Ask the Expert: What rule, if any, do you tend to adhere to when it comes to starting or benching players in games affected by weather?

Week 14 featured a number of foul-weather games, some with poor offensive numbers, some with strong ones. What rule, if any, do you tend to adhere to when it comes to starting or benching players in games affected by weather?

In Fantasy Football Guidebook I cover weather conditions in rule #5. "Many WRs love snow because they know where they are going and can use it to their advantage...they can adjust". So light snow is good for QBs and WRs. "Be wary of heavy snow since this will affect the ability of the QBs and kickers to put the ball a long way down the field". Visibility or lack thereof creates havoc in the passing game in heavy rain or snow conditions. This is exactly what happened in the DET-PHI game. Snow for RBs can be good. Shaun Alexander ran for 201 yards on 40 carries for Seattle in 2006 in a sleet/snow storm.

My rules of thumb for weather

-Swirling winds cause QB, WR and K problems.

-Light snow good for QB and WR

-Heavy snow bad for QB, WR and K

-Cold bad for dome teams and warm weather teams on the road, great for RBs

ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly at http://www.fantasyindex.com/ with answers to a new question posted Thursday morning.


Sam Hendricks is the author of Fantasy Football Guidebook, Fantasy Football Tips and Fantasy Football Basics , all available at his website, http://www.ffguidebook.com/, at all major bookstores, and at http://www.amazon.com/. He is a 20+ year fantasy football veteran who regularly participates in the National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC), Fantasy Football World Championship (FFWC) and finished 7th and 16th overall (out of 228 top players) in the 2008 and 2009 Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC).

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