Rivers will be playing with junk this week as he faces the Broncos
Photo Credit: Conman33

As a football handicapper, it’s important to remember these three cardinal rules:

1. If it’s too good to be true, it usually is
What i’m geting at here is that if you see a spread that clearly doesn’t correlate with the current situation in the NFL (like a 3-1 team at home off three wins in a row only giving up three points to a 1-3 team), you should be skeptical. After all, the bookies aren’t dummies, they know probably more than you do about the games, and their primary goal is to steal your money. So play it smart, if a spread is clearly begging you to pick a specific team, pick the other one. Now, there are certain situations where it is wise to pick the “obvious bet”, but from my experience, i find it beneficial to roll the dice on the opposite team, it has done me well in the past (Starbonell's editor note: Occhionero's mom has done me well in the past).

2. I don’t care if you could have sworn Team A was going to have a good year, live in the now!
Did you hear that a team was supposed to have a turnaround season, but isn't living up to their expectations. I’m sure you’ve said to yourselves, “they have to turn it around, this team is 'supposed' to be good." Please, get these thoughts out of your head. As a handicapper, you must live in the now. Don’t let the propaganda out there fool you..

This brings me to the final and most important point...

3. Make your own decisions
You hear a lot of information out there, whether it be about a team's defense, coaching changes, rumours, etc. The problem is that often these “reports” aren’t as accurate as they claim to be. The point in all this is to read the information, but analyze the situation yourself, and ultimately make your own decisions. This is the only way you’ll achieve success.

With that, here are my five Golden Picks for the week. I’m 2-2 on the season thus far. I’ll be keeping tally all year. I also add in a survivor pick for good measure.

More after the jump:

This 'Beck no es un perdedor.
Photo Credit: Titanfan

Before we get into our sleepers for Week Five, let’s take a look at how our picks did from last week:

Quarterbacks from Week Four
Matt Hasselbeck (TEN)- 10-20 passing, 220 passing yards, 3 passing touchdowns, 1 interception, 18 fantasy points
Jason Campbell (OAK)- 25-39 passing, 344 passing yards, 1 passing touchdown, 2 interceptions, 29 rushing yards, 15 fantasy points
Rex Grossman (WAS)- 15-29 passing, 143 passing yards, 1 passing touchdown, 2 interceptions 5 fantasy points

Running Backs from Week Four
Dexter McCluster (KC)- 7 rushing attempts, 26 yards, 3 receptions, 12 yards, 3 fantasy points
Montario Hardesty (CLE)- 7 rushing attempts, 22 yards, 5 receptions, 49 yards, 6 fantasy points
Kendall Hunter (SF) - 9 rushing attempts, 38 yards, 2 catches, 62 yards, 9 fantasy points

Wide Receivers from Week Four
Torrey Smith (BAL) - 1 reception, 1 receiving yard, 0 touchdowns, 0 fantasy points
David Nelson (BUF) – 2 receptions, 18 yards, 0 touchdowns, 1 fantasy point
Victor Cruz (NYG) – 6 receptions, 98 yards, 0 touchdowns, 9 fantasy points
Brandon Gibson (STL) – 1 reception, 14 yards, 0 touchdowns, 1 fantasy point

Tight Ends from Week Four
Jermaine Gresham (CIN)- 4 receptions, 70 yards, 1 touchdown reception, 13 fantasy points
Ed Dickson (BAL) – 4 receptions, 45 yards, 0 touchdowns, 4 fantasy points

Now let’s get to the good stuff. If you are reading this, it most likely means that your team is struggling and you are looking for a boost. Well, lucky for you, I am here with some deep sleepers to help you get a win in Week Five. With bye weeks starting this week, a lot of you are probably looking for a short term fill-in. These are my favorite deep sleepers for Week Five:

“Remember when I used to not suck?”
Photo Credit: Meegs

At “Stream Pies,” we are serving up gooey loads of knowledge. Here, we’ll provide invaluable streaming advice on kickers and DEF teams who are owned in less than 30-percent of Yahoo! leagues. We list the options in order of best option to “least-best” option (with the strongest recommendations starting at the top). Below our recommendations are last week’s and full season results. Points are based on default Yahoo! settings.

With bye weeks underway, you need “Stream Pies” now more than ever. Aside from the Ravens, there are no kickers or defenses that you have to hold onto. In fact, many of you are probably debating if you should drop a potentially useful position player in order to hang onto the Jets D or Dan Bailey. Don’t be an idiot. Drop the DEF or K and move on to the next one. Who is the next one you ask? Well, you just have to peep game after the jump to find out:

Have Percy
Photo Credit: Bobak Ha’Eri

When it comes to Percy Harvin, the two most common words used to shit on his fantasy value are “snap count.” Everyone is up in arms over the fact that he’s spending more time than he should on the sideline, which would make sense if homeboy wasn’t averaging over seven touches a game.

That’s right, a WR who has the ball in his hands 7.25 times a game is apparently not involved enough to make a fantasy impact... except that he is. Harvin is averaging 78.25 yards per game. That’s more than Roddy White, Rob Gronkowski, Jordy Nelson, Reggie Wayne, and countless other players who are widely considered more valuable than Harvin.

Yes Harvin isn’t on the field for every offensive play, but the team has gone to great lengths to feature him in a number of different packages as a receiver and runner. The Vikings understand they need to get the ball in his hands, but with his migraine and injury history, who can blame them for not putting him on the field for every single play? Now it’s true that Harvin has yet to score this year (outside of a kickoff return TD) and the team hasn’t been using him much in the red zone, which is disappointing. Still, it’s clear that he’s the second best offensive threat on the team behind Adrian Peterson and the opportunities will be there for him to do work.

The point is, fantasy value ultimately comes down to touches and what you do with those touches. Not only is Harvin getting his hands on the ball, but the team has specific plays mapped out where he’s the featured weapon and tries to get him out in the open field. That sounds pretty damn good for his fantasy value if you ask me.
Snap count? More like “awwww snap he’s a great buy-low target!”

Mo’ Real Talk after the jump:

Sorry Tim Hightower, Ryan is about Torain on your parade.
Photo Credit: Keith Allison

Week Four is in the books, and with it comes the ever so infuriating bye weeks. Week Five has Cleveland, Baltimore, Miami, Washington, St.Louis, and Dallas on rest so make sure to make the appropriate lineup changes. With that said, let’s look at some of the action Week Four had to offer. Again, only the most relevant topics will be covered. Make the jump to see what’s up:

R.A. “The Rugged Man” Dickey Was a Stream Heartthrob
Photo Credit: slgckgc

At “Stream Pies,” we are serving up gooey loads of knowledge. Here, we’ll provide invaluable streaming advice on SPs who are owned in less than 30-percent of Yahoo! leagues. We list the options in order of best option to “least-best” option (with the strongest recommendations starting at the top).

It was a long arduous fantasy baseball season and since we spent most of it telling you who to pick up for spot starts, it’s only right we look back and see how we fared in 2011.

So here is the final “Stream Pies” line for 2011:

71 Wins (205 starts), 1,241.2 IP, 4.18 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 6.14 K/9

Now you might look at those numbers and think “big f’ing deal.” Sure, these numbers aren’t that great when you think about players you want to draft, but keep in mind that these are the cumulative totals of players we recommended that were available in less than 30-percent of Y! leagues. Also, our pitchers scored wins about 35 percent of the time, which is good for about 11-12 wins if we are talking about a pitcher who makes 34 starts. So right off the bat we’re netting you the efforts of a double-digit winning pitcher, but what about the rest of the numbers you ask?

Comparatively speaking, here’s a breakdown of players owned in far more leagues that posted numbers as good or worse than our lesser-known recommendations:

Pitchers owned in at least 80 percent of Y! leagues
Ubaldo Jimenez: 10 wins, 4.68 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 8.60 K/9
Max Scherzer: 15 wins, 4.43 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 8.03 K/9
Roy Oswalt: 9 wins, 3.69 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 6.02 K/9
Chad Billingsley: 11 wins, 4.21 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, 7.28 K/9

Pitchers owned in 50-79 percent of Y! leagues
Ryan Dempster: 10 wins, 4.80 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, 8.50 K/9
Trevor Cahill: 12 wins, 4.16 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 6.37 K/9
Ricky Nolasco: 10 wins, 4.67 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 6.47 K/9
Francisco Liriano: 9 wins, 5.09 ERA, 1.49 WHIP, 7.50 K/9
Brett Myers: 7 wins, 4.46 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 6.67 K/9
John Danks: 8 wins, 4.33 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 7.13 K/9

There were a bunch of other names who were popular on draft day and underperformed our “Stream Pies” recommendations (Jonathan Sanchez, Phil Hughes, Rick Porcello), but you get the idea.

So what have we learned this year from “Stream Pies?” Well, we learned that R.A. Dickey is a streaming beast. We also discovered that sometimes a cigar is indeed simply a cigar (unless it’s sitting in a dude’s mouth... then it’s a cock). The most important lesson learned here, however, is that you don’t need to spend big dollars or high draft picks to yield a competitive fantasy pitching staff.

Hopefully “Stream Pies” helped you achieve a championship. If not, well, I’m still sleeping good tonight.

Bradford will be drinking his own tears, not milk, on Sunday
Photo Credit: USDAgov

At “Stream Pies,” we are serving up gooey loads of knowledge. Here, we’ll provide invaluable streaming advice on kickers and DEF teams who are owned in less than 30-percent of Yahoo! leagues. We list the options in order of best option to “least-best” option (with the strongest recommendations starting at the top). Below our recommendations are last week’s and full season results. Points are based on default Yahoo! settings.

Both Andrew and Starbonell killed it in Week Two, proving that their penises are both long and girthy. Damn they’re good.

Want to see what they have in store for Week Four? Make the jump chump:

Even Jason Campbell can do work against the Pats pass defense
Photo Credit: Jeffrey Beall

Normally we do a recap of how all the picks went from last week, but sometimes the best thing to do in life is to just move on and forget something happened. That is what we will do this week. All you need to know about the picks from last week is almost every player underperformed. We are starting fresh with some new picks this week.

The deep sleepers for Week Four are after the jump:

The gift of Gaff’
Photo Credit: Keith Allison

Kenny Britt. I owned that mu’fucka in just about every league I’m in. “True Britt” started the season in a way championship-caliber fantasy players start off the season... like a champion. Kenny Britt. Gets hurt so bad on a play that he literally throws the football out of his possession like it was a hand grenade. Kenny Fucking Britt.

Since there is obviously no god, let’s just say thank “air” there’s NFL Real Talk.

More after the j-u-m-p:

            Starbonell Station

              Gore Loser

  Wed. Sept. 28th at 7:30 PM Central

 Starbonell and MDS talk Frank Gore (not Al, but he's  a loser too), Victor Cruz, Ryan Mathews, Dustin  Keller, Sam Bradford and much more.