The List

Jeremy, being the responsible one, has already put up his review for this week. I doubt Jeremy spent five hours in an overheating truck today attempting to make his way in and out of the concrete and column prison known as DC. I also doubt he spent what little remained of the daylight hours standing inside sweltering mechanical rooms drawing ductwork and piping for the man. Oh, wait. That's right! That was my day and now I'm tired and whiny which means I'm turning a little black like Kanye. But those aren't even the excuses why I'm not doing my review today. My real excuse is that I have all my research at work and I didn't stop by on my way home from DC to pick it up. I should have stuck with the whiny bitch thing, shouldn't I have?

So, instead, I figured I'd treat another open festering sore and give you the final list of gurus we'll be reviewing this year, now with extra cool picture linking goodness. Without further ado, here it is:

1. Eric Karabell - The lovable and easier to look at than some others who shall not be named face of ESPN's Fantasy Football department. If available, he'd like to take you sister to prom.



2. Scott Engel - He's no looker like Karabell but someone, somewhere thinks he knows something about football. We're currently still looking for that person. We'll keep you abreast of any major breakthroughs. On a more personal note, he thinks you'd look good bald.



3. Jamey Eisenburg - Jamey would ask that you please ignore the homosexual spelling of his first name and concentrate on the issues. Always the consummate professional, that's why we love Jamey. Jamey, Jamey Jamey.



4. Brad Evans - Brad enjoys the simple things in life, like making fun of white people and peeing without using his hands. He's seen a football once and, to quote his grandmother, "He enjoyed it very much." Around the office he's known as Mr. Exclusive or Exclusive. I can never remember which.



5. The Fantasy Shark Guys - Unlike many of their cousins within the genus, these sharks prefer to swim in schools, hunt in packs and play mahjong on Friday nights. Because of their shear absurdity in number, we'll take them as a group collective. All these fantasy guys look the same to me anyway. Pictured below is the king fish - I'm told there government's the derivative of a limited autocracy.




There you have it. If you want us to review anyone else, too bad. This shit's already turning into too much work (just kidding, kind of). Five seems like a good number. I'm sticking with it. And before I forget, check out Jeremy's review below. He's good.

Anybody else feel like this list resembles something out of a high school yearbook or the Sunday obituary?

1 week down ... Gimme More

Sunday number one is officially in the books. And man, what a Sunday it was. Odds are you've already read plenty about it, but what good is having a blog if I don't get to chime in as well on such a huge day in history.

Britney Spears is back.

OK so maybe that has little to do with fantasy football. But big deal. Some things are bigger than fantasy football (expecting a fat Britney joke here? Too bad). As a mom of two, and just a few months removed from shaving her head, she could have looked a lot worse. Now let's see how her new album sounds.

This week's review is dedicated to the former Mrs. Federline.

The Good
Think Britney in her Toxic video. Doing exactly what you get paid to do. In Britney's case, look hot and put out a catchy song. In Eric Karabell and Scott Engel's cases, hit the nail on the head in their fantasy football predictions. It's pretty easy to put Peyton Manning and LaDanian Tomlinson at the top of the rankings at their respective positions. And it's no surprise that Peyton was the #3 scoring QB and LT was the #4 scoring RB (even against a tough Bears defense that shut him down in the first half).

Props to Karabell for putting Shawn Alexander fifth in his rankings (Engel had him 10th). Alexander scored the same number of points as LT and helped me stay alive through week one of Survival Football. Plaxico Burruss (#13 Karabell/#15 Engel) shed his Plexi-Glass moniker at least for this week, and was one of the last Giants standing after his 100-yard, 3-TD night in primetime. And Terrell Owens (4/3) showed once again that you can be a cancer in the clubhouse, but be a stud in fantasy.

At tight end, both Karabell and Engel went out on a limb and put Antonio Gates at #1. It paid off, as he was the #2 scoring TE this week. This was really the lone bright spot for the gurus at this position. And at team defense, the "let's put Baltimore and Chicago 1-2" plan backfired. But the gurus did do well predicting Minnesota (8/6) and San Diego (4/5) would have good weeks. The two teams ranked 1 and 6 in scoring this week.

The Bad
Britney walking out of a gas station restroom without any shoes on. Just a sign that things are a little crazy, but not full-out nuts just yet. There's room for improvement. So these are players who were ranked high, had bad weeks, but will likely rebound and be ranked near the top of our guru's predictions in the coming weeks.

It all started Thursday night, about 72 hours before Britney took the stage in Vegas. Drew Brees, ranked #2 by both Karabell and Engel, took the field against an Indianapolis defense who had lost three starters from their Super Bowl squad. Looked like a safe and smart pick, right? Less than 200 yards, 2 picks and a fumble lost later ... we found out that it wasn't so smart. But with his weapons, Brees has to bounce back. Ditto for Reggie Bush (10/8). Under 50 combined yards and no scores won't cut it for a guy that many owners (including myself) took in the first three rounds.

Outside of the Big Easy, some other highly ranked big names had bad days. Steven Jackson (2/2) and the second overall pick in most leagues, totalled 61 yards and lost two fumbles. Only needs to average 163 yards per game over the next 15, and he'll hit the 2,500 total yards he is shooting for. But with Orlando Pace going down for the season, Jackson's numbers could take a hit (along with Bulger, Holt, and other Ram players). And Larry Johnson (3/3) combined for less than 100 yards and no scores in KC's loss to the Texans.

Tight ends proved to be a big swing and a miss for our Bristol-based gurus. Tony Gonzalez (2/2) and Todd Heap (4/5) combined for 57 yards - the same amount Eric Johnson (not ranked in top 25) had by himself. By the way ... with the offense that New Orleans is going to put up this year, grab Johnson if he's still available. I don't think this week was a fluke. Chris Cooley (6/6) and Vernon Davis (7/4) also had terrible weeks.

On the defensive side of the ball, Denver managed to stink it up fantasy wise in a win against Buffalo. After being ranked 9th by both gurus, they finished the week ranked 24 in fantasy scoring. With Dre Bly and Champ Baily at corner, along with some serious talent at D-Line and linebacker, Denver should improve and score more sacks and INTs in the coming weeks.

Let's just hope none of these players go off and do something crazy like marry a backup dancer.

The Ugly
You wake up one morning, are surfing around on the internet, and see a story that Britney Spears shaved her head in a salon the night before. You had an inkling something crazy might happen, but didn't really expect it. We'll devote this section to low-ranked guys who are names you should know, but had a week that was tough to predict - unless you make a living predicting those kinds of things.

I don't imagine that Adrian Peterson (Minn.) woke up this past weekend, logged onto ESPN.com and saw that Eric Karabell had him ranked as the #37 running back option in fantasy football. Something like that probably wouldn't serve as motivation for a high draft pick who had a successful college career toting the rock. But maybe he did. Peterson was the #1 scoring running back this week, totalling 160+ yards and a score. Scott Engel ranked Peterson at #23, in case you were wondering. Two other running backs who busted out with big weeks were LaMont Jordan (29/30) and Chris Brown (42/39). Both were top-five scoring RBs for the week.

Another rookie who got no love from Karabell was WR Calvin Johnson. Not ranked in the top 50, all the former GT standout did was put up 70 yards and a score, totalling as many fantasy points as Tory Holt. Again, give a little credit to Engel, he had CJ ranked at #38. Other pass catchers who had nice days despite low predictions: Randy Moss (yes, that Randy Moss) who was ranked 26 and 33 by Karabell and Engel, respectively. Moss was the #2 scoring WR in fantasy this week. And Ronald Curry (46/41) scored more fantasy points than Steve Smith, Chad Johnson, or Marvin Harrison this week.

Jason Witten (14/15) was ranked in the middle of the pack by our gurus, behind such fantasy stars as Owen Daniels and Daniel Graham. The #1 fantasy scoring tight end, Witten had a 100+ yard day and added a touchdown for the Cowboys.

As I detailed earlier this week, picking a kicker week to week is a semi-crap shoot. Thanks NFL kickers for proving my point. While top-ranked Adam Vinatieri was the #4 kicker this week, he was topped by Jason Hanson (15/18), Lawrence Tynes (not ranked), and Mason Crosby (NR/19).

Finally, two teams came out of nowhere to have strong fantasy weeks defensively. First off, the Cincinnati Bengals (15/19). Who Dey? The #3 fantasy scoring defense this week, that's who. Even more surprising were the Houston Texans. Ranked 20 and 30 by Karabell and Engel, respectively, the Texans, led by Mario Williams' 2 sacks and a fumble recovery, were the #2 scoring fantasy defense in the league this week. Can either of these teams keep it up and become a real threat in fantasy and in the NFL? We'll have to wait for Karabell and Engel's week 2 rankings to see.

This week's grades:
Karabell D+
Engel D

And in another instance where things are bigger than fantasy football - doctors are optimistic that Kevin Everett will be able to walk again. As a Buffalo Bills fan, and a football fan, this is great news. You hate to see serious injuries occur to anyone on any team. Hopefully Everett has a full and speedy recovery.

World Turns Upside Down

I know what you're thinking, and trust me, I'm thinking the same. But let's be reasonable, remove our collective hands from the red button that will jettison our woeful fantasy team back into cyberspace never to be seen again and take a second to conduct a true inventory of what we've got. You also may want to resume breathing now.

As if some things couldn't get more muddled than they already are, this weekend's games came along and opened up a brand new can of worms. Injuries are one thing. They're unavoidable, always untimely and have killed many a fantasy team in the past. But that's why we build depth, especially at running back and QB, right? For those of you with Brandon Jacobs, Cadillac or Chester Taylor (probably not starting on your team anyway) I hope that's the case.

I think the biggest surprises this week were the winners and busts. Like the beginning of a new year in grade school, those first days of unfamiliarity you stuck to what and who you knew. You put the big name players in your starting lineup thinking they'll surely be passable while holding out hope for bigger things. Unfortunately, that probably means there was a plethora of points scattered around your bench this week. In one league I had Chris Brown, Jake Delhomme and Jason Witten sitting on the bench. Ignoring tonight's doubleheader, they've outscored my entire starting lineup. Doesn't that shit just make you sick? Ugh.

The world seems to have turned on its axis most noticeably in the realm of the running back. A whole bunch of second and third tier backs did absolutely nothing; from Maroney to Reggie and Ronnie and Benson to Jones-Drew. All a person can do is ask themselves why? It's way too early to be giving up on them and couple you may even go after as buy low prospects but you know that at least a few of these guys are going to continue the trend they started in week one and suck all year long. I call it Cadillac Syndrome. Then you've got the really confusing guys. The Steven Jackson's and Larry Johnson's of the world. Maybe we shouldn't be trusting RBs who's last name starts with "J". I don't know, but I'm open to explanations. I can't be positive about this, but 58 rushing yards, along with 3 receiving yards and two fumbles, is not what most people spent a number two pick on. Didn't he say he was going to run for 2,500 yards this year or some other nonsense? As Rick Ricardo would say, "You got some 'splaining to do!" And Johnson - oh Mr. Johnson - is this the kind of 43 rushing 44 receiving yard performance were going to get out of you this year? If the Chiefs only had a passing game or a line or a defense or wide receivers or a team.

Then you've got the good surprises, though I doubt most took advantage of them. If you had told me Chris Brown was going to rush for a career high 175 yards against a seemingly stout Jacksonville defense, I probably would have ordered you a straight jacket. If you had told me that Adrian Peterson, rookie running back, would be the number one back in all of fantasy football after the first week, again excluding tonight's games, I might have kicked you in the junk for saying something so preposterous. And yet, here we are. So what now? First, hit your waiver wire and pick these guys up if they happen to still be there along with Derrick Ward, who should be starting in New York for the foreseeable future. They may not continue to perform at current levels, but they'll certainly be useful in most leagues. As I see it, with a few more 100 yard games for Peterson, he might claim Minnesota's running back spot outright, whether Chester comes back healthy or not.

On tap: Look for my first rating of the gurus to come out tomorrow. I've started gathering the evidence and, just as I thought, there were some monumentally poor calls but also a few very good ones. Tomorrow, we discuss.

Recapitulating

Aside from the game, which I don't have to ask about, did anyone else think last night's opening festivities blew goat balls?

First of all, Mellencamp looks like an AIDS victim who's losing the fight. Either that, or a creepy guy who sits outside of elementary schools and waits for the kids to be let out. One of the two. The only thing I know for sure is that he sucks. Only one thing could have sucked more than the Mellencamp number; getting Faith Hill to sing her last "hit" from a decade ago and then asking her to record the opening night theme song.

...Wait. They did that, didn't they?

Jesus, was that an abomination. The pregame song is always some of the most insane, asinine, incoherent dribble ever written by the hand of man. But this year took the cake and things to the next level. I honestly missed kickoff because I had to turn the channel and force myself to throw up the bottle of pills I had just swallowed. Using the word painful to describe that pre-recorded number doesn't close to do it justice. Christ, I'd rather watch a snuff film then suffer through that shit again. Asking who in their right mind actually likes that lyrical upchuck is useless. I already know; they've been bring the rest of us sane human beings down for years. Fuck you middle America.

I'm not even going to get into the halftime show because it's only going to make me mad.

However, I will get into the game, even though it will probably also make me mad.

First, what the hell happened to the Saint's offense. They were offensive, I'll give them that. It looked like they'd forgotten everything that made them so good last year. For one, getting Deuce 10 rushes is simply inexcusable. The dude is a work horse. He going to need more touches and they weren't unrushably down until the middle of second half. The number one thing and best way to beat the Colts is ball control. Keep the ball out of Manning's hands and you have a shot. The best way to control the clock is to run the ball. If so, fact-o, I'm your boss. It's really not that complicated.

Second, the cover two is about as simple a defensive formation as a team can run. If you can't figure it out, you probably shouldn't be coaching the NFL. One, you run the ball. Two, you send either a slot receiver or tight end up the middle, straight down the seem. Three, you overload one side with trips or other bunch formations and force them to shift their setup. The cover two can be an effective defense, as exhibited last night, but it can also be exploited. All it takes is an ounce of common sense. There should be passes longer than 6 yards to be had but your probably going to have to put more than two wideouts on the field at a time to do it. Sad plan, sad execution, sad effort, sad all around by the New Orleans offense.

Just one more then I'll get off the Saint's ass. It's getting all red and puffy anyway. I'm not sure who turned Reggie Bush into a small white woman but would they please turn her back for the sake of all fantasy coaches out there. Seriously, was he going for his best Jamal Lewis impression? Because I have to tell you, he didn't have the pitter patter of little feet down quite well enough. In the tentative category, however, he scored a ten. A fucking 10! I give her a fucking 10! He ran with such indecisiveness, it's unfathomable. A guy with his talents shouldn't be running into the back of his blockers or tip-toeing around the outside of the line or dropping easy passes. And the part that baffles me the most is they kept forcing him the ball. Getting him more involved in the offense is one thing but putting him in situations where he's destined to fail, all for the sake of getting him touches, will do nothing but kill his confidence and the team's chance of winning. Stop forcing the ball to him and use him as God intended, Sean! Damn.

There's not much to say about the Super Bowl champs. The came ready to play. Manning and company were spectacular, aside from Reggie dropping the ball, literally. I don't think their defense is as good as the Saints made them look. The first time they face a team with an NFL offense I think you'll see what they're really worth. I do wish I had drafted Joseph Addai for at least one, if not all, of my teams. He's going to be a fucking beast. He's the new Old Edge. I'm just happy I didn't play anyone with him this week.

Kick It Off Right

With nary two short hours before kickoff, I find myself in a bit of a malaise. Is it possible that I'm hung over on football already? Couldn't be. That would somehow imply that I stopped at any point long enough to sober up, which of course is something I haven't remotely done. I can tell that if I had the displeasure of running one of the leagues I'm in - the unenviable position I found myself in last year and Jeremy finds himself in this year - you wouldn't be reading my words right now. Instead, the loquacious writing of an AP beat copy jockey would be summarizing an emergency situation involving myself, a goat, a tall building and Little Richard. Lets just say if I'm going down, I'm taking them with me.

My prayer is that by kickoff and a couple dozen beers I'll be feeling like my vibrant self again. As a side note, during that same prayer I add that nailing down our guru's to review by tomorrow would be peachy keen. God, being his usual apathetic self, will completely ignore my prayer and in an act of biased punishment simultaneously relieve me of my manhood and this website of any felicitous functionality.

Barring any unforeseeable interruptions or distractions, I should have a list of hot seat names by tomorrow. I'll post them as soon as I can along with corresponding studio-shot and posed photos of each guru. 'Cause these guys are a real dish to look at. And because I'm going to use their floating heads to spice up a graph. But that's my secret project; don't tell anyone.

We, along with Rhodes scholar and overall devilishly handsome Alex, are working on getting a banner together for the website. Once it's out, and trust me you'll know, feel free to download it and put it up on your myspace pages, facebook profiles, websites, ect. We're trying to get the word out so more than a small group of people know how much Jeremy and I suck.

Not that this has anything to do with anything, but The Shin's new album Wincing the Night Away is really good, though a bit different from the rest of their stuff. In fact, just listening to it has put me in a better mood.

Win Eric Karabell's dart board!

To go along with his August 30 blog (ESPN Insider link), Eric Karabell should have included a picture of himself drinking Keystone Ice and chucking darts at a dartboard with Sean Salisbury's face on it. Karabell himself admits that ranking kickers especially is a crapshoot, but hey they have to fill space and give ESPN Insider's their money's worth.

There are basically 3 mindsets when drafting kickers:
A) Draft a 'name' kicker - Adam Vinatieri, Scott Norwood, Jason Elam, etc. Hey, these guys make big kicks when it matters (except Norwood), get on Sportscenter, and win Super Bowls. Except none of that matters in fantasy football.
2) Try to pick a bad team and get their kicker. Cleveland isn't going to score many touchdowns, so let's get Phil Dawson and we'll rack up the field goals! Sure, in a perfect world, the Browns would lose every game 49-12. Or it could backfire and you would lose all the PATs that a kicker on a good team would have.
iii) Don't draft a kicker. This was my method in 2/3 of my drafts this year. I'd rather grab a 6th wide receiver in the draft, and drop someone in favor of a kicker right before I set my weekly lineup. At least this way I have insurance on my roster in case of a preseason injury, or I can package players in a trade proposal. Not going to see many trades where a kicker is the headliner of a trade.

One last point. Don't be the guy who says "I'm not drafting a kicker until the last round." Because you won't wait. Someone will draft Shayne Graham or Robbie Gould in the 11th or 12th round, starting a run on kickers, and you'll jump right in. You know its going to happen.

Coming tomorrow: Turf toe, and how it impacts my fantasy right tackle rankings

Christmas Come Early

Please, take a moment and do this for me. It's quick, I promise. Take your right or left hand, it doesn't matter which, and, with your pointer and middle finger extended, slowly bring that hand towards your neck. Now, place those two fingers gently on your neck, just below your jaw about half way between your chin and ear. You should feel a quick bump, bump, bump at one hundred and twenty beats a minute or more. If you don't feel anything, you're probably dead - sorry. If you feel a slow, steady beating you may not be human and you're definitely not American. I think you already know why my heart is beating like a jack hammer twenty four seven and you're right. The greatest spectacle in all of sports begins its season this Thursday. Football, my friends, is rightly and truly back!

I doubt I've anticipated a season more than this one. For sure I've never been as involved with all things fantasy football like I am this season. Two pick'em league, one survivor league, three fantasy teams and this blog all shift into a six month high gear burn out with the flick of a light switch. The waiting has been killing me. I've been up nights, pacing endlessly back and forth, worrying about Cedric Benson's chances to break 1,000 yards this season. I haven't gotten a thing done at work - not that I would have anyway - because I'm not convinced Matt Hasselbeck is going to return to top tier status. Soon, it'll all be revealed and I'll have my answers.

The first weekend of the football season reminds me of Christmas. You wait angst riddled months for it. You plan incessantly about what or in this case who you're going to get. Thursday night might as well be a chilly morning on December 25th. I'll finally get to see what I really got inside those nice, carefully wrapped packages. It's our first chance to take true measure of the guys on our team. You know someone's going to be disappointed. Someone's going to get something they didn't expect, in a bad way. Just like someone's going to find the golden ticket laying in their lap. Some are going to get exactly what they wanted or expected and they'll feel all warm and happy inside. Some are going to want to immediately exchange what they got.

The only sure thing is that these pretty packages are going to begin to show their colors. All anyone can do at thing point is hope that, for being a good girl or boy all year, they picked the right presents.

Oucho Duo

Would someone please explain this to me.

Now, I don't know who comes up with these things and I understand that 99% of the time they're wrong, but how can Yahoo! project Chad Johnson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh to put up 13 and 12 fantasy points this week, respectively. CBS continues the insanity by rating them at 12 and 9 points. All against a vaunted Baltimore Ravens defense? Please.

I may be showing my purple and black skivvies on this one, but I just don't see how both these guys are going to fair that well this week.

Sure, Chad is good. A top fantasy receiver no doubt. His gold teeth and confusing antics aside, he'll have a good season, assuming he stays healthy. That's a given. I also don't doubt his wing man, the rat-tailed wonder, T.J. Idon'twanttotypehislastnameagain will have a productive year. I do think he's slightly over-valued right now. How does one team have two No. 1 fantasy wide receivers? But I guess someone's got to catch Carson's balls. I just have a hard time believing they'll both live up to expectations.

The real problem, for me, occurs when they predict these numbers against a Raven's defense that ranked first in overall defense and sixth in passing yards per game last year. They only gave up 16 passing touchdowns all year in 2006. Sure, they lost Adalius Thomas over the offseason but that's it. This is the same secondary as last year, people, so why the doubt? Maybe both CBS and Yahoo! accidentally looked at Week 2 of the NFL schedule, possibly confusing Browns with Baltimore. And granted, I'm more than a little bias here, but most experts would agree with me in saying that the Ravens have a top tier defense. It's not a shadow of what the 2000 boys put together, but in comparison to the rest of the league, they're still pretty good.

I can see one of the two getting the kind of fantasy payoff the sites are predicting. Someone's going to be covered by Samari Rolle after all. But to think both these guys are going to hit close to 100 yards and a touch is a bit off the rocker. If the Raven's D was that bad, I doubt they'd be rated the number 2 overall fantasy defense this year - in leagues that don't give return yards and touches to the DEF, you could argue they might be numero uno.

It just further illustrates something I'm assuming everyone already knows, don't trust the projected points - especially not in the first week of the season.

Bandwagon's Got a Flat

I'm beginning to feel a bit uneasy. It seems everyone's jumping on the "Vince Young for fantasy bust" bandwagon. With Karabell's vote cast in the direction of general consensus, the conclusion is all but assured. Vince Young will be a fantasy stud this year and were all going to look like idiots.

And it's not that I don't trust Eric's opinion. It's quite the opposite really. He's one of my favorite and most respected guru's. It's just, with everyone decrying the value of the Tennessee ball slinger, it's pretty much guaranteed he'll prove us all wrong. And yes, the majority is correct most of time or so we'd like to believe. But when everyone agrees in unison it always makes me wary, sets lights and whistles off in my head and gets me looking for closest exit as I slowly back away. Predictions rarely work out when everyone thinks the same damn thing. It's cosmic irony.

Sure, the reasons Vince could fail are many. But why couldn't he be at least as good as last year or better. His team was no better or worse last year. They still suck, now. So could Vince do the miraculous again and conjure a useful fantasy season out of a nothing? Sure. And the more gurus predict his failure, the better chance he has to succeed.

Now, would I take him in third or fourth round? Lets not get carried away.


On a happier note, the NFL season starts this Thursday! All the preseason bullshit, the hearsay and conjecture, the mindless unending analysis is over! Of course, that all gives way to the season's bullshit, hearsay and conjecture and mindless unending analysis. But at least now it's for real. I can't wait.

By the way, was anyone else pissed off that there was no football on Sunday? Why not schedule a college game that day instead of packing them all in on Saturday? Doesn't make any sense to me.

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.