RB NFL Fantasy Football

[Kuro]

The Bengals did indeed clean up. I hate sports writers anyways, but I think their owner showed he was crazy like a fox for "refusing the trade" Palmer. The previously offered compensation was a 3rd rounder, and writers were falling over themselves saying "he's a fool to not take what he can get."

To be fair, it was a really dumb trade and it's generally not a good idea to rely on others making really dumb trades. And Mike Brown doesn't really have a good track history.

[Kuro]

Well, I'm just amazed that Oakland was so desperate that a 1st rounder wasn't good enough, and threw in a conditional 2013 pick (as Oakland doesn't have any useful draft picks left for this year. I think they get a 5th and a 6th).

They're getting a 3rd rounder due to FA stuff, I believe.

[Gaspar]

I'm with sunrise. The only thing worse than sportswriters are radio call-in hosts. Never underestimate the stupidity of the Raiders.

[Cyneheard]

And it's the 2nd pick that was excessive for the Raiders, especially with how mediocre Palmer is as a QB (better than Boller, sure, but talk about mortgaging one's future for the present).

[Lewwyn]

I just got raped on the waiver wire. I had an order in for DeMarco Murray, Robbie Gould, then Reggie Bush as a fucking back up pick. My next one was Monatrio Hardesty. SO fuck me and a bag of chips.

I needed another RB since Jones is out for 2-4 weeks, benson and scott on bye,and benson suspended. I'm just getting destroyed everywhere. I look forward to my scrubs game this week. I still need to pick up a kicker and WRs are absolute shit. Early Doucet is my best hope.

/ragequit

[sunrise089]

To be fair, it was a really dumb trade and it's generally not a good idea to rely on others making really dumb trades. And Mike Brown doesn't really have a good track history.

You're right that it's a dumb trade for Oakland. But, I think it's not a bad idea to rely on that: http://www.advancednflstats.com/2010/04/...ut-so.html.

Here's a querstion: Sportswriters have this whole "make a move now, inaction trumps action" bias. A recent example outside of Cincinatti would be the love showered on Atlanta for the Jones trade-up during the draft. Do you think it's because they're stupid and have selective memory about what moves pan out, or are they smart but unethical, and like to talk up moves they know are bad because an NFL with lots of exciting moves employes more sportswriters?

[Cyneheard]

I just got raped on the waiver wire. I had an order in for DeMarco Murray, Robbie Gould, then Reggie Bush as a fucking back up pick. My next one was Monatrio Hardesty. SO fuck me and a bag of chips.

I needed another RB since Jones is out for 2-4 weeks, benson and scott on bye,and benson suspended. I'm just getting destroyed everywhere. I look forward to my scrubs game this week. I still need to pick up a kicker and WRs are absolute shit. Early Doucet is my best hope.

/ragequit

At least you catch me when my best three players (Vick, FJax and Gronk) are all out on byes.

[Gaspar]

You're right that it's a dumb trade for Oakland. But, I think it's not a bad idea to rely on that: http://www.advancednflstats.com/2010/04/...ut-so.html.

Here's a querstion: Sportswriters have this whole "make a move now, inaction trumps action" bias. A recent example outside of Cincinatti would be the love showered on Atlanta for the Jones trade-up during the draft. Do you think it's because they're stupid and have selective memory about what moves pan out, or are they smart but unethical, and like to talk up moves they know are bad because an NFL with lots of exciting moves employes more sportswriters?

I think its a bit of both. I think some sportswriters just start saying anything because the more loud and critical you are the more likely you're to get called to Sports Reporters or some other crappy yelling about sports TV-show. I also think sportswriters tend to be "old school" by default. Old school, in terms of sports, as best I can tell seems to mean - ignore data in favor of gut feel in all situations.

When you run into a good one here and there, it becomes infinitely more apparent how disingenuous the bad ones are.

[sunrise089]

Well said Gaspar. I think it's a sad criticism on the average sportsfan that the level of discourse is so low. As much as I love sports, press coverage of music, movies, and other popular pastimes seems much better. Hell, even political reporting is probably better than sports talk.

I'm obviously biased towards statistical/scientific/sabermatric-style sports analysis, but I actually don't think that's the only way to be effective. I love Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column even though he's pretty old school. I think he redeems himself by actually acknowledging his biases (liking manly players, I formations, etc.) and by playing straight to the reader. Reading him I don't feel like I'll read "going for it on fourth and one was clearly the wrong call" one week and then "coach X showed bold and decisive vision by knowing to go for it on fourth and one" the next week (see for example 99% of the commentary about NE's fourth down call at Indy two years ago).

I look forward to the day when we can choose which audio stream to listen to a game on without having to worry with streaming some local AM station in to get a home-team feed. I had an interesting experience last year when I was hooking up my home theater post-moving on Thanksgiving while I had a game on TV. I was plugging in one set of speakers at a time, and saved the center channel for last. I couldn't figure out what was so different about the game at first, but then it hit me - the left and right channels had the crowd noise, the mics from the field, the refs, whistles, etc. I was only missing the commentary from the booth. I left it that way for a quarter or so and it was a pretty cool way to listen to the game.

[T-hawk]

Reading him I don't feel like I'll read "going for it on fourth and one was clearly the wrong call" one week and then "coach X showed bold and decisive vision by knowing to go for it on fourth and one" the next week

This is true for what TMQ writes - it's his omissions that are inconsistent. Every blitz he writes about backfires because he doesn't write about the ones that don't. Every fraidy-cat punt he complains about is useless because he doesn't write about the punts that do pin a team deep. TMQ is right more often than not and is highly entertaining, but he's not at all immune to the usual sportswriter slants and must be taken with the same grain of salt.

My pet peeve on football reporting is when a QB gets blamed for tipped and bounced interceptions that are entirely not his fault. The really grating one was the Giants a week ago against Seattle in the fourth quarter, where TMQ and all the other pundits roasted Eli Manning for throwing into double coverage, except that he was perfectly on target to where the receiver Cruz was going to be until Cruz slipped while the ball was in flight. Manning then threw another bounced pick to end the game in garbage time, and boom the talking head story of the game was "Eli dooms Giants with 2 INTs" which completely missed the point.