The NFL’s Out-of-Nowhere PlayersDanny Lansanah, Tampa BayRole: Starting outside linebackerDrafted: Undrafted free agent, 2008How Acquired: Signed from Jets practice squad, December 2013NFL Games Before 2014: 6Got His Job Because: Benching of Jonathan CasillasLansanah’s story of perseverance is actually pretty heartwarming, which is hard to do in the NFL in 2014. Lansanah made the Packers as an undrafted free agent out of Connecticut in 2008 and played on special teams before being cut the following year. He bounced around practice squads before playing in the United Football League and taking a day job counseling at-risk children. After a tryout with the Jets got him on their practice squad in 2012, Lansanah eventually made his way to the Buccaneers, where he suited up for the final game of the 2013 season, more than five years after his last appearance in an NFL game.We knew there were going to be changes after Tampa Bay’s embarrassing loss to Atlanta in Week 3, and one of those changes came at strong-side linebacker. Jonathan Casillas was benched during the Atlanta game for Lansanah, who picked off T.J. Yates and took it to the house. Casillas didn’t play a single defensive snap in Week 4, while Lansanah suited up for 21 defensive snaps as a two-down linebacker. He got some attention on the web after the game for slapping down LeVeon Bell’s hand during the latter’s gesture for a first down.At 29, Lansanah is probably not going to be a star, but you can imagine how many times he must have dreamed about the things that have happened to him over the past two weeks. It’s cool to see that come true.
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/marcus-burley-ryan-hewitt-wes-horton-nfl-out-of-nowhere-players/
Back to BasicsRunning back has been a tumultuous position in fantasy football this year. Among the players who rank in the top 10 for fantasy points at the position are a guy coming off a season-ending neck surgery who was supposed to be a backup (Ahmad Bradshaw), a third-stringer who was cut by the Jaguars in March (Justin Forsett), and a player almost nobody had heard of before the middle of September (Matt Asiata).More significant is that, on the other side of the coin, many of the players who were expected to be every-week starters have been sorely disappointing. The Adrian Peterson saga is obviously a case unto itself, but even among the players who have stayed on the field, poor performances have popped up all around the league. That’s hardly a fantasy-only problem, either, as teams that were expecting steady production from well-known backs have instead received middling, frustrating performances. (Every LeSean McCoy owner nods.) (Chip Kelly nods, too.)Now that we’re five weeks into the year, let’s run through some of these struggling running backs and try to figure out what’s up. Is there something flukish about their slow start? Have they been affected by something unexpected? And will they turn things around anytime soon?Doug Martin, Buccaneers: No man in football is getting more out of one good game at the right time than Martin is from his stunning performance as a rookie against the Raiders. In that 2012 tilt, Martin ran the ball 25 times for an incredible 251 yards against an Oakland Raiders team that … offered only cursory defenses against runners that year, finishing 24th in run defense DVOA. This is always an unfair exercise, but take that one game off his record and his rushing average in 2012 falls from 4.6 yards per attempt all the way down to 4.1 yards per carry, while his career totals fall all the way to 3.8 yards per carry.OK. One big game is one thing. But Martin really hasn’t looked good at any point during the past two years, either during his brief spell on the active roster in 2013 or in limited time this year. He’s averaged just 2.5 yards per carry on his 37 rushing attempts, which is the second-worst rate for running backs with 30 carries or more. Only Donald Brown, who ran wild for a mere 2.1 yards per carry before getting injured Sunday, has been worse than Martin.At this point, I think it’s OK to jump off the Martin bandwagon. Bobby Rainey has averaged 4.7 yards per carry behind the same offensive line and in many of the same situations as Martin. Rainey is shiftier, but he catches passes well out of the backfield and just looks to be a smarter, more decisive runner than his predecessor. Martin, whose longest run of the year is just 16 yards, is a sunk cost drafted by the last Bucs administration. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him lose his regular job in the weeks to come.
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/new-york-jets-running-backs/
