I wanted to start out with something to say… well nothing really to say. I guess I’ll just talk about the weather. It’s been good. I’ve been scootering to work. I’m thinking about taking the Prius though since it seems almost every day I have a near death experience. Crazy people on the road.
Football is gearing up. I’ll be posting my picks of who will go to the playoffs in a few weeks. I can’t wait. However it’ll be sad to see Sundays go to nothing but football… Same every year. I say this sucks since that’s one of two free days we get a week… Then football ends and we’re like “What will we do with our Sundays?”. It’s kinda crappy that football will be on Thursday nights as well. We’ll have to get our fantasy line up for the next week in two days.
Bill Maher is also coming back. Just in time too for the craziness that is the 2012 elections.
Anyway since this blog post is lame, I’ll gear up for a new one soon.
I’ve been doing fantasy football for the past two years now. I did one league last year. This year, I had three leagues.
I have to say NFL.com has the best fantasy football I’ve seen. Its interface is very easy to understand and does a great job of doing head-to-head matchup analysis. However, their estimations aren’t as accurate. Their predictions update throughout the game, which is really nice.
Yahoo has a good one as well. Though, the estimations don’t update throughout the game. There’s also not a graph like NFL has. But they do a good job. The interface as a commissioner is kind of confusing.
ESPN is the worst. It does head-to-head matchup but it’s hard to find. Their point system counts in whole numbers (at least the league I was in), which doesn’t make any sense. The interface is hard to follow. It’s just generally hard to find what you’re looking for.
Anyway, I wanted to blog about some of the things I’ve learned from fantasy football over these past two years:
- It may be worth NOT downloading the apps for your phone. It might be worth for you to use the online interfaces for your league. I say this because the apps make it really easy to make last minute changes. I did that a lot last year. Since the app was right there and it was so easy, I switched them last minute and it turns out the player I benched did better than the player I put in.
- Don’t listen to blogs as much. Do your own research but don’t get too carried away with it. A lot of the time the blogs are wrong. Your best bet is always to guess. Fantasy is about gambling on which player you think will do well. I benched Cruz for Moss since a blog said the Vikings had a bad secondary thinking Moss is going to have an awesome game. Cruz got 25 points where Moss had 8.
- Running backs, running backs, running backs (most of the time). Though if you’re in a PPR (points per reception league), wide receivers.
- Be weary about last minute “reports” on players. They may have a “Q” or “P” right next to their names, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to have an awesome game. Make sure you know the player isn’t going that Sunday before you bench them.
- Don’t put up players who have huge projections. Take the projections with a grain of salt. If a top running back is out and his backup is only projected to get 3 points, put in the backup. Where are they getting those numbers?
Fantasy is just a game of luck. And most of it’s dumb luck.
I’ve had a blast these last two years with fantasy and I can’t wait for next year. And by the way, go RAVENS!
Last week in the NFL there were quite a few hard hits that knocked some players out. This week the league has decided they will start suspending players for these “dangerous hits”. As if the “Brady Rule” wasn’t enough, there will probably be more rules and regulations on how to tackle a guy who has the ball (that the refs can flag at their own discretion no doubt). It seems the league and Roger Goodell is determined to try for that 18 game season.
Let me just say that I find this totally disgusting. One of the reasons we watch football is to see good, hard hits. Most of the hits I saw in replays I thought were clean.
Take the one on DeSean Jackson. He WAS NOT a defenseless receiver. He had already caught the ball, made a football move, and got wacked. It wasn’t a dirty hit. The defensive player (Dunta Robinson) didn’t lead with his helmet. He slammed against Jackson causing Jackson and him to both go to the ground. It should have been a fumble since Jackson lost the ball. Both players suffered concussions.
I ask, what are these defensive players supposed to do? Slow down so the player with the ball can run right by them? It’s their job to tackle. How are they supposed to do it running at full speed without causing a collision?
It’s the game of football but lately it seems the league wants to make this flag football. With more and more of these stupid rules going into effect, that’s what it will turn out to be. Football is physical. If players didn’t want to risk injury, they shouldn’t play. They should fall back on their communications degrees. It’ll be sad to see all the players that will be suspended for hits refs can easily claim to be “dirty”. With that power, refs can have even more influence over games and scores.
And answer me this, how can a league who has an intro of a helmet to helmet collision (a rule which has been illegal for a while)Â keep instilling rules and regulations on players who’s job it is to be physical?