You Can Do Better. Really.

If you play fantasy sports, chances are you use a Website. You know, unless you enjoy crunching stats on a calculator every Tuesday morning to figure out if you beat your neighbor.

Every site has its own unique characteristics. And every Website you'll encounter (including this one) is made by human beings, who carry all the same frailties as every other human being.

But sometimes the frailties are more noticeable than others.

The people who bring you the People's Pigskin are involved in another league with some of the people from the 9beersfantasysportstavern site. For the second year in a row, this league is using FoxSports.com as its host. This is because we were promised the site had improved since last year, when it was abysmal.

One of the features of this site is a "Best Available" page. Let's say you need to make a quick roster switch, because somebody was injured or suspended or just isn't living up to his new contract. This page is supposed to show you the three best players available at any particular position.

Please note the use of the word "supposed."

As of Thursday, September 29, the three running backs listed as "Best Available" on this site were Ryan Torain, Ronnie Brown and, holding the number 1 spot on this list, Jamaal Charles. That's right, the Jamaal Charles who's out for the season.

Want a wide receiver? The three receivers listed as "Best Available" on this site were Mike Williams (Seattle Seahawks version), Austin Collie and, again, holding the number 1 spot on this list, Kenny Britt. That's right, the Kenny Britt who limped off fantasy football rosters across the country this past Sunday.

How about a quarterback? One would expect the free agent pickings to be slim, since every decent fantasy player keeps at least two QBs on the roster. But on this site, the three "Best Available" ones are Tim Tebow, Kerry Collins and, though he doesn't sit at number 1, David Garrard. Yes, you guessed it. The David Garrard who was fired right before opening day.

It's safe to say there are still a few bugs.

Remember to vote for the lineup polls. The NASCAR ones close Friday night. The football ones close Saturday night. Thanks.

Your Vacation Is Officially Over

A generation ago, even the most diehard football fans wouldn't have dared to think that the National Football League could form its own television channel and keep people tuned to it 12 months a year. But these days, you might feel cheated when this channel interrupts its live updates to bring you a Super Bowl rerun.
That's the way sports are these days, especially if you're a fantasy player. When the NFL had its lockout, all we wanted to know was when it was going to end. Now that the lockout and preseason are over, we want to know who's going to play. If you have a fantasy football team, you better not think you can ignore it for six days, come back to it on Sunday and rest assured that your team's fortunes haven't changed.
On Tuesday, if you were paying attention, you learned that the Jacksonville Jaguars had waited until five days before their season opener (and after he appeared at a chamber of commerce luncheon) to fire David Garrard. At first glimpse, this may not seem like a major concern to fantasy football players, since the only reason you would have been starting Garrard is because you had found a bad quarterback league. But football is a team sport, and one player's misfortune affects so many others. Did you spend your late first round pick on Maurice Jones-Drew? Will he now be facing a defense featuring 11 nose tackles? Maybe you took a flyer on a Jaguars receiver in the 13th round. Are you sure Luke McCown even knows that receiver's name?
Then, on Wednesday, if you were paying any attention at all, you learned that Peyton Manning won't be ready to play Sunday. If you rolled the dice and drafted him anyway, do you have a reliable quarterback to start this week? Do you need to go find Kerry Collins (and pray your opponent for this week didn't just get him off the waiver wire just to burn you)? Do all the other Indianapolis Colts players littering fantasy rosters remain valuable now that Collins is calling the shots? If you wait until Sunday to ask yourself these questions, you may find your alternatives to be quite slim.
And those were the relatively easy calls. We haven't even gotten to things like Arian Foster's photogenic hamstring or Ryan Grant's playing time or whether the Cincinnati Bengals really are stupid enough to let Carson Palmer rot on the shelf to make some short-sighted point. Some of these questions may be resolved by the time this post is published. Some of them may still be in the air at 12:59 p.m. Eastern on Sunday.
All of them are why NFL Network won't have to worry about going off the air anytime soon.
Quick reminder: There are polls that need your votes. The kicker poll closes at 5 p.m. Eastern on Thursday. The fantasy NASCAR polls close Thursday night, and the other fantasy football polls close Saturday night. Please contribute your votes to this experiment in fantasy democracy. Thanks.

Monday Update and Waiver Poll

The People's Pigskin walks into the Monday Night tussle at Lambeau Field with a sense of hope, if not exactly unbridled optimism.

The Internet's favorite fantasy football team currently trails the D.C. Destroyers by a score of 74-63. The Destroyers have no players in tonight's game between the Green Bay Packers and the Baltimore Ravens. The Pigskin has one player: Greg Jennings, who must score 11 fantasy points for a tie and 12 points for the win.

While we wait for the frozen cliches of Monday Night Football, it's time to discuss the waiver wire. Jamal Lewis has been placed on injured reserve, so there's no sense in keeping him on the roster. Therefore, we have a new poll asking you, the Internet, who should be picked up to take his spot. Here are the choices.

David Garrard. Currently 16th among quarterbacks with 134 fantasy points.

Jason Campbell. Currnelty 19th among quarterbacks with 126 fantasy points.

Julius Jones. Currently 34th among running backs with 74 fantasy points. (And apparently recovered from his lung injury, since he got 25 touches Sunday.)

Mike Bell. Currently 36th among running backs with 73 fantasy points.

Steve Breaston. Currently 35th among wide receivers with 72 fantasy points. (It's too bad our league doesn't credit him with return yards.)

Lee Evans. Currently 37th among wide receivers with 70 fantasy points.

This poll will close Wednesday night, so that a waiver claim can be processed in the wee hours of Thursday morning. Please vote, and enjoy the festivities from Wisconsin tonight.

Weekend Reading

The polls on the right side of this page will close Sunday morning. While you consider what to do with our lineup and the question about your own fantasy football team, here are some links to visit  in between your college games.

Not exactly a fan favorite, is he? The Kansas City Chiefs were having a rough season even before Larry Johnson decided to make a fool of himself. Now some fans have had enough of LJ. They've started a petition asking the Chiefs not to let him get the 75 rushing yards he needs to supplant Priest Holmes as Kansas City's all-time leader. How awkward would it be to have him on your fantasy team and learn that his own team's fans don't want him to put up 75 yards. Of course, with the way he's been producing lately, that could be a moot point.

What do you think you are, a quarterback? There were questions for the Jacksonville Jaguars after Maurice Jones-Drew got only 8 carries (and 177 yards) last week against the Tennessee Titans. Now the Jaguars are saying the fault lies not with the coaches, but with David Garrard, who had been audibling out of run plays and into passing plays. Jack Del Rio says he told his quarterback "Look, just hand it to him and let him run the ball."

If you have Jones-Drew on your fantasy team, I suppose this is good news. Of course, if you have Garrard, being told he can't call a pass play if he's sees an opportunity for one at the line is not very good news. Whether this is good news for the few remaining Jaguars fans remains to be seen.

Need a trophy for your league? You could go to your local trophy shop or to eBay, but now there's another alternative: the Arena Football League, which is selling pretty much everything it has left. Maybe you and your buddies can compete for the right to keep the Arena Bowl trophy in your living room for the next 12 months.

Down with the Drew Brees-loving capitalist horde! In the never-ending quest to provide you with alternative opinions on the game we love, I present a thought from a fellow Wordpress blogger, the Langston Escape Plan. The post's title: "Why the Third World Hates Us: Fantasy Football." The premise: People who spend their day scrounging up enough food to survive and protecting themselves from rampaging thugs don't have the time or resources to worry about whether the Steelers defense can stop the Denver Broncos.

"Imagine, if you will, that you are a fantasy football fan trying to explain to someone from the slums of India, the streets of oppressed Pyongyang or just about anywhere in Somalia why you spend any amount of time on it. What would you say? Because your bros do it? Because you can win even more disposable income? Because it’s fun?"

I imagine the same thing could be said about people who worry about things like Jennifer Aniston's love life, but the point is an interesting one, nonetheless.

Anyway, we'll be back tomorrow with poll results. Until then, enjoy the games.

Weekend Reading (and Thoughts)

Remember, now's the time to vote on our starting lineup for this week's game against the Southern Rebels.

I'll offer my predictions for the Landshark Maniacs league later, but first I wanted to offer some interesting links and thoughts, some of them germane to fantasy football.

Put me in, Coach. If you looked at the bench players for Southern Rebels, you'd notice that she has Larry Fitzgerald, whose Arizona Cardinals have a bye week. (Insert huge sigh of relief here.) You would also notice a symbol next to Larry's name that indicates a promotion. ESPN is giving away footballs autographed by Larry himself. All you have to do to be eligible is put Larry into your starting lineup -- you know, as if you were on the fence about starting him or something. I'd try to persuade the Southern Rebels to start him this week to get another chance at a football, but clearly my opponent is too smart for that. She's starting Cedric Benson against the Browns, after all.

Clearly, this was the problem. What do you do if you're the coach of a team that's an unimpressive 1-2 and is having its home games blacked out? You cancel your quarterback's radio show. At least, that's what you do if you're Jack Del Rio, who shut down David Garrard's weekly show. Del Rio says he didn't like the timing of the show (which aired Friday afternoons and didn't conflict with any scheduled team activities) or the fact that Garrard was talking about things other than the upcoming opponent so close to game time. I'm not going to argue that Garrard couldn't use more film study -- these stats don't lie -- but I'm wondering if Del Rio would be better served worrying about his 25th-ranked defense rather than how his quarterback spends his down time.

(How does the above relate to fantasy football? Umm...don't start Garrard, regardless of when he's on the radio.)

Hot read. In addition to kissing babies and rigging Lambeau Leaps, our good friend Chad Ochocino has written a book, "Ocho Cinco: What Football and Life Have Thrown My Way." The book (written with help from Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports) is set for release Oct. 27 and features insights like this: "I got six paintings of myself in the living room of my town house in Cincinnati. Why? Because I love me. I’m great and I know it." I'm sure you'll be keeping that factoid in mind while deciding the People's Pigskin lineup.

Nobody asked, but... I don't get why Terrell Owens is getting sandblasted in some places for his press conference after the Buffalo Bills lost to the New Orleans Saints last week and his 185-game reception streak ended. He was given opportunity after opportunity to throw his coaches and teammates under the bus and then back the bus over them, but this time he didn't take the bait. (And I've got to be honest here -- some of the questions were an attempt to bait him.) He said that his job was to run the plays that were called. In other words, he's there to be a player, not a coach. If he had given that type of answer a few more times in Dallas, he may still be a Dallas Cowboy today. If he had given that type of answer a few more times in Philadelphia, he may still be a Philadelphia Eagle today. If he had given that type of answer a few more times in San Francisco ... well, you get the idea. And if that makes me a contrarian, then I'll have to be a contrarian who would still start Owens in any fantasy matchup.

Speaking of contrarian thoughts. Continuing a theme from last week, I couldn't resist offering this link to a fellow blogger's post, "Why I Dislike Fantasy Football." Even though I disagree with her about liking fantasy sports (and I'm sure many of you feel the same way), I appreciate Jessica Morrey's reasoned approach to fantasy and her love for the sport of football itself. Most articles in the "I don't like fantasy" genre are much less kind to those of us who play fantasy sports.

Stay tuned for predictions later today.