Sports. Something.

(FULL DISCLAIMER: I have watched all 15 of the new episodes of Arrested Development available on Netflix. This should be spoiler-free, but with some discussion of the season as a whole.)

When asked what my favorite TV comedy of all time is, the answer has been “Arrested Development”. Seasons One and Two are pretty much as good as it gets, especially Season Two. Even though Season 3 wasn’t quite as good as the first two, it was still better than any other comedy.

Usually this is when the write proceeds to either express disappointment or declare their undying love for “Season Four”. Honestly, I don’t think that it’s fair to call this “Season 4”. It’s as much of a movie as it is a series of episodes. Which is why it isn’t fair to review this season in individual pieces, unless you’ve already seen them all.

Some people aren’t going to like that. Sure you can watch one episode a week or something. But it’s not going to be the same as watching it in a few large chunks. Cards on the table, I think this run of episodes was really designed to be viewed at least two times:

FIRST TIME THROUGH: Keeps you guessing about the overall plot and gives you some broad jokes and call-backs.

SECOND TIME THROUGH: Now that you know the overall plot, you can start to pick up how the episodes are interconnected. Without having to waste so much energy on figuring out what’s going on, you can now pick-up on some of the more subtle jokes that you missed the first time.

I’m not here to argue for or against any particular method of viewing. Should you have to watch something in large chunks multiple times just so you can enjoy it properly? I don’t know. But I do value anything that has value in being enjoyed multiple times. There’s tons of movies, books, TV shows, video games, songs, albums and experiences that I’ve enjoyed doing multiple times. Some even get better the second time around.

Read More →

Don’t be a contrarian, just for the sake of it. When it comes to the 2013 NBA Playoffs, if you’re NOT picking the Miami Heat to win it all, that’s exactly what you are doing. Rarely can the “old-school” and “new-school” agree on something. When it comes to LeBron and the Heat, they’re damn near in lock-step at this point.

I’m not a fan of the Miami Heat. I respect LeBron James and his game, but I’m not copping his jersey or rockin’ his sneakers. I wasn’t a fan of how the Heat built their team. I grew up in Buffalo and live in Philly. Nobody is creating a “Super Team” in either city. Unless you live in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago or Dallas, it’s not happening for your city either.

That’s not the point. No matter who they came to be, the Heat are the best team in the NBA and they are led by the best player. They are playoff-tested and posses supreme confidence. Unless Derrick Rose makes a miraculous return at full-strength, the Indiana Pacers are the only team in the Eastern Conference capable of taking a series from the Heat.

In the Western Conference, you could see the Oklahoma City Thunder or the San Antonio Spurs pushing the Heat to the limit, maybe even winning. But that’s the rub; maybe. I did an informal poll of some acquaintances. You could either take the Heat to win the title, or the field (EVERY OTHER TEAM). The Heat are winning that poll and it’s not close.

Read More →

You want to be a seller at the trade deadline. Especially in a league with a salary cap or severe luxury tax penalties. At this point, that pretty much covers all of the professional sports in North America. Salary cap space and having money to spend are powerful weapons to wield when attempting to build (or maintain) a sports franchise.

As we look at the NBA trade deadline this year, we can see the profound effect that the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is having. The penalties for exceeding the luxury tax threshold multiple seasons in a row are crippling. To the point that I’m pretty sure only the Lakers, Knicks and maybe Nets can spend with impunity.

Over the past few seasons, we’ve seen a pretty standard trade package that a team desires when trading away a high-profile player. They want:

1. Draft picks (usually at least 2 first round picks unless a lottery pick is in play)
2. Young players still on their rookie contracts (the best value in all of sports)
3. Players with expiring contacts (usually necessary in the NBA just to make the salary cap math work)

The problem is, other than the Lakes, Knicks and Nets, who can afford to give up these assets? Without draft picks and players on rookie contracts, a roster becomes impossibly expensive very, very quickly. Your only cost-effective options is to sign a bunch of veteran players for the minimum salary. And there is a reason that such players are available for the minimum.

This is why the Atlanta Hawks can’t find an acceptable offers for Josh Smith. It looks like the absolute best they can do (without taking on any significant future salary) is expiring contracts and a weak first round pick. Is that better than nothing? Sure, as long as you are absolutely positive that you aren’t going to retain Smith this summer.

What do you do? Atlanta’s general manager Danny Ferry is a smart dude. He’s spent his entire first season ridding his roster of previous salary mistakes. I doubt that he’s going to make one with Josh Smith at this point. Unless Smith takes a team-friendly deal (say 4 years, $50 million) brings in Dwight Howard via free agency, Smith isn’t long for the A-T-L.

Read More →

Is it still a bit early to do a fantasy baseball draft? Not in my opinion. There will be some significant changes across the draft board between now and April. That doesn’t mean that you can’t learn something, even if you don’t want to draft until very close to Opening Day.

For the record, this was a 10-team, rotisserie (roto), re-draft league. The league has a typical Roto roster: 13 starting hitters, 9 pitchers and 3 bench sports. This is not a free league, but it isn’t for a ton of cream (cash) either.

Without further ado, let’s dive right in:

In almost every league, the first three picks (in some order) will be: Miguel Cabrera, Ryan Braun and Mike Trout. I’ve listed them in order of my preference in re-draft leagues. In this draft they went: Trout, Cabrera, Braun.

Read More →

Strategy in fantasy sports is real just balancing risk with reward. As in most things, a great reward only comes with increased risk. In fantasy, that usually means taking chances on various players that other owners will ignore for one reason or another. These players are either usually too old, too young or have a poor injury situation.

I tend to take risks on certain players with less-than stellar injury situations. Maybe not on players with an extended injury history over multiple seasons. But other than that, I’m willing to take some chances, especially later in drafts. I do this because ALL ATHLETES ARE AT RISK FOR INJURY. Sure, some players might seem to have worse luck with injuries than other. At the end of the day, any athlete can get injured at any time. Even those players whom are deemed to be “safe”.

If you do your homework, drafting early in the pre-season can really, really work in your benefit. You would be surprised how many people just jump into a draft (even for cash) with little to no preparation. Some are even drafting for the first time ever. The closer you get to the beginning of the season, the more challenging you draft becomes.

Read More →

There is an old adage in fantasy sports:

“You can’t win your league in the first round of your draft, but you can lose it.”

The statement is quite simple. In my personal experience, I have found it to hold true. Even though it is simple enough, trying to utilize the wisdom of that statement is complicated. There is no such thing as a “safe” draft pick. Any player can get injured at any time. Avoid players with disturbing injury histories if you can, but don’t ignore a talented player because he spent time on the disabled list.

I loved Troy Tulowitzki in fantasy baseball drafts last season. He offered a combination of skills that no other player at the shortstop position could provide. Not to mention he plays in the extremely hitter-friendly confines of Coors Field in Colorado. When Tulowitzki went down with an injury that ultimately ended his 2012 season, many of my fantasy teams went down with him.

Read More →

Is there any way that a team can improve by losing of their best (most talented) players? There shouldn’t be. If you replaced a $100 bill with a $20 bill, you don’t have $100 any more. Yet we see teams lose players who played a large role and they barely miss a beat.

Of course, professional athletes are paid very well to be good at what they do, even if they don’t get to do it very often. However, athletes are not paid the same mount of money because they are expected to produce at different rates. When you lose a player from your lineup, you have to replace the PRODUCTION not the PLAYER.

The most recent example of this is the Boston Celtics. Point guard Rajon Rondo was widely regarded to be the Celtics best player. Four games ago, Rondo was lost for the season to a torn ACL. The Celtics have gone on to win each of the four games that they have played without Rondo. These four wins came directly on the heels of a six-game losing streak with Rondo starting each those six contests.

• 37.4 minutes per game
• 48.4% field goal shooting (12.2 attempts per game)
• 24.0% 3-point shooting (1.3 attempts per game)
• 64.5% free throw shooting (2.4 attempts per game)
• 5.6 rebounds per game
• 11.1 assists per game
• 0.2 blocks per game
• 1.8 steals per game
• 3.9 turnovers per game
• 13.7 points per game

That’s what the Celtics had to replace when they lost Rondo. The FG% (for a guard) the assists and the rebounds (for a guard) are going to be tough to replace.

Read More →

Sure, the Super Bowl is at our doorstep. But fantasy fantasy baseball is right around the corner. Draft season will begin in just a few short weeks. It is a bit too early to start breaking down the actual players yet. Instead, I would like to go over some broader strategy elements.

Daily Leagues (set your lineup every day) vs. Weekly Leagues (set your lineup for the entire week once)

Personally, I’ve become more of a fan of weekly leagues. With the advent of smartphones and Twitter, there is just too much activity going on in daily leagues for my taste. If you are in a daily league, then you need to be all over Twitter and on your smartphone constantly. Daily leagues offer the ability to stream pitchers which in turn gives you the ability to focus more on hitters during your drafts.

The type of league obvious matters quite a bit as well.

Points Leagues (total points and head-to-head)

In most points formats I’ve ever played in, pitching is more valuable than hitting. Especially in leagues that award multiple points for innings pitched. It might feel wrong to take four straight pitchers to start your draft, but I’ve done if for several years now and it’s worked for me. Not that you should ignore hitting, but you’re going to be better off focusing on elite pitching early and get value on hitters when the other teams start their run on pitchers later in the draft.

Read More →

Roster Management. It sounds nearly as exciting as Retirement Planning. While neither is a memorable experience, both are necessary to get you where you want to go. Managing your roster isn’t just necessarily about making trades or nabbing that huge free agent pick-up. It is about maximizing your opportunities.

While this advice is generally applicable to most fantasy sports, I am going to focus on fantasy basketball today. If you are in a league with deep rosters (anything with 5+ bench spots), this is probably slightly less applicable to you because you may have the roster space to wait on players who are currently under-performing

The number of teams in your league will also effect your roster management. If you are in a relatively shallow league (8 teams or less) then you should have nothing but stars or high-upside players on your team. If you’re in a particularly deep league (14 or more teams) then you pretty much need every player getting decent playing time that you can hold.

I am focusing more on the “standard” (10-12 teams) sized leagues with shallow benches (3 bench spots or less). That’s not only because these are the most popular league sizes, but also because these leagues require more planning and flexibility.

How you set your lineup also matters. If you are in a league that allows you to set daily lineups, you can be more active. This also means that you don’t have to focus on the number of games a player has in a given week as much as an owner in a weekly league.

Weekly league owners have to pay a ton of attention to the number of games their players will be playing each week. This format does not allow you to swap out a player due to injury or benching. You have to plan two weeks in advance in order to properly maximize your lineup every week.

Read More →

Stars and Scrubs.

That is the best strategy to use when playing daily fantasy sports, especially basketball and baseball. The key is to find low-salaried (or selected) players who are expected to receive more-than-usual playing time on a particular day. These players will play as starters but carry the low salaries of bench players. This allows you to go after the high-ceiling, high-salary players that are amongst the best in the game.

Why is this the best strategy? First of all, you NEED those superstars on your team. In NBA Basketball, how many players are a threat to go off for 40+ points every night? Just a handful. Even when those handful of players have a BAD game, they still tend to produce at least average fantasy numbers.

The real key to the strategy is the difference between the low-salaried fill-in  player and the moderately-salaried, slightly-above-average player. That difference is basically non-existent. In most daily fantasy formats, minutes played = fantasy points. It’s a fairly simple equation.

I have an excellent example from the NBA last night. I was all about Ty Lawson yesterday. He had been on a roll his last three games (averaging roughly 22 points, 4 rebounds, 7 assists and 4 steals per game) and he was up against the Houston Rockets. That is one of the more favorable match-ups in the NBA, especially for a point guard. For a salary of around $11 million, Lawson gave me 16 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists and a steal, which was good for 23.25 points on the particular site I was playing on.

Good production, but not great by any means. Not on a night where 15+ players scored at least 34 fantasy points. Now contrast that with Avery Bradley. Since Rajon Rondo was just recently lost for the season, nobody really know who will produce steady fantasy value from the Celtics backcourt. Avery Bradley was going to start against  the lowly Sacramento Kings and he checked in with a tidy salary of around $7.5 million.

When I saw the Celtics box-score, nothing about Bradley’s performance jumped out at me. He finished with 11 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals and 1 block. That “boring” performance was good for 25 fantasy points. In terms of how much each player cost you for his production, Ty Lawson produced 1 point for every $473,118 spent. Avery Bradley produced 1 point for every $300,000 spent.

Flash and volume do not necessarily equal fantasy production. Minutes played and efficiency do provide fantasy production. Why? It could be any number of reasons. As with any fantasy game I will remind you:

KNOW YOUR LEAGUE/SITE’S SCORING AND ROSTER SETTINGS!

Scoring settings can vary quite a bit depending on where you are playing. As illustrated in the above example, how a player is penalized for turnovers (usually with negative points) can negatively impact a player who handles the ball on every possession. The same goes for sites that penalize for missed free throws and/or missed field goals. These settings are in place explicitly to ensure that the most valuable fantasy players aren’t just the players who play the most and shoot the most.

On top of that some sites and leagues award points for double-doubles, triple-doubles, etc. In baseball it would be grand slams, hitting for the cycle, etc. You need to know these things. The names J.J. Hickson and Nikola Vucevic might not be known in every household, but they rank 3rd and 4th respectively in the NBA for double-doubles in 2012-13.

It might seem kind of crazy to pay $15-$20 million (or 15%-20% of your salary cap) just to get a player like LeBron or Kevin Durant. But it’s almost always worth it. Sometimes I might gravitate towards players such as James Harden or Kobe Bryant if they have nice match-ups and cost millions less. Just don’t stick yourself with a squad of mid-tier players. That’s limits your upside while keeping the floor pretty mow as well. The cheap players might have a slightly lower production floor, but if they even produce average numbers on the cheap, they’re more than doing their job for you.

Follow @SportsSomething on Twitter

“Don’t get cute.”

“All that matters is this week.”

“Start your studs.”

Tell all of that to an owner who lost last week because his opponent got at least 50 points from David Wilson and the Seahawks D/ST. That is the sickening part about fantasy football. You have no control over the outcome once the games begin. 

The object of the game is no different in Week 15 than it is in Week 1: score as many fantasy points as possible. If you’ve gotten to the playoffs, it might not be the best idea in the world to go away from what was working all season.

On the other hand, things do change. Success in the first fourteen weeks doesn’t guarantee success in the fifteenth week. Even if you have the greatest fantasy football team ever assembled, you could lose. Accepting that fact up front will allow you to set your lineup without pulling your hair out.

There is also a nice flip-side to never being guaranteed a victory: it means that you’re also never guaranteed a loss. No matter how grim the situation looks, or how long the odds are, you still have a shot. Crazy stuff happens, you just have to hope that it happens in your favor.

Now it’s on to the business of trying to score as many points as possible this week.

- Have you been starting the same kicker every week? There are a few (Gostkowski, Graham, Tynes, Bryant) worth starting weekly. Other than that, you should be trying to maximize your kicker points this week. A few options:

Read More →

We are officially through the looking glass. Your team has experienced nine weeks of fantasy football. Your win/loss record might not reflect the actual talent on your team, but that’s what sets fantasy football apart. You can’t just be good, you have to be lucky.

There are obvious exceptions, such as total points leagues. But in most head-to-head fantasy football leagues, your team fits neatly into three categories at this point:

1. (Basically) Locked into a playoff berth.
2. Fight for a chance to make the playoffs.
3. (Basically) Eliminated from playoff contention.

Again, there are exceptions. If you are in a keeper/dynasty league, you can always build for next year. In redraft leagues, you don’t have such a luxury. You will never have this team again. If you’re out of it, be a good owner and try to play the spoiler role from here on out.

The above paragraph should cover teams that fall into Category 3. Sorry, but you aren’t winning a championship this year. There’s always next year.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the Category 1 teams. If you’re team is currently 9-0, 8-1 or even 7-2, you fall into this category. So what should you do now?

You always try to win every week. The goal is to lock up the No. 1 playoff seed and to win the Total Points title. But you can (most likely) afford to take a loss or two on the way to the playoffs. Especially if taking a loss allows you to improve your chances of winning during the playoff weeks in your league.

Read More →

Fantasy football is a weekly game which is evaluated on a season-long basis. The goal is to score the most points that you can every week. Piece of cake, right?

There is so much emphasis placed on acquiring “stud” or “elite” players. Those players earn that status based upon the total statistics that they have accrued by the end of the season. That doesn’t mean that they are the best options on a week-to-week basis.

In Week 8, you would’ve looked like a genius for benching Roddy White or Vincent Jackson for Titus Young or even Cecil Shorts. It seems outlandish at first, but all you’re trying to do is maximize your points in that given week.

This doesn’t mean that you should bench your best players for weaker options who happen to have better match-ups. It just means that you always have options. Look at what happened on Thursday night (of Week 9). Both Jamaal Charles and Ryan Matthews were universally considered top-10 options for Week 9. Neither player managed to record double-digit fantasy points.

Read More →

In every sport except the NFL, player contracts are a sunk cost. The contracts are guaranteed. You’re not paying for future performance when you sign a player to a massive contract; you are signing them for what they have already accomplished.

There are calls from far and wide for the Yankees to ditch Alex Rodriguez. Even if they have to pay 90% of his contract, people want him GONE. That’s not always the best course of action.

Of course, when you look at how the Toronto Blue Jays dumped the horrible Vernon Wells contract on the Angels, you assume that anybody can be traded. I mean, this is Alex Rodriguez, right?

The Yankees missed their window to trade A-Rod in any sort of deal that could actually help the New York Yankees. The Los Angeles Dodgers wanted stars, and they were willing to absorb bad contracts to get them. That was the time to move A-Rod. Paying another team $100 million to have Alex Rodriguez play baseball for them is NOT a good move.

Read More →

You’ve seen this before. Some characters in a movie find themselves in a possible situation. After making some progress, the characters encounter another, unexpected obstacle.

MAN 1: “Okay, what now?”

MAN 2: “What do you mean?”

MAN 1: “What do you mean, what do I mean?”

MAN 2: “I mean, what do we do next?”

MAN 1: “How should I know, it’s your plan.”

MAN 2: “No, no, no, I’m following YOUR plan.”

<The two men stare blankly at each other. Just as the tension becomes unbearable we hear a loud explosion and Steven Seagal appears out of nowhere.>

Just because you’re doing something doesn’t mean that you have a plan. If you’re blindly following somebody, you have no idea if they have a plan.

On the other hand, the best-laid plans are often obliterated, with no fault on the part of the planners. Stuff happens.

If you just lost Maurice Jones-Drew (MJD) and you’re at the bottom of the waiver wire order in your league (or at the low-end of available FAAB) I can’t tell you that everything is going to be awesome. I mean, I can, but I will be lying. Even if you have the No. 1 waiver priority, there’s no guarantee that Rashad Jennings will replace what you were expecting from MJD.

Read More →

In the game of chess, how often is the King the actual piece that secures your victory via checkmate? Not often. Although the name of the game is to take your opponents King (making it the most valuable piece), the King itself is rarely the key to a victory.

Nor is it the pawns. The pawns are there to be sacrificed strategically as the game advances. You can’t just piss them away, but never overvalue your pawns.

Most chess games are won through the strategic distribution of your Bishops, Knights and Rooks. At that Queen lady shows up to help out sometimes. These are the pieces that will prove the most crucial to your victory.

In fantasy football, the key is to play a season-long game of chess. While you’re playing that game of chess, each week becomes like a game of checks; fast, dirty and unpredictable. But you must be able to play both games in order to maximize your chance of hoisting that trophy/envelope at the end of the season.

Correctly identifying your team is a good start. You need to know who is a Rook and who is just a Pawn. Your Queen(s) are your elite, stud players. Any player who has no long-term value is just a pawn. Everybody else is usually in the Bishop/Knight/Rook class.

Read More →

I’ve been very clear about one aspect of fantasy football: you draft players for their OVERALL production. If you get cute and say bench Marques Colston when he goes off for 30+ fantasy points, you drafted Colston too early. When they’re healthy, you stick with the players you drafted to start for you.

Too bad that they’re not always healthy. No to mention the little annoyance known as the “bye weeks”. Which brings us to a conundrum. Say a combination of injuries, bye weeks and under-performance leaves you with a significant hole in your lineup. Should you attempt to fill that spot with one player for the remainder of the season? Or should you just try to cover it up on a week-by-week basis.

Read More →

You have a sport with a revenue issue. A revenue ISSUE. Not a revenue PROBLEM. There is a difference between not making enough money and not distributing money properly. Hell, that’s probably the main issue in the current Presidential Election.

Remember when baseball had “problems”? When the Yankees spent so much money that nobody could keep up? Look at who  made the playoffs in Major League Baseball.

The Baltimore Orioles

The Oakland Athletics

The St. Louis Cardinals

All of these teams deserve to have a “the” before their names. No matter what payroll, injury or scheduling obstacles these teams were confronted with, they triumphed.

Read More →

Surely the Saints would never start the season 0-4.

Surely the NFC West couldn’t be one of the better divisions in the NFL.

Surely no running back returning from recent major knee surgery could play just as well as he did before his injury.

There’s a reason that you never call me Shirley. Just like there are many reasons to love Leslie Nielsen, RIP.

You start the guys you drafted to start for you. Unless there is some reason such as injury, reduced playing time or altered role, stick with your guys. But as we come upon the bye weeks, that’s not always an option.

Read More →

“He is GOING to have at least 15 fantasy points.”

It’s amazing how some people can speak of the future with such certainty. There are no guarantees. Do you want remain optimistic while being realistic? Of course. But you can’t take anything for granted.

Everybody wants to be the first one on the train for the new “hottest ticket in town”. Brian Hartline, Jackie Battle and Brandon Bolden are the new tickets. Only time will tell if they are for real, or if they are just the next Kevin Ogletree, Andre Brown or Ramses Barden.

That brings us to….. Chasing the Dragon

Read More →

When you look at your fantasy football team today, I can tell you what you don’t feel. Neutral. You’re either pumped about your team, or you are really, really nervous. Of course, all of this depends on how your team performed in Week 1.

If your first ten draft picks included: Matt Ryan, Adrian Peterson, Stevan Ridley, Brandon Marshall and Reggie Wayne, you feel pretty good right now.

If your first ten draft picks included: Michael Vick, Chris Johnson, Trent Richardson, Peyton Hillis, Wes Welker and Larry Fitzgerald, you don’t feel so good right now.

Read More →

Week 1 isn’t in the books yet. There are two Monday night games this week. But that shouldn’t stop us from taking stock in what happened on Sunday. Or Wednesday for that matter.

Early in the season, the key is to be active while not overreacting. That includes getting too high on a player because he had a great game (Kevin Ogletree). You also can’t bury a guy just for one horrible game (Chris Johnson).

All that means is that the only players you should be cutting are players you took at the end of your drafts. Don’t cut DeAngelo Williams just because he was awful. You took him with one of your first ten draft picks and he will have value at some point. But a guy like Jonathan Baldwin or Gregg Little? Those are the guys you cut for the Kevin Ogletrees of the world.

COWBOYS 24 @ GIANTS 17

• You’re starting Tony Romo, Dez Bryant and Miles Austin every week. Jason Witten will join that list when healthy.
• Kevin Ogletree is the obvious takeaway here. He will be a top waiver claim this week. Again, don’t cut anybody valuable to get him. But he should be roster in anything deeper than 10-team leagues at this point.
• You’re starting Eli Manning, Ahmad Bradshaw, Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks every week.
• Don’t get too down on David Wilson. In fact, now would be the time to try to acquire him. Especially if you’re an Ahmad Bradshaw owner who didn’t handcuff.
• Martellus Bennett could be a decent pick-up if you’re weak at TE. Eli likes to target his TE and Bennett does have physical talent.
• There are better days ahead for Eli Manning, Hakeem Nicks and Jason Witten.

EAGLES 17 @ BROWNS 16

• You’re starting Michael Vick, LeSean McCoy, Jeremy Maclin and DeSean Jackson every week.
• Michael Vick is always going to be better in leagues that down penalize heavily for turnovers. As long as he’s healthy, he will get his fantasy stats. But he looks like he is really trying to keep his running to a minimum.

Read More →

Sometimes I think that we forget that there was a lockout last football season. That would explain some of the crazy stats, rampant injuries and wide disparity in team records. Looking at my projections for the 2012 NFL season, I don’t have a team with less than four wins. Nor do I have a team winning more than thirteen games.

I would expect a ton of teams to post between seven and nine wins. That means that ten wins should be good enough for a playoff berth.

NFC NORTH

1. Green Bay Packers (12-4)
2. Detroit Lions (8-8)
3. Minnesota Vikings (6-10)
4. Chicago Bears (6-10)

NFC SOUTH

1. Atlanta Falcons (11-5)
2. New Orleans Saints (11-5)*
3. Carolina Panthers (7-9)
4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5-11)

Read More →

Welcome to Week 1. At least if you don’t own any Cowboys or Giants. I will be producing weekly rankings, but for the most part I am not really a fan of them. Especially early in the season. Since it’s only Week 1, you should be starting the players you drafted as starters.

Here are some various tidbits that should be able to help you out as you set your lineups this week:

WELCOME TO THE DANGER ZONE

• Adrian Peterson (vs JAC)
• Maurice Jones-Drew (@ MIN)

Yes, you drafted these players to be starters. But not this week. While both players should be active on Sunday, neither is guaranteed to lead their team in carries. They might do enough to prevent Toby Gerhart and Rashad Jennings from having starting RB value. But that’s about it. Wait until at least Week 2.

I’M FEELIN IT

• Jay Cutler (vs IND)

Read More →

I’m guessing that you watched the Dallas Cowboys take on the New York Giants last night. If you didn’t surely you’ve seen the highlights by now. True NFL fans will care that the Cowboys upset the Giants, 24-17. Hardcore fantasy players will only care about one thing: Kevin Ogletree.

8 receptions, 114 recieving yards, 2 TDs, 11 targets

Not only is that an excellent stat line, it’s about all you could hope for from Calvin Johnson in Week 1. But it was Kevin Ogletree, the newly-minted No. 3 WR for the Cowboys. It’s safe to say that Ogletree went undrafted in almost all fantasy leagues.

Read More →

Dear Guy Who Plays In a Pretty Standard 10 or 12-Team League,

This isn’t for you. These players will not be drafted so there is no point in you wasting a draft pick. Just throw these players on your watch list so you are ready when/if one of them pops.

If you play in a larger league (14+ teams) or a deeper league (20+ roster spots), these players might be worth a late round pick. These aren’t guys that you will able to use soon. They’re just lottery tickets that are worth holding onto.

Without further ado:

• CHRIS RAINEY (RB - PIT) He could wind up being the 3rd down/passing downs RB for the Steelers in addition to returning kicks and punts.

Read More →

Welcome to “Draft Week”. For some, this is the week when fantasy football begins. For me, that week happened right after the NFL Draft. It can literally take me that long just to finally decide on a certain player, team or strategy.

You should know what you are doing going into your fantasy football draft. Both myself and people far more talented have written millions of words on the subject. Having so much information at your disposal can sometimes blind you. It will not totally blind you, but it will prevent you from being able to see the forest for the trees.

Read More →

Do you consider yourself to be a Gambling Man/Woman? For the true gambler, the sky is the limit. But the higher you fly, the longer the fall is when you come crashing back to Earth.

Here is a question that should help determine where your gambling tendencies lie: Say you just went to the the local store and grabbed $20 worth of Powerball/lottery tickets. Since there is a $200 million jackpot, the line has build up quite steadily behind you. As you leave the store a random dude offers you $40 for your $20 worth of tickets. What do you do?

Read More →

Wait, your fantasy football team is stacked at every position? Congratulations on playing in an 8-team or 10-team league. In smaller-sized leagues, you should have a great team from top to bottom.

If you do play in a smaller league, just stack your team with high-upside players, despite the risks. If everything goes wrong, maybe your bench ends up being your weakness. But that’s what the waiver wire is for, right?

Read More →

This isn’t quite “Back in the Day” material. But I was signing up for a NFFC league tonight. And I reflected back on the last NFFC league I did. Because of poor draft times, I didn’t do a NFFC league last year. Thanks Lockout.

But the NFFC league I did in 2010? I won that shit. It was just a satellite, but the format was the same. I won with Joe Flacco and Ryan Fitzpatrick at QB. And Kellen Winslow at TE.

That was the strategy at the time. Wait on QB and TE. That seems almost crazy in a year where I’ve regularly seen owners draft Tom Brady and Jimmy Graham in the first two rounds. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I’m just thinking, that maybe the old ways were good for a reason. Who’s to say that you can grab Jay Cutler and Fred Davis and have a top-5 player at the QB and TE position?

There has been so much emphasis on the QB and RB positions early, there has to be value in “zigging” when everybody else is “zagging”. There always is. If I have a pick late in Round 1, I will take Tom Brady if he’s there. If I pick anytime from Pick Number 4 on in a FFPC format, I would take Jimmy Graham or Rob Gronkowski.

But other than that, start “zigging”. What’s wrong with ending up with (two of) Jared Cooker, Kyle Rudolph, Jermaine Gresham, Jacob Tamme and Colby Fleener? You can find strength in the TE position late.

Don’t be afraid to go old-school. Draft RBs early. Tale a chance on a stud QB who falls to far (Rivers, Romo, Eli or Vick). Wait on the TE position. Grab WRs who will either catch a ton of passes or see mad (crazy) red-zone targets.

Seems simple enough, right? If not, feel free to shout out my misses in the comments. Or join the fun on Twitter. Thanks for reading and good luck this season.

Life. Or something like it. The world is two-faced, just like every decision you will ever make. In an ideal world, you identify a fundamental problem and devise a solution. Piece of cake, right?

With football coming up, I should point out my relative lack of positions on MLB this summer. My excuse is, I haven’t been able to properly reconcile the shift of MLB to a pitchers league.

More accurately, I can’t decide to over-value hitting or side with the pitchers. As always, there are other elements at play. But the question is the same. With MLB shifting towards a “pitcher’s league” is hitting under-valued or over-valued based on the price.

A couple of seasons ago, my wagering patterns were built around pitching. That;s where I started my evaluations. As above-average pitching has become more prevalent, I’ve tried to switch my focus to be more hitting-based.

I’m not saying that you can’t have success working off of pitching. My point is, more often that not, the pitching is better than the hitting. That’s why I feel that there is more value focusing on individual pitchers vs. hitters match-ups while bringing independent defensive factors into play.

As with any system, you need a large sample size in order to properly evaluate the results. By the end of August I should have enough information to have a position again. Maybe I should get on that Internet thing and see if anybody else has anything to say.

Follow me on Twitter @SportsSomething

At a certain point, you’re going to contradict yourself. Whether you mean to or not. Once Week 1 of the NFL season hits, I will stand up on top of my soapbox (Do they still have those?) and scream that where you drafted a player DOESN’T matter (unless its a keeper league). Until you the NFL season kicks off, where you drafted a player DOES matter.

There’s not going to be many trades made before the action starts. If there are trades, its usually just the exchange of handcuff RBs, back of the roster players or as a result of a recent, post-draft injury. Those are all fair and useful (sometimes) trades.

Then there’s just the “Dick Move” trade offers. These are almost always a “2-for-1” deal where you get the “2”. For instance, a team offers you the players it drafted in Rounds 6 and 8 for your 3rd round pick. And they will be insulted when you explain to them you’re not interested.

But it can even go past that. Twice in the last two weeks I’ve been offered deals where I get two players who were drafted later than the two players I’m trading away. In other words, a team offered me the players it drafted in Round 7 and Round 9 for players I drafted in Round 5 and Round 6. Literally.

Why on would you ever offer somebody such a trade within a week of the draft when no games have been played? Just to be an douche-bag? I’ve grown tired of these owners who make a million trade offers, all of which are bad and basically the same. That’s the guy in your league last year who kept offering Carson Palmer and Brandon Jacobs for Aaron Rodgers. You know that guy, there’s at least one in every league.

I used to get mad at such offers and respond with all kinds of crap. Hand to the sky, I once sat at my computer for an hour and sent a team 50 horrible trade proposals, mostly of the my-kicker-for-your-stud-RB-type. Unfortunately, that doesn’t accomplish anything.

So I have a new strategy. When I get the first of such offers I decline the trade with a message basically asking “are you serious, or do you think I’m a moron?” If the other teams responds honestly and admits they were just really trying to get one over on me, I’m fine with that. If they try to justify a horrible offer I will simply tell them to not waste my time and block them so I will no longer see trade offers (or messages) from them for the remainder of the season.

Of course, if the offender is one of your friends you see in the real (non-Internet) world, you can’t ignore them forever. In those cases I would start posting all of the bad offers on your league message board. More than likely you will be joined by a few other owners who are sick of having their time wasted. Maybe the dude gets the hint and stops. Maybe he keeps being that guy. Either way, you can spend you time trying to actually improve your team instead of dealing with pure nonsense.

What’s your trading strategy? Have you pulled off or been offered some horribly one-sided trades? Feel free to sound off in the comments, or you follow me on Twitter @SportsSomething if you’d like. Thanks for reading and good luck this season.

What do I want in a RB? Realistically? I want a starting RB whom I do not have to pay the “sticker” price for. Because RBs are inherently risky. They’re subject to injury more often than any other offensive skill position. They’re production is somewhat determined by play-calling and game situations. And their performance can fall off of a cliff at any given moment.

There are a few RBs whom I would gladly pay the retail price for:

ROUND 1

• Ray Rice
• Arian Foster
• LeSean McCoy

ROUND 2

• Darren Sproles (PPR)

ROUND 4

• Doug Martin (PPR)

In the first five rounds, I won’t take a RB not listed above very often. Unless they would fall further than their ADP would lead you to believe. But I really, really want one of these RBs.

You shouldn’t mess around with your RB1. You need a stud lead-RB. Of course, drafting a RB early doesn’t guarantee that he will be a stud. I just don’t think you’re going to find a lot of success reaching for a Marshawn Lynch-type in Round 2 to try to fill that role.

So I’m going to wind up possibly drafting a RB I don’t particularly love at some point, especially if I pick late in Round 1. Here are the possibilities for late Round 1/early Round 2 RBs:

• Ryan Matthews
• Chris Johnson
• Trent Richardson

How about mid-Round 2 to mid-Round 3?

• Darren McFadden
• DeMarco Murray

Even given all the variables, I should be able to enter Round 5 with one of the 10 RBs listed above. As long as I do, I set about filling the rest of my roster unless there is great value at the RB position on the board.

Rounds 4 thru 8 are going to be filled excellent high-upside WRs, mid-range QB1s and mid-to-high-end TE1s. There will also be some RB3s and RB4s that people will reach for. Don’t be that dude.

Make sure you fill out the rest of your starting lineup. I’m talking 3 or maybe even 4 excellent WRs, a solid QB and TE. Then start drafting RBs. And don’t stop for a few rounds.

Here are a ton of RBs who figure to be available in Round 7 and later. I will attempt to rank them in the order they will be drafted:

• Issac Redman
• Stevan Ridley
• James Starks
• Peyton Hillis
• Ben Tate
• Kevin Smith
• Mark Ingram
• Toby Gerhart
• Donald Brown
• Rashad Jennings
• Michael Bush
• David Wilson
• Evan Royster
• Jacquizz Rodgers
• Isaiah Pead
• Ryan Williams
• Bernard Scott
• Ronnie Hillman
• Dion Lewis
• Kendall Hunter
• Robert Turbin
• Lamar Miller
• Chris Rainey
• Bernard Pierce

That’s 24 RBs I just listed. I have no doubt (nor Gwen Stefani) that at least one of these 24 will end up being a top-12 RB. Some of these players will rise too high in drafts for me. With Rashard Mendenhall sure to hit the PUP list, Issac Redman will become a 5th or even 4th round pick.

Starters like Donald Brown and James Starks could find themselves shooting up draft boards with strong preseason performances. Toby Gerhart will rise when people finally start accepting the fact that Adrian Peterson won’t be himself for at least another year.

Not to mention at least one starting RB will go down in the preseason or training camp. I happens almost every year. That’s why you want to stack your bench with as many high-upside players as you can. Typically late in drafts, the most upside available will be at the RB and QB position. The WR and TE positions will be picked clean of most high-upside players in the middle rounds. That’s why you take a Dion Lewis-type late instead of wasting a roster spot on Ben Watson or Mario Manningham.

Make sense? The worst-case scenario is that some of these RBs do nothing and they’re the first guys you cut for hot waiver wire pickups or because of the bye weeks. The later in a draft you get, the less important a player’s “floor” becomes. At the same time, the later in a draft you get, the more important a player’s “ceiling” is.

Any thoughts on RBs? Drafting, keeping or otherwise? Use the comments or hit me up on the Twitter. Good luck this season and thanks for reading.

Follow @SportsSomething

If you watch Archer, congratulations, you’re awesome and you understand the image above. If you don’t watch Archer, how can you not at least be curious after seeing the above image? And PacMan Jones has something to do with football still, right?

So what about PacMan Jones? Lost in all the strip clubs, guns and waffles is that fact that this kid was kind of a big deal coming out of West Virginia. At least a big enough deal to be selected as the sixth overall pick by the Tennessee Titans. Of course, that didn’t wind up working out the way the Titans wanted.

That leads me to one of my own personal fantasy football concepts. I generally have a few players that I take a stand on and I’m not afraid to be wrong about. For instance, last year I avoided Chad Ochocinco and Chris Johnson in all of my fantasy leagues (and I was in quite a few). On the other hand, I drafted Mario Manningham, Rashad Jennings, Robert Meachem and Javon Ringer in quite a few of my leagues.

While avoiding OchoStinko and CJ1K helped my teams, I didn’t hit on any of the players I was drafting towards the end of many of my drafts. But my unwillingness to jump ship from Mario Manningham to Victor Cruz in most leagues hurt me. Regardless, that was what my approach was, so I can’t complain about the results.

That’s usually how my “list” works. I will have players that I specifically go out of my way to avoid (AKA my “Shit List”) drafting, especially in the early rounds. Then I will have players who I will target a round or two ahead of their ADP (AKA my “Heart List”) to ensure that I get them.

Occasionally I will plant my flag on an early-round target I “Heart” - Ryan Matthews and Darren Sproles could fit the criteria this season. Likewise, I can choose to avoid players, even later in drafts - Alex Smith and Randy Moss are good examples from this upcoming season.

But typically, I avoid early and target late. Sometimes, I don’t mind drafting a player many people are down on, especially because they will go later in drafts than they should. In 2012, Steven Jackson, Frank Gore and Michael Turner all fit this mold. None of them will touch their career-best seasons, but they all should have fantasy value. And those are the guys who will be hated, the aging veterans. Many owners reach for rookies and ignore players with a proven track record.

How about some guys that are on my lists this season? Don’t mind if I do:

SHIT LIST

• Andre Johnson
• Matt Forte
• Maurice Jones-Drew
• Jamaal Charles
• Adrian Peterson
• Miles Austin
• Vernon Davis
• Jermichael Finley
• Dwayne Bowe
• Shonn Greene
• DeSean Jackson
• Roy Helu
• Jahvid Best

All of these players are on here for specific, individual reasons. Sometimes things can change. By the end of August, I might be targeting one of these players in drafts. But for now, I’m avoiding them unless they fall well, well below their ADP.

HEART LIST

• Ray Rice
• Darren Sproles
• Roddy White
• A.J. Green
• Hakeem Nicks
• Issac Redman
• Eric Decker
• Brandon Lloyd
• Jeremy Maclin
• Eli Manning
• Kyle Rudolph
• Jared Cook
• Rashad Jennings
• Randall Cobb
• Kendall Wright
• Josh Freeman
• Rob Housler
• Titus Young
• Jerome Simpson
• Ryan Fitzpatrick
• Andrew Luck
• Eddie Royal

Again, this list is subject to change. And Ray Rice makes this list, because he is my Number 1 overall player in almost every fantasy football format. Some of these guys Heart based on where they are going in drafts. If their ADP rises, I might not Heart them any longer.

As stupid as this sounds, I would recommend actually writing out (or typing) actual lists of players you like and don’t like. You’d be amazed and the things that pop into your brain during a draft and having something written down can prevent you from doing something you will immediately regret afterwards. It’s like having a wingman (wing-woman) with you at a bar/party during your college years/20’s. They might not sound like much fun at the time, but they are there for your own good.

So who do you Heart? And who isn’t getting an X-Mas card from you this season? I’m always curious to know who other people perceive players leading into drafts. If you’re interested, you can follow me on Twitter @SportsSomething

Good luck this season, unless you happen to be playing against me.

We should up-front about one thing. You can have too much of anything. Even oxygen, water, health food and exercise. Whenever you are involved in something and it begins to effect your life or your job, you’re at the “too much” point.

That’s not what I’m really talking about here. I’m more referring to my friend who has decided that he’s only going to play in two fantasy football leagues this season because “that’s all he can handle.” I believe he played in three or four leagues last year.

How many leagues you play in is a personal choice. For some it might be dictated by money, for others free time might be the determining factor. Some guys (me included) will usually say “yes” whenever I’m invited to a decent league with a draft that fits my schedule. Generally, the leagues I enjoy the most are those that I do with my friends or at least people I know. Even if those leagues are for relatively small stakes or they aren’t my favorite scoring/roster format.

But I’m an odd duck of sorts. I can own and operate dozens of teams without a problem and only maintain an emotional connection with the couple of leagues that I care the most about. All of my other leagues I don’t even look at until Tuesday. Because there’s a constant truth to fantasy football that my friend discovered for himself last season:

“The more leagues you are in, the more players you will own. If you are in enough leagues, you will eventually own every player.”

Sure there will be a few players who don’t end up on any of your teams. But other than those few players, you’ve got a piece of everybody else on one team or another. Last season I’m pretty sure that I owned all of the top-12 QBs.

So if you’re going to play in a ton of leagues, pick two or three to follow on Sunday-Monday and run the rest of your teams like a business, with little emotional involvement. Otherwise you will find yourself in impossible situations where the same player is on your team and on an opponent’s team.

Not to mention that it’s difficult to manage multiple fantasy teams. When I only have one or two leagues to focus on, I know every damn thing going on in those leagues. But if you’re in twenty leagues, how do you keep up with everything that happens every day within each league? You can’t, unless it’s literally your job.

Everybody needs to find what their correct number of leagues is. Some people will enjoy being in a disgustingly large amount of leagues. Others will find that having more than one team ruins their experience. Figure out what you like. If you have a decent amount of money you’re going to invest in fantasy, make a plan. Do you want to own a bunch of teams in smaller-stakes leagues, or do you want to put it all on one high-stakes team and shoot for the big bucks?

If you draft a team, you are obligated to run it for the season. Even if you’re completely set, please make sure you have healthy and active players in your lineup. And play in less leagues next year.

Thanks for reading and good luck this season. For more whatnot, you can follow me on Twitter @SportsSomething

I hope that you get the “Major League” reference in the title. If not, stop reading this (at the end of the sentence) and go watch Major League.

Great right? Now can’t you understand why people really liked Charlie Sheen once upon a time? For the record, I enjoy “Major League 2” especially for the Omar Epps replacing Wesley Snipes factor.

Anyway, my original point was that I want to put my fantasy team together like Lou Brown built those Cleveland Indians. By that I mean I want my players to be complementary so that their total sum is greater than that of the individual parts.

How do you do that in fantasy football? Mostly by knowing when to use a draft pick to fill a position or need or when to select the best player available, regardless of position. Other than that it involves planning out your draft so that you have a fairly good idea about when players will be drafted.

Now that we’re in the first official Draft Weekend in August, I feel that I more or less have figured out what my typical draft strategy will be. I’ve arrived at these conclusions based on drafts I’ve already done, my personal rankings, what I’ve read from other fantasy sources and ADP (Average Draft Position).

First off, remember that every league is different. You need to know your scoring and roster settings. Do you have roster limits? How about an IR (Injured Reserve) spot? Does your league count return yardage? Is it a keeper league? Do you use IDPs (Individual Defensive Players)?

All of those factors change things. Here are a few fast and loose (translation: these rules can be broken easily and often depending on the league/draft) rules that I have used over the years:

The deeper the league (the more teams) the earlier you will want to draft a QB. In anything with 14+ teams, you need to be ready to take a QB in the first few rounds, or you will find yourself REALLY reaching for a QB in the middle rounds.

If you’re in a league that allows you to start two QBs, your first two picks (or at least two of your first three picks) should be QBs. Unless the scoring system severely depresses QB scoring.

In PPR leagues, you want to draft WRs early and late. By that I mean you want to chase stud WRs in Rounds 3-6 and then back off until after Round 9 or so. After the studs are gone, you want to target players with high-upside, not mediocre bench players. Those players will go later, so don’t reach for them.

In standard (non-PPR) leagues, the run on RBs early will be nuts. They will fly off of the board as compared to PPR leagues. If you miss out on RBs early, focus on high-upside handcuffs (think Ben Tate) and RBs who will see goal line carries (think Michael Bush). In this format players like Michael Turner and BenJarvus Green-Ellis will be much more valuable than in PPR leagues.

In FFPC (Fantasy Football Players Championship) scoring formats, TEs are awarded 1.5 points per reception while RBs and WRs are only awarded 1 point. This means that TEs will be drafted early and often. You might see 20 TEs drafted in the first six rounds.

In formats where you have to start three WRs (and usually can only start 2 RBs) focus on WRs first, and make sure you get at least three good WRs early. Then move on to your QB and TE position. After all of that is done, move on to your RBs. In this format, there are ALWAYS RBs popping up on the waiver wire, so concentrate your draft elsewhere.

In IDP leagues, I generally draft my offense first unless the defensive scoring settings are really jacked up. Due there being far more defensive players available than offensive (the offensive line can’t count in fantasy) you can wait longer to draft them. Just pay attention to the scoring settings.

So here is more or less, my basic strategy at this point. I don’t play many standard leagues, at least for anything at stake. So assume everything I’m saying is geared toward PPR leagues.

What to do in Round 1? For me, it’s become fairly simple:

1. Ray Rice
2. Arian Foster
3. LeSean McCoy
4. Calvin Johnson
5. Aaron Rodgers
6. Tom Brady
7. Chris Johnson
8. Ryan Matthews

Well, it’s simple through eight picks. In Round 1, I’m worried as much about floor (worst-case scenario) as much as I am worried about ceiling (best-case scenario). Ryan Matthews comes close to having a low floor due to injury risk, but all players come with injury risk and he’s never seriously been injured, unlike say Darren McFadden.

So I want a top-8 pick. If I don’t have one and my league allows draft pick trading, I’m trying to move up into the top-8. If I can’t move up, I would try to move back an accumulate more value in Rounds 2 and 3.

I should note that in the FFPC format, I would absolutely add Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski to the eight listed above.

If I pick 9th or later, I’ve got a few options:

• In a deep league, I will take Drew Brees.
• Rob Gronkowski and Jimmy Graham are both viable options
• Darren Sproles is an option as is Darren McFadden

So that pretty much gets me through Round 1. Once I’ve made that pick, my path through the draft is much more clear:

If I got a QB in Round 1, it’s simply a “take the best non-QB available” for the next four rounds or so.

If I got one of the TEs or Calvin, I’m going to want to get at least one RB ASAP and ideally two RBs with my next three picks, unless Brees or Brady falls to me in Round 2.

If I got one of the RBs in Round 1, I’m looking for Graham/Gronkowski or Brady/Brees in Round 2. If none of them are on the board, it’s just a “take the best player available approach”.

Once I’m through two rounds, the path should be even more obvious. If I have two RBs through two rounds, I’m done with RBs until I fill out the rest of my roster.

In a PPR league I will take three WRs in my first four picks if the draft falls that way. But if it does, I have to load up on high-upside RBs later.

If I don’t have a QB after Round 2, I’m waiting until the Round 5 area for one of the Romo/Rivers/Ryan/Eli group. If I miss on that group, I’m going to grab two QBs later, probably from the Peyton/RG3/Cutler/Big Ben/Dalton/Palmer/Freeman group.

If I don’t have a TE after Round 2 I’m looking to grab somebody from the Witten/Hernandez/Gates group in Round 4 or so. If I miss there, I’m waiting until late to grab two high upside TEs from the Fleener/Rudolph/Cook/Olsen/Gresham/Tamme group.

After I fill out my starters I’ve found better value grabbing RBs in the middle rounds (Rounds 6-9) and grabbing WRs after that. When I’m drafting RBs at that point, I want high-upside handcuffs or RBs with a legit shot at a decent workload before the bye weeks begin.

When I’m drafting WRs late I’m looking for rookie and 2nd-year breakout candidates and veterans coming off of injuries. These are the players that I will most likely be cutting early in the season to pick up the hot “Name of the Week” off of the waiver wire. I will probably cut one of these players too early and it will come back to haunt me. It’s just how these things work.

And that is basically it. It sounds kind of rough written in blurbs, but the theory is sound. Typically I use my personal rankings and and ADP list to map out different possibilities for each round out of the players I expect to be available. The more drafts you do, the better your feel is for planning out your draft.

Try to never pay too much attention to the absolute latest piece of news you’ve heard. Just because a player skipped the second half of practice today doesn’t mean that he should drop five rounds in a draft that day. But it happens. Be wary if there is news of a possible major injury. Otherwise don’t adjust too much for good or bad news.

If on the day your drafting a glowing report comes out about a player, expect him to be drafted at least a round or two earlier than you anticipated. And don’t expect that you’re the only one who knows a particular piece of news. Everybody has a smartphone and most of them monitor Twitter feeds. There’s no slipping one past the goalie anymore.

So that’s it. The magic formula. The chicken feed from The Frickert Fracas. (Look I’ll even give you Jonathan Winters as a hint. If you get that reference, you’re my hero and you’re on my X-Mas Card List)

Got something to say? Please say it, for better or worse. If you would like you can follow along on at Twitter: @SportsSomething

I suppose that it is understandable to try to keep a championship team together. That’s basically the entire purpose of keeper/dynasty leagues. But what about redraft leagues? We had a guy in the early years of my primary league who drafted Peyton Manning every year in Round 2. We had another guy who took Drew Brees in Round 1 and Reggie Wayne in Round 2 for three straight years.

Neither of those teams won anything. But nevertheless, these guys kept going back to the well, year after year. I’m certainly guilty of that. In that same league I drafted Wes Welker every season from 2008 to 2010. Even when he was coming off of a torn ACL. He fell in the draft and I thought that it was just too good of value to pass up.

For the record the league I’m speaking of is a 14-team league with 20 man rosters. In other words, you can’t just grab a replacement player off of the waiver wire.

Two years ago (2010), I walked out of the draft with what I thought was a good core of my team: Wes Welker, Ray Rice, Tony Romo, Roddy White and Jermichael Finley. Welker, Rice and White were fine but both Romo and Finley got hurt early in the season.

I grabbed Jacob Tamme off of the waiver wire and swung a trade for Josh Freeman and managed to lose in the championship game. Going into the 2011 draft, I was ready. I had a plan and I was going to stick too it.

Of course, when you have a plan, things tend to go to hell rather quickly. Nothing fell quite the way that I planned. I wound up with the 2nd pick in the draft and took Ray Rice for the second straight season. That was the last thing that actually went according to plan.

You know that draft when it seems like the player you want falls ALMOST all the way to you, but the team right in front of you drafts him? That was literally happening every round. By the time I was up at the end of Round 2, my beloved plan was in tatters.

Being that it was a PPR league (and Calvin Johnson went the pick before me) and the WRs were going fast, I took Roddy White for the second straight season. The plan was that the team in front of me would pass on Philip Rivers. Didn’t happen. That meant that seven QBs were already off of the board. If I didn’t take one now, I would be scraping the bottom of the barrel. So for the second straight season, I took Tony Romo in Round 3.

It shouldn’t be hard to guess what happens next. Jermichael Finley falls to me at the end of Round 4 and I can’t help myself. I remember my exact words: “If he stays healthy and plays 16 games, there’s NO WAY that Finley WON’T be a top-3 TE.”

Just like my draft plan, I was wrong about that as well. But the team stayed healthier in 2011 than it did in 2010. An early season buy-low trade on Percy Harvin wound up being crucial and I lost in the championship game for the second straight season.

So….. Would I dare go down this road for a third straight season? I certainly wouldn’t go into my draft hellbent on doing so. But if the draft fell that way to me again? I’d certainly take Ray Rice with a top-3 pick. I’d still draft Roddy White as a WR1 in a PPR league. And Romo is due for a top-3 QB season, right? And there’s no way Finley leads TEs in dropped passes again, right?

Yes, I would draft basically the same team for the third straight season. But that is because IT’S STILL A GOOD TEAM. All of the players I am talking about are still in their “Fantasy Primes”. This isn’t mindless drafting Peyton Manning in Round 2 because it worked for you previously. If you think a player will be good this season, draft him. Don’t let anything else bother you.

That includes drafting the same team every year, drafting players from the same NFL team, or making a few selections that draw laughs in the draft room. In redraft leagues, 2011 stats don’t count and 2013 is not something you need to worry about or plan for. All that matters is what a player does between Week 1 and Week 16 in 2012.

Do. Not. Force. Anything. Let the draft come to you. If it happens to fall the same way, so be it. Just don’t plan on it. The only part of the plan that you can plan on is the plan going to hell, forcing amendments to said plan. Got all that?

Again for the record, I’m an Eagles fan and it pains me to draft Tony Romo. Not to mention Romo basically sat out the Week 16 game against the Eagles, killing the fantasy value of every Cowboy not kicking field goals. Which ended up costing me a championship in multiple leagues.

But if I think that drafting Tony Romo at a certain point in my draft will give me the best chance to win a championship in 2012, I will do it in a heartbeat.

Thanks for reading and good luck this season. Be sure to bookmark this site for the upcoming season and feel free to reach out on Twitter with any of your fantasy thoughts or questions.

For the better part of a century, professional athletes and team owners have been at odds. Mostly over “who needs who” worse. The owners will argue that the players are infinitely replaceable. I mean, who wouldn’t want to play sports for obscene amounts of money? Meanwhile, the players argue that they are “one in a million” and therefore, are irreplaceable.

Lets get one thing straight here. There is only one irreplaceable element of professional sports. And that, my friends, is you. We (the fans) fill the arenas and pay the salaries. You know how some athletes can earn more than $200,000 PER GAME? That money flows directly from you paying $20 for a hot dog, bag of pretzels and a 20 oz. beer.

Some thought that the acrimony between NBA players and the owners/management would die down after the lockout. Not a chance. In fact, that acrimony has only intensified. The players have realized that they didn’t exactly get a great deal with the new CBA. The owners have realized that all of the work they did to try to prevent players from making their own power moves and switching teams failed miserably.

So here we sit. Nothing has changed. Is it any surprise that these NBA players want what they want? Once you start paying somebody tens of millions of dollars, of course they feel an inflated sense of power. Every player thinks he’s worth every cent of his contact, at all times. On some level, he has to think that way to be a successful athlete.

But it’s like the owners and players forget who pays the bills. We do. And here’s the sad reality. Unless you live in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Boston, Dallas or Phoenix you have no shot at the high-end of free agency. Those are the only cities that All-Star caliber players will force their way to. Sorry, but it’s the truth. Every other city is depending on the Oklahoma City/San Antonio Spurs model. You have to absolutely kill (in a good way) the draft and you cannot ever, ever, ever make a major free agency misstep.

I was asked the other day why the Sixers shouldn’t just hoard cap room to try to chase a Dwight Howard or other high-level free agent in a year or two. They didn’t like my answer. Everybody forgets that you have to pay players an ever-increasing amount of money. Cap holds, tender offers and contract extensions can eat into your salary cap faster than you would believe. But even worse, no “star” is coming to Philly. We’re a middle-of-the-road city in economic terms, our fan base is regarded as “tough” and our management is not known to spend into the luxury tax. Not to mention that (as much as I love Philly) it will never hold the same regard as New York or Los Angeles.

We still haven’t seen an NBA bear down send a “star” who was demanding a trade to a team that he didn’t approve of. Why not? Because most GMs aren’t dumb enough to dump all of their best assets on a player who will just walk out the door in free agency anyway.

Personally, I would love to see Dwight Howard enter the free agent market next season. What would he do? All of his main choices (except the Mavericks, maybe) will be well over the salary cap. If Howard wants his max contract, he will have to take it from a team like Houston, Utah or even Atlanta.

So then how does that work? As fans, we’ve always known that 99% of the time, the players go to the team that offers the most money. Will it feel worse when we’ve already heard a player explicitly state where he wants to play before he signs with your team? It’s one think to be a bridesmaid if not a bride, but its another thing entirely to not even be invited to the wedding. Is it fair when a team pays a player over $50 million, but he’s bitter and really doesn’t want to be there. Will anybody be surprised a year later when the player starts talking bout being traded to where he originally wanted to go?

And if you think winning it all will keep players around. Look at the St. Louis Cardinals. After last year’s improbable World Series title, I was POSITIVE that Albert Pujols HAD to stay. He left, for the team offering the most money.

LeBron got everything he ever want. He won a title and he changed the NBA. But he didn’t change the NBA with his play. He changed the very way that teams are built. He forever changed the balance of power.

If we the fans don’t exercise our power, then it falls to the players. They drive the TV contacts and jersey sales. The owners need them. Maybe Jordan figured it out, but he never overtly called the owners out on it. LeBron was strong with his decision, but it didn’t hang over his last season in Cleveland like you would think. They were focused on a title.

But Carmelo and Dwight saw what LeBron did. And they want what he got. They want to play in the city of their choice, with their (very talented) buddies, make the most money possible and play for an owner that’s willing to spend an unending amount of cash in pursuit of a title.

Who WOULDN’T want that? That’s having your cake, eating it too and then having the baker PAY YOU for the pleasure of watching you devour his work.

The offer that the Nets are presenting to the Magic is (at best) the same offer they’ve had on the table for months. The Magic haven’t taken it because they can do better. Adding mid-level talent with big contacts is NOT the way to rebuild. Believe it or not, that’s actually why the original Chris Paul trade was vetoed.

Yet, apparently now the Magic are considering this offer. Which is complete horse shit. There are times when a team should try to do right by a player. Like the Suns trading Steve Nash to the Lakers. He’d been such a good solider for the team, they sent him where he wanted to go, even if it wasn’t the best deal for the Suns. Howard has no such love left for him in Orlando.

If they put him on the block, at least 25 teams will make an offer. He’s DWIGHT FUCKING HOWARD. The closest thing that we’ve seen to a Shaq 2.0. So if the Magic trade Howard to the Nets, I’m call bullshit on the whole system. The owners have to show some backbone here. Can’t you tell somebody “If I’m going to pay you $100 million, I expect you to be a picture of professionalism. After all, I’m paying you $100 million.”

Apparently, it’s against the CBA to include a “No being an Asshole” clause. Quite frankly, if the star players are going to have this attitude, I’m out on them. I’ll pull for the Thunder or the Mavericks every time. But if it’s just going to be eight “super” teams and “everybody else” why should I can if my team isn’t one of the eight? Tell me, where are these stars saying “hey man, lets go team up and play in Utah!”

Dwight Howard CAN’T play for the Nets. If he does, the NBA is officially a different place. This will spread until you have rookies trying to control who drafts them. If you want your hometown NBA team to be good, move to New York or Los Angeles.

This WILL end badly. The boy will eat his cake until he is so fat that he explodes. Eventually the small-market backlash will be too large for even the humungous TV contacts to overcome. Especially considering that current NBA rebuilding model involves being very bad for a long time. The fans of teams without star will stop watching and then stop caring.

That’s what can happen if Dwight Howard is traded to the Nets.

I’ve made some poor trade offers in my day. But they usually fell under two categories:

1. I was upset with another owner for some reason and I just felt the need to tweak him a little bit.
2. I didn’t mean to make a poor offer, but for some reason the other owner just hates what I am offering, or is loathe to give up what I ask for.

Fair enough right? But how about the owner that keeps making the same basic trade offer over, and over, and over, and over again? How about some background information?

We’re talking about a 10-team head-to-head (H2H) fantasy baseball points league with weekly lineups. This is a redraft, premium league on CBSSports.com.

In this format, pitching tends to be more important than hitting, especially when a pitcher has two starts in a week. It’s very difficult to win these leagues without using one of two pitching strategies:

1. Acquire as many elite/good/serviceable pitchers as possible.
2. Cycle as many random 2-start and “streaming” pitchers as possible.

I’m sure you can find a bit of a middle ground between the two strategies. But you have to focus on pitching. In these leagues you only start three outfielders (OF) and there are only five bench spots.

This particular team who keeps making trade offers has his bench filled with hitters. To the point that he has zero pitchers on his bench and injured pitchers in the starting lineup. His best pitcher is literally, an injured Shaun Marcum.

For the record, here are some of the hitters available on the waiver wire:

• Michael Young
• Mike Moustakas
• B.J. Upton
• Jed Lowrie
• Yoenis Cespedes
• Angel Pagan
• Paul Goldschmidt
• Will Middlebrooks
• Trevor Plouffe
• Kevin Youkilis
• Jason Kubel
• Adam LaRoche

I could go on for quite a while. In other words, there are plenty of decent hitters available. Certainly good enough hitters to use on a week-to-week match-up basis.

It would be understandable if this other owner was trying to acquire pitching. But he’s not. At least at this point. He’s trying to package two hitters for a better hitter. Not a bad idea, right?

In principle, no it’s not a bad idea. But in this format, it’s pointless. Here is who the other owner is carrying on his bench:

• Ryan Howard
• Jose Altuve
• Chase Utley
• Jimmy Rollins
• Melky Cabrera
• Desmond Jennings

That’s right, he’s going to have to cut two of these players by Monday just to make a valid lineup. He doesn’t understand that there are so many quality hitters on the waiver wire because OTHER TEAMS CUT THEM. We cut good hitters because they don’t do you any good on your bench.

He’s consistently trying to offer me trades along the lines of Altuve or Utley and on of his decent OF for Dustin Pedroia. Again, if I needed help in a deep league, that wouldn’t be a bad offer.

But in this format, it’s awful. Not only am I selling-low on Pedroia, I’m hoping Utley stays healthy and Altuve continues his good start. That’s one aspect. Then there’s the fact that I CAN’T EVEN START THE OTHER PLAYER HE IS OFFERING! In this league you only start 3 OF with 1 UTIL position. So he’s trading me a bench player. But that’s not all.

Not only do I have take on a bench player in the trade, I HAVE TO CUT SOMEBODY BETTER THAN I’M ACQUIRING! To make this trade I would have to cut Jay Bruce, Corey Hart, Josh Willingham, Freddy Freeman, Ryan Vogelsong, Tim Hudson, Jeremy Hellickson or Matt Moore. Just to add a hitter whom I can’t start every week.

Just like the NBA, trades are very rarely about the talent involved. Before you make a trade offer, pretend that you are the other team. Does that offer make any sense for both teams? Trades in fantasy leagues are all about positions for the most part. You deal from a position at which you have a surplus at talent in order to improve a position that are lacking talent at.

In shallow leagues, it almost never, ever is a good thing to be on the “2” end of a 2-for-1 trade. Of course, everybody wants to be on the “1” end. The general rule of trading is “whoever gets the best player in the deal got the best part of the deal.”

Far too often I’ve seen teams on message boards trying to drum up trade interest. They will tell you that, if you twist their arm, they will trade you that hot pitcher they just grabbed on waivers and one of their bench guys for one of your elite starters. Think like Bud Norris and Gordon Beckham for Robinson Cano. That’s an actual trade offer I got not too long ago.

Don’t be that guy. Most good trades wind up being pretty damn equal and serving all parties involved. Endless pestering your league-mates with mediocre-to-bad trade offers will just make them more likely to ignore good offers in the future.

I cut my proverbial “fantasy teeth” in free, standard leagues from the major websites (ESPN, CBS, Yahoo, etc). Those sites offered me a way to learn to play fantasy sports. Which was nice because it’s tough to get at least nine other people to set a time and draft, especially with no cash (or trophy) at stake.

That was many (more than I care to count, honestly) years ago. Now I primarily play in cash/premium leagues. I still have some long-term custom keeper/dynasty leagues that I participate in. But for the most part, its all cash leagues, mostly of the public type.

But I still try to play at least one free, public fantasy team on all of the major websites that offer fantasy sports. I find that its helpful (especially as a fantasy writer) to know more about the different providers. Their interfaces, rankings and scoring systems are very rarely the same.

Do I spend a ton of time on these free leagues? Not usually. I make sure that I have my best lineup in and I make the occasional waiver wire move. That’s just common courtesy. Or fantasy etiquette.

Usually half of the people in a free, public league are people in the situation I was once in. They enjoy fantasy sports and want to play and/or learn more. But the other half? Some of them just use the draft as a “mock draft” for one of their “real” leagues. That means they draft a team and never even glance at it again.

A few other people really get a thrill out of winning a free fantasy league against strangers. I don’t know why. They will own multiple teams, try to make shady deals and generally ruin the league.

So when I got the email pasted below, I wasn’t even surprised.

Nor was I surprised when a 10-team league was unable to accumulate enough “veto” votes to shoot this monstrosity down.

Obviously, there’s no fantasy league on the planet where this makes any sense. This is somebody combining two teams into one Miami Heat, Super Team.

Now, of course I care. It’s a matter of principle. But it’s not me who’s really getting screwed over here. It’s the other two people in this league that seem to actually care. They cared enough to veto this trade.

If this was their first experience with fantasy sports, it could turn them off forever. Or they might just think that stuff like this happens all the time and it’s cool. At the very least they might just give up on their team after this, deeming it a pointless exercise.

Me? Now I really care about this league. My only goal is to beat the asshole who so desperately wants to win this free, meaningless league. I don’t need to cheat or trade or anything else. Screw this guy.

All I ask of you is, please don’t be THAT ASSHOLE. If you’re going to draft a free, public league, commit to checking your lineup for 5 minutes once a week. That’s all. If your buddy also has a team in the league and you quit on your team, don’t dump all of your good players to him.

If you want to be a douchebag, you’re in luck. You’re reading this on the Internet, so you readily have millions of examples of douchebaggery at your fingertips. If you find yourself in a fantasy league with such a douche, call him out on his bullshit.

Am I going to keep playing free fantasy leagues? Absolutely. Will some asshole try to ruin it for everybody? Maybe. But at least I will know that it ain’t you.

Thanks for reading, you can follow me on the Twitter if you like.

Thanks to not having a lockout, fantasy football has arrived along with the summer heat. Believe it or not, early June will contribute a great deal to the final fantasy football team/product you end up with.

Early drafters will set ADP (Average Draft Position) trends that will have a great deal to do with what the final ADPs end up at. June is when you will see rankings and projections go up at just about every sports site on the Interwebs. While June is the most inactive calendar month of the NFL season, it’s when the foundation for the fantasy football season gets laid. 

Read More →

Thanks to not having a lockout, fantasy football has arrived along with the summer heat. Believe it or not, early June will contribute a great deal to the final fantasy football team/product you end up with.

Early drafters will set ADP (Average Draft Position) trends that will have a great deal to do with what the final ADPs end up at. June is when you will see rankings and projections go up at just about every sports site on the Interwebs. While June is the most inactive calendar month of the NFL season, it’s when the foundation for the fantasy football season gets laid. 

Read More →

Good stuff coming soon, exclusive to SportsSomething…..