jayratkowski.com

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/2009/01/breaking-news-packers-fire-sanders/

According to the National Football Post, the Green Bay Packers have fired their defensive coordinator.  Hopefully the rest of the defensive staff will follow.

Adam “Pacman” Jones is really on the verge of some major trouble.  The police recently confirmed he was involved in a fight at a Dallas hotel with his Cowboys assigned security guard.  No charges are being filed, no arrests were made.  Very close call for Jones.  He has to know that if his name goes on one police report, his NFL career is immediately over.  If this kid wants to keep playing football, this is not the way to do it.

Al Davis could be getting himself and the Raiders in trouble for his recent public claim of tampering by the New England Patriots.  Davis said the Pats tampered and brought Moss in for an early workout before trading for him back in April 2007.  The NFL said they may give a large fine and potentiall dock one or more draft picks.  Basically, the league is saying Davis needs to shut his mouth and file his grievences properly and in a timely manner.

Jets safety Eric Smith will be serving a one game suspension after losing his appeal over the hit on Anquan Boldin.  Yesterday afternoon on Sirius NFL Radio, Smith stated his claim and said he was going to knock the ball loose and prevent a TD, and was looking to hit Boldin right in the chest.  The corner hit Boldin from behind, which basically knocked the receiver into the helmet-helmet collision.  If you watch the video below, you can see that Boldin clearly was hit from behind and it does indeed look like Smith was going in for a chest high hit.  However, the severity of the injury and the fact that Smith looks like he was leading with his helmet is probably what the NFL is going on.  It’s legal to hit a defenseless player (IE - receiver in the air), but helmet to helmet while defenseless is going to get you a fine.

In other news, my fantasy team is down to only 2 players I drafted.  Clinton Portis and Braylon Edwards.  I just traded Tomlinson and Earnest Graham for Eli Manning, Greg Jennings and Santonio Homles.  Got my 2nd win with all three new starters in the lineup last week.  Hopefully things are looking up.

I like the website www.footballoutsiders.com (no, they didn’t pay me to say that).  They have some neat stats.  Here’s a few random things I found by browsing their database tonight.

• The Colts are 5th worst in the league with their interception rate, throwing one on about every eight drives.
• 39% of Green Bay’s drives do not result in a TD or even a 1st down.
• Denver is averaging 3 points for every time their offense touches the ball.
• St Louis is averaging less than 1.
• Arizona is turning the ball over once every 5 times they get the ball.

In other news:

Yards per attempt numbers can tell a lot about a QB.  Here’s some numbers:

• 6.53
• 5.83
• 5.71
• 5.68
• 4.64

A very good QB is usually around 8YPA or higher (unless you are in a Mike Martz offense, which throws all the numbers out of whack).  Those pitiful numbers above belonged to:

• Peyton Manning
• Marc Bulger
• Carson Palmer
• Matt Hasselbeck
• Derrick Anderson

After tonight, my fantasy starters will be:
Eli Manning
Greg Jennings
Eddie Royal
Clinton Portis
Chris Johnson
Anthony Fasano
Roy Williams

Williams and Portis are the only players I drafted.

…Brady done for the year.  Chris Simms coming in tomorrow morning for a workout.

Damn.

Friday 8/22:
Brewer game!  I love Friday night baseball.  Something about the atmosphere just makes it so much more fun.  I think it’s something about everyone finally getting out of work after a long week and just letting go and enjoying the game.  Brewers played the Pirates.  We had great seats, it was a fun game and the hometown boys won 10-4.

View from our seats

Friday was also my first fantasy football draft; for the free league I’ve run the last several years.  Since I was at the game, I missed the draft.  However, I spent ages pre-ranking my players and it actually worked to my advantage.  Despite the fact that Yahoo will fill all starting roster spots before bench spots, I still got a pretty good team.  The draft order in this league was based on last years performance, and since I sucked, I had the #1 pick (snaking order, 8 teams)  Here’s my draft picks:

1. (1) LaDainian Tomlinson

2. (16) Terrell Owens

3. (17) Reggie Wayne

4. (32) Reggie Bush

5. (33) Brandon Marshall

6. (48) Kellen Winslow

7. (49) Matt Hasselbeck

8. (64) New York

9. (65) Shayne Graham

10. (80) Greg Jennings

11. (81) LenDale White

12. (96) Chris Chambers

13. (97) Donovan McNabb

14. (112) Alge Crumpler

I’m decently pumped about my team.  I think I have awesome wideouts and running backs.  The Giants defense is probably going to get dropped because of the hits they’ve taken on the D-Line, but I’m not terribly worried about that.  In fact, while I was posting, I just dropped NJ-A and picked up Seattle.

There was also some good preseason football Friday night.  Cowboys looked really good and Crayton even might have stopped Dallas fans from freaking out about their WR depth.  Packers looked good as well and Aaron Rodgers definitely bounced back from poor play last week.  Running game of the Packers is still a little scary, but hopefully Ryan Grant will help that in the regular season.

Saturday 8/24:
Went golfing Saturday morning.  Got rained out midway through, which bummed me out because when the thunder was first heard I was starting to hit some really good shots.  I also came decently close to a hole-in-one (I know, close doesn’t count for anything).

Went down to Chicago Saturday night and met up with best bud and his woman.  Ate at this place called Earwax which had good vegitarian food and neat little atmosphere.  Almost died afterward at this chocolate/ice cream shop… got some sort of orange dreamsicle float that was really large and had two huge ice cream scoops kind of hanging onto the brim of the glass.  Shouldn’t have finished it, but it was good.

Sunday 8/24:
Another Brewer game.  Finally saw CC in person, although he did not pitch a great game.  Ended up being a pretty good game, went into extra innings (we’ve seen 3 extra innings games this year, 2 of them wins).  On JJ Hardy bobblehead day, Hardy had the game winning single.  Nice how that works out.

Had my other fantasy football draft tonight.  Actually attended this one, although barely made it due to the length of the baseball game.  Another 8 team league, snaking draft order.  I had Yahoo auto pick the draft order and I wound up with the #1 pick (which of course everyone thought was a scam being I’m the commish of the league, haha).  Here’s my team:

1. (1) LaDainian Tomlinson

2. (16) Clinton Portis

3. (17) Braylon Edwards

4. (32) Laurence Maroney

5. (33) Torry Holt

6. (48) Roy Williams

7. (49) Derek Anderson

8. (64) LenDale White

9. (65) Earnest Graham

10. (80) Donald Driver

11. (81) Vernon Davis

12. (96) David Garrard

13. (97) Dallas

14. (112) Josh Scobee

Had one problem during the draft… I was connected to the internet via cell phone and lost my connection in the middle of the draft.  I had players in my “draft queue” but once the connection dropped, the queue was erased and Yahoo auto-picked.  Happened during a back-back pick, and I got Maroney/Holt out of it.  I *never* would’ve picked Maroney.  In the draft chat, I was just commenting on how Yahoo had Maroney ranked way too high just moments before it happened.  Holt is good, but he’s old, so that scares me.  I wanted to grab Reggie Bush in one of those spots and Wes Welker in the other.  Damnit.  Maybe I can make a trade…

I think that’s all I’ve got for now.

During their pre-season fantasy rankings of teams, Yahoo! picked the Chicago Bears as dead last for fantasy value.  This should come as no surprise, as the Bears have clearly shown that they have no interest in winning games or even scoring points anywhere inside the next 4 years.  The team is clearly trying to trim as much cap space as possible to go into another rebuilding next year and I’m guessing the only reason they gave Tommie Harris an extension was to keep fans coming in on Sundays.  The team is completely inept in every department but kickoff returns and old lazy linemen.

And that was just last season, they made some drastic changes this year.  Namely, losing a combined 110 catches, 1518 yards and 8 TDs between their two best receivers; Bernard Berrian and Mushin Muhammad.  Not only that, but they let Berrian go to a division rival!  They also wisely cut Cedric Benson, their leading rusher.  However, their new starting running back is a guy referred to as “the other Adrian Peterson.”  Their three starting QBs last year put together a 71.8 QB rating, a meager 6.4 yards per attempt, 17 TDs, 21 INTs.

I’m not sure who their starting wide receivers are going to be this year, but it looks like some combination of Mark Bradley, Rashied Davis and Devin Hester.  Not exactly confidence inspiring.  As the article mentioned, Greg Olsen does show some promise at TE, but he’s definitely not going to be a full time player.  He’ll also probably have a crowd of defenders around him at all times as no other offensive player is worth covering.  Beyond that, it looks like the best hope for Bears fans is that Matt Forte is likely to get 5-10 carries a game.  I’m sure as soon as he gets a 12 yard run (which will probably be the longest play from scrimmage for the first few weeks) his jersey will instantly become harder to find than thin crust pizza in Chicago.  The Bears fans will immediately crown him the new “Sweetness.”  Olin Kreutz will be on Chicago radio 10 years from now saying “Yeah, I remember I cut blocked the nose tackle and Matt got easily an extra 5 yards because of it.”  The crowd will chant for him to be a starter with dreams of “the run” going through their minds; only to see him get the job and average 3.2 per carry the rest of the year.

I’m sure this can all somehow be blamed on Urlacher’s bad back though…

I am looking at doing a pay league via Yahoo, as I like their format the best and it seems most user friendly.

Here’s the breakdown of the league scoring/rules:

Here’s what would come with a pay league:
- Live stats
- Extensive weekly and draft scouting reports
- Advanced controls for scoring/stats (more customization)
- Prizes (Cash!)

Here’s what I’m thinking for prizes:
- $10 weekly high scoring team (16 weeks * $10 = $160)
- $10 weekly high scoring player (I would probably do NOT on the same team as the high scoring team, but that’s up for debate) (16 weeks * $10 = $160)
- Lump sum grand prize or 1st/2nd place prizes (I’m thinking $160 grand prize, $35 2nd place = $195)

League setup costs $124.99

So, some easy math
160 + 160 + 160 + 35 + 125 = $640

$640/8 teams = $80/team.

If that sounds like too much money, we can either increase the number of teams or decrease the prizes. There’s other ways to add to prize amounts, like charging for trades/transactions, etc.

Looks like since the last time I posted, the Pats went 16-0, the fantasy season wrapped up (finished 1st in one league, 4th in another, tanked it for last in another), Brett Favre was mentioned in MVP voting (2% of the vote is his best in a long time), the wild card weekend finished up and the 49ers destroyed any hope of winning in the next 2 or so years.

Few things on my mind today, first is the 49ers.  I’m sure plenty of people have already said how bad the Martz hiring seems.  Alex Smith has a questionable arm and decision making ability.  The offensive line can’t pass protect.  None of the receivers run great routes.  They should be a smash-mouth running team with Frank Gore getting close to 400 carries.  So instead, we throw Martz in, who will try to make Alex Smith take the most 7+ step drops in the league and air it out to receivers who are probably giving up on routes (but the ball will be under/over thrown anyway) and that young defensive is going to spend way too much time out on the field because of it.  I think this is a desperation move by Nolan.  He must be in the spot where he feels he has to make a huge splash to save his job.  Now, instead of the head coach getting fired, he can blame the woes on Martz and fire the offensive coordinator (and Martz can be what, the 7th offensive coordinator in the past 7 seasons?).

Some good divisional games this weekend.  The two teams I care most about are playing some decent matchups.  I think things don’t look great for the Packers.  Seattle is going to look for interceptions and Favre is going to throw them.  Seattle has 4 wideouts that could all be #1 or #2 guys and the Packers have no reliable depth at corner, Al Harris is shaky on deep routes and their safeties are out of position way too often.  Even if the Packers get a good pass-rush going, Hasselbeck can just keep making quick throws to underneath guys all day.  It will be the same kind of attack the Packers used in the first few weeks.  If it was anyone but Seattle coming to town, I could see Green Bay moving on.  I’d almost put them as the underdog here.  Maybe call it even given home field advantage.

As for New England, they will be tested a bit on defense with the running game that the Jaguars have, but Garrard is no threat in my mind.  Plus, Jacksonville doesn’t have a great pass defense.  They allow about a 60% completion rate and a lot of yards in the air.  None of their corners can cover all that great.  Unless they do something really different to pressure Brady and keep it up for four quarters, I don’t see them being too big a threat.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  Go Pats!

I would like to make one note about my fantasy football season…

I just traded Addai and Parker for Tomlinson. Seems silly for both teams, but what the hell, it’s a free league. The guy now has McNabb/Favre, Chad Johnson/Kevin Curtis/Andre Johnson, Addai/Parker/Jones-Drew and the Chargers D. He’s 4-3 but his team is looking pretty full right now.

As for me, Yahoo is picking me to win by almost 30 points now.

So I went into last Monday night down by 30 points, but with Peyton Manning and Joseph Addai still waiting to play.  I figured I had a pretty safe chance of winning.  That was until the following thing happened: 15-56-1.  That’s carries, yards, TDs.  For Kenton Keith.  I realize Addai was still a bit banged up and the game wasn’t really on the line, but that’s a very bad thing.  Not only did I lose that game by about 4 points, but it looks like Keith is on his way to ruining the fantasy season of millions of people who had the 4th-7th pick in their drafts.  Addai looked like a sure thing for 2000 total yards and well over 10 TDs this year.  Now?  Who knows.  All I know is that I’m left with Addai who is in a platoon, Marvin Harrison who I am willing to bet will announce season ending surgery soon for his knee and Willie Parker who might have 1700 rushing yards with 2 TDs.

The bright side?  I’m playing the guy in 1st place this week.  He’s undefeated.  Wait, I was talking about the bright side of all this, wasn’t I?  Well, he did just lose Ronnie Brown for the year.  I might have a shot, especially with Brandon Jacobs playing a scrimmage against the all stars from the UK 60-and-older lawn bowling league this week.

Also, due to the depression related to my lost fantasy season (at least in the league I commish for), I’m not doing an updated ranking this week.  If I did, the Giants would move up a few spots and the Jags would move down a few.  I still think the Giants are going to have their yearly implosion at some point.  I know they have the added motivation of Tiki Barber being a tremendous douche to them, but don’t we see the Giants make a run like this every year?

I do have one question… if the Pats go 19-0 the same year the Dolphins go 0-16, will the world start turning the opposite direction?  Will the NFL move the entire 2008 season to Sri Lanka?  Will Don Shula turn into Mothra?  I want to see what happens, but I’m also very afraid.