Posts tagged Fantasy Throwdown

Fantasy Throwdown – Free Weekly Fantasy Football

0 Comments read Matt Waldman

Try Fantasy Throwdown – a free, simple, convenient and fast way to play every day that will keep you coming back for more.

Fantasy Throwdown is a game with one-on-one match ups allow you to challenge anyone, anytime. You can play 20 times in a week or you can play once a month – whatever fits your schedule. Lineups include PPR/non-PPR; Team Defense/IDP; and flex options – including 2QB leagues.Challenge friends or other users on the site.It’s easy to learn:

  • Challenge a friend or another person on the site.
  • You and your opponent determine the three games for that week that will comprise your player draft pool.
  • Pick your games wisely as well as your draft order, because you each get to block a player from the draft pool during the draft. If there’s only two good QBs from those games you selected, you can set it up to force your opponent to settle for a scrub.
  • Draft your team.

The draft room displays the summary of the challenges lineup requirements, scoring rules, and players each team has to pick.

Drafts take 10 minutes if you and your opponent are both online. Or you can stretch out the draft throughout the course of the week or even do predraft settings.

Challenge me to a game either by registering and looking me up on the Leaderboard in the Lobby (matt) or use my email address: thegutcheck@gmail.com.

Play Fantasy Throwdown – Super Bowl Style

0 Comments read Matt Waldman

Taking a quick break from studying pro prospects to encourage you to check out Fantasy Throwdown – the best, most addictive 1-on-1 fantasy football game around. Free to play, try it during the Super Bowl with your friends. My friend and Throwdown partner Mike MacGregor shares an idea for playing Throwdown at your Super Bowl party.

 

Everyone,

Super Bowl XLVIIIt is finally upon us, Super Bowl Week! The lead up to the biggest game of the year. It took 256 regular season games plus 10 playoff games over 21 weeks to get here since opening kickoff back in September to showcase the Baltimore Ravens versus the San Francisco 49ers for Super Bowl XLVII (a.k.a. 47) and the Lombardi Trophy (a.k.a. all the marbles).

Of course I’m biased, but this is a great time to play Fantasy Throwdown, and to introduce people to Fantasy Throwdown, or in a broader sense, fantasy football. Okay, sure, the player pool is much smaller than a normal Throwdown match of three NFL games, and with the Block it is possible for someone to take a goose egg at kicker, defense, or ~ gasp ~ even quarterback if they aren’t careful (and if their opponent is cut throat).

On the plus side, this is a biggest game of the year, so even your buddies who aren’t hardcore football fans like you or I, they will be watching the Super Bowl and they can get a taste of what this fantasy football thing is you keep yammering on about. That is… if they have some specific players to root for.

Not to mention everything else about Fantasy Throwdown works great to get newcomers invested in our hobby. The format is simple – two players, head to head. The time commitment is minimal – draft in as little as a few minutes. It is completely free, as you know. It makes for a great little challenge mixing skill and luck to see who can come out on top picking the best performing players on the biggest football stage.

Super Bowl Party Idea

For my Super Bowl party I’m going to set up two laptops, each logged into Throwdown with two new accounts. Then as people start arriving before the game, I’ll pair them up to face off against each other for a Throwdown match. The pair of combatants has their own Throwdown to see who wins, and also by using just the two accounts they’ll form two groups, with a cumulative score to see which side wins.

Yes, we’ll still have a squares board and my annual Super Bowl Quiz, but this should add a fun fantasy football twist to the event. Feel free to use this idea for your get togethers on Sunday! Hmm… maybe I’ll cover my keyboard with plastic wrap, to protect from spills.

If you want to show your friends what to expect from a Throwdown draft, here is one I drafted last week against the current number one ranked player from our NFL Playoffs Tourney, Scott Kuff:

Mike vs. Scott Kuff, Super Bowl Throwdown

NFL Playoffs Tournament

Speaking of our NFL Playoffs Tourney, I know most of us took things slow last week with our final round Super Bowl matches, but now… its… Super Bowl Week! Get in there and get your matches done. It is very unlikely any new injury info is going to come our way between now and Sunday, so don’t wait to the last minute or your opponent may not be available to finish. Make your pick(s) if you’re up, and use the pre-draft feature.

Have a great week! Thanks as always for supporting Fantasy Throwdown, and enjoy the big game!

Reads Listens Views 12/7/2012

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Listens

[youtube=http://youtu.be/xQd4go1ESvM]

My bud Adrian is traveling through Asia. He met a Dane in Thailand, who hipped him to this Norwegian soul singer-instrumentalist. If you want proof that the world is round just let this pass through your brain one more time: A Texan in Thailand having a guy from Denmark recommend a Norwegian musician who sings soul.

And he’s good. Here’s another.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/DA_tIvWd5-0]

Thank You

If you’re a new follower of this blog or my Twitter account, thank you for doing so. This blog provides analysis year-round as I research, write, and edit my annual publication the Rookie Scouting Portfolio. Now it its eighth year, the RSP is available for download every April 1st. Beginning last year, I allowed readers to prepay/order the RSP beginning in March for the April download due to reader demand to make it so. I will do the same again this year – stay tuned.

Most of all, I want to thank those of you who purchased the 2012 RSP and/or previous RSPs, which are available year-round.  Thanks to you, I have donated over $1800 to Darkness to Light to fulfill my pledge to readers. D2L is a non-profit with the mission of preventing sexual abuse through community training and awareness. As someone who understands the lasting damage that can happen from this type of abuse, raising awareness may not always prevent this predatory behavior, but the ability to help parents and communities understand how to deal with abuse can limit the scope of the damage that often occurs when a victim’s cries for help are met with denial or blame.

If you haven’t purchased the RSP in the past but you enjoy the content on this blog, I encourage you to take the plunge. Past issues of the RSP (2006-2011) are available for $9.95 at the link above. The 2012 RSP is $19.95 and I donate 10 percent of each sale to this cause. Get something that my buddies at DLFootball.com say is worth every penny while supporting a great cause in a fight to prevent sexual abuse.

Fantasy Throwdown

To give full disclosure, yes, I beat my wife in a Throwdown. She challenged me to a game of Fantasy Throwdown last week. Click on the photo for a close up of the score.

AvM ThrowdownBut this wasn’t the best family game of the week. My daughter, Chandler, read my blog post and challenged her sports-loving boyfriend.  Didn’t turn out so well for the boyfriend.

MvA copy Chandler ThrowdownAlthough the Cowboys game wasn’t scored when she took this screen shot, she won a nail-biter. Not bad for someone who has only watched football a little bit in her life. Perhaps there’s some sort of osmosis in play here, right? Wishful thinking I suppose. Anyhow, try FantasyThrowdown. It’s free, simple to play, and addictive.

Football Reads

Non-Football Reads

  • Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math – If you read one thing today – no, if you read one thing this year – read this article by Bill McKibben. Yes, there’s still hope.
  • The Cliff Notes to McKibben’s Must-Read – Yes, I know something about you guys, thanks to the power of analytics. Read it.
  • Capitalism vs. Climate – Naomi Klein’s article from The Nation. Her main takeaway? “The fact that the earth’s atmosphere cannot safely absorb the amount of carbon we are pumping into it is a symptom of a much larger crisis, one born of the central fiction on which our economic model is based: that nature is limitless, that we will always be able to find more of what we need, and that if something runs out it can be seamlessly replaced by another resource that we can endlessly extract.”

Views

[youtube=http://youtu.be/tBNHPk-Lnkk]

Perhaps another reason not to believe everything you see on TV? Fantastic stuff.

Waldman vs. Waldman: A Spousal Throwdown

0 Comments read Matt Waldman
My wife’s favorite type of tackle: the clothesline. Photo by Erik Daniel Drost.

My wife and I have watched football together once. It was the last Alabama-Georgia match up. It was when I discovered the depths of her insanity. Our viewing taught me what my wife knows, likes, and dislikes about football:

  • Her dad is a Cowboys fan, but “they’re kind of sucking” right now.
  • The Ravens are his hometown team. They are also the team that will induce me into a 30-minute rant about how they embody the psyche of the real Cleveland Browns, which makes her want to remove her fingernails with a pair of pliers every time I get started. As an alternative to self-mutilation she suggests (in a far more primitive way) that I see a therapist.
  • The Browns are the worst name for a football team and the uniforms are “fugly.”
  • Speaking of defense, a tackle made with a trip or a wrap is not proper hitting form. A lowered shoulder with a wrap and pile-driving force to the turf is “a start.” A spear elicits a “that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.” A clothesline earns a “now that’s how you do it!!!” I think I married Dick ‘Night Train’ Lane.
  • Her favorite football players are the “big, corn-fed guys that hit people.” I have to admit, she’s already won over the most diehard football analysts I know. Chris Brown is somewhere nodding with silent approval.
  • Kickers are useless and most of them look “girlie” when they do their job. You need to know that my wife has two distinct personalities (among many others). On the job and in public she’s girlie. From what she wears to how she talks, you’d think that dirt hurts. But dirt don’t hurt; especially when my wife has a cigarette dangling from her lips as she’s is digging a trench the width of our backyard after spending the morning putting a pick axe to Georgia Clay. My wife is one-part debutante and one-part semi-pro safety who just got off a chain gang and works construction during the week.
  • Brett Favre should have retired years before he did.
  • With an 11.2-second, 100-yard dash to her credit during the 1980s that is on par with (pre-doping) Marion Jones – still her high school’s record – speed doesn’t impress her.
  • Think I’m exaggerating? I just emailed her to name 10 things she likes, dislikes, and knows about football. She doesn’t even know why I asked, but immediately sent me a list of 11. I deleted the last one because that subject is for another time and place. (Although I agree with you in principle, Honey):
    • I like the hits (the real ones, not the girlie ones)
    • I like the names
    • I like the colors
    • I like that it can bring a city together
    • I know that that Terry guy is famous in corporate America
    • I know that the Browns, the Colts, and the Ravens have some sort of sordid history that makes your eye twitch
    • I don’t like the Browns—stupid name, ugly color when paired incorrectly—as they have done
    • I don’t like the Bangles…who the hell named them after women’s jewelry?
    • I don’t like all the rules that make them have to play like girls.  For all the money they make, I expect to see blood, bone or both when it’s over.  I had more pain during childbirth than most of them have during an entire game.  You’re MEN….earn your f#&king keep.
    • I don’t like kickers or kicking—all that pay for a dancer to come on the field for 5 seconds and get what?  An extra 1-3 points.  Stupid.  If footballers played like MEN, they wouldn’t need the kickers delicate asses.
  • She’d love Marshawn Lynch if she ever saw him play. Especially because his mom gives him skittles, but she wouldn’t dig the name.

I rest my case.

Since that premarital Alabama-Georgia game, we haven’t watched football together. She believes that her blood-lust scared me off. Truth be told, her viewing pleasures are far more vicious: gangster movies and Dance Mom marathons. Football can’t compete. She’d also weigh me down by asking me to rewind and slow-mo all the personal fouls while I’m trying to study blocking schemes or routes. I have deadlines.

You can imagine how surprised I was when I received a challenge to play Fantasy Throwdown from my wife. Although she doesn’t know anything more about football than what I mentioned above, she didn’t want me to help her. Here’s our draft:

You can click the image to enlarge. Here’s a quick blow-by-blow of our draft:

  • My wife opted for the first overall pick so I selected the Browns-Raiders and Cowboys-Eagles games.
  • My wife then showed fascinating intuition and picked what will likely be the most violent game of the week: Steelers-Ravens.
  • With the first pick, my wife thought about taking Ray Rice but the name reminded her of Rae Carruth and as a native of North Carolina, she can’t make that call.
  • Since she didn’t recognize any of the names I’ve mentioned, although intuitively Ray Rice caught her attention first, she decided to block the Raiders defense.
    At this point, you might think the draft went downhill. However with Throwdown, the block can be utterly useless even with a well-conceived plan. It’s the wildcard. And with Cleveland, you never now, it might prove ingenious.
  • So I took Rice and Trent Richardson. The wife then opted for names she liked. Joe Flacco was one of them because it sounded like “Shane Falco.”  Flacco kind of is the Keanu Reeves of NFL quarterbacks. Good times.
  • Marcel Reece and Felix Jones were also names she liked. She didn’t like “Dwyer,” and couldn’t get with “Anquan Boldin.” I told her she’d like Boldin because he plays with the kind of mentality she likes. She shrugged me off.
  • I blocked Bryce Brown. She asked me if that was the dude that I was yelling at on Monday night and cheering like a real fan (usually she just hears the clicking of my keyboard when a football game is on in my office). I told her yes. She told me (in a roundabout way) to see a therapist. I followed up with Tony Romo.
  • The wife then chose Mike Wallace and Riley Cooper. The Eagles receiver I could have known about ahead of time because it’s the type of name she’d want to name any future children we have. She’s all about those Madison, Delaney, Riley, and other girlie, Holly-Hobby names. Ain’t happening. However, her choices continued to surprise me.
  • I opted for the Steelers and Jason Witten and when she realized that ‘K’ stood for kicker she groaned and ultimately took Sebastien Janikowski because that was the only name that sounded like he could really kick. Again, great intuition. She then opted for Brent Celek for Heath Miller because “Heath (Ledger) is dead.”
  • I ended with Dan Bailey.

Ten minutes of personal hilarity. I’ll never live it down if I lose.

Need a laugh? Or, better yet, haven’t cried in awhile? Challenge your wife to Fantasy Throwdown today. It’s quick, convenient, and addictive. It’s also free.

Also read Zach Law’s interview of Mike MacGregor, who is a big reason why I’m doing what I do here.

Reads Listens Views 11/21/12

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Happy Thanksgiving. Photo Provided by Animal Farm Foundation.

Listens – Some soulful, Thanksgiving blues from a Frenchman who could swing his tail off. Great, great, musician. Press ‘play’ and read on.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhjZABvC6Ng&feature=share&list=PLX1Nx57UJgZm7HaE2YBix5GrxSujNhhzq]

About ‘Reads Listens Views’

Thanks to folks like my buddy Josh Norris at Rotoworld, Joe Goodberry, and Eric Stoner, I have new readers. If you’re one of them, I hope you enjoy what you’re reading at the RSP blog. Every Friday, I like to share my finds that are football and non-football. While I don’t get a ton of views of the non-football content, those that take the time to look express their appreciation. I also believe it is the non-football content that helps me look at the football world with a perspective that is worth sharing. This week, I’m posting this feature early to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.

Introduce Fantasy Football to Your Family With Fantasy Throwdown

Play me or your friends in free games of one-on-one fantasy football.

If you’re traveling for Thanksgiving and you want to introduce fantasy football to your family, there’s no easier way to do so than to play Fantasy Throwdown. Free to play and easy to learn, drafts take 15 minutes and what a fantastic way to enjoy the games with your family and help them see why fantasy football is so much fun.

Football Reads

 Non-Football Reads

  • Kurt Vonnegut Describing His Daily Routine – What I love about Vonnegut’s writing is his voice. He’s a wicked-smart friend who pulls you up to his level.
  • How Partisans Fool Themselves Into Believing Their Own Spin  – Until we take the best of both sides of an argument the machine’s gears stay stuck.
  • 45-Minute Roasted Turkey – I’ve cooked turkey all sorts of ways. For years I’ve deep-fried it in the backyard. Two years ago, I did a confit. Recently I tried this recipe. If you’re not worried about a Norman Rockwell-Hallmark moment at the dinner table, then this is the quickest and best way to do the bird.

Views – A letter from Fiona Apple about her best friend

Family and blood aren’t always synonymous. Photo by RussTeaches.

If I heard a Fiona Apple song I wouldn’t know it even though I’ve known he she was for years. Recently, Apple cancelled a tour of South America to be there for her best friend who is terminally ill. Whether the reasons are biological, biblical, or the sake that they grew up with a lot of people in their lives, there people in my life whom I love and respect who don’t understand the friendship that can exist between a human and an animal I understand the point that we shouldn’t treat animals like humans because we’re not respecting the animal’s nature.

I don’t believe in treating pets in such a way that it can endanger the physical or emotional welfare of human members of a family. But until there’s enough prove to disavow any possibility that a bond between a human being and many animals can exist and it’s not solely based on food, shelter, and comfort, then I’m choosing to believe what I see.

Below is the typed version of a hand-written letter from Apple to her fans to explain the bond she has with her dog Janet. If you’re a pet-person or you became one because you’re more of a solitary traveler through life, which many people of Apple’s skill-set are, then you’ll get what she’s saying.

I’m not a believer that family and blood are always synonymous. Loyalty and respect are earned. I hope on this Thanksgiving Day that you can appreciate and respect the family you have around you. If not, I hope you make choices moving forward to build your family, because, at least from this side of the monitor, I believe that’s how it’s done.

(Apple’s letter)

It’s 6pm on Friday,and I’m writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet. I am writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later. Here’s the thing. I have a dog Janet, and she’s been ill for almost two years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She’s almost 14 years old now.I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then ,an adult officially – and she was my child. She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face. She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders. She’s almost 14 and I’ve never seen her start a fight , or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She’s a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact. We’ve lived in numerous houses, and jumped a few make shift families, but it’s always really been the two of us. She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head. She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me all the time we recorded the last album. The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she’s used to me being gone for a few weeks every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison’s Disease, which makes it dangerous for her to travel since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and to excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death. Despite all of this, she’s effortlessly joyful and playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago. She’s my best friend and my mother and my daughter, my benefactor, and she’s the one who taught me what love is. I can’t come to South America. Not now. When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference. She doesn’t even want to go for walks anymore. I know that she’s not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That’s why they are so much more present than people. But I know that she is coming close to point where she will stop being a dog, and instead, be part of everything. She’ll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can’t leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I’m afraid she’ll die and I won’t have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out. Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes to pick which socks to wear to bed. But this decision is instant. These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship. I am the woman who stays home and bakes Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable, and comforted, and safe, and important. Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life, that keeps us feeling terrified and alone. I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time. I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments. I need to do my damnedest to be there for that. Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I’ve ever known. When she dies. So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and reveling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel. And I am asking for your blessing. I’ll be seeing you.

Love,
Fiona

Reads Listens Views 11/16/2012

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Listens

[youtube=http://youtu.be/TcXl6CDqpvY]

More on La Havas later.

Views Part I – Real or Photoshop? I don’t care, it’s cool . . .

At Fantasy Throwdown: Annual Thanksgiving Tourney & IDP Tourney!!!

To our regulars out there, thanks for playing Fantasy Throwdown, including providing feedback and helping build a great community of fantasy football players.To our mailing list members who haven’t checked in for a while, or since last season, come on over. The regular season is past the halfway mark, but we’re going to continue playing Throwdown all the way through the Super Bowl, one week at a time.Here is a snapshot of things going on this month:
Turkey Day CompetitionIt is back. Or will be next week, that is. Our favourite (note the “u”) holiday that isn’t even a holiday where Mike lives – U.S. Thanksgiving. Three games on the NFL schedule, which is perfect for a little game we like to call Fantasy Throwdown. It will be similar to last year’s hootenanny. Look for details posted early next week.
IDP TournamentThe reason we don’t spell out acronyms like IDP very often is because we know we attract top fantasy football players who can break down expected tackle distribution numbers when stars Ray Lewis and Sean Lee are sidelined. If you qualify – or maybe it is time to learn – sign up for our next tournament that includes more Vontaze Burfict and less Trindon Holliday.
Player vs. Player StatsWondering how your head-to-head record stacks up against Players X, Y and Z? Sure, you could just count the wins and losses in your Game Manager history, but we’ve made it a lot easier. Go to our new stats tool, start typing your username, select and hit submit. Don’t get mad if you find one or two players are bringing your overall win % down. Get even.

Sign Up Now, IDP and Turkey Day

Coming Soon at the RSP Blog

  • My next Futures column at Football Outsiders on NC State corner David Amerson
  • A commentary on the thorny intersection of racism, politics, and quarterbacking in the NFL
  • Down the road . . . 2013 No-Huddle Series: Short takes of prospects under the radar

Views Part II

[youtube=http://youtu.be/kbslWQh-R_U]

You probably saw this terrific bicycle kick on Dead Spin, but here it is if you missed it.

Views Part III

[youtube=http://youtu.be/XVv8qWZ8xzw]

Neodymium is a rare earth mineral. It’s one of strongest of magnets, capable of holding 1000 times its weight. Hybrid cars use neodymium in its engines. Your computers and smart phones use it. Mining it takes enough energy per day to power 50,000 homes and water usage to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools. Because it’s found embedded near uranium and thorium, the process to extract the neodymium requires safety measures that have been problematic to say the least.

My ignorant, tin-foil hat question of the day is this: If this mineral in small amounts has this type of magnetic capability and our earth rotates and orbits based on magnetic fields then why are we digging it up? I know I have to be missing something about how our planet orbits and how the magnetic fields actually work that doesn’t include this mineral embedded throughout our planet. Otherwise, aren’t we eventually going to screw up the way our planet orbits the sun or how the moon stays in orbit? Considering the demand for the metal is expected to grow by 700 percent in the near future, I’m wondering if this is just another chapter in the book Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: The Shortsighted History of Humanity.

I feel pretty dumb to ask but my lunch hour is spent reading non-football material, and notice “hour” isn’t plural in this instance.

Football Reads

Football Outsiders Film Room: Colts-Patriots – Andy Benoit’s analysis of Andrew Luck’s drop against two-deep coverage is outstanding.

PFF Analysis Notebook: Richard Sherman – Sam Monson does a great job profiling the Seahawks cornerback and why “Revis Island may be about to become an archipelago, flanked by Sherman Island in a sea from which there is no escape for receivers.”

The New Old School – Chris Brown’s piece on Chip Kelly’s offense at Oregon at Grantland.

FishDuck – Rotoworld’s Josh Norris recommended this site for even more great analysis on this cutting edge Oregon offense.

Manti Te’0, The Example – Eric Stoner’s analysis of the Notre Dame linebacker at Rotoworld.

Non-Football Reads

Why Think by Numbers? While it’s difficult for me to buy the entire argument, which by the way probably feeds into this writer’s argument even more, it’s a well-written article that highlights the lack of balance in which we use the various parts of our brains to come to decisions, especially with politics.

Government Spends More on Corporate Welfare Subsidies than Social Welfare Programs – More fascinating stuff from this  site focused on the concept of “Empiricism” as a political movement.

Top Georgia GOP Lawmakers Host Briefing on Secret Obama Mind-Control Plot – If you’re wondering why I had that tinfoil hat question about neodymium just realize it must have something to do with the water around Athens, Ga. If Paul Broun wasn’t enough (and yes, I voted for Charles Darwin with pride), now we have an Athens-based group saying our president is using CIA-Jedi mind tricks to sway the country. You didn’t have to vote for Obama to realize this just beats all.

Listens

[youtube=http://youtu.be/1Pyt3OYVJOo]

Lianne La Havas: ‘The Golden Girl of British Music’: I heard this singer-songwriter on the drive to work. Elizabeth Blair writes, “the past year has been very good for La Havas, as she was nominated for a Mercury Prize in the U.K. Stevie Wonder also left her a voice mail message singing one of her songs, and Prince invited her to jam with him.”

Robert Cray Band: Tiny Desk Concerts : He had a big hit in the 1980s with his album Strong Persuader. I think he’s a fantastic writer and bluesman.

FantasyThrowdown.com Tourney

0 Comments read Matt Waldman

If you’re new to the RSP blog or you haven’t tried FantasyThrowdown.com you ought to go over there today. It’s free, one-on-one, weekly fantasy football with drafts that take minutes and are so convenient to do that you’ll find yourself in multiple games before you even realize it. Throwdown has PPR and Non-PPR formats and even IDP challenges. Challenge someone from the Lobby or challenge a friend. Here’s a quick tutorial if you even need one – it’s that easy to play.

For those of you playing Throwodown, here’s the latest news from the site about its Championship round of a recent tourney.

Tourney Championship Round, Trade Rule

November 6th, 2012

Just like the lead up to the Super Bowl, we took an extra week to finally get to the Championship Round of our Fantasy Throwdown “For The Heck of It” Tournament series. Our reason for the delay is less elusive to the build up the NFL likes to manufacture prior to its annual showcase event. Simply and understandably, Superstorm Sandy knocked some of our regular players out of commission from fantasy football. We certainly hope they were able to weather the storm well enough and are able to return to some semblance of normalcy, if not entirely yet then soon.

Now the Championship Round is ready to be played. Lets wrap up the tournament – or shall I say, tournaments – this week. We started with three, 12-team tourneys featuring representatives from each of the awesome fantasy football websites, Dynasty League Football, Footballguys and Pro Football Focus. Through Round 1 and Round 2, we’ve dwindled the field to a pair of combatants in each tournament to fight for the A-Side Championship, and four runner-ups competing for the B-Side Championship.

Each A-Side and B-Side Champ wins an official Fantasy Throwdown t-shirt. The A-Side Champ wins 7.5 bonus points towards their Leaderboard ranking. The B-Side Champ wins 5 bonus points towards their Leaderboard ranking. Each wins eternal bragging rights, of course, and if we had one of those fancy websites with badges or medals they’d get one of those too. Maybe some day.

Dynasty League Football TournamentA Championship
Shasta vs. mann231B Championship
EyeoftheGator vs. Butkiss vs. RyanMc23 vs. stauqmuk
Footballguys TournamentA Championship
Fantasytaz vs. WHUDEYB Championship
ffbobby24 vs. ChipsAndTricks vs. j0eo1s vs. jrnall2
Pro Football Focus TournamentA Championship
Mike vs. qryztopherB Championship
cwill0303 vs. TheKommish vs. Bryan_Fontaine vs. Scott Kuff

There are our combatants. The A Championship is a best-of-three game head-to-head battle. The B Championship is a three game round robin, winner determined by won-loss record and then tie-breaker procedures as applied in prior rounds if necessary.

Now I’d like to announce a rule change we’re going to try for the tournament championship games. This is the “For The Heck of It” tournament series, so we’re going to implement a “For The Heck of It” rule change. The new rule should equally benefit both competitors and add a little more posturing and cunning for these big games.

Trading. Technically, it is like waivers, but I’d like to call it trading. In each championship game, each Throwdown player can trade in one of the players they drafted in exchange for another player not already drafted (or blocked). The past few weeks we’ve really seen an increase in the number of late reported injuries causing some havoc for those drafting early and taking a zero when a player doesn’t suit up Sunday as expected. I’d like to try this trade rule to counter that. It is going to be a manual process, so take note, here is how it works:

  • Each Throwdown player has one trade available per Throwdown game
  • Any player in your lineup, including the blocked player, can be exchanged for any other player not already selected or blocked in the challenge
  • An active player must be exchanged with a player at the same position
  • An active player cannot be exchanged for a player you blocked at the same position, or vice versa
  • To trade a player, send an email, tweet or Facebook post to Fantasy Throwdown (a.k.a. Mike and Matt) indicating your username, the challenge name, player to drop and player to add
  • Trade requests can only be made from Friday at 3:00 pm Eastern through Monday at 8:30 pm Eastern. Requests received prior to this will be ignored. Requests must be made prior to opening kickoff of both players in the trade request.
  • Trade requests will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis
  • Trades cannot be combined into a single challenge, it is strictly one trade per challenge
  • Once a trade request is made, it cannot be taken back
  • Throwdown players are not required to use their trade option

That about covers it, we hope. It could prove interesting if players use the Monday night game in their challenge! Remember, this only applies to tournament games this week. We’ll see how it goes. This should help protect players from late week injury news, and maybe it will get people to take a few more risks in their challenges if a good injured player is truly on the bubble.

The tournament games should already be in your Game Manager. Good luck this week

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Reads Listens Views 11/2/2012

0 Comments read Reads Listens Views

Views – Part I

Although this one is obvious, Lance Zierlein knows his crawdads better than most. Photo by Hyperboreal.

Lance Zierlein has a gift.

The Sideline View blogger has Jon Gruden down cold (check out the final minutes of this episode). When he told Sigmund Bloom and me about his Crawfish Draft, I knew it was just the kind of nut-job humor that the football-obsessed would love. After you see this, you’ll never think of linemen “redirecting” the same way again. You’ll also learn what Kelechi Osemele and a crawdad have in common.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/I5wF27Sr_80]

Fantasy Throwdown

You wanna throw-down? I’ll kick your ass at no charge at www.fantasythrowdown.com

Yeah, I said it. Now step up to the challenge and shut me up. It’s free, easy to play, and addictive. Suit up and draft against me in standard, IDP, or PPR formats. I’ll take you down regardless and I promise I won’t make your kid cry. And if you’re scared to play me, challenge a friend – all you need is their email address. Drafts take 10 minutes if you’re both online. Play as much as you like and (except when you face me) trash-talking is optional. Get started here.

Football Reads

I’m a big fan of the writers at FieldGulls.com. While the Seahawks have become my favorite NFC team to follow, I enjoy the analysis Danny Kelly and Mike Chan provide. While the articles are Seattle-focused, the themes are universal to the game.

The Jason Jones Effect by Mike Chan of Field Gulls – Strong analysis from Chan on how good defensive tackle play can ruin the short passing game.

Jermaine Kearse’s possible role with the Seahawks – Ever wonder what a team sees in a player? This piece is a good example of “fit” as an important priority with personnel management.

Geno Smith’s Learning Process – Another excellent piece from Eric Stoner at Rotoworld.

Views Part II

I was weaned on two sports as a boy. You know the first one. The other was boxing. I was fortunate enough to see the final decades where the heavyweight division mattered in sport. The three boxers in these two videos – Earnie Shavers, Larry Holmes, and Ken Norton, Sr. – would have beaten the best heavyweights of the past 30 years when they were in their prime.

Earnie Shavers

Shavers never won the championship, but he was one of the most feared opponents during an era packed with great boxers. If I were to give you my football-obsessed equivalent, Shavers was the Frank Gore of fighters. Check out the 2:55 mark for this one particular knockout if you don’t have time for the full video. It’s a savagely beautiful combination of a counter punch.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/6oVgH6sIBuc]

Larry Holmes

Holmes was one of my favorite boxers because of his excellent chin and trip hammer of a left jab. One of the most memorable events of my sports childhood was this Holmes-Norton fight below. If you didn’t know, Norton’s son was a star linebacker at UCLA and the 49ers. He’s been a coach with Pete Carroll at USC and now Seattle.

JayeP does a great job of describing its significance in the sport:

“I would consider this the last great fight of the Golden Age of the Heavyweights. This last round pretty much sums up the heavyweight division in the 70’s. I remember seeing this fight on TV. I’m more impressed by it now. Two guys, no technique. Just a burning desire to win, willing to stand in the middle of the ring and trade punches that would kill most of us. By far the greatest 15th round in boxing history.”

I still remember that round because Holmes won the title but left the ring on a stretcher. That kind of effort won me over as a young fan. Here’s that final round (Holmes white trunks, Norton in blue) where they finish this war standing toe-to-toe, throwing and taking everything the other has left.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/IupyEYB-27c]

As much as I have concerns about the future of both sports there’s no denial that like most of us during the 1970s, I was raised with a keen appreciation for hitting.

Non-Football Reads

Sneak Attack: Voter ID Laws May Throttle Voting Rights. How big business wants to shrink the electorate

An Open Letter to Ann Coulter (Best letter ever)

Injection Wells: The Poison Beneath Us

How Companies Have Assembled Political Profiles for Millions of Internet Users

Thank You

I created this blog to promote my publication The Rookie Scouting Portfolio. If you haven’t checked out this tome of rookie skill player goodness, then I want you to imagine that unassuming little restaurant where the building has character, the service is great, and the food is not to be believed. You want to eat there every day, but you’re racked with ambivalence about sharing your find. You have the urge to tell everyone within earshot that you know who would appreciate the place and, as ridiculous as it sounds, you want to hide your find from everyone so it doesn’t get too big and it loses its charm.

The RSP is like that place to my readers. I get emails all the time from folks who thank me for a publication that exceeds their expectations and that the same time apologizing in advance for not being willing to share it among their friends. I get it. I also thank those of you who weren’t too reticent to share a good thing because it is people like you that help me continue to deliver a publication that takes months of focused work. It also provides me a greater opportunity to give back to Darkness to Light, an organization that provides sexual abuse prevention training to communities nationwide.

Thank you for supporting the RSP. If you haven’t taken that step yet, check out my past publications from 2006-2011 at a price of $9.95 apiece. Readers tell me all the time that the RSP has multiple years of value for fantasy football owners.

Fantasy Throwdown Tourney Results Round 2

0 Comments read Matt Waldman

Throwdown Tourney Round 2 Results

October 30th, 2012

Round 2 is in the books for our “For The Heck Of It” Tournaments. A few matches were still to be decided from the San Francisco 49ers-Arizona Cardinals yawner on Monday night.

For those who didn’t manage to stay up for the duration, Larry Fitzgerald was tackled half a yard short of the end zone on the Cards’ final play on offense. It made a difference in two of my traditional fantasy leagues, and here is hoping you weren’t on the wrong end in your Throwdown match as a result of that Kevin Dyson-Mike Jones-esque finish. (Sorry to dig up that analogy, Titans fans.) Continue reading →

Frank’s Flops Week Two: A Caravan of Panic

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Frank’s Flops Week 2: The Caravan of Panic

Will the Saints go 0-2? My buddy Frank who went 14-6 with this player-specific predictions last week thinks so. Photo by eschipul.


What a week! The Packers lose, the Saints lose, the Giants lose, the Jets scored, and Frank went 14-6! Hell, Roger Goodell even lost! What’s next, panic in the streets?

There might have been if the commish took the stand and testified that he put the hammer down on ole Jonathan Vilma and the Bayou Sinners Sam Jackson style:

“Yes, their careers deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell! Respect my authority…”

Yes, Rog, even you’re a loser. My buddy Matt Waldman is hoping there’s a line in Vegas where he put down a c-note that you’ll have to hand the Saints and Jonathan Vilma the Lombardi. He thinks its just too strange not to come true. Frank is inclined to agree.

The two normal things last week were the Raiders and Browns doing what they do best: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Here’s how Frank fared on his picks:

Hits

  • Dez Bryant plays like a college boy who says he’s “backed up.”
  • The Irsay-You Say Ponies defense.
  • Matt Forte saying, “I told you so.”
  • Dwayne Bowe medium rare.
  • Brandon Weeden needing rubber diapers.
  • Cortland Finnegan pissing off the Simbas.
  • Jake Locker giving up on Jared Cook by the second quarter.
  • Ryan Fitzpatrick getting his pipe shoved up his Harvard hind parts.
  • Ryan Tannehill earning a big Frank Flops welcome courtesy of the Houston Secessionists.
  • Late Night Larry Fitzgerald slipped a dose of Ambien.
  • Deangelo Williams robbed of chance to shine in Tampa.
  • Jermaine Gresham performs like a pussy (cat).
  • Denarius Moore not showing up to play – literally.
  • Ix-Nay on any back with a Bolt on his helmet.

Misses

  • Miles Austin blowing a tire.
  • Santana Moss out-playing the Haitian Waiter.
  • Football Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Proof came that Nick is actually a Purple Viking. Leave a cookie for Peterson lest you want to get trucked.
  • Fred Jackson thriving and C.J. Spiller barely surviving.
  • Jermichael Finley jilting Matt Williamson at the altar.
  • Demaryius Thomas getting slobber knocked.

Week 2 Flops

 Bears vs. Packers

The Windy City Bear Claws get flown west to Wisconsin with the hopes they don’t get shrink wrapped into a box by the Green Bay Warehouse Foremen. Don’t flop on Randall Cobb this week. He’s getting the Darren Sproles treatment. However, expect Devin Hester to wish someone would get the clue that he should have been Darren Sproles five years ago.

Chiefs vs. Bills

The KC Pitt Masters are traveling to Buffalo for some bison barbecue on Sunday, but they are gonna be disappointed because that meat is lean. Frank doesn’t want any part of C.J. Spiller after that Clemson Tiger ripped a hole through the Jets fuselage. However, give this hack predictor a slab of Jonathan Baldwin with a side of Tony Moeaki. Neither of these Pioli specials are gonna chow down in the Niagara Neighborhood.

Saints vs. Panthers

The Treme Sinners had a post-Vilma hangover thanks to too many shots of RG3 with an Alfred Morris chaser. Frank thinks that pain will persist when they make a road trip to Cackalacky to face Sir Isaac Newton’s freak show science project and a bunch of pissed off Appalachian Lions. Drew Brees will play pretty as usual, but this offense will be leading a second line Nawlins funeral march that ends in sadness. Frank isn’t expecting Brandon LaFell to repeat his performance from last weekend. Don’t get stuck with him this weekend unless you want the Rebirth Brass Band playing a second line in your honor.

Browns vs. Bengals

The Red-headed Rifle got swarmed by a flock of Never Mores in Charm City last Monday. He could have the same problem when they host the Polluted Lake Elves in River City. Frank needs to take a risk this week and that bold pick is Joe Haden blanketing A.J. Green. Wait a minute. Haden is suspended? Forget that. Green is going to make up for a mediocre outing last weak where he dropped two passes. Frank will go back to picking on Brandon Weeden, who is going to get a big taste of Geno Atkins and have nothing but putrid water to wash it from his mouth. Clamoring for Colt? Nope. Trippin’ for Thaddeus? Maybe.  Frank will again bet against Jermaine Gresham. He’s one of those big, bad-lookin’ softies that curl up and quiver when they get trucked. He’s the most overrated young gun at tight end in the NFL.

Vikings vs. Colts

Frank is definitely leaving a cookie for Saint Adrian Peterson every week without fail. Frank may be naughty, but he doesn’t want to get trucked. On the other hand, this looks like a game where Percy Harvin gets a day off, and it won’t be for a migraine. St. Peterson’s Purple Henchmen say they want to be careful about Big Daddy’s knee, but they’re not in charge.

The rest will be available later this week at Fantasy Throwdown.com