Dr. Joeckel and Carlos Hyde

It's that time again: Time to come up with a clever fantasy football team name and put a corresponding picture online so that I can reference it in my fantasy league. So without further ado, I give you: Dr. Joeckel and Carlos Hyde!

Kirk Kissin' Cousins

RGIII is injured... injured bad. In light of this frankly unsurprising news, Kirk Cousins has been named the starting quarterback of the Washington Redskins. I'll bet he's never heard this nickname while growing up in suburban Illinois...

Remember "It's over 9000!!!"?

Well, it is. Deal with it.

J.B. Smoove: Fantasy Football Guru

Remember when comedian J.B. Smoove was on Toyota's Legends of Fantasy Football campaign? I don't either, but it happened and here's proof:

http://vimeo.com/51008353

REMEMBER WHEN THE METRODOME COLLAPSED!?!?!?

WELL??? DO YOU??? If not, here's what it looked like:

I am only bringing this up because it's almost fantasy football season, which means it's almost regular football season, which means it's high time to start the debate over which team should relocate to Los Angeles, CUZ IT'S ABOUT TIME FOR US TO HAVE ONE! When the above calamity happened, a lot of people thought it would be the Vikings. Maybe it still will be. WHO CAN KNOW???

Fantasy Astrology FOOTBALL!!!1

The playoffs are fully under way in year two of my Fantasy Astrology Baseball project, but another momentous landmark happens today: the start in earnest of the fantasy football season! It's my second year competing and immediately after my draft, I applied the research I did to creating some quick fantasy football lineups based on the astrological signs, just like I've been doing with baseball for the last couple of years. I'll tell you right now that I'm not going to do any tinkering throughout the season because I need all my wits to focus on my own team. But since my week 1 lineup is exactly what I drafted, I'll spend that energy to profile some of the teams with the more interesting stories going into the year.

For the rankings, I created an aggregate system combining ESPN.com's top 300 with NFL.com's top 200. I didn't look beyond that pool of players, which is why some teams don't have an eligible kicker - only the top 16 were included in the rankings I used and I wasn't about to dig through the fantasy second stringers. I also had to do a little bit more unforeseen research into IDP's (individual defensive players), since it wouldn't make sense to assign a standard fantasy team defense/special teams (made up of many different players from different signs) to a single team. However, ESPN's fantasy site only went up to 150, so again some teams are lacking a full defensive squad. For a full rundown of all players on all teams, check out the astrology league's home page.

Leading the pack according to my rudimentary ranking system - whereby I added up all the ranks of all the individual (offensive) players on each team and organized them from lowest to highest total - are the Aquarius Ages Of. (I tried to get a little more creative with the team names than I was in the astrology baseball league, which I feel is more in the true spirit of fantasy football.) This is the complete opposite of were baseball players born under the same sign sat in this year's version of the same rankings for that sport. The only top 10 offensive player is the consensus #4 pick by both ESPN and NFL: Ray Rice, RB for the Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens. Even though Ravens QB Joe Flacco signed a big deal in the off-season, his lack of quality receiving weapons should insure a heavy workload for the small but tough back - he was actually picked second overall in our draft.

Atlanta Falcons WR Julio Jones just barely made it into the aggregate top 20 (ESPN ranked him 22 overall while NFL had him at a more optimistic 16, for an average of 19.0) while Patriots RB Stevan Ridley (also my team's RB2) just barely missed the top 20 by half a point. Speaking of half a point, our league has adopted a variation of PPR that awards 0.5 points for every reception that I DID NOT include in the fantasy ranking system, as I feel it's somewhat absurd to have the possibility of decimals in a player's final rankings. The most compelling story on this team's offense is injury-prone QB Robert Griffin III - but if his surgically-repaired knee gives out, at least they have Matthew Stafford waiting in the wings. I know basically nothing about defensive players throughout the league, but this unit has four starters in the top 20, including ESPN-elite LB Patrick Willis. And although he will be far from the league's best this year, it's worth keeping an eye on newsworthy rookie Manti Te'o.

Barely behind Aquarius in our rankings system is a sign whose baseball playing equivalents made it to the playoffs last year, the Capricorn Scapegoats (see the play on the traditional goat of the constellation?). Two players who will surely be scapegoats if this team fails to perform will be its pair of top 10 overall players, RB's Doug  Martin of the Buccs and Jamaal Charles of the Chiefs. But this team's offensive fortunes will likely live or die with #2 QB Drew Brees, reunited with his recently un-suspended coach with whom he won the Super Bowl three years ago. This is most definitely a coincidence, but the two top-ranked astrology teams also have the two top-ranked kickers: Stephen Gostkowski legs it up for AQU while last season's top scorer Blair Walsh will kick for CAP. Capricorn has the most defensive players to choose from (20 of the top 150), but the three players who ESPN tagged as "Elite" are all in the secondary: safeties Morgan Burnett, Eric Weddle, and Eric Berry. Don't ask me anything about who they are or what they do because I don't know, but now I'll be sure to pay attention when I hear those names come out of a broadcaster's mouth...

Following the trend where absolutely useless fantasy baseball signs look like legitimate contenders in the football landscape, the third spot in my rankings system is occupied by the Taurus Runners. (Get it: like Running of the Bulls? It's not a reference to the maze runners in Dragon's Maze...) The conversation has to start with the RB trio of Seattle's Marshawn Lynch (either the #2 or #3 player in all of fantasy depending on what you read into Arian Foster's injury troubles), Frank Gore (the 49ers lead back is not Elite, but does find himself in the next-tier category: "not sexy, but they get the job done"), and Lamar Miller (a good chance to be a sleeper for the Dolphins). Then there's Cam Newton, whose Panthers were ranked dead last in the NFC according to Sports Illustrated's power rankings, but his ability to run makes him a deadly fantasy option. They've also got Newton's top receiving weapon Steve Smith and Peyton Manning's new favorite WR Wes Welker, PLUS Welker's former teammate #2 TE Rob Gronkowski - and although he is out for the foreseeable future, it's not too bad to have second-tier TE Jason Witten as a backup. TAU's only elite defensive player is Atlanta safety William Moore, but they have a couple of well-known brutal linebackers in Lawrence Timmons and Clay Matthews.

The Sagittarius Archers (baseball) surprised everyone by finishing with a winning record this year, and the Sagittarius Arrowheads (football) stand primed to do the same and more in their league. They've got the top QB (Aaron Rodgers), the top TE (Jimmy Graham), and a top 15 RB 1-2 punch (Alfred Morris - my personal fantasy RB1 - and Matt Forte). While their receiving corps is a little weak - their top WR is Philadelphia's DeSean Jackson, who checks in with an aggregate 76.5 rank - they've got RB's to spare, including rookies Montee Ball and Giovani Bernard (another member of my team's bench). So far every team's defense has featured at least one "Elite" player, and SAG's is Oakland safety Tyvon Branch.

That does it for the top 4, and not a fantasy baseball playoff contender in the bunch. George Carlin had a great bit about the differences between baseball and football, and based on these teams, it looks like the differences extend to the stars themselves. Again, feel free to check on the full lineups and statistics at the league's home page (which should be viewable to all), but don't get too upset if some of the teams aren't filled out completely or the lineups don't change from week to week. This project is intended for reference only as something to look at while your actual teams pound away on the gridiron. Happy Football Season Everyone!

Keepin Up w the Kaeperdashians

It's amazing how just two days without baseball can really get you excited for the fantasy football season. While reading Matthew Berry's Draft Day Manifesto and pondering strategies for not only how to construct the best lineup, but also how to put forth the best possible team presence, I came up with my squad's new name: Keepin Up w the Kaeperdashians. (It would have been the more complete "Keeping Up with the Kaeperdashians" but the grammatically correct version exceeds ESPN's character limit for team names.) This name is perfect because a) it combines one of the NFL's breakout stars with the show I'm currently working on and b) no one's ever done it before. (A quick something search shows that this particular name mashup is indeed a novel concept.)

What makes it more perfect is that both of these celebrities posed nude in magazines that reflect their various professions (ESPN The Magazine and Playboy, respectively) giving me plenty of fodder for creating a team image. One is above, the other (probably the best choice) is below. This mashup seems like pretty low hanging fruit, so I just wanted to put it out there as soon as it's ready to prove it was me what thought of it. Now, back to baseball!

If Kim K wasn't already in a committed relationship, this would
 have made such a great celebrity couple name in the tabloids.

Super Bowl Ads 2013

Yesterday I received an email from Hulu Plus (for which I recently signed up in an effort to remain at least marginally in the loop of modern television after canceling cable last year) prompting me to look at the top five ads from Sunday's Super Bowl broadcast. A couple years ago, when I was working on a show about advertising, I used the blogosphere to chronicle some of the game's best spots. This year, where I once again watched the game in a household that collectively cared more about the commercials than the outcome of the game (although that was not the case for yours truly: CONGRATULATIONS RAVENS!!!1), I was decidedly underwhelmed with what some of the nation's top advertisers brought to the table. But that doesn't mean there weren't some gems here and there.

Looking back at my old article from 2011, I wouldn't be surprised if we remembered Super Bowl XLV more for its revolutionary automotive ads than yet another big game featuring Ben Rapethlisberger. (This year was the first Super Bowl in 10 years not to include either Big Ben, Tom Brady, or Peyton Manning - a welcome break from the headline makers and commercial hogs.) Volkswagen's "The Force" spot still ranks as one of the most loved commercials of all time, completely overshadowing last year's dog-themed effort and this year's racially insensitive spot where a white cubicle jockey from Minnesota feels the need to talk like a Rasta. Still not sure what Jamaican culture has to do with a German car company; it might actually have been funnier if the spot's protagonist spoke in an exaggerated German accent instead.

Kia and Audi followed up their impressive offerings from two years ago, the former with a convoluted explanation of where babies come from (spoiler alert: it involves lots of cute rocket ships) and the latter told an evocative story of what adventures might result from going stag to the prom (spoiler alert: it involves a pretty nasty shiner). Jeff Bridges is still narrating for Hyundai, who also sponsored the pre-game show but failed to come up with any truly head-turning ads. But the most enigmatic car ads of the day came from the Chrysler Group: ads for halftime show sponsor Jeep and Ram Trucks lasted far too long and looked like they were advertising for the Army and the agricultural subsidy, respectively. As beautiful as the ads might have been, I doubt if they left viewers thinking about the brand or their products.

The above-mentioned Kia spot was the lone car ad to make it into Hulu's Top 5 (at number 5, no less). Number 1 was the return of the irresistible Budweiser Clydesdales. This heartwarming 60 second spot takes us through the life of a horse, from its upbringing, to its sale to its new corporate masters, to when it escapes from its bonds for a touching reunion with its trainer. Thankfully the spot cuts out before the Budweiser security team tackles and punishes the rogue animal. Number 2 was GoDaddy's 30 second offering where supermodel Bar Refaeli makes out with a stereotypically nerdy computer programmer. The fact that so many people are up in arms about this spot says much more about aesthetics in our society than about website domain hosting.

Next, at Number 3, people were talking about the winner of Doritos' annual Crash the Super Bowl contest, "Goat 4 Sale." While it's always fun to see animals beat up on unsuspecting humans, I actually preferred the other Doritos spot, "Daddy Princess," where a group of jocks submit to wearing dresses and makeup in order to cash in on the sweet snackly reward. Rounding out the list, Number 4 was The Rock's action movie inspired romp through the city as he goes on a mission to restock his fridge with milk. What a coincidence that the pro-wrestler-turned-action-star made a triumphant return to the ring just days earlier to win the WWE Championship at Royal Rumble, just in time for his big Super Bowl moment.

So those were supposedly the most talked about ads, but none of them were among my favorite ads of the afternoon. An Oreo ad where all hell quietly breaks loose in a library following an escalated debate about over the superiority of the cookies or the creme had everyone in the room in stitches. (It's obviously the creme, btw.) Amy Poehler displays her brilliant comedic timing in a spot for Best Buy. (But I'll still always hate you for breaking GOB's heart...) YouTube record holder Psy makes an appearance using his trademark dance moves to plug pistachios. (I'm still not sick of that song, but that's coming from someone who took the trouble to learn all the lyrics in Korean for the sake of karaoke night.) Taco Bell put an elderly spin on its "Live Más" campaign with a charming story about a group of seniors who escape from their retirement home for a night of partying. (UPDATE: Production company Biscuit Filmworks just posted the director's cut for this spot, featuring a MUCH more convincing music track than the version that aired.)

And last but not least, for a brilliant combination of storytelling and relevance, I have to mention Tide's "No Stain is Sacred," where a 49ers fan drops some salsa on his favorite jersey, which miraculously lands in the shape of legendary quarterback Joe Montana. He does the talk show circuit, earns millions in endorsements, and transforms his house into a shrine... only to have his jersey washed by a crafty Ravens fan. So in a Super Bowl broadcast marred by a 35-minute blackout, we still saw some pretty decent advertising. The real test now is to see what these ads do for their brands' bottom lines.

Beyond Fantasy Football

6:49 pm, BAL - 28, NE - 13, FINAL

And a Cary Williams interception in the New England end zone secures it for the Ravens! The clock runs down, the players and press mob the field. A ruggedly handsome John Harbaugh embraces a classlessly hobo-esque Bill Belichick. Tom Brady mopes off the field... right into the arms of his supermodel wife. And it's officially a Harbaugh Bowl! Brother vs. Brother in the biggest sporting event of the year! Just a bye-week to go and then we head to the Superdome for a little piece of history!


6:32 pm, BAL - 28, NE - 13

I wonder if a defender has ever broken his hand tipping a pass thrown by an NFL quarterback from just a couple feet away. I don't think that happened to Darnell McPhee when he tipped Tom Brady's pass right into the hands of the Ravens secondary, but it would have been worth it for the turnover. Six and a half minutes to go. I wonder how many minutes Falco can burn during this drive.


6:14pm, BAL - 28, NE - 13

I learned this year that the flag of Maryland, the only US state flag based on English heraldry, contains the heraldic banner of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore. It was adopted by Maryland in 1904. It is also the same flag that Anquan Boldin found in the stands, held by a stray Ravens fan, after catching his second touchdown pass in as many Ravens possessions. 11+ minutes left in the game, Patriots two scores behind.


6:09 pm, BAL - 21, NE - 13

I learned this year that a "play action fake" is when the quarterback fakes a handoff and then throws a pass. That's what happened on the play which Anquan Boldin caught for a touchdown. Now it's still a one-score game, if New England scores (goffabid) and then goes for 2.

I knew this before, but the previous play confirmed that if an offensive player lowers his head first before getting destroyed by a defender, there's much less chance of that defender getting called for anything. That's what happened when Stevan Ridley was demolished by Bernard Pollard to force the first turnover of the game. Let's see if the birds can make it a two-score game...


5:46pm, BAL - 14, NE - 13

Look at Dennis Pitta get DECAPITATED on a "clean hit" as soon as he comes down with a pass in the red zone... and is there a call? Helmet-to-helmet? Unnecessary roughness? I was surprised that he had the strength to get back on the field for the next play - where he redeemed himself by catching an easy touchdown pass. One-point game now!


5:37pm, NE - 13, BAL - 7

There's a lot of talk about home field advantage in football. You wouldn't think it would make as much difference as, say, baseball where the dimensions of each park vary significantly. But watching this game, it seems apparent that the home team has the advantage in that the refs make LITRALLY every call in favor of the home team.

These fouls getting called against the Ravens are seriously getting absolutely ridiculous. The third personal foul against the Ravens came against a player who did nothing except run down the field next to a receiver who got tackled. And then when a Patriots D/ST player makes contact with Ed Reed after he called for a fair catch after New England's eventual punt... silence from the decrepit skeletor that passes for a referee in this game.

And it doesn't stop at personal fouls: apparently defenders are allowed to dive in front of the receivers to trip them up without a pass interference call. There's still a lot of football left to play; which is undoubtedly going to result in about 34 more penalties called against the Ravens. Let's hope they can supplement the blatant favoritism with a few more points.


5:11 pm, NE - 13, BAL - 7

A pair of touchdowns marked the second quarter: one an amazing running move by Ray Rice, and one a 3rd down catch by Wes Welker. Just when the Baltimore defense makes you think they've made a great goal line stand with two stops in a row, a couple dudes get confused on their coverage, and New England's lead stands at 3. With less than half a minute left in the half, the Pats are trying to pad that lead.

The next play: Brady is forced to scramble, and in trying to slide his way to safety, he does his best Ty Cobb impression and puts his spikes up right into Ed Reed... and yet doesn't get called for a foul. Personal Fouls now stand at 2-0 in favor of the Ravens. There's John Harbaugh pleading his case on the sidelines - you can read his lips as he shouts to the ref, "He kicked him!" Of course that's nothing compared to his brother's meltdown earlier today. It would be great to see them play against each other in this year's Super Bowl.

And in the final seconds, Brady's poor time management forces them to kick a field goal rather than having one or two attempts to score a touchdown, and it's a 6-point game. Let's hope that Ray Lewis gets a few more awesome tackles to justify his out of control emotions in what could be, but hopefully isn't, his last entrance.

4:27 pm, NE - 3, BAL - 0

This year was my first year as an aspiring football fan. I've followed baseball for so long (my time as a fan officially hit puberty this year - it's been 13 seasons since I started obsessively following the sport) that I felt I had some bandwidth to expand into new sporting frontiers. However, I made the mistake of using Fantasy Football as my gateway into the NFL, which had the consequence that once my team was knocked out of the playoffs - despite having the best record in the regular season - I checked out of the sport.

This was a selfish mistake, since the end of this season and the playoffs have been extremely exciting for the team I have adopted as my own, the Baltimore Ravens. After placing first in the AFC North, they first took care of their longtime rival Indianapolis (nee Baltimore) Colts, finally giving me occasion to wear my "Beat Indy" shirt (with Johnny Unitas's 19 on the back) and have it make sense. Then came a five-hour marathon matchup against the number one seeded Denver Broncos, who lined up behind longtime Colts signal-caller Peyton Manning, new neck and all. And now, as I type, they're down 3-0 in a rematch of last year's AFC Championship matchup against the New England Patriots.

As we head into the second quarter, I'm going to try to get a better handle on the inner workings of how a football game plays out on TV by live-blogging a game for the first time ever. So far nothing that interesting has happened except for a personal foul call against an extremely emotional Ray Lewis in the final AFC Championship game of his career - the 13-time Pro-Bowler announced his retirement shortly before the playoffs. Now let's see what happens as the Ravens drive it past midfield for the first time in the game...

Star Wolf Appraises my Fantasy Football Team

I know this is first and foremost a baseball blog, and there is obviously no shortage of baseball to blog about, as there are still 2 out of 3 AL division winners to be determined. But there is something that I have to get off my chest.

As I may have mentioned, I have joined the ranks of the thousands upon thousands of Americans who enjoy fantasy football for the first time this season. In my preparations for the season, I read some articles by Matthew "The Talented Mr. Roto" Berry, and in one of which he admonished fantasy players not to be "that guy" - the kind of guy who gloats and roots for players to get injured and won't shut up about his team. Because, in the words of TMR, "Nobody wants to hear about your fantasy team."

However, after the three Chicago Bears on my squad put up an astonishing 45 points to overcome a 38-point deficit heading into MNF, which gave my team - the Cajun Outlaw Rat Bastards - a 4-0 record to start my rookie fantasy football season, the immortal words of Wolf O'Donnell, leader of the famed Star Wolf team of space mercenaries, came to my mind:

Thoughts About Football...

Let's Try to Understand some of the Football that happened Last Weekend

I have, in my hands, a copy of the Sports Illustrated 2011 NFL Preview. It's got Atlanta Linebacker Curtis Lofton on the cover, because Peter King had picked the Falcons to win the Super Bowl. As it happens, they were eliminated one week ago by the New York Giants in the Wild Card round, who (after yesterday's win against the defending champion Green Bay Packers) are now slated to go up against the San Francisco 49ers - with a trip to the Super Bowl in the balance.

In the NFL Preview, each team has a 2-page spread - a pattern I hope to see the Sports Illustrated Baseball Preview return to in the future. There's an article about each team, a profile on the coach, a "Spotlight" on a particular player, and of course the Projected Lineup. Some might say it's useless to look at pre-season rankings this late in the year, since various changes throughout the year will cause most of them to be out-of-date or inaccurate. But they are useful to see how the teams and the players got to where they are now (the playoffs) from where they were then (potential teams, only existing within the pages of a magazine).

I have the pages marked for 4 teams: the Baltimore Ravens, the New England Patriots, and the aforementioned Giants and Niners. These 4 teams will all play next week, and 2 of those 4 will go to the Super Bowl, or so I'm led to believe. This is a pretty important cultural event, the Super Bowl, if for no other reason than the commercials. And Sports Illustrated is a magazine whose predictions are fun to make a story out of. So let's take a look at the men who SI's writers think were likely to factor into the teams that could play in the big game.


New England Patriots
Projected Finish: 1st in AFC EAST
Actual Finish: Same
Spotlight on: Chad Ochocinco, one of the team's three starting Wide Recievers. Now he sat out most of last game, after compiling just 276 yards the whole season. The top-performing player on Tom Brady's offense last week was TE Rob Gronkowski with 145 yards - SI describes him as "highly skilled". The article mostly features the new defense surrounding powerhouse NT Vince Wilfork (who incidentally had 1.5 sacks in their trouncing of the Denver Broncos).

Baltimore Ravens
Projected Finish: 2nd in AFC NORTH
Actual Finish: T-1st in AFC NORTH
Spotlight on: Anquan Boldin. The team's top Wide Receiver was expected to gel better with QB Joe Flacco (pictured (in the magazine, as well as above)) after spending a year playing together. Well, he earned 887 yards this year... after 839 the year before. Not sure if it's working out how they planned, but he's still the team's #1 WR - he had a team-high 79 yards in last week's win over the Houston Texans. I have no idea what stats to use to judge Quarterbacks, but pro-football-reference has him at an 80.9 Passer Rating, a drop from 93.6 the previous year...

New York Giants
Projected Finish: 3rd in NFC EAST
Actual Finish: 1st in NFC EAST
Spotlight on: Jonathan Goff, the would-have-been-4th year Linebacker, had he not missed the whole season with a knee injury.
WR Hackeem Nicks gets the picture in the article. He's supposed to "hold together New York's untested receiving corps" - all signs point to success, as he trailed rookie Victor Cruz in total yards, but still hit the 1,000 mark himself. However it has been Nicks's turn to shine in the playoffs, combining for 280 yards and 4 touchdowns in the Giants' two postseason games.

San Francisco 49ers
Projected Finish: 4th in NFC WEST
Actual Finish: 1st in NFC WEST
Spotlight on: Aldon Smith, a Linebacker who in 2011 somehow ended up with 14.0 sacks in just 16 games... The clear focus of the article was on Jim Harbaugh, their new Coach, recently departed from Stanford (and the brother of Ravens coach, John Harbaugh. There's a chance for the brothers to meet in the Superbowl, if things turn out right.

I'll certainly be pulling for that eventuality as I watch the games next week. Maybe at that point I will also know enough about the teams in question to actually make some meaningful observations about the Big Game.