As you consider what to do with our lineup and how to vote in our poll on abandoned fantasy football teams, here are some links worthy of your clicking time.
Pay attention to that waiver wire. There will be a quiz. A North Carolina high school teacher named Michael Williams has won the Economic Educator of the Year Award from the North Carolina Council on Economic Education. His innovation: having students draft and track a fantasy football team to learn about supply and demand. (Assist to a fellow WordPress blogger, Gold and the Game, for finding this story.)
Can I nominate Matt Forte? For you fantasy players who think you couldn't pick a good team if your life were riding on the outcome, here's a Yahoo! list of the biggest draft busts of the past decade. The moral: Highly paid professionals can't get it right, either. The difference between you and the GMs who made these picks: They get cushy jobs after they fail. You just get laughed at by your closest friends.
You just traded Gonzalez for Cutler? Go to your room! Another fellow WordPress blogger, Jonathan's World (heads up: the site's artwork isn't exactly safe for work) offers an interesting post on whether children should play fantasy football. My opinion: Let them play. If we don't come up with creative ways to get kids interested in football, we may lose an entire generation in places like Cleveland.
Warning: This post has more than 140 characters. The Wall Street Journal (yes, the Wall Street-freaking Journal, the place that uses drawings instead of photos) has an article about how the National Football League has been changed by the invention of Twitter.
For example, there's the Larry Johnson saga. "Had Twitter not existed, or had the Chiefs forbade their players from tweeting, Mr. Johnson most likely would have awakened today as the Chiefs' all-time leading rusher, and still been owned in most leagues."
We'll be back tomorrow with some visual aids.
Showing posts with label Larry Johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Larry Johnson. Show all posts
Friday, December 4, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Monday Update and Reading
It's Monday, and the People's Pigskin is alive and well. We currently lead Big Lough O by a score of 84-80. That means that if the Baltimore Ravens defense/special teams can be held to under 4 fantasy points tonight, the Pigskin will record a victory. How hard could that be? After all, it's not as if the Cleveland Browns have a head coach who has ticked off enough players to draw the union's attention, right?
While we wait to learn about our fantasy football team's fate, here are some links for your surfing pleasure.
Better take a knee for this one. There are countless ways to lose a fantasy football game. It's painful, for example, when your running back is tackled on the 1-yard line and his backup scores the touchdown. It has to be even worse when your running back takes a knee at the 1-yard line on purpose, as Maurice Jones-Drew did Sunday, following the orders of his head coach.
The Jacksonville Jaguars wanted to deny the New York Jets a chance to get the ball back (sound familiar?), so they told Jones-Drew to take a knee if he was in a position to get into the end zone. He apologized later to those who had him on his fantasy team. One of those teams: the Big Lough Os. I'm just saying...
Well, that was quick. As I'm typing this list up, ESPN is reporting that the Cincinnati Bengals will sign Larry Johnson to a contract. The Bengals were pushed into the LJ market by Cedric Benson's hip injury Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
What kind of first impression will Johnson make in Cincinnati? Hopefully, it will be better than the last impression he made in Kansas City. (Not that the bar is set particularly high.)
On a more positive note. If you used your first-round fantasy pick to draft LaDainian Tomlinson, you're probably starting him no matter what. Still, wouldn't you have liked to know before the game that LDT would have extra motivation after learning that he was going to be a father? It reminds me of when Brett Favre had a monster game a day after his father died. Emotion has a well-deserved reputation for fueling big performances like Favre's and LDT's.
If you're running an NFL pregame show, would it kill you to squeeze a few more notes like this into your broadcast in between the analysts' efforts to talk over one another and laugh hilariously at the drop of a hat? I'm sure fantasy players would really appreciate actually learning something from your shows every once in a while.
This Bud's for you. Imagine if you're the owner of a National Football League team. Imagine that your team just recorded its third straight victory -- and did so in front of its home crowd, the folks who buy your tickets and merchandise and allow you to live the lifestyle you are currently living. Now imagine that you live in a world where cameras are everywhere, and that every single fan in that stadium, friend or foe, could have a camera-equipped phone in his/her pocket.
Knowing all that, how would you celebrate after your team's hard-earned victory? If you're Bud Adams, the owner of the Houston Oil...er, sorry, the Tennessee Titans, you do this. (Warning: This link shows an unsafe-for-work video.)
Bill Belichick is being called stupid in many circles for what he did Sunday evening, but at least his decision had a chance of working out in his favor. I can't say the same for Adams.
We'll be back tomorrow with an update on our matchup with the Lough Os. Until then, enjoy the Monday night game. (And get comfortable with Jon Gruden's voice. You'll be hearing it for a while.)
While we wait to learn about our fantasy football team's fate, here are some links for your surfing pleasure.
Better take a knee for this one. There are countless ways to lose a fantasy football game. It's painful, for example, when your running back is tackled on the 1-yard line and his backup scores the touchdown. It has to be even worse when your running back takes a knee at the 1-yard line on purpose, as Maurice Jones-Drew did Sunday, following the orders of his head coach.
The Jacksonville Jaguars wanted to deny the New York Jets a chance to get the ball back (sound familiar?), so they told Jones-Drew to take a knee if he was in a position to get into the end zone. He apologized later to those who had him on his fantasy team. One of those teams: the Big Lough Os. I'm just saying...
Well, that was quick. As I'm typing this list up, ESPN is reporting that the Cincinnati Bengals will sign Larry Johnson to a contract. The Bengals were pushed into the LJ market by Cedric Benson's hip injury Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
What kind of first impression will Johnson make in Cincinnati? Hopefully, it will be better than the last impression he made in Kansas City. (Not that the bar is set particularly high.)
On a more positive note. If you used your first-round fantasy pick to draft LaDainian Tomlinson, you're probably starting him no matter what. Still, wouldn't you have liked to know before the game that LDT would have extra motivation after learning that he was going to be a father? It reminds me of when Brett Favre had a monster game a day after his father died. Emotion has a well-deserved reputation for fueling big performances like Favre's and LDT's.
If you're running an NFL pregame show, would it kill you to squeeze a few more notes like this into your broadcast in between the analysts' efforts to talk over one another and laugh hilariously at the drop of a hat? I'm sure fantasy players would really appreciate actually learning something from your shows every once in a while.
This Bud's for you. Imagine if you're the owner of a National Football League team. Imagine that your team just recorded its third straight victory -- and did so in front of its home crowd, the folks who buy your tickets and merchandise and allow you to live the lifestyle you are currently living. Now imagine that you live in a world where cameras are everywhere, and that every single fan in that stadium, friend or foe, could have a camera-equipped phone in his/her pocket.
Knowing all that, how would you celebrate after your team's hard-earned victory? If you're Bud Adams, the owner of the Houston Oil...er, sorry, the Tennessee Titans, you do this. (Warning: This link shows an unsafe-for-work video.)
Bill Belichick is being called stupid in many circles for what he did Sunday evening, but at least his decision had a chance of working out in his favor. I can't say the same for Adams.
We'll be back tomorrow with an update on our matchup with the Lough Os. Until then, enjoy the Monday night game. (And get comfortable with Jon Gruden's voice. You'll be hearing it for a while.)
Labels:
Baltimore Ravens,
Big Lough O,
Bud Adams,
Cincinnati Bengals,
Cleveland Browns,
fantasy football,
Jacksonville Jaguars,
LaDainian Tomlinson,
landshark maniacs,
Larry Johnson,
Maurice Jones-Drew,
Monday Night Football,
television,
Tennessee Titans
Saturday, November 7, 2009
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.
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.
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