Football and Fantasy
I love football. The NFL is the greatest thing on TV since, well, ever. But today I was skimming through the channels and the NFL network was broadcasting an inter-squad scrimmage of the Green Bay Packers. I am still having a hard time determining which part what was the saddest. The fact that the NFL network was broadcasting the game, that the stadium was FULL and the fans were seriously into every play, or that I was watching it. Really watching it. (Aaron Rogers looked terrible). Is this too much football? Do we really need to see this?
I am trying to do my fantasy draft on my own this year, meaning not using a pay-for service for a draft sheet that is customized for my league. I am doing this for 2 reasons. The first reason is that the Value Based Drafting (VBD) has left me in the cold for almost 4 years now. For those of you who are not familiar with VBD, it is a system that is devised to rank players based on your league's scoring. Say for instance your league awards bonus points to QB's who throw touchdowns that are over a certain yardage (6 points for up to 9 yards, 9 points for up to 39 yards, and 12 points for anything over 40 yards). You simply plug these rules into the scoring sheet and it spits out which players will be the best in your league. The only problem with this system is figuring out who is going to score, how often, and from where. I am trusting some cheetos eating, mountain dew slurping, stat junky to get it right. The first year I used VBD was in 2002 - No one in any of my leagues had heard of this system before and I supremely dominated my league. Since then it has sucked eggs. I have been using the same system from the same website so either there predications suck (very likely), or I do not know how to use it (also very likely). The second reason is that way back in the day before all the high tech cheatsheets and insider info you can get from a gazillion websites for a small one time fee (think 1994), I used to create my own top 100 lists using a fantasy magazine and an excel spreadsheet. I would analyze every player (well, the top 50 or so for each position - after that its a crap shoot anyway) and make little notes. When draft time came I was prepared, I felt I knew each player intimately and could make more educated picks (read: guesses). In addition to wanting to prove that I can still pick players without a computer, I now have a partner whom I have been letting down every year. At first it wasn't too bad because we won right off the bat (the first year we used the VBD system) but since then we have sucked. I mean our league pays the top 5 finishers and we have only placed ONCE since our victory. So this year, if we don't place - I can look in the mirror and know who screwed it up instead of blaming a gimmicky system.
So, is there such a thing as too much football? Yes. I do not want to watch an inter-squad scrimmage of the Packers. Hell, I don't really want to watch scrimmage of the Redskins, inter-squad or otherwise, and I am a die hard Skins fan (unless I was there, and not sitting in the bleeders at Fed-Ex). I know this is the NFL Channel's wheelhouse because they can final produce relevant television. But let's remember that relevant does not equal watchable.
I am trying to do my fantasy draft on my own this year, meaning not using a pay-for service for a draft sheet that is customized for my league. I am doing this for 2 reasons. The first reason is that the Value Based Drafting (VBD) has left me in the cold for almost 4 years now. For those of you who are not familiar with VBD, it is a system that is devised to rank players based on your league's scoring. Say for instance your league awards bonus points to QB's who throw touchdowns that are over a certain yardage (6 points for up to 9 yards, 9 points for up to 39 yards, and 12 points for anything over 40 yards). You simply plug these rules into the scoring sheet and it spits out which players will be the best in your league. The only problem with this system is figuring out who is going to score, how often, and from where. I am trusting some cheetos eating, mountain dew slurping, stat junky to get it right. The first year I used VBD was in 2002 - No one in any of my leagues had heard of this system before and I supremely dominated my league. Since then it has sucked eggs. I have been using the same system from the same website so either there predications suck (very likely), or I do not know how to use it (also very likely). The second reason is that way back in the day before all the high tech cheatsheets and insider info you can get from a gazillion websites for a small one time fee (think 1994), I used to create my own top 100 lists using a fantasy magazine and an excel spreadsheet. I would analyze every player (well, the top 50 or so for each position - after that its a crap shoot anyway) and make little notes. When draft time came I was prepared, I felt I knew each player intimately and could make more educated picks (read: guesses). In addition to wanting to prove that I can still pick players without a computer, I now have a partner whom I have been letting down every year. At first it wasn't too bad because we won right off the bat (the first year we used the VBD system) but since then we have sucked. I mean our league pays the top 5 finishers and we have only placed ONCE since our victory. So this year, if we don't place - I can look in the mirror and know who screwed it up instead of blaming a gimmicky system.
So, is there such a thing as too much football? Yes. I do not want to watch an inter-squad scrimmage of the Packers. Hell, I don't really want to watch scrimmage of the Redskins, inter-squad or otherwise, and I am a die hard Skins fan (unless I was there, and not sitting in the bleeders at Fed-Ex). I know this is the NFL Channel's wheelhouse because they can final produce relevant television. But let's remember that relevant does not equal watchable.
posted by Sponge at 10:08 PM
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