December 31, 2010
2010 is over...
Pursuant to the Loser's Consolation discussion, the 2011 draft will be as follows with the first four rounds non-serpentine, and the 5th round beginning the serpentine (meaning John Freeborn will still have the last pick in the 5th round, but the first in the 6th).
1. Timothy O'Keefe
2. Patrick O'Keefe
3. Juan Fiallo
4. Joseph Morelli
5. David Hamilton
6. Benjamin Saunders
7. Joshua Aulozzi
8. Anthony Barriere Jr.
9. Kyle Jolly
10. John Herrin
11. Anthony Barriere Sr.
12. John Freeborn
Gotta give some shout-outs:
John F- good job, and congrats. You've got the best team going into next year (for as much as we know now), and a great start. Though, I'm going to decimate you next year, so enjoy it while you can.
Josh- though I view this as a dismal season for myself, I'm always content when the team named "I kick yo butt again" loses. :)
David- all I can say is read the book of Job over and over, that is my only consolation to you.
John H- you had the most wins this year.
Tony Sr.- I gotta eat my words here... great job finishing the season, and my SPR were wrong in judging your team... kudos.
Kyle- Never seen "homer" management work so well, though with the Bears D playing like it is, not that surprised I guess. I had a lot of fun watching the Junkyard Dogs being managed.
Tony Jr.- You interested in Finley at all? ;)
Dad- somehow you have a team of low expectations that always exceeds them, you're the dark horse that always finds a win against the odds, and it's been that way for two years. Now with the first 5 picks next year, I think you can build a playoff team.
Juan- when you fall off the horse, you wash your butt and get right back on... at least that's what I do. ;)
Joe- toughest spot going into next year, from no points this year, so you have a lot of ground to make up (not that I am much further ahead). All I can say is good luck, and I'm feeling it too, brutha.
Ben- I like you're management philosophy, your team for next year seems like another dark horse, and I'm excited. Thanks for coming in and immediately contributing to the league culture.
Myself- I deserve good things. I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am attractive person. I am fun to be with... Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me!
Regarding keepers, the deadline for confirming your keepers is one week prior to the 2011 draft (time/date TBD). When you feel like your ready, e-mail me your list (iampatokeefe@gmail.com) of up to 4 Offensive and 1 Defensive players you are keeping for next year. Once you let me know, I will post them in a list on the blog.
Regarding off-season transactions. I am compiling the list of everyone's final roster today. Anyone on your roster is eligible for trade to another team. However, there will be some rules for off-season moves:
1. All trades must be posted on the blog for at least three days for commenting and disagreement before I'll perform a trade on someone's roster.
2. Once the three days have past, if a majority of commissioners agree that the trade is in actuality meant to be a mutually beneficial trade involving real, bona fide keepers, then it will be passed. If the trade involves commissioners, other teams will be asked to evaluate the trade instead of the commissioners.
I think that covers it for now. I want to say THANK YOU to everyone in the league for keeping it fun, and for making it a great league. This is by far my favorite fantasy football league, and I hope it is for you too. Let me know if anyone has any questions.
December 11, 2010
Loser's Consolation - 2011 Draft Question
I know we decided that the losers would have the higher picks in next year's draft, however, there was some dispute on whether or not it should be a snake draft. Personally, as much as I'd like a non-snake draft at this point, I feel it would unnecessarily put the winning teams at a disadvantage. The snake draft would still give us losers the opportunity to pickup non-keeper high-value players, without it being so unfair to the winning teams. I'm opening this up for discussion and a commish vote.
Josh? David?
Josh? David?
Week Thirteen, The Final Week
Here are your final statistics. Winners of each category are in yellow. Congratulations to all who won. I'll have the final points sheet updated after my exams are over, latest by after the KKR2010 playoffs.
Here are my final Subjective Performance Rankings. Remember, these are meant to show the rankings, based on W-L records, as they might be if the PA were more evenly distributed throughout the season.
Here are my final Subjective Performance Rankings. Remember, these are meant to show the rankings, based on W-L records, as they might be if the PA were more evenly distributed throughout the season.
December 2, 2010
2010 Year End Points
If the season ended today, without any playoff points being distributed, this would be the pointage spread for 2010.
November 30, 2010
Ideas for 2011
This post is going to be the central location for keeping record of ideas for next year. Please leave suggestions, ideas, changes, complaints or whatever in the comments section of this page, and as they materialize, I will post them on the "page".
As things progress, if we have any actual proposed changes of significance, Josh, David and I will convene, discuss, and then put things to a vote, where all changes would require 100% approval from the entire league.
All thoughts are welcome!
As things progress, if we have any actual proposed changes of significance, Josh, David and I will convene, discuss, and then put things to a vote, where all changes would require 100% approval from the entire league.
All thoughts are welcome!
November 25, 2010
Week Eleven Statistics, and more!
Might as well post another updated Subjective Performance Ranking:
November 18, 2010
November 16, 2010
Basic Pointage Analysis
Yes, John Freeborn or Tony Jr. is going to win this league. Yes, John Herrin, you are who we thought you were. :)
November 13, 2010
November 5, 2010
October 31, 2010
Week Seven Statistics
I think the chances that the scores ended up like they are this week were like 10^71999128 to 1. Kudos to you guys. ;)
October 23, 2010
October 21, 2010
The Ten Fantasy Commandments
These are Matthew Berry's 10 Fantasy Commandments. I liked them and agreed with almost all of it. Thought you guys might like it too...
The 10 Fantasy Commandments
1. Thou shalt not veto. If there is obvious collusion between two owners, then the commissioner (or league via veto) should not allow it. But other than that? Let it go. People should be allowed to coach their team and trade whoever they want, even if you think it's a really stupid rip-off trade. Negotiating a steal of a deal is part of fantasy skill and as long as both parties want to do the deal, you're a punk if you block it. Especially the people who block a trade just because it doesn't involve them or because it's part of their "strategy" to block other teams from improving. That's the coward's way out and you're a scummy, spineless punk if you do that. Win on the virtual field, not in the bureaucracy.
2. Thou shalt play out the season. I don't care if you're 0-12. You make waiver claims and set your best possible lineup in Week 13. It matters to the rest of the league. Have fantasy pride. Quitting is for wimps and people with no moral fiber. You made a commitment, stick to it. Too many times I've heard of people in public leagues (it seems to happens less on ESPN than on other sites, thankfully) sign up for the league to practice drafting and then abandon the team. (This is why we offer free mock drafts and auctions). But even more than that, as teams get tough breaks or aren't winning, owners no longer play it out, leaving bye week and injured guy in their lineups and essentially handing their opponents crucial wins.
I was forced to do it once (a high-stake baseball league the summer I was going through my separation) and I hated myself for it. Seeing as how I ultimately ended up divorced, I should have found a way to play it out.
3. Thou shalt set your lineup every week Nothing is worse than seeing someone starting a lineup with guys on a bye and playing against a competitor you need to lose. Every game matters to everyone else in the league, so I don't care if your honeymoon is right smack in the middle of your season, you can't have a week off. If you know you're not gonna be able to play every week, then don't play at all. The Internet is everywhere. You can set your lineup six days in advance and you can access your ESPN Fantasy team from any mobile phone. If you have to, you can ask a friend or the league commish to set your best possible lineup for you. There is no excuse.
4. Thou shalt not talk about your team. No one cares about your team but you. If you meet me in public, sure, tell me, I get paid to listen to you. But other than that? Seriously, no one wants to hear you prattle on.
5. Thou shalt respond to trade offers. Dude, it's common courtesy. Just a simple "No thanks" is fine. Just let us know you got it but you're not interested.
5a. Thou shalt take no for an answer. A follow up to 5, if the person says no, then don't bombard them with a million other trade offers. One follow-up "Are you interested in talking trade at all?" or "is Player A at all available?" is allowed. But if they still say no, then let it be. Whether it's a girl or a trade, no means no. Period.
6. Thou shalt not bid on a player in an auction if you don't know who he is. If I throw out a player and someone says "Oooh, sleeper," you're not allowed to bid if you don't know who he is or why he's a sleeper. Do your own homework. Stop copying off my paper, jerk.
7. Thou shalt not abuse the waiver process. Don't continually pick guys up and then drop them, placing them on waivers, thus making them unavailable for two days to the rest of the league. Like I said in the first one. Win on the virtual field, not in the bureaucracy, coward. (For those who play on ESPN, that's not a problem; a player must be owned for 24 hours before he'll be put back out on waivers when dropped.)
8. Thou shalt not change the rules midseason. I don't care if it everyone's complaining or it seems unfair in Week 5. You play the rules that were set up at the start of season. Change at the start of next year. Take the job of commissioner seriously. Have a strong constitution at the start of the year and enforce it.
9. Thou shalt not say "Championship!" after drafting T.J. Houshmandzadeh. It's an old joke. We've heard it a million times. Let it go. (thanks to @US_LaticFanatic on Twitter for that one).
10. Thou shalt act like a normal, civilized human being. This is a catch-all for everything else. Act in fantasy how you would in real life. If you agree to a deal, you go through with it. Unless your word means nothing in real life too. Then you're just a horrible human being. Don't be an Internet tough-guy on e-mails or message boards. Smack talk is fine, but insulting or getting personal and saying things you'd never say to someone to their face? Save it, coward. Especially if you hide behind a fake screen name. Don't kick someone out of a league without telling them. Don't reneg on a bet or league fees you owe because the game or season didn't go the way you wanted. Don't abuse your power as commissioner. Don't offer a crappy trade you would never take if you were on the other side of it. Don't whine, complain or do anything that takes the fun out of the greatest game ever invented.
October 16, 2010
October 9, 2010
October 2, 2010
September 26, 2010
September 18, 2010
MY BOLD PREDICTIONS teams 9-11 (John H, Johnny, & Patty-O)
Team Wheaties
GM- John H
Team Total- 2968 (8th) Starters- 1368 (10th) K&D- 960 (3rd)
So John was one of 3 teams to wait until at least round 7 to take their first QB (Patty-O & DH being the others). Only time will tell if this was a solid strategy or if it would have been worth it to pass on other talent and reach in the earlier rounds for a signal caller. For what it’s worth, I clearly don’t consider it a death blow to a team to have waited on a QB considering that I picked Dave for one of the playoff slots. John had what some might call the good fortune of the first overall pick in the draft. He did what was, in my opinion, the smart thing, and grabbed the guy that has the very real possibility of being the #1 guy in all of FF for the full term of this league. If there was any doubt whether CJ could keep the ball rolling after last year’s studly performance, he removed it by going for 142 yds and a couple of scores in week 1. Hands down, for my money, there is no player I would rather have in this league format than Chris Johnson. That said, you can’t win a league with one guy, so what did John do with the rest of his draft?
Well, after CJ, he had to wait a bit, all the way down to pick #24, during which 8 QBs went off the board. I have to say that I was a little shocked, knowing that John, while harboring some unexplainable affection for da Raidas, also has an almost equally unexplainable soft spot for da bears, didn’t decide to use one of his pics at the turn to grab up da Butler (you know who I’m talking about Jolly). I certainly can’t say what I would do should I have been in John’s shoes. It’s a tough spot to have to decide to take a bubble top 10 QB with the first pick of the 3rd round, but the way QBs were flying off the board, he had to know this would certainly be his last shot at Cutler, as well as some other higher quality QB prospects. But, John’s picks of Wayne and Shonn Green were certainly quality picks at those two spots (more on Green later though).
I don’t question John’s decision to pass on a QB with his 2nd & 3rd picks, but (again, I’ll remind everyone that everything I say here is simply my opinion which will almost certainly be proven wrong time and time again throughout the year, AND that it is written with hindsight) I do think he made a misstep by passing on Matt Ryan with either his 4th or 5th round pick. While picking 1st overall is the only way to get a player like CJ, it also means that when you are drafting, there are huge blocks of picks between your selections. By passing on a QB at the 4-5 turn, John gave up the chance at the last couple QBs with top 10 potential—Ryan, and then Favre & McNabb (IF either were to stay healthy, they would have a shot, though I doubt it’ll happen). So like David, John ended up grabbing VY, his first QB at the start of round 7. While I like Vince this year, I think with a weapon like CJ on the team, Young’s value is somewhat limited. I think it will be a stellar year for him if he breaks the top 15 for QBs.
The benefit of waiting so long for a QB is the potential to stack up on RBs &/or WRs. John did so, taking 4 RBs and 2 WRs in the first 6 rounds. In addition to CJ, John’s got 3 guys with big potential in Greene, McCoy, and Bradshaw. While all of these guys have big time potential, none of them are absent of risk, as was seen with Greene last Monday in the Jets first game. Surprisingly enough, Greene is actually the one of these 3 that I am most concerned about. LT looks incredibly spry, and the Jets offense as a whole looked remarkably unimpressive (though admittedly it was against the Ravens). No doubt, the Jets are going to run the ball a ton. But as long as LT is healthy and running the ball like he did last week, and unless Greene can really have a break out performance, I think this will be a dead even 50/50 time share *at best*. I don’t think it is beyond the realm of possibility that LT ends the seasons with more rushes than Shonn Greene. Depending on how you look at it, McCoy’s situation may have gotten better (no more Weaver to take goal line carries) or worse (no more full back to lead block) when Weaver went down last week with that nasty injury. I’d say the jury is still out a little bit on McCoy’s value this year, though it should be noted that Andy Reid always has been a pass first coach, and that isn’t likely to change any time soon. Bradshaw though the latest picked, is actually the back I like best of the three RB2s that John has. He got the lion’s share of the carries in week 1, and did more with his chances than Jacobs did with his. Though he doesn’t have the same pedigree as guys like McCoy & Greene (whatever that means, but I hear it from talking heads all the time), he has a great opportunity on a Giants team that historically has run a lot, and has a decent line. If I had to pick a guy today to have the best #s at season’s end, I’d say Bradshaw.
Wow, I’m long winded on this one, so I’m just gonna get to it.
My Bold Prediction- 6-7 Just missing out on the playoffs.
These teams with no QBs are the toughest for me to grade. There is a lot of talent on this team, but QBs just put up numbers more consistently than WRs and RBs (other than the top guys). Having VY and a rookie in Bradford as a team’s only 2 QB options is in my opinion too risky and inconsistent to be a sure thing. If McCoy, Greene, or Bradshaw turn out to be a top 10 RBs, or 2 or 3 of them are at least top 15 options, then I think John should be able to work a deal for an upgrade at QB. But if these guys flounder early like Greene did week 1, it is going to be a big hit to their value, and even if they bounce back later on, John will have a tough time getting the value needed to bolster his QBs. On the other hand, as with every team, there is always the possibility that VY or Bradford will break out and be a top 10 QB, and my concerns will be moot. If I were in John’s shoes though, I would take the first opportunity I could (which may be right now with Bradshaw), and move one of the 3 RBs and try to pick up another QB option (someone like Orton or Garrard).
Team Shikaka AKA- Team Kaka
GM: Johnny Rocker AKA- The fattest kid in our league (and that’s PRETTY fat, cause I ain’t so skinny myself.)
Team Total- 2847 (10th) Starters- 1368 (10th) K&D- 833 (10th)
Well, if there’s one thing we can say about Johnny, it's that he’s consistent. As noted above, he had the most steady rankings of any team, though unfortunately they were steadily bad. Lucky for Johnny, yahoo’s projections aren’t worth squat, so you can pretty much throw them out the window. But, it’s gotta say something about his team that he was ranked 3rd to worst no matter how you measure it…right? We shall see.
Johnny’s draft nearly started like a dream. If that jerk Jolly had just grabbed Steven Jackson instead of Frank Gore, Freeboen (yes, I know I spelled it wrong, it was on purpose) would have been in heaven getting the studly 9ers RB with the no. 12 overall pick. But...it was not to be, so instead he went with S-Jax & Brady as his 1-2 punch. I think both of these picks were pretty much no brainers, though S-Jax is certainly not without risk. He is as tough a back as any in the league, and given a better situation would probably be a sure thing top 5 guy year in and year out. But, he’s been stuck on the crappy Rams, running behind a crappy line, and supported by crappy Marc Bulger as his QB. Well, hopefully for Johnny’s sake, some of the changes that came about this year—a couple of upgrades on the line and a new signal caller (a rookie still, but anything is an upgrade from poopy butt Bulger)—will give S-Jax the help he needs to make the jump up to “elite RB” level. Though some of these moves around him have the potential to help out considerably, the other concern with Mr. Jackson is his injury risk. He is a hard running guy, and it seems that every season he has some type of ailment that either keeps him out for a time (he missed 4 games in 07 & 08, and 1 game last year), or at least limits him to some extent. Hopefully for John’s sake a bit of a passing game boost from Bradford can take some of the pressure off of S-Jax and allow him to stay healthy all season.
With 2 of his first 4 picks Johnny went QB, taking Brady at pick 13 and Flacco at the start of round 4. I like this move for a couple of reasons. Number one, being that this is a 2 QB league, QBs have significantly more value than in standard leagues. In our test season last year (thanks again Pat for the practice :) we found that while not a necessity or a guarantee for making the playoffs, it does help to have 2 quality QBs on a squad (the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams last year all had 2 top 20 QBs). The 2nd reason I like these picks is because both these guys have a high probability of being keeper level players for all 3 seasons. I actually think these are the safest 2 picks Johnny made in the early rounds.
Unfortunately, smashed in between these 2 picks was John’s 3rd rounder, Jonathan Stewart. Now don’t get me wrong, the younger half of Carolina’s two-headed monster is absolutely a stud running back with tons of potential. And last year showed that the Panthers can and will run the ball enough for both guys to be viable fantasy options. But, the big problem I have with Stewart is that he’s not the starter. In every game that DeAngelo Williams was healthy for last year, he got more touches than Stewart. As long as Williams is around, even IF (note the big IF cause week one showed that this is unlikely) Carolina decided it wanted to move Stewart into the starting role in DeAngelo’s place, his upside and value would still be limited by the fact that Williams is there. The fact is that unless Williams gets hurt, until next year when these 2 beasts are split up, Stewart is going to be limited to 50% of the carries. And even on a team that runs as much as Carolina, that isn’t going to be enough to put up top 10 RB numbers.
Now, all that being said, I can’t tell John that taking Stewart there was a bad pick, because the fact is, I had him as the best available RB still on the board at that time as well. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but Johnny will be kicking himself all year that he didn’t pass on Stewart and take the guy who unfortunately, didn’t fully prove he was the real deal until week 1, Arian Foster. In the long run of this league, it may be fine for John, as it is a virtual certainty that one of the two, either Williams or Stewart, will be moved after this year, and if Stewart falls into a program where he will be the feature guy, he will be a lock for keeper status next year. For the time being though, he is a limited upside asset taken in a round where John probably needed a sure thing.
The sure thing that I would have selected if I were him is “the real” Steve Smith; and Johnny’s passing on him, B-Marshal, Colston, and “the other” Steve Smith, is why I think the Stewart pick was a bad one. Because he passed on these guys and went RB, QB in rounds 3 & 4, Johnny (again having one of those wrap-around pick positions) pretty much guaranteed himself a weak WR corps. Now as I have stated many many times, I think QBs and RBs are vitally more important than WRs. You can’t win a FF league with just a strong WR corps, and mediocre RBs & QBs, you can win with just strong RBs or QBs and so-so WRs. So that being the case, I don’t think it is damning to John’s team that he waited for WR. BUT, I think he could have gotten away with taking one of these higher level WRs and had decent RB options later down the road. Javid Best, Bradshaw and Ronnie Brown (who despite his injury risk went really late if you ask me in the 8th round) were all available at Johnny’s next pick, and I would rather have Steve Smith or Colston and one of those guys than J. Stewart and D. Bowe (Johnny’s eventual #1 WR pick).
Mr. Rocker did at least do the right thing in going heavy on WRs after waiting so long to dive in, taking Welker & Wallace with his next 2 picks and then Jacoby Jones and Dexter McCluster a couple picks later (still think McCluster was a reach, but we’ll see). Overall, I’m not terribly concerned about Johnny’s WRs, but his top 3 WRs were ranked 18, 21, & 24 in my rankings, so I also wouldn’t be overly confident in them either.
My Bold Prediction- 8-5 Good enough for top 4 in the playoffs.
I am going to state outright that this prediction rests wholly on Steven Jackson staying healthy. If he gets banged up this year and has to miss some time, I have zero confidence that Stewart and Brown (who is himself a huge injury risk) can carry this team to the playoffs. However, if John can get top 10 production from S-Jax, and top 15 RB production from a combination of Stewart & Ronnie, I think that the combination of strong RBs and a top 10 & top 12 QB will be enough for John to have a solid season. Aside from RB health and somewhat weak WRs, the other two areas of concern for Johnny’s team are his TE and defense. The TE, he’s probably not doing anything about unless there is an opportunity in a trade, but keeping the defense on par (now that he drafted somewhat poorly) will require week-to-week attention and smart pickups. Given that Johnny is possibly more into fantasy football than me, I have enough confidence in his ability to do this that I put his team in a tie for the 2nd highest ranking. Don't dissapoint me fatso.
Team Eugoogoolizers AKA- Team The only reason we have to read a Eugoogely is because our GM screwed up and KILLED the league.
GM: Patty-O AKA- The guy that...ok, fine, I guess I’ve beat the whole “ruined the league” drum enough eh?
Team Total- 2991 (6th) Starters- 1493 (1st) K&D- 731 (12th)
So, here we are again. After Pat’s dismal performance last season, he decided he couldn’t go on, and needed the slate wiped clean. I actually figured out what happened last year, and the REAL reason why Pat “forgot” to tally the final stats. If you remember, towards the end of the year a certain member of our league—not mentioning any names, *cough*Dave*cough*--decided that since he was out of the running for the playoffs, he would have a fire sale and auction off his team for draft picks in next year’s (this year’s) draft. Well, it turns out that the only team to take a serious interest was a certain smelly outfit called Pat’s Porta Potties. See, the thing is Patty-O had taken a while to recover from drafting Matt Hasselbeck in the 3rd round and Laurence Maroney in the 5th, but to his credit, he had bounced back and by about trade deadline time, he was back in the hunt for the hotly contested final playoff slot. So Pat, knowing how important a playoff birth could be, especially in this league, decided that it would be worth the hefty price of his 1st round draft pick in next year’s (this year’s) draft in order to add a stud WR like Brandon Marshall to his squad for the final playoff push. So Patty & Dave did the deal (after an unbelievable amount of drama of course, much of which, caused by yours truly).
Well, unfortunately for the younger Mr. Okeefe (and as it turned out, the rest of us as well), Marshall just wasn’t enough to push him over the hump that had been caused by his two early draft blunders, and he missed the playoffs by a game. Well, now he was in a tough spot. He hadn’t made the playoffs in year one, and because of his last minute deal with the devil...er, I mean David :-), he didn’t even have a pick in the first round of next year’s (this year’s...is that getting annoying yet?) draft. And the fact that he didn’t make the playoffs only made all of this worse, because now he was ranked even lower giving him a higher 1st round pick (which was handed over to the dev...I mean David) but a lower 2nd round pick. Essentially, not only had he doomed his first season with a couple poor draft decisions, but he had also put his crappy team (pun intended) in a terrible predicament for year 2 as well. What else could he do, but conveniently “forget” to tally the year end stats, and in doing so, guarantee a big fat do-over after his year of blunders. Lucky for him, we are all nice guys...and dummies, and we bought hook, line, and sinker his tragic tale of ahugelosernamedpatokeefe and the sappy, humility filled email that we can clearly now see was a total and complete fraud. My recommendation to everyone reading this is to never join another fantasy football league with Patrick M. O'keefe again (don't know if M is his middle initial, but that just seemed like a spot where a middle initial was needed). Wait, what? We already started another league with this guy? Oh well, too late for that, let’s get on with it then.
In all seriousness Pat, if there was any residual feeling bad for not tallying the stats, don’t. Things worked out perfectly having the “practice year” to get the kinks of the league worked out and having the ability to make the tweeks and adjustments that we did before starting over. It turned out to be a great thing for the league to have that opportunity (assuming of course that I crush everyone again and take an early lead in the 3 year championship, if that doesn’t happen, then you really screwed up big time buddy).
So now, without further ado (well, actually there will probably be plenty more ado, cause I have a tendency to put in a lot of asides just like this one into my writing. I’m going to do an especially lot of it on this last post because Johnny complained about all my parentheticals, so now I’ve got to do it even more) on to Patty’s team. I have to say first and foremost that when I went back and looked at the draft, and realized that Pat didn’t take a QB until round 8, I was more than a little concerned for my friend. (I’m sure I noticed it on draft day too, but you’re so focused on your own stuff then that you don’t have much time to pay attention to other people’s.) If you want to find out if I think that move of playing the waiting game was a death blow for Pat, you’ll have to just keep reading, or just jump down a couple of paragraphs where it says “My Bold Prediction”.
Pat started his draft off at pick nine with the consensus number one WR, Andre Johnson. I’ve got no objection to this pick at all, though I would also have no objection to either Schaub or Gore here. Mendenhall with pick 2 and again, no objection, though again, I would have had no problem with taking Romo instead. By the time Pat’s 3rd round pick came around, the best available RB was Steward (really it was Foster, but again, hindsight is 20/20), and the best QB option was Flacco/Kolb/Ryan. (I put them that way because I have them ranked bunched together like that- though not in that order-and it seems that every analyst has them ranked closely together in the QB10-14 range in some varying order.) Pat decided to pass on these guys and grab his 2nd top 10 WR, Larry Fitz, and then grabbed his 3rd, the original Steve Smith, in the 4th round, followed by a stud TE, Gates, in the 5th. So, his first 5 picks gave him 3 top 10-12 WRs, 1 top 10-12 RB, and a top 3 TE.
While there is absolutely no doubt Pat will have the studliest set of pass catchers in the league, I’m not sure what effect going this WR heavy early in the draft will have on his success. In the 6th and 7th he took guys that could turn out to be complete busts, or could help Pat win the league. Sproles and Cribbs were both studs in our league last year because of their return ability, but this year the point reward for return yards was more than cut in half. Even with the change, these guys will continue to have value, possibly significant, as long as they continue returning kicks and punts. Without the return yards though, both guys are essentially worthless from a fantasy perspective; and while it seems very unlikely that either guy will “lose it”, players who were at one point return specialists have lost their talents and in turn their jobs before (recently Hester, and before that Desmond Howard). I’m ok with the Sproles pick because Pat needed an RB2 at that point (though I think that Javid Best and Ahmad Bradshaw are both better options, especially when you consider keeper potential, than Sproles), but I think the Cribbs pick was an unnecessary risk. It ended up working out ok because no QBs were selected between Patty’s 7th and 8th round picks, but this was certainly not a guarantee, even if the 3 teams picking between already had 2 QBs.
Finally in round 8 we get to Pat’s first QB pick, Kyle Orton; and his second, Garrard, came a few rounds later. I’m not really sure what to think about Pat’s 2 QB options. They ranked 14 & 15 last year at the QB position, which for being the 20th and 22nd picked QBs this year isn’t bad. But, there are some young guys, Kolb/Flacco/Ryan, who finished behind them last year but are expected to leap to the next level this season. I think that for where he got them, and what he was able to draft in the earlier rounds, Patty-O may end up being in a better position than a couple of other teams that waited to draft QBs. But, that said, I don’t think either of these guys is a sure thing, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if at some point this year Pat decides to try to work a deal for an upgraded field general. With that, I am going to give my bold prediction and then explain what *WAS* Pat’s most significant weakness (aside from QB).
My Bold Prediction- 7-6 This year, Pat’s mad scramble to squeeze into the last playoff spot will prove successful (and he won’t even have to give up a 1st round pick to get there).
Well, if I would have decided to start my predictions with Pat’s team instead of do his last, I think I would have had his record flip-flopped and had him missing the playoffs by a game yet again. Reason being, if Ryan Grant didn’t go down, resulting in Brandon Jackson’s bump to near certain top 15 RB status, I would have been very concerned about Pat’s RB situation. I don’t quite trust Mendenhall as a guaranteed top 10 back (though I think it’s likely), and as stated above, Sproles value will take a hit from last year, and I just don’t like the idea of trusting return guys to major roles with this new league setup. Having a pretty much sure thing most week starter allows Pat the flexibility to see how things are going to work out with guys like Sproles and Washington, and even with his QB experiment. My gut based on week 1 is that the QBs will be ok, not great but ok, the RBs will be fine, and in this one instance, Pat will be able to ride his corps of stud WRs all the way to playoff glory. If I have one recommendation for Mr. Patty-O, it would be to work something out to get another QB (not sure why you dropped Freeman, but thanks , if possible one of a bit higher quality and more consistency than either Garrard or Orton. In general though, I like this team a lot more than I would have ever though considering the fact that 5 of Pat’s first 7 picks were pass catchers and he didn’t take his first QB til round 8.
Best of luck with your grand experiment commish. Certainly hope it works out better than your starting pitcher experiment in fantasy Baseball. And absolutely hope it works out better than last year, cause I don’t want to start over again if your team bombs yet again. ;-)
GM- John H
Team Total- 2968 (8th) Starters- 1368 (10th) K&D- 960 (3rd)
So John was one of 3 teams to wait until at least round 7 to take their first QB (Patty-O & DH being the others). Only time will tell if this was a solid strategy or if it would have been worth it to pass on other talent and reach in the earlier rounds for a signal caller. For what it’s worth, I clearly don’t consider it a death blow to a team to have waited on a QB considering that I picked Dave for one of the playoff slots. John had what some might call the good fortune of the first overall pick in the draft. He did what was, in my opinion, the smart thing, and grabbed the guy that has the very real possibility of being the #1 guy in all of FF for the full term of this league. If there was any doubt whether CJ could keep the ball rolling after last year’s studly performance, he removed it by going for 142 yds and a couple of scores in week 1. Hands down, for my money, there is no player I would rather have in this league format than Chris Johnson. That said, you can’t win a league with one guy, so what did John do with the rest of his draft?
Well, after CJ, he had to wait a bit, all the way down to pick #24, during which 8 QBs went off the board. I have to say that I was a little shocked, knowing that John, while harboring some unexplainable affection for da Raidas, also has an almost equally unexplainable soft spot for da bears, didn’t decide to use one of his pics at the turn to grab up da Butler (you know who I’m talking about Jolly). I certainly can’t say what I would do should I have been in John’s shoes. It’s a tough spot to have to decide to take a bubble top 10 QB with the first pick of the 3rd round, but the way QBs were flying off the board, he had to know this would certainly be his last shot at Cutler, as well as some other higher quality QB prospects. But, John’s picks of Wayne and Shonn Green were certainly quality picks at those two spots (more on Green later though).
I don’t question John’s decision to pass on a QB with his 2nd & 3rd picks, but (again, I’ll remind everyone that everything I say here is simply my opinion which will almost certainly be proven wrong time and time again throughout the year, AND that it is written with hindsight) I do think he made a misstep by passing on Matt Ryan with either his 4th or 5th round pick. While picking 1st overall is the only way to get a player like CJ, it also means that when you are drafting, there are huge blocks of picks between your selections. By passing on a QB at the 4-5 turn, John gave up the chance at the last couple QBs with top 10 potential—Ryan, and then Favre & McNabb (IF either were to stay healthy, they would have a shot, though I doubt it’ll happen). So like David, John ended up grabbing VY, his first QB at the start of round 7. While I like Vince this year, I think with a weapon like CJ on the team, Young’s value is somewhat limited. I think it will be a stellar year for him if he breaks the top 15 for QBs.
The benefit of waiting so long for a QB is the potential to stack up on RBs &/or WRs. John did so, taking 4 RBs and 2 WRs in the first 6 rounds. In addition to CJ, John’s got 3 guys with big potential in Greene, McCoy, and Bradshaw. While all of these guys have big time potential, none of them are absent of risk, as was seen with Greene last Monday in the Jets first game. Surprisingly enough, Greene is actually the one of these 3 that I am most concerned about. LT looks incredibly spry, and the Jets offense as a whole looked remarkably unimpressive (though admittedly it was against the Ravens). No doubt, the Jets are going to run the ball a ton. But as long as LT is healthy and running the ball like he did last week, and unless Greene can really have a break out performance, I think this will be a dead even 50/50 time share *at best*. I don’t think it is beyond the realm of possibility that LT ends the seasons with more rushes than Shonn Greene. Depending on how you look at it, McCoy’s situation may have gotten better (no more Weaver to take goal line carries) or worse (no more full back to lead block) when Weaver went down last week with that nasty injury. I’d say the jury is still out a little bit on McCoy’s value this year, though it should be noted that Andy Reid always has been a pass first coach, and that isn’t likely to change any time soon. Bradshaw though the latest picked, is actually the back I like best of the three RB2s that John has. He got the lion’s share of the carries in week 1, and did more with his chances than Jacobs did with his. Though he doesn’t have the same pedigree as guys like McCoy & Greene (whatever that means, but I hear it from talking heads all the time), he has a great opportunity on a Giants team that historically has run a lot, and has a decent line. If I had to pick a guy today to have the best #s at season’s end, I’d say Bradshaw.
Wow, I’m long winded on this one, so I’m just gonna get to it.
My Bold Prediction- 6-7 Just missing out on the playoffs.
These teams with no QBs are the toughest for me to grade. There is a lot of talent on this team, but QBs just put up numbers more consistently than WRs and RBs (other than the top guys). Having VY and a rookie in Bradford as a team’s only 2 QB options is in my opinion too risky and inconsistent to be a sure thing. If McCoy, Greene, or Bradshaw turn out to be a top 10 RBs, or 2 or 3 of them are at least top 15 options, then I think John should be able to work a deal for an upgrade at QB. But if these guys flounder early like Greene did week 1, it is going to be a big hit to their value, and even if they bounce back later on, John will have a tough time getting the value needed to bolster his QBs. On the other hand, as with every team, there is always the possibility that VY or Bradford will break out and be a top 10 QB, and my concerns will be moot. If I were in John’s shoes though, I would take the first opportunity I could (which may be right now with Bradshaw), and move one of the 3 RBs and try to pick up another QB option (someone like Orton or Garrard).
Team Shikaka AKA- Team Kaka
GM: Johnny Rocker AKA- The fattest kid in our league (and that’s PRETTY fat, cause I ain’t so skinny myself.)
Team Total- 2847 (10th) Starters- 1368 (10th) K&D- 833 (10th)
Well, if there’s one thing we can say about Johnny, it's that he’s consistent. As noted above, he had the most steady rankings of any team, though unfortunately they were steadily bad. Lucky for Johnny, yahoo’s projections aren’t worth squat, so you can pretty much throw them out the window. But, it’s gotta say something about his team that he was ranked 3rd to worst no matter how you measure it…right? We shall see.
Johnny’s draft nearly started like a dream. If that jerk Jolly had just grabbed Steven Jackson instead of Frank Gore, Freeboen (yes, I know I spelled it wrong, it was on purpose) would have been in heaven getting the studly 9ers RB with the no. 12 overall pick. But...it was not to be, so instead he went with S-Jax & Brady as his 1-2 punch. I think both of these picks were pretty much no brainers, though S-Jax is certainly not without risk. He is as tough a back as any in the league, and given a better situation would probably be a sure thing top 5 guy year in and year out. But, he’s been stuck on the crappy Rams, running behind a crappy line, and supported by crappy Marc Bulger as his QB. Well, hopefully for Johnny’s sake, some of the changes that came about this year—a couple of upgrades on the line and a new signal caller (a rookie still, but anything is an upgrade from poopy butt Bulger)—will give S-Jax the help he needs to make the jump up to “elite RB” level. Though some of these moves around him have the potential to help out considerably, the other concern with Mr. Jackson is his injury risk. He is a hard running guy, and it seems that every season he has some type of ailment that either keeps him out for a time (he missed 4 games in 07 & 08, and 1 game last year), or at least limits him to some extent. Hopefully for John’s sake a bit of a passing game boost from Bradford can take some of the pressure off of S-Jax and allow him to stay healthy all season.
With 2 of his first 4 picks Johnny went QB, taking Brady at pick 13 and Flacco at the start of round 4. I like this move for a couple of reasons. Number one, being that this is a 2 QB league, QBs have significantly more value than in standard leagues. In our test season last year (thanks again Pat for the practice :) we found that while not a necessity or a guarantee for making the playoffs, it does help to have 2 quality QBs on a squad (the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams last year all had 2 top 20 QBs). The 2nd reason I like these picks is because both these guys have a high probability of being keeper level players for all 3 seasons. I actually think these are the safest 2 picks Johnny made in the early rounds.
Unfortunately, smashed in between these 2 picks was John’s 3rd rounder, Jonathan Stewart. Now don’t get me wrong, the younger half of Carolina’s two-headed monster is absolutely a stud running back with tons of potential. And last year showed that the Panthers can and will run the ball enough for both guys to be viable fantasy options. But, the big problem I have with Stewart is that he’s not the starter. In every game that DeAngelo Williams was healthy for last year, he got more touches than Stewart. As long as Williams is around, even IF (note the big IF cause week one showed that this is unlikely) Carolina decided it wanted to move Stewart into the starting role in DeAngelo’s place, his upside and value would still be limited by the fact that Williams is there. The fact is that unless Williams gets hurt, until next year when these 2 beasts are split up, Stewart is going to be limited to 50% of the carries. And even on a team that runs as much as Carolina, that isn’t going to be enough to put up top 10 RB numbers.
Now, all that being said, I can’t tell John that taking Stewart there was a bad pick, because the fact is, I had him as the best available RB still on the board at that time as well. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but Johnny will be kicking himself all year that he didn’t pass on Stewart and take the guy who unfortunately, didn’t fully prove he was the real deal until week 1, Arian Foster. In the long run of this league, it may be fine for John, as it is a virtual certainty that one of the two, either Williams or Stewart, will be moved after this year, and if Stewart falls into a program where he will be the feature guy, he will be a lock for keeper status next year. For the time being though, he is a limited upside asset taken in a round where John probably needed a sure thing.
The sure thing that I would have selected if I were him is “the real” Steve Smith; and Johnny’s passing on him, B-Marshal, Colston, and “the other” Steve Smith, is why I think the Stewart pick was a bad one. Because he passed on these guys and went RB, QB in rounds 3 & 4, Johnny (again having one of those wrap-around pick positions) pretty much guaranteed himself a weak WR corps. Now as I have stated many many times, I think QBs and RBs are vitally more important than WRs. You can’t win a FF league with just a strong WR corps, and mediocre RBs & QBs, you can win with just strong RBs or QBs and so-so WRs. So that being the case, I don’t think it is damning to John’s team that he waited for WR. BUT, I think he could have gotten away with taking one of these higher level WRs and had decent RB options later down the road. Javid Best, Bradshaw and Ronnie Brown (who despite his injury risk went really late if you ask me in the 8th round) were all available at Johnny’s next pick, and I would rather have Steve Smith or Colston and one of those guys than J. Stewart and D. Bowe (Johnny’s eventual #1 WR pick).
Mr. Rocker did at least do the right thing in going heavy on WRs after waiting so long to dive in, taking Welker & Wallace with his next 2 picks and then Jacoby Jones and Dexter McCluster a couple picks later (still think McCluster was a reach, but we’ll see). Overall, I’m not terribly concerned about Johnny’s WRs, but his top 3 WRs were ranked 18, 21, & 24 in my rankings, so I also wouldn’t be overly confident in them either.
My Bold Prediction- 8-5 Good enough for top 4 in the playoffs.
I am going to state outright that this prediction rests wholly on Steven Jackson staying healthy. If he gets banged up this year and has to miss some time, I have zero confidence that Stewart and Brown (who is himself a huge injury risk) can carry this team to the playoffs. However, if John can get top 10 production from S-Jax, and top 15 RB production from a combination of Stewart & Ronnie, I think that the combination of strong RBs and a top 10 & top 12 QB will be enough for John to have a solid season. Aside from RB health and somewhat weak WRs, the other two areas of concern for Johnny’s team are his TE and defense. The TE, he’s probably not doing anything about unless there is an opportunity in a trade, but keeping the defense on par (now that he drafted somewhat poorly) will require week-to-week attention and smart pickups. Given that Johnny is possibly more into fantasy football than me, I have enough confidence in his ability to do this that I put his team in a tie for the 2nd highest ranking. Don't dissapoint me fatso.
Team Eugoogoolizers AKA- Team The only reason we have to read a Eugoogely is because our GM screwed up and KILLED the league.
GM: Patty-O AKA- The guy that...ok, fine, I guess I’ve beat the whole “ruined the league” drum enough eh?
Team Total- 2991 (6th) Starters- 1493 (1st) K&D- 731 (12th)
So, here we are again. After Pat’s dismal performance last season, he decided he couldn’t go on, and needed the slate wiped clean. I actually figured out what happened last year, and the REAL reason why Pat “forgot” to tally the final stats. If you remember, towards the end of the year a certain member of our league—not mentioning any names, *cough*Dave*cough*--decided that since he was out of the running for the playoffs, he would have a fire sale and auction off his team for draft picks in next year’s (this year’s) draft. Well, it turns out that the only team to take a serious interest was a certain smelly outfit called Pat’s Porta Potties. See, the thing is Patty-O had taken a while to recover from drafting Matt Hasselbeck in the 3rd round and Laurence Maroney in the 5th, but to his credit, he had bounced back and by about trade deadline time, he was back in the hunt for the hotly contested final playoff slot. So Pat, knowing how important a playoff birth could be, especially in this league, decided that it would be worth the hefty price of his 1st round draft pick in next year’s (this year’s) draft in order to add a stud WR like Brandon Marshall to his squad for the final playoff push. So Patty & Dave did the deal (after an unbelievable amount of drama of course, much of which, caused by yours truly).
Well, unfortunately for the younger Mr. Okeefe (and as it turned out, the rest of us as well), Marshall just wasn’t enough to push him over the hump that had been caused by his two early draft blunders, and he missed the playoffs by a game. Well, now he was in a tough spot. He hadn’t made the playoffs in year one, and because of his last minute deal with the devil...er, I mean David :-), he didn’t even have a pick in the first round of next year’s (this year’s...is that getting annoying yet?) draft. And the fact that he didn’t make the playoffs only made all of this worse, because now he was ranked even lower giving him a higher 1st round pick (which was handed over to the dev...I mean David) but a lower 2nd round pick. Essentially, not only had he doomed his first season with a couple poor draft decisions, but he had also put his crappy team (pun intended) in a terrible predicament for year 2 as well. What else could he do, but conveniently “forget” to tally the year end stats, and in doing so, guarantee a big fat do-over after his year of blunders. Lucky for him, we are all nice guys...and dummies, and we bought hook, line, and sinker his tragic tale of ahugelosernamedpatokeefe and the sappy, humility filled email that we can clearly now see was a total and complete fraud. My recommendation to everyone reading this is to never join another fantasy football league with Patrick M. O'keefe again (don't know if M is his middle initial, but that just seemed like a spot where a middle initial was needed). Wait, what? We already started another league with this guy? Oh well, too late for that, let’s get on with it then.
In all seriousness Pat, if there was any residual feeling bad for not tallying the stats, don’t. Things worked out perfectly having the “practice year” to get the kinks of the league worked out and having the ability to make the tweeks and adjustments that we did before starting over. It turned out to be a great thing for the league to have that opportunity (assuming of course that I crush everyone again and take an early lead in the 3 year championship, if that doesn’t happen, then you really screwed up big time buddy).
So now, without further ado (well, actually there will probably be plenty more ado, cause I have a tendency to put in a lot of asides just like this one into my writing. I’m going to do an especially lot of it on this last post because Johnny complained about all my parentheticals, so now I’ve got to do it even more) on to Patty’s team. I have to say first and foremost that when I went back and looked at the draft, and realized that Pat didn’t take a QB until round 8, I was more than a little concerned for my friend. (I’m sure I noticed it on draft day too, but you’re so focused on your own stuff then that you don’t have much time to pay attention to other people’s.) If you want to find out if I think that move of playing the waiting game was a death blow for Pat, you’ll have to just keep reading, or just jump down a couple of paragraphs where it says “My Bold Prediction”.
Pat started his draft off at pick nine with the consensus number one WR, Andre Johnson. I’ve got no objection to this pick at all, though I would also have no objection to either Schaub or Gore here. Mendenhall with pick 2 and again, no objection, though again, I would have had no problem with taking Romo instead. By the time Pat’s 3rd round pick came around, the best available RB was Steward (really it was Foster, but again, hindsight is 20/20), and the best QB option was Flacco/Kolb/Ryan. (I put them that way because I have them ranked bunched together like that- though not in that order-and it seems that every analyst has them ranked closely together in the QB10-14 range in some varying order.) Pat decided to pass on these guys and grab his 2nd top 10 WR, Larry Fitz, and then grabbed his 3rd, the original Steve Smith, in the 4th round, followed by a stud TE, Gates, in the 5th. So, his first 5 picks gave him 3 top 10-12 WRs, 1 top 10-12 RB, and a top 3 TE.
While there is absolutely no doubt Pat will have the studliest set of pass catchers in the league, I’m not sure what effect going this WR heavy early in the draft will have on his success. In the 6th and 7th he took guys that could turn out to be complete busts, or could help Pat win the league. Sproles and Cribbs were both studs in our league last year because of their return ability, but this year the point reward for return yards was more than cut in half. Even with the change, these guys will continue to have value, possibly significant, as long as they continue returning kicks and punts. Without the return yards though, both guys are essentially worthless from a fantasy perspective; and while it seems very unlikely that either guy will “lose it”, players who were at one point return specialists have lost their talents and in turn their jobs before (recently Hester, and before that Desmond Howard). I’m ok with the Sproles pick because Pat needed an RB2 at that point (though I think that Javid Best and Ahmad Bradshaw are both better options, especially when you consider keeper potential, than Sproles), but I think the Cribbs pick was an unnecessary risk. It ended up working out ok because no QBs were selected between Patty’s 7th and 8th round picks, but this was certainly not a guarantee, even if the 3 teams picking between already had 2 QBs.
Finally in round 8 we get to Pat’s first QB pick, Kyle Orton; and his second, Garrard, came a few rounds later. I’m not really sure what to think about Pat’s 2 QB options. They ranked 14 & 15 last year at the QB position, which for being the 20th and 22nd picked QBs this year isn’t bad. But, there are some young guys, Kolb/Flacco/Ryan, who finished behind them last year but are expected to leap to the next level this season. I think that for where he got them, and what he was able to draft in the earlier rounds, Patty-O may end up being in a better position than a couple of other teams that waited to draft QBs. But, that said, I don’t think either of these guys is a sure thing, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if at some point this year Pat decides to try to work a deal for an upgraded field general. With that, I am going to give my bold prediction and then explain what *WAS* Pat’s most significant weakness (aside from QB).
My Bold Prediction- 7-6 This year, Pat’s mad scramble to squeeze into the last playoff spot will prove successful (and he won’t even have to give up a 1st round pick to get there).
Well, if I would have decided to start my predictions with Pat’s team instead of do his last, I think I would have had his record flip-flopped and had him missing the playoffs by a game yet again. Reason being, if Ryan Grant didn’t go down, resulting in Brandon Jackson’s bump to near certain top 15 RB status, I would have been very concerned about Pat’s RB situation. I don’t quite trust Mendenhall as a guaranteed top 10 back (though I think it’s likely), and as stated above, Sproles value will take a hit from last year, and I just don’t like the idea of trusting return guys to major roles with this new league setup. Having a pretty much sure thing most week starter allows Pat the flexibility to see how things are going to work out with guys like Sproles and Washington, and even with his QB experiment. My gut based on week 1 is that the QBs will be ok, not great but ok, the RBs will be fine, and in this one instance, Pat will be able to ride his corps of stud WRs all the way to playoff glory. If I have one recommendation for Mr. Patty-O, it would be to work something out to get another QB (not sure why you dropped Freeman, but thanks , if possible one of a bit higher quality and more consistency than either Garrard or Orton. In general though, I like this team a lot more than I would have ever though considering the fact that 5 of Pat’s first 7 picks were pass catchers and he didn’t take his first QB til round 8.
Best of luck with your grand experiment commish. Certainly hope it works out better than your starting pitcher experiment in fantasy Baseball. And absolutely hope it works out better than last year, cause I don’t want to start over again if your team bombs yet again. ;-)
September 15, 2010
Week One Statistics
***EDIT***
It was brought to my attention today that there are stat corrections that are affecting the statistics I published earlier. In some cases, Yahoo! published corrections to stats on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, affecting the actual outcome of the statistics. Therefore, I am changing the due date of the stats to be published until Sunday morning. By Sunday morning, the stats will be published for the previous week's games. Any corrections that occur after this time will need to be submitted to me.
The stat corrections page on Yahoo! can be found here.
Sorry guys, it would just be too much work to continue updating this sheet with all the corrections that could happen.
September 12, 2010
MY BOLD PREDICTIONS teams 5-8 (Timmy-O, Ben, TJ & Dave)
Team Pattymakers
GM- Tim O’Keefe AKA- Pat’s Dad
Team Total- 3101 (4th) Starters- 1409 (7th) D & K- 917 (7th)
Next to DH, Mr. O’Keefe had the 2nd most controversial tenure in our “practice season” last year. I won’t make any predictions about whether or not Tim will manage to avoid the lime light this year, we’ll just have to take a wait & see approach to that one. As for the team, Tim shocked many (especially Tony Jr. who I think shot soda out of his nose) when he, a bears fan mind you, decided to go QB at pick 2 and take A-Rod over AP. At pick 4 I kind of assumed that the Packer’s soon to be Hall o’ Fame QB (that one’s for you Jollybear) wouldn’t make it to me, but I thought it would be because TJ would grab him at pick 3. Tim’s early Rodgers move started a run on QBs that had 6 of them gone in the first 14 picks and made for a very different draft from last season. After the Rodgers pick Tim had to wait until pick 23 to grab his first RB (Benson) and then took D-Jax at the start of rd 3. Both of those are solid picks, though since it doesn’t look like Jackson will be returning anything in Philly, I think I’d rather have Roddy White who I happily grabbed up a couple picks later. It’s a 50/50 though. Timmy then went RB heavy with the next 3 picks taking Moreno, Run Ricky Run, and the (formerly) Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush. While I don’t have a problem with where these 3 went in the overall RB ranks I think Tim’s team would be a bit more solid if he would have passed on Ricky and grabbed up a 2nd QB (Matt Ryan went 2 picks later).
That is the first problem area I see for this team. I’ve got Cassel ranked #20 for QBs, so he’s a borderline starter in our league, but he’s not the type of guy (or more the Chiefs aren’t the type of team) that you can count on for solid week in week out production. He’s also got Henne who he can throw in for decent matchups or bye weeks too, so it could work out. But looking back, if I’ve got the choice between Matt Ryan as my QB2 or Reggie Bush as a backup RB2, I think Ryan is by far the better choice. The second problem area for the Pattymakers is WR depth. After D-Jax, the #2 spot belongs to TO, and then Braylon-hands of steel-Edwards at WR3. I think TO is a bit of a ?, but they went to him a lot in the preseason and he can probably be a serviceable WR2. Much the same for Edwards at WR3 though I think his value takes a hit week 4 when Santonio comes back. The problem is that after these 3 guys, the only thing Tim’s got is Josh Morgan. Given TO’s age and Edwards propensity to drop the rock (and just have large periods of general suckiness), I think there’s a strong chance Mr. O’Keefe will wish he had a better option at backup WR; not to mention bye weeks.
My Bold Prediction- 5-8 A repeat of last year’s performance and a couple games out of the playoff mix.
I’m concerned about Tim’s WR depth and QB2 spot, but what worries me most is that in my opinion Rodgers is the only sure thing on this team. A huge portion of Jackson’s points last year came from big plays (10 plays of 40 yds or more), and I’m not sure I trust him to repeat those numbers, especially with young Kolb back at QB. I also have some concerns about Benson putting up the same numbers as last year. I think Tim’s team certainly has the potential to be solid if Benson & Jackson repeat, but I think there’s a decent chance these 2 guys don’t quite live up to their draft positions and Timmy-O’s team suffers because of it. My trade recommendation for Tim, though again it would be a tough move to make, would be to use the HUGE capital of Rodgers to pick up a couple more solid options and add some depth.
Team The Mighty Monarchs AKA- Team The injury butterfly strikes early
GM- Ben AKA- The New Guy
Team total- 2808 (12) Starters- 1294 (12) K&D- 861 (9)
Well, Ben’s team is the first of 6 for which I have the advantage of having seen 1 full week of games. Unfortunately in Ben’s case, that one little set of games provided quite a bit of insight since his 2nd round pick and #1 RB, Ryan Grant, went down with a season ending injury week 1. Regrettably this is a situation that, as we have seen in the past (last year for DH), can be difficult to overcome, especially when a team is already somewhat thin at RB.
But…this is a MAN’s league, and Ben doesn’t seem to be the type to sulk in the corner with his snuggie when the going gets tough. He seems more the type of guy to go out and make some bold moves, try for some savvy waiver wire pickups, and hope for the best. And the great thing about this league is, if things just don’t pan out this year and Ben isn’t able to get his team back up to par…don’t fret cause you’ll get to do it over next year when Pat forgets to total the stats and ruins the league. (Sorry Patty-O, just had to get one little jab in there.) Anyway, on to Ben’s-slightly modified since the draft-team.
Since Ben already made a couple of moves to attempt to compensate for the Grant injury, there’s no point in looking at his draft. Instead I’ll go with what his team looks like as of right now (the point totals are from the team drafted though). While the Monarch is indeed a mighty creature, a more fitting name for this team would be team “Almost fully mature caterpillar that will hopefully very *very* soon blossom into a Mighty Monarch”. This is a more fitting description because Ben’s team is chalk full of budding young talent that has the potential to turn into a bunch of studs. After trading away Matt Schaub in order to pick up a solid replacement for Grant, Ben is left with Matt Ryan as his best QB option. In the long term perspective for this league, I think Ryan is a solid QB option. The question is whether he will be able to step up to top 10 QB status this year, or if it will take him a bit more time to emerge. Since I drafted him, obviously I am optimistic, though with young players, not much is ever guaranteed. The Falcons certainly have plenty of offensive weapons to be able to put up some solid numbers and support a top 10 QB.
In addition to a young field general, team Monarch has also got promising young talent at WR in Maclin & Bryant, and at RB in Mathews and Spiller. Mathews seems to be the most likely of these guys to be a sure thing as he has the perfect situation in SD, but after a strong preseason, Spiller had plenty of talking heads getting excited too. Obviously the hope for Ben is that these guys break out in year one, and this is certainly possible. Both Chris Johnson and even more so AP had near stud RB level rookie year campaigns; and even if it takes until year 2 of the league before full benefits of this young talent are reaped, they should produce at a decent level this year. Other players like Royal, Gaffney, Forsett, and even Alex Smith to a certain extent, are wild cards that are probably more likely to stay as bye week type options, but certainly have some potential to step up and be more. After all it was only 2 years ago that Eddie Royal was the #7 ranked receiver with our scoring. He returned kicks that year, but he also had nearly 1000 yds receiving; and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he will be back catching boots at some point this year.
My Bold Prediction- 4-9 (But with a strong bounce back in year 2.)
Overall, I like the potential of a lot of Ben’s young players, but as Big T mentioned below, they are indeed “unproven talent”. Until these guys show that they can perform at a high level week in and week out, it’s tough to bank on a team full of these types of players to win a ton of matchups. That’s not to say it’s all bad news, because I would be very surprised if Ben doesn’t come out with 4 very solid keeper level players for next year, but I just think for this year, they will be too inconsistent and not put up enough week-in-week-out solid performances for a winning record. That said, as with every team in the league, team management is a very significant factor, and if some of these budding talents pop early and Ben can work a couple of deals and be smart on the WW pickups, maybe by the midseason edition I’ll have to eat some crow and bump up my prognostication.
Team Kenosha Moose AKA- Team Tryin to ride Danny Amendola to the playoffs yet again (Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, and is kinda weird—riding a guy to the playoffs—BUT…it IS what people call them.)
GM: TB Jr. (Duh, Tony Barriere Jr of course. How exactly would a miniature infectious disease GM a FF team?)
Team Total- 3085 (5th) Starters- 1382 (8th) K&D- 936 (5th)
Well, I have to say, I don’t think I’ve enjoyed any reaction to a fantasy football pick more than the shock & horror Tony displayed when Tim grabbed Rodgers @ pick #2. (Though a close 2nd is the laughter and (loving) ridicule that resulted, and continues to this day, over Pat’s 3rd round Hasselbeck pick last year.) Tony literally had to take a minute, not to think about who he was going to pick (AP was the obvious choice), but get his heart inserted back into his chest after it dropped on the floor.
Despite missing Rodgers, Jr. clearly thought it important to have strong QB options ‘cause he went there with both his 2nd and 3rd rd picks. I was fine with Eli at the end of the 2nd. He was the #11 QB last year, and I had him at #9 in my pre-draft rankings with Cutler being the only guy ranked higher still on the board. Being a fellow Packers fan, I can certainly understand taking Eli over Cutler and probably would have done the same myself (and at this point it looks like the preseason rankings should have been flip-flopped anyway). However, I wouldn’t have taken Palmer over Cutler, or Kolb/Ryan/Flacco, or even David Garrard. I had Palmer ranked QB #15, and given the keeper format of our league, in my opinion the 3 youngins are probably considerably better options than CP. That said, Palmer did look good in the preseason and Wk 1 with his battling Prima Donna WRs, and IF he can stay healthy and not miss any time, it is certainly possible that Tony ends up with two top 12 QB.
With pick 4 TB Jr. took his Colston as his first WR. I’m ok with this pick as he was the highest rated WR on the board, and the RB options there weren’t great (Moreno, McCoy, & Ricky were the next 3 rbs picked), but Colston has always been a guy that I’ve been skittish about. Not so much because I don’t think he’s got the talent to be a top WR, but because he plays for a Saints team with weapons up the wazoo, so it’s tough to guarantee that any one guy (aside from Brees) is going to put up consistent production. This is evidenced by last season when the Saints scored buttloads of points, but Colston was only the #15 WR. He’ll probably be fine, but he’s a bit of a worrying #1 WR. The next pick may have shocked some, but not me. I figured in our draft with a handful of Packer-backers, there was a strong chance J-Finley would be the first TE off the board. It’s definitely a risky move taking an unproven guy over sure things like Gates & Clark, but Tony, like a lot of Packer fans, had a strong feeling about Finley. My personal opinion is that while I think Finley has the potential to top the TE rankings, his production will be limited, much like Colston, because of the weapons around him. I think a safer move would be waiting a round for Gates or Clark if you want a solid TE option, BUT it’s not a gamble completely void of potential for a big payoff.
Ok, way too much about TB’s draft already, on to the team as a whole. Overall, I think Tony did fine. He’s got 2 solid QB options, at least for now, a top 5 RB (who is certainly capable of being #1) and a decent RB2 in Addai. His TE is set, and he’s got a decent, even if somewhat worrying, WR1. The biggest concern area I see for Tony is his WR depth. After Colston his next 3 options ranked #29 (Mason), #58 (Amendola), and #62 (Ginn) on my preseason rankings. My gut tells me that after Amendola kicked butt for him last year, Tony put a little too much value on return yds going into this draft. It looked for a second like Danny A might have a bit more opportunity in the regular offense after Avery went down, but with Mark Clayton getting all the looks last week, it’s questionable how much production he’s gonna give.
My Bold Prediction- 6-7 Missing the playoffs by just a smidge.
If Palmer and Addai were both to play all year without missing any time, and Colston does end up being a top 10 WR, then I think with just a couple of pickups or moves to shore up the WR2 & WR3 spots Tony could be a playoff team. The problem is, I don’t see all 3 of those things happening. I’m the least concerned about Addai, because it looks like Shonn Green is not quite what they expected him to be in NY, so LT may have considerable more value than initially thought. But if Palmer does end up down for a period, Tony’s back up QB option is Matt Moore. Tony showed last year that you can make the playoffs in this league with only 1 playable QB on the Roster, but he had a huge amount of help from Chris Johnson’s year, and Danny Amendola’s big production. My gut tells me that Kenosha Moose is just underpowered this year, and Tony will have to make a couple of adjustments to be about to get over the hump.
Team Bob Loblaws Law Blog AKA: Team On my knees begging & pleading that MJD doesn’t go down with a broken leg in week 3.
GM: Mr. David Hamilton (too proper & polite for you? No prob, he’ll be DH or Dave from here on out.)
Team Total- 2991 (6th) Starters- 1431 (4th) K&D- 947 (4th)
Well, from talking to Dave before the draft, my guess is that it wasn’t his intention to wait til the 7th round to grab his first QB. But, after passing on Manning for MJD at pick 6 (I wonder if he would still choose that way now knowing how the rest of the draft went), the draft kind of just went in a way where DH would have had to give up better quality players at other positions and stretch to get a QB. Now in one sense, that is just a reality of a draft like ours where QBs fly off the board. No matter where you take a QB, you are going to be stretching. But, looking back over Dave’s draft, even with the benefit of hindsight, I’m not sure I would have done things much differently than he did.
With his 2nd pick he grabbed Moss, the 2nd WR off the board. The best QB available here was the younger Manning, and I would definitely say Moss is the right pick there. Before his next pick Manning & C. Palmer went off the board, leaving him to chose between a 2nd top WR like Fitz, CJ, or Jennings, a 2nd RB like J. Charles (his pick), or the best available QB- the Gay Butler. My guess is Dave’s thought process here was that 9 teams already had QB1s and between Cutler, Flacco, Kolb, and Ryan, he should be able to still get a decent young QB option a pick or 2 later. Cutler & Flacco went before his pick 4 (B-Marshall), and Kolb, Ryan & McNabb went before his 5th rd pick.
So in round 7 Dave ended up with Jason Campbell as his starting QB, surrounded by a solid RB1 in MJD, a solid RB2 (with an RB1 future) in J. Charles, a wild card RB in Forte (more on him later), a top 5 WR1 in Moss, a probable top 10 WR2 in Marshall, and a top 3 TE in Clark. If this were a 1 QB league, I would be absolutely fine with this starting 7 and would say DH just needs to grab up a couple of extra lower rung QB options to play QB roulette, and he’d be set. This brings me to, what I see as a mistake by Dave. Instead of grabbing up a few QB options over the next several rounds, he took Stafford as his only other QB option; when other guys (Garrard, Bradford, Alex Smith, Cassel (who clearly sucks, but still), Hasselbeck and Freeman) all went in later rounds and were pretty much free for the taking at any time. In my opinion, even with solid RB, WR, & TE options, having only Campbell & Stafford as QB options is a huge risk in a league where you can (should) start 2 QBs.
As stated above, aside from the QB situation I think DH has a solid team. Two top 10 WRs is more than solid and the reborn Mike Williams or Manningham will be fine WR3 fill ins, with Sid Rice maybe helping out there down the road. At RB, he’s got a stud in MJD (though the preseason knee stuff is a little worrying), and between Charles & Forte, he could have a 2nd top 10 RB with one of the two. I’m sure he’s hoping both break out in which case he may move one for a QB upgrade, but my guess is that he’ll be lucky if one of them gets back to stud status. My concerns with Charles are threefold. Number one, is Thomas Jones. The two KC backs got completely even workloads in game 1, and if you take out Charles’ 56 yd td run, they put up the same numbers- 3.5 yds/carry for Jones, 3.6 yds per carry for Charles. Now I know, you can’t just wipe away Charles 56 yarder and act like it didn’t happen, but the reality is that he isn’t going to break a 56 yarder every week, especially if he keeps only getting 11 carries per game. Until the Chiefs commit to Charles as *the* guy, his value is going to be limited by his opportunity. The 2nd and 3rd concerns are the Chiefs O-line which is rated the number 31 line in the league, and Matt Cassel’s inability to look like an NFL QB. If teams don’t have to worry about KC’s passing game and can stack up on an already bad line, then Charles’ potential is going to be limited by even more than just T. Jones. With Forte, it’s tough for me to have an unbiased opinion, so I won’t say too much, but it should at least be noted that he did play the Lions last week. And still, it took an 89 yd screen on which he wasn’t touched and a 29 yd td on a great pass (and admittedly great catch too) by Cutler for him to have a fantasy relevant game. I definitely want to take a wait & see approach to Forte before elevating him back to top 10 RB status.
My Bold Prediction- 7-6 Narrowly beating out TB Jr for the last playoff slot.
While I’m more than a little concerned about David’s QB situation, GM ability and experience is a significant factor in fantasy football (not quite as significant as luck, but important none-the-less). My gut feeling is that Dave will make some moves throughout the year to add either a stud, or at least some lower tier depth to his QB pool. In addition to decent QB options, solid RBs are critical to winning in this league, and Dave has some great potential there. After Dave’s miserable fortune last year, hopefully MJD’s knee will be fine, and DH’s season will be left to his GM skills instead of the bad luck of the injury bug.
GM- Tim O’Keefe AKA- Pat’s Dad
Team Total- 3101 (4th) Starters- 1409 (7th) D & K- 917 (7th)
Next to DH, Mr. O’Keefe had the 2nd most controversial tenure in our “practice season” last year. I won’t make any predictions about whether or not Tim will manage to avoid the lime light this year, we’ll just have to take a wait & see approach to that one. As for the team, Tim shocked many (especially Tony Jr. who I think shot soda out of his nose) when he, a bears fan mind you, decided to go QB at pick 2 and take A-Rod over AP. At pick 4 I kind of assumed that the Packer’s soon to be Hall o’ Fame QB (that one’s for you Jollybear) wouldn’t make it to me, but I thought it would be because TJ would grab him at pick 3. Tim’s early Rodgers move started a run on QBs that had 6 of them gone in the first 14 picks and made for a very different draft from last season. After the Rodgers pick Tim had to wait until pick 23 to grab his first RB (Benson) and then took D-Jax at the start of rd 3. Both of those are solid picks, though since it doesn’t look like Jackson will be returning anything in Philly, I think I’d rather have Roddy White who I happily grabbed up a couple picks later. It’s a 50/50 though. Timmy then went RB heavy with the next 3 picks taking Moreno, Run Ricky Run, and the (formerly) Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush. While I don’t have a problem with where these 3 went in the overall RB ranks I think Tim’s team would be a bit more solid if he would have passed on Ricky and grabbed up a 2nd QB (Matt Ryan went 2 picks later).
That is the first problem area I see for this team. I’ve got Cassel ranked #20 for QBs, so he’s a borderline starter in our league, but he’s not the type of guy (or more the Chiefs aren’t the type of team) that you can count on for solid week in week out production. He’s also got Henne who he can throw in for decent matchups or bye weeks too, so it could work out. But looking back, if I’ve got the choice between Matt Ryan as my QB2 or Reggie Bush as a backup RB2, I think Ryan is by far the better choice. The second problem area for the Pattymakers is WR depth. After D-Jax, the #2 spot belongs to TO, and then Braylon-hands of steel-Edwards at WR3. I think TO is a bit of a ?, but they went to him a lot in the preseason and he can probably be a serviceable WR2. Much the same for Edwards at WR3 though I think his value takes a hit week 4 when Santonio comes back. The problem is that after these 3 guys, the only thing Tim’s got is Josh Morgan. Given TO’s age and Edwards propensity to drop the rock (and just have large periods of general suckiness), I think there’s a strong chance Mr. O’Keefe will wish he had a better option at backup WR; not to mention bye weeks.
My Bold Prediction- 5-8 A repeat of last year’s performance and a couple games out of the playoff mix.
I’m concerned about Tim’s WR depth and QB2 spot, but what worries me most is that in my opinion Rodgers is the only sure thing on this team. A huge portion of Jackson’s points last year came from big plays (10 plays of 40 yds or more), and I’m not sure I trust him to repeat those numbers, especially with young Kolb back at QB. I also have some concerns about Benson putting up the same numbers as last year. I think Tim’s team certainly has the potential to be solid if Benson & Jackson repeat, but I think there’s a decent chance these 2 guys don’t quite live up to their draft positions and Timmy-O’s team suffers because of it. My trade recommendation for Tim, though again it would be a tough move to make, would be to use the HUGE capital of Rodgers to pick up a couple more solid options and add some depth.
Team The Mighty Monarchs AKA- Team The injury butterfly strikes early
GM- Ben AKA- The New Guy
Team total- 2808 (12) Starters- 1294 (12) K&D- 861 (9)
Well, Ben’s team is the first of 6 for which I have the advantage of having seen 1 full week of games. Unfortunately in Ben’s case, that one little set of games provided quite a bit of insight since his 2nd round pick and #1 RB, Ryan Grant, went down with a season ending injury week 1. Regrettably this is a situation that, as we have seen in the past (last year for DH), can be difficult to overcome, especially when a team is already somewhat thin at RB.
But…this is a MAN’s league, and Ben doesn’t seem to be the type to sulk in the corner with his snuggie when the going gets tough. He seems more the type of guy to go out and make some bold moves, try for some savvy waiver wire pickups, and hope for the best. And the great thing about this league is, if things just don’t pan out this year and Ben isn’t able to get his team back up to par…don’t fret cause you’ll get to do it over next year when Pat forgets to total the stats and ruins the league. (Sorry Patty-O, just had to get one little jab in there.) Anyway, on to Ben’s-slightly modified since the draft-team.
Since Ben already made a couple of moves to attempt to compensate for the Grant injury, there’s no point in looking at his draft. Instead I’ll go with what his team looks like as of right now (the point totals are from the team drafted though). While the Monarch is indeed a mighty creature, a more fitting name for this team would be team “Almost fully mature caterpillar that will hopefully very *very* soon blossom into a Mighty Monarch”. This is a more fitting description because Ben’s team is chalk full of budding young talent that has the potential to turn into a bunch of studs. After trading away Matt Schaub in order to pick up a solid replacement for Grant, Ben is left with Matt Ryan as his best QB option. In the long term perspective for this league, I think Ryan is a solid QB option. The question is whether he will be able to step up to top 10 QB status this year, or if it will take him a bit more time to emerge. Since I drafted him, obviously I am optimistic, though with young players, not much is ever guaranteed. The Falcons certainly have plenty of offensive weapons to be able to put up some solid numbers and support a top 10 QB.
In addition to a young field general, team Monarch has also got promising young talent at WR in Maclin & Bryant, and at RB in Mathews and Spiller. Mathews seems to be the most likely of these guys to be a sure thing as he has the perfect situation in SD, but after a strong preseason, Spiller had plenty of talking heads getting excited too. Obviously the hope for Ben is that these guys break out in year one, and this is certainly possible. Both Chris Johnson and even more so AP had near stud RB level rookie year campaigns; and even if it takes until year 2 of the league before full benefits of this young talent are reaped, they should produce at a decent level this year. Other players like Royal, Gaffney, Forsett, and even Alex Smith to a certain extent, are wild cards that are probably more likely to stay as bye week type options, but certainly have some potential to step up and be more. After all it was only 2 years ago that Eddie Royal was the #7 ranked receiver with our scoring. He returned kicks that year, but he also had nearly 1000 yds receiving; and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he will be back catching boots at some point this year.
My Bold Prediction- 4-9 (But with a strong bounce back in year 2.)
Overall, I like the potential of a lot of Ben’s young players, but as Big T mentioned below, they are indeed “unproven talent”. Until these guys show that they can perform at a high level week in and week out, it’s tough to bank on a team full of these types of players to win a ton of matchups. That’s not to say it’s all bad news, because I would be very surprised if Ben doesn’t come out with 4 very solid keeper level players for next year, but I just think for this year, they will be too inconsistent and not put up enough week-in-week-out solid performances for a winning record. That said, as with every team in the league, team management is a very significant factor, and if some of these budding talents pop early and Ben can work a couple of deals and be smart on the WW pickups, maybe by the midseason edition I’ll have to eat some crow and bump up my prognostication.
Team Kenosha Moose AKA- Team Tryin to ride Danny Amendola to the playoffs yet again (Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, and is kinda weird—riding a guy to the playoffs—BUT…it IS what people call them.)
GM: TB Jr. (Duh, Tony Barriere Jr of course. How exactly would a miniature infectious disease GM a FF team?)
Team Total- 3085 (5th) Starters- 1382 (8th) K&D- 936 (5th)
Well, I have to say, I don’t think I’ve enjoyed any reaction to a fantasy football pick more than the shock & horror Tony displayed when Tim grabbed Rodgers @ pick #2. (Though a close 2nd is the laughter and (loving) ridicule that resulted, and continues to this day, over Pat’s 3rd round Hasselbeck pick last year.) Tony literally had to take a minute, not to think about who he was going to pick (AP was the obvious choice), but get his heart inserted back into his chest after it dropped on the floor.
Despite missing Rodgers, Jr. clearly thought it important to have strong QB options ‘cause he went there with both his 2nd and 3rd rd picks. I was fine with Eli at the end of the 2nd. He was the #11 QB last year, and I had him at #9 in my pre-draft rankings with Cutler being the only guy ranked higher still on the board. Being a fellow Packers fan, I can certainly understand taking Eli over Cutler and probably would have done the same myself (and at this point it looks like the preseason rankings should have been flip-flopped anyway). However, I wouldn’t have taken Palmer over Cutler, or Kolb/Ryan/Flacco, or even David Garrard. I had Palmer ranked QB #15, and given the keeper format of our league, in my opinion the 3 youngins are probably considerably better options than CP. That said, Palmer did look good in the preseason and Wk 1 with his battling Prima Donna WRs, and IF he can stay healthy and not miss any time, it is certainly possible that Tony ends up with two top 12 QB.
With pick 4 TB Jr. took his Colston as his first WR. I’m ok with this pick as he was the highest rated WR on the board, and the RB options there weren’t great (Moreno, McCoy, & Ricky were the next 3 rbs picked), but Colston has always been a guy that I’ve been skittish about. Not so much because I don’t think he’s got the talent to be a top WR, but because he plays for a Saints team with weapons up the wazoo, so it’s tough to guarantee that any one guy (aside from Brees) is going to put up consistent production. This is evidenced by last season when the Saints scored buttloads of points, but Colston was only the #15 WR. He’ll probably be fine, but he’s a bit of a worrying #1 WR. The next pick may have shocked some, but not me. I figured in our draft with a handful of Packer-backers, there was a strong chance J-Finley would be the first TE off the board. It’s definitely a risky move taking an unproven guy over sure things like Gates & Clark, but Tony, like a lot of Packer fans, had a strong feeling about Finley. My personal opinion is that while I think Finley has the potential to top the TE rankings, his production will be limited, much like Colston, because of the weapons around him. I think a safer move would be waiting a round for Gates or Clark if you want a solid TE option, BUT it’s not a gamble completely void of potential for a big payoff.
Ok, way too much about TB’s draft already, on to the team as a whole. Overall, I think Tony did fine. He’s got 2 solid QB options, at least for now, a top 5 RB (who is certainly capable of being #1) and a decent RB2 in Addai. His TE is set, and he’s got a decent, even if somewhat worrying, WR1. The biggest concern area I see for Tony is his WR depth. After Colston his next 3 options ranked #29 (Mason), #58 (Amendola), and #62 (Ginn) on my preseason rankings. My gut tells me that after Amendola kicked butt for him last year, Tony put a little too much value on return yds going into this draft. It looked for a second like Danny A might have a bit more opportunity in the regular offense after Avery went down, but with Mark Clayton getting all the looks last week, it’s questionable how much production he’s gonna give.
My Bold Prediction- 6-7 Missing the playoffs by just a smidge.
If Palmer and Addai were both to play all year without missing any time, and Colston does end up being a top 10 WR, then I think with just a couple of pickups or moves to shore up the WR2 & WR3 spots Tony could be a playoff team. The problem is, I don’t see all 3 of those things happening. I’m the least concerned about Addai, because it looks like Shonn Green is not quite what they expected him to be in NY, so LT may have considerable more value than initially thought. But if Palmer does end up down for a period, Tony’s back up QB option is Matt Moore. Tony showed last year that you can make the playoffs in this league with only 1 playable QB on the Roster, but he had a huge amount of help from Chris Johnson’s year, and Danny Amendola’s big production. My gut tells me that Kenosha Moose is just underpowered this year, and Tony will have to make a couple of adjustments to be about to get over the hump.
Team Bob Loblaws Law Blog AKA: Team On my knees begging & pleading that MJD doesn’t go down with a broken leg in week 3.
GM: Mr. David Hamilton (too proper & polite for you? No prob, he’ll be DH or Dave from here on out.)
Team Total- 2991 (6th) Starters- 1431 (4th) K&D- 947 (4th)
Well, from talking to Dave before the draft, my guess is that it wasn’t his intention to wait til the 7th round to grab his first QB. But, after passing on Manning for MJD at pick 6 (I wonder if he would still choose that way now knowing how the rest of the draft went), the draft kind of just went in a way where DH would have had to give up better quality players at other positions and stretch to get a QB. Now in one sense, that is just a reality of a draft like ours where QBs fly off the board. No matter where you take a QB, you are going to be stretching. But, looking back over Dave’s draft, even with the benefit of hindsight, I’m not sure I would have done things much differently than he did.
With his 2nd pick he grabbed Moss, the 2nd WR off the board. The best QB available here was the younger Manning, and I would definitely say Moss is the right pick there. Before his next pick Manning & C. Palmer went off the board, leaving him to chose between a 2nd top WR like Fitz, CJ, or Jennings, a 2nd RB like J. Charles (his pick), or the best available QB- the Gay Butler. My guess is Dave’s thought process here was that 9 teams already had QB1s and between Cutler, Flacco, Kolb, and Ryan, he should be able to still get a decent young QB option a pick or 2 later. Cutler & Flacco went before his pick 4 (B-Marshall), and Kolb, Ryan & McNabb went before his 5th rd pick.
So in round 7 Dave ended up with Jason Campbell as his starting QB, surrounded by a solid RB1 in MJD, a solid RB2 (with an RB1 future) in J. Charles, a wild card RB in Forte (more on him later), a top 5 WR1 in Moss, a probable top 10 WR2 in Marshall, and a top 3 TE in Clark. If this were a 1 QB league, I would be absolutely fine with this starting 7 and would say DH just needs to grab up a couple of extra lower rung QB options to play QB roulette, and he’d be set. This brings me to, what I see as a mistake by Dave. Instead of grabbing up a few QB options over the next several rounds, he took Stafford as his only other QB option; when other guys (Garrard, Bradford, Alex Smith, Cassel (who clearly sucks, but still), Hasselbeck and Freeman) all went in later rounds and were pretty much free for the taking at any time. In my opinion, even with solid RB, WR, & TE options, having only Campbell & Stafford as QB options is a huge risk in a league where you can (should) start 2 QBs.
As stated above, aside from the QB situation I think DH has a solid team. Two top 10 WRs is more than solid and the reborn Mike Williams or Manningham will be fine WR3 fill ins, with Sid Rice maybe helping out there down the road. At RB, he’s got a stud in MJD (though the preseason knee stuff is a little worrying), and between Charles & Forte, he could have a 2nd top 10 RB with one of the two. I’m sure he’s hoping both break out in which case he may move one for a QB upgrade, but my guess is that he’ll be lucky if one of them gets back to stud status. My concerns with Charles are threefold. Number one, is Thomas Jones. The two KC backs got completely even workloads in game 1, and if you take out Charles’ 56 yd td run, they put up the same numbers- 3.5 yds/carry for Jones, 3.6 yds per carry for Charles. Now I know, you can’t just wipe away Charles 56 yarder and act like it didn’t happen, but the reality is that he isn’t going to break a 56 yarder every week, especially if he keeps only getting 11 carries per game. Until the Chiefs commit to Charles as *the* guy, his value is going to be limited by his opportunity. The 2nd and 3rd concerns are the Chiefs O-line which is rated the number 31 line in the league, and Matt Cassel’s inability to look like an NFL QB. If teams don’t have to worry about KC’s passing game and can stack up on an already bad line, then Charles’ potential is going to be limited by even more than just T. Jones. With Forte, it’s tough for me to have an unbiased opinion, so I won’t say too much, but it should at least be noted that he did play the Lions last week. And still, it took an 89 yd screen on which he wasn’t touched and a 29 yd td on a great pass (and admittedly great catch too) by Cutler for him to have a fantasy relevant game. I definitely want to take a wait & see approach to Forte before elevating him back to top 10 RB status.
My Bold Prediction- 7-6 Narrowly beating out TB Jr for the last playoff slot.
While I’m more than a little concerned about David’s QB situation, GM ability and experience is a significant factor in fantasy football (not quite as significant as luck, but important none-the-less). My gut feeling is that Dave will make some moves throughout the year to add either a stud, or at least some lower tier depth to his QB pool. In addition to decent QB options, solid RBs are critical to winning in this league, and Dave has some great potential there. After Dave’s miserable fortune last year, hopefully MJD’s knee will be fine, and DH’s season will be left to his GM skills instead of the bad luck of the injury bug.
September 10, 2010
Here they are fellas, The 2010 Preseason Edition of MY BOLD PREDICTIONS (Teams 1-4 Joe, Big Tony, Juan & Jolly)
So, I started writing up an intro to this, and then realized that what I had written last year would work just fine. Since I’m a big fan of not doing extra work, I’m just going to reuse my intro from last year. (Also, another way I realized I could do less work was to just reuse my write up for Pat & Johnny since their teams will be just about as crappy this year as they were last year. So, thank you guys for drafting crappy teams (again) and saving me work.)
Just a little explanation of this madness for those of you who have never had the good (or bad if you like to win) fortune of being in a league with me before. Every year at the beginning of the season, and about the midway point, I (try to) do a little write up of my opinion of each team in the league (strengths, weaknesses, etc.) and make predictions for how the league will turn out. They are simply my speculative opinions, based on a little bit of research, a little bit of statistical analysis, and a whole lot of personal bias (especially against Johnny). These predictions are meant in no way to offend anyone, the preseason one's especially will probably all fail miserably, but I like writing them, and at least 1 other person in the league likes reading them. Plus it's a reason to brag at the end of the season if my team totally bombs, but I made a couple of good predictions. So anyway, it's meant for fun, so make fun of them...or me...or Pat, and feel free to comment or discuss my opinions/predictions about your team or anyone Else's. I've included 3 numbers next to each team that mean absolutely nothing, but I like doing dumb statistics stuff like that (maybe I should have been an accountant). They are the point totals based on Yahoo's projections for each team and the rank for the team in that category. The first number is the total number of points projected for the entire team, the second is the total for the team’s starters (I used the highest possible play at each position for the season), and the 3rd is for the team’s defense. So without further ado, here they are. I'm working on them in the reverse order that Yahoo has them listed in the drop down menu.
One more note, if I mention a trade that might help out a certain team, I’m not recommending trades that are actual possibilities for this league, just saying the types of trade and players that in my *mostly worthless* opinion would have the potential to help a team.
Team Hurricane Ditka AKA- The Old Fogy (but still more productive than Michael Crabtree) WRs
GM- Joe
Team total- 3104 pts (3rd) Starters- 1422 (5th) D & Kicker- 927 (6th)
The first thing I notice about Joe’s team (well second really, the first thing I actually noticed was that he’s got the dreaded “Gay Butler”) is that he’s stacked with (about to be) washed up but for the time being still serviceable WRs (and 1 RB). Seriously, he’s got every one of those guys- Ward, Driver, S. Moss, Housh, and even Boldin is pretty much there IMO. They are all for the most part possession guys who will get Joe some consistent points every week, but are pretty unlikely to have any blow up games. Normally this lack of upside @ WR would worry me a bit and I’d like at least one top 12 WR on a team (I’ve got Ward & Boldin at #16 & #17 in my WR ranks), but for Joe’s team, I think it might work out ok. Reason being, he’s got a probable top 5-7 RB and 2 top 10 QBs (unless the Butler completely self destructs, which is certainly possible, but it’s equally possible that he’ll be around the #10 QB like he was last year). Solid week to week performance with decent upside at these 3 positions plus TE along with consistently average WR and defensive production should keep Joe competitive in most contests.
If there is one position of concern I have for Joe’s squad (aside from the aforementioned old dude WRs), it would be his RB2 where his current best option, Beanie Wells, has an apparent knee issue, which is never good for an RB, and a more productive than he gets credit for Tim Hightower still hanging around. Portis is serviceable for now, but I have a hard time having any faith that he’ll make it through the year without significant blocks of little or no production. And his other option is one of Da Raidas backs, and those guys can never be trusted...no matter how much Matt Berry hypes them. Joe’s D is average, but would drop a bit in production (and rank) if Josh Wilson doesn’t end up returning kicks for the Ravens (it doesn’t look like he is going to, at least for the start of the season).
My Bold Prediction- 7-6 Good for a Wild Card slot.
I think Joe’s got enough firepower with Romo, Cutler & Turner and enough balance with the rest of his team to be in a lot of his matchups this year, and come out on top of *slightly* more than half. That said, though they have been consistent in the past, there is a much higher than zero chance that this could be the year a couple of those old fogy WRs take a big dip in production putting Joe in a tight spot. If that happens, it might be worth moving one of the QBs for a slightly lesser (but still playable) option in order to shore up a more solid #1 WR. (Something like Romo & Boldin for Flacco & Roddy White. For example.)
Team Firing Line AKA- If you guys don’t perform, Big T is gonna line you up and shoot you one by one.
GM- Big Tony
Team total- 2900 pts (9th) Starters- 1436 (3rd) D & K- 915 (8th) (The D has since been addressed and is now bumped up to a tie for 1st, which also bumps the team total rank up to 6th)
Despite limited FF experience, last year as co-manager of “Kenosha Moose” Big T was one half of the brain trust that successfully navigated through the season to squeeze into one of the wild card playoff spots. It seems that Mr. B is a quick learner as he (in my opinion) drafted remarkably well, not really reaching unnecessarily for any player early in the draft, and at least through the first 8-10 rounds for the most part drafting the best available players at their respective positions. Team Firing Line has some obvious strong points in Brees, Austin, “the other” Steve Smith, De Williams & VD (the San Fran tight end, just in case there was any confusion). This core of solid players is a great place to start. Not without some slight question marks (i.e. Can Austin live up to last year’s performance? & Can De Williams hold off the hard charging and slightly younger Stewart?), but for the most part a very strong core.
There are two significant areas of concern for this team (there were 3, but Big T has already addressed the issues on his defense and since this printing has moved his defensive rank from 8th up to a tie for 1st). The first being the RB2 spot where Hightower will be a solid fill until Wells is back to 100%, but will probably not be a huge producer once Beanie starts going. Though Jones had a monster year last year, it’s doubtful that he will put up anything close to those numbers playing behind the dynamic Jamal Charles in KC; and B. Jacobs seems to be quickly sliding further into the back seat in NY behind Bradshaw. My guess is that by week 4-6, Big T is going to be wanting for a more consistent producer at the RB2 spot (unless he gets lucky and one of these guys gets a bump back to the driver’s seat because of an injury).
The second question for this squad is the QB2 spot. I know some people have high expectations for McNabb in Washington, and as long as he is healthy, I think he’s likely to put up ok numbers (QB15ish type numbers). BUT (and it’s a huge BUT (not a huge BUTT…sorry Sir-Mix a lot)) that is all hinging on him staying healthy, something he hasn’t had much success doing over the past 5 years. He has missed an average of almost 5 games a year over the past 5 seasons and it isn’t as if he’s gotten younger during that time. McNabb has always been an injury risk, but now another year older, less mobile, and playing behind what last year was considered one of the league’s worst offensive lines (though slightly revamped this year), it seems a near inevitability that he will miss some time at some point this season. In and of itself, that’s not a huge loss for Big T. After all, McNabb’s only projected at around QB15 range. But when you consider that if McNabb falters the choices to fill an RB2 slot and a Flex slot will be 2 of 3 mostly washed up RBs who rank in the 30s for the position, suddenly losing McNabb looks like a very serious hit. And this is the major concern for me for this team.
My Bold Prediction- 5-8 Missing the playoffs by a couple of wins.
As stated above, this team has a very strong core of solid players, but the bench is ranked 12th in our league. That lack of depth is going to be a real issue when bye weeks start coming around and any injury to one of the team’s starters has the potential to doom this team. Given McNabb’s injury history, I see him as the weakest link on this team, and see a very real potential that even a few missed games by him could have a significant detrimental effect on Big T’s season. As tough of a decision as this would be, in my opinion, the best thing this team could do is use the capital of a stud player like Brees to build depth. Having a player like McNabb on the roster is fine (he will have some big games), but only if there are decent options behind him to fill in if (when) he goes down. McNabb paired with a couple of other decent QB options like a Kolb/Flacco/Ryan and a Henne/Stafford/Campbell would be a fine combination and would allow Big T to sure up the RB2 position.
Team Dirty Dominicans AKA- Team We’re not really that dirty, and actually we’re Puerto Ricans
GM- JUAN FRANCISCO GONZALEZ RODRIGO FERDINAN GARCIA FIALLO (pronounced Feeajcho)
Team Total- 3125 (2nd) Starters- 1371 (9th) D & K- 967 (2nd)
I thought about typing this whole prediction in Juan’s accent, but quickly realized that it would be pretty much illegible to anyone but me, so I scratched that idea. But I can’t help it, whenever I read something Juan wrote, or even write things about Juan, my mind automatically goes into Latin mode and I start thinking with an accent (I also get super romantic and suave and have long hair and ride a horse...cause that’s what Latin guys do, right?). Anyways, on to the football (see, I pronounced that futbol in my mind).
For being a first time FF-baller and not having more than a passing knowledge of football in general, I think Juan did just fine on his first draft (as evidenced by his 2nd place team total). He locked up a stud QB and probable top 12 RB & WR in the Frenchy & The Headache (probably reached a little bit on both of them since De Williams & Ryan Matthews were both still on the board when he took PT and Fitz, Calvin Johnson & Jennings were still around when he took Super Migraine Boy). But if the Frenchy’s first game against the Viqueens was any indicator of how the season will go, then Francois will be ok with where he took him. And if Harvin can quit being a sissy about his headaches, he’ll be solid too (especially if he keeps returning kicks).
Two more relatively solid options at WR in Ocho & Nicks and a decent option at RB2 in Jones (assuming he returns kicks...if not his value could be significantly lower), and a couple crappy, but usable QB2s in Sanchez & Hasselbeck (though the odds of Hasselbeck staying healthy all year are about as good as the odds of the Bears winning the Super Bowl). Hasselbeck going down leaving Sanchez as the only QB2 option and not a ton of depth on the bench are my two biggest concerns for Juanito’s team. Cadillac swears that his knees are finally fine and that this is gonna be a bounce back year, but until I see it, I’m not buyng it. Fred Jackson would be a solid option if he was returning kicks like he did last year, but he’s not even on the Bills current special teams depth chart, so it’s not looking to be the case. If he’s purely a breather for CJ Spiller then he’s not going to be of much value in this league. McGahee & Morris are virtually worthless (sorry to be so blunt Juan, but it’s da facts). Chris Chambers could be an ok bye week fill in at WR3, but he’ll be inconsistent at best, and even more so for Mike Thomas. Juan also managed to put together the number 2 defense in the league, which contrary to popular belief, probably won’t win him any championships, but will give consistent points every week which is what I want in a defense.
My Bold Prediction- 6-7 Missing the playoffs by about a game.
I think Juan’s team is solid, but I’m worried that there are going to be weeks where Peyton is his only stud. I think over the course of the year, the Frenchy and Jones will be solid at the RB position, but there will be weeks where they get blanked. And like his 3 point Thursday effort, I don’t think Harvin will be an every week guaranteed producer either (especially if Favre’s iron man streak comes to an end at some point this season...which I think is about as inevitable as David making some controversial trade this year). Overall, I think Juan has solid plays at each position, but not a ton of solid depth, and I think the combination of that and his limited FF experience will make it tough for him to pull in one of the coveted top 6 spots. That said, Juan is a smart guy and FF is a fickle game. If he can stay on top of his game and pull a couple of savvy moves/pickups there is certainly a chance that he could build on his solid base and turn in a playoff caliber year.
Team Junkyard Dogs AKA- Team Minnesota Vikings (not because of the 3 Viqueens players on the team, but because, like the Vikes, Jolly’s season hangs on the shoulders of a soon to be 41 year old grandpa).
GM- Jollybear
Team Total- 2843 (11th) Starters- 1414 (6th) D & K- 736 (11th)
Well, for starters, in my opinion the Jolly Roger takes the cake for the best first 4 picks of any team. He managed a top 5-7 RB, a top 5-7 QB, a top 5-7 WR, and a second RB who, while not a guarantee, certainly has RB1 (top 12) potential. I don’t think there is any team that came out with a more solid first 4 rounds. Behind those 4 studs, Jolly filled in his roster with a good mix decent options. Sims-Walker, Aromashodu & Evans should fill out the other 2 WR spots just fine. RBs are set with Gore & Foster and Harrison is a decent bye week option/backup. Witten is solid at TE and the grandpa gunslinger was the #5 QB last year, so he’s certainly got the potential to be a great QB2. That said, as I mentioned above, I have a strong feeling that this is the year the old man finally hits the wall and they have to put him down. This feeling was only made stronger when I caught a wince from him after a pretty weak hit in Thursday night’s game. Because Mr. Jolly doesn’t have a back-up QB, if something does happen to Favre, he’s stuck either scrambling to pick up Tavaris Crapson, or relying on Harrison for consistent production at the flex spot. Of course there’s always the chance he could strike gold with an Addai or Forte injury and have a starter in either Brown or Taylor, but if not, those guys have limited value. Aside from Favre, the biggest problem area for the Junkyard Dogs is their D-fense. It looks like Jolly is trying to go return-man heavy with the DBs, but with the return points dropped down this year and return depth charts being notoriously untrustworthy, my guess is by week 2-3 Jollybear will be looking for a bit more surefire options for his DBs.
My bold prediction- 8-5 One game worse than last year’s 9-4 effort, but still good enough for a #3 or 4 slot.
Given Jolly’s FF experience and the fact that he’s proven himself a worthy competitor in years past, I think with his solid corps of players, he’ll be able to make the adjustments necessary to overcome what I think are the inevitabilities of a poor defensive start and some lost time from his QB2. The only change I would make to this team, besides some defensive sure-ups, would be to try to pick up a Henne/Sanchez type QB in case (when) Favre does down or at least for bye weeks. Overall, I think it’s a solid squad. (And it takes a lot for me to say that about a bears fan.) See you in the playoffs my friend.
Just a little explanation of this madness for those of you who have never had the good (or bad if you like to win) fortune of being in a league with me before. Every year at the beginning of the season, and about the midway point, I (try to) do a little write up of my opinion of each team in the league (strengths, weaknesses, etc.) and make predictions for how the league will turn out. They are simply my speculative opinions, based on a little bit of research, a little bit of statistical analysis, and a whole lot of personal bias (especially against Johnny). These predictions are meant in no way to offend anyone, the preseason one's especially will probably all fail miserably, but I like writing them, and at least 1 other person in the league likes reading them. Plus it's a reason to brag at the end of the season if my team totally bombs, but I made a couple of good predictions. So anyway, it's meant for fun, so make fun of them...or me...or Pat, and feel free to comment or discuss my opinions/predictions about your team or anyone Else's. I've included 3 numbers next to each team that mean absolutely nothing, but I like doing dumb statistics stuff like that (maybe I should have been an accountant). They are the point totals based on Yahoo's projections for each team and the rank for the team in that category. The first number is the total number of points projected for the entire team, the second is the total for the team’s starters (I used the highest possible play at each position for the season), and the 3rd is for the team’s defense. So without further ado, here they are. I'm working on them in the reverse order that Yahoo has them listed in the drop down menu.
One more note, if I mention a trade that might help out a certain team, I’m not recommending trades that are actual possibilities for this league, just saying the types of trade and players that in my *mostly worthless* opinion would have the potential to help a team.
Team Hurricane Ditka AKA- The Old Fogy (but still more productive than Michael Crabtree) WRs
GM- Joe
Team total- 3104 pts (3rd) Starters- 1422 (5th) D & Kicker- 927 (6th)
The first thing I notice about Joe’s team (well second really, the first thing I actually noticed was that he’s got the dreaded “Gay Butler”) is that he’s stacked with (about to be) washed up but for the time being still serviceable WRs (and 1 RB). Seriously, he’s got every one of those guys- Ward, Driver, S. Moss, Housh, and even Boldin is pretty much there IMO. They are all for the most part possession guys who will get Joe some consistent points every week, but are pretty unlikely to have any blow up games. Normally this lack of upside @ WR would worry me a bit and I’d like at least one top 12 WR on a team (I’ve got Ward & Boldin at #16 & #17 in my WR ranks), but for Joe’s team, I think it might work out ok. Reason being, he’s got a probable top 5-7 RB and 2 top 10 QBs (unless the Butler completely self destructs, which is certainly possible, but it’s equally possible that he’ll be around the #10 QB like he was last year). Solid week to week performance with decent upside at these 3 positions plus TE along with consistently average WR and defensive production should keep Joe competitive in most contests.
If there is one position of concern I have for Joe’s squad (aside from the aforementioned old dude WRs), it would be his RB2 where his current best option, Beanie Wells, has an apparent knee issue, which is never good for an RB, and a more productive than he gets credit for Tim Hightower still hanging around. Portis is serviceable for now, but I have a hard time having any faith that he’ll make it through the year without significant blocks of little or no production. And his other option is one of Da Raidas backs, and those guys can never be trusted...no matter how much Matt Berry hypes them. Joe’s D is average, but would drop a bit in production (and rank) if Josh Wilson doesn’t end up returning kicks for the Ravens (it doesn’t look like he is going to, at least for the start of the season).
My Bold Prediction- 7-6 Good for a Wild Card slot.
I think Joe’s got enough firepower with Romo, Cutler & Turner and enough balance with the rest of his team to be in a lot of his matchups this year, and come out on top of *slightly* more than half. That said, though they have been consistent in the past, there is a much higher than zero chance that this could be the year a couple of those old fogy WRs take a big dip in production putting Joe in a tight spot. If that happens, it might be worth moving one of the QBs for a slightly lesser (but still playable) option in order to shore up a more solid #1 WR. (Something like Romo & Boldin for Flacco & Roddy White. For example.)
Team Firing Line AKA- If you guys don’t perform, Big T is gonna line you up and shoot you one by one.
GM- Big Tony
Team total- 2900 pts (9th) Starters- 1436 (3rd) D & K- 915 (8th) (The D has since been addressed and is now bumped up to a tie for 1st, which also bumps the team total rank up to 6th)
Despite limited FF experience, last year as co-manager of “Kenosha Moose” Big T was one half of the brain trust that successfully navigated through the season to squeeze into one of the wild card playoff spots. It seems that Mr. B is a quick learner as he (in my opinion) drafted remarkably well, not really reaching unnecessarily for any player early in the draft, and at least through the first 8-10 rounds for the most part drafting the best available players at their respective positions. Team Firing Line has some obvious strong points in Brees, Austin, “the other” Steve Smith, De Williams & VD (the San Fran tight end, just in case there was any confusion). This core of solid players is a great place to start. Not without some slight question marks (i.e. Can Austin live up to last year’s performance? & Can De Williams hold off the hard charging and slightly younger Stewart?), but for the most part a very strong core.
There are two significant areas of concern for this team (there were 3, but Big T has already addressed the issues on his defense and since this printing has moved his defensive rank from 8th up to a tie for 1st). The first being the RB2 spot where Hightower will be a solid fill until Wells is back to 100%, but will probably not be a huge producer once Beanie starts going. Though Jones had a monster year last year, it’s doubtful that he will put up anything close to those numbers playing behind the dynamic Jamal Charles in KC; and B. Jacobs seems to be quickly sliding further into the back seat in NY behind Bradshaw. My guess is that by week 4-6, Big T is going to be wanting for a more consistent producer at the RB2 spot (unless he gets lucky and one of these guys gets a bump back to the driver’s seat because of an injury).
The second question for this squad is the QB2 spot. I know some people have high expectations for McNabb in Washington, and as long as he is healthy, I think he’s likely to put up ok numbers (QB15ish type numbers). BUT (and it’s a huge BUT (not a huge BUTT…sorry Sir-Mix a lot)) that is all hinging on him staying healthy, something he hasn’t had much success doing over the past 5 years. He has missed an average of almost 5 games a year over the past 5 seasons and it isn’t as if he’s gotten younger during that time. McNabb has always been an injury risk, but now another year older, less mobile, and playing behind what last year was considered one of the league’s worst offensive lines (though slightly revamped this year), it seems a near inevitability that he will miss some time at some point this season. In and of itself, that’s not a huge loss for Big T. After all, McNabb’s only projected at around QB15 range. But when you consider that if McNabb falters the choices to fill an RB2 slot and a Flex slot will be 2 of 3 mostly washed up RBs who rank in the 30s for the position, suddenly losing McNabb looks like a very serious hit. And this is the major concern for me for this team.
My Bold Prediction- 5-8 Missing the playoffs by a couple of wins.
As stated above, this team has a very strong core of solid players, but the bench is ranked 12th in our league. That lack of depth is going to be a real issue when bye weeks start coming around and any injury to one of the team’s starters has the potential to doom this team. Given McNabb’s injury history, I see him as the weakest link on this team, and see a very real potential that even a few missed games by him could have a significant detrimental effect on Big T’s season. As tough of a decision as this would be, in my opinion, the best thing this team could do is use the capital of a stud player like Brees to build depth. Having a player like McNabb on the roster is fine (he will have some big games), but only if there are decent options behind him to fill in if (when) he goes down. McNabb paired with a couple of other decent QB options like a Kolb/Flacco/Ryan and a Henne/Stafford/Campbell would be a fine combination and would allow Big T to sure up the RB2 position.
Team Dirty Dominicans AKA- Team We’re not really that dirty, and actually we’re Puerto Ricans
GM- JUAN FRANCISCO GONZALEZ RODRIGO FERDINAN GARCIA FIALLO (pronounced Feeajcho)
Team Total- 3125 (2nd) Starters- 1371 (9th) D & K- 967 (2nd)
I thought about typing this whole prediction in Juan’s accent, but quickly realized that it would be pretty much illegible to anyone but me, so I scratched that idea. But I can’t help it, whenever I read something Juan wrote, or even write things about Juan, my mind automatically goes into Latin mode and I start thinking with an accent (I also get super romantic and suave and have long hair and ride a horse...cause that’s what Latin guys do, right?). Anyways, on to the football (see, I pronounced that futbol in my mind).
For being a first time FF-baller and not having more than a passing knowledge of football in general, I think Juan did just fine on his first draft (as evidenced by his 2nd place team total). He locked up a stud QB and probable top 12 RB & WR in the Frenchy & The Headache (probably reached a little bit on both of them since De Williams & Ryan Matthews were both still on the board when he took PT and Fitz, Calvin Johnson & Jennings were still around when he took Super Migraine Boy). But if the Frenchy’s first game against the Viqueens was any indicator of how the season will go, then Francois will be ok with where he took him. And if Harvin can quit being a sissy about his headaches, he’ll be solid too (especially if he keeps returning kicks).
Two more relatively solid options at WR in Ocho & Nicks and a decent option at RB2 in Jones (assuming he returns kicks...if not his value could be significantly lower), and a couple crappy, but usable QB2s in Sanchez & Hasselbeck (though the odds of Hasselbeck staying healthy all year are about as good as the odds of the Bears winning the Super Bowl). Hasselbeck going down leaving Sanchez as the only QB2 option and not a ton of depth on the bench are my two biggest concerns for Juanito’s team. Cadillac swears that his knees are finally fine and that this is gonna be a bounce back year, but until I see it, I’m not buyng it. Fred Jackson would be a solid option if he was returning kicks like he did last year, but he’s not even on the Bills current special teams depth chart, so it’s not looking to be the case. If he’s purely a breather for CJ Spiller then he’s not going to be of much value in this league. McGahee & Morris are virtually worthless (sorry to be so blunt Juan, but it’s da facts). Chris Chambers could be an ok bye week fill in at WR3, but he’ll be inconsistent at best, and even more so for Mike Thomas. Juan also managed to put together the number 2 defense in the league, which contrary to popular belief, probably won’t win him any championships, but will give consistent points every week which is what I want in a defense.
My Bold Prediction- 6-7 Missing the playoffs by about a game.
I think Juan’s team is solid, but I’m worried that there are going to be weeks where Peyton is his only stud. I think over the course of the year, the Frenchy and Jones will be solid at the RB position, but there will be weeks where they get blanked. And like his 3 point Thursday effort, I don’t think Harvin will be an every week guaranteed producer either (especially if Favre’s iron man streak comes to an end at some point this season...which I think is about as inevitable as David making some controversial trade this year). Overall, I think Juan has solid plays at each position, but not a ton of solid depth, and I think the combination of that and his limited FF experience will make it tough for him to pull in one of the coveted top 6 spots. That said, Juan is a smart guy and FF is a fickle game. If he can stay on top of his game and pull a couple of savvy moves/pickups there is certainly a chance that he could build on his solid base and turn in a playoff caliber year.
Team Junkyard Dogs AKA- Team Minnesota Vikings (not because of the 3 Viqueens players on the team, but because, like the Vikes, Jolly’s season hangs on the shoulders of a soon to be 41 year old grandpa).
GM- Jollybear
Team Total- 2843 (11th) Starters- 1414 (6th) D & K- 736 (11th)
Well, for starters, in my opinion the Jolly Roger takes the cake for the best first 4 picks of any team. He managed a top 5-7 RB, a top 5-7 QB, a top 5-7 WR, and a second RB who, while not a guarantee, certainly has RB1 (top 12) potential. I don’t think there is any team that came out with a more solid first 4 rounds. Behind those 4 studs, Jolly filled in his roster with a good mix decent options. Sims-Walker, Aromashodu & Evans should fill out the other 2 WR spots just fine. RBs are set with Gore & Foster and Harrison is a decent bye week option/backup. Witten is solid at TE and the grandpa gunslinger was the #5 QB last year, so he’s certainly got the potential to be a great QB2. That said, as I mentioned above, I have a strong feeling that this is the year the old man finally hits the wall and they have to put him down. This feeling was only made stronger when I caught a wince from him after a pretty weak hit in Thursday night’s game. Because Mr. Jolly doesn’t have a back-up QB, if something does happen to Favre, he’s stuck either scrambling to pick up Tavaris Crapson, or relying on Harrison for consistent production at the flex spot. Of course there’s always the chance he could strike gold with an Addai or Forte injury and have a starter in either Brown or Taylor, but if not, those guys have limited value. Aside from Favre, the biggest problem area for the Junkyard Dogs is their D-fense. It looks like Jolly is trying to go return-man heavy with the DBs, but with the return points dropped down this year and return depth charts being notoriously untrustworthy, my guess is by week 2-3 Jollybear will be looking for a bit more surefire options for his DBs.
My bold prediction- 8-5 One game worse than last year’s 9-4 effort, but still good enough for a #3 or 4 slot.
Given Jolly’s FF experience and the fact that he’s proven himself a worthy competitor in years past, I think with his solid corps of players, he’ll be able to make the adjustments necessary to overcome what I think are the inevitabilities of a poor defensive start and some lost time from his QB2. The only change I would make to this team, besides some defensive sure-ups, would be to try to pick up a Henne/Sanchez type QB in case (when) Favre does down or at least for bye weeks. Overall, I think it’s a solid squad. (And it takes a lot for me to say that about a bears fan.) See you in the playoffs my friend.
August 28, 2010
I mean, you should really read this.
This post is intended to be a refresher on the three-year term of the league. Most of you will be familiar with this (it is very similar to the original post), but as some of you are new, and some maybe did not fully grasp the scope of rules last year, here we go:
This league is like any other fantasy football league in many respects. We play in a head-to-head format, and generally allow the Yahoo! settings to determine the winners every year. However, there is also a “three-year term” that we are recording independent of Yahoo!, based on the performance of each team from year to year. Your performance this year, and every year over the next three years, contributes to your overall performance during the three-year term.
The One-Year Term
Each year you will pay me $25 which will go toward the winners of the league that year. The rewards will be distributed as follows:
1st Place: $175
2nd Place: $75
3rd Place: $25
The last $25 will be given to the winner of a separate Playoff Pick ‘Em similar to what we did last year. This last $25 is only meant as a fun way to still keep in touch and stay competitive through the NFL’s playoffs. It is completely optional.
The Three-Year Term
The three-year term is more complicated, and will require you to manage and monitor your team’s performance on the blog (updates on individual team performance are kept there). The three-year term will reward yearly performance, actual player performance—independent of Yahoo! player performance—and overall league performance via a points distributed system. We are keeping track of this, completely on our own. Points will be distributed based on the below elements of the game, listed in detail.
Note: These points are all cumulative throughout the entire three-year term. If you win one year, you are not disqualified from winning points for winning the same category in any other year.
Yearly League Performance
These points are distributed based on whether or not you are successful in winning (in a variety of ways) during any of the three years.
100pts - 1st Place
60pts - 2nd Place
45pts - 3rd Place
30pts - 4th Place
25pts - 5th Place
20pts - 6th Place
25pts - Best record during a fantasy football regular season
25pts - Most fantasy points accumulated during a fantasy football regular season
***EDIT***
The above point distribution has been edited per the latest comments to this post, and commissioner majority approval.
Player Performance (yearly)
Each of the following performance categories will be awarded 25pts on a yearly basis. The player to have the most of each of these statistics during a given year wins the points. For example, if at the end of this first year your team has accumulated the most passing yards, you would get 25pts toward the three-year term.
Passing Yards
Rushing Yards
Receiving Yards
Tackles
Interceptions
Sacks
Note: Only performance from the players you start on any given week will contribute to these performance categories. This same rule applies to the Weekly Player Performance points.
Weekly Player Performance
Two performance categories will be chosen, one offensive and one defensive, from the categories listed above every week. The team(s) to have the best performance in each category will receive 5 points. In the case of a tie, both teams will be awarded the points.
How to win the Three-Year Term
By the 2010-11 Superbowl, you will pay me $100 which will go towards the winnings of the three-year term. The three-year term award money will be distributed as follows:
1st Place - $700
2nd Place - $325
3rd Place - $175
How do you know who came in first? The points system I outlined above determines the winners. Basically, whoever has the most points will be awarded first place, and so on. So, you had better be thinking about three years from now as well as this year!
Rule: If the extremely unlikely scenario occurs where a team wins first place all three years, but does not have enough points to win the league, they, by default, win the league regardless of their points or lack thereof. KKR Stat. §146.75.4 (g) ...if thy pointage is exceeded by thy peer’s, though thy winningness has exceeded theirs, common law states that thou shant lose any league due to said inconceivable events…
Other Notes
This is not a regular fantasy football league. You may feel in over your head. Not only are we determining winners in a dramatically different fashion than a standard league, we also have a very unique set of rules, scoring settings and rosters. This league is not for the faint of heart. But you knew that when you signed up. This league has elements of a Rotisserie League, as well as a Head-to-Head league, with strong keeper elements to be mindful of. Many of the rules are instituted to cause you to sacrifice your performance elsewhere. That’s on purpose. In the end, only the player who not only thought the most about fantasy football, but who thought about how to win a league this intricate will be awarded. Do your homework, study the art of drafting, and learn the rules on the Yahoo! stats page as well as in this post. Heck, tweet Matthew Berry and ask him for advice in your draft strategy if it helps (others have been doing so, twitter.com/MatthewBerryTMR). We’re gonna have fun for sure, but don’t get frustrated if your team underperforms because you didn’t take the time to read about these things.
This blog will be updated weekly with the Weekly Player Performance Categories, as well as the results from the previous week. We will also track individual Yearly Player Performance on a weekly basis. I have enlisted three other members of the league to help out posting the stats, so they are not again left unattended. These stats will have a due date of Wednesday night, every week. You can begin complaining about the rules not being up starting Thursday of every week.
Lastly, in lieu of the upcoming draft, please be mindful of the roster settings.
1 QB
3 WR
2 RB
1 TE
1 QB/WR/RB/TE
1 K
1 D (any defensive player)
2 DL
2 DB
2 LB
7 BN
2 IR
Note: I included the latest IDP additions Josh spoke of in the previous post, under the assumption the majority of the league likes the idea. If you have any issues, or if you simply don’t want the extra IDP positions, I am mandating a deadline to vote against them by Monday August 30, 11:59pm CST. If you want to vote against the additions, post your disapproval on Josh’s post in the comments section. No one will be offended if you vote against them, but no one will know you don’t want them unless you make your voice heard.
Thanks all, please feel free to comment. Looking forward to draft night!
This league is like any other fantasy football league in many respects. We play in a head-to-head format, and generally allow the Yahoo! settings to determine the winners every year. However, there is also a “three-year term” that we are recording independent of Yahoo!, based on the performance of each team from year to year. Your performance this year, and every year over the next three years, contributes to your overall performance during the three-year term.
The One-Year Term
Each year you will pay me $25 which will go toward the winners of the league that year. The rewards will be distributed as follows:
1st Place: $175
2nd Place: $75
3rd Place: $25
The last $25 will be given to the winner of a separate Playoff Pick ‘Em similar to what we did last year. This last $25 is only meant as a fun way to still keep in touch and stay competitive through the NFL’s playoffs. It is completely optional.
The Three-Year Term
The three-year term is more complicated, and will require you to manage and monitor your team’s performance on the blog (updates on individual team performance are kept there). The three-year term will reward yearly performance, actual player performance—independent of Yahoo! player performance—and overall league performance via a points distributed system. We are keeping track of this, completely on our own. Points will be distributed based on the below elements of the game, listed in detail.
Note: These points are all cumulative throughout the entire three-year term. If you win one year, you are not disqualified from winning points for winning the same category in any other year.
Yearly League Performance
These points are distributed based on whether or not you are successful in winning (in a variety of ways) during any of the three years.
100pts - 1st Place
60pts - 2nd Place
45pts - 3rd Place
30pts - 4th Place
25pts - 5th Place
20pts - 6th Place
25pts - Best record during a fantasy football regular season
25pts - Most fantasy points accumulated during a fantasy football regular season
***EDIT***
The above point distribution has been edited per the latest comments to this post, and commissioner majority approval.
Player Performance (yearly)
Each of the following performance categories will be awarded 25pts on a yearly basis. The player to have the most of each of these statistics during a given year wins the points. For example, if at the end of this first year your team has accumulated the most passing yards, you would get 25pts toward the three-year term.
Passing Yards
Rushing Yards
Receiving Yards
Tackles
Interceptions
Sacks
Note: Only performance from the players you start on any given week will contribute to these performance categories. This same rule applies to the Weekly Player Performance points.
Weekly Player Performance
Two performance categories will be chosen, one offensive and one defensive, from the categories listed above every week. The team(s) to have the best performance in each category will receive 5 points. In the case of a tie, both teams will be awarded the points.
How to win the Three-Year Term
By the 2010-11 Superbowl, you will pay me $100 which will go towards the winnings of the three-year term. The three-year term award money will be distributed as follows:
1st Place - $700
2nd Place - $325
3rd Place - $175
How do you know who came in first? The points system I outlined above determines the winners. Basically, whoever has the most points will be awarded first place, and so on. So, you had better be thinking about three years from now as well as this year!
Rule: If the extremely unlikely scenario occurs where a team wins first place all three years, but does not have enough points to win the league, they, by default, win the league regardless of their points or lack thereof. KKR Stat. §146.75.4 (g) ...if thy pointage is exceeded by thy peer’s, though thy winningness has exceeded theirs, common law states that thou shant lose any league due to said inconceivable events…
Other Notes
This is not a regular fantasy football league. You may feel in over your head. Not only are we determining winners in a dramatically different fashion than a standard league, we also have a very unique set of rules, scoring settings and rosters. This league is not for the faint of heart. But you knew that when you signed up. This league has elements of a Rotisserie League, as well as a Head-to-Head league, with strong keeper elements to be mindful of. Many of the rules are instituted to cause you to sacrifice your performance elsewhere. That’s on purpose. In the end, only the player who not only thought the most about fantasy football, but who thought about how to win a league this intricate will be awarded. Do your homework, study the art of drafting, and learn the rules on the Yahoo! stats page as well as in this post. Heck, tweet Matthew Berry and ask him for advice in your draft strategy if it helps (others have been doing so, twitter.com/MatthewBerryTMR). We’re gonna have fun for sure, but don’t get frustrated if your team underperforms because you didn’t take the time to read about these things.
This blog will be updated weekly with the Weekly Player Performance Categories, as well as the results from the previous week. We will also track individual Yearly Player Performance on a weekly basis. I have enlisted three other members of the league to help out posting the stats, so they are not again left unattended. These stats will have a due date of Wednesday night, every week. You can begin complaining about the rules not being up starting Thursday of every week.
Lastly, in lieu of the upcoming draft, please be mindful of the roster settings.
1 QB
3 WR
2 RB
1 TE
1 QB/WR/RB/TE
1 K
1 D (any defensive player)
2 DL
2 DB
2 LB
7 BN
2 IR
Note: I included the latest IDP additions Josh spoke of in the previous post, under the assumption the majority of the league likes the idea. If you have any issues, or if you simply don’t want the extra IDP positions, I am mandating a deadline to vote against them by Monday August 30, 11:59pm CST. If you want to vote against the additions, post your disapproval on Josh’s post in the comments section. No one will be offended if you vote against them, but no one will know you don’t want them unless you make your voice heard.
Thanks all, please feel free to comment. Looking forward to draft night!
A little IDP rejiggering
Hey Guys (and John Freeborn),
So Pat, David and I were not entirely satisfied with how the IDPs worked out last year and didn't think the slight changes we made this year were enough to address the issue. The problem with the current IDP set up is that there isn't enough scarcity at each IDP position to make much difference either in week to week scoring or in the season long categorical competitions. Basically, the gap between the #1 guy and the #12 guy at each position isn't very significant. The whole reason for having IDPs as a part of this league is because this is supposed to be a specialized "expert" league and selecting individual defensive players should take more skill than just picking one defense and sticking with it for the year.
Our idea is to add 3 additional IDPs to the roster (1 each of DL, LB, & DB) and add one additional bench spot. This will increase the scarcity at each defensive position which will make the top guys more valuable and cause managers to put a little more week-to-week research/strategy into the IDP spots that don't have sure fire starters.
I know that some of you aren't super fond of the IDPs in the first place, and probably won't be very excited about this change, but what I would ask is for you to just stop and think about if this change would really have any negative effect on the league or your ability to win. The only negative I see in the change is a few extra rounds in the draft, but we're starting early, so no big deal.
This decision is not final; it is just something that the 3 of us would like to change. But we are essentially putting it to a league vote. If you could reply back to one of us with your preference on this and we'll leave it up to the majority to decide.
Lemme know what you think.
-Josh
So Pat, David and I were not entirely satisfied with how the IDPs worked out last year and didn't think the slight changes we made this year were enough to address the issue. The problem with the current IDP set up is that there isn't enough scarcity at each IDP position to make much difference either in week to week scoring or in the season long categorical competitions. Basically, the gap between the #1 guy and the #12 guy at each position isn't very significant. The whole reason for having IDPs as a part of this league is because this is supposed to be a specialized "expert" league and selecting individual defensive players should take more skill than just picking one defense and sticking with it for the year.
Our idea is to add 3 additional IDPs to the roster (1 each of DL, LB, & DB) and add one additional bench spot. This will increase the scarcity at each defensive position which will make the top guys more valuable and cause managers to put a little more week-to-week research/strategy into the IDP spots that don't have sure fire starters.
I know that some of you aren't super fond of the IDPs in the first place, and probably won't be very excited about this change, but what I would ask is for you to just stop and think about if this change would really have any negative effect on the league or your ability to win. The only negative I see in the change is a few extra rounds in the draft, but we're starting early, so no big deal.
This decision is not final; it is just something that the 3 of us would like to change. But we are essentially putting it to a league vote. If you could reply back to one of us with your preference on this and we'll leave it up to the majority to decide.
Lemme know what you think.
-Josh
August 23, 2010
Memories
It's pretty entertaining going back and reading some of these old posts and comments. I definitely missed some calls on players and teams last year, but I would like to mention that I was severely mocked last year for believing and calling Jason Campbell a top 15 QB. He finished the year #13. Not sure how I feel about him this year yet, but we'll see.
Also, I'd like to point out (not for any particular reason, but just to throw some stats out there) that Matt Schaub is currently ranked as the #5 QB (a late 3rd-early 4th rd pick) by both Yahoo & ESPN while Matt Ryan is ranked #14 (a 10th rd pick) by both. Not really sure why I felt compelled to look these ranks up, but something piqued my curiosity. Just sayin.
Looking forward to another fun filled year of football, statistics, and random babblings. (Hopefully this year the blog will have more than just Pat, John, Dave & I participating.)
Also, I'd like to point out (not for any particular reason, but just to throw some stats out there) that Matt Schaub is currently ranked as the #5 QB (a late 3rd-early 4th rd pick) by both Yahoo & ESPN while Matt Ryan is ranked #14 (a 10th rd pick) by both. Not really sure why I felt compelled to look these ranks up, but something piqued my curiosity. Just sayin.
Looking forward to another fun filled year of football, statistics, and random babblings. (Hopefully this year the blog will have more than just Pat, John, Dave & I participating.)
February 7, 2010
Championships and Point Totals
Alright Pat, the Super Bowl is over now so let's see the final totals!!!! I know, I know... I won the NFL Playoff Challenge.
January 16, 2010
Divisional Playoff Predictions
I'm calling that the four C's win this weekend. Colts, Chargers, Cowboys and Cardinals. I'd like to hear other predictions.
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