Click here for RB fantasy advice
Here鈥檚 a tip if you want to get hits and clicks on your new inter-web site:
Write about positions that matter to fantasy football players.
I stumbled onto that gold mine Monday when Le鈥橵eon Bell told me he wants to play next week, but might not be able to.
That simple and innocuous tweet raked in over 30 new followers.
It took me eight months of draft talk to reel in my other 30.
So I wanted to extend this into another day and I turned on Mike Tomlin鈥檚 press conference for some hot news to tweet around. But I was interrupted by the following text from an angry fantasy football player in Connecticut:
鈥淲ill you tell them to get a running back for crying out loud!鈥�
I wanted to text him back to guide his next few drafting steps, but someone at the press conference suddenly asked Tomlin why he cut Jonathan Dwyer. Tomlin said, 鈥淚t was about what we thought the other guys could give us.鈥�
And then Tomlin laid it all out, most likely in order of his preference, just in time for not only my angst-ridden fantasy player, but all of them.
Here are the players he named, in order, and any ensuing (and hopefully significant) comment:
1. Le鈥橵eon Bell 鈥渉as that (second-round) pedigree.鈥�
2. Isaac Redman 鈥渉as done some nice things for us situationally 鈥� short-yardage and goal line.鈥�
3. LaRod Stephens-Howling 鈥渉as some really consistent hands and showed some third-down capability.鈥�
4. Felix Jones 鈥渉as first-round pedigree and quickly proved he could do some positive things in terms of running the football and placing the ball where it鈥檚 supposed to go.鈥�
It鈥檚 the order that I would have guessed, with the first three having their niche and the last one able to back all of them up. I could鈥檝e texted that back to Connecticut without Tomlin鈥檚 help, but the coach added strength and support to my argument.
So this is how I synthesized all of the information and summed it up, fantasy style, in my reply:
鈥淲atch out for Isaac Redman. He鈥檚 starting this week, and with Dwyer gone he鈥檒l get a long look. People think Bell will be back for the second game, but I don鈥檛. He may even miss more time. By then Redman could prove self. In GREAT shape and Tomlin just said his specialty is short-yardage and goal line, so he鈥檒l at least have that when Bell returns.
鈥淒on鈥檛 get me wrong. Tomlin LOVES Bell. But he won鈥檛 kill him like he did Willie Parker. He likes him too much to burn him out.鈥�
LOL, ROTFL, heh heh, ha ha, long may Twitter and Fantasy Football live.