Thursday Night Thoughts
Byron Lambert, Rosterwatch.com

I was offered an intriguing trade. The centerpiece involving me giving up Brandon Lloyd for Jordy Nelson. Yes, this is the territory we have moved in to with Nelson. He looks that good and more importantly buying stock in Aaron Rodgers is pretty smart. In the end, Nelson is the #2 WR in GB but still one of many great options for Rodgers. I have to stick with Lloyd as he is the true #1 in Denver. He is just rounding in to shape from an early season hammy and really looked to come on last week. Comparing the numbers, yardage is very similar and the TDs are the difference. Nelson 3 vs. Lloyd 0. I expect this to change since Lloyd has good size and is a high point hands catcher, making him a good redzone target.

Ocho Cinco is for sure drop-able and I recommend doing so if you see anyone else on your waiver wire you would like to experiment with.

We need to keep an eye on Fred Davis after a couple of stinkers. This may ultimately be too volatile of a situation to rely on or predict. If that is the case he becomes drop-able too.

Speaking of TE’s, I am wondering if Dustin Keller is going down the same road as last year: a MONSTER start only to fade as the season progresses. I hope not and do not think so but it is worth noting and monitoring. Keller owners may need to ramp up their watch efforts for sleeper TEs on their wire.

With the Ravens Defense on bye in my brother’s 16 team league, even though that waiver wire is as dry as TX, I was unable to unearth a bye week diamond. The Cincinnati Bengals Defense, we like ‘em at Rosterwatch.com.

If your league plays an IDP and has standard scoring I look for LBs that get a lot of tackles and are playing in games you expect to be run oriented. If that doesn’t work look for play making safeties that can get you: tackles, sacks, fumbles, ints, or TDs. Also look for a run oriented match-up there. Last but not least you can look for DE or pass rushing OLBs that have juicy QB match-ups.

When evaluating free agents do not stop at just looking at total points. Make sure to sort by average points to account for differences in games played and also make sure to put your eyes on the game log.

I’ve had to do a lot of looking at these WRs: Antonio Brown, Dexter McCluster (in some formats), Jacoby Ford, Titus Young. For now that is the order I like them in but they all look like good options this week and could be solid moving forward.

A LeGarrette Blount + Brandon Jacobs package, or something to that effect, could probably net you a RB in the: Fred Jackson, Ryan Matthews, AP, Burner Turner, MJD range. I would draw the line at AP and am still not sure I would do that. A lot would depend on other circumstances.