Like a Breath of Fresh Air

Ah, validation! It is sweet isn't it? Sometimes things just fall into place so perfectly that you can actually see the hand of God directing each and every move. And trust me, having someone who's well respected in the fantasy football community unknowingly agree with me is nothing short of an act of God. Burning bushes and Red Seas parted be damned.

If you would like to share in my joy, please head over to ESPN and read the following article, here (it's insider but it's free). Then come back and read my last entry before this one. You'll find a striking similarity but know that mine came out first - I published last night. So if anything, he surreptitiously copied my brilliant idea. Which I have no problem with because he's a big time writer and if he's looking at my stuff I must, therefore, be pretty damn cool.

Either way, it seems you and I, Mr. Berry, are of one accord. And when two people agree on something, it must be true. At least that's what my mom always told me.

Stepping on Land Mines

With two of my three drafts in the books I thought it might be a fine time to take a step back and reflect on events transpired. In doing so, however, I found myself being drawn back to one gut-wrenching question: Who's going to bomb this year?

Everyone wants to find this year's Colston or the diminutive Jones-Drew in the hay stake. Most of time it's a dumb luck shots in the dark. Hell, I picked Colston up off the waiver wire last year in week three. There are always diamonds in the rough to be found, uncovered in the draft or not. If you take a shot and it doesn't pan out, all you can do is throw your hands up and try again. You weren't counting on the guy and you're fantasy season certainly wasn't resting in his hand. He was your dollar Powerball ticket not your nest egg investment.

Just as there are always diamonds in the rough, the universal in a constant quest for balance and duality, provides us each season with some that look like diamonds but, in reality, turn out to be cubic zirconium - a peddler's wares we somehow allowed ourselves to be swindled into buying. These are the guys you draft with a smile on face only to see that smile change to an o-face of twisted rage and pain as you beat your computer monitor into liquid crystals and dust. You're hands bloodied and throbbing, you raise a haggard gaze to heavens and curse God for ever birthing you into such a world.

Maybe I'm being a bit dramatic, but I think you get the point. So, in an attempt to save everyone a trip to hospital and to keep some money in the pockets it belongs, here's my top four busts for the season (In no particular order):

1. Travis Henry

Everyone is so high on him I can't bring myself to believe that he's not going to disappoint. He'll be the LOTR: Return of the King of this NFL season. Denver has been turning no name running backs into stars since the dawn of time it seems, but Travis has already made a name for himself. Could it be possible the reason Denver is so successful with the new guy is that the new guy is fresh, like a ball of clay fit for molding? He's a clean slate, ready and willing to graft himself into a new system, absorbing as much knowledge of zone blocking schemes as he can. If you think Mr. Henry is clean slate, you've got another thing coming. Over the past three seasons he's post 10, 10 and 14 games played respectively. That's three years without a full workload and I think this year is bound to be a forth. And, sure, he finished up strong last year, taking over the starting tailback spot from an injured Chris Brown, but maybe that hurts his chances this year of staying healthy. Will he be serviceable this year? Maybe. But I don't think he'll be exceptional, especially for where he's going in most drafts.

2. Reggie Bush

I'll stick with the running back theme and go with Reggie. And before you say it, I do think he's going to be good. Possibly really good. So, in that respect, maybe he's not a bust in the traditional sense of the word. I'm including him on the list because I'm concerned about the highly infectious strain of Bushitis that seems to be making its way through offices and homes around the nation. The primary symptoms are, but not limited to, placing Reggie Bush in overall top five rankings or even putting him in the top five for running backs. Seriously, top five? That's a little extreme for someone mired in a running back by committee situation, don't you think? Last year he ended up being the 13th best running back, based on standard scoring yahoo! leagues. Pretty damn impressive for a rookie. But if you look at the numbers, 742 of his very nice 1307 yards were through the air, making him basically a glorified wide receiver. Still, he did tally 6 rushing touchdowns, mostly the result of long runs. You know he's not going to get the goal line carriers with Deuce around and his 3.6 yards/carry really isn't that great. I do think he'll improve this season. Sophomore slumps don't happen to people with the kind of talent that Reggie has. I just don't see him getting an increased workload or used in different ways than last year, making his gains marginal. He'll rank somewhere between 10 and 13 when it's all said and done - a good back to have but not a top five pick in any sense.

3. Vince Young

I had to force myself off running backs, because I am somewhat obsessed with the position at the moment. What can I say? I'm an old school running back drafter in the first two rounds. I count them as my most important picks. I've never tried the back to back wide receiver strategy and I've never taken a QB in the first round - mainly because will not draft Peyton Manning under an conditions (it's a personal vendetta). However, I have witnessed the demise of team due to poor quarterback play. Your honor, allow me to introduce into evidence "Exhibit A", my 2006 fantasy team. Hasselbeck went down just in time for Eli to shove shit right in my face. That one hurt and I made a promise to myself that I'd always make sure to draft one of the top tier quarterbacks in an attempt to insulate myself as best as humanly possible from that situation.

That's why this year, I won't be drafting Vince. I don't necessarily believe he'll get hurt, though with the way he runs it's certainly a possibility - see Vick's entire career. I do, however, believe he's in for a bit of slump. For one, opposing teams have a year's worth of film on him. They'll game plan, prepare and practice for Vince this year. He embarrassed a couple teams last year. They'll be ready for him this time around. Second, his supporting cast is decidedly shaky at best. Brandon Jones sits at the top of the WR depth chart. A guy with fifty catches to his name. He's an unknown quantity at best. The names right below Jone's don't conjure images of Jerry Rice either. Givens, Moulds and Roydell "I can't believe that's a name" Williams are all interchangeably blah, possibly serviceable wideouts. There's not a true number two in the bunch. Vince has a tandem of paper machete running backs to hand the rock to, neither of which can keep a defense honest and off Vince's backside. His tight ends are pedestrian and I didn't recognize one name on the O-line aside from Kevin Mawae, who I think is the only one in the past five years to have been selected to a Pro Bowl and it was with the Jets back in '04. Combine all those factors with a defense that's not going to get Vince's offense on the field much - they will be playing from behind a good bit, which could be a plus - and my confidence is hardly bolstered.

4. Torry Holt

It's tearing me up inside because I really like this guys. I don't want to put him on this list but I have to go with my gut. Truthfully, the only reason he's on here is his health. I don't like it when knees swell up. I do not get the warm fuzzies when a top flight wide receiver tells the press that his knee is at 70%. It's true that Torry at seventy percent is better than half the league's wide receivers at 100%. But I'd say, as someone who's had some knee problems, that if Torry's knee is at 70%, he's more like 50 or 60% overall. Knee pain is really hard to play through. It make a player tentative in his cuts and reduces speed, all of which throws off the timing of plays and disrupts the wavelength between QB and wide receiver. I was worried about him after the knee surgery and now I feel my concern is justified. I hope he shows up and has a great season this year. He's a good guy and deserves it. But with where he's going in most drafts, there's no way I could trust that knee. Luckily, wide receivers rarely effect fantasy enough to spell team decimation but being shorthanded in the WR department can handcuff a team at playoff time.

I'll leave the rounding out of the top five to you guys with a fifth pick. Or just decry my picks and make fun of my manhood, whatever.

The Great Admission

From an article about Adrian Peterson on Yahoo! Sports:

"That's just herd behavior. It's going to make us all look stupid. Or rather, it would make us look stupid if our jobs involved any performance measurements or accountability. We're really all just parroting the same concerns..."

-Andy Behrens


Andy, let me start by saying, thank you. Thank you for justifying the existence of this website. Thank you for reminding me why I decided to do this in the first place. Thank you for having the balls to admit that you're nothing more than an average Joe with a journalism degree. Something that, last time I checked, does nothing to enhance your credibility when it comes to football. Thank you for recognizing in a public forum that all you supposed "fantasy experts" simply imitate each other, regurgitating the same dribble over and over again. One single brain, though I'm not sure who's in possession of it, controlling a mass of vegged out drones. It's like something from the pages of a sci-fi novel.

Like a spoiled rich starletard, you've been babied and coddled without a hint of engagement or, as you so precisely put it, accountability. But - and it does not pain me in the least to say this - you're time in the sun is over my friend. We're coming for you Andy and you're little dog, too.


Sidenote: I'm not intentionally picking on Andy here, though I may later. And his article is good and worth the read. At least he understands the geography of the fantasy sports world and isn't afraid to point it out. I can't say I fully agree that Adrian Peterson is going to be a beast this year based solely on a single preseason game performance, but he does have a shot and if Andy wants tread bravely out on that limb, so be it. We'll see if it pans out for him.

Subjugating Subjectivity

Apparently, I've tasked myself with a mission impossible, or impossible mission. Either way. Finding a unifying formula to quantify, analyze and puke up answers about the performance of all the fantasy gurus regardless of their chosen format has proved to be too much for my feeble little mind. If I was John Nash I might have a shot. Unfortunately, especially since I'd be banging out Jennifer Connelly, that's not the case.

Instead, I've been relegated to a more primitive and wholly subject method of rating these football geniuses. The plan is to give each a grade comprised of how accurately they predicted the previous week, giving bonus points for the exceptionally accurate or out there calls and subtracting points for completely fucking me and the entire fantasy football playing populous over. In honor of another season of school starting up, for those who are lucky enough to not consider themselves among the masses of working stiffs, I'll be using an A through F grading system. An "A" equaling a 4.0 and and "F" a whopping 0. Pluses and minuses may have to be used, situation depending. I'll post a couple graphs each week so we can see how these assholes are fairing over the course of the season.

In a perfect world, I would have liked to find a formula, thus justifying the thousands of dollars my parents poured into my college education, but I kept getting a head ache. Hopefully, this concession will be satisfactory and we'll get to do some fun statistical analysis later on.

Just Around the Corner

Celebrate! Rejoice! Strip down to your skivvies and run screaming through your neighbor's yard. That's right, baby, football season is almost upon us with the first preseason games being played last weekend. And, as always, hand in hand with football season begins the reason we suffered through the rest of the year, fantasy.

With drafts coming up or already going on - my first is on Thursday - I wanted to throw out a little update about how this little project is going to work. First, let me say that I'm no expert when it comes to fantasy football. I'm just a football fan who thinks that fantasy enhances the game watching experience by introducing a little personal risk into the equation, aside from enduring the seemingly never ending ridicule from friends and strangers when your team losses. I've been playing fantasy for the better part of five years now and have yet to win a league, though I've come agonizingly close a couple of times. Obviously, I don't have all the answers. In that vein, even the experts aren't going to be right all the time. I'm sure they'd consider a fifty percent success rate a major accomplishment and it would be. It's the nature of a prediction. No one knows the future. These guys don't have a crystal ball - if they did, they wouldn't be writing fantasy football columns for decent but not extravagant pay, I promise you that much. I'm not here to criticize but rather to establish who's really on their game. To find the one person who's reading the stats correctly, deciphering the trends and making the best picks and plays humanly possible. Maybe, this year, someone will ascend to their rightful place and be the Nostradamus of fantasy football. Who knows? If that happens, I hope to be the one that lets you know about it so we can all jump on the bandwagon.

I'm still working out the rating system by which all shall be judged. I know it'll be a points based system, possibly weighted somehow. I hope to throw everything into a spread sheet so I can update the site with pretty graphs and charts and the like. Blogger is pretty simple and maybe Alex can help me out but I'm surely no web genius. The extent of my knowledge on such things is limited to the use of "p", "i" and "u". Very sad, I know. I'm part of a generation that pioneered the internet, yet I have no idea how it works. I need to invest in HTML for Dummies.

The hope against hope is that I'll work out my scoring system and spread sheet before the end of the week and have them up for general review and approval of the masses. I also plan to throw up a response to an article or two as well as an opinion or prediction as the season progresses and my fancy is struck. If people begin to berate me for my views I'll post different pictures of a cartoon hand giving the finger. And honestly, I don't think that would do the site much good at all, so don't force my hand (<-- possibly the stupidest pun I've ever written. I swear I didn't mean it).

Initially, I was considering not acting upon my idea, which I had way back in the middle of last year's season, because of some serious time constraints, but seeing as I'm writing this now, I've thought better of things. The least I could do was give it the old sailor's try. One more for the Gipper? Though I do think it might be tough to consistently post while playing in three fantasy leagues, two pick'em leagues, real-life soccer games every Friday, training for a marathon I'm supposed to run in October, writing and recording music that doesn't make homosapien ears bleed, the desk job and keeping the little lady happy, I'll try to work this site in whenever I can. I'm also thinking about recruiting some help, possibly in the form of a co-author or the regularly occurring/random guest post. Negotiations are ongoing.

Good luck to everyone this season, draft wisely (watch your bye weeks), don't take Mike Vick as I doubt he'll be playing for anyone but FCC Petersburg and drop by any time you want some advice on whether Karabell and his cronies are earning their keep or spending it all on blow and hookers. Oh yeah, and referrals are encouraged. Thanks.