Tim McCullough is the Editor of MLB for Sports Grumblings. He has
played in, and been the commissioner, for fantasy baseball and football
leagues for over ten years. His musings on fantasy baseball and
football, news, brews, and the blues have appeared online and in
print.
RB DeAngelo Williams has had a rough time, due to injuries on the offensive line.
A
fantasy baseball league mate and good friend sent me a link to a
recent Wall Street Journal article all about a high stakes fantasy
football league. The participants in this particular league are some fairly
wealthy bigwigs. The names don’t really matter; you can go look for yourself if
you’re really curious. Each of the ten participants ponies up $100, 000 dollars
to create a $1 Million dollar pot that they split among the top three
finishers. The winner gets $600,000 dollars, second place takes $300,000, and
third place gets his $100,000 entry fee back. The other seven stiffs lighten
their bank accounts considerably playing the game we all love and spend
countless hours writing about Well, some of us do anyway. Neither the people
who play this game, nor the amount of money they play for is very interesting,
and frankly I found this part of the article kind of boring.
What
I found truly interesting was the section of the article that describes what
fantasy football is, and talks about the game that the rest of us commoners
supposedly play. According to the article’s author, “in the typical league
players ante up between $250 and $500 dollars and the winner’s prize rarely
exceeds $3000.”
Umm.
Just whom did the author of this story speak to for this information? The last
time I looked, the vast majority of people playing fantasy football were
playing for free, with only bragging rights on the line for the most part. Oh,
I’m certain there are plenty of money games out there. I play in a few money
leagues for fantasy baseball; although none of them approach the kind of money
this story would have you believe the “typical” game costs. It appears that the
Wall Street Journal and its reporter
didn’t really do their homework on this one. It simply smacks of being out of
touch with the common man. Somewhat ironic considering that the article
mentions the current financial crisis as one reason to enjoy the escapism and
entertainment of fantasy football. I don’t think the rich guys about whom this
was written are struggling to pay the mortgage. But I digress.
Another
figure that jumped out at me was the money the author claims some fantasy
experts charge for their advice. Apparently there are some fantasy touts
charging up to $600 for their draft advice and fantasy projections. I would
love to meet some of the chumps who pay that kind of money for “insider”
information for fantasy football. When you consider the scores of websites out
there that charge anywhere from nothing to no more than $50 for more
information than most people can digest in six months, it’s comical to think
anyone would pay $600. If there are any of you out there, I’d be happy to help
you win your league for half that.
Finally,
I was utterly shocked to discover that this Million-dollar league actually
plays their game on ESPN.com, a free site. Would you post a $100,000 entry fee
for the privilege of playing your game on a free site, with the unwashed
masses? Have you seen the message boards over there? Ugh! All that money and a
bunch of guys that could have their own custom built and maintained website,
and they play on ESPN? Are you kidding? Even Yahoo would be a better choice.
When
the Million dollar boys are ready to play a real fantasy game, they are welcome
to play our TUFF format, a real man’s
fantasy football game. On top of that, Sports Grumblings will save them $575 dollars
and give them a subscription to our site and our best fantasy content. We’ll
even throw in a weekly radio show, all for a mere $25 bucks. Heck, I bet I
could even talk the SG ownership into giving it to them for free. And if they
really want a challenge they can play against some of the experts here at
Sports Grumblings. Umm. My bank account is a little light just now; do you
think one of them would pony up the entry fee for me?
Just
a few quick hits before getting to some player profiles this week: Are the
Cowboys in trouble, or what? They’ve lost both of their starting cornerbacks, Terence
Newman to injury and Pacman Jones to another suspension. (What a
tool!) As outlined in this space last week, their secondary has been absolutely
torched the last couple of weeks, and they could be in for another beating at
the hands of the worst team in football this week.They brought in another deep ball threat in
WR Roy Williams, but won’t have anybody to throw to him for up to a
month if Tony Romo does the right thing and doesn’t put himself at risk
of a more serious injury. Finally, just when they need their running game the
most, Felix Jones comes up lame with a hamstring injury. If St. Louis
weren’t such an awful team to begin with, the Cowboys would definitely lose
again this week. It could still happen though. I’d stay away from this one
altogether if I were a gambler.
I
simply can’t talk about the Cowboys without mentioning just how right I was
last week. Sorry to blow my own horn here, but even I’m amazed at how close my
call was. Right
here in my little old column, I told you Dallas would lose to Arizona, who
would burn them twice on turnovers, which would be the ultimate difference in
the game. Well, one Tony Romo interception led to the touchdown that put the
Cards ahead in the third quarter, and a blocked punt was returned for the
winning touchdown in overtime. That’s not quite two turnovers as advertised,
but it’s close enough for me. Just sayin’.
Adrian
Peterson
has yet to have the kind of big game he had last season where he goes off for
175-200 yards and a couple of scores. I think this week he finally gets it done
against the Bears. Once Gus Frerotte finds a motivated Bernard
Berrian all alone because the safeties are keying on Peterson, the Bears
will be forced to respect the Vikings passing game. Then Peterson will go off,
leaving assorted Bears defenders scattered in his wake.
The
best game of the week could very well be the San Diego Chargers vs. the Buffalo
Bills in Buffalo. San Diego looked much improved last week against the
Patriots, especially in the passing game. However, it’s the Bills I expect to
have a big day in the air. Look for Trent Edwards to throw a lot of
short to intermediate range passes to take advantage of the Chargers weakness
there. Three of the leagues leading tacklers happen to ply their trade in the
San Diego secondary. The reason they make so many tackles is their
vulnerability to those short to intermediate pass routes and a defensive line
that can be physically manhandled by a big offensive front like the Bills have.
This game will be fun to watch folks, and I expect the Bills to continue their
winning ways with Lee Evans, Marshawn Lynch, and especially Robert
Royal to put up good numbers.
The
Colts-Packers game has all the earmarks of a potential shootout. I would start
all the usual suspects on the Colts, but be careful about starting Packers
players, starting with Aaron Rodgers. If this game does turn into a
shootout, I’m not certain Rodgers’ elbow will hold up long enough to outgun Peyton
Manning. Ryan Grant should have a good day, as the Colts can be run
on. But if the Packers fall behind by a couple of touchdowns early, they may
get a little pass-crazy in an effort to catch up and forget about running the
ball.
Drew
Brees
should be getting a couple of important targets back this week in the form of Marques
Colston and Jeremy Shockey. Brees has been awesome this season, even
without his best receivers on the field for most of the first six weeks. If
Brees and company can manage to stay healthy for the rest of the season, he
could end up being the top fantasy quarterback in the land with Tony Romo now
out of the running and Peyton Manning being more human-like this season.
Tim McCullough is the Editor of MLB for Sports Grumblings. He has
played in, and been the commissioner, for fantasy baseball and football
leagues for over ten years. His musings on fantasy baseball and
football, news, brews, and the blues have appeared online and in
print. 