Tag: John Paulsen (Page 2 of 10)

      NFL Network to offer its own RedZone channel

      September 11, 2009 /

      DirecTV subscribers may be wondering if the NFL Network’s new channel, “NFL RedZone” is the same as the RedZone Channel that is available as part of the Sunday Ticket package. The answer is yes…and no. It’s not the exact same channel. It has a different host and a different studio, but the concept is the same.

      The channel will bounce around from game to game to show live action or instant highlights from a multitude of games. I’ve watched the DirecTV version for six hours straight, and it’s a great way for fantasy football enthusiasts to spend a Sunday. I assume that the NFL Network’s version will be just as good.

      I have long been critical of the NFL’s decision to make the Sunday TIcket exclusive to DirecTV, largely because I’m a diehard Packer fan living in a California condo with no view of the southern horizon (making me one of the millions of football fans that simply can’t get DirecTV without moving). The DirecTV monopoly exclusive rights extend through 2014, though the package may be available to non-DirecTV subscribers in 2012. I mention the Sunday Ticket debacle because this NFL Network Red Zone channel is a step in the right direction.

      Of course, the NFL Network is still at odds with several cable companies — including my carrier, Time Warner — as they haggle over carriage fees for the channel. Actually, “haggle” would imply that the two sides are negotiating. As far as I know, they’ve both walked away from the table.

      The cable giant wants to offer NFL Network on a sports tier, while the NFL Network wants the channel to be on the basic tier, which due to its high carriage cost, would have a significant impact on the bottom line and increase cable rates for all subscribers. Essentially, the Network wants every subscriber to pay for the channel even if they don’t want it in their lineup.

      It was one thing for Time Warner to walk away from negotiations when the NFL Network only carried eight games in a season, but now that TWC’s subscribers will be missing out on this new Red Zone channel, I’d expect the pressure to strike a deal will be amped up. I, for one, am not pleased that this product is readily available and the 2nd-largest cable company in the country does not offer it. What’s the point of having a monopoly if you aren’t going to use your negotiating power to get what you want?

      Between the offering of exclusive rights to Sunday Ticket and the high carriage fees of the NFL Network (and presumably, the new RedZone channel), the NFL is not treating a subsection of its fan base very well.

      We just want to watch the games — all of them. Why is the league making it so difficult for fans to consume its product?

      Fantasy Football, News, NFL

      Digging deeper into Defensive Team By Waiver Wire (DTBWW)

      September 10, 2009 /

      Yesterday, I posted my DTBWW picks for Week 1 and thought I’d spend a little more time discussing the subject. I’ve used DTBWW quite a bit in the past, and it’s not always by design. Sometimes a defense that I’m counting on doesn’t perform up to snuff, so I need to look elsewhere for production. The idea is that every week, there is usually one or two mediocre or solid defenses on your league’s waiver wire that have a favorable matchup. A mediocre defense with a great matchup is just as good as having a great defense with a medicore matchup.

      Last season, my top weekly DTBWW pick averaged 9.8 points per week, which over the course of the season equates to DT2 or DT3 numbers. My second pick averaged 6.1 points, which obviously isn’t as good, but still solid. The top two picks averaged 7.9 points, or DT6-type numbers. (If you’re wondering what scoring system I’m using, it’s the Antsports High Performance scoring system that awards one point per sack, fumble and interception, two points per safety and six points per defensive/special teams touchdown.)

      The best way to pick a DTBWW candidate is to look for medicore/solid defenses that are facing bad offenses that allow a lot of sacks. Total sacks is the most consistent defensive scoring category week-to-week and it’s also a good indicator of quarterback pressure, which can lead to turnovers and touchdowns. It also helps to pick defenses that are playing at home, as most DTs play better at home than they do on the road.

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      Fantasy Football

      Looking for QB help? Call on Shaun Hill.

      September 7, 2009 /



      Shaun Hill recently beat out Alex Smith for the starting QB gig in San Francisco, but his Average Draft Position (ADP) hasn’t risen all that much. He’s still available in roughly 85% of ESPN’s fantasy leagues, and is a nice pickup for fantasy owners looking to bolster their QB position.

      Last season, he took over a 2-6 team in Week 10, and averaged 234 passing yards, 1.5 pass TD and 0.3 rush TD over the last eight games of the season. Subtracting interceptions (1.0 per game), this works out to about 19.1 fantasy points per game. Had Hill averaged these numbers over the course of an entire season, he would have finished as last year’s QB6, ahead of Peyton Manning and Donovan McNabb. Moreover, he led the 49ers to a 5-3 record down the stretch, so he has proven that he can win games.

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      Fantasy Football

      Fantasy Football: Quarterback By Committee (QBBC)

      August 5, 2009 /

      With the relative depth at the position, one approach to drafting a fantasy quarterback is to spend the first six or seven rounds drafting running backs, wide receivers and even a tight end. Then, in the eighth round or later, start to think about drafting a QB. Oftentimes, the players available in the 4th or 5th round won’t drastically outscore those QBs taken in the 8th or later.

      Why is this? Well, one reason is that, once fantasy owners have a starting QB, they tend to draft for depth at running back and wide receiver instead of drafting a backup QB, whom they know probably won’t sniff their starting lineup, except as a bye week fill in.

      Another reason is that most leagues require two starting running backs, which means 24 starting RBs in total (assuming a 12-team league). With more and more real NFL teams utilizing a RBBC, the position is much thinner than QB, which requires 12 fantasy starters of 32 real world starters.

      Typically, this results in good depth at the QB position, where the expected production from QB10 isn’t all that different than QB20. This year the QB10 off the board is Matt Ryan (7.01) while the QB20 is Joe Flacco (11.02). To illustrate my point, in a “high performance” scoring system (4 pts per pass TD, 1 pt per 20 yards passing), Footballguys projects Ryan to score 255 fantasy points and Flacco to score 235. Are those 20 fantasy points worth burning a 7th round pick instead of an 11th? Over a 17-game schedule, that works out to less than 1.2 fantasy points per week.

      In other words, it’s probably not going to cost you too many wins to go with Flacco instead of Ryan. In fact, you’ll probably be better off because the WR or RB you draft in the 7th round (Santana Moss?) is likely to vastly outperform his 11th-round counterpart (Michael Jenkins?). Footballguys projects Moss to outscore Jenkins by 75 points, a 4.4-point per week advantage. So by going with a Moss/Flacco combo instead of a Ryan/Jenkins combo, you’re gaining a net of 3.2 points per week.

      Going one step further: why not draft two middle- to late-round quarterbacks whose schedules mesh well together to create a Quarterback By Committee (QBBC)? That way, you can load up on RB, WR and TE talent in the first seven or eight rounds knowing that you’ll still be able to get good QB play from a couple of later picks by taking advantage of the ebbs and flows of each player’s schedule.

      To that end, I took the QB strength of schedule data from Footballguys and calculated the per week projections (by using the aforementioned Footballguys projected stats) for every starting quarterback in the league.

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      Fantasy Football

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