Category: Fantasy Football (Page 16 of 324)

Barstool Debate: Who is going to win — the Packers or the Falcons?

January 14, 2011 / John Paulsen

Saturday marks a special day in my relationship with my co-worker Anthony Stalter. No, it’s not our anniversary or anything – my favorite team is the Green Bay Packers and he’s an Atlanta Falcons fan, so the fact that the two teams are squaring off in the playoffs is a pretty big deal in our world. In fact, since he lives in St. Louis and I live in Southern California, we’ve both agreed to purchase a 12-pack of Bud Select 55 (not a plug, but it could be!) and pretend that we’re splitting a case while watching the game together.

As I just tweeted, everything that happens today is just a preamble to Saturday’s game, so let’s talk a little trash as we try to run the clock out on the work week.

JP: First of all, let’s see who’s the bigger fan. I was born outside of Milwaukee and grew up loving the Packers, even when players like Lynn Dickey, Eddie Lee Ivory and Paul Ott Carruth were the big names (and an 8-8 record was a successful season). Then came Brett Favre (ironically via a trade with the Falcons) who was my favorite player for 16 freaking years before he retired his way to our arch-rival. Blood had been spilled. My autographed photo of Favre is sitting, face-down, in the garage, waiting for his inevitable “mea culpa” visit to Lambeau in a couple of years. What’s my point? I’m a fan of the Packers, not of any one player. Now, tell us how you became a fan of the Falcons…

AS: I grew up in Chicago so many people assume that I’m a Bears fan (why they would think that, I have no idea). But my folks are from New York so they had no loyalty to the home team. To my family’s disappointment, I didn’t become a Jets fan. When I was real young, I liked certain players instead of teams. But when I was 9, the first playoff game I remember watching from start to finish was the 1991 Wildcard matchup between the Saints and Falcons. When you’re a kid, you usually don’t focus on defensive players, but I was enamored with Deion Sanders. He was the most athletic player I had ever watched. Chris Miller also hit Michael Haynes on a 61-yard touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter, so that particular game was thrilling. I’ve been hooked on the Falcons ever since, even though it hasn’t been easy being a fan of theirs over the years. Up until last year, they never had back-to-back winning seasons so I’ve endured a lot of losing. From Jeff George to Jamal Anderson to Michael Vick (ugh, talk about highs and lows), they’ve put me through a lot. But just like you when it comes to the Packers JP, the Falcons will forever be my team. Since I have never lived in Atlanta, DirecTV’s “Sunday Ticket” is the world’s greatest invention. I never miss a snap of the Falcons’ games, even when I have to watch them again later so I can fulfill my responsibilities to TSR.

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2011 NFL Divisional Round Playoffs 2011 NFL Playoffs Atlanta Falcons Barstool Debates Green Bay Packers

Theismann on Patriots: Watch out for Danny Woodcock

January 14, 2011 / John Paulsen

Needless to say, this got a big laugh out of the “No Huddle” crew, especially Deion Sanders. Take a look:

Hey, maybe Theismann is a big Billy Bob Thornton fan.

External Sports, Fantasy Football, Humor, NFL, Video

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Former Bears Scout: Passing on James Starks was the “most embarrassing moment” of my career

January 12, 2011 / John Paulsen

Former Bears scout Greg Gabriel wrote an interesting article for the National Football Post. He describes the scene as the Bears tried to decide between James Starks and Dan LeFevour.

As we got closer to our pick, Angelo made the decision for the Bears to draft Starks. When we drafted a player there was a protocol we followed. After the decision on who to draft was made, Cliff Stein (the Bears contract negotiator) would call the players agent and tell him we were planning on drafting his player. He would tell the agent that the wanted to get a 4-year contract with the player and wanted the contract done by a certain date. If the agent agreed then I would call the player and give him the news that the Bears were going to take him. This is exactly what happened with Starks. I was on the phone for a minute or so with Starks when Angelo walked in my office and told me he had changed his mind and was drafting LeFevour. I put Starks on hold and then said to Angelo that Stein had already talked to the agent and I had the player on the phone…we couldn’t do business like that. He said he was sorry but he decided he wanted LeFevour and the card had been turned in.
I then had to tell the player (a player that I had developed a good relationship with over the previous two years) that in fact we were not drafting him. Hearing a kid go from being extremely excited to silence was not easy. It was the most embarrassing moment I had experienced while scouting.

This is something of a story now that Starks is emerging as the top tailback for the Packers. He rushed 23 times for 123 yards against the Eagles, showing very good burst and wiggle through the hole. He also showed some nice hands out of the backfield, which makes sense since he caught a total of 93 passes in 2007 and 2008 as a member of the Buffalo Bulls.

After Ryan Grant went down, the Packers decided not to add Marshawn Lynch to the mix at tailback and it appears that Starks was the main reason why.

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Strength of Schedule: Playoffs, Week 2

January 11, 2011 / John Paulsen

For those of us playing fantasy football (in one form or another) during the NFL playoffs, I thought it would be worthwhile to calculate end-of-year strength of schedule. I won’t be updating the SOS data throughout the playoffs, but I should be able to post a table each week with updated matchups.

What am I looking at?

Below you’ll see a table with a list of team names on the left and a list of positions (including PPR data) along the top. If a square is pink, it means that the matchup is tough. If it’s green, it means it’s a favorable matchup.

It’s important to note that this is NOT straight fantasy points allowed. I removed the bias of schedule by looking at the opponents of each defense and how they fared in their other games. For example, if a particular defense faced a series of great QBs, then that is taken into account in these tables.

For those of us who are going to play fantasy football through the playoffs, I thought it would be worthwhile to calculate strength of schedule for the first week of the playoffs. I’m not going to be updating SOS throughout the playoffs, but I should be able to post an updated table each week with SOS data updated through W17.

How do I use SOS?

Generally speaking, I use strength of schedule as a tiebraker between two similarly ranked players. Let’s say I’m trying to decide between starting BenJarvus Green-Ellis and Cedric Benson. All else being equal, these two players are very close in my mind. But if BGE has a great matchup and Benson has a bad matchup, the choice is clear. In fact, if BGE just has a mediocre matchup while Benson has a bad matchup, I’d probably go with the Law Firm.

Be careful not to read too much into these tables. You aren’t going to bench Chris Johnson in a bad matchup unless you have a bona fide RB1 with a good matchup waiting in the wings.

The Bears look like solid starts this week all the way around, especially since the Seattle defense doesn’t fare nearly as well away from home…The Jets also have good matchups, though be warned that the Patriots defense has played a lot better of late…Tony Gonzalez looks like a good start at TE.

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