Luke Basha fantasy football: stock up for bye weeks

And here we get to the thick of it all.

Bye weeks, the week where an NFL team or two are given the week off, can wreck an unprepared fantasy football team. Waking up Tuesday morning to see your reset lineup and seeing half of your players on their bye week spells certain doom for you that week.

Now, there is a school of thought that advocates just taking it on the chin for one week so that your squad will more or less be at full strength for the rest of the season. This even applies to the ever-expendable kicker, and presents owners of top kickers the quandary of whether they should simply drop the star leg or use two valuable roster spots on separate kickers (if you can spare the roster spot for one week, I say do that). But chances, are you and your opponent will have at least one or two players unavailable on any given week.

But strategic planning can mitigate the damage and even turn these dreaded bye weeks to your advantage. Some general strategies involve planning ahead and stockpiling players that you will need a week early (players with ideal matchups when your starters are unavailable) or trading players away so that you will face them on their bye week. With that in mind, I’ll try to highlight players and defenses that might serve as good fill-ins in the coming weeks. Especially since this week really didn’t have any grand waiver-wire targets stand out (though I’ll throw out a quick blurb for James Starks as a short-term rental), I’ll try to help you plan ahead for the next few weeks.

Blake Bortles (QB, JAX): Don’t look now, but Bortles is a top-10 fantasy player-overall, according to NFL.com. Yes he’s still chucking picks everywhere, but the sheer volume of the amount of throws he is forced to make means that the big plays will be there as well. The all-around terribleness of the division in the AFC South means that Bortles will have plenty of favorable matchups down the stretch. Admittedly, the Jags are on bye next week as well, but you could make a strong case that the widely-available Bortles should be much more than a fill-in for your QB.

Jay Cutler (QB, CHI): He’s on bye this week, but stash him now if your QB will be on vacation in the coming few weeks. Matchups against the Rams and Broncos and a trip to Cutler’s personal factory of misery in Green Bay in Weeks 10-12 are really the only bad upcoming matchups for Cutler.

Christine Michael (RB, DAL): The ‘Boys already got their bye out of the way, and now word on the street that Michael might get the starting job in Dallas as they try to reboot and retool their injured offense after their week off. Letting the talented Michael run behind that great Dallas O-Line will be like giving Jeff Gordon the keys to a Maserati….if he gets his driver’s license that is.

Theo Riddick (RB, DET): If you will be losing a running back to a bye week or the waiver wire (you’re dead to me now, CJ Anderson), Riddick is a sneaky play. As Ameer Abdullah has literally fumbled away the starting job week by week, Riddick is picking it up. He’s Detroit’s best pass-catching RB.

Brandon Lafell (WR, NE): The Patriots offense certainly don’t need the former Panther to be explosive at the moment, but they’ll only get better when Lafell come back from IR, possibly this week. He’s valuable now since the Pats have already had their bye, and Lafell established quite a good chemistry with Brady last season. If healthy this week against the Jets, I really like him this week since the Jet’s CBs will most likely be busy with Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman.

Marvin Jones (WR, CIN): Defending this Cincinnati offense is literally a game of pick-your-poison. The more defenses key in on AJ Green or Tyler Eifert, the more things open up for guys like Marvin Jones or Mohammad Sanu.

Michael Floyd (WR, ARI): The same pick-your-poison manta applies to the Cardinals trio of WRs. John Brown stretches the defense deep and lives and dies off the big plays, making him “too hot.” Larry Fitzgerald thrives as a possession receiver these days, making him dependent upon TDs, making him “too cold.” I guess that makes Floyd “just right.”

Dolphins D/ST: With a host of good fantasy defenses on a bye this week, you could do a lot worse than the Dolphins. If Dan Campbell really has turned this team around, then they could be valuable down the road. Their bye has passed too. But I would not recommend rolling them out against the Patriots quite yet.

Falcon D/ST: Fresh off of getting shellacked by the Saints, I expect Dan Quinn to have his team ready for the rebound, especially after a long week and likely going up against the Titans backup QB. However, Zach Mettenberger is no slouch, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

This story was originally published October 21, 2015 at 6:19 PM with the headline "Luke Basha fantasy football: stock up for bye weeks."