NFL

I realize that posting on the Cardinals - Eagles game isn’t super timely, but I’m not out to recap the action; the Cardinals won, 32-25, and they’re moving on to the Super Bowl. In the aftermath of the game, I heard a lot of commentators (particularly over at KJR 950, sports radio in Seattle) that the Eagles failed to blitz Warner until the second half, when they applied plenty of pressure, but by then it was too late. I was surprised to hear this, particularly since I watched the game on the DVR and thus skipped past a lot of chatter. I watched all the snaps, essentially one after another with very little interruption, and what struck me at the time was that the Eagles were playing incredibly aggressive football but the Cardinals simply overcame it. On several plays, for example, Warner released the ball within, oh, call it 1 second after receving the snap. Quick plays that might “only” yield 5 or 6 yards, but when a pressure defense is hoping for an incompletion or sack and instead they’re now facing second and 4, that’s an incredible swing. Edgerrin James had several big runs, particularly in the first half, when the line didn’t so much open holes as they allowed the Eagles rushers to over-pursue the QB, leaving space for James to get into the secondary.

Mostly, though, Kurt Warner was simply a very accurate, patient quarterback on Sunday who made good decisions while, at the same time, the Eagles secondary players were performing at par level. They weren’t particularly screwing up nor were they embarassing themselves, but Warner was performing at a very high level, his receivers were performing their jobs well, and by and large the Eagles didn’t execute as well. This is quite different, though, from the Eagles failing to execute their game plan, or making dumb decisions. Pressuring the quarterback is smart against a team that passes a lot, but when two sets of 11 very talented men perform against one another, you can do a good job and still not succeed sometimes.

This post at SeaTown Sports got me thinking. Do the Seahawks want to win any games at this point? (A later post on the same blog asks the same question.) From a statistical standpoint, the Seahawks have nothing to gain from winning games. First, it lowers their draft position. “But high 1st round picks can be a albatross!” you say? Ok, but your draft position is the same in all 7 rounds. Players get snaked out from under you in the third round as much as they do in the first. Also, 2 of the 16 games each year are scheduled based on the previous year’s performance - the worse you did, the weaker (at least, historically) your competition the next year. That’s “only” two games, but you can also call that 12.5% of your schedule - 20 games in baseball and 10 in basketball, for comparision. That first post I linked to takes solace in the fact that the Seahawks are now guaranteed not to be in last place in the division; does third or fourth make a difference? I doubt it. Winning your division is important because you get a playoff spot. Coming in 2nd/3rd/4th doesn’t bear on anything at all.

And so it ends.

I lost this week and it wasn’t close: 117-99, an 18 point victory that means he could’ve not played his quarterback (Aaron Rodgers) and still beat me by a point. The irony? Every single move that I made was a good one! Check it:

• Peyton Manning outscored Jay Cutler, 18-10.
• Vincent Jackson outscored the receiver he replaced, Amani Toomer, 12(!)-3.
• My running backs: Jones-Drew (played) - 18, Williams (played) 14, Tomlinson (sat) - 12, Jacobs (out injured) - 0.
• Pittsburgh DEF over Chicago - 10-5.
• I even made a good last minute call - Jason Elam was reported to have a gimpy leg so I dropped him for Rob Bironas of Tennessee. Bironas 14(!!), Elam 7.

So given all of that, how could I lose? Easy, in two parts. First, my opponent was a beast, led by Michael Turner’s 24. He sat an injured Marion Barber for Stephen Jackson (how’s that for depth), who went for 18. Randy Moss for 18. Baltimore’s defense for 11. The only player who could be said to really under-perform for him was Brandon Marshall with 4.

Meanwhile, my Roddy White went for 6, Terrell Owens added 3, and Jason Whitten chipped in 4. Not absolutely atrocious (well, Owens for 3 was sad) but typically not enough to sink me. This, of course, is why my opponent was the #1 seed this year.

So there you have it, my first year of Fantasy Football. I really learned a lot. The few moves I made supported by a lot of research were either good or neutral; anything intuitive killed me. I drafted far too many players that were a year or two past their prime, hoping they’d continue to stay healthy. One of those, maybe two, can be ok, but I lived and died by the injury report, more than others in the league. And, I learned that fantasy football is a lot of fun. I’ll be back; thanks for reading!

Yeeeeaaah, so I have a lot of catching up to do, so let’s get to it.

• Prior to week 8, I had offered up a couple of trade that would have upgraded a couple of my opponents but would have upgraded me even more over the multiple trades; in other words, I make 2 opponents ~5 points better, but over the deals make myself ~10 points better. Alas, neither of them took me up on the offers, so I worked the free agent list a bit. In the end, though, I merely started Brett Favre over Peyton Manning, which was a 5-point mistake on my part. Fortunately Santana Moss, Roddy White, and LaDanian Tomlinson all went over 20, leading to a 9-point win over the doormat of the leauge; final score 111-102. Sad, but true.
• Week 9 saw me meddle around some more, sending Favre packing again (just can’t trust him) and picking up Maurice Jones-Drew. In hindsight that might seem prophetic, but he actually han’t busted out just yet. On the other hand, I had to soak up LT’s bye week so he was better than nothing. Once again, however, I failed at picking my QB, as Cutler scored 18 while Manning left his 24 on the bench. This week’s match-up pitted me against an opponent, however, whose team completely failed to show up, and I actually had a comfortable 81-70 win. From 2-5 to 4-5, maybe things aren’t so bad, right?
• Wrong. Week 10 faced me up against the league’s best team, and he proved it with an easy 99-86 mash. It figures, even when I pick a 27-point QB I manage to leave Cutler’s 35 on the bench. I had also dropped Maurice Jones-Drew that week, when he then proceeded to trash the Lions for 27. Add in two receivers who combined for 1 point, and, well, yeah - I lost. One interesting personnel note: Jason Witten was dropped, thanks to poor Cowboys quarterbacking and a team owner’s need to tinker with a few bye weeks. Frankly, a tight end on a bye is no worse than Anthony Fasano, who I’ve been starting the entire season. I scoop him up for the future. At any rate, my record is 4-6 and things are looking grim.

I’m catching up with this, any anyway I got creamed. 63 points in a league where about half the teams cross the century mark each week - yep, ker smackers. What happened?

Nothing happened, that’s what. Barring a bye or two I was starting what should be a 1st string team:

• QB - Peyton Manning
• WR - Plaxico Burress
• WR - Santana Moss
• WR - Marvin Harrison
• RB - LaDanian Tomlinson
• RB - Brandon Jacobs
• TE - Anthony Fasano
• K - Nate Kaeding
• DEF -Tampa Bay

Really, Peyton Manning? Really, Marvin Harrison? I lost by more than you would’ve covered, so thanks for that. :p Yes, the Ceiling Cats are down to 2-4, getting pasted 108-91. Let’s take a look, shall we?

I’m going to stop trying to be clever, because clearly I’m not very good at it. At least, so far I’ve been terrible. This week’s mayhem? Sensing a tough game with the Ravens, I benched the ’til-now inconsistent Peyton Manning and the all-season weak Marvin Harrison in favor of Jay Cutler and Santana Moss. Marshawn Lynch had a bye, so he was out as well, but I’ve actually felt ok about Brandon Jacobs, and I’ve got to resign myself to the fact that LaDanian Tomlinson is whut brung me, so I gotta dance wit’ ‘im. That makes the lineup for this week:

• QB - Jay Cutler
• WR - Terrell Owens
• WR - Santana Moss
• WR - Roddy White
• RB - LaDanian Tomlinson
• RB - Brandon Jacobs
• TE - Anthony Fasano
• K - Nate Kaeding
• DEF - Philadelphia

Peyton was back to form.

Let me paint a picture for you. Yahoo! projected that this week’s game would be a 96-96 tie. Yes, the projections are often wrong, but there’s a consistency in the wrongness that you start to get a feel for after awhile. So no, it wasn’t going to be 96-96, but a pretty high-scoring affair seemed to be in order given the small league with teams full of stars. So, would me losing 69-54 surprise you? Let’s recap, shall we?

Moves during the week were minimal. I finally gave up on Kellen Winslow, if for no other reason than the QB throwing to him has been so inconsistent. I don’t know a thing about Anthony Fasano of Miami, but he was the highest-scoring tight end in free agency, so I picked him up. My opponent, The Ghost of Bill Mundy (inside joke at my company), grew worried about Aaron Rogers’ injury and replaced his backup, Ben Roethlisberger, with Trent Edwards of Buffalo. I had a feeling that Peyton Manning was going to get healthy against the Texans, as would Marvin Harrison, so into the line-up they went. And so the stage was set. My team:

• QB - Peyton Manning
• WR - Terrell Owens
• WR - Santana Moss
• WR - Marvin Harrison
• RB - Marshawn Lynch
• RB - LaDanian Tomlinson
• TE - Anthony Fasano
• K - Nate Kaeding
• DEF - Philadelphia

Streak!

Marshawn Lynch

After squeaking out a win by a single point last week, this week’s version of Ceiling Cats was high score in the league, beating my opponent by a comfortable margin. As I’m learning more and more each week, a lot of it was luck. For example, Santana Moss and Terrell Owens both had bit point hauls in the Washington-Dallas battler and I had both of them. 35 points out of my 3 receivers is a pretty darned good day.

Before the week, I had to do some shuffling as I had several byes to contend with. Peyton’s bye was no biggie since Cutler has been playing lights out this year, but Plaxico Burress and Brandon Jacobs had been doing well for me. The RB issue wasn’t so big since, after all, I had the #1 frickin’ pick of the league riding my pine - it was time for LaDanian Tomlinson to shoulder his load. The receiver issue was trickier since Marvin Harrison was on a bye, too. I decided to ditch Santonio Holmes of Pittsburgh, since he hadn’t been fit to start all year, and picked the inconsistent Roddy White back up, again.

Success!

Finally, a couple of moves that I made paid off. I dropped Cleveland’s Derek Anderson from my bench and picked up Jay Cutler (I know, obvious in retrospect but at the time it was mildly risky). I sat my #1 QB, Peyton Manning, figuring Indy’s weak line play was going to continue. Not that it mattered this week, but Marvin Harrison became available on the waiver wire and, as a sucky team, I had an early crack at him. I dropped Roddy White and picked Harrison up, although he rides the bench for now until he gets well.

In any event, I went into the week with the following team:

• QB - Jay Cutler
• WR - Terrell Owens
• WR - Plaxico Burress
• WR - Santana Moss
• RB - Brandon Jacobs
• RB - Marshawn Lynch
• TE - Kellen Winslow
• K - Nate Kaeding
• DEF - New England