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.

Shanahan Continues To Show His Colors, cuts Mike Bell

by | Jul 22, 2008 | NFL Random Thoughts

In 2006, Mike Bell went from undrafted free agent to starting tailback for his hometown Denver Broncos in the first week of training camp.  Despite eventually losing the starting role to Tatum Bell, he still put up a respectable 677 yards and scored 8 TDs in his rookie season.

Prospects looked decent for the Broncos, with a backfield of Bell and Bell splitting the load.  But Mike Shanahan wasn’t satisfied–acting on his apparently insatiable desire to add players of questionable work effort, talent and intelligence into the fold, he acquired Travis Henry and drafted Selvin Young, which upset one Bell (Tatum) to the point of demanding a trade, and forced the other (Mike) to fullback.

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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.

Picking the Next Fantasy Rookie Stud RB?

by | Jun 19, 2008 | Fantasy Football

Six weeks until training camp, but Yahoo! is already full force into their barrage of Fantasy Football ’08.  They had a 10-round mock draft a few weeks back, and today writers Brandon Funston, Andy Behrens, and Brad Evans provided some top 5 Fantasy lists.

The first thing that jumped out at us?  It appears that everyone wants to pick the next Adrian Peterson.  Each guy had at least one rookie RB in their ‘Top 5 Players [tehy’ll] most heavily target’ list–and Behrens had two.  Which strikes me as downright foolish, given that few rookie RB’s contribute to the level of an Adrian Peterson.

Jonathan Stewart (Funston, #2; Behrens, #1) – I understand that in the long run, he may be the better overall back than DeAngelo Williams.  But Behrens even points out the big flaw in targetting Stewart heavily (especially early):

“If he just gets Foster’s ’07 carries (247), he’s going to be a force.”

Seems like an awfully big ‘if’ to me, given the presence of Williams.  Stewart will have to come into practice and absolutely dazzle some people to get Foster’s carries–think of how long it took WIlliams to get the carries he did, when many considered him significantly better than Foster all along?

Matt Forte (Behrens, #4) – I understand that the Bears don’t really have any one else to throw back there as the primary guy.  But that doesn’t mean that Forte will put up 1,400 yards and 10+ TDs.  Two reasons that Peterson succeeded early in ’07–first, he had a solid offensive line in front of him.  Second, early in the season, teams thought they would have to cover the Vikings receivers.  As soon as they figured out that wasn’t the case, they threw 8-9 guys in the box, and frustrated Peterson.

So how good will Forte be, given that most teams will probably (rightly so) assume that they don’t have to worry about the Bears passing attack from week 1 on, and with an average (at best) offensive line?

Rashard Mendenhall (Evans, #1) – Seriously?  Who gave this guy the title of fantasy expert?

1,000 total yards and 7-9 TDs?  “High” Five was an accurate name for this article.

Yeah, the Steelers are likely to try to reduce Willie Parker–of course, I’ve also heard reports that Gary Russell has impressed them this offseason, while Parker heals his broken leg. Granted, it’s only OTAs, and coming from local Minnesota media (Russell was a Minnesota Golden Gopher before being booted from the team), but it adds to Mendenhall’s competition to even see the field in 2008.  Not to mention Mewelde Moore, who also was decent when he got some playing time, and signed as a FA.

So if you’re looking for fantasy standouts that will help you all season long, at least in the early rounds, stay away from the rookies.  And until they come to their senses, I’d stay away from Funston, Behrens and Evans, too.