brilliant!) and kept thinking about Mary Chapin Carpenter's song with the line "sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug" in it...I was totally the windshield last night - I don't think I have ever won by such a small margin. However if you found yourself on the losing end of a fantasy matchup this weekend, take solace in the fact that you're not alone: I am now 0-6 in one league. Horrific, no? It's an absolute disaster of a league for me. The Gridiron blog has some humorous thoughts in Fantasy Woes that I think we can probably all relate to on some level. Anyway, in addition to watching ...

I'm sure you're seeing this in a bunch of places but this is big news, so let's just double up, shall we? Tony Romo is out for four weeks with a broken right pinkie finger . Damn the pinkie. I'll look at schedules and start putting my thinking cap on for QBs you might want to snag to replace him for the next few weeks...

Hey remember how I was complaining about the humidity of south Florida a few days ago? Yeah well Mother Nature has had her way with me - I stepped off the plane last night in Colorado to a light dusting of snow and temps in the upper 30s. I mean, what just happened? Gotta love it. Except when you're oh say a Randy Moss owner and you're watching Moss go from red hot and humid last season to cold and snowy this year. I don't think the numbers he put up last night are indicative of the rest of the season, but the Moss of 2007 has officially left the building. Not that I actually got to see that game or anything more than a few highlights, though I did watch more football yesterday than I was expecting to see - the Dallas v. Arizona game was even on in the airport and I had my iPhone working furiously to get me the Denver game updates. Some crazy stuff went down in the 4 th quarter of games yesterday - if you missed anything, not to fear. Lots of sites out there have some soli...

I'm still slowly waking up from a deep sleep post- bachelorette party night (it involved the mechanical bull and my sister dancing on stage not once but twice - more on that later) but I thought I'd try and get a few last minute decisions and Q&A links up since I failed to do the consensus start/sit for you all this weekend. Rotoworld's Too Much Too Soon - includes game time decisions KFFL's Sunday Morning Report The Bruno Boys' Live Q&A starting at 11:30 am eastern The Hazean's Live fantasy football chat on Sunday starting at 12:30 eastern (you'll need a Skype account) I'll be back tomorrow morning with some recaps and wavier advice. I'll be flying back to Colorado tonight during the Sunday night game and while I'm psyched to be back in first class, I'm bummed I won't be on Frontier where I could be watching the game on my own little tv . Good luck with today's games!

I don't mean to harp on this, but could a city be any more humid than Ft. Lauderdale is right now? No complaints, I'm digging it, but WOW. Now I need to be brief here since I have a date with my grandmother in just an hour or so...and a date with the shower since I still haven't managed to make it out of my pajamas yet (man, I love vacations!). So onto starts and sits: NFL. com's Start 'em or Sit 'em for Week 6 CBSSports ' Week 6 Start 'em and Sit 'em Fantasy Football Whiz's Start 'em - Sit 'em Week 6 Bruno Boys' Start em & Sit em - Week 6 FanNation's Start 'em, Sit 'em SportingNews . com's The Decider FootballDocs ' Start Sit for Week 6 Pigskin Addiction's Weekly Studs and Duds Fantasy Football Maniaxs ' Week 6 Start/Sit RotoExperts' Start and Sit: Week Six The Mac Bros' Start or Sit Week 6 Rankings I'll try to get a consensus up as well as some IDP links later today, but could be a lit...

Greetings from Ft. Lauderdale where it's so humid, my Colorado skin has no idea what hit it. I'm going to look like a member of an 80s hair band soon if this keeps up. Or Troy Polamalu . My dad and I are having dinner with an aunt soon and then picking up my sister tonight at the airport - the family fun ends tomorrow and my sister's gaggle of friends arrive for the bachelorette fun. Right now though I'm really digging the down time with the fam . So let's get to some football - thanks for being patient with my travels today. The AccuScore guy and I don't see eye to eye on Marion Barber (for my thoughts on why he won't be a top 10 RB by the end of the season, see my column from the Bruno Boys ) but I do really like most of the analysis in NFL Trade Market so take a look if you're in the market for mixing your team up a bit. GridironGremlins . com's Champs & Chumps is up for Week 6 - take a look at this fleshed out list and see what you thin...

Hi fantasy friends - I'm about to head off to my bowling league for the night where I swear I play better when the jukebox is rocking out some Whitesnake , but first I wanted to post a couple of FFLibrarian-related afternoon links for you. My daily blog with FantasyPlayers.com is up, No Bull From the Fantasy Librarian , where I discuss my crazy sister and of course more football links with advice on sleepers, busts and who's hot for Week 6. And my weekly A Librarian's Touch column with the Bruno Boys is up - Which Top 10 Running Backs will remain strong in 2008? I looked at the top 10 RBs at this point one year ago compared to the top ten at the end of the 2007 season - 7 of the 10 were already set at this point last year. While I'm sure that number varies year to year, I looked at which 3 RBs I don't think will make the top 10 cut come January. Also, while I won't have a blog up here until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, my blog on FantasyPlayers.com wil...

For years and years my dad wrote for the National Geographic, which not surprisingly, had him traveling across the world accruing about a billion airline miles; the man is forever ensconced as an elite member of multiple airline mileage clubs. Tomorrow morning I shall reap some of those benefits by flying first class to Miami on miles. Since I'm one of those really annoying people who likes to get to the airport with a lot of time and then sits at the gate, full of angst over whether or not my suitcase will fit in the overhead compartment, this is going to be a treat. I fully intend to use the first class security line and early boarding privileges; maybe I can even board twice to double my pleasure at this awesome experience. Anyway, I likely won't have a post up tomorrow until late in the afternoon/evening since my flight is early enough that it requires leaving my house at 5:30 am. Sorry guys, just not sure I can wake at 4 just to get a blog post up. So let's jump right ...

I said goodbye to the meebo chat window on the right side of the blog today. Now if there's an outpouring of love from you all for that chat window, then by all means, let it be known in the comments and I will bring the chat back. But I haven't been able to keep up with the chat and it seems unfair to you all to offer a place for advice and then never get back to you. So instead, I have disabled the chat feature and am hoping that instead you all will use the contact me button to e-mail me OR leave comments on blog posts. I am much better equipped to answer those queries and feel like I'll be providing better fantasy football advice that way. Let me know if this brings you great chat sorrow and perhaps I'll resurrect it once a week for a chat afternoon or something. Now to the weekly update on the FFLibrarian's Challenge in the NBC Sports' $100K Fantasy Challenge , here are the top 5 teams as of this week: Lab Teh Big Red Dogs Copycats Micksauce Law Dawgs