Just Another Night, Just Another Draft

Simple redraft league, head to head, with people from work.

1. Julio Jones - WR - ATL - PICK 4
2. Brandon Marshall - WR - NYJ - PICK 25
3. Mark Ingram - RB - NO - PICK 32
4. Latavius Murray - RB - OAK - PICK 53
5. Andrew Luck - QB - IND - PICK 60
6. Golden Tate - WR - DET - PICK 81
7. Denver Broncos - DEF - PICK 88
8. Coby Fleener - TE - NO - PICK 109
9. DeVante Parker - WR - MIA - PICK 116
10. Terrance West - RB - BAL - PICK 137
11. Christine Michael - RB - SEA - PICK 144
12. Cincinnati Bengals - DEF - PICK 165
13. Jay Cutler - QB - CHI - PICK 172
14. Jared Cook - TE - GB - PICK 193
15. Brandon McManus - K - DEN - PICK 200

Notes: Was very glad to have Jones at 4, as  Beckham and Gronk went to fans of various franchises; to me, Jones is the #2 pick... Ingram at 32 was Best Available RB, and I guess he's in a better situation than CJ Anderson, but health is an issue... Not a huge fan of Murray, but the line is for real, and it's not a given that any of the back ups can take the gig over him... Luck at 60 might be my favorite pick in the draft... I'm not sold on Tate's talent, but it looks like Detroit is going up tempo, and he's got a pretty solid floor of 1000 / 6 TDs... Much of this draft worked out without poaching, which either means my rankings are shiite, or I'm going to contend... Balanced roster was intentional, since we went 14 teams and 15 players, which means the free agent pool should be pretty weak... I'm hoping that between West and Michael, some lottery ticket hits... Cutler could be in the works for a big year, given that he had good numbers last year with WRs who are on milk cartons... Looking at the other teams, I think I'm going to compete, but NFL.com's rank says 5-8 and hosed. Sheesh.

In Re Colin Kaepernick's Protest, and True Patriotism

Boo, Free Speech Sucks

There's a very simple point about this that I'm going to make, and then a lot of lesser ones. First things first...

> The more this bothers you, and the more you want to talk about it... well, that says a lot more about you than it does Kaepernick. First, that you can be effectively trolled by a guy who barely seems to be trying. Second, that you seem to think that the state of the nation is actually imperiled by the actions of a barely QB2 of a barely NFL franchise. And finally, that if he was still a good player for still a good team, you probably wouldn't care about any part of this.

Now, the smaller points.

> If this is actually Kaepernick's stance, why did it take someone noticing it on social media to make it, well, public?

> Does Kaepernick really think anyone is going to be swayed by this to lobby for better treatment of minorities by police?

> If you believe that Kaepernick should be released over this, rather than for his actual football skills or utility to the team, why do you hate America, or at the very least, the part of it that's involved with free speech?

> Does anyone actually think that 100% of the NFL is totally OK with standing for the Anthem, rather than just going along with it because that's what is expected of them?

> Why, beyond it being what we always do, is it so important to play the Anthem before a sports event, anyway?

Honestly, I get patriotism. I feel that I am, well, pretty damned patriotic. But not in a stars and stripes and show you my flag kind of way. To me, patriotism means something different than standing up for a song, or putting your hand in the magic place during said song. To me, patriotism is more about the following.

1) Employing Americans whenever you get a chance to, rather than sending the work out of the country.

2) Making your community better, through service, good citizenship, being kind when there's nothing in it for you.

3) Honoring our veterans of foreign wars, preferably by ensuring that we have as few of those as possible, and by never advocating the use of US "hard power" as a "cheap" way to gain what we can't otherwise negotiate or purchase.

4) Not tolerating the use of the flag in ways that excludes, well, anyone. It's the flag for everyone who lives here; there is no "real" America. If you pay taxes, it's your country. Don't let anyone make you feel otherwise.

5) Voting. And not just when it's obvious. There's always a better choice, and being an adult involves, well, realizing that. Especially locally.

6) Serving on juries. Without undue complaint or trying to shirk your responsibilities, because it's part of, well, being a citizen.

7) Paying your taxes. Because if you cheat on them, you're cheating on everyone else who, well, is paying their fair share for the right to live in a country with laws, and standards, and safety nets, rather than freaking Somalia.

8) Standing up for free speech. Especially when it makes people uncomfortable. That's kind of the deal with free speech. You can't just like it when you agree with it.

9) Considering the other side of arguments, because knee-jerk reactions demean adult conversations. And we're supposed to be adults, goddammit.

10)  Refusing to get caught up in tempest in teapot controversies like, well, what happens before a freaking preseason game because some guy that no one is even drafting in their fantasy league won't stand up. For a song.

In short... can't we please find something, anything, really, better to care about?

Like, maybe, having everyone be subject to the same laws, regardless of their uniform or tax bracket?

This year's exercise in nerdery

Nerd Up!

Here's how my draft ended up, on the off chance that you care, haven't drafted yet, or, most wisely, use this kind of thing as anti-advice, seeing how I never win my own damn league. Italicized players were protects, as this is a keeper single-round auction league.

     Player    TM    2016    2017
QB    Ben Roethlisberger    PIT    15    19
RB1    Jeremy Hill    CIN    14    17
RB2    Doug Martin    TB    46    51
WR1    Brandon Marshall    NYJ    41    46
WR2    Randall Cobb    GB    28    33
WR3    Doug Baldwin    SEA    33    38
FX    Jamaal Charles    KC    66    71
TE    Zach Ertz    PHI    24    28
DEF    Green Bay    GB    1    4
PK    Brandon McManus    DEN    1    4
B1    Devin Funchess    CAR    15    19
B2    Rishard Matthews    TEN    3    6
B3    Kamar Aiken    BAL    8    11
B4    Christine Michael    SEA    3    6
B5    Martellus Bennett    NE    1    4
B6    Tyrod Taylor    BUF    1    4
     TOTAL         300    361

Sorry for the formatting weirdness; Excel and Blogger don't like each other much. Anyway, you get the gist.

This was an odd draft for me, in that I had early position, a strong need for two starters in a league where something like 24 of the top 26 WRs were kept, and a historical aversion to going to a true stars and scraps philosophy, given how injuries dominate fantasy football. To my eye, there were only 9 total true difference makers in the draft, and my entire goal was to somehow get two of those guys without having to go to just $1 guys for the rest of the day.

With the first pick going off the board (Ezekiel Elliot, $76, about where I suspected he'd go), I had my choice between LeSean McCoy, CJ Anderson, Baldwin and Charles. The way I view the AFC this year is that the Chiefs are the conference's best team, and while Charles has clear committee potential and a highly worrisome injury to recover from, I'm just not seeing Andy Reid get modern enough to move off his best back with the historically high yards per carry average. McCoy's a great player and might be Buffalo's second best threat in the passing game, but the nicks from last year makes me think he might be more likely to be brittle this year. Anderson, too scared of his QB situation, and I had the hope that no one would nominate Baldwin until my pick in the second.

It was a coin flip decision, but in those, give me the RB from the team that I think will be playing from ahead more often. As for the price I paid for him, while it was half my cap, it was what I expected to pay, and even a few bucks less than where I was prepared to go. By the auction cost, JC is my first round pick, and while he's a little shaky there, he's also not a terrible bet to be the best player in fantasy this year.

While active in bidding up others in the next dozen picks, there wasn't anything that broke my heart (Moncrief for 45 was somewhat reassuring), so I put Baldwin in motion. I started the bidding at $6 instead of $1 to try to make it look like I was just throwing his name out there to draw money out of the pot and punt the pick -- I've done this kind of thing before, honestly. I'd have gone 10-20% higher for him, as I think the Regression Police have gone too far in downgrading his prospects. Sure, he's not going to have a full year that looks like the hot months of 2015, but the Hawks aren't going to be able to just turtle up and not throw the ball this year. Getting a 1000 / 8 TD kind of year from Baldwin doesn't seem impossible to me.

With my two big bets in, the draft got fairly passive for me for a while. I nominated some QBs and Defenses to draw money out of the pool, then stood the course for Funches. Too many reports have him outplaying Kelvin Benjamin to ignore, and KB's storied 2014 seems to be a matter of targets over talent. Mathews was a small moment of price protection that backfired, but $3 for a WR1 seems pretty tolerable. Aiken was something of an all-in moment to keep him from going for under market value , and took the majority of my remaining budget.

The late picks are all players I wanted. Michael is a tease who has burned a ton of people, but the reports and results this August are just too good to let go, and I've got hope of strong performance there. McManus was my preference at kicker -- I love altitude for kickers, since long figgies score higher -- and Bennett has Aaron Hernandez potential n NE's 2-TE sets, along with poaching potential if Gronk can't stay healthy. While I'm a big fan of Zach Ertz's potential this year, I wanted a safeguard in the event of Eagle collapse. Tyrod Taylor is good Ben injury insurance with dual scoring threats, and the Green Bay defense has a good Week 1 matchup (Jacksonville), since we have a victory bonus that, in my opinion, should be in a lot more leagues.

I think it's a top half team, looking at the others in my league, with the potential to actually win me some money... but it's football. The waiver wire and injuries are nearly as important as the draft, and predicting how you'll do in both is impossible. But at least I've got some hope, and that's all you can really ask for on Opening Day.

Football Outsiders Posts A Negative Value In Editing

Here's what you see on page 179 of their latest annual book, in the Philadelphia Eagles section.

I Didn't Know Eli Played For The Eagles

This is becoming something of a tradition for the organization, as they also whiffed entirely on the Phillies' bullpen in their annual this year.

But remember, Philly Fan is angry for no reason!

Top 10 Eagles Preseason Week 2 Takeaways

Wear Your Helmet More, Meat

10) The defense picked off Steelers QB2 Landry Jones four times in the first half and pitched a shutout, which would be really impressive if it weren't for the presence of Landry Jones in that sentence

9) Nelson Agholor went high and made a nice catch to convert a third down, so he's totally not a bust now

8) Much of the first team offense time was spent collecting penalties and generally sucking the joy out of life

7) On the final play of the third quarter, Marcus Smith II sacked the QB, so he's totally not a bust now

6) In the proud tradition of Rasheed Bailey and Freddie Martino, Paul Turner looked like a guy who could stick at WR, but won't

5) Unlike last week, there were moments when Chase Daniel looked like he belonged in the NFL, so, um, yay wildly overpriced small game manager QB

4) Dorial Green-Beckham dressed and played, but didn't look like he had any clue about how to play football, so he was as advertised

3) For the second straight week, the team won comfortably in a game that only one team seemed to care about

2) Winning 17-0 with a +3 turnover ratio and a whole minute more of possession tells you just how much Smoke And Mirrors was involved

1) Caleb Sturgis, and we swear we are not making this up, missed the game due to getting a concussion from a pre-game punt that went awry, and yeah, it's totally fine to cut a guy if he can't duck a pre-game punt, or just keep his helmet on

The Eagles Get Their Very Own (Green-) Beckham In A Litmus Test

Even taller against prone DBs

In one of those deals that serve more as an indicator for how you feel about your team's brain trust than the merits of the trade, the Eagles sent reserve lineman Dennis Kelly to the Titans for second-year WR Dorial Green-Beckham.

Titan Fan (he exists, right? Nashville has to have the Internet by now, since Boost Mobile exists, and wifi hotspots can get to the trailer park) is certain that DG-B, a 6'-6", 225 pounder who ran the 40 last year in 4.49, is going to turn around his frustrating freshman behavior and become the next WR1 to haunt their dreams. He was their best WR last year with 549 yards, which would have been WR2 for the Eagles, and yeah, WR2 for the Eagles last year was really horrible. (Riley Cooper! Still unemployed, shockingly, and Google News has all of four mentions of his name in the last six months. Seriously, Riley, show up at a Trump rally or something. Show us some hustle.)

And boy, it would be nice to finally be the team that picks up Disgruntled WR1 on the cheap, rather than passing him off. Titan Fan's pessimism is warranted, because their franchise got the #1 pick last year, and you don't do that unless, well, everything has failed to spectacular levels. Especially when you play in the charity ward that is the AFC South, losing that many games takes work, and while Fake Game #1 made their prospects look good with rampant running, they really aren't likely to win more than six games this year. And, um, I can tell you from personal experience and viewing, along with the fact that he's 26, a fifth round blah pick, and hasn't ever been a starter for a line that's better than a disaster, that Dennis Kelly is like a gas station condom. Better than nothing, but still a profoundly painful and disappointing experience.

Eagle Fan (we exist! and can't stop whining about it, for reasons) is certain that DG-B is part of a troubling trend of Thugs that Clueless Howie Roseman is bringing in because Nero Kelly hated Thugs. Also, that his presence means that prior dice rolls Reuben Randle and TJ Graham suck (they do), holdovers Nelson Agholor and Josh Huff are busts (they are), and that so long as the opposition remembers to cover Jordan Matthews and Zach Ertz, this passing attack is going to fail in 2016 (it will). Also, that while no one wanted to see Kelly on the field, they really didn't want to see Matt Tobin, spell the names of rookies Isaac Seumalo and Halapoulivaati Vaitai, or do anything more than curl into the fetal position until starter Lane Johnson's second PED suspension magically goes away. Oh, and aging LT Jason Peters has to stay perfectly healthy and be all better again, after last year's Fred Sanford act. Honestly, this year is going to suck. And all of the QBs are going to die. Some already have!

Realistically, there's always the possibility that this will be the kind of deal that hurts both teams, given how neither org has covered itself in smartness over the past half-decade. Titan Management spent the preseason burying DG-B's value with complaints about his conditioning and work ethic, while the Eagles are trying to get you to believe that their puppies are ready for prime time, no matter what your eyes told you during their turnstile time against the Bucs in Fake Week One. From my perspective, it's a defensible gamble because (a) Kelly's nothing that you should struggle to replace or remember, and (b) DG-B has a chance to be a game-changer if the light turns on in his head, and sometimes guys do that after a trade. Also, it's not as if this move is costing the team draft picks or salary cap space, and the chance of finding another Kelly in free agency or after some other team's cut time is a hell of a lot better than finding another guy who has inspired Calvin Johnson comparisons.

But that's the magic of this deal. If you want to rip either team for making it, you can, and if you want to praise them, have at it. Here, let me give it a shot. The Titans have better options at WR and laid down the law for their other possible miscreants, and aren't going to have another Kenny Britt experience. Great move! Either way, you get to sound like a True Fan, and you also get to think about something other than how your team will go 6-10 this year in a dumpster division.

From my perspective, DG-B makes his Eagle debut in tomorrow night's game against the Steelers, and I'm going to call the trade a win for the simple fact that now I have a minor excuse to watch it. If he makes three catches in the first quarter and does anything with them, Eagle Fan will bumrush DG-B into their fantasy league rankings, Titan Fan will drink some more sterno and say something vile, and the sun will rise in the East. Also, both teams will still win six games this year. NFL Fever! Catch It!

Curt Schilling Proves, Again, That Pitchers Are The Biggest Idiots

Throws Right, Thinks Little

In my time as a sports journo, I got to interview a wide number of folks with a wide number of jobs. The athletes in sports that didn't get a lot of coverage, like lacrosse and swimming, really didn't have much of an idea of what to do with a question, and would hem and haw, get quiet, or just recite a cliche or two; it was hard to get them to open up. The players who were in positions where talking was constant -- skill positions in football, basketball players, and the very best interview in sports, the hockey goon -- knew what you were looking for, and would fill up your notebook with speed. They were worth their weight in gold, and you'd go to them as often as you would the coach, honestly.

And bar none, the worst interview subject in the world? The starting pitcher in baseball. There's no rooting in the press box, but I always rooted against the game being decided by these guys, because no matter how good the game was, the post-game talk session with these gifted imbeciles was always the worst. At the high school level, you'd wonder how they got out of middle school. At the college level, how they got in. At the pro level, how they got to the park on a daily basis without chasing fire trucks. (It was, to be fair, a pre-GPS age. And if it was a Rube Waddell homage, props. But it never was.)

But the sub-set, the worst of the worst? The starting pitcher with just enough intellect to know that he was smarter than many other pitchers, especially if he was any good at the job. It was like having a kindergarten class at a boys school all get baseball bats, then give the biggest bully in the second grade a knife; utterly insufferable and impossible to shut the hell up. You'd have a season filled with the petty tyrannies, imposed philosophies, imagined conspiracies and utter self-centeredness of someone with too much power and, well, no consequences or control. And God help you if he didn't win, or a teammate or coach let him down. Being a sports reporter is fun, but it can stop being fun very quickly.

Which leads us to the curious case of Curt Schilling.

Who, let's not put too fine a point on this, was lucky to escape fraud charges in the failure of his game company, and who blew one of the easiest jobs in the world at ESPN, despite repeat warnings to stop using his social media feed like your asshat uncle...

And feels that this qualifies him for a turn in the United States Senate, followed by a run for the Presidency.

No, seriously.

You see, Big Schill's got that Ayn Randian problem -- the one where you are personally offended at the idea that society might need some semblance of selflessness, teamwork, nuance, or the ability to learn from books read after you were a teenager. And he's personally offended by Elizabeth Warren, the progressive senator, bankruptcy expert, decorated law school professor and person who has actually won an election, and feels that he can just defeat her by announcing a willingness to do so. (Oh, and that the Republican Party in Massachusetts would just fall over itself and nominate him, because Bloody Sock, and what the hell, it's not as if Scott Brown is stopping anyone.)

Now, I get that Mr. Trump's rise to prominence makes everyone think a career in politics is just a Twitter account away. And that Schill has probably never met anyone -- well, anyone not involved in his game company failure or ESPN -- who has ever told him to just go pound sand, or that life in the Senate or Oval Office might not be an arena filled with people applauding his every move, and paying to wear a replica of his shirt.

But far be it for me to tell an aging jock what to do, let alone someone with such an urge to inflict his persona on a public that truly hasn't asked for any more Schill in their life.

I will, however, as someone with first-hand experience with the good Professor (served as her secretary in the early '90s at Penn Law!), give the lunkhead one piece of advice...

You might want to see how Trump's attempts to bully her into silence have gone.

As, you know, scouting.

Because when it comes to high heat, as in actual brainpower?

She's got a lot more on the fastball than you, Meat...

FTT Off-Topic: The Not Golden Age

Or Not, And Don't Break Our Hearts

Not sports, sorry there hasn't been much sports lately, but baseball is the only real sport right now, and I'm an A's fan, so there's no sports right now. (The Olympics desperately need to end, because they are utterly indefensible in their abject corruption. Honestly, IOC, die in a dumpster fire. That never goes out.)

I'm older than most of you people, and was on the Internet back when being on the Internet was, well, painful. 300 baud, monochrome monitors, big expensive monthly phone bills for anything but local boards. Back in those days, guys outnumbered girls by at least a 100 to 1 ratio, most people online were idiots, but the ones that weren't were good people. I wound up getting a gig at an Internet start-up in 1985 as a 16-year-old, and with the occasional hiccups, have worked online ever since.

At the time when I started online, there were nearly a half dozen truly great newspaper comic strips. Calvin and Hobbes, Doonesbury, The Far Side, Dilbert, Bloom County... every Sunday morning was a fight in my house for the funnies. We all knew it was a golden age of cartooning, but when it was going on, it was just, well, the Sunday paper. Gimme.

It's impossible to tell when you are in an age, or when it's just the new normal. In the 1920s, baseball writers kept waiting for offense to go away, probably when Babe Ruth retired; the 1930s took that level of offense and nearly doubled it. You'd have made a good chunk of money betting on how 3-point shots would just keep going up for the past two decades in pro hoop. Passing yardage in the NFL. Costs of advertising in the Super Bowl. Boom markets don't always turn into bust markets, especially when the boom makes everyone a good chunk of change.

Which brings me to the curious case of "The Nightly Show", which was canceled today, and is playing out the string for the rest of this week. And man alive, has Comedy Central turned the 11pm hour, something that they just owned with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, into a much cheaper and much less effective hour of experimentation. Trevor Noah got the chair for Stewart instead of John Oliver, Samantha Bee, or someone else that, um, might have cost money. (Sorry to be rude, but the truth is frequently rude.) And Wilmore, I believe, was just set for failure, since his lead-in wasn't nearly as strong anymore, and a portion of the Colbert audience followed their man to his new toothless existence at CBS.

Oliver and Bee are, of course, doing just about the best hour on television right now, between the long-form civics lesson that HBO sponsors, and Bee's take-no-prisoners feministic assault on TBS. Wilmore's show wasn't perfect, but it had real moments of quality (I'm a fan of Mike Yard, and Grace Parra's parody of mindless entertainment reporters is also completely great.)

But it lost 30% of Colbert's audience, which is probably never coming back. I'm sure that they'll replace it with the latest product of their assembly line of attractive smug young person playing an insufferable jackass (see Tosh, Devine, and depressingly often, Schumer)... or some other half hour of animated tripe that isn't South Park, and South Park hasn't been good in forever, either.

Yeah, I'm old, and trying very hard not to say that everything is going to hell in a hand basket, because hand baskets really need to stop being the only hellish transport system. Plenty of things are great now, actually. The chance that you will die in a war keeps going down. Medical technology keeps getting better. Netflix and Hulu and all of the other streaming services are better than anything we could have imagined back in the VCR/VHS days.

But satire on television that redefines the news into the actual media we deserve, rather than the one we suffer through, with all of its false equivalency and bull spit narratives?

That peaked a couple of years ago, when Stewart and Colbert gave us four hours a week of essential stuff. Instead of now, when it's just the single hour of Bee and Oliver.

Who, as good as they are, take more vacations, and aren't nearly as likely to create the next Bee and Oliver...

Top 10 Eagles - Bucs Takeaways

Run, Rook, Run

10) The Eagles are thin on the offensive line, may lose starting T Lane Johnson to another PED suspension, had two other guys go down with injuries, and are probably already panicking

9) Sam Bradford got a short field, quick touchdown, and media tongue bath

8) Chase Daniel is going to make a lot of money for very, very little work

7) Josh Huff, Nelson Agholor, Rueben Randle and Andrew Gardner are all, you will not be surprised to learn, garbage

6) New head coach Doug Pederson put Carson Wentz in to get some two-minute drill action at the end of the first, which was about as exciting as a 2-for-5 start with no rushing yards can be

5) The defense seemed OK, but it's not as if Tampa is an extremely exciting offense

4) Wentz might have had decent numbers if any of his teammates could catch a football, so this was a disturbingly accurate representation of Real Football, save for the win

3) The game was a great reminder after six months of no football that football doesn't have to be very interesting to watch

2) Just in case you are ready to spread the meme of how Pederson is the second coming of Cap'n Andy Reid, he showed poor clock management in giving the Buc scrubs a chance to tie the game in the final minutes

1) This game had everything, if by everything you mean punting and turnovers

Kevin Durant Does Not Tie Widows To Train Tracks

How ESPN Sees Things

Today in an interview with ESPN Radio, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr had to tell the hosts that his players, especially new forward Kevin Durant, aren't villains.

No, seriously.

And just in case you really needed proof that Big Mouse Sports is totally in the tank for WWE-style entertainment -- you know, even more than they already are, what with all of the WWE personnel showing up on their air routinely -- this should do it.

A basketball player chooses to exercise his rights as a free agent. You know, the same right that the vast majority of the American public has in their own employment. He chooses to go to a more successful franchise, because he's tired of not winning championships, and he's probably aware that he might be entering or leaving his peak years, and wants to a win a ring more than he wants to get paid, or keep living and working in front of the same people. For this, he gets the black hat, the waxed mustache and the ire of any number of people who will never, ever, face a similar employment decision in all of their days.

To be fair, it's not just the World Wide Lemur. Durant himself said that he didn't leave his rented vacation property for days after the announcement, because he was afraid someone might hit him with their car. And I suppose some of that might also speak to the egocentric nature of being a highly recognized guy when he goes out in public, but, um...

For the record.

People who need to add Story to their Sports are certainly allowed to; that's the nature of sports.

So long as you pay your money and aren't inciting a riot, it's all allowed.

But doesn't it just seem sad to live like that, and need sports to be a soap opera, as well as an exhibition?

Top Ten NFL Pre-Season Questions

Smell The Fear

NFL training camps have started, which means it's time for some time honored ropes to come out for the nation's nerd gamblers -- err, fantasy sports players -- to suck down like members of a 12-step program around a craft table of cheap snacks. Let's dig in!

1) Will (Fill In the Name Of Risky Pick Oft-Injured Running Back) Stay Healthy This Year?

Yes, if you do not draft him. No, if you do. This game is easy!

2) How Many Rookies Can We, The Fantasy Nerds Of America, Fellate Only To Cut Bitterly In Week Three?

The answer may surprise you! OK, well, it shouldn't.

3) Will We Care About QB Battles As If Those Ever Resolve In A Good Fantasy Situation?

Yes, to the point where you might want to go back to reading about politics to avoid the overkill writing.

4) Is My Favorite Team Going To Make The Playoffs?

Only if you read the local beat writers, or listen to the players and coaches. And you know, if you get to the playoffs, you can win it all! (Note: your team is not going to win it all.)

5) How Much Weight Did Used To Be Fat Guy Lose?

Not enough to turn his career around, because Used To Be Fat Guy is a lot like Oft-Injured Guy, in that he's just taking time off from being Fat or Injured.

6) Who Will Be The Post-Hype Sleeper Value Pick?

No one that's being mentioned for the role right now, because it's early August and most people haven't drafted yet. Value Pick has a shelf life like a ripe banana. In a really hot room.

7) What Should I Take In An Individual Defensive Player Draft?

A sedative, so that you miss the draft. IDPs are the gateway drug to caring about punters. From there, homelessness.

8) Which fantasy football podcast is the best one?

The shortest. Fantasy football podcasts are worthless. Just toss a dart at some pre-set rankings and save yourself an unconscionable number of hours and brain cells.

9) What's new this year in daily fantasy?

The web site for Gamblers Anonymous is here.

10) Why Did You Waste My Time With This Clickbait?

 Because in the time you read this chucklefest, I have done more draft prep, and will come into our draft with an unstoppable tactical advantage. GAD, I AM EVIL. FEAR ME!