Personal seat licenses getting out of hand

by | Jul 7, 2008 | Business of Football

I meant to post about the concept of personal seat licenses – ransoms charged by teams for the right to attempt to get season tickets, especially in new stadiums – last week but I ran out of time. But it seems as though Zoneblitz isn’t the only football fan getting turned off by the degree to which this trend is pricing the average fan out of the game.

The most recent announcement – and the one that sent ZB over the edge – came from Dallas where Jerry Jones announced that fans would have to pay up to $150,000 for the right to purchase duckets for his billion dollar toy in Arlington.

Fox Sports rightly points out that this is on top of the $300 million in public financing the Cowboys received to construct what is supposed to be a wonder of an arena. Yes, $150,000 – not for the tickets, but for the right to have a chance to later buy the tickets.

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Top pick long destined for right tackle?

by | Jul 7, 2008 | NFL News

Apparently the Miami Dolphins and other league experts are starting to wonder if top draft pick Jake Long would be better suited to play right tackle instead of left tackle.

Nobody is doubting that Long will be a solid-to-excellent tackle wherever he ends up. But NFL Network draft guru Mike Mayock says Long struggled in college some against the top speedy pass rushers with NFL skills while projecting that he can be a star road grader of a right tackle. He went as far in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel as suggesting that the Dolphins keep Vernon Carey at left tackle for awhile as Long adjusts to the rigors of the NFL.

Zoneblitz endorsed taking Long as the top pick in April, figuring that if there is no clarity as to who the top pick should be it’s hard to go wrong solidifying yourself in the trenches. And while it would be better if Long developed into a franchise left tackle, if he’s better on the right side and solidifies himself as a stud run blocker, the Dolphins will still be better off.

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Favre “coming out” of retirement???

by | Jul 2, 2008 | Fantasy Football, NFL Breaking News

In perhaps the least stunning news of the offseason, Brett Favre has apparently been in touch with the Green Bay Packers about “coming out” of his retirement.

First of all, we predicted this when he announced his retirement back in March that Favre would quarterback the Packers to a comeback win over Minnesota at some point during the 2008 season.

Second, he has only missed a couple mini camps. Since it’s only been four months and he typically misses a couple of those anyway, it hasn’t been long enough to call it “coming out” of retirement.

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Why We Started This Blog

by | Jul 2, 2008 | Fantasy Football

One of the reasons that we started this blog was that Andy and I generally talk a lot of fantasy football throughout the season.  And preseason.  And pre-preseason.  Enough that, even though we don’t have full time jobs writing about it, we often think we would be better at doing so than many people that do.

Case in point:

Article (already discussed here) from Yahoo that amongst other things, has three “experts” pciking their ‘Top 5 players you’ll most heavily target in drafts.’  Now, I don’t know about you, but the top guys that I most heavily target in a draft are usually guys that will go in the first 2-3 rounds–maybe into the 4th, if I’m lucky.  Beyond that, it’s not so much that I targeted them, as they were the best of the rest.  Or the best of the worst.

In this article, Andy Behrens lists his #4 player as Matt Forte, rookie RB for the Bears.  Even links to an article, where apparently the value of Forte was previously discussed (I’d go into more detail, but it appears this article has already disappeared from Yahoo).

Now, fast forward to an article posted today, written by the same Andy Behrens.  In this article, which ranks the Bears as the worst team in the NFL from a fantasy stand point–a point I can probably agree with him on.  However, check out that first paragraph:

“Not surprisingly, there are no Bears among the top 25 quarterbacks in the Yahoo! experts composite rankings. There are also no Bears among the top 25 running backs, or the top 50 receivers, or the top 12 tight ends.”

So apparently, I’m supposed to be heavily targetting Matt Forte, despite the fact that he’s not a top 25 back.

The lesson here?  Both at ZoneBlitz and at Yahoo, you get what you pay for, in regards to fantasy football advice.