Tonight is the official kickoff of the NFL season and that means it is also the start of fantasy football. I had my draft a day later than scheduled thanks to the Yahoo servers crashing. But I think that was a good thing because I was so out of it due to the massive amounts of (legal) drugs I was on. I was so loopy that I actually put a post-it note on my monitor reminding me not to draft Michael Vick. And despite picking eighth (out of ten) I think I came out with a decent draft. There was only one round where someone took who I was eyeing before I had the chance (I had to settle for Kitna when someone nabbed Donavan McNabb right before me). In fact I was so confident with my draft I even have Brady Quinn a pity draft with my last pick. Here is this year’s roster for Landry’s Revenge:
Usually this is where I give my Super Bowl prediction but during last years post I mentioned that football is the hardest of all the sports to predict. Oh, and do you know what else I said last year: Colts over Bears. Yeah, that worked out well for me, so let’s see if I can make it two years in a row.
AFC East: New York Jets North: Cincinnati Bangles South: Indianapolis Colts West: San Diego Chargers Wild Card: New England Patriots, Pittsburg Steelers
NFC East: Philadelphia Eagles North: Chicago Bears South: New Orleans Saints West: Seattle Seahawks Wild Card: Dallas Cowboys, Minnesota Vikings
AFC Championship: Colts over Patriots NFC Championship: Eagles over Saints Super Bowl: Colts over Eagles
Before I wax poetic about the Super Bowl match up, I would like all of you to check out this post: Are You Ready for Some Football 2006 and scroll down to bottom. Okay for those who are too lazy, the post from back in September I predicted a Colts vs. Bears Super Bowl. So suck it Line Junkie and everyone else who laughed at me for picking Chicago or told me Peyton Manning couldn’t win the big game, which is one of the worst sports superlatives; it’s not that someone can’t win a big game, it is just someone else beat them. But enough of the gloating.
Of course now we have to wait eight weeks until they actually play the championship game, wait, what’s that? It is only college football that waits two months after the regular season to play the championship game. Sorry. Granted two weeks it kind of a wait in itself especially considering I’ll stop caring about the game by Thursday at the latest and will be anticipating the commercials more than the game. Although my interest may be extended a couple days if the Chicago Bears remake the Super Bowl Shuffle. Seriously, who doesn’t want to see Rex Grossman don a headband and try rapping? And really no one could be worse than The Fridge (of course the video is on YouTube, scroll down to the bottom of the post to see it). And is it basically a lock to see George Wendt on Saturday Night Live in two weeks? So before I stop caring, here’s my pick, and since I had them in the preseason, I’ll stay with Indianapolis 27-12 over Chicago.
However the close the game is, and they rarely are, the game can’t be as close as the championship game for my fantasy football league where I lost by half a point. What only added to the agony was that vaunted Cincinnati wide receiver Chad Johnson netted me negative one fantasy points in the finale. So had I just sat him and had and empty slot at the position I would be champion.
Despite rarely ever watching the sport lately, I still participate in the fantasy version. Like much of my drafts lately, I got yet another late draft position drafting here eleventh out of twelve. But that only makes it sweeter when I win. Now here is the roster for Ehlo’s Revenge:
Yeah I didn’t draft enough centers, but there are only about five quality centers in the league, so getting centers were not high on my priority list. But I did work out a trade after the draft to send Granger to another team for Nendad Krstic who I was looking into drafting with my pick after Granger before other team poached him. But in the end I’ll be trading a bench player for a starter which is always a good thing.
I inadvertently went young this year with only one player with more than five years of service as well as four rookies, two of which I have starting so hopefully they all live up to the hype because this will be a really good or really bad season for me. And even though I haven’t watched and NBA game in two years, I still going to give my picks for the year:
Atlantic Division: New Jersey Nets Central Division: Chicago Bulls Southeast Division: Miami Heat Southwest Division: San Antonio Spurs Northwest Division: Denver Nuggets Pacific Division: Phoenix Suns Eastern Conference Championship: Heat over Bulls Western Conference Championship: Spurs over Suns NBA Championship: Spurs over Heat
Night is the kick-off of the 2006 NFL season so you know what that means; it’s the return of fantasy football. Being a degenerate gambler, you know I have my team; well actually I have two, but the second one was an auto-pick league and I picked eighteenth out of eighteen with the computer wasting my first two picks on wide receivers. Yeah, I don’t think I have much of a change. As for my other team, the aptly titled Scooter McGavin, here’s is the breakdown o my team:
Even though I also drafted late in this draft, eighth out of ten, I should have a chance as my bench has a potential of having breakout season which could make great trade break to beef up my soft running back tandem (cheesy pun intended). As for actual football, it seems that it gets harder year from year to pick the winner. Aside from the natural parity from the salary cap, it also comes down to how has the least amount of injuries at the end of the season. But here’s my picks for the playoff and feel free to come back and mock me in January:
AFC East: New England North: Pittsburg South: Indianapolis West: Chargers Wild Card: Miami, Kansas City
Programming note: for those tuning in for my world famous Toss Up between Lost and Veronica Mars, it has been postponed because Veronica Mars was once again preempted by a Cavs game. Check back later this week (most likely Sunday) for that.
It’s the beginning of April so that means only one thing, baseball season has begun and more importantly so has fantasy baseball. I recently participated in two separate drafts, one for all of baseball and an NL Only league here is the former stands up with Jobu’s Revenge in The California Penal League:
Now Jobu’s Revenge looks pretty strong but might need another arm to take the championship, but Bond’s Giant Head will need some work. When you start off the season with three pitchers on the DL which is never a good thing. The bench is really weak, but that is to be expected in an NL only league, but I will have to do some shuffling because bench players are much more valuable if they can play multiple positions.
Now my official post season predictions:
AL East - Yankees AL Central - White Sox AL West - A’s AL Wild Card - Angels
NL East - Mets NL Central - Cardinals NL West - Padres NL Wild Card - Astros*
AL Championship: Yankees over White Sox NL Championship: Astros over Cardinals World Series: Astros over Yankees in 6
*Since baseballs will be seeing plenty of them in the future, I figure I’d get them use them. My asterisk is predicated on Roger Clemens coming back by June. If he ends up retiring, then put the Braves in the wild card and Cards beating the Yankees for the title.
We are almost a week away from opening day so that means it's time for fantasy baseball time and I'm here to help you out with your draft. So keep in mind these rules in mind when ranking the available players.
Rule #1 - The Hellboy Rule - Or the avoid people with big heads rule. With the new steroid testing put into affect, it would not be wise to draft anyone, who in previous season, were drafted based on their power. Their numbers will decrease (or will be suspended). Look what happened to Giambi when he went of the Clear. So I would avoid every one caught up in the recent scandal. The only exceptions to this rule would be Jason Giambi who somwhow recovered last year after everything that went down and Pudge Rodriquez. All catchers put up low numbers anyways so it’s a coin flip on them anyways.
Rule #2 - The Ron Artest Rule - Do not draft anyone who could possibly be suspended for the entire season. Unfortunately I did not abide by this rule during my fantasy baseball draft. That was waste of a third round pick. The baseball equivalent of Artest would be Milton Bradley. Granted Bud Selig doesn't have the grapefruits of David Stern so killing a fan might only some one only a half season suspension, but that is still a lot of games to be missing.
Rule #3 - Don't Follow Trends - It happens every year, some one takes a catcher early, then the next ten picks end up being catchers. There are only three quality catchers (Lopez, Posada, and Varitek), so if you don't get one of them, wait until the later round and pick whatever is left. No catcher can make much of an impact plus they take a lot of days off. On the opposite side of the spectrum, make sure you get a good closer before they run out. Last year I had to trade some offence to get a closer because I waited too long to draft a quality reliever.
Rule #4 - The Ken Griffey Jr. Rule - Do not draft a player who is injury prone. Yet every year some one inevitably drafts Griffey saying he will be healthy and return to his Seattle days type dominance. Sometimes it goes well, but the May, Griffey will come up limp running down to first, and the team who picked him will be unmercifully mocked for the rest of the season.
Rule #5 - Draft Multi-Position Players - This will give you more options if you experience injuries or you can plug more players that are on your bench when some of your other players have off-days. This is especially handy if they are eligible at catcher but is an everyday player somewhere else. Unfortunatly the games best multi-position players, Beltran, Pujols, and A-Rod have lost eligbility and are down to one position each.
For those interested in getting beat like a red-headed stepchild by me playing with me in an NL-only fantasy league, drop me an e-mail (ScooterKSU@aol.com) if you want to join. We will be having a live draft Tuesday, March 28th at 9:00 EST.
As for the weekly Toss-Up between Lost and Veronica Mars that usually appears on Thursday, I still haven't seen this week's VM due to the Cavs game last night. I will have that up as soon as I see it, which will be no later than Sunday. For your Veronica Mars fix until then check out the other Bloggers who got an on the site visit in my sidebar especially Ducky who created the greatest t-shirt since "LeBron's Mom Gave Me a Hummer." And even though I didn't post a picture from the set today, you definately want to check out the latest post on my sister site, Scooter McGavin Takes Pictures. I'm sure Dick would approve of it.
The kickoff to the football season is tonight, and that also means the start of fantasy. The first couple weeks of fantasy football are always tough because they coincide with the start of the playoffs for fantasy baseball. As we go into the playoffs, I have one team sitting on top with my two other teams sitting in third place. Luckily fantasy baseball will be over by the time fantasy hockey rolls around (contact me if you are interested in joining my league). But as for football, I had a draft last night and here’s who will be lacing up for Boom Pow Surprise:
Michael Vick (Atl - QB) Andre Johnson (Hou - WR) Eric Moulds (Buf - WR) Brandon Stokley (Ind - WR) Shaun Alexander (Sea - RB) Tatum Bell (Den - RB) Steve Heiden (Cle - TE) Paul Edinger (Min - K) Atlanta Falcons (DEF)
Aaron Brooks (NO - QB) Kerry Collins (Oak - QB) Ricky Williams (Mia - RB) L.J. Smith (Phi - TE) Amani Toomer (NYG - WR) Phil Dawson (Cle - K) Chicago Bears (DEF)
This should be a solid team with three quality QB’s, a top tier RB and another who should benefit from the Broncos system. But what could put me over the top is the 11th round pick up of Ricky Williams. Hopefully Cedric Benson will be a bust during Ricky’s four game suspension and Ricky can return to being the Ricky of old, well, but without the weed.
And like the last few seasons, the kickoff of the football season is being accompanied with a concert. For some reason the NFL felt obligated to let a press release out saying that Kanye West would not be kicked off the bill. Thanks for the memo NFL. Since when does not doing anything warrant a pres release? Of course this stems from Kanye’s comments at last weeks hurricane relief concert on NBC. But there was no way the NFL could boot the only black performer for making an anti-Bush comment when other performers include Green Day, who’s last album, American Idiot, takes shots at the Bush administration, and the Rolling Stone, who recently called Bush a piece of, um, human excrement, on their recent song, Sweet Neo-Con (scroll down to read how much I hate this song). So the NFL were in a no win situation. I’ll be interested in seeing what song Kanye chooses to perform tonight considering Maroon 5 are also on the bill. Keep in mind that on a Kanye’s latest album, he did a duet with the lead singer from Maroon 5 on the song Heard ‘Em Say in which Kanye raps, “And I know the government administered AIDS.”
Oh yeah, and there is a football game tonight too, which happens to be Randy Moss’ debut with the Oakland Raiders playing against the defending Super Bowl Champs, the New England Patriots. With all these tangibles, I wonder how Vegas put the odds on who will make the water cooler moment tomorrow. I think I'll put my money on Randy. As for my predictions for the season, here are mine:
AFC East: Jets AFC North: Steelers AFC South: Colts AFC West: Chargers AFC Wildcard: Titans, Chiefs NFC East: Eagles NFC North: Green Bay AFC South: Falcons NFC West: Seahawks NFC Wildcard: Panthers, Cowboys
AFC title Game: Colts over the Jets NFC Title Game: Falcons over the Panthers
I had yet another draft last night this time in the Bash Brothers league. I got an even worse draft slot being the last out of ten. But on the bright side, both Soriano and Santana (not Carlos) slipped down for me to snap up with the 10th and 11th picks with B. Abreu, I. Rodríguez, M. Ramírez, and S. Rolen going before me. Also during the draft I was able to steal another team's 2nd pick (Helton) for my 4th (Blalock). We both got conditional late round picks. Only time will tell who got the better side of this deal, but on paper, I seem to be making out. I'm also looking to sure up the bullpen with trade to get J. Affeldt and unload a questionable Wright. He is this year’s roster for Bond's Giant Head:
Last night was the draft for my head to head fantasy baseball league, the California Penal League. Unfortunately I had a late draft pick, 9th, but that will just make have to work harder for my championship. My main problem right now is that not one of my batters hit over .300 last season. I think I was too busy making sure I didn't fall short in steals or saves like I did last year. So without further ado, here's the roster for Jobu's Revenge:
Obviously Smoltz will be moved to the SP after he gets some starts under his belt as he's only available as a reliever right now. Hopefully I can find a midseason gem (I did snag D. Willis two seasons ago) because my bench looks a little weak right now.
OK so my NCAA bracket rules didn't work very well this year, but I'm back again to try to help out you fantasy baseball draft. Keep in mind these rules in mind when ranking the available players.
Rule #1 - The Hellboy Rule - Or the avoid people with big heads rule. With the new steroid testing put into affect, it would not be wise to draft anyone, who in previous season, were drafted based on their power. Their numbers will decrease (or will be suspended). Look what happened to Giambi when he went of the Clear. So I would avoid every one caught up in the recent scandal. The only exception to this rule would be Pudge Rodriquez. All catchers put up low numbers anyways so it’s a coin flip on them anyways.
Rule #2 - The Ron Artest Rule - Do not draft anyone who could possibly be suspended for the entire season. Unfortunately I did not abide by this rule during my fantasy baseball draft. That was waste of a third round pick. The baseball equivalent of Artest would be Milton Bradley. Granted Bud Selig doesn't have the grapefruits of David Stern so killing a fan might only some one only a half season suspension, but that is still a lot of games to be missing.
Rule #3 - Don't Follow Trends - It happens every year, some one takes a catcher early, then the next ten picks end up being catchers. There are only three quality catchers (Lopez, Posada, and Varitek), so if you don't get one of them, wait until the later round and pick whatever is left. No catcher can make much of an impact plus they take a lot of days off. On the opposite side of the spectrum, make sure you get a good closer before they run out. Last year I had to trade some offence to get a closer because I waited too long to draft a quality reliever.
Rule #4 - The Ken Griffey Jr. Rule - Do not draft a player who is injury prone. Yet every year some one inevitably drafts Griffey saying he will be healthy and return to his Seattle day type dominance. Sometimes it goes well, but the May, Griffey will come up limp running down to first, and the team who picked him will be unmercifully mocked for the rest of the season.
Rule #5 - Draft Multi-Position Players - This will give you more options if you experience injuries or you can plug more players that are on your bench when some of your other players have off-days. This is especially handy if they are eligible at catcher but is an everyday player somewhere else. Unfortunatly the games best multi-position players, Beltran, Pujols, and A-Rod have lost eligbility and are down to one position each.
