Light at the End of the Tunnel?

This post is being written on the evening of June 17. As of this writing, we don't know:

• Where Donovan McNabb and a bunch of other players will play their next game.
• If Randy Moss and many others have a next game in them.
• What will happen with Chase Beeler and the host of undrafted free agents waiting (impatiently) for a chance to impress an NFL club and turn into one of those "I can't believe no one drafted him" stories.
• When the National Football League, despite its fictional-for-now schedule, will see its next action.

Despite all of the uncertainty that has descended over the football world like smog over Los Angeles, some people are showing signs of optimism.
For one thing, Yahoo Sports, one of the many Web sites that host fantasy football, sent out an e-mail Wednesday inviting folks to sign up for this year's fantasy football game. Now, it's possible that this was an automatic e-mail set to go out on a certain date, and that Yahoo simply forgot to tell its computers to put that e-mail on hold.
Then there are the magazines.
This week, the people who bring you this fine blog were in a bookstore that has a sizable magazine section. We wandered by the sports section of that magazine section, and we saw at least four freshly printed magazines on one of our favorite topics: fantasy football. You might not know where Carson Palmer will throw his next pass, but there are several publishers willing to tell you right now whether you should bother drafting him as a backup.
Now, it's possible that these publishers had to put out these magazines because of advertiser or printer obligations--that it would have cost too much money to wait for a definitive agreement between players and owners. It's quite possible that neither the magazine people nor the Yahoo people know anything more about the NFL situation than you do.
It's also possible that someone has heard something about the negotiations of the past few days, and even if the owners aren't presented a united front, maybe there is reason to believe we will have football this fall, after all.
Either way, it makes no sense to ignore the negotiations altogether.
It also makes no sense to miss your chance to vote on the People's Pitstop lineup. The polls will close Friday night. Just pick 2 A List drivers, 4 B List drivers and 2 C List drivers to represent the Internet's favorite fantasy NASCAR team Sunday at Michigan International Speedway.
We'll be back with the results.

The People's Choice - Week 10

The results are in. Here are the players that you, the Internet, selected for the People's Pigskin and its People's League fantasy football matchup against NFL2K10 RedZone.

Quarterback: It's not as if he needed help in the form of Chad Henne's benching or Vince Young's injury question, but once again, Peyton Manning won this poll handily. He gets the Cincinnati Bengals today.

Running back: We already played Michael Turner on Thursday night. The winner of the poll for the other running back spot was Knowshon Moreno, who's coming off a bye week and plays the Kansas City Chiefs in a late afternoon game.

Wide receiver: Two familiar faces dominated the voting in this poll. The starting spots go to Calvin Johnson (who faces the Buffalo Bills) and Dwayne Bowe (who faces Moreno's Denver Broncos).

As for the flex spot, we have a tie between Chad Ochocinco and Justin Forsett. We are using the ESPN points projection as a tiebreaker. Ochocino wins that by a score of 12-2. He goes up against Manning's Indianapolis Colts today.

Kicker: We have a winner, and, fortunately, we also have a backup plan. Josh Scobee won the poll but was picked up by a team with a worse record than the Pigskin. The runner-up in this poll was Olindo Mare, who's starting for us now and will face the Arizona Cardinals in a late afternoon game.

The Tennessee Titans defense/special teams (playing the Miami Dolphins) return to our starting lineup, and in an earlier poll, you voted to pick up Tony Moeaki to fill our bye-week-addled tight end spot. He gets the Broncos today.

Thank you very much for voting. The results appear below, and a quick poll about a certain well-traveled wide receiver is open for voting now. We'll be back with game/race results.

[polldaddy poll=4060811] [polldaddy poll=4060821] [polldaddy poll=4060832] [polldaddy poll=4060842] [polldaddy poll=4060842]

How to Deal with a Headache

The polls for the People's Pitstop lineup will close in a couple of hours, so please vote if you haven't done so already. While you consider your vote, it's time for a little talk about football.

One of the strengths of fantasy football, as opposed to the real thing, is that a fantasy team doesn't have to worry about chemistry or character. It's a meritocracy  in the best sense of the word. All that matters is whether you get the job done on the field. A fantasy player doesn't care if the players are wacky or arrogant or even mean. Whether that player is a well-adjusted human being is someone else's problem.

In the National Football League, it doesn't work that way. Coaches do have to worry about whether a player is hurting the team. This week, Brad Childress decided that Randy Moss was hurting the Minnesota Vikings, and the coach made the extreme (and, apparently, unilateral) decision to let the malcontent go. Moss, of course, has landed on his feet with the Tennessee Titans, and he'll get a bye week to learn the offense, so his production shouldn't be an issue with his new team.

How will his move to his third team of this season affect everyone else? First, we look at the Vikings.

Brett Favre: He's probably too busy applying ice packs to various parts to notice Moss' absence.

Adrian Peterson: He was and remains the featured back. No big change here.

Percy Harvin: As he demonstrates here, Rice doesn't need to run a go route to score, so he'll be fine.

Now, how about the Titans?

Vince Young: What quarterback wouldn't want a new toy like this one? At least until that toy starts acting funny.

Chris Johnson: The Titans offense runs through Johnson until further notice.

Kenny Britt: His injury may have been one reason the Titans were attracted to Moss in the first place. Once Britt gets healthy, he'll appreciate the attention Moss gets from defensive backs, but he might not appreciate the way Moss becomes the weapon of choice when it comes to deep throws.

Good thing the People's Pigskin isn't affected by this stuf...wait a minute. We have Britt and Young on our roster?

(Gulp.)

(Nah, Britt will be fine. Really.)

We'll be back with the NASCAR poll results.