Week 1, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate The Franchise

Can I change the rule so that Darius Reynaud loses 100 points for that? That would make Nick the lowest scoring team of the week.

Instead of me.

Without digging into the data, I'm pretty sure 68 is an all-time low for me. Only Danieal Manning and Zastudil got me double digits. No, wait, that's not true: I had 70 (!!) points on the bench via Carr and Kerrigan. Put them in instead of James "Anger Isn't Working Anymore Because I'm Like 80 Years Old" Harrison and Carlos Rogers (1 point combined!) and I... still lose by 30. It's gonna be a long year...

Tim Reddy is a fantasy savant and proved it in his first game. That's all we need: an even better Nordland division. All three non-me Nordland teams broke the 170 barrier. Only Rich (203) did the same. 

J.J. Watt(ch): 11 points. Not quite on a record pace.

Three safeties in the first half of the noon games... and no one benefited. Trent Cole got another last night. Also an FA. We may have used our safety allotment for the year, folks.

Oh, and what's this?

Fucking Franchise. Every year it's the same thing: awful, awful player, high-point KOFL game or two. For a league that has been pretty good at showing who actually is a good defensive/special teams player, the Franchise spits in the face of my baby. Fuck you, DeAngelo.

Other than that, scoring was it's usual mish-mash of "who?" and "yeah, he'll get you 35 occasionally." Lavonte David, maybe a risky first rounder by Tim, produced. Tillman was the only other first rounder who lived up to the draft position.

I was 1-2 on my picks this week. Maybe Carson Palmer is just good enough to salvage that offense? We'll see how he produces from a hospital bed after Levi Brown lets him get broken. Dallas had to have a +5 turnover ratio to squeak by the Giants. I was right about the Jags and... unfortunately, it looks like we may have already found the winners in the Jadeveon Clowney raffle. Blaine Gabbert has been the worst QB in the league since he showed up; It does not appear he's made progress in the off season. In fact, his injury (Chad Henne will start on Sunday for the Jags) may very well be then end of his career. They say you can't lose a starting job to injury but the Jags should probably ignore that right now.

Also, Bears! Not the prettiest win but zero sacks given up to the best DL in football is a good start. Couldn't open a hole to run through the whole game but beggars and choosers and all that. Trestman's 4th down play call on the winning drive was... suspect, but since it turned out okay, let's anoint him Coach of the Year and just hand that team a spot in the Super Bowl.

Can we agree that Peyton is ELITE?

There were so many old people in that game last night? Stokely and Clark!

Manning has officially become the Greg Maddux of the NFL.  Maddux was never the biggest arm in baseball, but by the time his fastball was comparable to others' change-up, he'd developed into the smartest pitcher in MLB history. Accuracy and knowing where and when to attack a hitter got him another 100+ wins. There's a serious lack of arm strength at this point for Manning (the OPI that Decker drew was on a ball underthrown by about 10 yards), but being the smartest player on the field means he does things like throw seven fucking touchdowns.

Hey! Picks for this week:

St. Louis giving 4.5 at home against Arizona? Yes, please. Have I mentioned how much of a joke I think Arizona's offense is? St. Louis was 4-1-1 against the NFC West last year. They're probably not much better than 8-8 overall this year, but that's because they play in the toughest division in football. They win by 7+ this week.

The Chiefs are giving 4 in DUUUUUVAL. Sorry, Erin, but that looks like easy money.

Do I have to pick a third? Ugh... I'll take the Giants as 3.5 point dogs in Dallas. Is it just me or does it seem like both those teams have the same rosters as in 2010?

2013 Opening Salvo

Fuckin' KOFL.

Draft and there's-a-football-game-tonight thoughts:

• Erin went with Watt first overall. I don't think there could have been any other choice. His 2012 was the most dominating in the (5 year) history of the league.
• That said, a dominating year doesn't always mean another. Watt was the obvious pick but I don't know if he was a "safe" one. I'm kind of starting to dig into previous years stats (more on that soon). The top 10 LBs last year averaged 248.9 points with only a 21 point standard deviation. DEs (187.1 mean with a 55.8 sdev) are a much bigger boom-bust. This league rewards consistency (and randomness!). Logic says Watt can't put up another year like that, so we'll have to see how he compares to a top rated LB by year's end.
• Then Pat drafted Demarcus Ware at 2. If only I had written the above prior to that...
• Kuechly at 3. Rewards the kid for an outstanding rookie year. We like doing that. See Patrick Peterson first overall in 2012. By me. Did not work out so good...
• Speaking of me: fuck having the 16th pick. It is awful.
• Mr. Irrelevant this year was Kluwe. Then I turned all prescient and shit and dropped him 30 minutes later. As usual, a dude at home is way ahead of the Raiders.
• We start the year with two match ups featuring past trophy winners: Jeramiah vs. me and Whoot vs. defending champ Nick. ESPN says Jeramiah's the favorite. ESPN is stupid, though.
• Real football is on tonight! I like Denver, but the line is -7 1/2. Stay away from that one.
• Bears are -3 with Cincy in town Sunday. The Bengals are one of my AFC title game reps. Great DL, a top 3 WR, solid-if-not-Flacco-elite QB (who is probably better than Flacco), weak division. I think the Bears lose on Sunday.
• Remember when I said how good the Chiefs were gonna be last year?

As mentioned above, I'm off-and-on digging into previous years' data. Unfortunately, while ESPN keeps records of all previous years, their player data only goes back one. I should have pulled 2011 while I still could but figured that was up because it was the first year with our "final" scoring system. I'm still hoping to dig into team performances. Each individual game result is available all the way back to '09. That might take a while though.

As for this blog, I dunno. Just a place to type thoughts. Can you tell that I love this league?