It’s critical to be proficient in the lingo and reporting schedule. Saturday injury reports contain a wealth of information, but one key element is still missing – we’ll get to that shortly. First, let’s discuss some terminology. “FP,” “LP,” or “DNP” will be listed on an injury report next to a player’s name, under the days of the week.
In practice, respectively, these are –
- Full Participation
- Limited Participation
- Did Not Participate
Often times you will also see “Questionable”.
If a wide receiver did not participate all week in practice with a hamstring issue, and is listed as “questionable” on the report, the likelihood of him being a factor on Sunday is slim.
Now, that’s not to say that the wide receiver we’re talking about won’t play necessarily, but he’s likely to be a decoy if he does and he probably isn’t worth the risk. Conversely, if a primary running back is ailing with a wrist injury and did not participate on Wednesday, was limited on Thursday, returns to full practice Friday, and is listed as “questionable” for Sunday’s game, his likelihood of seeing significant action is far greater than that of the WR from the previous example.
Practice is an important indicator, despite what Allen Iverson says (we talkin’ ’bout Practice, man).
Sometimes we’ll also see “Probable”.
Different types of injuries will also affect different positions with some significance. A right handed quarterback with a broken left middle finger is more likely to fumble than without the injury (because of the ‘two hands on the ball in the pocket’ principle) but he’s far more likely to start and be effective than a tight end with the same ailment because the tight end might be listed as “probable” and indeed play in the game, but if he’s only in on running downs for blocking duty then he won’t be scoring you any points.
Then, we’ve got what are perhaps the most important terms, “Active” and “Inactive”.
The crucial piece of information which isn’t released until 90 minutes before game time, is “active” or “inactive” status. This tells whether or not a player will be on a team’s active roster for the game. And while they’re not going to tell us what type of role the player will be responsible for if they are active, we will already have a pretty good idea because we know what the implications are of the other information from the injury report. If the player is listed “inactive,” you still have an hour and a half to remove him from your lineup and adjust accordingly.
DraftKings
DraftKings allows for changes to be made to your roster after the contest has begun, as long as the game of the specific player you want to swap hasn’t started. This is relevant in the following scenario. You’re entered in a contest which includes NFL games slated to begin at 1pm, 4:25pm, and 8:30pm. Active/inactive tags have yet to be applied to players in the later games even though the fantasy contest is officially underway at 1:00 Eastern. Keep an eye on the status of your players whose games haven’t started yet – even during your contest.
FanDuel
And don’t forget about FanDuel! Think you’ve got a pretty good lineup but get let down due to injuries that you thought wouldn’t affect the game? happens more than you may think!
Over at FanDuel you can try to mitigate any damage to your own good time with their “Get a Second Chance” feature.
2nd Half and 4th Quarter contests are available for the NFL regular season. So if your lineup is an early bust, you can draft a whole new team and still win big. Just pick 5 players from a single NFL matchup and score points for their 2nd half or 4th quarter performance only.
Monkey Knife Fight
Someone else that we’ve actually just recently started using and backing up is Monkey Knife Fights. Again, with your solid lineup all picked out, have a player that ends up not playing due to injury? Monkey Knife Fight will just cancel the bet with your money being totally returned to you!
If you were to go and decide to check them out, make sure you sign up with an email address that you check often. I did, and I constantly have some pretty decent, personal, promotions sent out to me on a pretty regular basis.
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