The Costanza Method: Playing Fantasy Football The George Costanza Way, Week 8

The NBA has officially kicked off, which is tremendous news, but it also means your boy's bedtime has formally shifted two hours into the Negative Zone. Those on Pacific Standard Time may not realize this, but the NBA, a league where most of the good games are played in the Western Conference, is kind of a nightmare to follow for anyone east of the Mississippi. Weed's not legal here, either.

A recent addition to the few pleasures of living in this part of the world is the newly established early NFL game in London. What could be better than waking up to football—even when it is bad, jet-lagged football, which it mostly is—and having a built-in excuse to lower your fatherly participation levels to 5.5 or 6.0 for the entire day? (Of course, our PST friends have long known the joys of morning football.) Well, legal weed, maybe, but we've been over that. Try to keep up, Hendrix; we're doing a column here.

The curious thing about analysis that revolves partially around the conceit that nobody knows anything and we're all just guessing is that sustained failure becomes a good deal simpler to explain than occasional success. A few weeks ago, when our returns were rather Madoffian, it was easy to chalk it up to a validation of our philosophy: "Of course I failed, that's what the model predicts!"

Of course, fantasy analysis in general is an enterprise with a rather low bar of success, all things considered. As a result, one would expect an expert (to stretch the term beyond any useful meaning) whose philosophy is to go against the grain whenever possible to experience a variance in result that's higher than the already quite high industry average. Perhaps that will bear out over the long term.

Until then, though: wheeeeeeeee! WE'RE KILLIN' IT OUT HERE!

Last Week's Fistpumps and Faceplants

Ryan Fitzpatrick, 21.7pts - 8th QB ++

Sam Bradford, 7.8pts - 22nd QB --

T.Y. Hilton, 34pts, - 2nd WR +++

Amari Cooper, 33.4pts - 3rd WR +++

Mike Evans, 27.3pts - 4th WR +++

Antonio Brown, 22pts - 9th WR ++

Chris Johnson, 21.2pts, - 9th RB ++

LeVeon Bell, 20.7pts - 11th RB ++

Shane Vereen, 7.2pts - 31st RB --

You're picking up on the fact that the + and - represent positive and negative results, respectively, right? It's fairly intuitive, I think, to use a plus sign to indicate positivity, but we've never discussed it or laid out any guidelines for usage. In summation, there are no guidelines. All symbols are subject to my whims.

For instance, I gave myself an unprecedented Triple Plus rating this week for recommending three of the top four receivers, which is, in all likelihood, the apex of success for this column or anyone else's. If you would otherwise have started Nate Washington, then I am sorry, but I think those guys did right by you, if you took them. Hilton, Cooper, Evans, and Brown alone nabbed about 117 points, and although DraftKings is apparently no longer publishing the Millionaire Maker winner's roster, perhaps out of spite, it's fair to say that those four fellas would have had you well on your way to a winning total. For next week, I like:

Aaron Rodgers, QB, Packers - $7,500

Chalk this one up to Amari Cooper going Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan on the then best-against-receivers Chargers defense on Sunday. Unlike San Diego, the Denver defense is no paper tiger: Football Outsiders concurs that the Broncos can and will get after you in the passing game. On the other hand, who gives a shit? It's Aaron Rodgers. He's not gonna throw zero TDs on Sunday Night Football, right? Don't outthink yourself here, genius.

Ben Roethlisberger, QB, Steelers - $6,700

Big Ben on one leg is more productive than most nominally bipedal quarterbacks—quarterbacks like, to pick a totally random example, Joe "The Hell Are You Looking At" Flacco. Did you watch this clown trot out the full arsenal of dirtballs and float-illas on Monday night? Half of his throws looked like Razor Ramon promos and the other half were Wiffle Ball commercials. Flacco's completions, if he even had any, were obviously happy accidents, like when you try to throw your water bottle away and it accidentally goes in the recycling bin you didn't even see on the other side of the garbage.

Look, this guy couldn't have a shittier delivery if he drove a DHL van with his dick, is what I'm saying.

Folks, Ravens receivers are so used to not catching anything they stopped getting vaccinated.

And I'm not saying Joe Flacco is inaccurate, but the Ravens print a retraction in the box score after every game.

Now, what were we talking about again?

Darren McFadden, RB, Cowboys - $3,800

Most of the picks we discuss in this space fall into a few discrete categories. The guy who is good but has a "bad matchup" is one. The guy who we think is good but has looked bad recently is another. The guy who is bad but we're in a gambling mood—that's probably 99 percent of players worth considering. McFadden, for his part, is in a category all his own: the guy who 1) is fairly bad and 2) also has a bad matchup and 3) is probably a dozen carries away from cracking his right knee open like a particularly brittle pistachio. As ever, this negative perception works in our favor. Seattle continues to not be as good as their reputation would indicate, yet few players are going to feel like chancing McFadden's inevitable regression against them.

C.J. Anderson, RB, Broncos - $4,300

This is purely a gut play, because Anderson has looked downright stinky by basically every conceivable metric this year. Given the way Denver treats its RBs (Montee, if you're reading this, please send a postcard) and the increasingly disposable nature of the position in general, it's sadly not an exaggeration at all that this could very well be Anderson's last shot at making a career of it. You drafted this guy in the first round in your full-season league! Isn't that infuriating? Hopefully he thinks so, too, and something clicks for him against the Packers. Hopefully for us, but maybe more hopefully for him.

Frank Gore, RB, Colts - $4,800

Marshawn Lynch, RB, Seahawks - $7,100

Lynch had his first decent game against the 49ers in Week 7, but is still more costly to play than just four active backs in the DraftKings pool. This seems to be the way of Beast Mode, for better or worse: nearly always a high work rate, but variably effective, with bouts of sideline nausea interspersed throughout. Though he did miss a couple of games, he'll need to score about 10 TDs over his final nine contests to reach his recent average. I think he gets at least one against the Cowboys, and maybe all 10.

Tavon Austin, WR, Rams - $4,600

I've highlighted Austin before in this space, but I just can't get away from his, well, highlight potential. He's got sort of a big fish, small pond thing going on, in that his 43 receiving yards led St. Louis last week and that this total is nothing to write home about. But he's so easy to overlook (for opposing defenses, too, to his credit) that a big game could really blast you up the standings. It doesn't hurt that the Niners couldn't cover a burger with a bun bazooka, either.

Eric Decker, WR, Jets - $5,300

A less tactful fantasy analyst might suggest that Decker is the "safety" date you always keep in your back pocket in case you strike out with someone you're truly interested in. I, on the other hand, have been with my wife since junior high; I couldn't navigate today's dating world with a compass and one of those dogs you're allowed to take on planes. So I will instead say that Decker's consistency reminds me of the Mexican Pizza from Taco Bell. Is it great? No. It doesn't look like much either, but it's decent, and if you're drunk you can remember what it's called. That's good enough for me.

Stevie Johnson, WR, Chargers - $3,200

Steve Smith, Sr., WR, Ravens - $6,100

I know what I said about Flacco, who looks (and plays football) like a less athletic Jimmy Fallon, but Steve Smith is basically a pass-catching Golem. He doesn't age; he doesn't tire. All he does is catch passes, be they flung in the dirt or lofted through the goddamned troposphere like a runaway blimp. Using an advanced imaging process known as "screenshotting," I've taken the liberty of adding competitive context to Smith's selection.

Imagine how comparatively juicy that A.J. Green matchup must seem to your opponents. Fine. They can have the uber stud with the creampuff opponent; we'll take our chances with the Ancient One.

It's Halloween on Saturday. Believe it or not, some folks, God bless 'em, see things like death, horror, and evil as genuine attributes of Halloween, and not just adjectives on a blister pack of fake gore from the pop-up costume store in the old Circuit City building. Not to generalize, but I imagine that these people are more spiritual and traditional, statistically speaking, than your average haunted house fan. While they may not outright fear the holiday of Snickers and plastic witches, they do not relish it.

Differences are what make the world go round, I'm saying, and there's no real reason to worry about the folks who have their porch lights turned off when you take your kids through the rich neighborhood. They're doing their thing; you're doing yours. In fact, those people being in bed at 9 PM, with the curtains drawn and ABC Family not on means there's more candy for your kids! Don't TP their Japanese Maples for being different. Thank them. Thank them with toilet paper.

Your Call-Ups:

Marcus Mariota, QB, Titans

This is probably more of 2-QB League play, and frankly if you're not in one of those, consider stepping up your game the tiniest bit; it's the future. Mariota is talented, he's coming off an injury, and he's playing the Texans, who obviously think there's some kind of positive correlation between losing by 20 points and earning new fans.

Colin Kaepernick, QB, 49ers

Jay Cutler, QB, Bears

Andre Ellington, RB, Cardinals

Before CJ2K inexplicably revived his career in the desert, Ellington looked primed for a breakout year. I'm rooting for Johnson, of course, as a Titans fan who believes the team's current malaise is not due to its roster as much as it's a product of the ownership going through an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind phase some 800 miles away in Houston. But let's reckon with the possibility that Johnson, who even in his heyday worked in fits and starts, could fall off the proverbial cliff, and hedge with the 36th-ranked back on the board.

Rashad Jennings, RB, Giants

Eddie Lacy, RB, Packers

These two guys have almost identical stats so far, although Jennings has played in one more game: around 70 touches for 260 yards and a score. That's not too good, of course, but the ESPN experts have approximately a 15-place gap between the two! Why?! Well, for one thing, there's not much separating the 15th- and 30th-best backs right now (just 20-odd points in my league), but it's also, I'd submit, because they don't know anything! Jennings has the better matchup and Lacy the better season average to this point, but they could both conceivably pull themselves out of the doldrums this week. Yes, I'm saying there's a chance.

Nate Washington, WR, Texans

The Texans could score 50 and still lose by 20 is the takeaway here.

Brandon LaFell, WR, Patriots

LaFell did not exactly set the world on fire in his season debut against the Jets, connecting with Brady on just two of eight targets and mixing in some hilariously brutal drops, but the Patriots looked out of sorts more or less throughout the entire game. Moreover, I'm inclined to believe that the Brady-Belichick system is efficient enough to make replacement-level guys (Amendola) into good players, and good players (Edelman) into stars, which means that LaFell (normal) could have a significant breakout in his second week back from injury.

Crockett Gillmore, TE, Ravens

I hate to double down on Ravens receivers after the drive-by I just perpetrated on their quarterback, but I can't help it. In every Baltimore loss—more than a few of those, by the way!—Gillmore has averaged at least 10 yards per catch, which is nearly double Flacco's overall average per attempt, and half the number of times I call the inconsistent QB a "dirty bum" every week. It ain't much, but it's better than you'd expect from the 21st-ranked tight end, and for a bye-week plug-in that's plenty.