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Fantasy Football Draft Tips
The most exciting and anticipated event for most fantasy football leagues is coming up - THE DRAFT! This is the time of year when every team gets to talk trash. Every team is undefeated and has championship dreams. Unfortunately it is also on this day that many teams will make foolish and critical mistakes that ruin the fun of their fantasy season entirely too soon. The goal is to help fantasy owners avoid some common draft mistakes and reveal some valuable insight that will help fantasy owners compete for a championship every year.
As a fantasy team owner how many times have you heard the expression, " ... yeah but he was ranked really high." This phrase is generally used as rationale by an owner that realizes his stud is a bust. Owners most likely to make this statement probably bought a magazine late July/Early August for a draft that is several weeks later. Now reading magazines is a good start if not a necessity to process all of the NFL's off-season activities but if your preparation stops there you will get dominated in your league. Lucky does happen but not consistently enough to make an unprepared draft look good come playoff time. The point is prepare early and often but most importantly of all update your player rankings based on current information as close to your draft as possible.
The next bit of advice is to pay attention to the line. The offensive line for the position players you're drafting will impact your team. The team with a good offensive line generally has a good passing and rushing game. Peyton Manning was sacked 15 times last year compared to Arizona QB's sacked 35 times. The point Indy's big three Harrison, Wayne, and Addai outperformed the similarly talented Fitzgerald, Boldin, and Edge. You won't draft Ryan Diem in any fantasy league but he will impact players that are drafted.
For those that participate in pay leagues plan to draft as many free teams or participate in as many mock drafts as possible. You can never practice drafting enough before your real draft happens. The knowledge of what rounds specific players are being drafted is an invaluable assett. The bottomline - when money is up for grabs leagues get competitive and teams get serious about winning.
A common mistake is for owners to over-emphasize the importance of the 1st two rounds. It's fun to debate who might get drafted where in the first 20-28 picks but the reality is everyone gets high quality players with those picks. Losing sleep between picking Addai or R. Brown is not going to help your draft. The point is that successful owners that consistently compete for championships focus more on the mid-to-late rounds of the draft. These rounds have most owners scrambling for whose left or picking a name out of a book. If you are prepared for these rounds you will dominate your draft. Last year a huge difference could be found between drafting Randy Moss in round 3 and Marques Colston in round 10. The idea is to get value late in the draft and make better choices early.
The final piece of advice and most important is to have fun and talk trash. Where else besides the realm of fantasy football is it perfectly acceptable to humiliate, insult, and/or degrade another human being? Have fun and enjoy it!
The NHL Needs to Eliminate Guaranteed Contracts
Is the NHL Headed for Financial Doomsday?
With the NHL salary cap now at $50.3 million up $6.3 million from a year ago is the NHL headed for financial disaster. The facts would support that another work stoppage may be on the horizon. The NHL pre-lockout had 20 teams spending less than the present cap and only 10 teams spending more. The owners at that time couldn't afford rising players salaries so the owners locked out the players. The result of that lockout was the implementation of a salary cap and revenue sharing for the leagues 10 least profitable organizations. The players accepted a 24% reduction for all players under contract but in return the age for unrestricted free agency would drop from 31 years of age to 27 by the end of the 2007-2008 season. The NHL still operates under guaranteed contracts which with an increased salary cap and more players gaining unrestricted free agent status a recipe for disaster has been created. Unlike football, basketball, and baseball the NHL does not have the revenue of a major television deal to offset rising salaries.
Can the NHL save itself from financial destruction? The answer is yes it can. The solution is to eliminate guaranteed contracts and freeze the salary cap where it is now until more revenue is generated. This would create a level playing field for all teams. The problem with guaranteed contracts is the ability of a minority of teams to buyout the contracts at 2/3 the cost while most of the league can't afford such financial hardship. The proof would be the small market Buffalo Sabres who still qualified for revenue sharing producing revenue in the bottom third of the league despite selling out every home game, getting to their conference finals, and an increase of an estimated 600% in merchandise sales from the previous year. The incentive is great for teams like the New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers to overpay players and set high market prices. While most teams must continue to pay aging or declining players until the end of their contract because of financial viability those teams can afford to simply buyout the contracts and move on. Eliminating these guaranteed contracts and the facilitated need for buyouts would eliminate that incentive and create a fair free agent market for all teams. The NHL needs to make this simple adjustment to its current CBA for all teams to remain competitive. The owners need to make this clear to the players so that an amendment to the current CBA can be negotiated upon. However if the owners refuse to speak now and players ignore reality the NHL is destined to repeat its past mistakes. Another work stoppage seems inevitable.
NHL Fight Night
The NHL seems confused over what to do about plays that clearly have an intent to injure players. These plays would include hits to head, hits from behind, and late hits. Commissioner Bettman and Colin Campbell his chief enforcer of such infractions are not on the same page. Campbell recently embraced the idea of outlawing fighting which Bettman quickly denounced. These two gentlemen have a tough off-season ahead of them.
The number of incidents involving these hits seems to be increasing along with the violence that retaliation brings. This goes back a bit but would the Bertuzzi-Moore incident have ocurred if the league would have handled the vicious hit put on Markus Naslund in the previous meeting between those two teams. A brawl in Buffalo was incited when Chris Neil takes out Chris Drury. Neil's hit legal or not was certainly unnecessary and definitely had the intention of injuring Drury. Hitting is a part of the game but for a league struggling for recognition these are not the incidents the NHL wants labeling them.
The solution can be complicated but a good start would be to eliminate the instigator rule and let the players handle the issue. There was a time when a player wouldn't dare attack a player without knowledge that retribution would be swift and harsh. Too many antagonistic players that won't drop their gloves hide behind this rule. The other option would be to punish these vicious acts severely with suspensions/fines and stop ignoring the issue then penalizing the players for sticking up for their teammates. I would do both!