NCAA review & fantasy football grumbling

Was Saturday a crazy day or what?

Here was the top five going into yesterday:

Oklahoma
Alabama
Missouri
LSU
Texas

Texas beats Oklahoma, Alabama is idle, OK State beats Missouri, and Florida beat LSU.

So what happens now?  Alabama takes over #1?  I’d say you can’t say they were the second best team to Oklahoma last week, but now they’re behind someone else because they didn’ do anything to suggest that.  But, the writers don’t tend to use logic.  (note:  Ohio State is 6-1.  They lost to #1 USC.  They’re ranked outside the top ten.  No other high ranked team has lost to a higher ranked team like that, so I assume OSU will be a top five team this week.  ((yeah right)))

I’m guessing Texas will be #1, Alabama #2.

But those weren’t even the best news out of Saturday.  Who saw Toledo beat Michigan?  Was there anything better than that ending?  Toledo muffs the clock management, Michigan drives down the field and sets up a field goal.  26 years.  From the right hash.  The dude then proceeds to pull the ball further left than than should be physically possible and somehow pushes the ball 35 yards left from 26 yards and misses giving Toledo the win.

Rich Rodriguez’s face should be a poster.  That “I can’t believe I had to pay WVU $4million to go 2-4″ face.  I’d buy a poster like that for every room in my house.

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Check out these fantasy football matchups this week:

In the league where I’m 2-3, I face the guy (frequent commenter and dolphins fan) who is 1-4 with a scoring average that is about 20 points per week lower than anyone else.  The guy has scored 10 and 17 points already this season.  Two weeks ago I lost a heart breaker when Heath Miller let me down.  I lost by 5 points.  Last week I lost a heart breaker by 6 points.  If I lose this week I’m just going to hang it up.  But get this, the matchup is dead even.  I’ve scored the most points in the league, my opponent has scored the least and yet somehow after two heart-breaking losses I get a matchup where we’re both projected at 59 points.  It’s enough to give me heart burn.

In the league where I’m 4-1 (after another heart-breaker last week to my brother of all people who was 0-4 at the time…ugh), I’m projected at 107 points and my opponent is projected at 37.  I don’t think I’ve ever been favored by 70 points.  The opponent has 2 QBs, one is on bye and one isn’t playing due to injury.  And that’s just the start of his problems.  I left a message saying the league should take my franchise away if I can’t cover a 70 point spread.

So here’s how my sunday is going to go:

1. I’m going to hopefully watch the points pile up in my ESPN league so I can at least get close to covering those 70 points.

2. I’m going to worry myself all day long about my matchup with Jake in the yahoo league.  I can’t say for sure how I’ll react if I lose, but it could very well involve 15 big macs and going off the diet.  I always feed my depression.

Not so kind at all…

Below, in the next post, MJ reviews his picks. Mine were even worse. I’m sitting at 3-6 after 9 games. I managed to pick U of Washington, the Cowboys and the Jets correctly. I went againt my standard operations procedures on OSU and for a friend on ND and got burned. And the 49ers loss hurts. A lot. Losing the WVU contest is largely overshadowed by the joy of seeing my Bill Stewart Theorem being intact so far (Bill Stewart Theorem: Hiring the nice old assistant coach is the biggest mistake in state history… and this is a state with quite a few mistakes).

In the fantasy realm, I pissed away an easy victory in one league thanks to the Jamal Lewis late game injury decision (My backup played in the early game, so I had to make a decision at 1pm instead of waiting) and the other team’s over-production by the likes of Dominic Hasek or whoever that WR is in Philly that caught two balls for 100+ yards’ and a TD and Forte in Chicago that was NO ONE’s pick to be this year’s Peterson, but managed to somehow out shine all other rookies for week one.

In my Yahoo league I’m holding a steady lead with Jennings & Crosby to go tonight against a team that has Peterson. Unless there’s a total collapse I should be able to hold out there.

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.

Fantasy Football Team Update – Muskingum Valley Lightning

So I usually play a bunch of fantasy football teams, but this year I’m limiting myself to two – a yahoo league of which I am the commissioner (it’s the least amount of power to ever go to someone’s head, trust me) and an ESPN league that I’m in with a ragtag group of childhood neighbors and military personnel scattered around the world that one of those childhood friends met in the air force.

I’ll cover the Yahoo league and my team the Mighty Woodchucks later.  This post is about the ESPN league because we start drafting the day after the NFL draft via email and it slowly progresses over the course of the summer.  Some days I get two emails with picks and sometimes it can go a week with no email at all.

So, I inherited this team from a guy who was asked to leave the league because his team was horrible and he didn’t set his roster correctly.  Let me tell you, the team was horrible.  The first year I had it, it was horrible too.  The second year it was pretty freaking bad.  The third year wasn’t much better.  Which brings us to this year.

The hitch in this league is that it’s a keeper, so I’m stuck with bad players unless I trade or luck out in the draft which for all intents and purposes starts in the fourth round.  Over the last few years I’ve made some super questionable trades, but they got me moving in the right direction and led me to actually lucking out this year with a couple serviceable keepers and two “first” (fourth) round picks.

I kept Donovan McNabb, Jamal Lewis and Julius Jones (where I lucked into an extra starter with the Seahawks cutting ties with Shaun Alexander.

I ended up trading Jones for Brandon Jacobs for no real reason other than the fact that I like to trade, and I didn’t see it as a horrible team.

So let’s look at last year’s team to this year’s team.  Understand that there are still two more picks, but I’m pretty much through my starters and back ups of skill players.

2007 roster
QB: Donovan McNabb
QB: Joey Harrington (see, I told you…)
QB: AJ Feeley
RB: Jamal Lewis
RB: Julius Jones
WR: Muhsin Muhammed
WR: Kevin Walter
WR: Darrell Jackson
TE: Randy McMichael
D/ST: Raiders
D/ST: Steelers
K: Stephen Gostkowski
K: Sebastian Janikowski

Now the good news is that I actually won 5 games with that team.  The bad news is that 5-9 may be good enough for Ohio University, but it’s not good enough for me.  Here’s this year’s roster.  I really do feel good about where the team is headed.  Try not to burst my bubble.

2008 roster so far
QB: Donovan McNabb
QB: Matt Schaub
RB: Jamal Lewis
RB: Brandon Jacobs
RB: Fred Taylor
WR: Steve Smith
WR: Greg Jennings
WR: James Hardy (I went Hardy instead of Limas Sweed, sorry Steeler fans)
TE: Alge Crumpler
K: Mason Crosby
D/ST: Steelers

Any predictions out there for this team without know the rest of the teams?  I’m saying I make the playoffs minimum… I’m aiming high.

Any rooks worth drafting?

I’m actually in the middle of a fantasy football draft right now.  Unfortunately, it’s moving at an agonizing speed because he happens via email and the league includes some folks in the military who don’t have ready access to the internet.

It’s a keeper league, and I inherited a team that was harrible.  Seriously.  Not good.  The first and second years I literally asked if I could get extra draft picks instead of keeping three players because there weren’t three I wanted.  Unfortunately, the answer was no.  Over the years, I made some trades which usually didn’t help me in the short term.  I got rid of Drew brees, traded Antonio Gates and got less talent in return.  Luckily, I also got a couple draft picks, and I’ve finally started to turn things around.  Now, my team still isn’t top notch – but I might be at least respectable this year.

So far I have: Donovan McNabb, Matt Schaub, Jamal Lewis, Brandon Jacobs, Fred Taylor, Steve Smith, Greg Jennings, Alge Crumpler and the Steelers DEF.

Here’s the current dilemma – there are 16 teams so toward the end of the draft there are pretty slim pickings.  This is where the rooks come in.  Every year someone jumps at a ridiculous rookie early in the draft, but there are still lots of options out there toward the end so we can fill those benches.  So here are some of the rookies left on the board – who are you taking and who are you leaving?

QB: Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Brian Brohm, Colt Brennan, Andre Woodson, John David Booty, Chad Henne

RB: Ray Rices, Jamaal Charles, Chris Johnson

WR: James Hardy, Devin Thomas, DeSean Jackson, Malcolm Kelly, Mario Manningham, Limas Sweed

So who’s a keeper?  I’m seriously considering James Hardy in Buffalo or Limas Sweed in Pittsburgh.  Should I have my head checked?

Staggering NFL Fantasy QB comparisons

OK, so try this on for size. And I’ll preface by saying only one of the three quarterbacks I’m going to mention has ever played a down in the NFL, but still ESPN.com released it’s top 71 fantasy quarterback list based on potential and how much of an FFL impact QB’s will have on this fantasy season.

Well, three names stuck out in my mind down in the middle to lower pack on the list. Troy Smith (OSU alum, current Baltimore Ravens back-up), Chad Henne (uhh hummm…did he really graduate? after 12 years at Michigan?? and I might add, he somehow got drafted early on by Miami  for some unknown reason), and Brian Brohm (the former Louisville star and current GB Packers draftee for QB of the future).

I want you to take a look at those three names again and think of all the QBs in the NFL and then rank those three somewhere between 1 and 71. OK, now that you’ve done that, I’ll fill you in on where ESPN.com ranked them. 41st Chad Henne, 42nd Troy Smith and finally 48th Brian Brohm. 

First of all, this is an abomination. Secondly, anyone in America that thinks Chad Henne has more upside than Troy Smith is insane. It’s actually embarrassing, considering Troy’s Buckeyes stomped Henne’s Wolverines in 2005-06 in back to back years. Troy showed a lot of potential when he got a few games under his belt last season for the Ravens. However, it appears he’s not even getting serious consideration for the top back-up spot this season as they  drafted Joe Flacco and already have Kyle Boller.  (thankfully Steve McNair retired when he did). 

 Even more mind boggling (at least for me) is that Brohm is ranked even lower than Henne/Smith. Brohm could give Aaron Rodgers a serious run for starting QB in Green Bay. Yet apparently I’m one of the few people who expect him to be stellar, even if called upon to play this season. I’ve already had a dream that Aaron Rodgers gets hurt at some point in the first few games of the season and then Brett Favre is reborn through Brian Brohm as he finishes the year in great fashion and then takes off from there as the Pack’s QB of the future…now.

Fantasy Football involves luck and bombs…

Well, first off, let me just say that I have had a rather up and down fantasy football career. I’ve finished first place a couple times. I’ve finished dead last, once. And, I’ve finished in the middle of the pack. Yet, most of the time, fantasy sports, football in particular, basically comes down to two elements in order to field a successful team: Good health and Mad skills.

I’ve had some great trades over the years including one in 2006 after a couple weeks into the season where I obtained Larry Johnson. He went on to have a breakout year. Can you say mad skills?

In another league, I also had Reggie Bush in 2006. He was basically a miserable failure until the final month of the season.  Yes, mad skills, but poor coaching and Reggie’s slow development kept him back in 2006.

Then onto Daunte Culpepper. Yes, he used to be bowty bowty. But now he’s just a has-been QB who won’t ever be consistently anything close to what he was with Randy Moss in Minnesota a few years back. Unfortunately I found this out when I drafted him as my number one QB a couple years ago when he ended up tearing up his knee and had twice as many INTs as TDs. Poor health doomed not only him, but my fantasy team that year.

This all leads me to say that no matter how much someone likes to think they are a master of fantasy football, it all depends on two things: Good health and Mad skills. You must have both on your side during the FFL season to be a success. Sometimes things work out. Sometimes they don’t. Even if a star gets hurt, you must be savvy enough to find a decent replacement for him. Good luck and get those draft boards ready. The FFL draft season will begin in about another month or so.