I can't take it anymore...

I have wanted to talk about several things regarding the preseason now, but have been reluctant so as not to give anything away before the draft. Now that Taylor's gone especially, it's just too much. Here are a few things that get me excited about this season. I'd love to hear other opinions as well, keeping in mind that they are just opinions and I will try not to glean too much from them regarding your draft mindset.

First of all, as I told Steve last night, I am excited about Frank Gore's upcoming season. I would be even more excited if he was on my team. At the end of the season, assuming Steve keeps Gore and MoJo and no injuries occur, our man just might have 2 top-five RB's on his team. I think San Francisco in general will turn some heads this year, likely even competing for their division title against the former NFC Champs. I like their defense. I appreciate that Gore has his old buddy back blocking for him at fullback. And I like that they will likely lean heavily on the running game with their new OC, especially considering that their passing game is more or less shit, with or without Crabtree (who, by the way, is a moron). If you don't know the Crabtree story, he is likely sitting out this year to be redrafted in 2010 because he (and his cousin who is his agent??) thinks that he should be paid as much as Heyward-Bey since he should have been drafted before him. Insanity.

Secondly, Green Bay could have a super situation on their hands if the 3-4 defense works as well as it did against Cleveland (I know it's Cleveland, but still). The problem last year was the D, and if they can stop giving games away, I have them as the favorite to win their division with the Vikings getting a wildcard berth. Sorry Saints. Rodgers is the real deal. There's no doubt about that. I am kicking myself for trading Rodgers to Taylor, even if it was for Megatron. I think he may even have a few less points this year if the D has improved and Grant can get on track, but he will be a consistent 20+ point-per-game producer.

Brady's back, there's no doubt about that. I expect good things, but not 2007 things...not anywhere close. In fact, I think Brees and Rodgers are both better options this year. No knock against Tom, but his team's getting old, and his O-line is not as dominant as they once were. We know from the Giants/Pats superbowl that getting pressure on Tom will cause some problems, and is about the only thing that can stifle this offense. Unfortunately for him, the pressure will be a little easier to come by this year.

An interesting situation is brewing in Houston at the RB position. Assuming Brown stays healthy, could we be in for a RBBC with Slaton and Brown and a 60/40 or 70/30 split with Brown handling short-yardage and goal-line work? It might just happen. Or Brown might go down in the preseason again.

How about Chris Wells? What is up with this guy? Two months ago, I felt like he was a steal in the 5th round. Today, I wouldn't touch him for fear of hurting the guy some more.

And then there's Knowshon who comes out and performs well and then sprains his MCL.

Finally, there's the situation in Buffalo. The only thing I know for sure about that situation is that I am liking the no-huddle. On a team with a more solid QB situation, I would steer clear, but it seems to be working for these guys. Cleveland is supposedly toying with the idea, and it wouldn't be a bad one for them either (although almost anything couldn't be that much worse than what they have going now). Some other teams I would like to see use this approach are Miami and Chicago, both because of their speedsters in Ginn and Hester.

The Tenth is in Place

Gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that Everett has accepted the invitation to join our league and complete the dectet of teams vying for fantasy supremacy. Everett is a newly-wed and will be bringing his boyish good looks, piercing blue eyes, luscious mat of leg hair, and his will to dominate to Gentlemen’s Game II. Please welcome our newest league-mate, and breathe a sigh of relief knowing that a viable tenth team has entered the fray.

For those who need to know more about Everett, he’s an Aries, an electrical engineer/attorney, and he witnessed the drunkest night of my life. He enjoys red wine but hates being sucker punched. He is married to the lovely Ashley, which means five members of the league have a significant other whose first name starts with “A.” But far be it for me to ruin the wonderful surprises that will enchant us in our journey to acquaint ourselves with Everett the fantasy football manager.

School Post #1

I found out that I can blog from school just now...which is bad news for my students, and my professional career. However, I have still cannot look at Rotowire or Yahoo fantasy rankings, so I am in the dark as far as who is hurt or benefits from a change.

I will be perfectly honest and say the suggestion is warranted, because the rankings haven't changed. But it bothers me at the same time. I don't like that as a league, myself included, we have developed a track record of suggesting changes to our format at very poor times. I know you all may not believe this from my history as an owner, but I have put time and effort into research and mock drafts under the assumption that we were going by Yahoo player rankings. I don't know how drastic a change would be made in going to another system, but I am assuming based on the arguments made, that it might put a few people in a tougher spot. I agree that we should go by a ranking system that is accurate....but who is to say which rankings are the most accurate. Just because changes to the rankings have occured on other sites, the season has not started. It is still all projection at this point. I understand that the stock of some players is rising and for others it is falling based on a couple of injuries. However, if you have a player that is not where you think they should be...too high or too low, you still have the choice of whether or not to keep that player. If Slaton is too low...TP should keep him. If Manning is too high...Ben shouldn't. We all value players differently, and different publications do the same. Thus, I'm not sure how we find the "most accurate" ranking system.

My suggestions:
1) End the keeper league now. I don't know that its worth the trouble.
2) Take yahoo, espn, rotwire, nfl.com, and some other joe bloe fantasy rankings and find the avg ranking of each player, then use that as our system. (Its a lot of work, but we all have plenty of time right?)

I have heard a number of comments about Brady's stock. However, only Ben has shown any interest in making a trade for him. If anyone is concerned with where he is listed on Yahoo and believes its not accurate with how well he is going to do...make an offer for him. Thats why I tried to establish weeks ago, which rankings would be used. These are just some thoughts.

Player rankings

I propose that we go by the Yahoo Average Draft Position as the ranking of merit. This is obviously the most fair ranking. http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/372433/draftanalysis

The reason is: this is actually based on reality. It's obvious that the Yahoo player ranker hasn't changed since July, and that is not what we were led to believe when we decided to use it as our guide. I, for one, was expecting Tom Brady's ranking to rise if he looked good in the offseason and preseason. He has, and his ADP has risen accordingly, but his ranking is the same as it was when we first joined the league.

Since it is a 10-team league, we should just go in the order of the player's draft position amongst all of the mock drafts. The 1st round talent would look like this:

1. Adrian Peterson
2. Michael Turner
3. Maurice Jone-Drew
4. Matt Forte
5. Brian Westbrook
6. Deangelo Williams
7. Larry Fitzgerald
8. LaDanian Tomlinson
9. Steven Jackson
10. Drew Brees

2nd Round
11. Frank Gore
12. Brandon Jacobs
13. Chris Johnson
14. Randy Moss
15. Tom Brady
16. Andre Johnson
17. Peyton Manning
18. Clinton Portis
19. Steve Slaton
20. Steve Smith

This at least closely mirrors the Yahoo rankings, but has actually changed to reflect a player's promise.

Another thing...

Yahoo is NOT changing their rankings, yet their fantasy projections are changing. In fact, AP's projection increased almost 20 fantasy points with the signing of Favre earlier today. Something is seriously flawed here. Let me just point out a few non-sequitors:

1) Westbrook is ranked as the #5 player, but is projected to accumulate only 209 fantasy points, which is less than Clinton Portis at #13.
2) Tom Brady is projected at 334 fantasy points, well higher than Manning and even Brees, yet he is ranked worse than both of them.

There are quite a few more, but I don't feel the need to list them all here to make my point. I don't know what to do about this necessarily, but I don't think this list is the appropriate one to be using as our metric, especially since we were all under the impression that it would change during the offseason/preseason as things developed.

Lost in the mix

One point that was lost in Taylor's previous article regarding Bebo is the fact that he proposed the keeper announcement be this Saturday at midnight. I am in favor of this, but no one has said anything. I will defer to the commish to make it official, but I wanted to renew this topic as it warrants immediate attention given the approaching deadline.

Rankings

I wonder what someone would have to do to actually move on the yahoo projections board. As far as I can tell, the damn thing is immutable. I don't think a single player has changed spots on that board since I started looking at it over a month ago.