In the words of early-WWF Chris Jericho, someone should tell Marshall Faulk to pleeeeeease just shut…the hell…UP!

Seriously Marshall, shut up. Yes, Chris Johnson is holding out for more money. I understand that – he was by far the best running back in the NFL last season, and is due to make just $550,000 this season, less than almost every other unning back.

CJ28 deserves more cash, for certain. In the last year of his three year, $12M rookie contract, the Titans are probably open to the idea of an extension, because there’s no way you can risk losing a franchise-altering back like Johnson because you wouldn’t open up the pocketbook. This is the NFL, and everyone has to spend. But Faulk doesn’t think that will happen:

“Without a doubt, if more money is what he wants, he has to hold out,” Faulk, who is now an NFL Network analyst, told the newspaper. “You have to know who you are dealing with. The Titans aren’t known for caving in or paying, it doesn’t matter who you are. In my opinion, there is no way he can come in and play under the current contract.”

While I’d concede that Johnson pretty much can’t play with his current deal (without exposing himself to serious long-term financial risk should he be injured), I disagree that a hold out is necessary. It’s only early in the optional practice season for the NFL, so I’m remaining optimistic Johnson will at least show up at training camp.

How much money Johnson deserves is up for debate, too. Last year he ran for 500 yards more than the next best back in the league, and he set the single-season yards-from-scrimmage record for the NFL. He is, without question, the most dynamic running back in the league, one of the best receiving backs, and one of the top-10 most exciting players to watch in the league. Really, the Titans can’t afford to have him off the field for any amount of time, and neither can the NFL.

For comparison’s sake, the highest base salary in the league belonged to Darren Sproles ($6.62M), the median starting back had a base salary of about $2.5M, and the league’s second leading rusher (Steven Jackson) had a base salary of $5.5M. When you include signing bonuses, Maurice Jones Drew ($13.1M total compensation) and Brandon Jacobs ($11.5M total compensation) paced the league. You can expect Johnson’s deal to have a ludicrous signing bonus, meaning his compensation for the year will probably reach eight figures, with a base salary around $3.5-5M for 2010.

The unfortunate reality is that Johnson will probably hold out a while longer. He deserves more money, and the Titants will eventually pay it to him, so this all seems more a formality than a newsworthy hold out.

Still, Johnson doesn’t need sportscasters and icons of the sport encouraging him to do the exact thing most sportscasters chastise superstar players for doing (holding out). Chris Johnson will play for the Titans this season, and probably be present for a good chunk of training camp.

In the meantime, someone tell Marshall Faulk to shut up (just in case).

How deep does my commitment to the holiday go? In high school, I had a tradition of playing sick every Thanksgiving Thursday, without fail, so that I could be assured of not missing a moment of watching the Lions get embarrassed and whatever mediocre match-up David Stern threw our way.

Let the most obvious of observations reign: Thanksgiving football is an institution on either side of the border. So, with the day of feasting and family upon us once again, why not use the opportunity to unleash a succession of NFL Tangents.

Nothing captures the spirit of the holiday season like a string of non sequiturs! Onward and upward…

• Does anyone else get the sense that Chris Johnson is destined to play Barry Sanders to Adrian Peterson’s Emmitt Smith (only if, you know, Smith was a complete freak of human nature)? It would shock me very little if a decade from now I am explaining to my nephews how Peterson became the league’s best running back since James Brown but that Johnson had more memorable runs than anyone this century. Just a pleasure to watch them both.

• Speaking of the Vikes, I don’t think it is too much to ask to demand that we get treated to Favre-Green Bay Part 3 in the playoffs. I feel for the Packers fans, and believe nothing will heal their wounds like seeing Old Man Brett and his Wranglers throw his fourth pick of the game and seal Minnesota’s fate, then hop back up on his tractor. The good people of Wisconsin deserve that. They need it. Seeing him accept an MVP trophy would be too much.

• Everyone points to Randy Moss, and understandably so given their obviously similar physical gifts, but the player Calvin “All-World Ability” Johnson needs to study is Reggie Wayne. Like Johnson, Wayne did not start his career with play that suggested his greatness was preordained. Instead he worked. He learned. He studied. And now he is the best receiver in football and will someday be heading to Canton. (Having Peyton Manning throw him the rock and learning under Marvin Harrison didn’t exactly hurt his chances though…)

• Hey Bears fans, at least you can look forward to the Draft and using your first round pick to help shore up…what’s that? Oh. Well. Um…let’s just move along then.

• I can’t decide if Jared Allen looks like he belongs with Leonidas and his bold 300, but as a stunt double in the Mick Foley biopic. What I do know, though, is that he is a bad, bad man.

• Having Steven Jackson on your Fantasy team is a practice in subtle self-hatred. Trying to comprehend how he could so effortlessly earn yardage, yet so definitely fail to put the ball in the end-zone, is a practice that only a man who hates his life would freely take up. You are looking at just such a man.

• Please, football Gods, find Matt Leinart a starting job. There is no way I will believe that he isn’t more qualified and capable than the Marc Bulgers, Alex Smiths, and Trent Edwards of this world.

• Charles Woodson may never have turned into the World Beater he looked like at Michigan, but he has had a wonderfully productive career and should be looked at as a major contender for Defensive Player of the Year.

• The exact same thing can be said for Nick Harper and everyone else on Tennessee. And by same, I mean opposite – they are beyond awful.

• If you are a member of the NFL media and have an MVP vote, and choose not to use it on Peyton Manning or Drew Brees, you will officially be required to forfeit your voting rights.

• Let this be said about the marketing push being put on by the Rogers Centre for the Bills’ “Toronto Series” game next week: at least it is a reprieve from the ads for the Bon Jovi concert that doesn’t even happen until next summer. Really, in 2009, why in the name of Eddie Van Halen are you advertising for a Bon Jovi concert nine months out? I would rather see more of those ridiculously uninspired “T.O. in T.O.!!!” billboards.

• To all those that think VY might be able to run the table, I applaud your optimism, but also remind you that doing so would require a win over Arizona this week and Indy the next. Not saying this is impossible, but I like Topher Grace’s chances as a bankable leading man more. Sorry. (In Fez voice: “I said good day.”)

**This one is being added in by the editor, Blake Murphy, while Trev is on the Vince Young topic: Lil’ Wayne’s line “Vince Young…suicide doors” in Break Up from the No Ceilings mixtape is maybe the cruelest athlete-rap lyric tie-in ever.**

• It dawns on me that the sort of people who casually watch football, yet are clear about their like of the Patriots, are the same kinds of people who like Dane Cook, who read Tucker Max, and who saw 2012 and Law Abiding Citizen. Needless to say, I do not like these people.

• Coors Light Ad Guys – on the upside, congrats, you win as the best mass-marketed beer commercial campaign. On the other hand, since Bud Light Guy and Miller Golden Wheat voiceover were your only contenders, maybe this is not something to brag about.

• Thanksgiving football just is not the same without Madden and his Tur-duck-en. A little part of me still holds out hope that he will re-enter the fray, if only to tell us about what a good stoop he just sat in. I miss you, John.

• Five fearless predictions for the weekend ahead: New England topples the Saints, Houston surprises Indy, Baltimore takes it to Pittsburgh, San Fran catches Jacksonville sleeping, and I waste at least 8 hours watching games when I should be working.

Get home safe, tip your waiters, and don’t forget to talk your doctor to see if Cialis is right for you.

NFL: 1st and 5
NHL: Five for Fighting
NBA: Four Point Play
MLB: Four-Ply Wallop

The Brady Quinn Experiment
The Cleveland Browns decided they had had enough of the Brady Quinn Experiment this past Sunday, pulling him in favor of Derek Anderson at halftime. The logic is not that Quinn has made a lot of mistakes over his two-and-a-half game tenure, it’s that he hasn’t made much of anything – he’s shown a fear of passing downfield, and even his check-downs and dump-offs inside of 15 yards have been inaccurate. A 62.9 QB Rating is not cutting it, I guess. The alternate choice is Derek Anderson, a Pro Bowler in 2007 who is, to use a Favrism you’ll all understand, a gunslinger. Just throw it downfield, the motto goes, and it may get picked off (three times in the second half Sunday, for example), but it may net you enough touchdowns to make the Pro Bowl even with a shaky 82.5 QB Rating.

My bromance with Brady aside, I think this move is premature and foolhardy. The Browns are not going anywhere close to anywhere this year, so rolling with the younger QB makes sense. Additionally, Quinn has had very little time to gel with his offense under the new Mangini Regime, and it’s not as if Mangini has done wonders with QBs in the past. While Quinn’s reluctance to air it out or look towards top receiver Braylon Edwards is troublesome, it’s also an extremely small sample size playing behind a woeful offensive line with a mediocre running game. The odds have been stacked against Brady, and while he hasn’t done anything to solidify his hold on the job, in my eyes he hasn’t exactly done anything to lose it, either.

A switch to Anderson may provide a little bit more offense (remember those 40-35 shootouts with the Bengals a few years back?), but I honestly don’t believe in Anderson as a viable long-term quarterback, although he is just 26. Obviously, the Browns agree somewhat, since Quinn won the job out of training camp. Those who own Edwards in fantasy leagues (like me) are salivating at the thought of a 2007 re-connect between Anderson and Edwards (16 times in 2007!).

This week, Mangini has promised to select his starting QB early but keep it mostly a secret until game day (because that worked in Week 1?). However, it came out that Anderson will get the nod against a hungry Bengals team. Again, in 2007 this would have been a great position for Anderson to walk into, but this is 2009, and it’s a different story. Quinn will look good watching on the sidelines, and Anderson will struggle with turnovers per usual.

Terrell Ownes Being Goaded (Not Goated)
The tables have turned! Or should that be a question mark? Anyway, TO has essentially flipped the script on the media, putting them on the defensive and accusing them of being the disruptive presence. And he’s got a point.

The book on Owens is that he has always been an outspoken troublemaker, everywhere he’s been. However, as Owens always pointed out, he was just answering questions honestly…if the questions were leading or his answers misrepresented, that was out of his control. This season, however, Owens was determined to shake his bad teammate reputation in Buffalo, going so far as to not answer to the media after Weeks 1 and 2.

Now, however, the NFL has informed him that he has to speak to the media. I understand the NFL’s point of view, as they need their players to be accessible, personable, and…quotable. The NFL has looked down on Owens in the past for his disruptions, but they are not behind him trying to keep his mouth shut. Curious.

For a normal person, you could wonder why Owens can’t just speak to the media without speaking negatively about his team. For a football fan who has watched any Bills action this year, you’d know that the reason is two-fold: the media won’t construe anything he says to be anything but negative; and there isn’t much positive to say about the Bills right now.

So for now, Owens will ditch “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything,” for “if you don’t have anything nice to say, say something neutral and cross your fingers people don’t twist it around.” A possible solution: get Trent Edwards to look downfield, and this would all be a non-issue.

Of Lords and Leftwiches (And I Guess Garcias, Too)
Byron Leftwich is now the third string QB in Tampa Bay, after a rough three-week audition at the helm. Leftwich actually looked good in Week 1, okay in Week 2, and awful in Week 3 – whether this was regression or match-ups is pretty obvious. Leftwich’s QB Rating was ugly so far, but again, he had productive games the first two weeks, so he can clearly play (he just can’t move).

For the Bucs, the move makes sense, getting speedy rookie Josh Johnson into action to see what he’s got. If he doesn’t have it after long, high-potential Josh Freeman could get a look. Johnson is the play for now, and he’s an interesting one as one of the best non-Division I college players of all time.

For Leftwich, it seems his time in Tampa is done unless one of the young guns really struggles. Tampa won’t do much in 2009, so it doesn’t make sense to impede the progress of younger players to get Leftwich in the game. It seems fairly likely he’ll be waived if either of the two young quarterbacks does well, adding another name to the available free agent QB pool.

Between Leftwich and Jeff Garcia, there are two readily available quarterbacks with loads of NFL experience and proven (kind of) track records. Teams like Oakland, Miami, and St. Louis and later down the road possibly Jacksonville, Tennessee, Buffalo, and Carolina could be in the QB market, and these two have to be considered options A (Garcia) and B (Leftwich).

And yes, I’m fully aware I’m a too-far-gone Leftwich apologist.

I Am Lion, Hear Me Roar
Normally people say “I hate to say I told you so…” Not me, I don’t mind saying it. And I told you so. At a party Saturday night, I tried to tell several people that the Lions were going to win on Sunday. Nobody, not even the Lions fan in the conversation, believed me, and they laughed me off. I also bet the Lions pretty heavily (straight up, not taking the points), and it paid off. The Lions beat the Redskins, as I’m sure you know, for their first win since 2007.

Sure, the last few years for the Lions have been ugly, but this win, while just one, is a strong sign of the changes in the franchise. Now led by potential franchise-changing players at QB, RB, WR, and TE (I know Matt Stafford and Brandon Pettigrew are nowhere near “there” yet), the Lions have some hope for the first time since the Matt Millen Era began.

The offensive line and defense need work, and promoting management from within after a decade of inept management seems strange, but a solitary win is a monstrous bright spot for a team that has been called every non-ferocious name in the felis family of animals. You’ll have to look to a Week 8 date with the Rams before you can confidently pick them again, but in the interim this team is likely to improve by season’s end and could be an under-appreciated Spreadbuster on your sports books.

Gettin’ Ducketts? They Still Waiting On Their Reparations
There are 10 teams averaging less than 100 rushing yards per game. There are 12 teams averaging less than four yards per carry. There are 10 teams with one rushing touchdown or less.

TJ Duckett, for his career, has been an adequate runner (3.9 YPC) and has been a touchdown monster (44 scores). He is also rarely hurt, punched in eight goal line touchdowns last year, has low mileage on his legs (717 career carries), and rarely fumbles (nine times in his career). Sure, he can’t catch, and his YPC is usually well below his career highs of 4.9 (2004) and 5.2 (2008), but he’s a bruising and durable runner that a team like Pittsburgh, among others, could desperately used.

Please get Duckett a jersey.

–
What? Hell yeah I self promote and cyber-stalk athletes, wrestlers, and rappers via Twitter! I sign on like twice a week, so it’s really easy to follow me.

It is, obviously, very early in the football season. However…

The Jacksonville Jaguars are 0-1. The Jacksonville Jaguars are about to play their first home game of 2009. The Jacksonville Jaguars are about to fail to sell out their first home game of 2009. The Jacksonville Jaguars are about to blackout their first home game of 2009.

The Jacksonville Jaguars, one game into the NFL season, are in a lot of trouble. It’s not on the field, where they played a defensively inspired Week 1 game against Indianapolis and have a top-10 talent in Maurice Jones-Drew to hang their collective hat on, but off the field. Jacksonville is a city no longer supporting its team, leaving them no advertising revenue and forcing the team (by NFL rules) to blackout home games on local television, thereby forcing ownership to consider its options across all strategic platforms.

Owner Wayne Weaver has repeated adamantly that he will not move the team. Instead, they’ve lowered ticket prices, offered flexible season ticket arrangements, lowered concession prices, and tried to create a family-friendly at-the-stadium atmosphere. Nothing has worked.

So the team, eight months in advance of the Draft, is setting the wheels in motion to change the city’s attitude towards it’s team.

Enter Tim Tebow.

An ESPN story broke the news that Weaver and the Jaguars are already considering drafting Tim Tebow in April.

Please ignore the fact that the team has no idea where they will pick, has no idea how this season will play out, has no idea how Tebow will perform in his fourth season at Florida and at the Combine, and has no idea what they have with David Garrard (the Two-Face of NFL quarterbacks). Please also ignore that publicly declaring your draft strategy is asinine, especially concerning a player that scouts vary on so greatly (the Jags have essentially created the market for Tebow – where he would have been a potential Day Two pick before, the Jags obvious interest brings him into the discussion much earlier).

Ignore all of this, and focus on the logic: As ESPN put it; this could be LeBron in Cleveland, the football version. I’d call that an outlandish exaggeration, but the point is clear: the Jaguars are so hard up for fan support that they think a reasonable solution is to draft a hometown hero, regardless of his potential as an NFL quarterback, in order to increase fan interest and ticket sales.

From a strictly business standpoint, it makes some sense. Probably not a great deal of sense (though they are currently surveying the county to see if Tebow would sway season ticket purchasing…seriously), but it’s not an awful idea. From a football standpoint, it seems absurd.

Tebow, while a great college quarterback with highly admirable intangibles (leadership, determination, etc), does not project to be a great NFL quarterback. The jury is out on his NFL potential due to his strange mechanics and bad habits – there are some who believe his intangibles will lead him to greatness, while others say there is just too much physically to overcome at the NFL level.

Personally, I think Tebow will make a good, not great, quarterback at the NFL level, with the potential to be one of the league’s most likable players and role models. Obviously, this is a description every team would like to see next to their players…but next to their franchise quarterback, you’d like a more glowing review of talent.

As a Jaguar fan in Canada (or am I?), I can’t speak for the impact on a local level. I’d assume it could drive some interest in the team initially, but it may be missing the forest for the trees, so to speak – winning has been shown to drive attendance in a lot of cases, and the Jaguars have made the playoffs but twice in the past nine seasons. Does adding an unprojectable quarterback to an offense devoid of but one star talent make much sense if the ultimate goal is to win?

I guess we’ll see. It’s a fun idea, and one that should definitely have an impact in the short-term…if the Jags haven’t blown their shot at him by declaring they’ll select him eight months in advance.

–
What? Hell yeah I self promote and cyber-stalk celebrities via Twitter! I sign on like twice a week, ya! You can follow me here.

In the life of a sports fan, few days on the calendar are filled with as much hope and optimism as the day the NFL season begins in earnest. It is a kind of Spring in Fall – a new birth, a very real chance for renewal. That first honest gaze on Solider Field (the pre-season does not count, after all) offers restoration of the hopes and dreams of a fan base for the season ahead.

It is fandom at its purest. Not yet exhausted by botched play-calling or inept execution, supports truly believe that anything may lay in wait in the months ahead. Bitterness has not yet made its presence felt and the fates remain unknown.

There are, of course, those that would rather remain guarded and detached as fans and point to the optimism felt on Kickoff Weekend as a false hope, a by-product of the summer-long wait fans endure waiting for the season to begin anew. But I would contend, Bears fans, that there is no such thing as false hope – in sports or in life, you learn from yesterday, live for today, and hope for tomorrow. With the records reset and a season of possibilities available, it is only opportunity that awaits every team (…yes, even the Lions).

That is what makes this such a difficult letter to write. Indeed, I am writing you today as a friend, as someone that understands that you deserve better than the reality you awoke to this morning. Good citizens of New Gotham, the truth you are now faced with is anything but pleasant. I do not like telling you this, but…

Your team’s season is already over.

Of all the scenarios that you might have entertained last night around 8:30 EST, an unthinkably woeful performance from your franchise quarterback while losing the heart and soul of your defensive unit could not have even seemed a remote possibility. And yet, four Jay Cutler interceptions and a Brian Urlacher dislocated right wrist later, here we are.

I cannot begin to understand how disappointing this start must seem given the colossal expectations nationally around “The Cutler Era” (a title that already looks ridiculous to type…a Delhomme-like 43.2 passer rating will do that).

Your golden boy ended up looking more like a goat. Has there ever been such a thing as 21-15 blowout? The Packers certainly did not light the world on fire with their play on offense, yet still managed to take the game outright. They did not play with the same precision they had in the pre-season, and their team timing and rhythm were off throughout, but what was clear was that Green Bay brought an emotional toughness and a team-wide physicality that the Bears could not match.

Somewhere, Rex Grossman is doubling over in laughter.

You remember Rex, right? The last Bears pivot with a cannon arm and the over-confidence/brashness that comes with it? Like Grossman before him, Cutler consistently forced throws from across his body, from one foot, from anywhere but a solid pocket stance. He could have been picked off twice before his first interception and before it was all over he had literally handed the game to Al Harris and the Packers D. It is a safe assumption that Cutler will not replicate his last night’s performance for the entire season, but it seems safe to say that we are not looking at the new John Elway, either.

It may not have been entirely Jay’s fault though. Your team’s offensive line was positively rotten, and the receiving corps was not much better. Green Bay dared the Bears to throw on them and baited Cutler into believing in those wide-outs. That is not a formula for winning football games when your roster features nothing resembling a big-time weapon in the receiving depth charts. No matter how strong Devin Hester looked last night, he is not an elite-level receiver, particularly if he is working with a careless/reckless signal caller.

It was supposed to be different for you this time. You were supposed to be gaining a gunslinger, a rocket-armed youngster that would swing the tide in the NFC North and bring you your first real passing threat since Jim McMahon all those years ago. From the looks of things, what they got was an impulsive work in progress whose confidence in his arm outweighs his ability.

Now any hopes of meaningful playoff success seem fool-hearted and ill-considered. Unnecessary doom-saying? Perhaps. But you Chicagoan’s may have a hard time finding anyone on Michigan Avenue that believes the Bears have the horses to compete for a ring.

Of course that Chicken Little, sky-is-falling attitude about the offense should be paired with a calm, collected confidence in what has long been reviled as one of the league’s best defensive units. Right? Maybe not.

The news received yesterday that Brian Urlacher, team leader and anchor of the Bears’ vaunted (overrated?) defense, is done for the season. The Pro Bowler had surgery Monday to repair is right wrist and in doing so dampened the mood of even the most optimistic of you Bears’ fans on what lies ahead for the team. As we know, bad things come in threes, so it seems only appropriate somehow that the team also lost linebacker Pisa Tinoisamoa to a brutal-looking knee injury. It will certainly prove to be a test to maintain defensive superiority without the majority of the starting linebacker unit. In fact, the Bears were 0-7 in games Urlacher missed for injury during the 2004 season.

But you will keep the faith, Chicago. We know you will. Each summer you survive the Cubs’ and the unfulfilled promise that “this is the year.” Always having faith in next season is something you do better than most.

Collectively you also know the importance of a little doubt, that any belief worth having, whether that belief is in a community organizer or a young QB, must survive a little skepticism and disbelief first.

J. R. R. Tolkien told us that, “Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.” The road is certainly dark now, when only a few days ago it looked glorious, shining.

Good night and good luck.

Your friend in misery,

Trevor D. Smith

However, a recent Rick Reilly article has me thinking…about football…and my long-distance adopted Jacksonville Jaguars. After much thought and deliberation, I have settled on a corollary for sports fans looking for a change in their rooting habits: Canadian fans of the National Football League should get one free change of favorite NFL team to use in their lifetime.

Before you call me a bad fan, a fake sports enthusiast, or whatever insults you may throw at a treacherous traitor like myself, hear me out. After all, Canadians following the NFL exist in a very strange sports bubble. We have no local team by virtue of the Canada-United States border. We have a laughable watered down substitute for the sport in the CFL. We have very few local players to root for.

Still, though, the NFL is as prevalent in Canadian sports culture as any other sport, save for hockey. We may not be very good at it, and we may not have been brought up on it, but we unquestionably love it.

So why should we have to spend a lifetime cheering for the wrong team?

Obviously, I am speaking from my own experience here. Let me take you back: it’s late in elementary school (grade eight), I don’t know much about football, and my football-crazy neighbor is constantly talking about it, trying to get me to watch it, bet on it, play it, etc. I slowly begin to accept it. He is a Seahawks fan, and I’m certainly not going to adopt them as my team. But one Sunday the 12-1 Jaguars beat the Cleveland Browns to move to 13-1…and I get to playing Madden 99…and am intrigued by the lethal combination of Mark Brunell, Fred Taylor, and Jimmy Smith. This is a team coming off two winning seasons, they have great jerseys, likable players, and, best of all, my neighbor hates them.

Sold.

Clearly, my story of football fandom started out on rocky footing. I chose a team based on success, jerseys, Madden, and ticking someone off. Give me a break, I was like, 14.

But based on the unwritten rules of the sports universe, this is a decision I’m stuck with. And I’m sure there are others that are just the same.

Don’t get me wrong…since then, despite a lack of success, I have supported the Jags with vigor. I’ve loved Del Rio, Peterson, Mathis, Nelson, Stroud, Henderson, Taylor, Jones, Williams, Wilford, MoJo, and Leftwich. Especially Leftwich. Like…an unhealthy amount with Leftwich.

But as of late I’ve found it more difficult to root for the Jags. They have let go Taylor (free agency), Matt Jones (drug problems), Reggie Williams (parallel universe), Marcus Stroud (trade), Mike Peterson (free agency), and Defensive Coordinator Mike Smith (Falcons head coach), among others. Additionally, their ownership has basically bitchslapped their local fan base by blacking out games locally (not televising them to encourage people to head to the stadium on game day). This doesn’t affect me as an out-of-market fan, of course, but it’s a strong signal to the type of franchise being run.

So this year I’m left to cheer for Maurice Jones Drew, Reggie Nelson, Rashean Mathis, and a motley crew of middle-round draft picks and unnoticed free agent signings. The team doesn’t promise to be great, doesn’t promise to be exciting, and there’s reason to believe even more of my favorites will be shown the door in the coming years.

But I have to remain loyal, so say the rules. But why? Yes, if I lived in Jacksonville I would have no excuse, but I don’t. I live in Canada. I will probably never get to see a Jaguars game live, they are rarely on regularly televised games (but I have the sports package, of course), and I just don’t feel that strongly about them. I feel trapped and obligated, not enthusiastic and optimistic.

And yes, the main criticism would be me jumping to a winning team. But I wouldn’t. I want someone local, someone I can go see once a year, someone who will be televised once in a while…and I’m not talking about the Bills. Yeah, I’m strongly considering adopting the Detroit Lions as a favorite team. I like them…they’re close…they have potential…they suck, but they have potential.

So you can’t slap that big criticism on me. I might be a traitor, and this may be completely wrong, but I can’t help but feel like there are more out there just like me.

I haven’t decided one way or the other…I’m actually heartbroken over it. But change could be coming. I’m ready to cash in my imaginary get-out-of-fan-jail-free card. Hello De-Troit Football…?

–
What? Hell yeah I self promote and cyber-stalk celebrities via Twitter! I sign on like twice a week, ya! You can follow me here.

Tight Ends
Quarterbacks
Running Backs

For receivers, I can tell you one thing – go with your gut. Oh, I can also tell you that every person in the universe agrees that Larry Fitzgerald should be the top wide out off your draft board. My comment: Word.

Generally, receivers are both easy and difficult to predict. Unlike other positions, receivers follow a more standard career arch, and the effect of scheme, coaching, or quarterback changes are fairly intuitive. At the same time, there is very little collective predictive ability in the fantasy world when it comes to separating receivers on a rank-by-rank basis. That is, it’s near impossible to separate #2 from #5, #11 from #16, #40 from #50, and so on.

What it leaves us with is a wealth of fantasy football advice leading us in all sorts of different directions for receivers, save for Fitzgeezy. So with this admittedly brief analysis, I’m going to point out just how clueless we all are with wide receivers on draft day.

The tiny table below (rather than showing you all of the rankings, composite rankings, ADPs, etc…because you might be in my draft Sunday, Sam) shows the average spread and standard deviation for the receivers ranked in my personal top 50. These spreads are across five different sources (four site rankings and one ADP source). Clearly, we’re all clueless. The average top-50 receiver has a ranking spread of 12.52, meaning that on average a receiver is ranked 12-13 spots apart depending on what source you look at.

So Brandon Marshall could be a stud, a sleeper, or a bust waiting to happen, depending on what magazine you grab off the shelf. Josh Morgan has the largest spread (50 spots, if you can believe it), while Fitzgerald is the only player who is a consensus in any one spot (though Derrick Mason and Greg Jennings are fairly agreed upon as well).

The experts don’t have much of an idea, and I’m sure you don’t either. So with the depth at the position and varying WR drafting strategies, take your time, take your favorite, and take only your own advice.

Oh, and don’t you dare sleep on free agent Matt Jones. Who? Matt Jones….Jones.

–
What? Hell yeah I self promote and cyber-stalk celebrities via Twitter! You can follow me here.

Yes, the collective wisdom in recent years has been that fantasy running backs are an absolute necessity, a treasure, and a God-send. That is, if you have them. Strategists have bought into the RB-RB draft model, preferring to load up on the league’s scarcest (and most talent disparate) position. And this logic has worked, for the most part.

But recent trends in real and fantasy realms have begun to change this thinking. Running back platoons are now the norm, with teams even going as far as to employ a three-headed running back stable. This is obviously frustrating for fantasy owners – while it creates a much larger pool of roster-able running back talent, it also increases parity between running backs, decreases the number of ‘home-run’ draft picks, and makes the position far more difficult to predict and scout.

This change in real-ball philosophy has created a de facto fork in the road for fantasy strategists – stick with the old conventional wisdom and hope that your RB scouting is better than that of your competition, or move to a new way of thinking. This new way of thinking values top WR in the same echelon as running backs, with quarterbacks sneaking back into the discussion. It’s no longer season suicide to go RB-WR-QB, WR-RB-WR, or any other combination not loaded with RBRBRBRBRB.

While this makes leagues a little more open in terms of strategies, and gives those who miss out on top RBs a fighting chance, it doesn’t change the fact that RBs are becoming increasingly difficult to analyze.

Between changing workloads, platoons, injuries, and sly coaches not willing to divulge a shred of in-game strategy for us fantasy deviants, choosing an RB outside of the 15-20 or so who have clear roles is cumbersome. A great deal of fantasy RB posturing, especially in thinner leagues and later weeks, will come down to the waiver wire.

With my ongoing desire to withhold strategic draft information from my league-mates (like in my QB piece, but unlike my TE piece), here is a look at how to approach RBs on the waiver wire.

The most obvious way to play the waiver wire is to look at match ups. That is, if a mediocre RB has a game against a porous run defense, he may be worth a look. At the same time, if a TD vulture like Mad Ducketts has a run of TDs but is facing a stern run D, he may not be the stopgap your looking for in a bye week.

The chart below shows the correlations between rushing yards allowed, rushing TDs allowed, and fantasy rushing points allowed (for the 2007 and 2008 seasons combined). Obviously, yards and TDs are very highly correlated with fantasy points (since they comprise the scoring system). However, what sticks out is the strong-but-not-too-strong correlation between rushing yards allowed and rushing TDs allowed. What this tells us is that it’s not enough to look at rushing yards allowed alone in terms of fantasy match-up potential, as TDs are not simply guaranteed with porous run defenses. I’d suggest a large reason for this is that teams with weak run defenses are probably weaker as a defensive unit overall, thus creating TD opportunities for the passing game as well.

The second table shows the game-by-game rushing yards allowed for the best and worst run defenses in 2007 and 2008. While the standard deviation analysis is probably all for naught given football’s small sample sizes and the fact that yards gained are probably not normally distributed around a mean, the point is pretty clear – relying on one waiver wire RB based on a strong match-up alone will probably not be your saving grace.

Instead, the savvy owner needs to use waiver wire fodder only when appropriate, in concert with game-theory strategy (e.g., to keep a target RB off of your opponent’s roster for a week if your waiver priority is higher). Gamesmanship and strong research can provide a big windfall for owners, especially in the cut-throat RB market.

Just don’t expect Deshaun Foster to vulture you a playoff-week TD against the Lions.

–
What? Hell yeah I self promote and cyber-stalk celebrities via Twitter! You can follow me here.

So for today I’m going to focus on a nuance about fantasy football that bothers me a little bit. While not universal, analyzing real football and fantasy football are different beasts. There are things players can do that simply don’t translate to the three or four stats used to accrue points for his position, and nowhere is this more true than at Quarterback (unless you play in an IDP league, in which case you can just ignore me).

Quarterbacks have a strange fantasy history – long considered staples of winning fantasy teams, the RB-RB strategy pushed them down draft boards, and now with the RB point differential shrinking, they are re-entering the conversation as high as the first round. And there is no hiding the studs – everyone wants Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady. Those who don’t get them will convince themselves to follow one of two strategies: optimistically buy into one of the second tier quarterbacks, self-hyping the player to the level of Tier One (and we see this every year); or gamble on two or three lower-tier quarterbacks while promising to ‘play the match-ups’ or ‘let them compete.’

Regardless, without a clear top-tier quarterback, one can be left rather aimless in terms of quarterback strategy. So today’s article has a tip for you: actual on-field performance or results don’t necessarily translate to fantasy gains.

Specifically, I’m referring to the somewhat loose relationship between passer rating and fantasy worth. While the relationship is positive and fairly strong (with fantasy points and QB Rating sharing a correlation of 0.74), it makes my point from the introduction clear – fantasy worth isn’t necessarily a function of real football value.

I looked at something similar earlier this month about baseball, wondering if OPS could be used in place of AVG or OBP, so that a fantasy team would better reflect a real team (which is the point, or at least it was the intent of fantasy sports at the time of their creation). With football, there is no clear OPS-like answer. In fact, it’s unclear if QB Rating is even the best statistic for quarterbacks, though it has been a favorite for some time (alas, football is understandably behind in the statistical revolution).

So we’re left with a dilemma whereby what our eyes tell us, what the stats pages tell us, and what we know from Madden on XBox, as a function together, may lead us awry in the search for fantasy points. That is, with an R-squared of 0.55, the stat, QB Rating, only explains about 55% of the variance in fantasy points produced by quarterbacks.

So what’s a girl to do?

Put simply: chase Touchdowns. TDs have a correlation of 0.94 with fantasy points, and an R-squared of 0.86 (TDs explain 86% of the variance in fantasy points). By comparison, Yards Gained only has a correlation of 0.79 with an R-squared of 0.63 (slightly better than QB Rating but nowhere near as good as TDs).

To further prove my initial point that real success is not the same as fantasy success, Interceptions have a positive correlation of 0.20 with an R-squared 0.04. While these numbers are very small and may be subject to small size bias, nobody would argue that this finding spits in the face of football wisdom – interceptions are, without question, a bad thing. Save the Gunslinger argument, Favre fans, turning the ball over is always bad.

Obviously, there’s no solution to this dilemma – you have to take fantasy quarterbacks for what they’re worth, and draft on fantasy potential instead of real potential (Joe Flacco alert!). Game managers need not apply, gunslingers be the praised, and the Sean Payton Offense rules all.

–
What? Hell yeah I self promote and cyber-stalk celebrities via Twitter! You can follow me here.

Today, we start with Tight Ends. Generally, TEs are drafted in this manner: someone jumps on the top guy a little too early, then there is a run on the next few top guys, and then everyone else panics to grab whatever is left. In reality, tight ends are both inconsistent for touchdowns and fairly standard in production once you get outside of the top few guys. So really, the draft should look more like this: someone jumps on the top guy a little too early, then there is a run on the next few top guys, and then everyone else waits it out to draft the 10 or 12 coin-toss TEs later on.

So who are the top guys? To figure it out, I amalgamated the rankings from five different sources to create a composite positional ranking. Again, this is based entirely on the work and predictions of others, not my own, so the value in the below chart extends as far as you think professionals are smarter than me. The sources for these rankings are found at the end of the article.

Two truths become apparent right away: the top three tight ends are obviously Gates, Gonzalez, and Witten…but nobody has any real idea in which order they should go. Personally, I’d expect Clark to be in the discussion among those three as well, if only for the consistency the Colts offense provides. So Gates, Witten, Gonzalez…take your pick, but for stress levels you may be luckiest picking two or three spots behind “that guy” that jumps on a TE early, saving yourself the hassle of decision making and drafting the leftover stud.

From there on out, it’s pretty much a crapshoot at the position. Kellen Winslow probably has the highest upside, Chris Cooley is probably the safest bet, and as always you should target TEs with a young quarterback (as your back-up TE though, since the TDs may be in short supply). The fact that 12 players fit in a range of 10 composite ranking ‘points’ tells the tale of parity (or mediocrity…of performance or prediction) at the position.

There’s really not much to say about Tight Ends. It all comes down to when the first one is drafted, how the league reacts, and your personal opinion on the middle class. It’s a top-heavy position, but it sure looks like if you miss out on the top three, you’ll have no problem snagging two mid-level tight ends without rushing to grab them. I’d recommend grabbing two, though, if you wait on the position, since last year this group included duds like Alge Crumpler (oops).

Check back over the next week or so for the rest of the positions, and feel free to comment with your Tight End thoughts…and jokes about ‘tight end’ are welcome, too.

—
Resources
ESPN Draft Kit
RotoWire Draft Kit (based on my scoring system)
Yahoo PreSeason Ranks
FF Today Rankings (based on my scoring system)
FF Toolbox ADP Report

—
I’m also a loser…on…Twitter. You can follow me here, but there’s not a whole lot of action outside of shameless self promotion.