Going off the grid(iron)

The last two weeks have been a strange time in the world of sports. The COVID-19 crisis brought an end to the NBA and NHL seasons. The NCAA basketball tournament was cancelled. The major league baseball season never got started. What’s a sports fan to do?

God bless the NFL, and a flurry of moves that gives us something to talk about. DeAndre Hopkins got traded, Tom Brady left New England and Todd Gurley got cut. So much has happened over the first weeks of the new league year that it makes your head spin.

The good news is that many moves have impacted fantasy football. There have been some fantasy winners and losers as players have changed teams as quickly as the weather changes in Texas in March. I’m going to take a look at a few of each here.

I mentioned Hopkins, and I think he’s a winner heading west. An even bigger winner is Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray. There was already reason to be optimistic about his fantasy ceiling given his dual threat ability, Now, he gets an elite wideout in Hopkins.

Another winner, by default, in Arizona is Kenyan Drake, who couldn’t feel too bad about the departure of David Johnson to Houston. Now Drake is almost a lock to be the lead back in the a Cardinal offense that just got better with the addition of Hopkins.

Brady, who shocked the sports by leaving the Patriots, lands in Tampa with shot at a late-career resurgence. Father time has taken its toll of Brady’s physical tools. But he also hasn’t had many good targets. Now, he has Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Bruce Arians.

Gurley, formerly an elite fantasy back, has had issues with injuries. But he may also be a winner going to Atlanta. With a quarterback upgrade in Matt Ryan, there will be more running room. The Rams have three good receivers, but they don’t have Julio Jones.

A big loser in the NFL shuffle is Stefon Diggs. Getting sent to Buffalo is like a Russian dissident going to Siberia. There is no worse place for a receiver to play because of the weather, and Josh Allen, can’t throw deep on a good day. He hit 15 of 59 attempts in 2019.

Another loser is Melvin Gordon going to Denver. He also makes Phillip Lindsay and Royce Freeman losers. It’s the dreaded running back by committee, and it’s in a subpar offenses to boot. Gordon and Lindsay may have some value, but Freeman now has none.