Fantasy Football Dating App: Week 7

Every Sunday morning, fantasy owners face similar choices to the ones "dating" app users do on Saturday night. When faced with lots of options, do you want to swipe left and pass on potential opportunity or do you want to swipe right and open the door for exciting possibilities? Each week, we'll talk about specific players and what you should do with them (particularly when setting your daily fantasy lineups).

Swipe Left

Eli Manning

Selecting a QB in daily fantasy football is similar to booking a hotel room. You can decide exactly where you want to stay, call the front desk and make your reservations, trading the possibility of saving money on the internet for a fairly predictable experience. Or you can go to a website that won't even tell you the name of the hotel until you have already agreed to pay for it in exchange for a significant price reduction. Sometimes you end up at the same place either way, sometimes you end up at a glorified rat trap where everything is inexplicably wet. Picking Eli is like taking the gamble, but still paying full price. He looked completely lost on Monday night against an Eagles defense that isn't scaring anyone. Now he's among the five most expensive QBs against a team that held him under ten fantasy points once already this season. I'll pass and gladly go with cheaper options such as Carson Palmer, Philip Rivers or even Matthew Stafford instead.

Joseph Randle

Randle was a popular name in the preseason due to the Cowboys offensive line and the departed Demarco Murray's previous production. He rewarded his believers by exploding for three scores against Atlanta, and putting up some other solid weeks too. I still like Randle in season-long leagues, but it looks like Jerry Jones might not share my opinion. Rumors swirled during the Cowboys bye week that Randle could lose some carries to Christine Michael, while Darren McFadden will remain in the mix as well. As a result, the prudent play is to stay away for a week to see if those rumors have legs, or are just more hot air in Dallas.

Dion Lewis

Donating all your money to Kanye's presidential campaign would be a better financial strategy than betting against New England's offense this year, but this week is finally a stay away for some of the Pats. The Jets have allowed the fewest fantasy points in the league on the ground, and while Lewis does a lot of his damage in the air, New York has done a great job of eliminating catches out of the backfield as well. With LeGarrette Blount handling most of the rushing duties in a game that is likely going to be a slugfest, there are a lot safer places to spend a hefty $6,500 chunk of your budget.

Swipe Right

Martavis Bryant

I'll be honest—all three of the swipe right slots would best be used on Todd Gurley, but this article would be pointless if I just wrote about him every week. Ok, fine—more pointless. Instead, let's liven it up by talking about another one of the NFL's most exciting players. Martavis Bryant was a monster last week, single-handedly shredding the Cardinals defense for 137 yards and two scores. Now that the Steelers inability to throw the deep ball has been buried on the bench next to Michael Vick, Bryant and Antonio Brown have a chance to once again do what they do best. At only $4,700, if Landry Jones continues to target Bryant with anywhere near 40% of his throws, as he did this past Sunday, Bryant stands to be on a lot of winning tickets. Count me among the believers.

Philip Rivers

Philip Rivers doesn't play football in an aesthetically pleasing way, but thanks to volume, he ends up with beautiful numbers. He's basically the equivalent of the old 30-carry workhorse back that ends up with 100 yards by doing little more than falling forward. Last week, he nearly broke the NFL record for completions with 43 on 65 (65!) attempts. Melvin Gordon rode the bench after fumbling twice and there is no reason to believe he's suddenly going to log 25 carries. With the ground game grounded in San Diego, Rivers will continue put the ball in the air a ton, leading to healthy daily dividends.

Lamar Miller

Running back production relies equally on talent and opportunity. Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson couldn't even succeed without his number getting called and we've seen plenty of backs produce nothing no matter how many carries they receive (*cough* Trent Richardson *cough*). Miller showed last year that he has the talent to carry a healthy share of the offensive load, but former coach Joe Philbin didn't seem interested in leveraging it. Dan Campbell (who has perhaps the saddest coaching tree I've ever seen) demonstrated in his first game that he's ready to saddle up Miller and ride him to success. Until about three weeks pass and the markets adjust to this philosophy shift, you should consider doing the same.