Bulger & Holt: turning laughter into tears all across the nation.

A buddy of mine that I play in a Fantasy Baseball league with likes to talk.  He likes to talk a lot.  He finished third as I won the league and talked until the end.  Now it is football season and he is writing me about my articles digging at me yet again because he didn’t feel my JOKES section has done him any justice:

“Brilliant analysis!  One of you three Jocks from last week actually played well, and of your Jokes, one rushed for over 100 yards and a  score.”

If this was Deadwood I would send a guy over to his place and have him kick the tar out of him.  But this is not Deadwood and you do read this relying on my information.  So I thought I should take a moment to refresh your memory and maybe let any readers that came on after the first couple weeks about what I do  here.

The Weekly Mojo is just my personal rant about something fantasy related and I hope it sparks questions that I can answer, along with any other reader mail.  The Jocks & Jokes section, however, is not – as my buddy seems to think it is – a who to Bench or Start section.  It is simply a list of guys that are playing well or not playing well to date and why I think they have value or not.

I told my buddy the same thing I will tell all of you; take your lumps and come out fighting this  week!

Weekly Mojo: Luck versus Skill

In my local league, the Gordini Fantasy Football League, I sat in last place after Week 3.  LAST PLACE!  I have since moved up to first  place.  But those first three weeks tried my patience more than I can remember in any recent season.  I sat at 0-3 watching a team I thought was pure gold let a season slip away.  There is nothing I could have done to prevent it.  I checked; there wasn’t a guy I benched that went off that would have procured a Win for me.  So the question comes to mind, “How much of Fantasy Football is luck and how much is skill?”

Well, you have to have some skill.  Certainly if you walked out of the draft with nothing but scrubs you would be in deep trouble.  Well, OK that isn’t really true either.  Check out this side by side comparison and honestly ask yourself, which team would you have predicted to be in first by Week 6?

If you said Team 1, you are a liar.  If you had Team 2 and your buddy had Team 1 you would have been calling him hourly after your draft to laugh at him.  The problem is, right now he would be laughing at you from first place most likely as you sat close to or in last place.

Luck does play a HUGE role in Fantasy Football and trying to understand it is what makes it so hard to swallow.  So don’t worry about it.  Use your skill to pick the best team you can and watch that waiver wire for guys that pop up.  In the end it takes skill to stay on top of a team you picked and luck to make it all work.  Are you lucky or skilled?