Side Note…FFL news/notes/draft results…

I picked Brett Favre in my fantasy football league draft last night. I know. I know. I won’t elaborate.

Matt and I are involved in a league composed of fraternity brothers from years past, which has managed to be an annual affair for about the past 3-4 years. Here’s how my team turned out:

QB – Eli Manning, Brett Favre

RB – Thomas Jones, Brandon Jacobs, Ryan Grant, Kevin Smith, Deuce McCallister, Kenny Watson

WR – Randy Moss, Laveranues Coles, Marvin Harrison, Donald Driver

* this is a league with the proverbial RB/WR slot along with two RBs and two WRs in the lineup

TE – Antonio Gates, Donald Lee

K – Josh Brown

D – GB Packers

Overall, I was happy with the team I selected. I’m sure Matt will also publicly announce his team on the blog as well, or make an addendum to this post to add his team on here. We’re almost to football season! I’m so excited. Best time of the year, no doubt.

In my other FFL, I did an auto draft based on pre-draft rankings and here’s how my team turned out:

QB – Ben Roethlisberger, Aaron Rodgers

RB – Brandon Jacobs, Reggie Bush, Fred Taylor, Clinton Portis

WR – Randy Moss, Chad Johnson, Bernard Berrian, Dwayne Bowe, Devin Hester

TE – Heath Miller

K – Stephen Gostkowski

D – Tennessee, Minnesota

Of course, as it turns out, I had planned on drafting Tom Brady and Randy Moss last year and we all saw how that turned out, for them. I had the opportunity to draft both last year and got neither. This time that daggone Jake stole Tom Brady one pick ahead of me, so I was forced to take Moss in my frat league and fortunately got Moss in the public league as well. I’m just hoping he doesn’t break a leg now…

And here’s how my yahoo team ended up:

QB – Drew Brees, Matt Schaub

RB – Joe Addai, Reggie Bush, Jonathan Stewart

WR – T.O., Greg Jennings, Dwayne Bowe, Nate Burleson, James Hardy

TE – Heath Miller, Ben Watson

K – Mason Crosby, Mike Nugent

DEF – NE, Baltimore

Let me say that I hate the #7 pick.  Give me 1-3 or 9-10… anything from 4-8 stinks.  I took Joe Addai with the first pick.  Good grief.  The only thing worse that that would be writing bad things about Favre on some blog and then DRAFTING HIM ONTO YOUR FANTASY TEAM.  Glad I didn’t do that… Hopefully, I do alright.  I definitely took some flyers like Hardy & Stewart, so we’ll see how that ends up.  I’m also not a big Dwayne Bowe guy, but he was the best left at the position that didn’t foul up my bye weeks.

In my ESPN league, the draft is over and here’s what I got:

QB – Donovan McNabb, Matt Schaub

RB – Jamal Lewis, Brandon Jacobs, Fred Taylor

WR – Greg Jennings, Steve Smith, James Hardy, Derrick Mason

TE – Alge Crumpler, Kevin Boss

K – Mason Crosby

DEF – Steelers

I’m glad I have a little bit of overlap – like Schaub, Crosby, Hardy and Jennings.  I think my fantasy football participation will be limited to these two efforts this year.  Normally I do a CBS league and a yahoo public league too, but you end up rooting against yourself too much with that many teams.

Favre’s whining already…

Okay, now for anyone who is still sympathizing with Brett Favre, you can officially stop. After dragging the Packers along for the past couple months in this retirement/unretirement issue, he finally got traded to the Jets and I was hoping the drama and annoyances would be over.

Not so. You see, yesterday after a whopping five days of practice so far with his new team, Favre tells the press his arm is ‘fatigued’ but not in pain.

“It’s not really sore, but just fatigued,” he said after practice yesterday, adding: “I felt 38 today. I’m not going to lie to you.” (ESPN.com)”

Ya think? For one, Brett, YOU ARE 38! And secondly, you friggin’ RETIRED five months ago for a reason! Apparently he thought practicing a little bit with a high school team in his hometown in Mississippi for a few days was going to get him ready for training camp.  This guy is really turning out to be the epitomy of a Lifetime Television living soap opera star. Is he really wanting our sympathy all over again?

Favre has really plummeted on my list of players I used to be a fan of. I’m still going to watch some Jets games on TV to see how the season turns out for them, and him. Yet, I won’t necessarily be cheering for them.

The ironic thing that someone pointed out yesterday is that in week one, Favre’s Jets will be traveling to Miami to face CHAD PENNINGTON’S Dolphins. How ’bout that for a week one matchup?!?! You think Pennington may have a reason to play in this game? He’s already essentially been dubbed the starter in Miami. The headlines will be all over this matchup.

2008 NFC East – Cowboys or Eagles?

Well as the headline states, this could be the year of the Cowboys or the Eagles.

Philly – who could be the surprise team of the conference this year – is trying to revamp things, particularly on offense while hoping Donovan McNabb remains healthy enough to once again put a lot of points on the board.

Meanwhile, Dallas is coming in following a late-season Jessica Simpson-led slump which everyone (particularly me) is using to blame for Romo and the team failing miserably against the Giants in the divisional round of the playoffs.

Assuming Simpson is not visible from the stands and Tony Romo has his head in the game (instead of somewhere else), the Cowboys should post enough wins to claim the division. The Eagles though, won’t be too far behind as I believe they’ll finish above .500 despite having more injury problems to battle through this year.

I’m expecting the Giants and Redskins to battle closely for last place in the division. Both will hover around .500 all year, but at least one – if not both – will finish 7-9 at best. 

The division should pan out this way:

Dallas  12-4

Philly 9-7

New York 8-8

Washington 7-9

You have to hand it to the NFC East and also the NFC North (Norris) because for me personally these are the two most intriguing and compelling divisions to watch each year in either conference. You never know who is going to win these divisions until the final week or two of the season because the grueling inter-divisional rivalries are so tough and competitive. Even, say for example, a late season Vikings/Lions or Packers/Bears or Redskins/Eagles game always seems to have some sort of post-season impact no matter what their records are.

After a week off, I’ll be previewing the NFC Norris. By then, who knows what the Brett Favre situation will be like. As a long-time Packer fan, I will be extremely agitated and annoyed if GB trades Favre to a divisional rival like Minnesota. That just wouldn’t be right. I’m still holding out hope for a brilliant trade to the Dolphins. That would be sweet irony (for me). In terms of seeing Favre return, I’d rather have him sent to Miami via trade moreso than him returning to Green Bay to screw up the inevitable Aaron Rodgers dynasty that will ensue this year.  Guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

FAVRE: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Well, seems Brett Favre just can’t stay retired. And, I might preface this post by saying Favre is was one of my favorite football players of all-time. However, after the recent media frenzy caused by Favre’s “itch” to return to football, and now making it seem like the Packers “forced” him into retirement, I’m just about sick to death of hearing about it.

Favre has threatened the Packers with retiring after the past three seasons and finally decided to call it quits this past winter. Yet, now it’s the PACKERS fault?!@?!? Who are you trying to kid Brett??  I mean seriously.

As Matt recently mentioned, of all media outlets to discuss his situation with, Favre chose Fox News!?!? Greta Van Susteren?? Seems like he picked that one from a list of most obsure places to get back in the news. Not making the grade were: MTV, Cartoon Network and Lifetime.

What annoys me more is that Favre now is trying to make the Packers the ‘bad guys’ in this whole mess. In the Fox News interview, he joked about returning to training camp on July 27th and seeing what kind of a media circus would result just to call the Packers’ “bluff,” as he calls it.

“It’s tempting just to, as everyone said, you know, call their bluff or whatever,” Favre said on Fox News. “I think it’s going to be a circus in itself already, whether I go there, whatever.”

C’mon back Brett. Please show up July 27th. Then I hope the Packers greet you with a nice, fun trade to Miami. That’s really where I want to see this whole thing go. Brett gets traded to the Dolphins for Jason Taylor. I’d rather have a good dancer on my team than one who can’t make up his daggone mind about what the heck he’s doing year in, year out. Then when Brett finally returns to the field and starts, he’ll be able to stand behind Jake Long and the rest of the ‘awesome’ Miami lineman before he gets pummeled mercilessly week in, week out. I’m sure it’ll make him wish he stayed retired.

I was personally frustrated each time Favre put his mug in the news after the past few seasons as he was uncertain whether he was going to play football again each season thereafter. Well, the uncertainty is fine, as long as it stays private. When you announce something, make sure it’s something solid, or at least potentially permanent.

Did we see John Elway or Dan Marino (of all people) funnel their entire thought processes into the media in regard to waying whether to retire or not? Nope. Only after they retired did we hear or read anything about the difficulty involved with truly calling it quits.

Oh well. Let the saga continue Brett. It will last as long as you want it to. In fact, in your honor, I’ve even created a new category of posts for the blog in your name (because I’m sure this story isn’t close to being over with).