Five NFL teams that need to get off to a fast start in 2016

Here is the latest from the Washington Posts ‘Fancy Stats’.

Five NFL teams that need to get off to a fast start in 2016

The NFL season is always a grind, but getting off to a fast start is often crucial to having a successful season. Of the eight teams that had five or more wins by Week 8 in 2015, seven made the playoffs — Atlanta was the only team that missed out on postseason play. A year […]

Fantasy football 2016: RBs to avoid at all costs

Running backs have lost their luster in fantasy football circles in recent years, but you need at least two in most standard-scoring leagues. However, that doesn’t mean all RBs on your cheat sheet are worth drafting. In fact, there are quite a few that should be avoided at all costs. For example, the Bears’ Jeremy Langford is […]

Yankees phenom pushes into a rookie of the year race that’s already over

Gary Sanchez has injected excitability into the New York Yankees, turning a dismal season into one that will end with optimism and anticipation. Here’s a sampling of what the 23-year-old catcher has accomplished in his first major-league month. He tied the since-retired Alex Rodriguez’s season home run total with nine. (And Sanchez needed 151 fewer at-bats.) He hit the […]

Reynaldo Lopez has the pitches to help the Nats while others heal

With Stephen Strasburg and Joe Ross both on the disabled list, 22-year-old Reynaldo Lopez is becoming a more focused part of the Nationals’ starting rotation.  Across Lopez’s five starts in the bigs, however, he hasn’t been exactly what the Nationals have hoped for. He conquered the Atlanta Braves twice, allowing just two earned runs total across the pair […]

Fantasy Football 2016: Use this defensive strategy to get a huge edge

Most everyone will agree that defense wins championships, but not everyone agrees when you should draft a defense for your fantasy team. Conventional wisdom advocates selecting a defense with one of your two final picks, and while the numbers suggest that is no longer true, many will still heed the advice. Others might punt on […]

Three teams that could beat Alabama

The Alabama Crimson Tide enters the 2016 season as unequivocally the nation’s top team, leading every preseason poll. That Alabama, the defending national champion, is expected to once again dominate its regular season slate is nothing new. 9th straight year Alabama has reached No. 1 in the AP Poll, extending its record streak. Previous record […]

Fantasy football 2016: The QB strategy you should avoid at all costs

One strategy gaining popularity in fantasy football circles is streaming quarterbacks, which means that instead of selecting one in the early or mid-rounds of the draft, you wait until one of the last few rounds with the intention of scouring the waiver wire each week to find a starter set to face a weak defense. In […]

The Browns have Robert Griffin III throwing deep. And that’s a good thing.

Coming out of college at Baylor, Robert Griffin III was known for being able to throw an impressive deep ball in Art Briles’s offense. That skill seemingly got shelved for much of his time with the Washington Redskins, where he was used primarily in as offensive scheme that focused on shorter routes. Griffin occasionally threw deep with great efficiency — an NFL-best […]

Kirk Cousins and four other players who will disappoint in 2016

The beginning of the NFL season is always euphoric. Every team is still in the Super Bowl hunt (because no games have been played) and every player has Pro-Bowl talent. And for those players coming off breakout years, the expectations are even higher. Not many can sustain that level of play for a second season. Of […]

Tim Tebow wants to play baseball. This won’t end well.

Tim Tebow, the former NFL quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy at Florida, is looking to try his hand at baseball. He will hold a workout for MLB teams on Aug. 30, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Tim Tebow’s tryout for MLB teams will be a week from today, Aug. 30, in Los Angeles. — Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 23, 2016 […]

Fantasy football 2016: This is what the perfect draft looks like

Fantasy football is just around the corner, and to help you make a championship run I once again have used every resource imaginable — and even a few that were previously inconceivable to mortals — to produce the perfect fantasy football draft for a 12-team standard-scoring league using the following starting lineup: one quarterback, two running backs, two […]

American women propel U.S. to most dominant Summer Games in 84 years

The 2016 Summer Games are over, and the United States led all nations in Olympic medals with 121, 51 more than second-place China. It’s also the sixth straight Summer Olympics in which Team USA has been at the top of the medal table, making this the most dominating run in the Summer Games since the Soviet Union ruled the Olympics between 1972 […]

Manny Machado could be a better free agent value than Bryce Harper

The upcoming Battle of the Beltway will feature two of baseball’s mightiest sluggers: Washington’s Bryce Harper and Baltimore’s Manny Machado. The first and third overall picks in 2010, Harper, 23, has already been unanimously named as the league’s most valuable player and Machado, 24, has three all-star nominations, two Gold Gloves, and two top 10 finishes in the NL […]

Fantasy football 2016: It’s worth drafting this kicker as early as Round 6. Seriously.

It’s rare that you will find a consensus on who the top player at any position will be in fantasy football. For example, according to experts tracked at Fantasy Pros, two quarterbacks — Cam Newton and Aaron Rodgers — have been tabbed as the No. 1 option at the position. Todd Gurley, Adrian Peterson and David […]

UFC 202: Underdog? Hardly. Nate Diaz could again topple Conor McGregor.

It was a matchup no one thought they would see, and then suddenly no one could forget. The seemingly invincible Conor McGregor was soundly defeated by Nate Diaz, who stepped in on just a few days’ notice to take on the sport’s biggest star. The result: a bloody battle that took a sudden surprise twist […]

Paint by numbers victory: U.S. finds success by going down low

The U.S. men’s basketball team roared into the semifinals of the Rio Olympics Wednesday night, dismantling Argentina, 105-78. Not only did the win likely close the book on the storied international basketball careers of Manu Ginobili and Luis Scola, it marked Team USA’s ninth consecutive win over Argentina since losing in the semifinals at the […]

Fantasy football 2016: Four mid- to late-round WRs who could see a ton of targets

On the Post’s latest Fantasy Football Beat podcast, Raymond Summerlin of Rotoworld (the No. 3 most-accurate fantasy expert for 2015, per FantasyPros.com) discussed his recent article on high-volume wide receivers who could be sleepers in your upcoming draft. In addition to providing some smart sleepers, he highlighted the fact that top wide outs in both standard-scoring and PPR leagues […]

Fantasy football 2016: You can smartly draft a defense as soon as Round 6. Really.

Conventional wisdom dictates you should wait to draft a defense, but the times have changed, and you don’t have to be afraid to pull the trigger sooner. One way we can quantify the value proposition of each player/team selected is by using the value based drafting system, which calculates the difference between each player’s projected fantasy point total […]

How Kyle Hendricks became the Cubs’ unlikely ace

If you knew in March that the Chicago Cubs would have the lowest starting rotation ERA in the majors in August (2.87), it would be assumed Jake Arrieta or Jon Lester led the charge. Maybe even John Lackey. But it is Kyle Hendricks who is leading the squad with a sparkling 2.19 ERA, ranking third among […]

Fantasy football 2016: Rookie WRs are big risks in this year’s draft

Fantasy football owners used to shy away from rookie wide receivers, and for good reason. Over the past decade, just 22 wideouts were targeted over 100 times in their rookie season, making it tough for them to provide value for your fantasy squad. However, all that changed in 2014, when Odell Beckham, Jr., Mike Evans and Kelvin […]

What to expect from Usain Bolt in the men’s 200 meters

Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest human, won the Olympic 100-meter sprint for an unprecedented third straight time on Sunday night. Since the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal, the average gold medal-winning time in the 100-meter sprint has been 9.906 seconds. Remove Bolt’s victories in Beijing (9.69 seconds in 2008, a world record at the time) and London (9.63 […]

Fantasy football 2016: Cam Newton leads draft’s top tier of QBs

You may still be deciding whether or not to follow the herd and go all-in on wide receivers this year or flip the script and avoid the position altogether in the early rounds, but that won’t be the only key decision you’ll be facing in your draft this year — at some point you have to […]

One change Stephen Strasburg needs to make to break from his slump

Stephen Strasburg, who went 14-1 with a 2.70 ERA through July, has struggled in August. In his last three starts, all losses at home, the 28-year-old Cy Young hopeful has allowed 11 earned runs in 16 innings. Strasburg allowed six runs in 5.1 innings in Friday’s 8-5 loss against the Atlanta Braves. “It was too much Freddie Freeman,” Nationals Manager […]

The Texas Rangers are living dangerously. And a playoff run could be short-lived.

The Texas Rangers are en route to what would be their second consecutive division crown and fourth 90-plus-win season since 2010. But something is quite peculiar about this club: They shouldn’t be winning this much. The Rangers are the cardiac kids of baseball, a helter-skelter snare trap with more than half of its wins manufactured in […]

LeBron James is worth twice his $100-million deal

LeBron James, after agreeing to a three-year, $100 million contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers, will finally be the highest paid player in the NBA. He will make slightly more than $30.9 million in the first year and his salary for the 2017-18 season exceeds $33.2 million. passing Michael Jordan for the highest salary in NBA history ($33.1 million with the […]

Ezekiel Elliott is the scariest first-round pick you can make in 2016 fantasy drafts

In fantasy football, one decision — right or wrong — can often be the difference between accepting the championship trophy or lamenting about what could have been. Nowhere is that more tangible than evaluating rookies. However, unlike in years past, one rookie carries more risk than usual: projected first-round pick Ezekiel Elliott of the Dallas Cowboys. Subscribe to […]

Fantasy football 2016: Other than Ezekiel Elliott, three rookies you can trust