Sport of Kings

I thought ESPN couldn't come up with anything more tedious than the NFL draft. Then came the draft lottery selection show. While the NFL took nearly 30 minutes just to start the Raiders' 15-minute clock, the NBA made viewers wait almost 20 minutes to spin a few ping pong balls. Of course, if the NFL did the draft lottery, it would be a three-hour special, guaranteed.

The Atlanta Hawks had the most ironic result. In one of their endless boneheaded moves, they traded a number one draft pick to the Phoenix Suns. Only if the Hawks earned a top-three pick in the lottery would they get to keep it. In this year's draft, the drop-off in talent from the number two to number three pick is vast. I compare the difference to that between the number two and number three rookie running back. Marshawn Lynch to Brandon Jackson (not even a starter in college) is vast. Kevin Durant to some guy in China is bigger. Naturally, the Hawks got the number three pick. They've already screwed it up before it was made. I don't know much about basketball, but I do know that the point-guard-starved Hawks have passed on about 12 of them in the past two drafts.

I've stated many times that fantasy baseball is a better game than fantasy football. Another reason is that the so-called minor league, NFL Europa, is actually a bad place to end up if you want to play in the NFL. In baseball's minor leagues, you're already playing in your team's system, and most likely with other players who will be on the major league squad if you ever make it that far. NFL Europa is a hodge-podge of many teams' bottom-of-the-barrel prospects. While they toil and learn about the four-point field goal, other prospects are actually learning the playbook at home.

I've all but punted my two dynasty baseball teams. It's hard enough to make sure that you have enough players to play. Setting up a batting and pitching order is more of an ordeal than it's worth. I only know one of the other owners, a curse of the Internet, and the message board's dead. Part of that issue is when you sign onto the league message board, you have sign back into the league to make moves. Whatever. On the other hand, the AUBL, my bare-bones Yahoo league, thrives due to a great message board and team names that almost exclusively include "bastards" or "blows." I changed my team name to Cubs Rule for this week, and this week only. One reason I did that is so we can see the Cubs in first place, a rarity.

I'm losing focus in the sixth week of the season, whereas I have to check my fantasy football auctions in which 12 teams already have about 50 players each (talk about bottom of the barrel) every couple of hours. I'm getting nervous about winning guys like Ryan Longwell and John Madsen. I'm personally insulted that someone upped my bid on Quentin Moses in the last eight hours of the auction. That's just rude.

One Draft Completed

The Titans made the playoffs last year. They fell short of a title, and because of that, changes were necessary.

Needing a running back, the Titans made bold moves. Shaun Alexander was available, for a price. Ignoring persistent rumors about a broken foot, the Titans bit.

Of course, these aren't the real Titans. This is one of my two dynasty teams, named the Titans due to the league's intelligent rule requiring an NFL team name for your fantasy team. I traded Larry Johnson away for Willis McGahee, Chris Chambers, and Jerious Norwood.


I lost in the championship game. It was not a close game. Because of that, I made some moves. I moved Larry Johnson, Jake Plummer, Willis McGahee, Julius Jones, and my first-round pick (11th) for Jerious Norwood, Chris Chambers, Tony Romo, and Shaun Alexander. I sold high with Larry Johnson, and considering that the Chiefs have brought in zero help at offensive line, I feel like I made a good move. A late first-round pick turned into Tony Hunt, who isn't going to be the primary running back for the Eagles. Here are the results of my rookie draft:

Draft pick	Player
1.08	Michael Bush
2.01	Sidney Rice
2.11	Lawrence Timmons
3.10	John Beck
3.11	Jacoby Jones
4.11	David Harris
5.11	Sabby Piscatelli
6.11	DeShawn Wynn

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Bush was too good of a value to pass up. Rice is a receiver named Rice. Timmons was the top available LB. John Beck looks like the QB of the future for the Dolphins. Jacoby Jones is a small-school WR with the dreaded "upside." David Harris will line up next to Jonathan Vilma, so his potential is limited. Sabby Piscatelli could be the next John Lynch. DeShawn Wynn is a seventh-round draft pick running back, which everyone in a dynasty league must draft because you never know.

Because the top team in the league is so stout, I feel like I need those high upside guys to have a chance. That came into play in my draft decisions. We're in the midst of the post-draft free agency process, which is almost more fun than the draft itself.

In other news, the Sox avoided a sweep at the hands of the dreaded Cubs. In the last two days, David Aardsma gave up nine runs in 1.1 innings. Aardsma was property of the Cubs last year.

The Longest Offseason

The ongoing dramas of Pacman Jones and Michael Vick remind me of one eternal truth. The offseason is too darn long. If every sports outlet didn't force football down our throats 12 months a year, we'd probably have forgotten completely about the draft by now. Thanks to Jones, Vick, Ricky Williams, and Tank Johnson, a lot of us have.

I haven't. My first rookie draft started on Tuesday. Let's take a closer look at my picks to date.

1.08: Michael Bush, RB Oakland Raiders. "It's not every day you can draft the fourth string running back for the team with the worst offensive line in the NFL," I wrote. Warrick Dunn, Jerious Norwood, Shaun Alexander, Mike Bell, Mewelde Moore, Marion Barber and T.J. Duckett are my running backs. Alexander's foot may be still broken, and it's possible that Julius Jones talked Wade Phillips into giving him goal-line carries this year. I need Bush to be a starter by next year. If the Raiders draft seven or eight offensive linemen next April, it might work.

2.01: Sidney Rice, WR Minnesota Vikings. "I can't pass on the opportunity to draft a receiver named Rice. " Yeah, I've done better. Rice won't be 21 until September, and the promised vertical passing game at South Carolina was more horizontal than planned. Rice is, as they say, a physical specimen. Unlike Chris Henry, he's a specimen who actually performed in college. I have Torry Holt, Deion Branch, Bernard Berrian, Chris Chambers, Donte Stallworth, Michael Jenkins, Nate Burleson, Vincent Jackson, Ronald Curry, and Demetrius Williams at WR. Just about all of those guys are starters, so I don't have immediate needs.

2.11: Lawrence Timmons, LB Pittsburgh Steelers. "Not a lot of value in this pick. I'll take the potential stud LB for the Steelers." Kirk Morrison, a guy I got as a rookie free agent two years ago, was my top-scoring linebacker last year, finishing seventh overall. Morrison, Will Witherspoon, and A.J. Hawk are my current starters. Shaun Phillips, Marcus Washington, Barrett Ruud, Abdul Hodge, and James Harrison are my other guys. Now that I look at it, maybe I need to get another LB with my 3.10/3.11 picks.

I have five picks left. Anything could happen. I wasn't too active in free agency, so I can pick up seven players after the draft's over. You can keep 60 players until the end of the preseason, after which you're down to 53.

In the AUFL, I made a couple of moves to get my team ready for 2007. Vince Young's my keeper QB, and for now Andre Johnson is my WR. I do have Randy Moss, who suddenly has value, although I doubt anyone will bite. I had Reggie Bush, DeAngelo Williams, Edgerrin James, and Ahman Green at RB. All four feel like RB2 types. So, I traded Reggie Bush for a second-round pick, then turned around and picked up Clinton Portis for my third-round pick. So in the end I moved up from 27 to 21 in the draft. I don't care what people say about RBBC in Washington, Portis will get the load. At least I hope that he gets all the red-zone carries. I'll have to draft Betts, naturally.

I'm going to have the exact same number three overall pick that I had last year. I'll have a similar decision. The number one overall pick probably will be Frank Gore. The champ has Gore and Larry Johnson. If he's smart he'll trade one of them away. Maurice Jones-Drew could be the number two overall pick. If I have to draft Adrian Peterson, as I drafted Bush last year, I could finish 11th again. I can't have two RBBC situations with only four RB roster slots. Actually I'll probably end up with someone like Joseph Addai. It's fun to project when there are less than three months until the draft.

In other news, the White Sox got at least 6 innings out of their starters for 14 straight games. Due to one of the worst offenses in the majors, they had a losing record during that streak. They rallied to tie the game, but the Royals have a guy on third in the top of the 10th with one out. The Indians and Tigers are starting to pull away a bit.

Loving the rooks

All this rookie draft talk had me acting crazy in the AUBL. Roster limits in the AUBL are 23. I had a position quandary, as I picked up Randy Johnson off the DL and he had been off the DL for three starts. You can keep a non-DL guy on the DL (not terribly kosher as Commish to do so) as long as you don't make any roster moves. I noticed that the Giants had called up Tim Lincecum. Take a look at those stats. For a fantasy baseball player, that's the equivalent of getting a gander of the SI Swimsuit issue in middle school. I couldn't drop Randy Johnson's 4500+ career strikeouts, so I released Greg Maddux instead.

It's my extensive, and borderline obsessive, study of the Zealots Field rookie drafts, which led me to make such a move. I don't want to completely give in to the rookie draft craze, so I'm only looking at 16 of the 48. Most of them have started, and here's what I discovered about some of the first-round prizes. I didn't compile stats on the "Big Three" (Adrian Peterson, Calvin Johnson, Marshawn Lynch) because they're pretty stable and I have zero chance of landing a top-three pick. Here are the ADPs for most of the first round. This is based on 16 Zealots rookie drafts. Please pardon my third-grade HTML.

Here are the ADPs for most of the first round. This is based on 16 Zealots rookie drafts. Please pardon my third-grade HTML.

Player	ADP
JaMarcus Russell	4.875
Brady Quinn	9.4375
Brandon Jackson	6.0625
Chris Henry	10.6875
Michael Bush	7.8125
Dwayne Bowe	8.125
Robert Meachem	8.0625
Dwayne Jarrett	13.2

I just traded for LenDale White in one league, and to complete the matched set I have to get Chris Henry. I have the 1.09 pick. It's going to be dicey. In six of the sixteen drafts, he goes eight or higher. It's bad enough that I have to dump a high pick on a sketchy running back; I can't trade up and dump more picks in a WR-heavy draft when my WR corps are terrible. Right now my WR2 is either Greg Jennings or Kevin Curtis.

So far my draft strategy is to wait for value. Especially with the IDPs, I don't really know who has the best situation. I can't be excited about Patrick Willis in San Francisco's 3-4 when Jonathan Vilma's value tanked when the Jets changed schemes. After the second round, it's either the top IDPs or the 11th RB/WR. Guess where the value usually is.

The Art of the Deal

It's rookie draft season in my Zealots dynasty leagues. I'm fortunate enough to be in two leagues that are drafting late. The reason for this is obvious. Imagine that there were 48 NFLs with separate drafts. Wouldn't you want to see what some of the other leagues did before drafting? Information is power.

Due to a crazed homer Colts owner who just had to have Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis, I got the 1.04 and 2.04 in one of my leagues. Last year, 1.04 was Joseph Addai. At the time, I was skeptical, and ended up trading 1.04 for Tiki Barber and a first-rounder this year. That deal kind of blew up in my face due to Barber's retirement. The first-rounder is 1.08, so I'm kind of stuck in the middle.

The "big three" is obvious. Out of 15 drafts I surveyed, 14 had Adrian Peterson, Marshawn Lynch, and Calvin Johnson as the top three. In the other, the same owner had picks 1.03 and 1.04. He took JaMarcus Russell at 1.03 just to be funny. The talent level clearly drops off at 1.04. I've seen Russell, Dwayne Bowe, Brian Leonard, Brandon Jackson, and Michael Bush go there. Usually the top QB goes a bit later, but there isn't an obvious third RB in this draft.

I opened up my 1.04 to the league for trading. My nemesis, the Colt fan, wanted to trade me Tatum Bell for the pick. I have Kevin Jones and it's unclear as to when Jones will return from his injury. I'm not sold on Bell, since he couldn't win Mike Shanahan's confidence after half a dozen opportunities. You don't trade for a guy who has half a season as a starter in his future. I offered the pick straight up for LenDale White, pegging me as a homer. Luckily the owner must have not seen my offer, as he countered with the same offer, except that he gave me his second-round pick back. White was the 1.05 pick in most drafts last year. He should be the starter for the Titans. The only downside for this pick is that I "have" to take Chris Henry now, and with picks 1.09 and 1.10 I may or may not get him. It's just the beginning, as I'm going to try to make some additional trades before the drafts start. Rookie picks are never more valuable than right after the NFL draft. Artose Pinner always looks more like Frank Gore.