Posts Tagged ‘draft’

The League S03E01: The Lockout with your Dirty Randy out

October 7th, 2011

All this season, just like last season, I’ll be recapping episodes of FX’s The League, a tribute to fantasy football culture in sitcom form. Stop by every Friday to discuss the highlights of each episode and commemorate the best trash talk and one-liners. Bang-bang! What’s the hang?

What better way to begin a season of The League than with The Shiva Bowl Shuffle from Ruxin and his entire fantasy team from last season? I especially enjoyed the Sidney Rice bit: “I’m hip to IR.”

But do you guys see the “George Clooney stubble” on Ruxin? I don’t think I do. Then again, I don’t think I could say I did…even if I did.

At last The League has returned to us like a prodigal son going to Vegas and only giving us periodic, seasonal updates on his winnings who finally comes in the door stinking of booze, bankruptcy, and bad decisions.

In the season premiere, we got caught up with what’s happened in the offseason — mostly just the guys punishing Andre as much as possible for winning The Sacko while Taco walked the earth — and we pushed ahead into how the league is going to screw Ruxin and get away with it. I don’t think they will…do you?

We should all be so lucky as to steal a few moves from The League penance playbook. For being last in the league, Andre had to grow out his hair, play a flute at a bus stop for strangers, take last pick int he draft, AND draft from an alternate location while the league held a draft party at his house. That’s just cold…but so good.

Andre, your life is terrible, but I want to steal all of these ideas for my own leagues.

Taco would be the one to find himself cast as the American cautionary tale on Algerian television, wouldn’t he? He may make all Americans shamefaced in Algeria, but at least he blessed the world with his music.

I’m not sure what a Kevin baby would look like, but the entire time he was talking to Kate about having one, I was imagining what a “rankings slave” baby would look like. Would it try to get out of the womb first, before its peers? Or would it rather stay in the womb until after the due date and be a sleeper baby? Also, would it be as susceptible to dog training as Kevin?

My leagues always talk about a cool way to pick the draft order each year. Personally, I think it should involve some kind of unrelated and uncontrolled competition like a turtle race or a WNBA game. In that regard, Season 1′s No Child Left Behind foot race remains the best way to determine draft positions that I’ve ever seen.

Inevitably, my leagues always end up drawing names or numbers out of a hat like the league did this season with the cobra box. So sad.

How the hell did Ruxin know exactly how they screwed him in picking the draft order? He walks in and called it like he had a mic in the room. And who is Chuck? So many questions! WHEN DO THEY OPEN THE HATCH?

Kevin’s always the weak one. It kind of makes you feel worse for him than Andre because he has the perception of power. He gets trained by half the league through various forms of mind weakness — dog training tricks, pen clicks, and high-notizing. If he wins the league, it might only be because someone guides him to the Shiva like a puppet.

To cheer Kevin up after the draft, the league turns to the dirtiest of Randys, Dirty Randy. And Seth Rogen is perfect for the part. I can actually imagine him being a porn director in between his mainstream movies, but maybe that’s just the Zack and Miri Make a Porno effect on his image.

Before we talk about the porno, by the way, I must say I did not understand how it would have been feasible to draft online with only one computer like Ruxin had planned.

In a perfect world, people would walk up, make a pick, and sit down, but this is not a perfect world. Stickers and a paper draft board I get, but I’ve never seen an online draft go well without everyone having their own computer on which to queue players.

Unfortunately for all, the draft plans go awry as Ruxin’s celebration of self runs long on his rooftop shrine. While he rants about LinkedIn and league rules, Taco lets the Dirty Randy crew into Andre’s place to start shooting, and in classic Taco fashion, he locks the rest of the league on the roof.

The highlight of the porn shoot for me — well, besides the porn star screaming “You have hair! It’s awesome!” to Dr. Nodick — was the Taco, Rafi, and Dirty Randy discussion of middle eastern politics and culture. There’s a color analyst among those three. I just know it.

I’d say it was a successful first episode from the writers this season. There’s plenty of drama to be had now that the entire league — other than Andre and the mysterious outsiders like Chuck — autodrafted. Maybe we’ll see some more trading this year? Yes, please.

For now, we got our The League fix, plus a little porn and plenty of terrible ideas to punish those who finish last in our own league. What more could you ask for in a season premiere? No, really? I’d like to know.

Memorable quotes from Episode 1:

PETE: “It’s definitely less creepy when you follow them onto the bus.”

RUXIN: “Andre, do you see yourself more as like a rapist who does magic or a magician who also likes to rape?”
ANDRE: “With me, magic always comes first.”

RUXIN: “A little Shiva-lingus? Come on, Kevin, find out if it tastes the same.”

ANDRE: “You are Sauron.”

TACO: “Bang-bang! What’s the hang?”

TACO (as Cowboy of Algerian TV): “Back in the USA, we get venereal disease from our cell phones, and homeless people know karate and carry guns.”

JENNY: “I, as much as I wish I could, cannot give birth to a Shiva.”

KEVIN: “It hurts so bad when I pull hard!”

RUXIN: “And then we’ll let the other three lemmings keep their act together as long as they can without exploding with the shame of diarrhea that is currently soaking their pants.”

RUXIN: “Why don’t you put the guns away, anorexic David Crosby?”

TACO: “Blood oath. Kevin, give me your penis.”

RAFI: “I am day drunk. (In song) Get ready to SEE my dick!”

DIRTY RANDY (to Ruxin): “You, though…I’d film the SHIT out of you.”

DIRTY RANDY: “Puns are as vital to the porn industry as they are to the pet shop industry and the child hair salon industry.”

RAFI: “It’s like a white rain of 1,000 loads.”

TACO: “PUMPERNICKEL!…High-notized.”

RUXIN: “You don’t do morally bankrupt…but me? I swim around in it like Scrooge McDuck in a pile of coins.”

RUXIN: “Don’t invite me to join LinkedIn. It just reeks of dudes with cell phone holsters.”

ANDRE: “You have have two kickers? I don’t even have ONE. I KNEW it was a kicker year!”

KEVIN: “You know, I’ve been watching football my whole life —I don’t even know who this person is.”

RUXIN: “Oh, Shiva ring, forever UNCLEAN!”

JENNY: “This porn is disgusting, you guys. Is this what you like?”
OTHERS: “NO!”
KEVIN (softly): “No…”

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How to Tier Your Player Rankings for a Fantasy Football Draft Day Cheatsheet

August 26th, 2011

Tiering your cheatsheet is, in my opinion, the most critical of all draft day preparations you can make before your fantasy football season.

Sure, you can read injury reports all day long. That helps. No one wants to draft a guy on IR. But the real edge to draft a better team than the other obsessive football fans in the room is your ability to identify — quickly and quietly — the most valuable pick left on the board.

In the heat of the moment, we often lose sight of where players have been missed. You’re looking ahead to decide when you can draft a quarterback…or maybe you’re focused on following your RB-RB-RB strategy for the first three rounds. That’ll keep you from noticing a WR1-level fantasy wide receiver falling into the third round, ripe for your picking.

Worst of all, if you don’t have a consolidated rankings sheet, you might miss out on a top-tier wide receiver simply because your wide receiver rankings were underneath your quarterback and running back rankings when it was your pick.

Regardless of the reason, you can only blame yourself for not tiering your cheatsheet if you miss out on draft day bargains.

It’s been a few years since I visited the topic, and in prepping for 2011, I thought it’d be worthwhile to revisit the best way to tier your player rankings for your fantasy football draft.

Step 1, Start with rankings you like.

I don’t care if you prefer the rankings or projections from ESPN, NFL.com, Fleaflicker, or Yahoo!. What matters is that you’re comfortable with the rankings you choose.

I often prefer to start with aggregate or consensus fantasy football draft rankings from sites like FantasyPros or Fantasy Football Nerd. These give you a good starting point since the outliers are reigned in a bit when averaged together.

But if you prefer to go with the player rankings or projections of just one man and one man only…that’s your call. More power to you. Go you — and him, whoever that analyst or blogger may be.

One note: It will be a huge help if you choose a set of rankings or projections that includes an average points per week or total points for each player, either based on last year’s fantasy football scoring, several years of scoring, or projected points for the current season. If you don’t, you’ll have to do a little more legwork in Step 2.

Step 2, Add an average point per game projection or total points projection to each player in your rankings.

Foreshadowing. See, if you read my note on Step 1, you already know what you’ll need to do for this step.

If you don’t have any kind of average projected points per week or total points projection listed for each player on your current cheatsheet, it’s time to go get that info. You can pull these total or per week averages from sites like FF Today, CBSSports, or ESPN.

If they don’t provide a per game average, you don’t have to drill down to it. But you can just divide the total projected points for the 2011 season by 16. There are, after all, 16 games in an NFL season.

Step 3, Separate your rankings by position, if they aren’t already separated.

Pulling out just the running backs and just the quarterbacks into one ranking column will help you when you start locking in your tiers.

Step 4, Adjust your rankings to your liking.

Now that you have your list, it’s time to make it your own.

With a points total or average attached to each player, start modifying those points as you see fit. Here’s where your research comes into play.

Upgrade the players who will excel, and downgrade the players that won’t meet expectations.

If your points total or average is based on a player’s performance in previous seasons and especially if it’s based off just the last season, be sure to update it based upon offseason moves and team system adjustments. If you like Matt Hasselbeck more as a Titan than a Seahawk, for example, make sure you adjust his point total accordingly.

Furthermore, if you’re player points are based off projections for the current season, feel free to bump them higher or lower depending on how you feel about players. Just be realistic. Micheal Vick will NOT score 500 points in a single season.

Look at a player’s schedule for the upcoming season, estimate the number of points they could realistically score, total those estimations up, and divide by 16 to get your average. You, of course, don’t have to adjust this for every player, but feel free to do so for the ones you feel are under or over-projected.

Once you have your average points per game or total points has been adjusted for each player, sort by your projections and then adjust your rankings some more based on rankings alone.

You don’t have to be as rigid with the stat adjustments here. Spot a player a point or so to their per game average or 4-5 total points for a full season projection when you feel like they should move up a couple of spots in the rankings.

But like I explained when talking about adjusting projections, be realistic. Crazy cheatsheets make for a crazy draft.

Step 5, Tier it up!

It’s time to start assigning players to tiers. Look at your average points per game projections and start dividing whenever there’s a significant difference.

For example, you’ll probably section off all the quarterbacks averaging more than 17 points per game in your projections into your first tier. Then you might make those quarterbacks scoring between 17 and 15 points per game your second tier.

Just look for the significant breaks and run down your list. You want to have a few tiers of top players at each position, but leave everyone averaging 5 points or less in the final tier.

Step 6, Align your tiers

So you’ve got your players segmented by position, but how do you know when to take a quarterback in your second quarterback tier over a receiver in your top, or first, wide receiver tier?

Look at the tiers you’ve created and make the tier scoring universal across all positions. So, all of your players projected for 17 points per game or more would make up your top tier.

It’s okay to have one or no players from a particular position in a tier. For example, you might slot Aaron Rodgers as the only player in your top tier if you project him higher than anyone else at more than 19 points per game. That’s fine. Just make the tiers align as best you can.

(Bonus) Step 7, Tag your sleepers

You’re more of less done creating your cheatsheet at this point, but I do like to throw in this tip just for the more savvy drafters out there. Once you’ve got your tiered cheatsheet created, I usually go back and mark the players I feel are “sleepers” or undervalued at their current position.

I know we adjusted our projections and rankings in the previous steps to our liking, but if I feel one player in the third or fourth tier has the potential to be a top-tier player if circumstances break his way — Jonathan Stewart, for example, or Ben Tate — I’ll be sure to mark him as the one I want to look to draft in that tier.

If I like a guy more than a lot of experts, but I can’t reasonably increase his projected points enough to make him a second tier player, I’ll mark him as a priority for the third tier.

As long as you don’t go homer-happy, you can also take a second to tag your favorite players in each tier at this point since part of the fun of fantasy football is drafting the guys you REALLY wanted to draft.

Just make sure you use a different mark for favorite players than your sleepers. You’ll need to know the difference quickly when you’re making your picks.

Time to draft

When you’re finished creating this tiered cheatsheet, you’ll be able to see, in one quick glance, that four players projected to score 15 points per game or better are still available as your pick approaches in the middle of the third round.

And you’ll be able to use your tiers to determine position scarcity. For example, when it’s your pick and you see one second tier wide receiver and six second tier running backs remaining on your cheatsheet, you will be able to jump on that last second tier wide receiver knowing that one of the second tier running backs will make his way back to you.

Rather than panic during a run on tight ends and start looking only at your rankings for that position, you’ll continue to collect value and steal picks at higher tiers for other positions.

The value picks are the entire reason you tier your player rankings, and the tiers work wonders. Just give it a try.

Best Player Available Strategy

As far as your draft strategy goes, tiers work best when you go into your draft targeting the best player available in each round.

Let your need at QB, RB, or WR steer you when there are several players available at the same tier, but when there’s only one or two top-tier running backs left on the board, it’s time to draft them. Don’t let someone else capitalize on those value picks that fall to you.

Of course, you don’t want to draft five quarterbacks just because no one else was jumping on the second tier signal callers, but I might consider taking four receivers in my first six picks if they were the only players remaining in my first or second tier. Assuming your rankings system and projections are solid, you’ll be able to make deals to improve your running back or quarterback struggles once the season begins.

If you want to get tricky, you can also try tiers with the draft strategy I have used since 2009, my “cutting out the middle men from best player available” strategy.

As a final note, I always feel like I don’t have to say this, but just in case there are any first-timers out there, you should always know the scoring and roster rules of your league!

Some leagues restrict the number of quarterbacks you can keep on your roster or the number of running backs you can draft. You’ll need to know this to take full advantage of the best player available strategy without botching your draft.

When you’re ranking players and preparing your cheatsheet, keep in mind your league’s scoring rules and the value placed on each position.

So that’s how you tier your fantasy football draft cheatsheets. Any questions?

Leave ‘em in the comments, and if you’re lucky, someone amazingly intelligent will answer you. Otherwise, you’ll just get me.

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The League S02E01: What Happens in “Vegas Draft”

September 23rd, 2010

Yes. This season, in honor of fantasy football’s only sitcom…and really, fantasy football’s only TV show outside of ESPN, I’ve decided to recap each episode of “The League,” which comes on Thursday nights at 10:30 p.m. EST on FX, in case you missed the announcement.

This recap for Episode 1 ran a bit behind because I just decided to do this, but expect future editions to be on Fantasy Football Fools the same week that the episode airs, maybe next day. Who know? Am I supposed to…?

In case it’s not immediately obvious, these recaps will contain spoilers so make sure you’ve caught up on your DVR before you check these out each week if you want to be surprised.

First, a quick refresher course from Hulu on Season 1, a six-episode teaser that got us interested in “The League.”

Now on to the goods…

Episode 1: “Vegas Draft”

Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, here’s the cast of characters once again: Kevin’s married to Jenny, who is the brains behind his team, Ruxin’s the Mike Martz-esque evil mad scientist of the league, Pete’s almost “The Dude” if the “The Dude” played fantasy football, Andre dresses like a woman and talks like a prepubescent boy, and Taco lives a vagabond lifestyle while surviving off ringtone sales and Eskimo brothers. The only reason we really know that Taco still “walks the Earth” is that he sets his lineup every week.

This season begins with the “verbal game” at what appears to be a post-work (post-bong for Taco, I’m sure) happy hour. Ruxin has no idea how to play, and Pete and Kevin plan to torture him until he figures it out. [SPOILER: Find out how to play the game.]

Andre shows up just in time to rub in his championship victory and to name the draft location for this coming season, his right as last champion. Unfortunately for Andre, Pete cuts him off, offers up the idea to go to Las Vegas, the home of strippers, gambling, and ultimate happiness, just before Andre can get the words out and steals Andre’s thunder.

So begins Andre’s slow freefall back to the bottom.

While packing for the trip, Kevin is confronted by Jenny, who wants to join the league this year. She calls out those three “out-of-town dudes” who were mysteriously never really named in the first season and who never seem to win. That’s a good point.

It made sense with just six episodes in the first season to limit the number of characters, but I do hope, given a full slate of 13 episodes, we hear about at least one of these long-distance competitors winning a game against the show’s stars. Otherwise, I don’t see how this can be a very entertaining eight-man league.

Back to Jennygate, Kevin won’t go for it, even when she cuts him deep by calling out his skills as a team manager. Even her help and sleepers can’t prevent Kevin from screwing up his chance at a championship every season, which is true. Kevin explains that “No one drops out. It’s like the Supreme Court. People just die on the bench.” Poor example. As Jenny points out, the Supreme Court has nine judges…

Oh well. Too bad. So sad. OFF TO VEGAS!

At the airport, we finally learn how Kevin plans to set the draft order this season: Homeland Security. He tells the league that they’ll decide who gets the first pick by racing through the metal detector at airport security.

To rig the game, he’s given Ruxin a belated birthday present, AKA a fake bomb. “It’s a joke bomb!” (Never works. Believe me.)

Every league member has a scheme, but none of them are very successful. Andre tries the “I’m a doctor” excuse but fails when his outfit (designed by Santana) gets called out for being un-doctorish.

It comes down to Pete and Kevin, but Pete drives for the hard yardage with a granny in a wheelchair running blocker through the security line to secure Chris Johnson and guarantee at least three people will feel around inside his anal cavity before takeoff. *Shivers*

Why is it that the season always starts with someone invading Pete’s asshole? Seriously, why? Moving on…

The league members arrive in their suite, which Andre has put together, and discover that Chad Ochocinco will be the guest commissioner. Ochocinco’s going into the fake calves business with Andre, and this appearance is part of the deal.

Andre ends up clearly destroying the cool factor of Chad’s signature line, “Child Please.” Even rookies know you shouldn’t do that.

When tasked with coming up with his own line, all Andre can muster is “Try the veal!” That’s just creepy enough to work in a “It rubs the lotion on its skin” sort of way, but no one buys it. Best line award goes to Ruxin, who offered: “I’m an adult virgin!”

After talking to Ochocinco, the guys move to another room in the suite, only to find that Andre has converted the Shiva into the “Dre.” If you remember, Shiva didn’t quite make it through Season 1 in the best of shape, but they pieced her back together and made do. Andre’s defiled the classic league emblem with a Heisman-esque image of himself in wrestling/dancer gear at the top. Douche move, for sure, but hey, what are you going to do?

Why not give it a silly name to undermine his bragging rights? And so, the “ShiDre” was born, a name that works for both the trophy and Andre himself.

The guys go out to a strip club, where, lo and behold, one of the strippers happens to be Ms. Adam Schefter—so named because, as a stripper, she has insider knowledge from NFL players who stop through for a lap dance and to tell her everything they know. Hopefully, they don’t give her the full Big Ben treatment. That’ll just ruin it for me.

Kevin and Pete fight over who gets to take her back to the champagne room and talk about sleepers—that almost sounds like some suave way of saying “bang her” unless you read it in context.

Since Pete has the No. 1 overall pick, Ruxin sacrifices his own money to screw him over and pays for Kevin to have dibs on the stripper. So Kevin takes her back to the champagne room to pick her brain about taking Felix Jones in the second round. So wrong…about Felix Jones…not the champagne room.

The sickest part of this whole scene is that “The League” has now further perpetuated the stereotype that smokin’ hot strippers who know everything about fantasy football exist. It’s really a crime against humanity. How many young men will spend sleepless nights searching for this hottie that rarely, if ever, appears in the wild? Why “The League”? WHY?!!?

For their own sake, I hope the viewing public realizes the truth sooner rather than later.

The next day, we find the guys getting ready to draft around the pool. Unlike last season, when they drafted in the middle of a party at Andre’s place, only Kevin brings any kind of notes to the draft. Pretty impressive if you asked me, pretty impressive indeed. But maybe that’s the reason their draft seems a little…off. More on that later.

Ruxin drops a bomb on the rest of the crew by revealing that “Vince,” one of the mysterious out-of-towners, isn’t going to make it to Vegas and quit the league. That punishable by death in five states, and it leaves a big hole in an already small league. Even if a league member is comatose, he should still find a way to draft his team and set his starting lineup each week. I recommend using the “verbal game” and a system of twitches and blinks to draft and manage your team. Totally works.

To fill the hole in the league roster, Ruxin has secretly invited his brother, Rafi, to be in the league and has him waiting in the wings to drop his “penis beard” on them.

This guy seems like a very, very hairy and constantly intoxicated version of Taco, which is hard for me to take. I mean, when they come into contact, will the world end? Isn’t he Taco’s evil twin from another, hairier and more corny galaxy?

But before he’s confirmed in the league, another problem arises. Bikini-clad Jenny shows up to nominate herself for inclusion in the league this year. Time for a vote on who gets in and who gets left out.

Unfortunately for Kevin, as commish, he has to break the news to his own wife after the vote that Rafi is the newest member of the league, which probably guarantees Kevin will be slowly poisoned throughout the season. This confirms that if they are going to kill off a character this season, it’ll be Kevin.

But this betrayal also forces Jenny over to the dark side of the force, and she joins Ruxin to draft the perfect team.

TIME TO DRAFT! At last!

Rafi drafts a kicker in the first round. This guy isn’t winning any points with me, and that’s before they move the draft to the pool, which is awesome but also means they’re all drafting without notes or rankings. Risky bidness.

Now about those draft picks…I know they film this show months in advance, and they have to guess who is actually going to be a first round pick, but Miles Austin in the fifth round? Really? Who would have let that happen? He went in the first or second round in all of my drafts. The fifth round seems impossible.

Ruxin and Jenny complete their draft with what appears to be one badass team, and the league provides us with a great new word for the fantasy football lexicon: “Rosterbate.”

Rosterbate is the act of masturbating (moaning and muttering sweet nothings to yourself) over your lineup in the midst of or after the draft.

Post-draft, the guys head out to a club, where Taco’s on the hunt for more ringtones, and Ruxin continues his cynical approach to the Vegas experience by insisting his wife is hotter than everyone there and reiterating that he has no reason to say “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

The gang finds Jenny in the VIP with Ochocinco, where she refuses to let Kevin into the party until Pete intervenes. But after that confrontation, the party rolls on…

In an attempt to impress Ms. Adam Schefter, the stripper who knows fantasy football, shows up to party with her clients in a hot dress, and does not exist in the real world, Rafi tries to bump “stuff” with Andre, which is apparently sexy in the bizarro world from which he came. This non-sanctioned league move causes Andre to fall backwards and Tiger Woods cocktail his own backdoor with his “ShiDre.” Yes, he brought the trophy to the club. Who wouldn’t?

To bring things to a wrap for Episode 1, the show jumps the shark a bit with a remix of Andre’s “I’m Inside Me” wail, as performed by Ochocinco and Taco. The musical stylings of Taco, while much appreciated, were slightly over the top, but hey, it’s Vegas. Go big or go home, which it looks like they will for Episode 2.

We’re only one episode in and we’ve already had two anal violations, and one blackmail photo op involving Ruxin. I won’t give it away, but it’s looking like Season 2 won’t disappoint.

Memorable One-Liners from Episode 1

RUXIN: “Oh and by the way, the term ‘What happens in Vegas…’ that should be like buried in a graveyard of overused expressions along with ‘You go girl!’ and ‘Show me the money.’”

KEVIN: “Why do you look like a backup dancer from ‘This Is It’?” (to Andre, of course)

RUXIN: “And then I snuck a little Eli Manning in there. That goddamn mouth-breathing dummy.”

Looking ahead at the next episode: I hope we see the guys return to trash-talking in their natural environment. They were good together there. And I hope we see less of the Ruxin brother, who reminds me of a hairy Taco, which is never tasty or enjoyable. Interpret that as you will.

[ Jump straight to Episode 2: "Bro-Lo El Cuñado" ]

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