Pro-Football-Reference.com has used Approximate Value "to come up with a post-merger all-franchise team for each franchise." Check out the NFC North.
I'm a bit surprised that Daunte Culpepper comes in ahead of Fran Tarkenton, and Matt Birk comes in ahead of Mick Tinglehoff.
According to this standard, the three greatest Vikings are three of the team's Hall of Famers: Alan Page, Ron Yary, and Carl Eller, who each have over 100. The other 90+ players are Cris Carter, Randall McDaniel, John Randle, and Chris Doleman.
If you really defined the Viking franchise's greatness over the years, you'd probably start at defensive line. There were the Purple People Eaters (Alan Page, Carl Eller, Jim Marshall, Gary Larsen), and later players like Chris Doleman, Keith Millard, John Randle, Henry Thomas, Pat Williams, Kevin Williams, and now Jared Allen.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Line of Scrimmage
According to USA Today, the Vikings have the top current Defensive End. According to the same newspaper, remember, the Vikes also have the top Defensive Tackle and the top interior Offensive Lineman.
Let's give Brad Childress this credit: when he took over as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, he talked about how a good football team should be built first from the offensive and defensive lines. Going into his third year with the team, the Vikings appear to be stacked on the offensive and defensive lines. This is the sort of team he said he wanted to make the Vikings.
The 2008 Vikings should have great play at the line of scrimmage. Nobody seems terribly worried about that.
Defensively, the Vikings also have good starting linebackers and an OK secondary (don't let the cumulative numbers fool you: the Vikes ranked 16th in pass yards allowed per attempt last season. They gave up a lot of yards because they gave up so many attempts: they were average in defending those attempts).
Offensively, they have dynamic running backs in Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor, and an improving group of wide receivers (high hopes for Bernard Berrian and Sidney Rice).
Which brings us back to Tarvaris Jackson. It always brings us back to Tarvaris Jackson.
Let's give Brad Childress this credit: when he took over as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, he talked about how a good football team should be built first from the offensive and defensive lines. Going into his third year with the team, the Vikings appear to be stacked on the offensive and defensive lines. This is the sort of team he said he wanted to make the Vikings.
The 2008 Vikings should have great play at the line of scrimmage. Nobody seems terribly worried about that.
Defensively, the Vikings also have good starting linebackers and an OK secondary (don't let the cumulative numbers fool you: the Vikes ranked 16th in pass yards allowed per attempt last season. They gave up a lot of yards because they gave up so many attempts: they were average in defending those attempts).
Offensively, they have dynamic running backs in Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor, and an improving group of wide receivers (high hopes for Bernard Berrian and Sidney Rice).
Which brings us back to Tarvaris Jackson. It always brings us back to Tarvaris Jackson.
This would happen, wouldn't it?
In 2004, I watched a Monday Night Game between the Cowboys and the Seahawks. I thought, Wow, what if somebody ten years ago told me this would be happening. Mike Holmgren was coaching the Seahawks, Bill Parcells was coaching the Cowboys. Jerry Rice was having a great game for the Seahawks. Vinny Testaverde was the starting quarterback for the Cowboys, throwing passes to Keyshawn Johnson. Could this really be happening? How did the league come to this?
And now, tell me when exactly you would have believed that the Packers would accuse the Vikings of tampering with Brett Favre.
(more info from Kevin Seifert at Hashmarks).
And now, tell me when exactly you would have believed that the Packers would accuse the Vikings of tampering with Brett Favre.
(more info from Kevin Seifert at Hashmarks).
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Enough is Enough
The Brett Favre saga has to end. Now it leads to tampering charges against the Vikings? I didn't like the Packers to begin with, but now, now I can't even find the words to describe the rage growing inside me.
Adrian Peterson: Fantasy Running Back
At ESPN, Matthew Berry discusses fantasy players he loves and hates (based on value), beginning with why he hates Adrian Peterson (he doesn't really hate Adrian Peterson, just doesn't like his fantasy value).
This is actually the sort of fantasy football preview article I really enjoy. There are all sorts of free positional rankings out there. Berry is going a little deeper and discussing which players he values more or less than the general consensus, which is interesting and useful.
This is actually the sort of fantasy football preview article I really enjoy. There are all sorts of free positional rankings out there. Berry is going a little deeper and discussing which players he values more or less than the general consensus, which is interesting and useful.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Viking Defensive Line
At ESPN, Doug Kretz of Scouts, Inc. says the Vikings have the best defensive line in the league.
(Insider article, but you can read what Kretz writes about the Vikings without Insider).
(Insider article, but you can read what Kretz writes about the Vikings without Insider).
Monday, July 14, 2008
Blizzard: July is a Time for Lists
Links
Cold, Hard Football Facts discusses the five most underrated quarterbacks in history.
Defensive Indifference looks at the top 20 current Minnesota Vikings.
USA Today ranks the top wide receivers of the Super Bowl era and today. I think wide receiver is still my favorite position--there are a lot of wide receivers I really enjoy watching play.
Roger Rotter ranks his fantasy quarterbacks and fantasy wide receivers. I think Ben Roesthlisberger is the most overrated fantasy quarterback of 2008. I doubt he can hit 32 touchdowns again, and he only averaged around 200 yards per game last season. I expect something like 3,500 yards and 25 touchdowns from Roethlisberger, which is the sort of fantasy production 10 quarterbacks will probably meet or top next season. Not that it matters to me: I always trade for Matt Hasselbeck sometime mid-season and ride him out as my starter.
Dr. Z looks at some historical examples of great quarterbacks finishing out their careers on different teams.
How bland is July? Vikings.com is taking the entire week to rank Adrian Peterson's top moments of 2007. This was the perfect time of the year for He Who We Wish Not To Speak About to start putting himself in the news again, if his goal was to dominate all football coverage. Just about every mainstream football website features Favre in the big main page photo and with the lead stories. And why not? The only other thing to do in July is make lists.
At TrueHoop, Maurice Brooks talks about Kevin Love.
MN Sports Hotdish compares Carlos Gomez to Torii Hunter's early days with the Twins.
Beyond Shinders
People collect sports cards for different reasons. I just like to get cheap, attractive cards of players I like. So I'm thrilled that Beyond Shinders, a sports card store in the Twin Cities, is bringing back the best feature of the old Shinders: the specials box. Rows and rows of star cards, most priced at 29 cents. They also have "commons" boxes, which feature a lot of star cards for 10 cents each. It's a nice feature for people who like to spend a lot of time in card stores looking, and for people who like to get cards without spending much money at all.
Brett Favre
I don't care.
Fantasy Football Fever
The Hazelweird League draft is now less than three weeks away. I chose to pick last in the first round, so I get to pick #10 and #11. I've got mad schemes for those picks. Mad schemes.
Cold, Hard Football Facts discusses the five most underrated quarterbacks in history.
Defensive Indifference looks at the top 20 current Minnesota Vikings.
USA Today ranks the top wide receivers of the Super Bowl era and today. I think wide receiver is still my favorite position--there are a lot of wide receivers I really enjoy watching play.
Roger Rotter ranks his fantasy quarterbacks and fantasy wide receivers. I think Ben Roesthlisberger is the most overrated fantasy quarterback of 2008. I doubt he can hit 32 touchdowns again, and he only averaged around 200 yards per game last season. I expect something like 3,500 yards and 25 touchdowns from Roethlisberger, which is the sort of fantasy production 10 quarterbacks will probably meet or top next season. Not that it matters to me: I always trade for Matt Hasselbeck sometime mid-season and ride him out as my starter.
Dr. Z looks at some historical examples of great quarterbacks finishing out their careers on different teams.
How bland is July? Vikings.com is taking the entire week to rank Adrian Peterson's top moments of 2007. This was the perfect time of the year for He Who We Wish Not To Speak About to start putting himself in the news again, if his goal was to dominate all football coverage. Just about every mainstream football website features Favre in the big main page photo and with the lead stories. And why not? The only other thing to do in July is make lists.
At TrueHoop, Maurice Brooks talks about Kevin Love.
MN Sports Hotdish compares Carlos Gomez to Torii Hunter's early days with the Twins.
Beyond Shinders
People collect sports cards for different reasons. I just like to get cheap, attractive cards of players I like. So I'm thrilled that Beyond Shinders, a sports card store in the Twin Cities, is bringing back the best feature of the old Shinders: the specials box. Rows and rows of star cards, most priced at 29 cents. They also have "commons" boxes, which feature a lot of star cards for 10 cents each. It's a nice feature for people who like to spend a lot of time in card stores looking, and for people who like to get cards without spending much money at all.
Brett Favre
I don't care.
Fantasy Football Fever
The Hazelweird League draft is now less than three weeks away. I chose to pick last in the first round, so I get to pick #10 and #11. I've got mad schemes for those picks. Mad schemes.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
The Black and Blue Division
Kevin Seifert discusses the NFC North's general run-first philosophy.
Oh, it wasn't always this way. Remember 1995, when Warren Moon, Brett Favre, Erik Kramer, and Scott Mitchell combined for 132 touchdown passes?
Oh, it wasn't always this way. Remember 1995, when Warren Moon, Brett Favre, Erik Kramer, and Scott Mitchell combined for 132 touchdown passes?
Big Blizzard
Brett Favre
There was a time when any offseason football rumors sent me atwitter. But the internet, with its constant rumor, speculation, and potential, has pretty taken that away from me (I'm not saying that's a bad thing). I won't think about Brett Favre until there is a fact staring at my face. If he goes somewhere, I'll comment on it. Until then, this is all you'll hear from me about him.
(Oh, and he's the all-time interception leader, and in his last playoff game, he came up dud in the fourth quarter and then threw a clinching interception in overtime. Now that's all you'll hear from me).
Fantasy Football Projections Put Too Much Emphasis On The Previous Season Alone, Instead of Consistency Over An Extended Period of Time.
Last season Tom Brady threw 50 TDs and 4,806 yards, better than Peyton Manning's 31 TDs and 4,040 yards. But over the past six seasons Manning has averaged 32.5 TDs and 4,201, while Brady has averaged 29.8 TD passes and 3,920 yards. No, the difference isn't terribly great: 2.7 TDs and 281 yards per season. But Manning has been more consistently statistically dominant (8 of 10 seasons with 4,000+ yards, never fewer than 26 TD passes), and if I have a choice between Brady or Manning for my 2008 fantasy team, I'd rather have Manning.
Last season, I was in a 14-team league and selected Peyton Manning in the first round (my justification of that pick is here), and I finished 3rd. I would do it again: I trust Manning's consistency, and in a deep league, I didn't want my first pick to be a dud. And despite Brady's 2007 season, Peyton Manning is the only quarterback I would consider taking in the first round this season.
Nuts to First Round Running Backs!
In fantasy football, I feel running backs have too high a "bust rate." Not only is it a position extremely prone to injuries, but a lot of running backs have a great season, gain a lot of fantasy hype, then disappoint the following season. I'm tired of that noise. For me, the first and second round is a time to pick quarterbacks and wide receivers. Elite players at those positions are less injury prone, and their performances are generally more consistent from year to year. Running backs are boom and bust, quarterbacks and wide receivers are reliable. I'll take reliable with my early picks: I want elite players that are most likely to perform well. Plus, there are 32 teams in the NFL, and every one of those teams is going to start somebody at running back each week. In a fantasy football league with around 10 teams, you can find starting running backs.
Oh, yeah...
Remember I don't trust any of the duplicitous confidence men in the Hazelweird League, and so you shouldn't believe everything I say about fantasy football on this blog, because I am trying to deceive those degenerates.
You know what I'm tired of?
Thinking about Tarvaris Jackson every single day of my life. Should he really be that important to me? Why do I spend so much time thinking about him? Why does my every football thought somehow devolve to "Yeah, but Tarvaris Jackson"?
Links
A Suspension of Disbelief article: Bucky Brooks talks about how great Randy McMichael might be this season. Nope, I can't suspend my disbelief for that.
In fantasy football, there's a big gap between perception and value. Pancake Blocks comments on Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald.
Pro-football-reference.com does a good job of entertaining and amusing during the offseason. Chase Stuart examines some cherry picked facts, and Doug does "a very, very simple similar-player generator."
I Dislike Your Favorite Team discusses Minnesota, Wisconsin, fair weather fandom, and the problem of attendance as a standard. I think in general Minnesota does have a mostly fair weather fanbase, but don't assume all the parts share the qualities of the whole--there are a lot of die-hards here. If anybody wants to accuse Minnesotans in general of being fair weather fans, I'd probably agree with you; if anybody accused me of being a fair weather fan, I'd say "then why did I watch every game the 2002 Vikings played? Why did I watch every game the 2006 Vikings played? Why do I still bother talking about the Timberwolves? For that matter, how do I maintain the energy to keep up a blog about the freakin' Vikings?"
Cold, Hard Football Facts discusses how era affects passing numbers, and lists the five most overrated quarterbacks. It's good stuff, and I'll just make one critical remark. What would you say about a quarterback that had four consecutive playoff games with completion percentages over 70%? What would you say about a quarterback that had five consecutive playoff games with ratings between 91.8 and 118.4? You'd think that's a pretty good playoff quarterback, right? And if that quarterback's teams gave up an average of 26 points per game in his playoff starts, you might not blame him for those playoff losses, right? I'm talking about Warren Moon. As I've said before, the numbers show that Warren Moon was very good in the playoffs, especially in his prime from '89-'93. And considering Moon didn't even get a chance to play quarterback in the NFL until he was 28 primarily due to racist assumptions, I've got a lot of respect for what Moon was able to accomplish. In a previous column, CHFF's first two arguments against Moon as a Hall of Famer focused on his team's playoff failures, and in the column on overrated quarterbacks, CHFF notes Moon's "poor playoff performances." That's far too dismissive. The arguments against Moon's accumulated regular season stats have a solid basis--the criticism of Moon's supposedly poor playoff performance ignores a lot of contrary evidence.
An interesting change at Football Outsiders: DYAR is replacing DPAR, which allows more clarity and understanding of the stats' meaning. There are also some other solid adjustments to their system, including the standards for replacement level. Specifically, Schatz writes that "Originally, we estimated replacement level by simply using a scale similar to the one our partners at Baseball Prospectus use for hitters and pitchers [...] It was time to come up with something we felt was more accurate than 'this is sort of based on what BP does.'" One of my vague, undeveloped critiques of FO was its adoption of replacement level from baseball, so I like the shift toward a more independent basis in football. I'm still not entirely sure replacement level means as much in football as it might in baseball (so much interdependence for player performance), but Football Outsiders is generally so insightful, useful, and scientific in its analysis that I won't quibble terribly much.
An interesting bit of off-season amusement at Sports Illustrated: putting together an all-star roster that must abide by a salary cap. Good, good, good. But if I'm starting a team from scratch, salary cap or no salary cap, first of all I'll take the quarterback that led teams to 10, 12, 12, 14, 12, and 13 regular season wins in the past six seasons, and whose team has finished #2, #1, #2, #2, and #3 in points scored the past five seasons.
Tony Gonzalez saved somebody's life (ESPN).
Roger Rotter ranks fantasy running backs. I will provide my running back rankings after August 3. For today I'll just say that my rankings are rather different than Rotter's rankings.
Footballguys gives a warning rookie running backs in fantasyland: "only three times in the last 10 years has the 1st RB drafted ended up as the top fantasy producer."
Roy. S. Johnson is tired of "the coverage of athletes’ misbehavior." Me too. I don't even click on the links anymore. I don't care. I watch sports for fun, and I don't want to read about every traffic violation an athlete commits.
Here's another free fantasy football site: Fantasy Football Fools.
There was a time when any offseason football rumors sent me atwitter. But the internet, with its constant rumor, speculation, and potential, has pretty taken that away from me (I'm not saying that's a bad thing). I won't think about Brett Favre until there is a fact staring at my face. If he goes somewhere, I'll comment on it. Until then, this is all you'll hear from me about him.
(Oh, and he's the all-time interception leader, and in his last playoff game, he came up dud in the fourth quarter and then threw a clinching interception in overtime. Now that's all you'll hear from me).
Fantasy Football Projections Put Too Much Emphasis On The Previous Season Alone, Instead of Consistency Over An Extended Period of Time.
Last season Tom Brady threw 50 TDs and 4,806 yards, better than Peyton Manning's 31 TDs and 4,040 yards. But over the past six seasons Manning has averaged 32.5 TDs and 4,201, while Brady has averaged 29.8 TD passes and 3,920 yards. No, the difference isn't terribly great: 2.7 TDs and 281 yards per season. But Manning has been more consistently statistically dominant (8 of 10 seasons with 4,000+ yards, never fewer than 26 TD passes), and if I have a choice between Brady or Manning for my 2008 fantasy team, I'd rather have Manning.
Last season, I was in a 14-team league and selected Peyton Manning in the first round (my justification of that pick is here), and I finished 3rd. I would do it again: I trust Manning's consistency, and in a deep league, I didn't want my first pick to be a dud. And despite Brady's 2007 season, Peyton Manning is the only quarterback I would consider taking in the first round this season.
Nuts to First Round Running Backs!
In fantasy football, I feel running backs have too high a "bust rate." Not only is it a position extremely prone to injuries, but a lot of running backs have a great season, gain a lot of fantasy hype, then disappoint the following season. I'm tired of that noise. For me, the first and second round is a time to pick quarterbacks and wide receivers. Elite players at those positions are less injury prone, and their performances are generally more consistent from year to year. Running backs are boom and bust, quarterbacks and wide receivers are reliable. I'll take reliable with my early picks: I want elite players that are most likely to perform well. Plus, there are 32 teams in the NFL, and every one of those teams is going to start somebody at running back each week. In a fantasy football league with around 10 teams, you can find starting running backs.
Oh, yeah...
Remember I don't trust any of the duplicitous confidence men in the Hazelweird League, and so you shouldn't believe everything I say about fantasy football on this blog, because I am trying to deceive those degenerates.
You know what I'm tired of?
Thinking about Tarvaris Jackson every single day of my life. Should he really be that important to me? Why do I spend so much time thinking about him? Why does my every football thought somehow devolve to "Yeah, but Tarvaris Jackson"?
Links
A Suspension of Disbelief article: Bucky Brooks talks about how great Randy McMichael might be this season. Nope, I can't suspend my disbelief for that.
In fantasy football, there's a big gap between perception and value. Pancake Blocks comments on Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald.
Pro-football-reference.com does a good job of entertaining and amusing during the offseason. Chase Stuart examines some cherry picked facts, and Doug does "a very, very simple similar-player generator."
I Dislike Your Favorite Team discusses Minnesota, Wisconsin, fair weather fandom, and the problem of attendance as a standard. I think in general Minnesota does have a mostly fair weather fanbase, but don't assume all the parts share the qualities of the whole--there are a lot of die-hards here. If anybody wants to accuse Minnesotans in general of being fair weather fans, I'd probably agree with you; if anybody accused me of being a fair weather fan, I'd say "then why did I watch every game the 2002 Vikings played? Why did I watch every game the 2006 Vikings played? Why do I still bother talking about the Timberwolves? For that matter, how do I maintain the energy to keep up a blog about the freakin' Vikings?"
Cold, Hard Football Facts discusses how era affects passing numbers, and lists the five most overrated quarterbacks. It's good stuff, and I'll just make one critical remark. What would you say about a quarterback that had four consecutive playoff games with completion percentages over 70%? What would you say about a quarterback that had five consecutive playoff games with ratings between 91.8 and 118.4? You'd think that's a pretty good playoff quarterback, right? And if that quarterback's teams gave up an average of 26 points per game in his playoff starts, you might not blame him for those playoff losses, right? I'm talking about Warren Moon. As I've said before, the numbers show that Warren Moon was very good in the playoffs, especially in his prime from '89-'93. And considering Moon didn't even get a chance to play quarterback in the NFL until he was 28 primarily due to racist assumptions, I've got a lot of respect for what Moon was able to accomplish. In a previous column, CHFF's first two arguments against Moon as a Hall of Famer focused on his team's playoff failures, and in the column on overrated quarterbacks, CHFF notes Moon's "poor playoff performances." That's far too dismissive. The arguments against Moon's accumulated regular season stats have a solid basis--the criticism of Moon's supposedly poor playoff performance ignores a lot of contrary evidence.
An interesting change at Football Outsiders: DYAR is replacing DPAR, which allows more clarity and understanding of the stats' meaning. There are also some other solid adjustments to their system, including the standards for replacement level. Specifically, Schatz writes that "Originally, we estimated replacement level by simply using a scale similar to the one our partners at Baseball Prospectus use for hitters and pitchers [...] It was time to come up with something we felt was more accurate than 'this is sort of based on what BP does.'" One of my vague, undeveloped critiques of FO was its adoption of replacement level from baseball, so I like the shift toward a more independent basis in football. I'm still not entirely sure replacement level means as much in football as it might in baseball (so much interdependence for player performance), but Football Outsiders is generally so insightful, useful, and scientific in its analysis that I won't quibble terribly much.
An interesting bit of off-season amusement at Sports Illustrated: putting together an all-star roster that must abide by a salary cap. Good, good, good. But if I'm starting a team from scratch, salary cap or no salary cap, first of all I'll take the quarterback that led teams to 10, 12, 12, 14, 12, and 13 regular season wins in the past six seasons, and whose team has finished #2, #1, #2, #2, and #3 in points scored the past five seasons.
Tony Gonzalez saved somebody's life (ESPN).
Roger Rotter ranks fantasy running backs. I will provide my running back rankings after August 3. For today I'll just say that my rankings are rather different than Rotter's rankings.
Footballguys gives a warning rookie running backs in fantasyland: "only three times in the last 10 years has the 1st RB drafted ended up as the top fantasy producer."
Roy. S. Johnson is tired of "the coverage of athletes’ misbehavior." Me too. I don't even click on the links anymore. I don't care. I watch sports for fun, and I don't want to read about every traffic violation an athlete commits.
Here's another free fantasy football site: Fantasy Football Fools.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Adrian Peterson
Chicago Bears' blog Blog Down is doing a nifty little concept, ranking down the top ten players that "will be the most instrumental to the Bears’ success in 2008."
At #10 is Viking running back Adrian Peterson.
At #10 is Viking running back Adrian Peterson.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Fantasy Football Advice: Draft Players
At NFL.com, Michael Fabiano provides some post-draft advice for fantasy football enthusiasts. I kid you not, here is the first bit of advice:
"1. Know the schedule and set a lineup each week"
"This might seem like an obvious rule, but I can't tell you the number of times I've seen owners fail to set their lineups. Whether a player is injured or on a bye week, he needs to be removed as a starter in order to have the best possible chance at a win. Even if that means you need to start San Diego's No. 2 running back or Atlanta's No. 3 wide receiver, at least there's a chance to see some points."
Let's get this straight, because I'm pretty sure Michael Fabiano just blew my mind. In order to succeed at fantasy football, I need to put players into my starting lineup. And "in order to have the best possible chance at a win," I need to put players into my lineup that will actually play.
Hold on, I need an illustration to fully comprehend this advice in all its complexity. So San Diego's #2 running back has a better chance at points than a player on bye? Atlanta's #3 WR might get me more points than a player that is out with injury?
At least Fabiano recognizes that "this might seem like an obvious rule." Basically, you have a better chance at success if you actually pay attention to football and adjust your lineups, than if you set a lineup and then forget to adjust it throughout the season. You have a better chance to get fantasy football wins if you start players that are playing, than if you start players that are not playing.
But really, if you want to succeed at football, just take this NFL.com writer's advice. It's mind-blowing. He also advices fantasy football participants to "Use the waiver wire and check the transactions report" and "Make trades from depth to improve at weaker positions." Since you've never thought about that before, you ought to thank this writer, listed as the "Fantasy Editor" for the NFL's official website, for providing you these nifty little tips. That's what the official website of the NFL has to offer.
In order to help you perform better at fantasy football, I would like to provide some of my own tips. Fabiano has provided everything you need to know for "post-draft" management of your team: here is some advice for what to do during the draft.
1. Draft players for every position your league allows you to start.
If your league allows you to start two running backs, don't just select one running back. And if your league allows you to start a tight end, don't forget to draft one on draft night. Remember, a real tight end has a better probability of scoring your team points than a blank spot in your starting lineup.
2. Only draft current players.
Dan Marino is a Hall of Famer, but he is unlikely to get you any fantasy points in 2008. Believe it or not, even Brodie Croyle is likely to get more fantasy points in 2008 than players like Marino, Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, Fran Tarkenton, Steve Young, or John Elway. So make sure to look at an updated list of current NFL players.
3. Draft team starters, not team backups.
In all likelihood, a team's starting quarterback will have more fantasy points than a team's backup quarterback. Backup players can emerge to become valid fantasy performers, but don't pick Jim Sorgi before Peyton Manning.
4. When it is your turn to pick, make sure to say a name.
When it is your turn to select a player, you actually have to select a player. You shouldn't just stare at the wall. Don't just grin at everybody. Don't say, "Alright, I'm set. Who picks next?" If you don't actually pick players, you won't end up with anybody on your roster.
"1. Know the schedule and set a lineup each week"
"This might seem like an obvious rule, but I can't tell you the number of times I've seen owners fail to set their lineups. Whether a player is injured or on a bye week, he needs to be removed as a starter in order to have the best possible chance at a win. Even if that means you need to start San Diego's No. 2 running back or Atlanta's No. 3 wide receiver, at least there's a chance to see some points."
Let's get this straight, because I'm pretty sure Michael Fabiano just blew my mind. In order to succeed at fantasy football, I need to put players into my starting lineup. And "in order to have the best possible chance at a win," I need to put players into my lineup that will actually play.
Hold on, I need an illustration to fully comprehend this advice in all its complexity. So San Diego's #2 running back has a better chance at points than a player on bye? Atlanta's #3 WR might get me more points than a player that is out with injury?
At least Fabiano recognizes that "this might seem like an obvious rule." Basically, you have a better chance at success if you actually pay attention to football and adjust your lineups, than if you set a lineup and then forget to adjust it throughout the season. You have a better chance to get fantasy football wins if you start players that are playing, than if you start players that are not playing.
But really, if you want to succeed at football, just take this NFL.com writer's advice. It's mind-blowing. He also advices fantasy football participants to "Use the waiver wire and check the transactions report" and "Make trades from depth to improve at weaker positions." Since you've never thought about that before, you ought to thank this writer, listed as the "Fantasy Editor" for the NFL's official website, for providing you these nifty little tips. That's what the official website of the NFL has to offer.
In order to help you perform better at fantasy football, I would like to provide some of my own tips. Fabiano has provided everything you need to know for "post-draft" management of your team: here is some advice for what to do during the draft.
1. Draft players for every position your league allows you to start.
If your league allows you to start two running backs, don't just select one running back. And if your league allows you to start a tight end, don't forget to draft one on draft night. Remember, a real tight end has a better probability of scoring your team points than a blank spot in your starting lineup.
2. Only draft current players.
Dan Marino is a Hall of Famer, but he is unlikely to get you any fantasy points in 2008. Believe it or not, even Brodie Croyle is likely to get more fantasy points in 2008 than players like Marino, Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, Fran Tarkenton, Steve Young, or John Elway. So make sure to look at an updated list of current NFL players.
3. Draft team starters, not team backups.
In all likelihood, a team's starting quarterback will have more fantasy points than a team's backup quarterback. Backup players can emerge to become valid fantasy performers, but don't pick Jim Sorgi before Peyton Manning.
4. When it is your turn to pick, make sure to say a name.
When it is your turn to select a player, you actually have to select a player. You shouldn't just stare at the wall. Don't just grin at everybody. Don't say, "Alright, I'm set. Who picks next?" If you don't actually pick players, you won't end up with anybody on your roster.
Jared Allen and Sacks
At Advanced NFL Stats, Brian Burke looks at Jared Allen's sack rate and how sacks correlate to winning.
Kevin Williams
For the second time, USA Today has ranked a Viking as the best current player at his position, calling Kevin Williams the top defensive tackle in the game today. Alan Page is ranked as the fifth best DT of the Super Bowl era.
(just a note--I think Pat Williams is better than Kevin Williams--not as versatile, but more dominant).
(just a note--I think Pat Williams is better than Kevin Williams--not as versatile, but more dominant).
PV at 10,000 Takes
At 10,000 Takes, some more thoughts on Dr. Z's prediction that the Vikes win the Super Bowl (this year!), particularly looking at his comments on Brad Childress and Tarvaris Jackson.
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