Updates from August, 2010

  • Plans for 2009

    Matt 12:37 pm on 1/14/2009 | 5 Permalink Reply

    Those of you who read this blog regularly might know that I’m a web developer by day (and Batman by night… wait, redact! Redact!). Brandon and I have been batting around a few ideas for making this site more informative and useful for fantasy football players, and we’re not necessarily limiting those ideas to the blog format.

    The most important thing, of course, is for this website to continue to help its visitors become better-informed, more successful fantasy football players. Beyond that, the evolution of ffgeekblog.com could go in any number of directions. So I’m asking: What’s on your wish list for a fantasy football news/advice website? What haven’t you found on the Web that you wish someone would build? Brandon and I have always been open to suggestions for new types of blog posts, but maybe it’s time that we thought bigger than that. Or maybe not – perhaps the blog format is just perfect as is.

    If you have any thoughts, I’d appreciate it if you left a comment on this post.

    Oh, and thanks for a great 2008 season y’all. Our readership more than doubled from 2007, which makes running this blog double the fun.

     

  • Playoff leagues: Keeping the fantasy football season alive to the bitter end

    Matt 7:01 pm on 12/30/2008 | 2 Permalink Reply
    Tags:

    I’ve never paid much attention to playoff fantasy leagues. They’re missing just about everything I love about fantasy football – trades, waivers, a three-hour draft that largely determines the team you have to live with for an entire season, and so on. I tried out NFL.com’s playoff challenge a couple of years back, forgot about my team after the first week, and that was pretty much that.

    This year, I’m giving it another shot. The prizes up for grabs on a few websites are pretty enticing, which hopefully will keep me interested enough to remember to set my lineups each week. I’m only going to invest my time in the leagues with the best prizes, which means that SportingNews Playoff Fantasy Football, with a decidedly unexciting top prize of $500, is out. After scoping out the schwag being offered up around the Web, I wound up signing up for teams in three leagues: (More …)

     

  • Dear Antonio Gates: I will never, ever trust you again

    Matt 11:09 am on 12/05/2008 | 6 Permalink Reply
    Tags:

    Dear Antonio,

    Heading into this week’s first-round playoff matchup, I was cautiously optimistic that you would break out of your three-game slump this week when your team hosted the Raiders, against whom you put up a perfectly acceptable 58 yards and one touchdown in week 4. I didn’t watch last night’s game, because frankly, I can think of better things to do than watch your comically poorly-coached team take on the Raiders, who for the last half-decade have come with their own laugh track. But since you’re relatively healthy and the matchup was good, I felt pretty sure that I’d wake up this morning and be pleased with your contribution to my playoff success.

    Instead, here’s what I found staring back at me. 

    I drafted you in the fourth round and I hate myself for it. 

    That last number on the right? The round one? That’s your fantasy point total. It also happens to be how many passes you caught out of the three that were thrown your way. 

    I’m the #2 seed. If I lose to the #7 team because of you, I will – to borrow the words of the great Michael G. Tyson – eat your children.

    Sincerely,
    Someone who will now be benching you against Kansas City next week. KANSAS… CITY.

     

  • Fantasy Football: Math Teacher's Best Friend?

    Matt 11:18 am on 11/26/2008 | 0 Permalink Reply
    Tags: learning, math, teaching

    Where some teachers would see a classroom full of students who have had difficulty learning math via traditional teaching methods, others see a great excuse to start a fantasy football league. The draft is handled basically the same way, but after that, the numbers are crunched much differently from the way lazy slobs like you and I do it. Instead of using a website to track their players’ performances, they look up the numbers in the newspaper and calculate it by hand. Screw something up in your multiplication, or forget to factor in a fumble, and your team is docked points. Seems like an awesome motivational tool to me.

    NECN has the full story, which included the video you can find after the jump. To tell the truth, I don’t blame the first teacher’s principal for being skeptical of the idea at first – my first thought was that the teacher seemed like the kind of guy who was mostly motivated by the prospect of getting to play fantasy football at work (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But it seems like it’s a genuinely effective teaching tool. Wonder if they’ll expand it into other fantasy sports after the season.

    And check out this website devoted to the use of fantasy sports for math education. Looks like this might really be catching on. There’s also a book for teachers and parents who want to give it a try.  (More …)

     

  • Poll: Where do you play fantasy football?

    Matt 12:12 pm on 10/28/2008 | 11 Permalink Reply
    Tags: , , fox, ,

    Now that we’re halfway through the season, I’m curious as to what websites our readers are using to manage their fantasy football leagues. We generally offer player ownership statistics for Yahoo and ESPN leagues (as in, “Pierre Thomas is available in 72% of Yahoo and ESPN leagues”), but that’s not too helpful if the majority of our visitors are hosting their leagues elsewhere. 

    Only one way to find out! This is one of the few polls around that doesn’t have anything to do with the election that will mercifully be over with in one week. If you answer “other,” we’d appreciate it if you enlightened us as to what system you do use – the comment section is below.

    [poll id="3"]

     

  • The Wire: Waiver Wire Pickups for Week 9, 2008

    Brandon 10:55 am on 10/28/2008 | 6 Permalink Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , kevin walkter, , , , , , , ,

    Here’s a look at the players to target on your league’s waiver wire this week. This list is ordered by the percentage of ESPN leagues in which the player is available; even if you’re not a ESPN user, it’s a decent indication of how likely you are to find the player on waivers in your league. We also note here how strongly we feel about this pickup with three categories: Instant Starter, Grab ‘n’ Stash, or Desperation Pickup.

    Nate Washington, WR, Steelers (6.6% owned, Desperation Pickup) – While his reception totals for each game this year aren’t all that consistent, Washington still manages to get some solid yardage and has been adding touchdowns to that as of late. I can’t recommend you start him on a weekly basis, but if you’re in a bind and it looks like a good matchup, you might consider him at the WR3 or flex position.

    Ted Ginn, Jr., WR, Dolphins (19.6% owned, Instant Starter) – Obviously you shouldn’t count on an other-worldly 175 yard performance from Ginn each week, but besides a bogus game in week 6, Ted Jr. has been pretty decent this year in his rookie season. He gets to play the lowly Broncos defense this week as well, making him even more appealing. (More …)

     

  • Tony Romo to play this Sunday after all?

    Matt 2:04 pm on 10/15/2008 | 2 Permalink Reply
    Tags:

    It’s just a rumor at this point, but it sounds like Romo might be throwing some passes in practice today, despite his broken (?) pinky finger. In any case, he’d better play or Brett Favre will think he’s a big pussy.

    This is hardly concrete at this point (really, it’s about as vague as rumors come), but with Roy Williams in town and the Cowboys’ receiving corps now officially in contention with the Cardinals’ wideouts for best-in-class, Romo owners would love to have him back ASAP. At the same time, you’d hate to see him hurt himself worse and miss a long stretch of games. Giving Brad Johnson a receiving corps like that is like dealing me pocket aces in hold ‘em – you know he’s just gonna screw it up.

    (To help illustrate this post, I tried to find a photo of Romo looking sad, but apparently that guy has a smile permanently affixed to his face, perhaps surgically. Or maybe it has something to do with Jessica Simpson.)

     

  • CBS is doing a bang-up job with the Bills broadcast

    Matt 1:54 pm on 9/14/2008 | 2 Permalink Reply

    Stupid CBS

    What you’re looking at there is a live play in the red zone, with a CBS promo right on top of the action (which, I found out after the play, was a pass to Matt Jones).

    This after I was already annoyed because one of the main cameras they’re using has some sort of problem and everything’s all herky-jerky whenever they cut to that angle.

    Anyone else watching the Bills game and throwing things at the TV?

    Update: I caught the highlights from the Raiders game and noticed that CBS had the same problems with one of its camera angles in that game too. There’s no way the problem is my TV; it only happened with the sideline camera in both games. Anyone else notice this stuff on a CBS game, or am I just slowly going insane?

     

  • Studs and Duds - Week 2: Ryan Grant ready to roll!

    Brandon 11:10 pm on 9/10/2008 | 5 Permalink Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    After all the dust has settled and the injury count has been tallied (bye bye Brady, Burleson, Alex Smith and for a little while, Colston), it’s time to recount my predictions for the previous weekend and give you a few more for week two of the season. According to my slightly-biased count, I finished last week 13-7-6, which isn’t all that bad I guess. Some of my better picks included Thomas Jones, who re-assumed his spot in fantasy football relevance with a strong showing against the Dolphins and Chris Perry, who did very little with his first chance to shine as the Bengals new starting running back, as expected. On the flip-side, I did miss a few picks, including Ricky Williams, who returned to his role as a deadbeat (in fantasy production that is) against the Jets, while Brandon “The Bruiser” Jacobs taught me (and LaRon Landry) never to doubt him again. Anyways, it’s time for your week two studs and duds, so hopefully I can provide a little insight that can help your team this upcoming weekend…

    Studs

    Ryan Grant, RB, Packers: Unless Michael Turner is one of the greatest running backs of all time, I see no reason why Grant shouldn’t be able to exploit the same gaping weakness in the Lions defense that the Falcons did when they obliterated (for some reason the word seems like an understatement) them for 318 rushing yards in week one!

    LenDale White, RB / Chris Johnson, RB, Titans: If the Ravens, minus an injured Willis McGahee, could pound it out for 229 yards last weekend against the Cincinnati Bungholes, I have to believe a more talented duo can at least do the same. You should expect LenDale White (thunder) and Chris Johnson (lightning) to run the ball non-stop while the quarterback position for the Titans is currently going through somewhat of a a rough patch. (More …)

     

  • Anyone up for some fantasy Olympics?

    Matt 10:21 am on 8/08/2008 | 0 Permalink Reply
    Tags: olympics

    With a whole friggin month still to go before football season, and my fantasy baseball teams in various states of disarray, I’ve got a serious jones for some fantasy action. Thank goodness for ESPN’s Jim Caple and his scoring system for fantasy Olympics, which involves drafting athletes from a variety of Olympic sports. Scoring is quite simple, and actually makes a lot of sense: You get points for medals, plain and simple. Caple’s system also forces you to draft athletes from many different sports, so when you’re watching the Games at work, you’ll always have something riding on the action.

    You’ll need to get your league together by tomorrow, though, so get cracking!

     

  • Big Ben leads all fantasy scorers in the 2008-09 season

    Brandon 9:22 am on 8/05/2008 | 5 Permalink Reply
    Tags: madden, simulation,

    Well, at least he does in a recent Madden 09 simulated season, which ranked the following players as leading the league in fantasy points for the upcoming season:

    25. Reggie Wayne, WR, IND
    24. Willis McGahee, RB, BAL
    23. Thomas Jones, RB, NYJ
    22. Chad Johnson, WR, CIN
    21. Jamal Lewis, RB, CLE
    20. Adrian Peterson, RB, MIN (More …)

     

  • Favre's back for sure, unclear whether he'll remain with Pack

    Matt 12:09 pm on 8/04/2008 | 1 Permalink Reply
    Tags: , , Favre, , , , , , packers, Rodgers, , ,

    The Most Awkward Comeback Ever is finally a reality:

    The Green Bay Packers reluctantly embraced Favre’s forced return to the football field Sunday, after failing to come to a financial agreement that would manage to make Favre happy while staying retired.

    And while it’s not yet clear what role Favre will play once he reports to Packers camp Monday, Aaron Rodgers says he’s ready for a potential competition with Favre after serving as his backup for three seasons.

    It’s still unclear whether Favre will be traded. The Vikings seem to be back in the picture as his potential future home. They’d clearly be a perfect fit in every way but one: They just so happen to be Green Bay’s most hated division rival. Minnesota has a solid (if lopsided) defense, the best running game in the league – and a quarterback in Tarvaris Jackson who’s probably got one last season to prove he can play at this level before he’s cut loose. Stick Favre into this mix and you’d upgrade the Vikings from a trendy-pick contender to a serious force to be reckoned with. This trade would be excruciating for Packer fans – and a lot of fun to watch for the rest of us.

    Aaron Rodgers is promising to make it competitive, but he won’t, so let’s just go ahead and forget about him. If Favre stays in Green Bay, the value of every offensive player on the team is positively affected. My biggest concern about Ryan Grant has been that, with Rodgers behind center, teams would simply focus on stuffing the run. If Favre’s there, I see no reason not to expect him to return to the consistent performance his owners enjoyed in the second half of last season. Receivers Jennings, Driver and Jones all would benefit as well.

    Aren’t soap operas fun?

     

  • Dissent in the ranks

    Matt 7:44 am on 7/10/2008 | 2 Permalink Reply
    Tags:

    My buddy Sean, a fellow RIT alum and lifelong Bills fan, sent me an email taking me to task for daring to be disgusted with Marshawn Lynch. Since I’m kind of a jerk, I’ll post it here, and then eviscerate it publicly.

    I wholeheartedly disagree with you on the Marshawn post from the 21st of June on FFgeekblog.com.  Yes I am trying to kill time until the end of work.

    A.  Police were quoted as saying they believed he didn’t know he hit a lady because there was no attempt to cover up the marks on his whip which clearly indicated he hit something AND it was parked in his driveway.  Not hidden in the garage, not being worked on in a chop shop, just sitting in his driveway.  Marshawn is not the new “crime-scene-OJ.” (More …)

     

  • Revolution Money Exchange is the worst PayPal alternative ever

    Matt 10:17 am on 7/02/2008 | 9 Permalink Reply
    Tags: paypal, revolution money exchange

    If you’ve already joined a Yahoo fantasy football league this preseason, chances are you’ve noticed the big ad for Revolution Money Exchange across the top of the league home screen:

    Screenshot038

    I’m always up for free stuff, so I signed up even though I had no idea what the heck it was. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that what they offer, in theory anyway, is kind of like PayPal but without any fees whatsoever. Normally I’d be kind of sketched out by something like this, which sounded a little too good to be true, but their affiliation with Yahoo made me feel like they were probably pretty legit.

    Well, they aren’t. Stay. The hell. Away. (More …)

     

  • Javon Walker found unconscious in Las Vegas

    Brandon 10:15 am on 6/17/2008 | 3 Permalink Reply
    Tags: , ,

    This particular news update caught my eye, considering I was just in Las Vegas this past weekend for my cousin’s bachelor party. It appears that the 55 million dollar (over six years) man, Oakland Raiders WR Javon Walker, was found unconscious in a street off the strip in Las Vegas after an apparent mugging. The Associated Press reports:

    Police spokesman Bill Cassell said in a statement that Walker was taken to a hospital with “significant injuries” after being found early Monday on a street off the Las Vegas Strip.

    Cassell said Walker remained in fair condition at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center.

    (More …)

     

  • Update: Witnesses say Marshawn Lynch was driving

    Matt 10:11 am on 6/06/2008 | 4 Permalink Reply
    Tags: asshat, , , seriously what a douche

    Lynch is an asshatThere was previously some ambiguity as to whether Lynch was actually driving the Porsche SUV that hit a woman and sped away at 3am last Saturday, but even that glimmer of hope appears to be fading:

    WGRZ in Buffalo reports that a source with knowledge of the investigation says four witnesses say Lynch was at the wheel of the vehicle at the time it hit a woman and sped off.

    If you’re wondering, in New York a hit-and-run that causes personal injury (but not death) is treated as a class A misdemeanor due to a tougher law passed in ’05:

    This legislation also elevates the crime of leaving the scene of an incident involving personal injury, which under current law is a class B misdemeanor (maximum sentence of up to 90 days in jail), to a class A misdemeanor, with a maximum sentence of up to one year in jail, with a second or subsequent violation could be charged as a class E felony.

    Refusing to talk to the cops isn’t the kind of thing that will make a judge go easy on you (though it might be his best option at this point). Looks like Lynch could be looking at some jail time. Meanwhile, every keeper league owner on the planet whose setup allowed them to keep Lynch this season is frothing at the mouth right now. I’m not in that group thankfully, but as a Bills fan, I still feel your pain.

    Time to take a long, hard look at Fred Jackson and figure out where it might make sense to draft him. Xavier Omon‘s worth keeping an eye on as well.

     

  • Marshawn Lynch still not talking to cops

    Matt 4:42 pm on 6/04/2008 | 3 Permalink Reply
    Tags:

    That pit in the stomach of every Bills fan on the planet right now? You can blame it 100% on Marshawn Lynch:

    Police investigators are growing impatient with running back Marshawn Lynch and his failure to meet with them more than three days after his vehicle was involved in a hit-and-run accident.

    Buffalo, N.Y., Police Department spokesman Mike DeGeorge suggested Tuesday that Lynch could face an obstruction-of-justice charge if he doesn’t cooperate. He said Lynch’s lawyer finally contacted investigators on Monday but said a meeting has not been set.

    I just threw up in my mouth a little, and then a whole lot more all over my desk, keyboard, and hey-what-a-coincidence my Marshawn Lynch jersey. Refusing to speak to the cops can be translated roughly from Asshat to English as: “Yep, I did it.”

    I was expecting big things from Lynch this season. The kid has scary talent and is the biggest weapon on an offense that’s ready to take the next step.

    Now he’s an unknown. And it ain’t looking good.

    (An unrelated aside: If you’re looking to rob a professional athlete’s house, do not under any circumstances choose Noah Herron’s house. Try robbing a kicker, perhaps.)

     

  • Fantasy football comes to the rescue of horse racing in Minnesota. Wait, what?

    Matt 1:45 pm on 5/13/2008 | 0 Permalink Reply

    From here:

    While some states have used the development of racinos and the introduction of slots at tracks as a method to subsidize and save the horse racing industry, Montana has come up with an intriguing alternative. The state legislature has passed a plan to create a statewide fantasy football league, which would pay funds to horse tracks.

    So let me make sure I have this straight. Horce racing isn’t doing so well in Minnesota, due, according to this article, to “rising costs and diminishing returns.” In order to save it, the state will operate its own fantasy football league, with payouts of “74% for participants.” The leftover cash will be “divided 15 % to the fantasy operator, 24% to the facility, and 61% into a reserve fund.” I assume the “reserve fund” part goes to the horse racing industry. Who knows what the “facility” is.

    In essence, Minnesota will be creating a new state lottery, with fantasy football in the place of scratch-off tickets and Scan-Tron sheets. While I’m happy to see that there are apparently at least a few influential fantasy football fans in the Minnesota state government, this plan seems downright silly to me. Using a government-run version of a popular form of gambling to bail out a struggling one has “epic fail” written all over it. Why not put the same amount of effort and expense into a strategy that might actually revive the sport of horse racing itself, rather than propping up a sinking ship with some bizarre corporate welfare scheme? Improve the marketing. Renovate the facilities. Come up with innovative and fun betting options. Hell, why not create a fantasy horse racing league and generate some actual interest in the sport itself?

     

  • Hazean mock draft update

    Matt 8:37 am on 4/16/2008 | 2 Permalink Reply

    As I mentioned previously, we’re participating in the Hazean’s 2008 NFL mock draft. We’re representing the Jets and their #6 pick. We went with Vernon Gholston, whose name has been associated with the Jets for a good month now. He’s a perfect fit for them, but I have a feeling that they’ll be very, very lucky if he falls to #6 (the Dolphins are even rumored to be considering taking Gholston with the top overall pick). Our (well, my) justification for the pick is after the jump.

    (More …)

     

  • Fantasy football: 17, fantasy baseball: 3

    Matt 6:49 pm on 4/06/2008 | 2 Permalink Reply

    Here’s an interesting stat:

    …while Rotisserie baseball is recognized as the granddaddy of all fantasy sports, football has emerged as the most popular fantasy sport among the 15 million Americans who spend hours massaging statistical data and picking teams. There are now 17 million unique users of fantasy football sites, compared with 3 million fantasy baseball players.

    17:3 sounds about right to me, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen it tallied up.

    Also, fantasyplayers.com apparently has a bigger chunk of the fantasy sports market than I would have thought:

    Mr. Russo scored a coup of sorts in the world of online fantasy games when Nielsen Online reported last November that fantasyplayers.com was the No. 4 site among fantasy football destinations, behind Yahoo, ESPN and CBS SportsLine, but ahead of NFL.com, FoxSports.com and SI.com. His company was No. 2 in fantasy baseball.

    Never used them before. Was frankly pretty much unaware of them until today.

     

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