Fantasy Football

I for one am always hesitant to draft rookies going into a fantasy season. Generally speaking, there is a significant learning curve for everyone coming into a new offense, and to a lesser extent a new defense. Sure there have been exceptions, most notably Adrian Peterson last season and before him Randy Moss, who coincidentally both came into the league with the Vikings. But for the most part, it has been considered something of an enigma to have a rookie putting up monster fantasy numbers, particularly in the first half of the season.

But we could fill up a bakers dozen of sufficiently worded posts about the number of rookies this year that would be considered assets. It’s astonishing, really; and speaks to the nature of this season’s unpredictability. Look, every season for the past five years has been fairly rattled by the hard salary cap and led to a lot of unexpected performances, playoff teams and everything else. But this season has been off the charts.

In terms of the season, a lot of that is due to the two stalwarts, the Colts and Patriots, getting off to slow starts and being decimated by injury and old age. That rendered the AFC wide open until Tennessee came through with a 40 year-old quarterback and has ran the first 11 weeks of the season undefeated. With their supposed future of the franchise riding the pine. This is not anything, anyone could have expected, despite the fact they made the playoffs. Not to mention that the Jags, along with the Browns, Chargers and Broncos have all failed to live up to the standard that everyone set for them for various reasons.

A lot of Tennessee’s success is due to, well, it is mostly defense. Guys like Haynesworth and Finnegan have lofted that D to an unsung level. But on the offensive side, no one could have expected Chris Johnson to be as effective as he’s been from week one. At this point, LenDale White is virtually obsolete, because whenever I watch Johnson run a goal line carry he always gets into the end zone. Always. At this point, White is basically a light burden on the payroll that alleviates some of the wear and tear that Johnson would otherwise endure.

Obligatory.

In the NFC, we have teams like Tampa, Carolina, Washington, Atlanta and Arizona all exceeding expectations. Atlanta and Arizona most notably. What do those two have in common? Rookies excelling in the backfield. Matt Ryan is actually on a lot of short lists for MVP consideration (though he’ll never win it) as he has led the Falcons to a 6-4 record after coming off a season mired by controversy. Actually, corruption would probably be a more fitting term. Controversy implies that someone was actually defending Mike Vick or Bobby Petrino.

Tim Hightower has done to Edgerrin James what Chris Johnson has done to LenDale White, except Whizenhunt isn’t giving James the benefit of getting the cheap touchdowns. He’s touched the ball maybe four times in the past three games, all on random third down plays when they were just playing for field position. Of all the rookies changing the landscape of the NFL, Hightower’s is the most surprising. For one, he really has a white person’s name. Secondly, he went to Richmond. Personally — though I doubt I’m alone in this — I had no idea the Spiders even fielded a football team. The Cardinals have been such a non-entity in the NFL for the past, well, sixty years or so; how does one not root for them as a franchise?

We could go on and on about all the rookies that are having a significant positive impact on their franchises and (depending on your perspective) and adverse impact on the fantasy season. So instead of dragging this thing out we’ll just list them (In addition to the three above):
Joe Flacco
Matt Forte
BenJarvus Green-Ellis
Peyton Hillis
Felix Jones
Darren McFadden
Jonathan Stewart
Kevin Smith (Though to be honest, no one is doing much to improve the state of affairs over at Lions camp)
DeSean Jackson
Steve Slaton
Fred Jackson
Eddie Royale
Dustin Keller

That’s fifteen if you include the three mentioned above, and we didn’t even mention Rashard Mendenhall, who would have well over 100 fantasy points if he were healthy. Nor did we mention Tyler Thigpen, who though technically a rookie was drafted in 2007. never the less, he has earned the starting position until the next time Kansas City takes another unsuitable quarterback high in the draft.

We’re not sure if this is a trend or just an aberration in an already screwy NFL season. Whatever it is, we are probably going to over-prioritize drafting rookies in 2009 as Michael Crabtree fails to average more than 30 yards a game because he has JaMarcus Russell throwing to him and Beanie Wells can’t break 50 yards a game because the Chiefs couldn’t block a nerf arrow. But it now has to be taken into consideration when drafting for your fantasy team. Just one more caveat for you to fuck up on.

So, we probably should have mentioned that there was going to be a game on last night, being that this is an NFL fantasy blog and all. We basically just forgot, given that we write these posts while at work with little to no preparation and that the NFL hides their games from the American public as often as possible.

Either way, unless you had Kellen Winslow, you were probably fairly disappointed with the performance of any Brown who occupied your roster (other than Phil Dawson), and if you had Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall or Eddie Royal you probably got more than you could have realistically asked for. I would go running to acquire Brady Quinn quite yet. He threw roughly thirty-five passes in the game, and the only players he looked comfortable throwing to were his tight ends. He completed 23 passes, Winslow and Heiden accounted for 13 of them (10 were to Winslow).

Maybe he's distracted.

Any defense other than the Broncos would have picked up on this tactic midway through the second quarter. If he’s as tentative to throw to his receivers all season like he was last night, I wouldn’t expect much out of anyone on that team, be it the running backs Winslow or Quinn. With back to back blown wins, Cleveland is now all but out of the playoff race. We figure they will need at least a 10-6 record to solidify a wild card spot, which means they would have to win out. If they lose even one game it puts them at best case scenario of 9-7, which means they would be relying on a tiebreaker again. So yeah, we do not like their chances.

Denver, on the other hand, probably wishes they could play Cleveland every week. How often to you see a team with no discernible defense come back from a two touchdown deficit in the third quarter. This is the magic that is the Cleveland Browns. They can have a mediocre team on the ropes, at home, at night, and still manage to blow it while making the opposition look like the 1993 Cowboys.

Unlike Quinn, Cutler spread the ball around and the distribution was fairly even (save for one 93 yard play with Eddie Royal). The diabetic quarterback managed to tally 447 yards for 3 touchdowns on 24-42 passing (thankfully percentages don’t count for shit in fantasy). If you have Cutler one your team, since you probably drafted him as a backup I hope you either start two quarterbacks or have Tony Romo to make your decisions easier.

On the ground, the Broncos don’t really run the ball anymore (remember the days of Mike Anderson breaking off 1,000 yard seasons?), which we couldn’t be more thankful for. They invented the entire running by committee concept, and now they are no longer a fantasy burden for anyone. Karmic justice at its finest.

Also unlike the Browns, this actually puts the Broncos in the driver’s seat to win the division. At a paltry 5-4, they have a two game lead on the Chargers and look poised to cling to that with either a 9-7 or 10-6 finish. As banged up as they are, we have to assume they sustain at least two more losses. Luckily they have that ridiculous home field advantage that could actually by them an extra win they otherwise wouldn’t see.

It wasn’t a really telling game for either team but it did a lot in putting their stamp on the season. The Browns are all but guaranteed to end up a disappointment. And the Broncos will probably win their division in a down year for them and the conference, while if they were in the NFC east they wouldn’t win a divisional game all season.

Back with recommendations later.

Sometimes when I make predictions, I occasionally go back to see just how inept/clairvoyant I am. It seems like I am shooting about 50%, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5%. It really depends on how you measure these things. For instance, I may have been right about Steve Breaston having a big week on Sunday, but I was incorrect about two other people on the same list. That would give me a 60% average for that particular post. However, you certainly do not quantify that the same as you would, say, predicting the NFL landscape for the entire season ahead. That might be weighted a little more heavily than a run of the mill top five we do here.

This is me on my good days, without the fake third nipple.

So remember when I railed for my first fucking week on this site about how expendable running backs are in the NFL, thus rendering them expendable in fantasy football? And that a top-tier receiver is actually more of an asset given the direction the league is heading in offensively? Yeah, well it turns out that is completely wrong. Not in the sense that the league is more pass oriented, but that it is so pass oriented everyone seems to be running three wide sets with a receiving tight end and a running back coming out of the backfield, so the ball is spread out to the point that even a Terrell Owens or Steve Smith or Greg Jennings is a week to week roll of the dice.

Now, there are obviously receivers having good seasons. Most of them surprisingly good: Roddy White, Santana Moss, Calvin Johnson, Brandon Marshall etc. But with the format we use to score my league, there are currently only 13 receivers that have gone over 100 points, compared to 18 running backs. And most of those games come in droves. Look at the receiving leader this year in fantasy: Santana Moss. He is leading the league in receiving, sure, but he has three games with under forty yards (no more than five catches in any of those), and was completely shut out with zero points in week five against the Eagles.

This isn’t to say that you won’t have letdown games from running backs either. But if you look at the current running back points leader Reggie Bush, the only game he failed to go over 20 points in was the one he didn’t play. And when a running back in the top twenty has a bad game, it usually means he is held to ten points in a horrendous loss or something. He isn’t completely shut out with nothing to show for it other than a couple dropped passes.

The bright side of this current dynamic is the plethora of available dark horse wide outs that will put up big games. Take my team for example. I lost my first four weeks, but have won my last four with big performances from Vincent Jackson, Donnie Avery and Muhsin Muhammad because they had those aberration weeks in which they got in the end zone, or capitalized on a team double teaming the lead wide out or loading up on the run. These three are making it look like I never drafted Braylon Edwards or Marques Colston in the 2nd and 4th rounds.

But on a week to week basis, who can account for that? I am starting Donnie Avery this week against the Cardinals. Now, I can’t rightfully bitch if he is completely shut out of the game. After all, he is Donnie Avery. No one off of Houston’s campus had any idea who the guy was a year ago. On the other hand, he has scored three touchdowns in the last two weeks on plays for 40 yards or more and I need a receiver with two receivers on bye weeks. How do I not put him in the starting roster?

Now part of my argument about running backs still stands: they are expendable because of frequent injury and unreliability. This season alone I’ve won weeks with Dominick Rhodes and Corell Buckhalter going for over 20 points. But the unreliability of receivers is different. They do not sustain injuries with the same frequency, but as explained above, their weeks are so inconsistent. How many weeks does Donnie Avery have to out score Torry Holt for this to be obvious?

If you are looking for a running back to compare all receivers to, then they are all basically LenDale White. White needs those goal line carries to make his week look respectable, just like every receiver needs those two or three freak plays to make their fantasy week worthwhile. It isn’t to the exact same extent, but that is the best comparison I can come up with. And any receiver can come out of nowhere to make every fantasy owner look like an asshole, because every quarterback in the league simply wants to move the ball downfield.

Basically, if you have a durable running back that isn’t giving up more than 30% of his team’s carries, that is probably your safest fantasy bet. But too many of them split carries 60-40 and too many receivers are used as decoys as often as they are actually thrown to. This makes the entire concept of applying strategy to fantasy football a fucking sham. And why we have preferred fantasy basketball for the past two years (despite finishing in the money in football).

In short, we’re all fucked. Your fucked. I’m fucked. Some guy’s girlfriend is going to end up winning your league because she drafted a dozen guys she thinks are bangable or some other cliched reason that you use to not give her any credit (whether she deserves any or not). If you are seeking out advice, I think your best option is to find about five different sources, then go with the median of what is advised and then throw caution to the wind. That’s probably the best advice you will hear all season.

Over the course of the past few weeks, I think I’ve figured out how to properly utilize certain players for the duration of the fantasy season. It has taken me awhile, as some would consider me quite inept in all facets of life, particularly analytical ones, but here me out. I think these could be of value to your fantasy success.

LenDale White: If he is playing at home, against a shitty defense and Kerry Collins is still their quarterback. Under these circumstances, White is an asset. Under normal circumstances (on the road, average opponent, Vince Young at QB) he is a black hole of worthlessness. For instance, in week eight they are playing Indianapolis at home on a Monday night, considering the only offense that the Colts looked even serviceable against was the Ravens, who currently start a quarterback that was playing teams like Robert Morris last season, I think you would be well advised to start White if he is indeed an option.

Braylon Edwards: Only start Mr. Edwards if Kellen Winslow isn’t playing and the Browns are at home. Last week he put up 2007 like numbers against a somewhat depleted Giants defense and with Winslow on the sidelines for private (read: genitalia related) medical reasons. Yesterday they went on the road to Washington and he proceeded to drop four passes and only made his stats look respectable in the last three minutes of the game. He clearly has some sort of mental block when on the field at the same time as Winslow, in fact the entire team seems to share the same affliction. Except for Jamal Lewis, it was probably those two months he spent on the inside that hardened him to the presence of such an insufferable bloke.

Any player from any team in the NFC South: We are not one to cast aspersions, but the dichotomy between these teams on the road and at home is absurd. How mentally unprepared and inept can one be that playing on the road is that much of an team obstacle. Basically, the only team that will have any chance of reaching the Superbowl out of that division is the one that wins it,a s they can pray for home field advantage. Right now that looks like Tampa Bay but they do have Jeff Garcia splitting time with Brian Griese at quarterback, in other words. I wouldn’t put money on it.

The Patriots: Every other week. That’s it. It doesn’t matter who they are playing, where they are playing them at or what injuries they may have. If you have any Patriots on your roster, play them every other week. This include Randy Moss and Wes Welker. If you look at their first six weeks, they haven’t strung together back-to-back wins or losses, nor has their offense or defense played exceptionally well in either loss (which have come at the hands of the lowly Dolphins and the under-performing Chargers).

We’ll continue with these realizations as they continue to dawn on us. Right now we have to go ponder last night’s Mad Men episode, because it was that fucking good. Back later (possibly early evening) with top five surprises from week seven.

The Dallas Cowboys have been the most regularly scrutinized and strangely media adored team in the NFL since I have been following the league (roughly 15 years). This is astounding in many respects. The other teams who fit this match in all other sports reside in either New York or Los Angeles, and while Dallas is by no means Green Bay, the city doesn’t warrant the same brand of allure and media presence that the two coastal markets conveniently provide.

So given their penchant for making headlines, it comes as no surprise that when they seem to be in turmoil they dominate every aspect of every sports news outlet. Personally, I could give a good fuck about the Cowboys. The only reason I would is if any of them were on my fantasy team. And none of them are. I am an Eagles fan, and am somewhat hesitant to admit that this factors into how I draft my team. If I could have gotten Terrell Owens or Tony Romo or Jason Witten for cheap, then I would have. But I believe all of them plus Marion Barber were all gone by the third round in my draft(s), because just like the team is overrated, so are the sum of its parts. so I didn’t bother.

Still, I can’t completely ignore their existence, especially when they appear to be on the verge of a collapse. So lets look at the myriad of contemporary reasons that this team is falling apart, which all happen to coincide with the plethora of reasons we do not like them.

Wade Philips-Brad Garrett: This has fallen on the back burner in the wake of everything else, but I’ve never seen anything like the paradox with these two being on the same team and I doubt I ever will again. Can anyone think of another circumstance in which an assistant coach was so highly paid and clearly being groomed to replace the current head coach? This, in and of itself, already puts Wade Phillips at a disadvantage when actually trying to maintain the respect of his players. If they know that he is on his way out, why would they pay his direction any mind if his subordinate has higher value placed on him by the owner?

Pacman Jones: He seems capable but unwilling to walk the straight and narrow for his team or himself. And it’s not that this most recent incident had all the glaring after effects of the Vegas titty bar run-in, no one was mowed down in a hail of bullets, but when you have a rap sheet larger than your playbook you will be under extra scrutiny from fuhrer Goodell. This is a zero sum game for the team itself, as Pacman was still noticeably out of game shape. It’s funny what happens when you take a year off, sometimes.

Roy Williams & Terrell Owens: Roy Williams is a remarkable talent, and to this day remains one of the better college receivers we have ever seen. But his NFL career has been inconsistent for a number of reasons and one of them has been his demeanor, so we have a hard time justifying spending first, third and sixth round draft pick on him. His acquisition is filling a position that is already filled, and it just seems excessive so Jerry Jones can claim he has another “star”. The only people this move is instilling any confidence in are Lions fans, who might finally feel like they have a competent GM.

The biggest problem this presents is his abnormal behavior accompanied with Terrell Owens’ remarkably fragile ego. I mean, they are both egomaniacs, but another star wide out is entering Terrell Owens’ turf, and their is absolutely no question that Williams is going to handle as clumsily as possible, as he seems to be terribly inept at reading a room.

These two in the same locker room will mirror that of Andy and Jim on The Office, just they’re bother black and overpaid receivers for the Dallas Cowboys. Competing for faux-alpha maleness will most certainly be a point of contention between the two, unless Williams can manage to stay aloof about even this. But we suspect he won’t take it too kindly after the first time Owens calls him out in public.

Hey, I don’t mean to be all gloom and doom here. It could work between the two of them, these are two of the more talented receivers currently suiting up. How is that a bad thing? Additionally, Williams is from Odessa and is reportedly thrilled with the development (as I imagine any Lion is when he gets traded out of Detroit, much less back home), so maybe everyone will take it in stride and personalities won’t clash to abhorrently. But we have our doubts.

Tony Romo - We are still trying to determine why he is considered such an asset. I mean, for fantasy football he has been a fucking goldmine for the past season and a half. But look at his track record. He has had some statistically monstrous games against teams they were probably going to beat anyways. He has never come through in the post-season, or even in a game in which exceptional quarterback play was needed. He’s basically the NFC’s version of Carson Palmer, but we know even less about his psyche, and Palmer had to have his knee ripped to shreds to reach this point in his career, what has ever been so mentally or physically scarring for Romo?

We do have some good news for Cowboy fans and owners of Cowboy skill players on their fantasy teams: We tend to be of the mind that Brad Johnson won’t be a disaster and may even surprise some people. If you look at his history, he has regularly played second fiddle to someone that was perceived as more deserving, but has always been a respectable contingency plan. With this bevy of receivers and running backs, if he can’t at least prove to be serviceable here, then he won’t be anywhere.

The Defense - Last and certainly not least but probably most overlooked, the defense is just bad. We have no idea if this is the result of poor scheming, coaching, lack of team chemistry or overrated players. But for a unit that produced five pro-bowlers last season, it has certainly fallen below expectations. My God, you don’t even have to look at the number of pro bowlers, just look at the name recognition: DeMarcus Ware, Tank Johnson, Terrence Newman, Roy Williams, Greg Ellis, Zach Thomas, etc. We can’t figure out why this is never addressed by the team (see trading three draft picks in 2009 for another wide out) or media members; who are all too happy to continue fawning over the magnitude of the Cowboys star.

If the defense could ever actually live up to the hype, then maybe they wouldn’t have to rely on their quarterback who is completely unreliable in the clutch. And we wouldn’t have to listen to sob stories constantly pouring out of their locker room.

That being said, nothing has happened yet. They are still 4-2 and even with the supposedly temporary losses of Romo and Pacman Jones, they still have as much talent as anyone in the league. The issue being, the two losses shouldn’t have happened in the first place, all the personalities in the locker room carry too much baggage that seems to effect the play on the field and oh yeah, they are in the toughest division in the league.

We would like to tell you that these circumstances are distressing and we sympathize with Cowboys fans, but we don’t. Schadenfreude is the game of the day whenever it comes to Jerry Jones and anything. We will be hear to highlight every slip up, every embarrassing performance against teams like the Rams and it will be some of the most joyous vindication these eyes have ever seen.

Enjoy playoff baseball, we’ll be back in the morning with something equally illuminating.

So someone sent me an email cursing me for my incorrect fantasy predictions from week to week and the fact that I seldom address when I am wrong but am quick to highlight when I am right. Well, this post is dedicated to our number one fan. We’ll try to make it a running feature just for his delicate sensibilities, because obviously our speculation is so utterly damaging to the fantasy lexicon.

This? Is not us.

I thought in most of my posts it was clear that I was either being facetious or self-deprecating for the sake of humor. Because why in the hell would anyone take something as random and incontrollable as fantasy football seriously? Like when I suggested Braylon Edwards would continue his dismal season against the Giants yesterday. He was obviously capable of it, but teams always perform better coming off the bye-week and it certainly wasn’t a surprise that he ended up torching the Superbowl champions. Just look at the Rams (beat the red hot 4-1 Redskins, despite how much of a paper tiger they may be) and the Jets, both walk away with convincing wins after having a week off. It is no surprise that Cleveland pulled off the upset. Naturally, this isn’t true for every team, and that’s when you see the Raiders lose 34-3.

Maybe I should have addressed this specifically and in greater detail yesterday, but I feel like I’ve written enough about the random state of the NFL. Parity rules the day and even the teams considered god awful will pull an unexpected win out of their ass here and there. Look at the Panthers-Buccaneers game. Two seemingly evenly matched division rivals playing an important game that is pivotal to the playoff race. But, one team has superior coaching, doesn’t turn the ball over and then it is settled: Carolina wins by 24 points. The Matrix is easier to figure out than the league.

What was surprising, however, was the magnitude of the upset. We suspect it was some hybrid of coming off the bye week, being at home, the Giants being over confident after sky rocketing to the top of everyone’s power rankings and the fact they actually played in the regular season. We hinted that the latter might factor in, but never to the degree that it did. And for that, I am an asshole.

Well, based on our other prognostications, here are all the other reasons to disown us.

In short, this entire list. We aren’t going to go back through one-by-one and list everything that went wrong, but lets just say that our advice on who to potentially start in a deep league is often based on match-ups. And when the Redskins lose to the worst team in the league, the Vikings barely fend-off Detroit, the Ravens only muster three points against what has been one of the worst defenses in the league, Fred Taylor suffers a concussion and the Packers have made the decision to never run the ball into the end zone ever again; our recommendations are going to take a hit.

In recent weeks we have gone either two or three of five with our suggestions, and this was an exceptionally bad week because the games dictated we go out on a limb. For that, we apologize. For actually taking our advice, you’re probably kind of an idiot, and that’s your problem.

So I hope you’re happy now, semi-anonymous email sender. Here I am, thinking I’m writing inconsequential drivel about fantasy football and the NFL, low and behold someone is actually taking this seriously. Let us know what else is keeping you up at night and we’ll try to address that as well.

Our season of randomness continued yesterday as the Dolphins beat the Chargers, the Bengals almost beat the Cowboys (who aren’t nearly as good as everyone wants them to be), the Eagles manage to lose another game by less than a touchdown and the Packers lost to the Falcons. How did all this effect the fantasy week? In one word: Adversely. It is hard enough to win a season of fantasy football, but we might have a three-way tie for first place that will be decided by total points.

It seems that since the league itself has incorporated so much parity, that has trickled down into the fantasy ranks. Shit, we started out 0-4 on the season, and with a potential win tonight we still have a shot (not just a statistical shot, but a practical chance) to make the playoffs. I guess that is the difference between fantasy and reality: we can still make the playoffs and St. Louis is already almost guaranteed to finish as last in their division, despite it being the weakest division in football. Sill, this is unusual and frightening. Hopefully things will even out, and start to make sense at some point.

That’s not to say that we weren’t right about a few things, but I think the NFL has reached a point of parity that there isn’t any coming back from. I mean, the two best teams in the league (Giants and Titans) have experienced significant losses and have some noticeable deficiencies at the moment, but if you were to pick two teams to make the playoffs, those would undeniably be the two common consensus picks. This goes to explaining why the leading point scorer on your team was Sinorice Moss.

Your fifth leading scorer for week five from where he is best known: College.

Or wait, I’m sorry. He wasn’t on your team. He wasn’t on anyone’s team. You know why he wasn’t on anyone’s team? Because he is the Giants fourth wide receiver. I know Burress didn’t play and that obviously factored into this, but when the ball is spread around as much as it currently is on seemingly every NFL team, you can’t really assess anything with a consistent degree of accuracy. You are just as likely to have a big week with Steve Breaston and Kelly Washington on your roster as you are with Larry Fitzgerald and Hines Ward. Unless you play quarterback, there is very little separation from one player to the next. My roster is probably the best example of this, I am currently winning my week by 25 points without my 2nd (Braylon Edwards was on bye), 3rd (Colston is still out with injury) or fifth round (LenDale white is rendered obsolete) draft picks on my starting roster.

Just look at the running back situation currently in the NFL. At the moment, we have at least seven rookies starting or getting ample playing time in Chris Johnson, Kevin Smith, Matt Forte, Felix Jones, Steve Slaton Darren McFadden & Jonathan Stewart; Rashard Mendenhall was a permanent fixture in the Steelers lineup pre-injury, not to mention Michael Turner leading the league in rushing in his first season starting. Even if you can predict all of this taking place you can’t realistically expect to draft accordingly. I’m not sure if you would deem this progress or regress. What it is, however, is the current state of the NFL.

Personally, I blame Mike Shannahan. His bullshit running by committee approach has seemed to spawn all of this and now star playmakers are used as distractions as frequently as they are used to make plays. This season is an anomaly in its severity, but the trend of random good and bad performances is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

We’re just posting today to tell you we won’t be posting for awhile, we are taking a much needed vacation out west. Yes, its been a grueling three weeks and we need some time away. We won’t be able to write anything until at least Monday after we look at box scores and what have you, and I wouldn’t expect anything until at least Tuesday or Wednesday.

There is plenty going on between fantasy owners now having to rearrange their roster as the result of a natural disaster (the least of anyone’s concerns, to be sure); Romo, while definitely being a good samaratin, is way too soft to ever win a Superbowl; Tomlinson is now preparing to pull a Beanie Wells on Chargers fans; Ricky Williams has seen Jerry Maguire one too many times and Terrell Owens draws more attention to himself, of which we are wittingly enabling. Fuck.

But alas, we’ll have to leave you to your own resources this weekend. Best of luck and to all of you Peyton Manning owners we offer our advance condolences. Trust us, we know how you feel.

So here’s the thing, writing a fantasy football site can apparently get a little repetitive. We are either doing half-ass analysis and number crunching, or writing psuedo-funny posts that probably aren’t nearly as funny as we think they are. But with the former our analysis is only so valuable, and with the latter it is basically the same thing every time but from a different perspective.

So we’re going to begin doing weekly projections on who we think will produce and who won’t. The assessment will be based on what the player has done so far this year and what they are expected to do for the season. So, if someone had a terrible week one, we might foresee them bouncing back with a strong week two and thus they will be on this list. Or if there is someone we expect a drop-off from (cough *Michael Turner* Cough) that is fair game as well. We’ll try to steer away from such posts as “expect Peyton Manning to have a big week against Miami!”, and try to keep it more along the lines of “Tavaris Jackson has the game of his career against Detroit!”

1) LenDale White
He put up exactly ten points in most fantasy leagues last week against one of the better front seven’s in the league in Jacksonville. This week he goes up against a defense that is almost as highly touted in Cincinnati. Look for him to break through with relative ease and get a plethora of goal line carries. Vince Young’s absence may even help open up the passing game.

You want LenDale White to have a big game? Putting some of these in the endzone is the solution.

2) Adrian Peterson
He had a solid week and was the only contributing factor on offense for Minnesota against a great defense in Green Bay. This week the Vikings take on the Colts who looked fucking terrible defending the run against the Bears at home. Look for him to remind everyone why he was the most tempting first overall pick.

3) Eli Manning
In short: He is playing the Rams. Against the Giants a week ago he looked shaky, through some errant passes that he was lucky they weren’t intercepted and got out of there with a win and a rushing touchdown. While the Redskins aren’t exactly taking the league by storm this season, they do have one of the better secondaries in the league. The Rams, however, gave up 38 points to an Eagles team whose best receiver is a six foot tall rookie who was only drafted so high because he may be effective on special teams. Speaking of which…

4) Donovan McNabb
While they looked good against St. Louis last week and McNabb in particular looked like he never suffered ten knee injuries in the past five years…they were playing St Louis. While all the pundits seem to randomly have Philly poised for a big season, and that very well may happen, do not expect production like that for every opponent they play. This week’s game? The Monday nighter in Dallas. They are still sporting Roy Williams in the backfield so a 25+ point game is possible, just don’t put too much stock in him getting a comeback win for you.

5) Jay Cutler
We claimed before the season started that Cutler would break out this year. And he will, but that Oakland team is such a clusterfuck of terribleness that Denver could have dropped 100 points on them if they had wanted to. This week they play San Diego, a top ten defense with or without Shawne Merriman, but most importantly they are just competent.

Honorable mention (one way or the other): Michael Turner (too obvious), Sammy Morris (ditto), Marshawn Lynch, Laverneus Coles, Earnest Graham, Braylon Edwards

In spite of writing a fantasy football blog, our heart is truly devoted to Saturdays (we’ve hinted at this before). Growing up in a city (Columbus) with an overly-rabid fan base for “their team” can leave you contemplating a bell tower like incident most of the time, but while it borders on hysteria (and often succumbs to it, regrettably) it can certainly be intoxicating. The atmosphere, the inclusiveness, the history, the rivalries and the “pageantry” (in quotes because we fucking hate that word) all trump that of the NFL. Which generally doesn’t have a team that goes back past the 50’s, about 90% of game attendees are single, white men ranging from twenty-five to forty-five; the only thing that could be deemed “pageantry” at an NFL game would be scantily clad cheerleaders, and rivalries come and go with the success of the given teams.

Then again, as an Eagles fan, I can categorically state that this is the only reason attending their home games is even tolerable.

Every year before the start of the two seasons, someone writes a column comparing the merits of Saturdays and Sundays; and while we admire the NFL’s logic in implementing a playoff (something that is required in college football more than any other major American sport, but ironically is the only one without a playoff) as opposed to randomly assigned and typically meaningless bowl games, college football trumps the NFL in every other conceivable way.

Well, and there is fantasy football. Not something I am sure the NFL can take credit for, but it is commonplace amongst its spectators. the same can’t be said for the college game. And I don’t know if that is a testament to the strength of the game itself, or a glaring oversight that could bring in even more fans. Because while we find it interesting on several levels, our interest in the pro game would certainly wane if it wasn’t for various forms of gambling.

So what would a fantasy football league look like for college? Would you include every conference? Every division? Surely you would limit it to one division 1-A or whatever it is called now, right? Do you adjust scoring to reflect the different pace of game? Are conference title games included? Given the shorter season, do you keep it in tune with the nature of the sport itself and forgo a playoff?

This has been an ongoing conversation between me and the two friends I have that could actually tolerate a conversation like this. Instead of finding a website that offers such a service or creating one ourselves, we endlessly speculate on what it might look like. This is the amalgamation we came up with.

-It can only consist of three conferences, in order to limit the talent pool (so the waiver wire and free agency doesn’t have enough depth for ten more leagues). This can vary with the number of participants. You could even do a league where you only draft players from a specific conference, and your opponents do the same from a rival conference. But with the chosen format, three conferences would roughly equal the number of available players for an NFL league.

-Amongst the three conferences, the only one excluded from consideration is the Big 12, given the Texas Tech effect that makes their quarterback infinitely more valuable than any other player in college football (Note: If it isn’t just Tim Tebow, this might have to eventually include any Urban Meyer coached team if things keep up at this rate).

-The conference containing the league consensus favorite team should be barred from consideration as well, to avoid any conflict of interests. Since we are Ohio State fans, the league in question is the Big Ten.

-Basically leaves us with Pac-10, SEC & Big East. I’d rather get the Clockwork Orange treatment than have to sit through an ACC football game.

-The draft would be conducted the same way (standard snake format), roster size and spots would be virtually identical to that of any NFL fantasy league, given the number of teams made available by the three chosen conferences.

-The fantasy season ends with the regular season. This means neither bowl games nor conference title games will factor into the league result.

-Given that the season is only thirteen weeks and a playoff in NFL fantasy football is tedious and rarely reflects who had the best season, much like the college presidents, we ruled against a playoff.

Again, there are sites that offer this, that is hardly the problem. The problem is finding enough participants so that a league is actually possible. For now the games themselves and our parlays are keeping us interested, but when we hit forty, maybe thirty-five, this might have to be part of the zeitgeist for us to keep devoting every fall Saturday solely to staring at a box with moving images. One thing about the NFL, is while we decidedly prefer college football, we never envision our dedication to watching their product being an issue.

So apparently when I use the word “later” to describe the length of time before a new post, we actually mean “tomorrow”. I just wanted to clarify.

Anyhow, we don’t know how big the crossover audience is for a post like this, but since both Mad Men and fantasy football are immensely popular, we figured it might draw at least a modest amount of hits — as opposed to not hits at all — to compare the characters from the 1960’s Madison Avenue drama with like-minded fantasy football performers. This comparison is subjective, tenuous and completely pointless, but it gives me something to write about. This morning we’ll start with the women of Mad Men, then tomorrow find appropriate likenesses for the male characters.

Joan Holloway - Terrell Owens
Flamboyant, unpredictable and caustic when needed to be. To much the same degree Miss Holloway is wanted by all men with fixations on red heads for sexual gratification, Owens is wanted by all fantasy owners for his proclivity for the end zone. They are both over thirty and amazingly still considered to be very much in their prime.

Peggy Olson - Drew Brees
The underdog. In every sense of the term, both have defied expectations via mitigating circumstances. Drew Brees, drafted with the first pick in the second round, was initially expected to play backup for at least awhile if not his entire career before Phillip Rivers decided to hold out during his rookie season, enabling the starting position for Brees to demonstrate his hidden talents. Peggy, after being used in a test study for Bel-Jolie lipstick, managed to stand out amongst her peers as a potentially great copywriter without fully realizing it.

Betty Draper- Donovan McNabb
Overly loyal and increasingly agitated perfectly describes these two peas in a pod. While McNabb struggles to stay healthy and is constantly questioned when he is, Betty is growing resentful of her place in her life and marriage, but stands by her man all the same (It just dawned on me that some of these players and the actresses might not appreciate these comparisons).

Rachel Menken - Peyton Manning
Talented and principled, both have followed in their family’s footsteps into retail and quarterbacking respectively, and seemingly carry a sense of entitlement as a result. There flaws are minimal: While Rachel sleeps with married men before marrying someone her father would approve of, Manning pisses off his offensive line with numerous and endless audibles, inducing suicide attempts and probably rampant spousal abuse on a weekly basis. And they are both second options in their own way.

Midge Daniels - Chad Johnson
Both potentially out for the season, eccentric, and neither couldn’t be anymore unintentionally conformist while striving desperately to be non-conformist. If either exceeds expectations this year we would be surprised.

Bobbie Barrett - Brett Favre
Self-starting, over-achievers that no one other than business associates seems to like for varying reasons, but mantains the loyalty of a close few. Brett Favre, after spending a career in Green Bay, Wisconsin; is adapting to a new environment in New York, while Bobbie adjusts to and excels in television production coming from talent management.

Hildy (no last name on IMDB) - Jabbar Gaffney
Under-appreciated yet justifiably overshadowed, but talented enough to come through when is necessary. Hildy, to give Harry a much needed storyline and when Pete Campbell needs an earful. And Gaffney, for picking up the slack when Randy Moss is struggling/being triple-teamed.

Back with NFL equivalents for Don, Roger, Bert, Duck, Pete, Harry, Paul & Ken tomorrow, which means I might not post it until next week.

For the most part, one of the biggest dilemmas in constructing your fantasy football season is settling on a date. Some people do auto-drafts, which kind of defeats the entire purpose and sucks the life out of a fantasy league. You are literally letting machines make your decisions for you so you don’t have to be bothered with such trivial concerns. If you are so indifferent to something that you would let a computer do all the work for you, then why even bother to pretend that you’re interested?

Fuck off, auto-draft people. It’s always some spineless twerp with the unholy girlfriend suggesting this. Just because you are so pussy-whipped that you can’t break away from the death grip she has on your scrotum for a couple hours to even do an online draft, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to adhere to the demands of your over-eager cock. This same person is also responsible for the same complaints:

-Wants to keep the league friendly. In other words, he doesn’t want to put in any money in the confidence of his team. Fuck off. It’s friendly with or without money. Not all of us take the $20-$200 all that seriously because none of us have our finances monitored by someone we’ve been dating for two months.

-When he does agree to the draft, is regularly hurrying people because he is “short on time”. Translation: I made a promise to my girlfriend that I couldn’t keep because I am deftly afraid of her.

-Drafts a kicker in the first ten rounds because the kicker starts. This doesn’t impede on the draft and it technically plays in my favor, but it still pisses me off.

-Wants to invite his girlfriend to play.

Let it be known that in theory, I generally have no problem with the last one. The whole boys club thing is a little unsettling to me in a number of ways. But generally the culprit is so insistent regardless of whether we already have either the maximum amount of teams or an even number, and adding her would either exceed that maximum or round us out to an odd number of teams, meaning someone is always on a bye week. So to include her, we either have to kick someone out of the league, which is unfathomable; or scramble to find another participant for her inclusion.

I’m flexible. I can agree to the latter, typically. If said couple can assist in finding another participant that won’t bitch about the entry fee and is available for the designated time for the draft, it would be nice. But do not ever expect this. They never consider what a daunting task this is and just wait idly for you to make everything work out for their self-involved asses. So fuck off, needy girlfriend of/and pathetically complacent friend.

Occasionally you run into people that are completely unreasonable.

Anyhow, even with all the personal dilemmas and conflicting time tables, there is a new variable to factor in this equation: preseason injuries. It has been this way for roughly two or three years now so I am a little late on this, but scheduling your draft anytime before September is an exercise in futility. You spend at least a solid twenty minutes prepping for it, and for what? To draft a running back that tears his ACL in the second quarter of the third preseason game, because somehow that is when everyone decides that starters should go for roughly three quarters (unless you’re a top ten player). That’s twenty minutes in addition to the draft that you will never get back.

Generally it’s all fair because everyone is drafting at the same time, and you are all running the same gamut if you choose to draft in early August. If you did this, and you drafted Chad Johnson, then ‘dems the breaks. But it is in everyone’s best interest to keep the draft at least in late August, at least most star players have gotten their reps in and will generally be sidelined for that least preseason game.

Trust me when I say this is in everyone’s interest. Even if you stay healthy, you don’t want to hear the one person lamenting and clinging to that one injury to his star wide out as justification for why he is in last place, regardless of how legitimate it is. You want to stay injury free? Draft 1998 Brett Favre. Otherwise you conceded to the agreed upon draft date and knew the circumstances going in, so take your bitching to your coworkers because I don’t want to hear it.

Basically what I am saying is this: Never be your league’s commissioner. It is time consuming, nerve-racking and just a general pain in the ass trying to coordinate schedules and take individuals eccentricities into consideration. And before you know it the whole thing is like planning a wedding you don’t even want. My suggestion to avoid this responsibility is just keeping your mouth shut and waiting for someone else to bring it up, then force your recommendations on whichever sap agreed to run your league.

Back later.

If for some reason you are planning on watching the eyesore that is a pre-season football game between the Seahawks and Chargers (like, you’re a fan of one of these two teams or something), we figured profiling the potential fantasy dark horses for each team would be fitting. Mainly because you will be watching at least a half of backups. At least it is the third and not the fourth game, which is a disgrace to the American way of life.

Seattle:

Seneca Wallace: naturally Matt Hasselbeck is the starter, but he is thirty-three and now battling nagging injuries. Wallace has been his backup for as long as Jim Sorgi has backed up Peyton Manning. Some people seem to think he is actually capable of starting. We aren’t in that camp, but if you have Hasselbeck on your team or are a Seahawks fan, have a look at your almost certain future.

Maurice Morris/TJ Duckett: What the hell happened to Mack Strong? If there was ever a player with a name suited to play fullback, it is Mack Strong. Anyhow, is there a team TJ Duckett hasn’t played for at this point? And has he ever lived up to expectations? For those thinking he will be getting those goal line carries, I would think again. Size doesn’t necessarily mean strength. Who the hell is Maurice Morris?

Will Heller: He is actually listed as the starting tight end, which probably means he won’t see the field too much. If he does, keep your eyes peeled to see if they will be throwing to him this season. Or rather, if Seneca Wallace will throw to him if Hasselbeck is incapacitated. Nothing like having a wasted bench spot on a backup tight end no one has ever heard of.

San Diego:

Billy Volek: Not that you would ever draft him, but we kind of like Volek more than Rivers. If Rivers is to miss a game and your starter is Kurt Warner, we suggest taking a gander at who the Chargers are playing that week.

Jacob Hester: If you watched LSU at all last year, then you probably know that Hester leaves it all on the field when he suits up. If Tomlinson feels like conserving himself this season and they are going to distribute carries, and even more specifically goal line carries, Hester is a very viable alternative.

It is kind of a nightmare to travel all the way to New Orleans from Columbus, only to watch your team be decimated by a white running back.

Darren Sproles: Despite his diminutive size (though we will agree he is better suited as a third down back), Sproles has a lot of game in him. Again, his overall fantasy production hinges on Tomlinson’s health (or lack thereof), but he also shares return duties with Parker, redeeming the limitations of his pint size body coming out of the backfield.

The Defense: With Merriman probably missing at least a good portion of the season, you might want to observe who they might be replacing him with. Needless to say, if he does sit out a considerable amount of time, you might want to rethink these half-assed rankings.

Back tomorrow morning. Honestly.