Fantasy Football

Alright, this is getting incredibly tedious looking for headlines to offer big picture perspectives on here. So I think starting tomorrow we’re going to start breaking down every team from a fantasy perspective: who to draft where, who to avoid when, dark horses and busts, the whole nine. We’re going to try and write this from the perspective of the coach, and what strategies give the team the best chance of winning, because that’s going to dictate who accumulates the most statistical productivity. It seems like someone could actually benefit from such work, as opposed to me just looking for filler so this site doesn’t go on indefinite hiatus.

But anyhow, there are a couple news items that kinda sorta warrant mentioning, but I wouldn’t get too excited. This isn’t a fantasy football equivalent of Michael Jackson dying, it’s more like the lead singer of Good Charlotte springing his pinkie finger. Ugh, I’ve already spent too much time talking about this.

It’s a couple days old now, but Joe Jurevicius is suing the Cleveland Browns for the unsanitary conditions in their locker room that led to his and others staph infections (most notably Kellen Winslow). This really does raise some eyebrows, and the sanitation in the Browns locker room is a great metaphor for the general disarray of the franchise. But damn, Joe, it isn’t like this team doesn’t already have enough problems without you slapping them in the face with (at least on the surface of it) perfectly legitimate lawsuits.

Unlike The Browns, Joe Banner knows how to run a professional sports franchise.

Anyhow, if you’re looking for a fantasy angle from this story, how’s this: don’t draft any Cleveland Browns. Or if you have too, limit yourself to drafting them about three rounds later than the median of all the fantasy rankings you happen to read. There is always going to be someone more reliable at that point in the draft than who Cleveland has to offer.

LeSean McCoy and the Philadelphia Eagles have reached an agreement, which is good news for Philly fans who’ve needed a respectable backup running back ever since Deuce fucking Staley left town. With him safely in the number two slot, I’d be cautious about Brian Westbrook, who’s perennially listed on the probable/questionable board and can be seen limping during warm-ups on a weekly basis. With someone like McCoy to pick up the slack, they’re going to be a lot more conservative with Westbrook and a lot more liberal with McCoy.

That’s not to say Westbrook is in Cleveland Browns territory, not by a mile. But if all things are equal between him and, say, Michael Turner or Marshawn Lynch, I might opt for the alternatives. His fantasy reign has been tremendous, but I think this is when the Eagles start their transition, you might want to do the same.

My apologies for taking the day off yesterday, but we have a viable excuse that we can actually prove, we were writing a running diary for last night’s NBA draft. Go here if this is something that might interest you or if you were planning on seeking revenge for our failing to post something disappointingly dry and poorly written. If the latter is the case, I wouldn’t be too surprised by any day off from now until August.

In case you haven’t noticed, golf and the NBA are dominating sports headlines right now (especially the NBA), and any news coming out of the NFL is fairly superfluous as it pertains to fantasy football. There is good news, however, that we found out Hard Knocks with the Cincinnati Bengals is scheduled to premiere on August 12th.

I feel like we’re becoming too preoccupied with HBO sports on this site, but we watched Hard Knocks in its entirety when they were filming at the Chiefs mini-camp in 2007. We couldn’t stomach more than a couple episodes with the Cowboys, and we get a sneaking suspicion that as much as we’re anticipating the insider look with the Bengals, it could be just as dull. Plus the show always felt hollow to me, I never really understand what the point is, and it makes the intense presentation of it so befuddling. Maybe last season it was just lacking in likable personalities, but it doesn’t really matter either way, because there is no way we don’t end up watching at least the first two episodes.

In other non-related news, Gloria Estefan now owns a hefty share of the Miami Dolphins. NFL fans/players are probably, by and large, the most concerned with being emasculated. Between the pretty pastel colors they sports, the smiling adorable Dolphin that is their logo, and a famous salsa dancing pop singer from then 80’s now owning a percentage of the team, I think this might be the last straw that leads to their base abandoning the team. They might as well have Kim Gandy come in and coach the team. I’m kidding of course, but is it going to surprise me if there’s some dust up in Jacksonville between a Jags fan that was heckling a Dolphins fan over his team’s new minority ownership? Probably not.

Their only hope is that most Dolphins fans don’t know who Gloria Estefan is (which seem highly improbable living in Miami) or they don’t read headlines in the off-season. Either way will suffice. But this could be the source of constant ridicule from opposing fans and players. At least in the article it says that the stadium will be named after Jimmy Buffet’s Land Shark Lager, that should help balance out the feelings of inadequacy. If nothing else they can get loaded on it. Things are going to seem really dire when they go 7-9 this season.

Probably it for the week unless something notable comes across the wire. Enjoy the weekend.

Going into pretty much any NFL or fantasy football season, by far and away the most predictable outcome of any field of players at a specific position is quarterback. I don’t think there’s much argument that should they all stay healthy, Manning, Brady, McNabb, Roethlisberger, Cutler, Brees, Rivers and Warner should all have good to great fantasy seasons. That’s eight guys, snag one of them and all you need is a serviceable backup.

But going into the 2009 season there are a couple of anomalies. Specifically, Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan. Both coming off fantastic rookie campaigns, not necessarily from a fantasy perspective, but from an efficiency one.  Still, everyone has  high expectations for fantasy and to lead their teams back into the playoffs. Both of which we’re skeptical of actually happening.

This reminds us of the case with Vince Young going into his sophomore season: He led his team into the playoffs, taking a wild card at 8-8 in a competitive AFC. He went into second year regularly ranked as a top ten quarterback on fantasy boards and (at least in a couple of anecdotal examples) going as high as the second round (though all these people who drafted him that high were from Texas). A concept which is obviously absurd in hindsight, but the hype became bigger than the actual player, and that’s regularly a good sign for a quarterback that inexperienced.

For starters, and people have a tendency to do this, you don’t want to overlook the players actual contribution to the team’s success. Yes, Flacco and Ryan both had respectable rookie seasons, but both had dominant running games spearheading the offense (especially Ryan) and overwhelming defenses that forced a lot of turnovers (especially Flacco). The common thread is to judge a quarterback by the wins and losses column (See: Cutler, Jay), and this typifies the overly-simplistic nature of NFL commentary that we can’t stand.

Sure, Cutler was second in the league in passing yardage and sixth in touchdowns with a non-existent running game, a mediocre receiving corps. and the worst defense in the league…but he missed the playoffs! Obviously this logic is flawed for fantasy football, but it’s actually used as justification for why Chicago is ill-fated in finally acquiring a quarterback with pro-bowl talent.

This is the antithesis to how people perceive Ryan and Flacco: They both made the playoffs so clearly they’re the next Marino and Montana. It’s arguments such as these two that make NFL analysis insufferable to watch. That, and the self-righteous nonsense from jocktards that used to inhabit these rosters. I know everyone will tell me they know more about the game than I ever will, and they should, but when I listen to them talk it really doesn’t feel that way.

Anyhow, I have much higher hopes for Ryan than I do for Flacco, and I’d still draft all the aforementioned quarterbacks before these two (and there are about six others in the conversation). These teams aren’t going to rely on the passing game for points, they’re going to rely on moving the ball on the ground and go to air it out sporadically, just to keep teams honest. So try reign it in a bit come draft time, you’d be better off relying on their backups off of waiver wire than taking either of these guys in the first three rounds.

God, it’s getting to the point that I can’t tell if I’m writing a fantasy football blog or a police beat, they’ve been relatively interchangeable this week. The most noteworthy moment to happen this past week was Artie Lange raking Joe Buck over the coals on Buck’s own show. Obviously, it goes without saying, that this has nothing to do with football, much less fantasy football. Joe Buck calls games as drabbly as is humanly possible, and Artie Lange cracks dirty jokes on satellite radio for a living. In short, there isn’t much happening (hence yet another unannounced sabbatical yesterday).

So anyway, lets go to a quick rundown of completely inconsequential news, at least for the topic at hand. There’s a good chance we take the first half of July off, just to cleanse the palate and wait for something substantive to write about, unlike this depressing shit.

Dante Stallworth, as I’m sure you’ve heard, plea bargained his way out of extended prison time and was eligible to play this season, until Roger Goodell said he wasn’t. From a fantasy perspective nothing’s changed from what we all thought the outcome of this would be, so we’ve veered away from it. However, the meatheads that comprise local Columbus radio have tempted me to get on my soapbox, but I have and will continue to refrain from doing a moral critique on this.

More Ohio related NFL legal trouble: Donte Whitner had his court date pushed back on charges stemming from a night club incident earlier this off-season. Donte Whitner, a highly effective defensive back, will probably always be best known for this, and for the Bills over-drafting him when they could have traded down to the mid-20’s and still have gotten “their guy”. Anyhow, whatever bearing this might have on your fantasy team is minimal at best, if you were stuck drafting the Bills defense you probably have bigger problems.

And finally, in retiree news: Bernie Kosar is filing for Chapter 11 and Ryan Leaf has turned himself in and posted bail, I have no idea for what, though it doesn’t really matter… But, but, they’re not receivers, they’re quarterbacks. How could this be? I thought only receivers fucked up their personal and professional lives, that’s why we call them divas, because they’re completely unmanageable and have no reliable skill-set outside of catching a football. These two have a chance to get back on track though, unlike that filthy thug Chad Johnson, who is clearly a criminal because he likes to do creative end zone dances that fans and teammates find wildly entertaining. Isn’t that right, Joe Buck?

Ahem, got a little off-track there.

Anyways, yes, the world is a fucked up place and the NFL isn’t immune to it. It’s almost like these are real people that occasionally have to deal with real world issues. Wow, how eye-opening.

Back next Monday with something new on the docket.

You know, I write this blog and I feel like I am fairly apt in the trials and tribulations of the NFL and fantasy football. But truth be told, much like everyone else that writes about football either professionally or for recreation, I am very much a layman. Outside of a couple of summer workouts when I contemplated going out for receiver in high school, I’ve never played the game on a competitive level, never coached it, and when I post I usually prefer to keep this in mind: There’s a strong chance you’re embarrassingly wrong.

That said, when first your pro-bowl caliber quarterback, whose never had a problem with anyone in the organization, never complained about anyone in college despite him being heads and shoulders better than everyone else on his team, suddenly decides he wants to skip town because of a new coaching regime, I’m a little skeptical when the team claims he’s being too demanding.

But again, I’m not there. I have no idea what the circumstances are or how NFL front office politics work.

I'm not convinced he isn't a rogue cell for the Raiders.

However, if a few months later your pro-bowl receiver who led the league in receptions last season decides he wants traded as well, then I think it’s safe to say you made a poor coaching hire. I know Brandon Marshall hasn’t exactly been a model citizen, but just like with Cutler, I don’t remember any of his teammates or Mike Shannahan having any complaints about him. I guess what I’m wondering (and the only thing that can save Josh McDaniels’ reputation before he even coach’s a single game) is if his two best players are/were disgruntled because they have personal/professional issues with McDaniels himself, or if they’re displeased with the firing of Shannahan in the first place.

The latter might make him a viable candidate down the road when he goes looking for another job (because he’s getting fired from this job in two years tops, and my prediction is by the end of the 2009 season) after this team goes 2-14 (if they’re lucky). Honestly, if you’re looking at the type of season the Broncos are staring at, you do not, under any circumstances, spend your first round pick on a running back. That was his first mistake, after isolating his two best weapons on the offensive end.

At least there is one constant in Denver.

And you know what? Those two wins might be generous. Cutler and Marshall made that team respectable (they didn’t really blow that lead in the AFC West so much as they realized their talent level), and the team was offensively explosive with one of the ten worst running games in the league.  They had the second worst defense, and in just about any other year it would have been top dog, they just happened to exist simultaneously with the first ever 0-16 team in the history of the league. What are they going to look like with Kyle Orton as their starting QB and Eddie Royale as their biggest offensive threat? Shudder.

I suppose the good news for Broncos fans — other than the cheerleaders, of course — is that the turnover rate for playoff teams in the NFL is high. And so long as you can keep from becoming a permanent fixture in the cellar (Raiders, Lions, etc), you’re never that far removed from being in the playoffs. Problem is, I’m not so sure they aren’t closer to finding themselves amongst those teams than they are to making a wild card.

Back later with whatever may come across the ticker.

Nothing really to speak of with fantasy football, but if you happen to catch Joe Buck Live last night it was probably a little more “newsworthy” than an offensive lineman holding out at camp. If you didn’t watch it, the entire hour (at least the segments when sports were discussed) was basically about the NFL. And let me just say, that having a prolonged conversation with Brett Favre probably couldn’t go much better, but it was still one of the more stinted and awkward conversations I’ve seen in awhile.

The Packer legend kicked off the hour (at least after Buck’s “hilarious” monologue), and for roughly twenty minutes we got to listen to Favre hem-and-haw over his relationship with the Vikings and the likelihood of him coming back to the NFL. It was a great third of an hour filled with non-answers and boyish “charm”, which apparently these days just means you can’t confidently form a complete sentence. He did give one direct answer when he said he wouldn’t play for anyone else other than Minnesota, which is a euphemism for “I don’t need to play for a team that I regard as having no shot of winning a Super Bowl with or without me.”

He seemed even more disinterested than the audience.

The second segment — after another vexing interlude from Buck that was a field interview with David Wright, a guy who plays baseball for one of the New York teams, it would seem — was with Michael Irvin and Chad Johnson, and they chose this segment to chastise Chad Johnson for having the audacity to attempt to entertain people, by conflating his on-field antics with operating outside the law like so many of his peers on the Bengals. Irvin talked about him like he wasn’t even in the room, and Joe Buck even ran a segment about athletes and celebrities off-the-field dalliances being documented by TMZ and other media outlets.

The segment could have painted the founder of The Smoking Gun to look a little more creepy than they did, but I’m glad they found some restraint. I actually found him to be refreshing in a segment that desperately needed some logic thrown into the mix. For god knows what reason, every mainstream pundit/columnist desperately wants the illegal discretions of professional athletes to be kept discrete (unless of course it involves steroids), and that’s something I’ve never really understood. Why is the reputation of a stranger who gets a DUI so important to them? It felt like they were painting Smoking Gun guy as the arch-villain and Ari Fleischer, a PR guy for several athletes, as the hero; protecting the reputation of occasionally amoral athletes.

Anyhow, Johnson –who mailed in an appearance for Hard Knocks and HBO synergy– had the good sense to bring up the fact that the only thing he’s guilty of is being a tad self-aggrandizing to the majority of NFL spectators (though Bengals fans probably love that degree of celebration when they’re winning). When Joe Buck pressed him to admit he’s been detrimental to at least his own team (and somehow this is related to the topic at hand of illegal activity), Johnson held his feet to the fire and asked for examples. Naturally, Joe Buck didn’t have any.

Who would've thought he'd be vulgar?

The real carnage came when Artie Lange came on set and basically just eviscerated Joe Buck during the television and “overtime” segment that they post online (and have subsequently removed). Outside of a few off-the-cuff remarks from Lange to Irvin, basically none of it had to do with football, but it warrants mentioning because it made the Bissinger-Leitch dust up on Costas Now from a little over a year ago look like a Bill Moyers interview.

In short, a complete and colossal failure that is now making headlines everywhere because Artie Lange basically asked Joe Buck if he likes to perform oral-sex on men. As a result, that show in September will probably air according to plan.

Probably it for today, back with some more tomorrow. Maybe Denis Leary will ask Al Michaels if his second favorite website is lickingscrotums.com

Outside of explaining what each symbol indicates and how we’re tallying these up, I think we’re going to skip the preambles tonight. Oh, and Tom Brady threw a football again today, which managed to be the headliner for the NFL over at the Worldwide Leader. Just thought we’d toss that out there if you were wondering why we’re posting about basketball for the third straight day. If you require an explanation for such drastic actions, please go here for it.

The grades for officiating are labeled as such:

Great non-calls (A foul would generally be called in the situation but the referee caught the lack of contact): 00
Legitimate calls/good non-calls (Exactly what it sounds like): 0
Questionable calls (Calls that an argument could be made either way for but looked suspicious): /
Atrocious calls (fouls and called penalties that had no business being made): X
When the time on the call is bold and italicized, it means the call was obvious. We don’t want to give them too much credit for what should be routine.

Again, if you’re wondering what the strands of numbers at the end of each quarter mean, see if this makes any sense (the parentheses only apply to the second and third quarters):

Great non-calls (total for game)-Legitimate calls, those that were impossible for the official to botch (totals for both in parentheses)-Questionable calls (total in parentheses)-Atrocious calls (total in parentheses).

1st Quarter

9:44- Cleveland is called for a touch foul on Howard in the paint, he converts the three point-play. I’m not sure who touched him or who they called the foul on though. /

9:22- West called for tripping Courtney Lee. Looks reasonable. 0

9:00- Lewis gets called for grazing LeBron’s arm on a put back off a missed Varejao layup. There was contact, but it was about a second after LeBron tipped it back in. X

8:49- Dwight Howard called for a travel and he indeed took an extra step, but it looked like he might have traveled because he was hacked by Illgauskas (why would Howard have to travel on Illgauskas otherwise?). Still, we had no angle on any contact so we can’t rule on a potential foul either way. 0

7:09- A foul is called on Mo Williams when he isn’t within three feet of the play or any Orlando Magic players. Your guess is as good as mine. X

6:59- It looks like LeBron is hacked going to the rim, can’t really tell because they use that floating camera from the rafters to give us this particular play. 0

6:01- Illgauskas and Varejao tag-team Howard, like they need too. On the same play, Miller and Albert suggest that Illgauskas could have been called for a technical after he walks towards Howard in the least threatening way possible. He literally looks like he’s about to ask for directions, but not pull a knife on him.0

3:29- Mark Davis calls an off-the-ball foul three seconds too late for having the gall to touch Dwight Howard. I like how neither network will replay these calls, we just have to take them at their word, even though everyone was literally just standing around and the whistle blew. X

3:12- Pietrus reaches in to poke the ball away from leBron and is successful, but the official calls body, something we can’t attest to either way given (again) the camera angle. /

2:28- West is called for a travel after picking up his dribble too early going baseline. 0

"Focus, motherfucker! Focus!"

2:20- Mo Williams is called for bumping Anthony Johnson, AKA Day Day from The Wire. It looked like bullshit but if anything else, we know it wasn’t a star call. Anthony Johnson probably hasn’t gotten preferential treatment since high school. /

1:47- The ref bought that Boobie Gibson sent Rashard Lewis’ tall ass flying to the hardwood (that wasn’t intentional but we’re not changing it). /

1:21- Ben Wallace, as evidenced by the second half of game four, is one of the better defenders on Dwight Howard and forces a jump ball with him. Amazingly there isn’t a foul call. 0

1:05- Good no call amidst much contact between Howard, Szczberiak and Wallace on a Pietrus three. 0

:58.3- Pietrus is called for foul while trying to defend him going through the lane on a pick. It was on the opposite side of the court and behind a couple people. You’ll never guess it but we didn’t get a replay. /

0-7, 3-5-3

Note: If the game keeps up at this pace we may have called it quits early, but since we watched games 1, 2 and 4 in their totality, I don’t think we can make those proclamations.

2nd Quarter

11:37- Dwight Howard shoves LeBron in the back for an offensive rebound (which we’ve always considered one of the dirtier fouls in basketball, because there is no way to counter it), Wally is called for a technical foul after pretend pushing Howard in the back. Apparently he feels the same way about the push in the back foul that we do, because there is no other explanation for his reation. That’s par for the course in these playoffs. So we’ll mark both of them as applicable. 0 0

10:17- Pietrus is called for his third foul, all of which have been on LeBron. He might as well call it a night with the way they’re calling him. Between him tonight, Nene last night and Varejao the night before, I think the officials are more likely to start another melee than they are to stop one./

9:43- Dwight Howard is hacked by Illgauskas on a three point-play. 0

9:33- Dwight Howard is called for his second foul when LeBron decides now is a good time to draw a foul from Howard and starts to plow into him, realizes Howard is basically the only person in the league stronger than he is. /

9:21- Gortat is fouled driving on a pick and roll.0

9:03- Good no call on a LeBron bank shot. We imagine any decisive no calls will fall in Cleveland’s favor tonight. 0

8:34- Courtney Lee is leveled by Illgauskas on a fast break, it looks a lot worse than it is because of the size discrepancy. You can tell Cleveland is a football town because the entire crowd “oooh’s” like they just watched a safety drill a receiver going across the middle. They haven’t seen such a play in twenty years so you can imagine their excitement. 0

7:51- Mo Williams is called for grazing the top of Rashard Lewis’ head on a fast break. X

7:34- Karma’s a bitch when Lewis is called for trying to run his forearm into Illgauskas chest too…create space, maybe? I have no idea but the way these games are officiated he had to have known what was coming. 0

7:00- West gets a continuation call that is so egregious everyone stopped defending him since it was called a decade before he released the shot. X

6:04- Van Gundy is livid about a no-call when Turkoglu drives to the hoop and the ball is batted away by Varejao after he spends around West. The good news is we actually got a replay and it looked clean from mine eyes. We might be biased though since we really don’t want this series to end. Gundy gets a technical for his best Bill Cowher impression. 0

5:38- Varejao is called for grabbing Howard in the paint on a rebound attempt. 0

5:19- Howard called for the goal-tend, which I’d be willing to bet he also led the league in. 0

3:26- Hand check call on Illgauskas when he’s guarding Howard in the paint. This is easily the most ineffectual hand-check in this insipid rule’s history, but it’s still a foul. 0

2:18- Howard goes up for a bucket, misses it and claims he is fouled, a teammate gets the offensive rebound and someone fires up a three while he is still complaining yet he still pulls down the second offensive board on the same possession and is immediately banged on by Illgauskas. The refs give him enough time to put a shot up so he can earn the and-1. 0

2:08- Alston called for a touch foul when Williams drives to the left, we can’t speak on it since Williams is between the camera and Alston. /

:45- Turkoglu is called for a foul on a LeBron drive, Albert tells us he was pushed but we can’t tell either way. Looked suspicious to us and we don’t trust Albert not to protect the label. /

0-12,6(19,9)-2(7)-4(7)

We don’t really track the game in these things because it would require too much rewinding/pausing/fast-forwarding to follow the officiating and the game. Either we’re not cut out for this or we’re not being paid enough. But it’s a two point game at half.

3rd Quarter

9:47- Good no call when LeBron bitches about being fouled and any contact was minimal. I imagine if Orlando hadn’t sucked the life out of this crowd he would have gotten that call. 0

7:50- Alston called for the clear path foul and we’re kind of on the fence on this rule. Based on the merits of this rule it was a terrible call (as Reggie Miller so succinctly explains), but it doesn’t really matter because the rule is shit, anyways. X

6:51- Alston called for reaching in on an Illgauskas drive (seriously) which he converts into a three point-play. He definitely reached but even with the replay we can’t tell if he actually touches him. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. 0

6:07- Lewis called for a foul when Illgauskas pushes off of him in the post. X

5:38- Howard called for travel. 0

5:16- James fouled on fast-break by Turkoglu. 0

4:25- Foul called on Varejao and it’s legitimate, but the whistle is blown before they make contact. I guess Varejao had a look in his eyes. 0

4:11- Illgauskas cops a feel off Howard’s entire right arm. Between this and the premature foul call on Varejao I think the Cavs are putting vodka in those little Gatorade cups. 0

3:30- Lewis catches an interior pass from Howard, holds it for a second before the ball goes flying out of bounds when a couple defenders rush over and they call it out on Orlando. /

3:02- Illgauskas draws a foul on Howard, giving Howard three for the night. 0

2:08- Varejao flops when defending Howard, the crowd buys it but the officials don’t because he does it at least twice a game. 0

1:58- Varejao draws an and-1 off a foul from Howard, we never get a replay on it but from afar there isn’t much arguing to be had. 0

This game, much like the movie, should come in at just under four hours.

1:45- Turkoglu gets Varejao (this is exhausting, I feel like I’m talking about Lord of The Rings characters) off the ground, but doesn’t have to jump into him, because jumping straight into the air is a foreign concept to Varejao. 0

1:25- Szczerbiak is called for a non-shooting foul on Lewis because he has no business ever playing in this game so long as Joe Smith is available, and he knows it (I mean Szczerbiak, but Smith is probably well aware of this too). 0

0-11,6(30,15)-1(8)-2(9)

4th Quarter

11:16- Anthony Johnson is cleanly blocked by Boobie Gibson, which he’ll never hear the end of. 0

10:45- LeBron is called for a blocking foul on…Michel Pietrus? And it looked clean? We’re still in “The Q”, right? /

10:32- Turkoglu is called for a foul trying to steal the ball from Wallace like he’s his younger brother and he’s ten year’s old. 0

9:50- Gortat jumps on LeBron’s back after an offensive rebound like he was expecting LeBron to put him on his shoulders. 0

7:44- The refs refrain from blowing the whistle on a LeBron drive in which he stumbles back after his missed shot. 0

7:36- Illgauskas fouls Howard. 0

7:14- Pietrus is called for his fourth foul, all four on LeBron. At this point I’m pretty sure everyone whose played more than twenty minutes has four fouls.0

6:58- Illgauskas is called for lightly shoving Howard. The crowd doesn’t like it, Miller defends it, I will say that in this climate it is obviously going to be called, but it really had no effect on the play. 0

6:00- James is fouled by Howard on a three point-play. 0

4:46- West is called for a foul on a three point “attempt” by Turkoglu. The reason for the quotations is Turkoglu had no intention of going into a shooting motion until West tried to put a vulcan death grip on Hedo’s member. Has to be called but I don’t like calling it a shooting foul, regardless of the blatant disregard for personal space. /

2:22- LeBron forces three point-play when Howard slides in a millisecond too late to draw the charge. If the Cavs blow this nine point lead I’m going back to my default position of disregarding all Cleveland sports. 0

2:08- Varejao called for a blocking foul on a Pietrus three point-play. Crowd doesn’t like it (though they seem oftentimes confused), but that’s only because it was so unorthodox with Pietrus driving west to east instead of north to south. 0

1:07- Ugh, the game’s already over but Gortat is called for a downey soft foul on a Varejao three point-play. Do you know how to tell it’s soft and probably ill-advised? Varejao just converted a three point-play. X

1:07- Discontent to let this half go by relatively fairly officiated, the refs make a colossally terrible foul call on Wally before the ball is thrown in-bounds. X

1:02- Varejao fouls out on a Rashard Lewis drive. The contact is completely sealed off from the camera by both players but we don’t get a replay. /

1:00- Shit, Orlando isn’t going to go back home gracefully, as Gortat wraps up Illgauskas, who’s probably the best free throw shooting big-man on either side of Houston. 0

:46.8- Illgauskas fouls out while contesting a jump shot from Turkoglu for god knows what reason. 0

:41.7- Mo Williams is intentionally fouled.0

:28.8- Williams is intentionally fouled again. Why are the Magic doing this? Because Reggie Miller is calling the game? 0

0-14,8-3-2

0-30,15-8-9

Final Tallies:

Great non-calls: 0

Legitimate calls/good non-calls: 44 (23 of which were obvious)

Questionable calls: 11

Atrocious calls: 11

Alright, of the three games we watched this is the best we’ve seen so far, and there was still a tinge of favoritism shown towards the home team. But by and large, if you just look at the percentages only 1/6 of the officials decisions we’re face-meltingly bad, and another six we regarded as highly debatable, relegating any favoritism to marginal at best. Yes, Howard and Turkoglu both fouled out, but so did Varejao. There was only a seven shot gap in free throw shooting which actually favored the Magic (41-34). From what we saw tonight and the past two, the people that tend to benefit from official interference are marketable players that illicit strong reactions from home fans and (depending on how transcendent the player), occasionally a player like LeBron James can benefit from fans inadvertently getting him a couple calls.

All in all, this results in a relatively fairly matched game with a slight edge to the more valuable players and too many calls on soft/non-existent fouls. Again, this is all op-ed but I don’t really have a horse in this race (I’m from Ohio but any connection I might have with the Cavs is strictly platonic, they could move to Zurich for all I care), so I’d like to think that I’m being as objective as possible. Though like I said before, I don’t want these series’ to end. I need a surplus of NBA coverage before we go on hiatus and I have to wait out two months of non-stop baseball coverage.

Back next week, hopefully with something football related.

We got started late but since this is a Lakers game we didn’t miss much early. For what we did miss, we apologize. It will never happen again. We’re not going to go into some tortured preamble again about why we’re doing this. If you do want to read the explanation for why we’re writing about the NBA on a NFL fantasy blog, go here. Or just roll with it. I recommend rolling with it, the only thing more obnoxious than unnecessary open tabs is meaningless explanations for writing blog posts no one really reads.

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Given the unbelievable heap of garbage that is NFL news today, we’re going to do something slightly different and modify the site for at least today, if not the rest of the week. And when I say modify, I mean write about an entirely different sport. I guess our dark secret (as it pertains to this site at least) is that we probably prefer the NBA to the NFL. The NBA is much more laid back, enjoyable league that isn’t nearly as cantankerous as the NFL has grown to be in recent years. And with all the talk of how LeBron would fair in the NFL draft and the league itself, we figured we’d switch sports for a couple days.

This is basically our entire justification for doing this.

That said, the issue of officiating has grown increasingly divisive. Some claim conspiracy theories (certain players and teams being favored), others incompetence (the majority of the referees are bumbling idiots), and some think everyone complaining about the officiating is much ado about nothing (though this seems to be a distinct minority). I fall probably in the middle, but since the ineptitude works both ways any impact is objective. But between Mark Cuban, Tim Donaghy, the 2006 NBA finals and the ever-growing divergence of officiating between the stars and utility players, no one can stand to lose a close game without pinpointing a series of or one specific foul call/no call at a pivotal point in the contest.

So what’s my point? Well, in all our nerd-dom, we decided that actually monitoring a couple of these games and breaking down ho the actual foul calls, penalty calls and missed/impressive non-calls. Overall, the results were about what we expected for an overtime game and while their were numerous eyebrow raises, they stayed pretty consistent. Which I think is what most players and coaches in the league ask for. For each call/non-call we broke them down into the categories with the following symbols:

Great non-calls (A foul would generally be called in the situation but the referee caught the lack of contact): 00
Legitimate calls/good non-calls (Exactly what it sounds like): 0
Questionable calls (Calls that an argument could be made either way for but looked suspicious): /
Atrocious calls (fouls and called penalties that had no business being made): X
When the time on the call is bold and italicized, it means the call was obvious.

Mind you, this is completely subjective and many might have seen things differently (on one call in particular), but this wasn’t exactly Kobe Doin’ Work, we were limited to the camera angles TNT offered us, and the majority of the time these plays were considered innocuous so we seldom got replays. Also, we wrote this while watching the game last night and not only did we not have time for any editing, we didn’t think we’d be posting this anywhere in public, so we apologize for any typos.

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