Articles
Auction Draft Strategies and Tips
It’s a hell of a thing to get caught in a legitimate auction moment that sends your whole draft on tilt, but much like the premise of “nobody wants to hear about your fantasy league,” similarly no one wants to hear about the time you messed up a strategy that was really important to you. […]
Cliff Clinton 3 years agoResetting the Rules - How Fantasy Leagues Can Cope with COVID
Out, out, out, in, in, in, in, in, in, out, in, out, in, in, out, in, out, out, out, in, in. That’s not me working as a bouncer for the pretend nightclub I started in my house (it’s me and my wife and my two dogs, no Darren Waller fundraiser situation here,) it’s me seeing […]
Cliff Clinton 4 years agoWhat Do You Do With Melvin Gordon?
Two things have made Melvin Gordon such a treasured fantasy asset in his career: reliability and workload. Back in the days when fantasy football players were spending assets on guys like Arian Foster and Eddie Lacy, it was more important that the player you had drafted was staying on the field consistently. The 2015-2017 version […]
Cliff Clinton 5 years agoAround the League Pop Quiz: NFC West
I always enjoy saving the NFC West for last because, in a lot of ways, it's always felt the closest to home for me. I grew up in Orange County, California, born right before the Raiders and the Rams made their way west. Even though my city was an hour south of Los Angeles, the […]
Cliff Clinton 5 years agoAround The NFL Pop Quiz: NFC East
We're officially in the last week of preseason. Cuts are done. There are very few "sleepers" that haven't been written about, or who you can get at an affordable price. So I'll save the long, drawn-out introduction for my last article in this series. For now, thanks for reading this long, and if you're yet […]
Cliff Clinton 5 years agoAround the League Pop Quiz: NFC South
I've been a little jaded writing some of these articles, not for any reason other than wondering if the creeping feeling of "everyone is listening to/writing all of the same advice" was starting to creep in a little heavier. I had many of the same sleepers/avoids as Matthew Berry, I've been tending to agree with […]
Cliff Clinton 5 years agoAround the NFL Pop Quiz: AFC West
The average NFL career is 3.3 years. This isn't every guy on the training camp type misleading analysis, this is for the guys who make the opening day roster, though as Terry Crews reminded the cast of "Ask Me Another" on a recent episode, sometimes it takes a guy (like Crews) seven real years to […]
Cliff Clinton 5 years agoAround the NFL Pop Quiz: NFC North
In an effort to write these columns before the start of the season, I ask a lot of people their thoughts on everyone under the sun in fantasy. None of these interactions are as rewarding when I ask my wife her thoughts on her favorite team, the Green Bay Packers. They aren't, uh, thorough. Me: […]
Cliff Clinton 5 years agoAround the NFL Pop Quiz: AFC South
There are some sleepers that I personally won't recommend. I refer to it as the "friends at work" rule. If you're reading this, you play fantasy football. If you play fantasy football, you're likely to talk about it with someone else. If you talk about it with someone else, it's very likely that at the […]
Cliff Clinton 5 years agoAround the NFL Pop Quiz: AFC North
My wife and I have started to watch Hard Knocks again, as is tradition along with writing these columns and bickering with my fantasy football league about rule changes that we don't need as much as would like to spar about for no reason other than we're all in our late 20's now and act […]
Cliff Clinton 5 years agoAround the NFL Pop Quiz: AFC East
In 2018, after writing some uninspiring articles prompting me to wonder if I was producing anything of value or simply parroting the same advice that most of the fantasy internet had already trumpeted, I challenged myself. Not in any sort of meaningful way, like losing the excess weight or teaching myself coding or something like […]
Cliff Clinton 5 years agoDynasty Football Mock Draft Analysis (Rounds 4-9)
As we await the Super Bowl, the RotoBaller staff has already started preparing for the 2019 season with a Way Too Early Dynasty League Startup Mock Draft. We've just put a bow on this thing, after spending the last couple of weeks making excuses about each pick, insulting each other, and generally having the time […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoWho Will (Try to) Replace Melvin Gordon?
The fifth-best running back in PPR through 11 weeks. A seven-game touchdown streak. Your RB1. The engine that made the Los Angeles Chargers run. You could call Melvin Gordon a lot of things, and for fantasy purposes, there aren't a lot of worse losses in 2018. Hell, I've seen more than once the equivalent of […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoRebuilding Your Dynasty Franchise Through the Trade Market
I have six fantasy leagues. When I get asked my co-workers and friends like clockwork on Monday how I did each weekend in fantasy, my answer is almost always 5-1, or 4-2. Sure, I've had a week or two where I've gotten to say "undefeated" casually while I pour the coffee into my cup without looking, super […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years ago2018 Mid-Season Fantasy Football Awards
Like Ty Montgomery deciding haphazardly to come out of the end zone and getting himself shipped off to Baltimore, I'm here to talk about mid-season rankings. You'll be reminded time and time again that the season is technically halfway over, including the postseason, which can either be a reassuring thought as you attempt to go […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoFantasy Football Pop Quiz - Week 6 Lineup
In an effort to expand my horizons, I've gotten involved with a bit of a... strange club at work. It came up organically, one co-worker to another, over a quick in-office chat. How familiar was I with card games? Oh yeah, I knew where this was going. "Pretty good," I said, "and even when I'm […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoFantasy Football Pop Quiz - Week 5 Lineup Questions
Normally I try to write this column somewhere around mid-week, usually in the vein of trying to spend some quality time with my wife, work out a reasonable amount, and get my dog to stop biting my hand long enough to tire her out. Usually it doesn't mean I wait until Thursday to meet that […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoWeek 4 Lineup Questions - Fantasy Football Pop Quiz
We are officially in the BYE week zone. Yes, three weeks in, we're reminded that the NFL tends to structure it's BYE weeks somewhat unevenly, and just as harshly, we've probably built our teams unevenly as well. Almost every fantasy platform you use to draft shows you what the BYE week is for every player, […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoWeek 3 Lineup Questions - Fantasy Football Pop Quiz
Last year about this time, I challenged myself to ask the question about fantasy players: do I believe something, or can I prove it? The idea remains pretty simple, that its nearly impossible to really prove something about a guy only two weeks in, and that if you can somehow prove it now, it's imperative to act on it. […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoWeek 2 Lineup Questions - Fantasy Football Pop Quiz
I tend to abide by a pretty simple rule when it comes to drafting players; unless something is unexpectedly wrong with them, I don't make a lot of shifts between Weeks 1 and 2 (or through Week 3, for that matter.) If you drafted Mike Williams and he didn't get as much target share as […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoFantasy Football Pop Quiz - Week 1 Lineup Questions
It's officially in the air. For the beginners, you've logged your first draft, you've probably looked at your lineup a few dozen times, and you're just waiting to see what happens next. For the veterans, it's just the beginning. There are enough good or great drafts in everyone's books, but the truth is well known; […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoFantasy Football Pop Quiz - NFC East
There may be no more exciting division for fantasy football production than the NFC East. It's true today and it was true in 2017, though the headlines have changed slightly. The Dallas Cowboys looked like the favorite after handing over the reigns fully to Dak Prescott, the Washington Redskins were finally going to unleash Josh […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoFantasy Football Pop Quiz - NFC West
Call me a little biased. Ok, call me a lot biased. But as a San Francisco 49ers fan who is totally not upset about the Jerick McKinnon thing, I'm most optimistic about the NFC West and all the potential that it holds for fantasy football. Even if there's a visible gap in top talent and […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoFantasy Football Pop Quiz - NFC South
It's about time for the NFC South to get rolling again, with another year of high expectations that the division will almost certainly have a hard time living up to. Matt Ryan and the Atlanta Falcons. Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers. Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints. A fourth team that I'm contractually […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoFantasy Football Pop Quiz - NFC North
In an effort to write these columns before the start of the season, I thought I'd get some help on this issue. So I asked my wife, who is a big Green Bay Packers fan, what her thoughts were on the 2018 fantasy football season. As a note, my wife is a highly regarded researcher […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoFantasy Football Pop Quiz - AFC West
It's been a long time since it looked like this Western conference was the best in the whole division. What, with their talent on both offense and defense, their litany of stars and excitement, and so many amazing options at both RB, so much..... Oh, the AFC West. My apologies. They are, uh, mostly fine. But really, […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoFantasy Football Pop Quiz - AFC South
In lieu of a fun, clever fantasy football related story to get you excited about the AFC South, the best division I've covered so far in this series, I'll simply show you an email I received from my grandmother, who was giving my mother fantasy football advice. Before reading, take a second and think about […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoFantasy Football Pop Quiz - AFC North
Mrs. Clinton (my wife, not the politician) is a die-hard Green Bay Packers fan, so when she tells you that the players she wants on her team for her second fantasy season are among the many Lambeau Leapers, you might just smile politely and roll your eyes. But she'll also happily tell you about how […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoFantasy Football Pop Quiz - AFC East
I was not ready to come back to fantasy football. I suspected that to be the case when I started using Sundays to walk my recently rescued dog around the park, or hitting the grocery store in the morning. I had a strong feeling I wasn't ready when we enjoyed the World Cup and baseball […]
Cliff Clinton 6 years agoRotoBaller's Early 2018 Redraft Football Mock - Round 1
The great thing about playing your favorite game with true fantasy degenerates is that there is never an "off" time for the game. It feels like yesterday we started drafting, both in eulogy to the 2017 fantasy football season, and a eulogy to when the RotoBaller writing team started our in-house PPR draft, which has […]
Cliff Clinton 7 years ago