Category Reads Listens Views

Reads Listens Views 7/20/12 – Booher, Aurora, and More Pot

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Thoughts and Prayers for the Town of Aurora, Colorado

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Last night’s shooting in an Aurora, Colorado theater during the midnight screening of Batman is the second massacre of this sort in a Denver suburb in recent years. Aurora was my second home as a child. My father lived there for at least 20 years and worked just five miles form that theater. He still doesn’t live far from there to this day. My brother grew up in a suburb pretty much between Aurora and just a highway exit away from Columbine.

And my friend and colleague Cecil Lammey lives in Littleton, which isn’t far from there, either. In fact, he left our Audible Podcast early to see the midnight screening of Batman and many of us wondered if he was in that theater upon hearing the tragic news. Thankfully, he was not, but dozens more weren’t as fortunate. Please keep the victims of this crime in your thoughts and prayers today.

On a related note, David and Shevelle, I’m sending my prayers your way. My wife and I met this Aurora couple last Friday at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. If you didn’t know, the museum is at the site of the old Lorraine Motel, the place where Martin Luther King was assassinated. We saw a documentary featuring the Reverend Billy Kyle, who was at Martin Luther King’s side when the shot was fired. The film included a spine-chilling sermon Kyle gave about bearing witness to this tragedy.  I found it here and considering the events of last night, I think it is fitting to share.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/zNlpGcjx9Wo] Continue reading →

Reads Listens Views 7/11/12

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If Fitzgerald is at the pinnacle of the receiving position in today’s game, these three publications that are now available are at the top of theirs. Photo by Photogeek21.

Reads

This is a quick post, but one I want to make this week before my access to Internet becomes less constant. I have three recommendations for reading material before the season begins. One is a fantasy football magazine. The other is a book. I’m sure most of you have one and plan to get the other, but I still want to do my due dilligence and give them a mention.

The first is the Footballguys Interactive Magazine, which is iPad, Android, desktop, and laptop friendly. The magazine is jam-packed with fantasy football goodies, photos, swipeable navigation, and yes, even an Upside Down (and counterpunch) draft strategy that many of you have been asking me about. Check it out here and learn about the deal Footballguys offers for subscribers to the site.

And for the few of you that haven’t made the connection, yes, I write for the site. I love working at Footballguys and a big reason why is the quality of work that so many of the people produce. They produce far more than what they charge for it.

My newest gig is with Football Outsiders and I’m thrilled to be starting a column with a top-notch group of writers at this terrific football resource. The Football Outsiders 2012 Almanac is now available for download. This publication has become an annual “must-have” for football fans. Lot’s a great work there and the link I just provided includes links to samples from this highly praised annual publication.

One of the things I enjoy about Football Outsiders is the thought-provoking work that you’ll see there on a regular basis from excellent writers. The RSP blog recently posted FO columnist Ben Muth’s RSP team and Muth was instrumental in creating our player values to help this blog deliver a project that has been a hit with readers.

My final recommendation this week is a publication that I have no connection to in terms of employment, but I read chapters from nightly. I’ve probably read this book twice through since I got it six weeks ago: The Essential Smart Football by Chris Brown. Almost every writer participating in the RSP Project has cited Brown’s work thus far. That should tell you how influential his knowledge is to the writer’s community. I’ve learned a ton from Brown when it comes to the X’s and O’s of the game and it is helping me gain a valuable scope with the work I do.

These three publications are the must-haves that cover three of the four essential parts of football table today: fantasy football, statistical football analysis, and strategic X and Os analysis. What’s the fourth you ask? You don’t have to ask about rookie analysis, do you? 🙂

Listens and Views

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I get the sense that Dickerson is the most underappreciated of the great backs in recent NFL history.

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I’ll tell you about it when I get back.

Reads Listens Views 7/6/2012

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Busts of (diagonal from l-r) Jim Brown, Vince Lombardi, and Bronko Nagurski at the Pro Football Hall of Fame last summer.
Happy Birthday Sigmund Bloom

If you are a Footballguys subscriber, an Audible listener, Bleacher Report reader, or a frequenter of Twitter, then odds are you know the peripatetic football intellectual that is Sigmund Bloom. Happy birthday to my colleague, football muse, and friend and thank you for what you contribute to this community – substantial is too bland of a word for what you do. I think if Bloom could have the equivalent of a Parisian salon and be the Gertrude Stein of football, he’d be hosting writers yesterday. In a sense, I have a feeling he already is doing so in the virtual sense. Continue reading →

Reads Listens Views 6/28/2012

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Wish there was a corner like Mike Haynes for the RSP Writers Project

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Thanks

Another Friday, another round of thanks to my readers – as well as all the writers – frequenting the RSP blog and participating in the RSP Writers Project. This exercise of building an NFL franchise is addictive, isn’t it? It’s also a great platform to share knowledge. Continue reading →

Random News and Notes

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Brandon Lloyd is an artist when it comes to catching the football. See why he and Adrian Peterson kick of my Insanity Series at Footballguys.com Photo by Jeffery Beall.

Fantasy Football

At Footballguys.com, I kicked off my Gut Check column with what I’m calling the Insanity Series: Players that will drive you mad in 2012. You can find column at Footbalguys and I’ll also link to them on this page. The first two published pieces in the series are on Adrian Peterson and Brandon Lloyd.

2013 Rookies Continue reading →

New RSP Writers Project Values Delivered Sunday

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Just thought I’d drop everyone a line and give them the news that we’re about 99 percent finished with the changes we’re making to the player values, salary cap, and spreadsheet. I’d like to thank Donnie Smith for volunteering to make the Excel spreadsheet behave like something it’s capable of doing in the past five years rather than my knowledge that stopped in 2005. You’ll see what I mean sometime on Sunday.

Enjoy the weekend.

 

 

Reads Listens Views 6/22/2012

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Happy Friday. Hope you’re as pumped as Tuck today. If not, don’t worry. The RSP Writers Project will be back within a day or two. Photo by Chris Pusateri.

RSP Football Writers Project Update

I got some additional input from Football Outsiders columnist Ben Muth on players values this week. – Muth, a former college and NFL offensive lineman whose popular column grades offensive line performance, was gracious enough to make some tweaks along with me and Rotoworld’s Josh Norris to get the values of the linemen aligned with the rest of the player values.

This isn’t to detract from the excellent work Matt Bitonti did. There were more tweaks to the values in addition to the offensive line. And for the most part, the issue wasn’t the values of the players that Matt set, but the skeleton of how linemen should be valued versus other positions.

Simply put, we needed a trial run to see where to adjust. Matt did a fine job of putting everything together with the expectations I communicated to him and if he hadn’t, we would have been able to present the project this week for what I’m calling a “trial run.” And judging by the response, Continue reading →

New Cap for the RSP Writers Project

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Ndamukong Suh, it was nice to have you on my team for all of a few days… Photo by beatboxbadhabit.

After looking at two rosters and consulting with a few more writers, I’m cutting the salary cap and asking the writers to start over. It’s not enough of a challenge. Even when I limit myself to prospects at skill positions, my offensive line and defensive line are too good. There’s no way I should have offensive and defensive lines this good or be able to field Victor Cruz, Miles Austin, and A.J. Green on the same squad with passable (or good) units in other phases of the game.

I don’t want this to be fantasy football in that sense.

I want to make the writers work at this and $160 million is just a fun time diversion for a few days. I’ve enjoyed it immensely, but I want to force everyone to really think about what they are submitting and agonize. I’m mean in that way.

So I’m dropping the cap from $160 million at least by $20 million, maybe more. I’ve informed the writers. They all groaned, but also laughed because many of them had teams they really liked and readily admitted it wasn’t realistic.

So if you still want to play the $160 million version, I’ll keep the spreadsheet up here. However, I’ll be out with a revised, writers version in a few days.

And I was so loving my Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse defensive line. I was dreaming up the poster of those guys riding Harley’s, dressed in black cloaks…

My First Draft RSP Writers Team – Offensive Line

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I have to protect this guy and give my runners every chance to succeed. I think my RSP Writers Project offensive line accomplishes that objective – and that’s an understatement. Photo by Angie Six

The Rookie Scouting Portfolio Football Writers Project is an all-star cast of football writers, former scouts, and draft analysts on the Internet. Their mission is to take a month to build a 53-man roster with a $160 million salary cap and present the team here. You can use the same information to build your own team (see the bottom of this post).

Last night, I unveiled the skill positions of a first-draft team. Today, I’m unveiling my offensive line. Remember, this is an initial draft and I will probably take a month to truly build my squad. However, I think it is valuable and entertaining to display a thought process behind building a team. Readers will hopefully gain this insight when I display other writer’s teams, but they won’t get the same process as I can offer leading to the final product.

I am already working on a second draft of the team I’m unveiling this week and there will be some major changes. However, I still think it is fun to show my initial version because it reveals a lot about building NFL teams. Why certain ideas are ingrained in the culture of coaches, general managers, scouts, and players.

If you didn’t read the skill position unveiling yesterday, Continue reading →

Reads Listens Views 6/11/2012

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Film Study is a Dangerous Job

My life has been a whirlwind these past two months. In addition to writing the 2012 Rookie Scouting Portfolio here’s the rest of the past eight weeks:

Of course this list doesn’t include the more personal elements of my life that make life a fun (sometimes) challenge.  Continue reading →