49ers a Fantasy Force?

by | Jul 31, 2008 | Fantasy Football

Matthew J. Darnell writes a blog for Yahoo! called The Shutdown Corner, which has made it to my RSS list due to his take on covering the NFL, and the fact that Redskins TE Chris Cooley regularly posts there, and actually seems to often have some interesting insights into the life of an NFL player (Cooley famously reported that he knocked himself out of his fantasy football league playoffs a couple years back with a 3 TD performance late in the season).

One of his regular features of late has been a love/hate review of each team as training camp opens.  Yesterday, he reviewed the San Francisco 49ers…and I almost cancelled my subscription.

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What are the Consequences of FALSE Tampering Charges?

by | Jul 24, 2008 | Business of Football, NFL News, NFL Random Thoughts

So, unless you’re hiding under a rock, or you’ve wisely already made ZoneBlitz the only Web site you visit each day, you probably already know the latest news in the ongoing Favre-Packers-Vikings love triangle, which is that Favre does NOT, in fact, have a Packers issued cell phone. So, either the tampering charges were apparently based on some other evidence, or the Packers are just on a fishing trip, trying to make life as miserable for the Vikings as it has been for the Pack since Favre decided to “un-retire.”

And that got us to thinking–what are the consequences for the Packers if the Vikings are found NOT to have been tampering? If the Packers suspected that the Vikings might be tampering, since he speaks to his friend Darrell Bevell frequently, and filed the complaint simply believing that the NFL might find something–and if not, then at least the Vikings have had to deal with a problem right before training camp, there has to be some sort of consequence for filing false charges, right?

If there’s no penalty, you can expect this to become a strategy in coming seasons, as teams try to hassle division rivals to try to gain an edge. At least until Roger Goodell steps in and tells them to knock it off (a la the Poison Pill contaract provision), or he comes down hard on some team for doing so (and destroys all the evidence afterward).

ESPN (Re)joins the Blogosphere…again

by | Jul 23, 2008 | NFL Media

Apparently realizing that if any average joe can start a football blog, they better have their act together, ESPN is re-vamping their football blog strategy–doing away with their Hashmarks blog, and introducing eight divisional blogs for the NFL, and six BCS conference blogs for college, each headed by a real honest to god reporter with some print journalism experience.

As noted on ProFootballTalk, it remains to be seen how the blog network will actually work, especially given that people reading blogs are often looking for a different approach/perspective than traditional newspapers (or overgrown supposed sports networks) tend to offer.

Then again, from ESPN’s perspective, maybe they consider utilizing real journalists for such an endeavor to be a different approach.

The Hypocritical NFL

by | Jul 23, 2008 | Business of Football, No Fun League

The NFL is all about money–money from ticket sales, money from jersey sales, money from the networks.  Money from the networks that they make by selling sponsorships and ads.  Often sponsorships and ads from beer companies.

However, when it comes to the players, beer and alcohol is a no no–at least for endorsements.  That’s why Charles Woodson can’t promote his wine, called TwentyFour.  The NFL apparently sent Woodson a letter, saying:

…any interviews supporting alcohol would be seen as an endorsement and “may have a detrimental effect on the great number of young fans who follow our game.”

Like the article we linked to, we find it amazing that the NFL can promote as much beer as they want, but a player can’t promote his own line of wine.  And yet we find it somewhat surprising that the simple act of having a wine isn’t enough ‘endorsement’ to get the league to put it’s foot down.

And we’re going to go out on a limb, and say that Woodson developed his taste for wine in his playing days in Oakland–not Green Bay.