In fantasy football, dark horse is more than the name of a Katy Perry song

By Ryan Cracknell | Hobby Editor

Tired of losing to the point where I wasn’t even in contention, last week I decided to look to the experts for picking my fantasy football team for the week.

Being new to this, there’s a lot of complexity when it comes to predicting points and tabulating match-ups. I don’t know about you, but even keeping track of who’s definitely injured, who might be injured and who might play despite being injured is complicated enough.

I’ve got other things to do.

And you know what? The pros did a pretty good job. Not first-place good, but nowhere close to the basement either.

So does one take pride in letting others give you advice so you can get the points? Heck, no. Like any competition, you look for your advantages — while staying within the confines of the rules, of course.

For this week’s free Beckett Fantasy game, it’s a Magnificent 7 match, running back style. Working within a salary cap, you pick seven players. In order to keep things simple, it’s only running backs for this particular game.

There’s no need to worry about who the hot quarterback is, which receivers are struggling and how Jimmy Graham is adjusting to the Seahawks offense.

In taking from what I’ve learned the last couple of weeks, I’m going with the pros and taking a couple of no-brainers. As much as I struggle with looking past Adrian Peterson’s transgressions, he’s having a fantastic year and it’s time for me to move on. Mark Ingram and Devonta Freeman are another couple of running backs that are having excellent seasons. And the pro I’m reading is saying they’ve got good matches this week.

I’m not giving any more of by players away.

I will say this. I’m taking a risk on a cheap dark horse. The expert feels good. The pairing is there. I’m not expecting huge points from this player. Rather, it’s all about finding value. Going cheap on this one player freed up a lot of salary space. Hopefully that translates into an additional elite performance.

This is a player I would have never considered on my own. Rather, I would have made up the difference with two or three mediocre players. So, no pressure. It’s one of those moves where I’m either going to come up big or head back to where I’ve spent a lot of time — in the basement.

If you want to join me, it’s free. The weekly Cracktus League games I take part in are intended for Daily Fantasy newcomers like myself so you can get a feel for it and see if it’s right for you.