From Fantasy Loser
Have you ever thought about adding regular fantasy advice to your blog or your radio show? I know I’d enjoy it – and I really could use the help.
FL –
Not really, because there are fantasy options and opinions almost everywhere. And, believe it or not, it’s like folks picking games – which I do – in that it’s pretty much a bunch of guesswork.
Yes, Matthew Berry and Jamie Eisenberg are in a billion leagues and it’s their day job so they have studied it more and lived it more often. But trying to decide between starting Matt Ryan against the Bears or Gardner Minshew against the Dolphins is a coin flip. (In fact, most experts would have picked Minshew in that either/or, and he had a very off night last night. Which was good and bad, since a) the team I am playing in fantasy had Minshew, and b) I was on the over, and that late pick inside the Miami 5 was crushing.)
And for the most part, fantasy teams are like grandkids – you love yours and want to talk about them all the time, but in truth, they are topics that are not overly interesting to others.
Few people want to hear about how you stop Jonathan Taylor in round five; Fewer people want to hear how Little Timmy is now coloring inside the lines and has kicked that glue-eating habit.
(Side question: As aging Southern men, you have to develop a blank-yet-interested distance gaze for those stories you hear because we all look to spin our versions of the same stories. But what’s your go-to word after the story. “Wow, that’s great.”)
And in truth, the only real fantasy advice that is really helpful are these two sentences:
> Draft better;
> Stay healthy.
Thanks for the question. (Side note: and if you have a specific fantasy question, I am happy to answer it through the email. After all I won my league last year and I have won the . did I lose you yet?)
From Mike
Now that everyone is trying to play college football, what the hell were we doing all this time?
Who looks the best after all this (bleep)?
Mike –
Just like you, I was always thankful and appreciative that the SEC was going to explore every option to make it happen for their players, first and foremost.
I know there have been a lot of critics and a lot more criticism because it was about a cash grab and the leaders were exploiting the players for the financial windfall.
Well, the economic side of the Corona protocols absolutely is part of it. In fact, the exploitation of the players in the Big Ten and the Pac 12 are even more egregious and clearly stated.
The leagues that have already started and the SEC, which starts Saturday, were slow-walking this thing and finding ways. The conferences that cancelled and have now reconsidered are claiming advances in daily testing and procedures.
Maybe.
They are not admitting the undeniable truth that a football season with a college football champion happening without the Big Ten or the Pac 12 would be devastating for the Big Ten and the Pac 12. Financially. In interest. In perception. And in appearance.
But I also appreciate those who were trying to find the safest ways to proceed, and certainly know that while Saturday looks like it’s going to happen when toe meets leather across the SEC, that could be the only SEC Saturday we have.
That’s the 2020 friends, and it stinks. Daily.
As for winners and losers, well, I’ll try to move beyond the commissioners because those are pretty easy to identify. (Greg Sankey – getting Ws like Saban; Larry Scott and Kevin Warren collection Ls like Akron.)
Winner – Nick Saban. Dude has been a stable force through this and that spotlight continues to shine on the Camelot program he has built in T-Town. (Side note: You know the rules, and here’s Paschall’s typically busy fall news dump on Mac Jones being the guy for the Tide, Pruitt getting a raise and an extension in Knoxville, and the Vols’ need for a fast start.)
(Side note on the side note: You know the rules, and here’s TFP prep whiz Stephen Hargis with a great feature on a Brainerd football player enjoying a quick start with his Panthers teammates.)
Loser: Christine Brennan, the USA Today columnist who called the Big Ten’s reversal the “darkest day” in the history of the Big Ten.
I know we are divided, gang, but the people who come across in ways that they appear to be actually cheering for teams to shut it down or have outbreaks of COVID so they can offer a Holier-than-thou “Told ya” make me sick to my stomach.
Be better than that.
From A Reader
Sir
Keep Colin Kaepernick out of your pages and writing. He is a great American who will be viewed in the likes of Jackie and Ali.
You are disgusting Trump loving (Bleep)hole who shows your racism every time you open your computer.
You are the problem in America because you are trying to protect your white privilege on the blood of Breonna and George and all the others killed by your racist police forces.
(BLEEP) YOU – now and forever.
A Reader –
Thanks for reading and thanks for your feedback.
One of the things that I think is important in this conversation is listening to all points of view, even if you a) do not agree with them, and b) think they are hogwash.
I could not disagree more with the above. That said, history’s perspective on Kaepernick has been altered for sure, and the discourse he started has evolved greatly.
That’s one of the reasons his Tweet from earlier this week was so striking and downright hurtful to any progress.
In fact, I have to say that the underreporting on Kaepernick’s Tweet was staggering to me, especially from ESPN.
ESPN is on in the background every morning as I write and through the afternoon until I head downtown to do the radio show. I did not hear a single mention of Kaepernick all day Thursday.
Not one. That’s shocking to me.
Want to know another one? Not a peep from ESPN about the hateful Tweets from NBA and college football announcer Mark Jones, who tweeted out a lot of anti-police sentiments and statements that included this one: “Police never saved me.Never helped me.Never protected me.Never taken a bullet for me. (They’ve pulled guns on me) Never kept me safe in a protest. Never stopped the racist from taking my Black Lives Matter flag off my house. I could do without em. fr. #BreonnaTaylor. #Defund12
And this: “Saturday at my football game I’ll tell the police officer on duty to “protect” me he can just take the day off. Fr. I’d rather not have the officer shoot me because he feared for his life because of my black skin or other dumb ish. I’m not signing my own death certificate”
And not a peep on that from the network.
Conversely, it was what a year or two ago – wow it was actually 2017 – that Doug Adler was fired by ESPN for saying Venus Williams played “guerrilla” tennis and people took as Venus was playing gorilla tennis.