🎁 Final Day for Preseason Referral Perks

Today is the final day to lock in any additional preseason referrals as after tonight, I’ll be spinning the wheel for the two BBM drafts and the one Big Dog.

Make sure you get those referrals in and your friends verify their email address.

📝 News & Notes

• Rashee Rice disciplinary hearing set for September 30th (after week 4) [Adam Schefter]
  My take: I spent a while today digging into these types of disciplinary hearings, the appeals process, and have been trying to map out a range of potential outcomes. Long story short, I believe this is going to a hearing because Rice’s team was not happy with the proposed suspension by the league. It’ll then most likely be a 4-8 week suspension, with any suspension in the 6-8 week range having a decent likelihood of an appeal and thus not starting until a couple weeks later. This brings up the very legitimate possibility that Rashee Rice could be suspended during the fantasy playoffs. And even if he’s not, this is still a worse scenario than a suspension to start the season as it’ll occur while our teams have other players on bye, injured, etc. I am considering this somewhere between a minor to major downgrade to Rashee Rice for fantasy this year.

• Quinshon Judkins will not face any formal charges [Jordan Schultz]

  My take: This is obviously good news for Judkins but there is still a chance he could miss games due to a suspension. There has been precedent (see Ezekiel Elliott) where the legal case was dropped but the league still felt a suspension was appropriate. We must also account for the missed practice time when we consider the role he will have and how quickly he’ll earn it. And his upside still includes being on the Cleveland Browns. Overall, I do not expect to get a lot of him as my current rank has him at around 120, after Charbonnet and Dobbins but ahead of Cam Skattebo.

• Chris Godwin to miss the start of the season, beat reporter would be shocked if he doesn’t start the year on the PUP [PewterReport]

  My take: Not much I dislike more than a player who has been hurt all offseason unexpectedly continuing their recovery into the season. If they weren’t ready after months of rest, how much additional time are they going to need? Chris Godwin fits this bill after undergoing a second surgery during the spring, the Bucs drafting a first round WR that thrives in the same areas Godwin did, and now we still don’t have a trusted timeline for Godwin to return. This is a Yikes on my concern meter.

• Josh Downs suffers hamstring injury in practice [Mike Chappell]

  My take: Hamstring injuries are concerning, both for initial time out but also reinjury risk. We’ll know more on the severity but for the time being, my expectation is he’ll be week-to-week and questionable for week 1.

📊 Poll of the Day / Draft Party

Yesterday’s poll: What time works best for an FFPC Best Ball Draft Party?

Looks like the strong preference is evenings, with a slight lean for Tuesday over Friday. I’ll have more info next week but my lean is we’ll do an FFPC Best Ball Draft Party for Tuesday evening and if that goes well, can do another one the following Friday.

In the meantime, if you want to sign up and get some practice in or get ready, you can get $25 back off your first entry of $35 or more using promo code FFin60 or via this link.