Thursday, September 29, 2011
You Can Do Better. Really.
Monday, January 3, 2011
It Was a Heck of a Run
...but one that came up just short of the goal for the People's Pigskin. We would like to congratulate the Fighting Amish for winning the People's League championship. It was a title that was hard-fought but richly deserved.
The Internet's favorite fantasy football team fell this week by a score of 82-67.
The final overall score for the two-week championship was 171-144.
As promised, here is a look at the individual player results.
Peyton Manning, QB: 27 of 41 passing, 264 yards, 2 touchdowns and 18 fantasy points. Manning did his part both for fantasy football teams and for his Indianapolis Colts, who clinched the AFC South title and the conference's No. 3 playoff seed.
Michael Turner, RB: 17 rushes, 67 yards, 1 touchdown, 1 fumble and 10 fantasy points. The second red-zone fumble in as many games has to raise a red flag for the Atlanta Falcons, who nevertheless wrapped up home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs.
Knowshon Moreno, RB: 6 rushes for 41 yards, 1 reception for 2 yards and 4 fantasy points. If the Broncos stick with Tim Tebow next season, his ability to call his own number will hurt the fantasy value of anyone sharing a backfield with him.
Dwayne Bowe, WR: 5 receptions, 68 yards and 6 fantasy points. It didn't help his fantasy cause that Bowe's quarterback was sacked 7 times. Regardless, Bowe ended the season as fantasy football's top receiver.
Kenny Britt, WR: 5 receptions, 85 yards, 1 touchdown and 14 fantasy points. Britt got most of his points on a single throw from Kerry Collins -- before Collins forgot how to take a snap.
Calvin Johnson, Flex: 0 receptions, 0 yards and 0 fantasy points. Yes, Johnson was active for the Detroit Lions, but it seems that just because you're listed as "active" does not mean you will actually ... you know ... take the field. On behalf of fantasy football players everywhere, thanks for resting Megatron for the Pro Bowl, Detroit Lions.
Randy McMichael, TE: 2 receptions, 22 yards and 2 fantasy points. It wasn't a good season to be a top-notch tight end such as Antonio Gates (or Dallas Clark). Will the 2010 injuries shake up the 2011 tight end rankings? We'll find out in a few months.
Washington Redskins, D/ST: 1 interception, 17 points allowed and 3 fantasy points. The Shanahans clearly have a lot of work to do.
Olindo Mare, K: 3 for 3 on field goals, 1 for 1 on extra points and 10 fantasy points. It's safe to say Mare did at least as much as Charlie Whitehurst to get the Seattle Seahawks the NFC West title.
Again, we'd like to thank you, the Internet, for helping us get this far. This season provides strong evidence that the masses know at least as much as the "experts" about how to build a run a fantasy football team.
But don't take this blog off your reading list yet. Fantasy NASCAR will be here before we know it. In the interim, we have the playoffs, the Super Bowl and a season to review. We'll be back.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
The People's Choice - Week 17
Quarterback: Peyton Manning has everything to play for today, so he gets the nod for the 16th time this season as he takes on the Tennessee Titans in the late afternoon.
Running back: Two backs split the vote. One was Michael Turner, who will play the Carolina Panthers. The other was Darren McFadden, who won't play anyone because he's inactive. In his place, we are turning to the other running back on our roster, Knowshon Moreno, who's questionable for the late afternoon game against the San Diego Chargers. If he can't go, we've got the next best thing: his backup, Correll Buckhalter, who will take his place in our lineup.
Wide receiver: This poll delivered two winners. Dwayne Bowe plays the Oakland Raiders, and Kenny Britt plays the Indianapolis Colts in the late afternoon.
Flex: For probably the first time all season, neither the running back poll nor the wide receiver one produced a third-place player, so we'll go to the fallback position of projected fantasy points. Calvin Johnson is expected to produce some, so he gets this spot. He plays the Minnesota Vikings.
Tight end: Once again, the winner of this poll was the Antonio Gates/Randy McMichael combo platter. McMichael gets the start in a late afternoon game against the Denver Broncos, since Gates has been put on injured reserve. (We cut Gates to make room for Buckhalter on the Pigskin roster.)
There are no changes at kicker (Olindo Mare, playing Sunday night against the St. Louis Rams) or defense/special teams (the Washington Redskins, who will try to keep the New York Giants out of the playoffs).
Once again, thank you for helping to put us in this position. The poll results appear below, and a ridiculously premature Super Bowl poll is now available for your votes. Enjoy the games. We'll be back with the results.
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Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Halfway There
Peyton Manning, QB: 16 of 30 passing for 179 yards, 3 touchdowns, 2 interceptions, 3 rushes for 25 yards and 17 fantasy points. Manning also pulled a Bryan Westbrook on fantasy football players by sliding short of the goal line to help run out the clock. How many playoff games turned on that slide?
Michael Turner, RB: 17 rushes, 48 yards, 1 fumble and 2 fantasy points. Turner picked a heck of a time (a week the Falcons could have wrapped up home-field advantage) and a heck of a place (the goal line) to lose his first fumble of the season.
Darren McFadden, RB: 11 rushes for 45 yards, 4 receptions for 31 yards and 7 fantasy points. Most of McFadden's offense came on a single 26-yard run. Not good news. Neither is the injury he suffered in the third quarter.
Calvin Johnson, WR: 4 receptions, 52 yards and 5 fantasy points. Johnson left his game early in the fourth quarter with an ankle injury. The Detroit Lions say they expect him to play, but his health warrants monitoring.
Dwayne Bowe, WR: 6 receptions, 153 yards, 1 touchdown and 21 points. Now there's the long-touchdown-catching Bowe we know and love.
Kenny Britt, Flex: 4 receptions, 89 yards, 1 touchdown and 14 fantasy points. Britt is making Randy Moss a forgotten man in Tennessee.
Randy McMichael, TE: 2 receptions, 13 yards and 1 fantasy point. It was a day to forget for everyone in a San Diego uniform.
Washington Redskins, D/ST: 2 interceptions, 4 sacks, 17 points allowed and 9 fantasy points. All the talk these days may be about the quarterback, but the Redskins defense is showing it shouldn't be ignored.
Olindo Mare, K: 1 for 1 on extra points and 1 fantasy point. How do you score a single fantasy point as a kicker when your offense scores a pair of touchdowns? Well, one day is to have your coach go for 2 on the second touchdown. Oh, well. At least Mare's team will have something at stake in their season finale.
Speaking of season finales, it's time for ours. And it's time for you to vote in our polls to see who will take the field this last week. Thanks.
We'll be back with some more fantasy football thoughts.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
The People's Results - Week 16
Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor gift-returning duties could stop you, the Internet, from selecting the People's Pigskin lineup for this week. Here's who the Web's favorite fantasy football team will start in the first week of its two-week People's League championship matchup against the Fighting Amish.
Quarterback: Peyton Manning. Enough said. (OK, we'll say something else; he's playing the Oakland Raiders in a late afternoon game.)
Running back: Only two players got votes this week in this poll. They are Michael Turner (who faces the New Orleans Saints on Monday night) and Darren McFadden (who faces Manning's Indianapolis Colts in the late afternoon).
Wide receiver: Calvin Johnson won this poll handily. He plays the Miami Dolphins. The other votes were split evenly between Dwayne Bowe, who plays the Tennessee Titans, and Kenny Britt, who plays Bowe's Kansas City Chiefs. Bowe gets a receiver spot, and Britt takes the flex spot.
Tight end: Once again, you, the Internet, went with the Randy McMichael/Antonio Gates combo platter. Gates has already been ruled out, so McMichael gets the start against the Cincinnati Bengals in the late afternoon.
Defense/special teams: We have a change here this week. The winning choice in this poll was "Get a free agent," so we did. We got the Washington Redskins, who face the Jacksonville Jaguars today. To get them, we waived Justin Forsett. Try not to shed too many tears.
Unlike the Sunday night game, we have no change at kicker (Olindo Mare, who gets the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a late afternoon game).
Thanks again for voting. The results for the football/holiday drink polls appear below, and a college football poll is available now for voting. Enjoy the games, and stay safe out there.
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Thursday, December 9, 2010
A Quick Thursday Update
For this game, we had three polls asking if we should start two players and a team. Here are the results.
Peyton Manning: You, the Internet, are shrugging off his recent woes and showing your faith in Manning. He won his poll overwhelmingly and will start for the Internet's favorite fantasy football team tonight.
Kenny Britt: The Titans receiver has been cleared to play tonight, but you decided to give him some more time to heal. He'll stay on the bench.
Tennessee Titans D/ST: Here's where things get interesting. This poll was split right down the middle. Half of you voted to start the Titans tonight, and half of you voted to get another team. We flipped a coin, and as a result, the Titans will start tonight.
Thanks again for voting. The results appear below, and a new set of polls are now up. We need your help to determine the rest of our lineup, so please vote now, and tell a friend to do the same. These polls will close Sunday. Until then, enjoy the game.
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Monday, October 25, 2010
No, This Isn't a Typo
That's right. The People's Pigskin, a fantasy football team guided by you, the Internet, outscored Team z of the People's League by 101 points. We are now 6-1 for the season. Please take a bow before you read how we did it.
Chad Henne, QB: 23 of 36 passing, 257 yards, 1 touchdown and 14 fantasy points. On a day when our primary quarterback had a bye week and one of our backups had an injury, Henne brought his Miami Dolphins within one point (one call, actually) of beating the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Michael Turner, RB: 23 rushes for 121 yards, 2 receptions for 23 yards, 2 touchdowns and 26 fantasy points. There's the Turner who earned a first-round draft pick from the Internet's favorite fantasy football team.
Justin Forsett, RB: 9 rushes for 41 yards, 2 receptions for 31 yards and 7 fantasy points. As we'll see later, Forsett was the closest thing the People's Pigskin had to a misfire this week.
Chad Ochocinco, WR: 10 receptions, 108 yards, 1 touchdown and 16 fantasy points. Ochocinco broke the Cincinnati Bengals career touchdown catch record, but I'm sure he'd trade that mark for a few more victories.
Dwayne Bowe, WR: 3 receptions, 81 yards, 2 touchdowns and 20 fantasy points. Most weeks, being one of the primary scoring weapons in a 42-20 win would make you the highlight of your fantasy team. But not this week.
Kenny Britt, Flex: 7 receptions, 225 yards, 3 touchdowns and 40 fantasy points. This performance is even more amazing when you consider that Britt was benched for a quarter for his alleged role in a fight. We won't be trite enough to suggest that Britt get into a fight every week, but he should continue doing anything else he did in the past week.
Antonio Gates, TE: 4 receptions, 50 yards, 1 touchdown and 11 fantasy points. Yes, he did most of his fantasy scoring on a single play, but he did have a decent day for someone who was a game-time decision.
Tennessee Titans, D/ST: 2 interceptions (1 returned for a touchdown), 2 interceptions, 2 fumble recoveries, 1 sack, 19 points allowed and 15 fantasy points. It's too bad you don't get fantasy points for encouraging the opposing coach to go back to his other quarterback once he's healthy.
Matt Bryant, K: 1 for 1 on field goals, 4 for 4 on extra points and 8 fantasy points. Bryant did everything his coaches asked him to do, unlike Kris Brown.
Bench: Believe it or not, Britt was not even the top scorer on the Pigskin roster. Darren McFadden, who was scratched from his previous 2 games with a hamstring injury, scored 43 points in a 4-touchdown effort. Knowshon Moreno scored 20 of his own in a losing effort, and Robert Meachem scored 3.
Instead of basking in our own glow, we need to get ready for next week's People's League game against the nuckin' futs. We also need to get the People's Pitstop ready for Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway. The polls for both lineups are now open.
Since Bryant has a bye week, we need to get a kicker off the waiver poll, so that poll appears first and will close Tuesday night. NASCAR polls will close Thursday night, while the rest of the football polls will close Sunday morning. Please vote, and enjoy Hank Williams and the rest of the Monday night crew.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The People's Results - Week 7
Quarterback. With Peyton Manning getting a week off thanks to the NFL schedulers, you split right down the middle between Vince Young and Chad Henne. Since Young has been essentially inactivated for this game, we'll go with Henne, who faces the Pittsburgh Steelers this week.
Running back. Two players took all the votes in this poll and get the starting spot. Perhaps it makes sense that these are two players without any health issues: Michael Turner (who gets the Cincinnati Bengals) and Justin Forsett (who gets the Arizona Cardinals).
Wide receiver. This poll produced a three-way dead heat between Chad Ochocinco (facing Turner's Atlanta Falcons), Dwayne Bowe (facing the Jacksonville Jaguars) and Kenny Britt (facing the Philadelphia Eagles). Ochocinco and Bowe get the receiver slots, while Britt gets the flex spot.
Tight end. Just like every other week, Antonio Gates (facing the New England Patriots in a late afternoon game) dominated this poll. Unlike every other week, Gates is a game-day decision, so just in case he's benched, we've got his backup, Randy McMichael, on the bench ready to go in. We'll update this when we know one way or the other about Gates.
No changes at defense/special teams (the Tennessee Titans) or kicker (Matt Bryant against the Bengals). Thanks for voting, everybody. A new NFL poll is now available. The results of our lineup polls appear below.
UPDATED 3:05 P.M. Gates is active and will start for the Pigskin.
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Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Another Week, Another Win (and More Polls)
The Internet's favorite fantasy football team beat cowboys romero by a score of 97-70. This lifts the Pigskin to a season record of 5-1, the best in the People's League.
Let's break down this victory.
Peyton Manning, QB: 25 of 38 passing, 307 yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 rush for minus-1 yard, 1 fumble lost and 18 fantasy points. That total could have been better (the ESPN "experts" had projected 27 points for Manning), but it also could have been far worse, since the Washington Redskins dropped three would-be interceptions. Now, Manning faces a foe he can't defeat with film study: a bye week.
Michael Turner, RB: 15 rushes for 45 yards, 1 reception for 4 yards and 4 fantasy points. It was a day to forget for Turner and most of his fellow Atlanta Falcons, who made Kevin Kolb look like the next Peyton Manning.
Knowshon Moreno, RB: 12 rushes for 48 yards, 1 fumble lost and 2 fantasy points. Moreno was a last-minute replacement for the injured Darren McFadden, so any points he produced felt like a bonus.
Calvin Johnson, WR: 5 receptions, 146 yards, 1 touchdown and 20 fantasy points. That's more like it, even if Johnson did most of his damage on an 87-yard catch-and-run. Unfortunately, he will take that momentum straight into a bye week.
Kenny Britt, WR: 2 receptions, 33 yards, 1 touchdown and 9 fantasy points. It's a good thing Britt scored when he did, because he seemed to disappear when Vince Young left Monday night's game.
Dwayne Bowe, Flex: 6 receptions, 108 yards, 2 touchdowns and 22 fantasy points. Bowe was one of the brightest stars in all of fantasy football this week.
Antonio Gates, TE: 2 receptions, 12 yards and 1 fantasy point. Gates left the game early with a toe injury. The San Diego Chargers are saying they are optimistic Gates will play this week. However, his health obviously should be monitored.
Tennessee Titans, D/ST: 3 interceptions, 1 fumble recovery, 2 sacks, 3 points allowed and 17 fantasy points. The Titans had about a strong a night as a defense/special team can ever expect. They were the reason the Monday night game against the Jacksonville Jaguars was never really a contest.
Matt Bryant, K: 1 for 2 on field goals, 2 for 2 on extra points and 4 fantasy points. He didn't save us, but he didn't kill us, either.
Bench. The Pigskin got double-digit performances from Chad Henne (15 points), Robert Meachem (13) and Justin Forsett (12). Young scored 6 before leaving the game, and Kevin Smith scored 1.
Now, it's time to prepare for this week's People's League matchup against the mysterious Team Z. The polls are open (below the fantasy NASCAR ones) and will close Sunday morning. Remember that both Manning and Johnson have bye weeks, so your votes will play a critical role in setting our lineup. If you have any thoughts about any other changes we can make, hit the "Leave a Comment" button at the bottom of this post and let use know what you think.
We'll be back with a look at this week's NASCAR track.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
The People's Choice - Week 6
Quarterback. Stop me if you've heard this before: Peyton Manning is starting for us this week. He plays the Washington Redskins on Sunday night.
Running back. Michael Turner locked up one starting spot by winning this poll. He faces the Philadelphia Eagles. Darren McFadden holds the second spot at the moment. If he's inactive for the late afternoon game against the San Francisco 49ers, we will get someone else to take his spot, and we'll update this post if necessary.
Wide reciever. Kenny Britt is a surprise winner of this poll. He starts against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Monday night. Two other receivers tied for second place: Calvin Johnson (who plays the New York Giants and gets the second receiver spot) and Dwayne Bowe (who faces the Houston Texans and gets the flex spot).
The rest of the lineup is the same as it was last week. We have Antonio Gates (facing the St. Louis Rams) at tight end, the Tennessee Titans (on Monday night against the Jaguars) on defense/special teams and Matt Bryant (facing the Eagles) at kicker.
Again, thanks for voting. The poll results appear below, and a fresh football poll is now available for your voting pleasure. Good luck.
UPDATED 3:10 P.M. McFadden is inactive for this game. However, Knowshon Moreno has been upgraded to probable and is active for the Denver Broncos today, so he gets promoted to the starting lineup. He faces the New York Jets.
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Sunday, September 5, 2010
The Draft Results Are In
The People's Pigskin has completed its second annual draft, and as a result, the Internet's favorite fantasy football team has a fairly strong lineup to test the theory that the masses can do just as well as the "experts" in running a fantasy team. Here are the round-by-round results.
Round 1. The People's Pigskin drew the ninth spot out of 10 teams, and all six of the players selected in the who should top our draft board polls were taken in the first seven picks. We responded by taking the best player left, Michael Turner. No truly shocking picks, except Tony Romo's pick at No. 10 overall.
Round 2. One of the side effects of picking 9th in a 10-team draft is picking again three picks later. Drew Brees didn't make it to this round, so we took the second-rated quarterback on our board, Peyton Manning. And a few weeks ago, you would have won a few bets if you guessed that someone would pick Arian Foster in the second round of a fantasy draft.
Round 3. Time to get a receiver, but none of our top four receivers made it this far. (Brandon Marshall almost did.) We took Calvin Johnson.
Round 4. Again, a quick turnaround. We took Knowshon Moreno, the winner of this year's T.J. Houshmandzadeh award for "player whose name the people who run this blog will be able to spell in their sleep by Halloween."
Round 5. Dallas Clark continued his habit of coming off the draft board ridiculously early (in the fourth round, along with Vernon Davis), but we got the tight end who was ranked second on our board, Antonio Gates.
Round 6. Time to get a second receiver. We went with Chad Ochocinco, who, despite his ongoing love affair with himself, manages to put up solid numbers season after season.
Round 7. This round saw a run of tight ends, but we were able to avoid it by taking Dwayne Bowe.
Round 8. Time to get Turner and Moreno a backup. We went with Justin Forsett, since his numbers won't go south if Matt Hasselbeck still have a gimpy back. (By the way, this was the round where the first defense/special teams, the New York Jets, was selected.)
Round 9. Since the Jets escaped our grasp, we went with the next-best option, according to our draft board, the Minnesota Vikings. They went eight picks after NFL2K10 RedZone took the first kicker, Nate Kaeding. And you probably already know what I would say here, so let's just move on.
Round 10. Time for another receiver. We went with Robert Meachem.
Round 11. We missed out on our chance to get Donovan McNabb as our backup QB, so we picked Chad Henne instead.
Round 12. Three more kickers found homes in this round, but we selected Kenny Britt as a backup receiver.
Round 13. Santonio Holmes did not make it down to us in this round, so we grabbed a third QB in Vince Young.
Round 14. We rounded out our running game with Darren McFadden, while two other players drafted kickers, including NFL2K10 RedZone, who made David Akers his backup kicker. Or something.
Round 15. The boneheaded move of the night goes to the People's Pigskin, which forgot about Montario Hardesty's injury and drafted him. Just goes to show that you don't need to have any intelligence to write about fantasy football. (Don't worry; we already have a waiver claim on Kevin Smith to take his spot.)
Round 16. Four teams waited until this round to draft a kicker, including the People's Pigskin, which selected Jeff Reed.
What do you think of our lineup? Feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this post.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the football lineup polls are open. Most of them will stay open until Sunday morning. The one about the Vikings defense/special teams will close Thursday, since the Vikings play the New Orleans Saints in the season opener. Feel free to vote now.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Mixed Signals at CBS (and Others)
My advice on that front is this: You shouldn't depend on a single site for your expert advice. Each one is as likely as the other to be right on any given call on any given Sunday. And sometime the site may not even agree with itself.
To illustrate what I mean, I'm going to describe the fantasy football site at CBS Sportsline. (And I could just as easily be discussing many other sites, so don't interpret this as a rant against CBS.) Each week CBS Sportsline assigns a "Guru" score for each player. What does that mean? I'll let CBS Sportsline itself answer that:
"The Guru is not a person, but rather our top-secret statistical formula that takes into account each player's past performance, injury status and upcoming NFL opponent to predict the number of fantasy points that player will score this week, based on your scoring system."
CBS Sportsline also offers "Fantasy Analysis" for each player from CBS Sports experts. And sometimes this analysis...well, it seems as if whoever's doing this analysis was not involved in coming up with the Guru score. The left hand of the Web site doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
In setting my lineup for a fantasy team in a CBS Sportsline league, I looked up three wide receivers available on the waiver wire at the time. Here's what the Guru and the Fantasy Analysis said about each one:
Sidney Rice, Minnesota Vikings. Guru score: 3 fantasy points this week. Fantasy Analysis: "He's definitely getting more and more comfortable with Favre throwing passes and who wouldn't? Rice is quickly becoming one of Favre's favorite targets and that should increase his Fantasy value heading into Week 5 at St. Louis."
Kenny Britt, Tennessee Titans. Guru score: 8. Fantasy Analysis: "The Titans host the Colts in Week 5, and Collins could be forced to throw the ball quite a bit in that game, so you could do worse than taking a shot with Britt as a flier flex option in deeper leagues."
Miles Austin, Dallas Cowboys. Guru score: 10. Fantasy Analysis: "Austin has some sleeper potential, but the Cowboys don't seem interested in making him an integral part of the passing attack. Until he finds some consistency, you can leave him on waivers."
Follow along with me here. The player becoming one of Brett Favre's favorite targets (and the one I added to my lineup this week) was predicted by the Guru to score 3 points, while the one who, according to CBS Sports experts, should be left alone (and the one who, as of Wednesday afternoon, was still available in my league) was predicted by the Guru to score 10.
No wonder fantasy football sometimes makes people want to do this.
Remember to vote on the waiver poll, which closes tonight.