A season of wēijī: (3/3) A Trip 'round the Gravity Well

Wēiyī:  Mandarin for "crisis."

Welcome back to the longest post in the history of this little blog.  For those just tuning in, Part 1 of "A Season of Wēiyī" describes how Time and Again, the team that would become my first fantasy-football champion, got started for its 2013 season.  Part 2 chronicled the Timers' "monents of wēiyī," a series of crisis points that strengthened the team.  At the end of Part 2, I teased the arrival yet another crisis in Week 9.

Entr'acte: How LeSean McCoy missed out on an MVP award

Time and Again RB Le'Veon Bell (26)
carries the ball for Pittsburgh.
(Image via sportsmole.co.uk.)

Before I detail that final crisis, let me go back to one of the moments of wēiyī from Part 2.  LeSean McCoy just ended the Eagles' 2013 regular season as the NFL's rushing champion.  The case for naming him the Most Valuable Player for any fantasy-football team is as strong as it is clear.  On Time and Again, however, Le'Veon Bell's Week 6 pickup assured the team's security at the running-back position.  Without Bell, the Timers would have depended too much on McCoy; with him, I could turn my attention to other positions.

In that light, it makes sense to make Bell, not McCoy, the Timers' MVP.

Moment of wēiyī, Weeks 9-12

By early November, most of the Timers' final roster had been assembled.  The last game of Week 9 was an affair between the Packers and the Bears.  With QB Aaron Rodgers still to play, the 7-1 Timers had already clinched their game that week.

Then, as the cliché goes, disaster struck.  On the Packers' first series, a devastating tackle left Rodgers with a broken collarbone.  No one knew how bad the injury was, but now the Timers didn't have a quarterback.

In desperation, I replaced tight end Martellus Bennett (yay! a Bear!) with Tennessee QB Jake Locker, who was returning from injury himself.  Locker, who had been hot earlier in the year, faced Jacksonville in Week 10.  What could possibly go wrong if I used him to replace Rodgers?

A lot, it turned out.  Locker lasted less than a half in his first start for the Timers.  He left the field having actually subtracted a point from the Timers's total.  Time and Again managed to win, but only because it faced a bottom-of-the-table opponent.

Fortunately, I had also picked up Philadelphia QB Nick Foles in Week 10.  He didn't start for the Timers because, frankly, I still had doubts about him.  Also, Foles still had his bye week ahead of him.

No worries.  When Foles's bye did come in Week 12, I just picked up Josh McCown, who himself was relieving Jay Cutler.  [Yay!  A Bear!]  Until Cutler came back, I enjoyed the luxury of choosing between the NFL's two hottest quarterbacks not surnamed Manning.  McCown's acquisition would be the team's last.

In the end, this crisis had the same effect on Time and Again that a celestial body has on a spacecraft flying by it.  Such a ship enters the body's gravity well, picks up tremendous speed, then, with a well-timed rocket blast, escapes.  Just as that vessel re-enters space much faster than before, the Timers emerged from this crisis as a virtually unbeatable team.

Time to par-teeeee!

Enjoy the celebratory soundtrack.  You know you want to!


How powerful had Time and Again become the end? Consider that, in standard fantasy-football scoring, 100 points is usually good enough to win. 110 is considered excellent, and anything above 125 is outstanding.

• In Week 13, the finalized Timers scored 150, and could have scored 180.
• In Week 14, the regular-season finale, they scored 144 and could've reached 171.
• In the playoff semifinal, the actual and maximum scores were 154 and 162.
• The Timers won the championship game with only 107 points, but could have finished with 134. 

It certainly did feel nice to have to select wide receivers and running backs from this roster. In fantasy-football terms, Time and Again included three top-ten receivers (including the top two), along with three top-ten running backs, two top-five quarterbacks, and the second-best tight end. Here's the final Timer depth chart, with the six players who were originally drafted shown in colored italics.

• Quarterbacks: Nick Foles (Philadelphia), Aaron Rodgers (Green Bay), Josh McCown (Chicago)
• Running backs: LeSean McCoy (Philadelphia), Le'Veon Bell (Pittsburgh), Zac Stacy (St. Louis), Andre Brown (New York Giants)
• Wide receivers: Josh Gordon (Cleveland), A.J. Green (Cincinnati), Alshon Jeffery (Chicago), Danny Amendola (New England) 
• Tight end: Vernon Davis (San Francisco) 
• Kicker: Justin Tucker (Baltimore) 
• Defenses/special teams: Kansas City, Buffalo

This will probably be the final season for Time and Again. Next year, I will be commissioner in a new family league. My team there will probably have a different name. If that team is even as remotely good as the Timers, I'll be thrilled.

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A season of wēijī: (2/3) It's One Surprise after Another

Wēiyī:  Mandarin for 'crisis.'

Yesterday, I described how I formed Time and Again, my best fantasy-football team this season.  For what ended up being no special reason, I put the Timers through a computer-run draft, disallowing any players who played for Florida NFL or college teams.  On that objective, the draft was a smashing success.

On the imaginary gridiron, unfortunately, Time and Again had a weak bench.  The good news is that weak drafts can have a huge upside:  if you've been stuck with one, you should plan to scan the waiver wire every week.  Keep this in mind as the Timers' story progresses from one instance of wēiyī to another.

Wēiyī Moment, Week 1

Danny Amendola, who was supposed to be my #2 wide receiver, took an injury in Week 1.  At the time, the free agent from St. Louis was regarded as New England's new top receiver, so dropping him was out of the question.  To address what looked like a temporary gap, I added Amendola's Patriot teammate, Julian Edelman, who played well enough to earn a permanent roster spot.  Fortune would have other plans for Edelman, but the Timers made it through this crisis.

Wēiyī Moment, Week 4

Kansas City WR Dwayne Bowe, the only Florida native on the Timers' roster, proved to be a bust, and needed replacement.  The first move to replace Bowe had to also address the Packers' bye week.  Enter the Kansas City Chiefs, who would score in double digits for the Timers six times.  Their superior performance allowed me to eventually drop a fading Packer defense.

That move patched a temporary hole, but to handle this crisis, I still needed a new wide receiver.  For that, I needed Josh Gordon.  No one in the Timers' league had seen much in Gordon.  He missed the first two games under a drug-related suspension.  Even worse, he played for Cleveland.  Still, several fantasy-football experts recommended him, and I was desperate enough to pick him off the waiver wire.  He started for the Timers in Week 4, scored a creditable 7 points, and secured his spot at WR2.  Eventually, Gordon became the NFL's top-ranked fantasy receiver.

Now the crisis was solved.

Wēiyī Moment, Week 6

I would need both Gordon and the Chiefs in Week 4, just to squeak by for a 5-point win, because I was also looking for a new running back.  LeSean McCoy was humming along, but his Timer teammate, Ahmad Bradshaw, had encountered bad injury trouble  after Week 2.

My first attempt to replace Bradshaw led to the acquisition of James Starks (yes, another Packer) -- but Starks took a major injury the same week.  It turned out that Atlanta's Jason Snelling couldn't fill the Timers' RB2 need, either.  Time and Again had somehow managed to advance to 5-0, but unless I could find a second running back, the team was in trouble.

Snelling's Week 6 replacement, Pittsburgh RB Le'Veon Bell, ended up being one answer.  By now, Bradshaw had been formally placed on injured reserve, so I also picked up Chicago wide receiver Alshon Jeffery.  [Yay! A Bear!]  Both started immediately, making small contributions as the Timers turned in the first of four 130-point performances.  Both would also reach the NFL fantasy-leader board by season's end.  Crisis solved.

Non-wēiyī Moment, Week 8

With the wide receiver and running back positions secure (and Aaron Rodgers still online), it was time to start improving my flex position.  Week 8 brought an opportunity to snag another rising star, St. Louis RB Zac Stacy.  He also proved to be a critical success; from here on, he, Bell, Jeffery and Amendola would be fighting for the RB2 and flex positions.  [And the perfectly capable Julian Edelman would end up the odd man off the Time and Again roster.]

As the Packers and Bears started play on Monday night, 4 November 2013, the Timers had already assured themselves another win.  With three major crises successfully resolved, they were about to go to 9-0, with no one to challenge them.

In the conclusion:  Time and Again confronts its most dangerous moment of wēiyī.

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A season of wēijī: (1/3) Bizarro Protest Staging

The graphic above shows the Mandarin word wēijī, which translates into English as "crisis."  In a famous 1959 speech, John F. Kennedy propagated an old, inaccurate American meme, correctly identifying the left-hand character (wēi, in pinyin spelling) as a symbol of "danger," only to then mistake the right-side character (jī) as "opportunity."  A more accurate translation of jī would render something closer to "turning point."  No knowledge of any Chinese words is needed to view a dangerous turning point as a crisis.

When I won my first fantasy-football championship last week, my first thought was that I deserved it.  Time and Again, which started its second season as my 'C' team, averaged 113 points over its 15-1 season.  At season's end, the Timers were so deep at wide receiver and running back, top-flight players like A.J. Green, Zac Stacy, LeVeon Bell and Alshon Jeffery were fighting for three starting spots.  Their only loss came when their starting quarterback sustained a season-ending injury early in his game.

On further reflection, though, Time and Again didn't start out with such power.  In fact, it was only through a completely silly origin, followed by several turning points that could have easily doomed them to oblivion, that the Timers gave me what may be the best fantasy-football season I'll ever have.

Join me, then, on a trip through this season of wēijī.

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As miserably as the Timers struggled in their debut season on the NFL site (missing the playoffs before dropping two consolation-bracket games), I decided to use them as an experimental team for 2013.  I wasn't sure what the experiment would be, but the Timers would be the platform.

Enter the Trayvon Martin fiasco.

It would've been possible to form a fantasy-football team as a protest against the Martin-Zimmerman case, which had ended just weeks before the fantasy drafts.  I would punish the entire State of Florida by excluding from my team any player who (a) played for the Buccaneers, Dolphins or Jaguars; or (b) entered the NFL from a Florida college.

Let me start counting the reasons why this protest proposal was stupid.

• Why wait for a racially-charged murder trial?  Botching a Presidential election, electing Lex Luthor's evil twin, and just being Florida hadn't already provided excuses?
• A serious "protest" would also exclude players who grew up in Florida.  [But as I'll show presently, that additional exclusion would have made almost no difference.]
• Many, if not most, of the excluded players would be African Americans.  I'm not sure how that helps anyone.  A case could be made that exclusion could hurt the affected players -- but said players would have to care in the first place.
• Even setting those aside, an effective protest has to at least inconvenience the protester.  Moving player names around on a smart phone every week is not an inconvenience.

On these bases, a 15-1 championship team constitutes -- how do they say it in 2013?

Oh yeah: EPIC FAIL.¹

But still...

Blowing away the pretext for a no-Floridan team was a satisfying exercise, but it didn't actually affect the idea of a team without Floridians.  Why not exclude Florida-based players for its own sake?  Whatever the merits and faults of Floridans as a whole, there's no denying that Florida (a) has e NFL teams² and (b) sends many, many players from its colleges into the NFL.  Theoretically, a fantasy-football team without Floridians should struggle.

Having already created a custom draft list for my 'A' and 'B' teams, I copied it for Time and Again, then removed all Dolphins, Buccaneers, Jaguars and Florida college players from the copy.  Finally, I submitted the reduced draft list to NFL.com for an autopick draft.

When draft day finally came, NFL.com gave me the following team, in draft order:

1. LeSean McCoy, RB1, Philadelphia
2. A.J. Green, WR1, Cincinnati
3. Aaron Rodgers, QB, Green Bay
4. Dwayne Bowe, WR2, Kansas City
5. Danny Amendola, WR3, New England
6. Vernon Davis, TE, San Francisco
7. Ahmad Bradshaw, RB2, Indianapolis
8. Green Bay defense/special teams (DST)
9. Justin Tucker, K, Baltimore
10. James Jones, WR4, Green Bay
11. Tavon Austin, WR5, St. Louis
12. Kenny Britt, WR6, Tennessee
13. Ben Roethlisburger, QB2, Pittsburgh
14. Isaiah Pead, RB3, St. Louis,
15. Shonn Greene, RB4, Tennessee

As a Bear fan, I wasn't happy to have this many Packers on the team.  Also, past versions of The Ghost-Grey Cats, my 'B' team, had taught that Packer players could give a team enough points to reach the fantasy playoffs, but not enough to advance.

Of course, my previous Packer experience hadn't included Rodgers.  Perhaps things would improve with him at quarterback.  Then again, after Davis, the team looked about as appetizing as a plate of week-old garlic fries.  As constructed, Time and Again would struggle to reach the playoffs.

I had to keep reminding myself that, with no nominal Floridans allowed on the team, the result no weaker than expected.  The only individual player with any connection at all to Florida was Bowe, who grew up in Miami.  He lasted only three weeks, and no native Floridian would replace him all season long.  Even if the Timers didn't win a single game, I had achieved my primary objective.

Next time:  Let the wēijī begin!

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1.  Well, I had to use the phrase 'epic fail' soon, before the Internet outlaws it.
2.  Miami and Tampa Bay account for one team apiece, but Jacksonville contributes only about 78.18% of a team.  That's 2.718 teams.

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Victory Weighting: Liveblogging NFL Week 17

If it's the last week of the NFL regular season, then it's time to look at how Victory Weighting would affect the playoff races.

13:03 CST:  Here are the deviations going into today's action.  Early games launched an hour ago; late games start in the 15:25 window.  Dallas and Washington meet in the season finale, which kicks off at 19:30.

1. The biggest change impacts the NFC East and wild-card races.  Officially, they're messily linked, as two NFC East teams can qualify for the playoffs.  With Victory Weighting, though, the two races are separate:
• Only one team will qualify from the NFC East.  While the New York Giants (31 Strength) and Dallas (30 Strength) can each win the division, neither can catch Chicago (37 Strength) for the last wild-card slot.  Washington (35 Strength) can, but doing so would first earn the NFC East title.  Tonight's Dallas-Washington game will still determine the NFC East champion, but if the Giants win today, then Dallas becomes their proxy tonight.
• Consequently, the second wild-card race is between just Chicago and Minnesota (35 Strength).  The Bears would clinch with a win, rendering the later Minnesota-Detroit game academic.
2. Houston (Strength 46) can secure one of the AFC first-round byes with a win in the early stage, but in Victory Weighting, that wouldn't be enough to clinch the top seed.  For that to happen, Denver (Strength 48) would have to lose in the late state.  [The official standings give Houston the inside track.]
3. New England (Strength 43) can't win the AFC top seed (as is officially possible), but can still secure the #2 seed and its associated first-round bye.
4. The San Francisco-Seattle race in the NFC West race is the same, with one wrinkle:  Victory Weighting would lock Seattle into a first-round game.  The Seahawks (Strength 39) would then be fighting just to stay at home next week.
5. Finally, Victory Weighting would leave Indianapolis (Strength 39) and Cincinnati (Strength 36) fighting for wild-card position.  [Officially, the Colts are locked into the #5 position, and the Bengals are locked at #6.]

14:56:  (New York Giants 42-7 Philadelphia) The Giants' regulation win eliminates Dallas from the Victory Weighted playoffs.  If Dallas wins tonight in regulation, the Giants would win the NFC East title (and its sole playoff spot).

15:02:  (Indianapolis 28-26 Houston) The plummeting Texans' loss hands Denver the AFC high seed, and puts New England in position to steal a first-round bye with a win.  Meanwhile, Indianapolis cements the #5 seed.  [Officially, the Broncos would still have to win to secure the high seed, as New England remains eligible for that honor.]

15:07:  (Detroit 24-26 Chicago) It's almost all over in the NFC, as the Bears wrap up the second NFC Victory Weighted wild card.  The Vikings-Packers game would have meaning for only Green Bay, as Minnesota would be out of the playoffs.  [Officially, this eliminates the Giants, while the Bears remain on the bubble.]

15:24:  (Cincinnati 23-17 Baltimore) This result locks both teams' Victory Weighted playoff positions.  Because the Ravens and Bengals (both Strength 40) own the #4 and #6 seeds, respectively, they wouldn't meet next week in the first round.  Instead, the Ravens will host Indianapolis in the first round, while the Bengals wait to see where their punched tickets will lead them.

18:14:  (Denver 38-3 Kansas City) The Broncos clinch the AFC high seed... .

18:22:  (San Francisco 27-13 Arizona) The 49ers wrap up the NFC second seed, forcing Seattle into a road date next week.  Meanwhile, Green Bay will host a first-round game as the NFC's #3 seed.


18:31:  (New England 28-0 Miami) ... and the Patriots grab the other AFC bye.  Houston is stuck with the #3 seed and a home game next week against Cincinnati.  [At this point, the standard and Victory Weighted AFC playoff scenarios are identical.]

18:44:  (Minnesota 37-34 Green Bay)  Under Victory Weighting, this wouldn't affect the NFC playoffs, as Chicago would have already clinched the last playoff bid.  In the real world, though, these two teams meet again next week in Wisconsin, the Vikings having eliminated the Bears.  [Jon Gruden to Chicago, maybe?]

18:48:  (Seattle 20-13 St. Louis)  The Seahawks, as NFC fifth seeds are headed to the East Coast for the first round, but they don't know exactly where, yet.

Final update, 00:17, 31 December 2012:  (Washington 28-18 Dallas)  A Dallas win would have created a second Victory Weighted deviation in the playoff schedule (the officially eliminated Giants would have won the division).  But Washington won instead, so there's only one change in either the lineup or the seedings.

Here, then, are the playoffs.  The sole officially-sanctioned deviation is scratched out.

NFC
Byes: (1)Atlanta, (2)San Francisco
First round: (5)Seattle at (4)Washington; (6)Minnesota Chicago at (3)Green Bay

AFC

Byes: (1)Denver, (2)New England
First round: (5)Indianapolis at (4)Baltimore; (6)Cincinnati at (3)Houston

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Tuesday Night Football: Outrages big and small

On the Belcher-Perkins incident:  Unless the Kansas City Star completely made up this account of Saturday's murder-suicide, there's not much to be said.  It affected not only two families, but also the Kansas City Chiefs.  [Jovan Belcher played for them, but had he married Kassandra Perkins, he would have become an in-law to a much better known Chief, running back Jamaal Charles.]

Take the names away, though, and the murder-suicide becomes just another domestic-violence case gone horribly wrong.  Take away the guns and the entitled-jock mentality, both of which factored into the incident, and what's left is this:

Where did Jovan Belcher get the idea that he could "resolve" domestic dispute by shooting his way out of it?

There's another question about the lesser offense that followed Saturday's shootings:  What on Earth made the Chiefs decide to play on Sunday?  Was there a ripped-from-the-headlines script that just had to be sold to Hollywood producers?  Were they just hoping to avoid dealing with the fact that on of their own had become a murder (and a cowardly one, at that)?  Or were they just hoping to avoid having to deal with grief, full stop?  Whatever the excuses, it would have been better to postpone the game for at least a few days.

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And now, something even more predictable than The Walking Dead:  Here in my corner of the world, there was also amusement at the possibility that the Northern Illinois gridiron team would actually get invited to one of the five major bowl games this season.  For kicks, I decided to watch ESPN's BCS selection show to see if NIU got in.  The Huskies did, indeed, win an invitation to play Florida State in the Orange Bowl.

The outrage among the ESPN college-football commentariat was incredible, but I still can't decide why.  Was it incredible because the reaction was so (a) intense or (b) asinine?

Naw, check that.  I can decide, and the answer is (b) -- because everyone who's criticizing NIU's selection should have seen it coming.  For its entire existence, the whole BCS selection process has rested on the assumption that there were exactly six conferences that were automatically worthy of consideration for either the national championship or one of the elite bowl games.  That presumption never worked, because the Big East was never elite, but the administrative eliminations of Ohio State and Penn State also made the Big Twelve Fourteen Ten irrelevant this year.  Of course spots would be open for two lesser programs to reach a BCS bowl.  After Wisconsin took one of them, the only outstanding question was whether that lesser program would be Northern Illinois or Nebraska.

By the way, if the Huskies (good luck to them) do somehow win the Orange Bowl, it will be their greatest victory, but not their greatest upset.

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Tuesday Morning Football: Midseason rotisserie review

The short version:  Excuses line up here; explanations, there.  The season has sucked for all three teams, except for Atlanta QB Matt Ryan and the Houston defense, which are keeping both my NFL.com teams in the top half of their respective league tables.

The Fluttering Horde (4-6):
Office of Secret Intelligence offense,
Orange County Liberation Front defense.

Whose job was it to feed the butterflies?  You'd think that a team that has Ray Rice, Steve Smith, Wes Welker, Darren Sproles and Denver's Manning-to-Decker combination would dominate its 16-team league.  Yahoo! thought as much of my flagship team, The Fluttering Horde, projecting it to finish 11-2.

With just a bit of luck, the Horde would be on track for an easy division title.  In fact, just one 11-yard touchdown pass between Peyton Manning and Eric Decker would be enough to give the Horde an 8-2 mark.  Instead, the Horde -- losers by 1, 2, 4 and 5 points in four failures -- is stuck at 4-6.  Only its season total score, third highest in the league, is keeping it in playoff contention.

The Ghost Grey Cats (6-4):
Fully recovered from
their trip to the pet hospital.

Meee-ouch!  Injuries have hobbled The Ghost-Grey Cats, who spent three weeks without a first-tier running back and four more without my best receiver, Danny Amendola.  The Cats' higher-profile receivers -- Calvin Johnson, Marques Colston and TE Antonio Gates -- haven't helped with their inconsistency.  If they can stay out of the hospital, the Cats can still win a title.

Time and Again (5-5):
Against expectation,
winning on occasion.

Tick, tick, tick...  I'm actually pretty proud of Time and Again, whose personnel (particularly Demaryius Thomas) have individually exceeded expectations.  In a stunning midseason turn, the Timers saw Jason Witten go online just as they also picked Owen Daniels off waivers.  At the beginning of the year, I expected no more than six wins, but the Timers have made it to 5-5.  They're the best managed of my teams.

That mark should be even better, but the Timers' has almost as bad as the Horde's.  In three of their losses, they caught Jamaal Charles, Rob Gronkowski and Andrew Luck on their best weeks.  No such problem cropped up this past week, as the Timers romped to a 70-point win.

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Tuesday Football: No rules, no peace

There is nothing they can do to hurt the demand of the game.  So the bottom line is they don’t care. Player safety doesn’t matter in this case. Bring Division III officials? Doesn’t matter. Because in the end you’re still going to watch the game. 

-- Steve Young, criticizing NFL owners on an ESPN post-game show

The scabs who've been blowing call after call at NFL games for weeks went too far for the elebenty hundreth time last night, awarding the Seahawks a victory that rightfully belonged to the Packers.  The army of critics calling for the return of the real officials keeps growing.  Even noted union-busters Scott Walker and Paul Ryan have called for the return of the union refs.

When I heard the news about those two Republicans today, my first instinct was to dismiss their calls as the cries of two more aggrieved Packer fans.  That might be the case for Walker and Ryan, but what about their supporters?  Their ranks include fans of every NFL team -- including the Seahawks -- so team loyalty can't explain their newfound support for the locked-out NFL Referees Association (NFLRA).  Yet, that support is unlikely to extend to other labor unions.

The difference, I think, is that unlike most other unionized workers, the men of the NFLRA are in the business of regulation.  Sporting bodies may set rules for their games and competitions, but it's referees whose job it is to enforce them.  To do their job, referees work as teams, usually in opposition to the two teams that are actually playing.  [See:  Laimbeer, Bill; Klinsmann, Jürgen; or most recently, Harbaugh, Jim.]  Referee teamwork is always critical, but it's especially so in the NFL, where seven-official crews must coordinate their actions tightly.

The replacements who are calling NFL games these days may know the rules, but it's clear that they haven't learned to work together.  If they had, they would have long ago figured out what qualifies as pass interference, or illegal helmet-to-helmet contact, or even, apparently, a touchdown.  What we have here isn't just a failure to communicate, nor is it just a case of greedy owners refusing to pay the actual referees.

It's what happens when regulation itself is weakened to the point of irrelevancy.

Not that we're short of examples from other industries.  Recent history is full of examples of disasters could have been prevented with proper regulation.  Instead, affected industries have talked governments into reducing regulatory staffs -- referees, if you will -- to bare minima.  The regulators are still there, but there aren't enough around to enforce the laws.

And that's the way some industries like it.  The same dynamic drives the outsourcers of the world.  A decade ago, IT workers like myself railed against our replacement by less competent programmers who lived abroad.  We could prove that our replacements' work was so much worse that they had to work twice as long (or longer).  No matter.  The replacements were cheaper, any way.  Even when our immediate bosses agreed with us, and their bosses did too, it didn't matter.  The corporate head office wanted the cheaper labor, even if quality went down.

Which is why NFL owners won't budge yet.  The scabs do their job badly, and they're ruining the game.  But they don't care, because expenses are being cut.  Better yet, the rules of the game itself have now come under assault.  I can think of more than a couple of owners who might not mind that, either.

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Bonus Tuesday Football: They're back. Except for actual referees.

Illegal use of scabs, 15 yards.  No, 15 yards the other way:  This season, the NFL owners have decided to lock the referees out instead of the players.  Today, I counted at least two instances, in two different games, where the officials could barely figure out where the ball even belonged.  As much as we love to curse officials, it's better when they're the real articles instead of the subs scabs we have babysitting now.  Ugh.

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Introducing the Cat's three fantasy teams:  A funny thing happened to The Ghost-Grey Cats while they migrated from Yahoo! to the official NFL game.  On Monday, I set a draft order for the Cats and waited for the NFL servers to assign them players and a league.

And I waited.  And waited.

And waited until about late Tuesday, when I lost patience and told the NFL to just put the Cats in a live draft.  In a 10-team league, I got stuck with the tenth position, which should have shut me out of any chance for a superstar headliner.  Thanks to a couple of opponents who used exotic drafting strategies¹, Calvin Johnson fell to me in the first round, then I nabbed Matt Forte with the next pick.

Besides Forte, five other players return from last year's semifinalists, including my entire tight-end battery of Antonio Gates and Brandon Pettigrew.  Matt Ryan, another returnee, has two capable backups².  The trick will be to avoid the cockiness that sank the Cats last season.  If I can, the Cats should be champions come late December.

With the live draft over, I thought I was through.  I wasn't.  Rather than just moving the Cats into one new league, the NFL servers submitted my draft order again, and ran it through the autodraft for which I had originally signed.  When I woke up Wednesday, I discovered that I had not one, but two teams on NFL.com, in two different leagues.

Suddenly gifted with a new team, I decided to name it Time and Again, after a CBS Radio Mystery Theater episode that I've reviewed on this blog.  New team, new colors, new logo, but, oddly, four players who also play for the Cats.  The Timers drafted third, so they also nabbed Ray Rice.

Of course, they also drafted the likes of Cedric Benson and Santana Moss.  That's like successfully casting a "summon wolves" spell, only to have to deal with two Yorkshire terriers who inevitably appear along with the grey wolf.  Time and Again is solid at QB, RB and defense, but patchy elsewhere.  I can get to the playoffs with this team, but it will take work.

The Fluttering Horde might be as weak as it's ever been, but that's largely because the family league expanded to 16 teams for 2012.  Also, I had the first pick, which I spent on Ray Rice; so Darren Sproles ended up being the only survivor of the expansion carnage.  Peyton Manning, who made league finalists of the 2010 Horde, does return, backed up by Jay Cutler.  Wes Welker and Eric Decker, who served short tours with the Horde in the past, return as my top two wideouts.  It's not much, but that's the cost of having at pick at an extreme slot (first) rather than the middle slot (eighth or ninth) the Horde usually gets.  Yahoo! expects an 11-2 mark from this squad.  It's playoff-worthy as is, but that prediction is a stretch.


1. One rival spent three top picks on defenses.  Another drafted three quarterbacks in the first four rounds.  They can keep whatever they were ingesting.
2. Dudes, those early picks aren't going to help you, not even as trade bait.  But thanks for handing me Cutler and Roethlisberger.

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Late Tuesday Football: Well, I had to post sometime

Bored.  Busy.  Or maybe just outrage fatigued.
Via reallycuteanimals.co.uk.

There isn't a really good reason why I haven't posted for a while.  Yes, family matters are keeping me busy, but even those should have allowed time for posting.  I just haven't felt like saying anything -- at least not anything that someone else hasn't expressed more eloquently.

So it's football to the rescue again.  Whichever form you watch, it's all going in full swing.  This week, gridiron gets the blog love.

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Signs point to Gig'em:  I don't plan on discussing much college football this year¹, but Texas A&M's² move to the SEC has generated lots of smack in my family.  In particular, my oldest sister and I have spent all summer chanting "S-E-C!" at our Longhorn-loving relations.  It feels great, actually.  Now I know why Republicans feel compelled to shout "9-11" whenever they start losing arguments.

Yep, it's been every bit as clean as Jackie Sherill.

Alas, a fellow Aggie has taken the mocking to another level -- and for once, a university other than Texas-Austin is the target.  I think this sign is very funny, but my alma mater itself doesn't agree.  Hopefully, the Florida offense will be as inept this weekend as it was last week against mighty, mighty Bowling Green.

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To be explained later this week:

• Another NFL season, another year of the standings the way they should be tabulated.  I've refreshed the Victory Weighting tab for the new season.
• Both my fantasy-football teams are back in action.  The Fluttering Horde is still in my family league, and still on Yahoo!, but the league is now a 16-team joint.  Despite their move to nfl.com, the Ghost-Grey Cats have stayed amazingly intact from last year.

1.  Don't blame Penn State.  I was losing patience with the college game long before that school's scandal broke out.
2.  You suck, Blogger.  Thanks for not letting me use "A&M" as a label.  Dolts.

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Tuesday Football: Victory Weighting housekeeping

It's time for the 32 NFL teams to decide which collegiate stars they want for their team.  Accordingly, it's also time to post the draft order as though Victory Weighting were in effect.  Except for Denver and San Diego, no one changed its position by more than two spots.

Details are on the 2012 draft page, marked on the page bar at the top.  Enjoy.

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How Eli Manning can become 'elite.' And a Super Bowl prediction

What happens tonight in Indianapolis won't change my opinion of New York Giants QB Eli Manning, whose career has been no less a scramble than the one he pulled on that famous pass to David Tyree four years ago.  The Giants can win by 30 points, and he can throw for 500 yards and four touchdowns -- but even that won't make him an elite quarterback.  On the other hand, a loss won't make me think less of him.

What will put Manning among the elite is a 12-4 regular-season mark next year, followed by a win in next year's playoffs.  The Giants have done each during his tenure, but not in the same season.  If Manning does both next year, I'll call him elite.  If he keeps playing like he has recently, his chances are good.

But I can't call him elite just now.

As for tonight's game: the Giants have looked like one of those "teams of destiny," but in the last two weeks, they've been too busy talking about it.  Shut up and play, already.  Patriots, 24-16.

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Tuesday Football: Well, it's a start

It's been interesting to see which NFL clubs have been issuing pink slips this week.

Some gridiron pundits have expressed surprise at the Indianapolis Colts' firing of the Polian lads, but evidently, they stopped paying attention when the Colts won the Super Bowl five years ago.  Peyton Manning had covered up so many of the Colts' problems by himself, a disaster like their 8-Strength (2-14) season this year was inevitable.  All it took was an injury through which even Manning couldn't possibly play.

Here's an interesting, little noted aspect of Monday's management purges in Tampa Bay (16 Strength, 4-12) and Saint Louis (9 Strength, 2-14)  the Buccaneers, Rams are related by ownership to English soccer teams.  By that, I don't mean little third-division outfits -- I mean Manchester United and Arsenal.  The Cleveland Browns (17 Strength, 4-12) are similarly tied to a third Premier League side, Aston Villa.  It's probably a nasty coincidence, but all three NFL teams just finished horrible seasons.

As for the Chicago Bears, whose collapse lef them to fire general manager go and lose vaunted OC Mike Martz, Yahoo!'s "Shutdown Corner" column pretty well encapsulated their problem:

Maybe Martz wanted capable, productive wide receivers, while the Bears organization wanted Roy Williams. [Or Sam Hurd, who turned out to be as incompetent at dealing drugs as catching Jay Cutler passes.]

Trust me, Chicago and its environs are celebrating.  I'm celebrating, too, as evidenced by the haiku now gracing this blog's title bar.

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Victory Weighting update: With two big exceptions, this year's Victory Weighting tracked the official standings exceptionally well.  11 of the 12 playoff teams showed up in the correct order, as did the top six draft picks.  Overall, Victory Weighting needed only five tiebreakers, including three for draft order.  The exceptions are two teams I've already covered at length:

• Denver would miss the playoffs.  San Diego would host the Steelers in their place.  It's too bad, really; I'd like to have seen a stake put through Tebowmania™ a year early.
• Despite a better winning percentage than Seattle, Arizona would finish third in the NFC West behind the Seahawks, because the Cardinals have a lower Strength.

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Tuesday Football: Victory Weighting in Action, Week 17

The AFC West scenario generated by Victory Weighting this season got even more dramatic, thanks to the, um, re-humanization of Tim Tebow last Saturday in Buffalo. The most obvious evidence is reflected in the standings:

Official AFC West W-L Denver 8-7 Oakland 8-7 San Diego 7-8 Kansas City 6-9

Victory Weighted AFC West Strength W-L Oakland 31 8-7 San Diego 30 7-8 Denver 29 8-7 Kansas City 24 6-9

In the official playoff scenario:

• Oakland can still qualify as an AFC wild card (but Denver cannot).
• San Diego is eliminated, because the Chargers would lose any tiebreaker with Oakland or Denver.
• Denver wins the division with a win or tie, or an Oakland loss or tie.

Under Victory Weighting, though, the situation is far different, in large part because everyone in the NFL is engaged in divisional play this week.

• Oakland could not qualify as a wild card, because it cannot match sixth-seeded Cincinnati's 36 Strength.
• The San Diego-Oakland game would essentially function as a play-in game, with the winner capturing the AFC West. A tie favors the Raiders unless Denver wins in regulation.
• Denver would qualify only with a regulation win and a Charger-Raider tie. Any other combination would eliminate the Broncos.

With Oakland removed from it, the Victory Weighted AFC wild-card race would also simplify. Cincinnati qualifies outright with even an overtime loss to Baltimore.

If the Bengals do lose in regulation, then Tennessee and the New York Jets become eligible with regulation wins.

• Neither the Titans or Jets wins in regulation: Cincinnati advances outright.
• Only the Titans win in regulation: The Bengals defeated the Titans, 24-17, in Week 9. Cincinnati advances.
• Only the Jets win in regulation: The Bengals and Jets did not meet, but the Jets would have 28 Strength over AFC games, while the Bengals would have only 24. New York Jets advance.
• Both the Titans and Jets win in regulation: The Bengals are eliminated with the lowest Strength over AFC games (24). The Titans and Jets, who did not meet this season, would each have 28 Strength (7-5) over AFC games. Then, the Titans win the common-opponent tiebreaker over the Jets. Tennessee advances.

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Tuesday Football: Victory Weighting in action. Plus: All-Gigli!

I know that not many people have been viewing my Victory Weighting posts, but this is the best time of year for one.  This year is pretty quiet, with only four teams directly affected, but my little standings system would wreak the most havoc about right now.

To quickly review:  Victory Weighting assigns up to four points per game to each team, depending on whether

1. the team won, lost or tied and 
2. the game required overtime (indeed, it's overtime that the system weights.)

Teams are then ranked by total Strength over the season, with winning percentage providing the first tiebreaker.  A full explanation of the system appears on the Victory Weighting page.

Who's being affected the most?

Denver (Strength 29, 8-6) and San Diego (Strength 30, 7-7)

Officially, the Broncos lead the AFC West with the division's best winning percentage.  Most 8-win teams have Strength 32, but three of the Broncos's wins -- all under the new Tim Tebow regime -- came in overtime. That reduces the Broncos' Strength score to 29.

By contrast, San Diego stands at 7-7, officially second in the AFC West. Two Charger losses, including one to Denver, also came in overtime, so the Chargers's Strength score has increased from 28 to 30. Since Victory Weighting ranks teams by Strength, the Broncos would actually be trailing the Chargers. Maybe Tebow wouldn't be getting so much worship over on ESPN. This may seem wrong, but remember: it's the four overtime games involved here that are being "weighted."  Tebow-Fascist Zombie Brigade™ protests notwithstanding, Victory Weighting is working as I intended it.

Arizona (Strength 25, 7-7)

Like the Broncos, the Cardinals are 3-0 in overtime games. That reduces their Strength from 28 (the standard for 7-win teams) to 25. Unfortunately, it also means that the Cardinals can end the season with (at best) Strength 33, two less than current sixth-seed Detroit. Victory Weighting would thus eliminate the Cardinals, who are still officially in contention for a wild-card bid, from the playoffs.

Atlanta (Strength 37, 9-5)

Officially, the Falcons haven't secured a playoff bid. Victory Weighting wouldn't qualify them right now, but it would make their life much easier. Right now, Chicago, Seattle, the New York Giants and Arizona -- all 7-7 -- all threaten the Falcons' playoff position. Under Victory Weighting, Arizona is eliminated, and neither Seattle nor the Giants (both Strength 28) can overtake the Falcons. That would leave the fading Bears (Strength 29) as the only team that can still eliminate the Falcons. Even another overtime result in New Orleans this weekend would clinch a playoff bid. Merry Christmas, Atlanta.

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Introducing the All-Gigli Team!  Believe it or not, there are fantasy-football leagues where the object is to create the worst team possible.  Unfortunately, I didn't play in such a league, so where could I put players who absolutely, positively failed my teams at critical times?  Why, in a team named after one of the worst box-office flops ever.  My tight ends and defenses all did a great job when called to duty, so two extra spots opened for more players who hurt the Fluttering Horde and/or the Ghost-Grey Cats.  The more detailed excuses appear in the newly added All-Gigli page (click on the tab at the top of this page), but here's the quick list.  Decide for yourself which of these suspects requires as much maintenance as Jennifer Lopez.

• Quarterbacks:  Curtis Painter (Ind)
• Wide receivers:  Pierre Garçon (Ind), Greg Little (Cle), James Jones (GB)
• Running backs:  Marion Barber (Chi), Ryan Grant (GB)
• Tight ends:  None; WR Julio Jones (Atl) awarded empty spot
• Kicker:  Shaun Suisham (Pit).
• Defense/special teams:  None; QB Mark Sanchez (NYJ) awarded empty spot

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Tuesday Football: Why I still can't oppose the rotten BCS

On the surface, this year's Bowl Championship Series selection has provided plenty of reasons to scrap the BCS:

The championship game itself: I'm so bitterly disappointed that Alabama and LSU will have a rematch, I plan on finding something else to watch one month hence, like a Squidbillies marathon.  You could point to Oklahoma State's loss at lowly Iowa State -- but then you'd have to forget that the OSU community had suffered a major tragedy that morning.  The Cowboys deserved extra credit for even showing up on the field in Ames, not scorn for losing.  Even with that loss, OSU outpointed Alabama in five of the seven computer polls.  No amount of honest voting should have overridden that.  Score another one for big money.

The Hokey Hokie Sugar Bowl:  What on Earth are Virginia Tech and Michigan doing in a BCS bowl game, much less the same one?  The BCS boys just invited a team that (a) lost the ACC final, 38-10, to overrated Clemson and (b) wasn't even as good as the Hokie squad that lost at (essentially) home to Boise State a year ago.

As for the Wolverines, I suppose that QB Denard Robinson deserved to play in a BCS bowl, and their case for BCS inclusion was stronger than VaTech's.  But Boise State (Kellen Moore) and Baylor (Robert Griffin III) could make the same argument, and either would have been more convincing than the Maize and Blue.

The excuse we're being given is that Virginia Tech and Michigan both bring lots of supporters.  The common buzz-phrase is "to travel well," but that's just yet more code for "these guys are richer" than the likes of BSU and Baylor.  Yep, big money wins again.

But why not playoffs?  So I've joined the thousands, if not millions, who've pointed out that big money has corrupted the BCS.  But as the case of Penn State is showing us, big money has corrputed the whole of college athletics, especially the Football Bowl Subdivision.  Playoffs for the FBS wouldn't solve that problem -- and I'm not convinced that they wouldn't exacerbate it.

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A helpful miscue:  It's funny how, in fantasy football, something that looks like a mistake turns out to be a brilliant move.  Several weeks ago, I missed out on the chance to add Tampa Bay running back Earnest Graham to the Fluttering Horde.  With trepidation, I claimed Dallas rookie DeMarco Murray instead.

Boy, howdy, did that ever work.  On the same day Graham suffered a season-ending injury, Murray turned in a 253-yard, one-touchdown performance.  He hasn't sat on the Horde bench since.  With no downside remaining, I added Murray to the Ghost-Grey Cats the next week.

That mistake, missing out on Earnest Graham, has boosted both teams.  Now back from an injured foot, Ahmad Bradshaw rejoins the Horde's powerful rushing troika with Murray and Darren Sproles.  The Cats just lost Matt Forte, but because Murray's there to take his place alongside Arian Foster, they're likely to purr their way into the playoffs.

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Tuesday football: Potpourri

Caleb Hanie, the (unknown) future of the Bears.

Something I never thought I'd say:  "I miss Jay Cutler."

And, "We shouldn't have wished so hard for that."

To be fair, when we were booing, flaming, and otherwise disrespecting him, Jay Cutler hadn't been playing well.  We couldn't tell which was worse, Cutler or the linemen who were supposed to protect him.  After some nice preseason performances and a near-miracle in last year's Super Bowl semifinal, Caleb Hanie looked like a great alternative.

But then offensive coordinator Mike Martz finally justified the salary the Bears are giving him.  Finally abandoning his dream of recreating The Greatest Show on Turf, Martz shifted his emphasis onto workhorse running back Matt Forte, while convincing Cutler and his line to work much more closely.  It wasn't the machine Aaron Rodgers is running in Green Bay, but the Bears had finally generated an efficient offense.  For the first time, Bear fans could admit to actually liking Cutler.

Now that Cutler is out through the winter solstice, the Bears now depend on Hanie to see their run through to the playoffs.  Yes, he looked good when Cutler didn't, but he hadn't had to run an offense for two games that counted.  That changes this Sunday in Oakland.  Fingers are crossed from the Indiana exurbs of Merrillville and Michigan City all the way around to the Wisconsin line.  Brrrrr.

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Outlook not so bad:  Congratulations to the Los Angeles Galaxy on their latest Major League Soccer crown.  The latest question for the league comes from the status of David Beckham:  will he stay, or is it back to Europe for him?  Some columnists think that MLS still needs Beckham, but I disagree.

The problem with arguments like this one made by NBC Sports' Michael Ventre is that it assumes that the sport hasn't made any advances in the U.S. since Beckham joined the Galaxy five years ago.  Both the U.S. men's and women's teams made nice runs in their respective World Cup tournaments.  Well known (if aging) stars like Thierry Henry, Freddy Ljungburg, Rafael Márquez and Roy Keane have made real contributions in their new MLS homes.  Most importantly, expansion franchises have succeeded spectacularly in Philadelphia, Portland, Vancouver and especially Seattle.  All of that isn't going to suddenly disappear just because one particularly glamourous Englishman left his club in Los Angeles.

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Attention, SEC West woofers:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know that LSU, Alabama and Arkansas are 1-2-3 in the BCS standings.  I can understand why you SEC West fans are whooping it up, trying to mock the rest of us.

And I hope this makes up for the fact that, in men's basketball, your little division completely missed March Madness last year.  Not a single SEC West team made the field of 68.

No, you can't count Texas A&M or Missouri.  Try again next year.

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Tuesday Football: F#¢kin' mee-owwww

Joe Paterno's last public act as a "legendary" football coach was to essentially beg the Penn State Board of Trustees for his job.  Had he kept his mouth shut a week ago, he might have at least coached last Saturday's game against Nebraska.  Instead, the trustees fired him and PSU president Graham Spanier for their role in the Jerry Sandusky child-rape scandal, which may now be spreading all the way to Texas.

Penn State was right to fire Paterno and Spanier, but the consequences shouldn't stop there.  If even a fraction of what I have heard and read about this incident in the last week is true, then the university effectively harbored a serial sex offender while he was still committing crimes.  The NCAA has imposed its vaunted "death penalty" on specific programs at specific schools for lesser violations, so Penn State would certainly be eligible for some form of that punishment.  I'm not sure SMU-style sanctions are necessary -- those took out the entire Southwest Conference as collateral damage -- but it would be a good idea for 107,000-seat Beaver Stadium to sit idle for a season or two.

Also, a head or two should roll at a sports-media outlet or two.  Jerry Sandusky was defensive coordinator for a team that won a national championship.  Why didn't anyone ask out loud why he never became a head coach?  On that count alone, this story should have broken out years ago.

A lot of people have wondered how this could have happened under Joe Paterno's vaunted watch.  It's not my place to call Paterno a tyrant, but his power on the PSU campus did bring to mind something I heard on Chicago Public Radio's This American Life the Friday before the scandal broke.  [So far, I can only comfortably call Paterno an arrogant fool, like Bobby Knight.]  The crimes and victims are, of course different, but the media and police are just as clueless. Listen to "Petty Tyrant" below, and see the parallels between the Steve Raucci and Penn State stories for yourself.

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Tuesday Football: Praise be to Suh!

As I noted last Friday, the English language allows nouns, even proper ones, to double as verbs.  Of course, anyone with Internet access can google Google, and when 3-D printers become advanced enough, it should be possible (and with Xerox's permission, legal) to xerox a Xerox.

Now we can add "Tebow" to this list.  The Tebow-Fascist Zombie Brigades™ have declared that ostentatiously praying in public is "tebowing," because Tim Tebow has done it so often on the football field.  As it turns out, ...

... it is possible to tebow Tebow.  Somehow, I suspect that this amuses Tim Tebow more than it offends him.  Whatever floats your boat.

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And there I sat, hoping to get a decent wideout for Tebow:  To be fair, Colo Colo had its toughest lineup of the year.  Even with one good receiver, the Ghost-Grey Cats would have struggled to win.  But I really needed a good game from Tim Tebow.  Instead, his value went down, taking my hopes for a decent receiver with it.  Despite getting Michael Vick and Antonio Gates back, the Kittehs' receiving woes continued, causing a 97-87 loss.

While the Cats fell to 4-4, the Fluttering Horde rose to the same level.  Kevin Walter continued to solidly spell Andre Johnson, the Buffalo Bills' kicker and defense performed brilliantly as bye-week substitutes, and the rest of the Horde starters (and Ahmad Bradshaw) kept being bad-asses.  Only Dwayne Bowe's strong effort for Flying Hawai'ian prevented the Horde from doubling up yet another opponent.  Instead, I had to "settle" for a 115-63 win.

Both teams are sit at .500, but only the Horde is set for a playoff run.  The Horde is a serious threat even with Andre Johnson on the mend.

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Tuesday Football: Tebow Zombie Edition

Yep, The Walking Dead just got renewed.  Congrats, AMC.

For someone who only started his first NFL game two days ago, Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow has become an amazing cause celébre.  The coverage of his exploits in the last two weeks has reached such a level that people are complaining about its sheer volume.  It actually is amazing to see how many sports fans have pinned their hopes on Tebow.  But why?

Tebow is unconventional, and he likes to run a lot.  He's hardly the first quarterback, or the best, with those characteristics.  [His contemporary Cam Newton, for one, is better.]  Anyway, many of Tebow's (and Newton's) fans today are the same ones who glommed onto Michael Vick six years ago.  Before that, their attention turned to the likes of Randall Cunningham and even Donovan McNabb.

Of course, Tebow is the only white man on that list, so it's tempting to consider race as a factor.  But Vick was only a little less popular when he wore red and black in Atlanta.  Also, even though I didn't include Aaron Rodgers in that list (his style is more conventional), some fans do.  In those lights, the racial theory loses some of its force.

Race doesn't lose all its force, though -- and that might be because evangelical Christians can count Tim Tebow as one of their own.  To them, he may, indeed, be a great white hope.  I suspect that, as a group, they're following Tebow they way African Americans rooted for Joe Gilliam and James Harris back in the 1970s.  I watched my elders pull just as passionately for fellow Mexican Americans Joe Capp, Jim Plunkett and Tom Flores.

In short:  Tim Tebow isn't popular for his quirky quarterback style, or because he's white, or because he wears his religion on his sleeve.  It's because they're all in effect at the same time.

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Almost perfect:  With both starting quarterbacks and Ahmad Bradshaw all on bye weeks, and my receivers beyond Devin Hester struggling, I needed to make a perfect set of waiver-wire pickups and roster moves to win both my games.

It almost worked.  Between them, the Fluttering Horde and the Ghost-Grey Cats started four of the five best running backs this week.  Almost.

For no reason other than pure shock -- no one else in my public league wanted him -- I added Tim Tebow, and he started for the Cats (4-3) this week.  I could have started the miserable Curtis Painter and still picked off one of the league leaders.  Arian Foster and Matt Forte combined for 66 points as the Cats rolled to a 29-point win over The Pack.

Meanwhile, the Fluttering Horde nabbed Dallas rookie DeMarco Murray, who rewarded them with a team-record 253 rushing yards.  He and Darren Sproles contributed 58 more points.  Unfortunately, the miserable Curtis Painter did start, and his disaster cost the Horde (3-4) a 16-point loss to the Southside Hitmen.  A full-time NFL quarterback would've won it.

Next week, I'm going to have to decide who sits on the Horde bench:  Murray, Sproles or Bradshaw.  It's a nice dilemma to have.

Needless to say, I dropped Curtis Painter.

For a kicker.

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And finally:  J-E-T-S! Suck! Suck! Suck! Suck!

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Tuesday Football: The buh-byes of Texas

Like most extended families in Texas, mine has divided its collegiate sporting loyalties between Texas and Texas A&M.  I grew up a Longhorn fan, but then became a student at A&M, so now I'm an Aggie.  I'm also what my fellow Ags like to call a "two-percenter," a liberal (or even a moderate) in a student body that's been historically conservative.  It probably won't be a surprise to learn that I've never had any real animus towards UT-Austin.

Then again, no one at UT had ever signed of on an idea as stupid and destructive as the Longhorn Network.  Many mid-tier cable and satellite packages include the wildly successful Big Ten Network, so it's not hard to see how Texas, or any other Big 12 school, might want to have its own network.  Other conferences have implemented their own solutions, but somehow, the Big 12 allowed UT to strike out on its own.

What an incredibly stupid, shortsighted idea.

If a member of a conference creates a network for its own sports teams, and keeps all the proceeds to itself, doesn't that defeat the entire point of belonging to a conference?  Answer:  apparently, the other members are now to be mere props to serve the Longhorns, the way the Washington Generals serve as props to the Harlem Globetrotters.  Small wonder that Nebraska, Colorado and now Texas A&M left.  They saw their Big 12 futures in their crystal balls, and they didn't like it any better than Missouri does.

Since A&M left for the SEC, we've seen the defection of two Big East universities to the ACC, talk of the same at a third, and an SEC run at Missouri.  Only the Pacific 12's refusal to take on new members is holding the Big 12 together.  As the price for staying, Oklahoma has extracted the dismissal of commissioner Dan Beebe, but the Big 12 is still UT's plaything.

Unless the State of Texas itself intends to annex Oklahoma, Kansas and parts of Missouri, it's hard to see how this new situation is any more stable than the one that Nebraska and Colorado escaped.  Maybe Kansas and Kansas State keep some independence as basketball powers, but which athletes are going to commit to schools like Iowa State and Texas Tech, whose dreams of nationwide status have just been reduced from slim to none?  The Big XII X IX may replace its departed members, but those replacements will probably be schools for which life as a vassal for UT Athletics would be an improvement.

Even that assumes that the Longhorn Network succeeds.  If it fails, well, it's going to really, really suck to be the University of Texas come 2020.

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Victory Weighting administrivia:  Once again, I'm keeping Victory Weighted standings for the NFL.  Also, I've given my little system a logo, which appears on both the Victory Weighting main page and the standings page.  Click on the buttons on the purple bar at the top.

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Let's get lolcatty:  Speaking of suck, life has turned nasty for the Ghost-Grey Cats, who have devolved into a fantasy veterinary ward.  Let's review the team's top picks.  [Thanks, Yahoo!]

1. Arian Foster:  Bad hammy.  Might lose his starting spot when he heals.
2. Michael Vick:  Bad hand.  Concussed two weeks ago.
3. Matt Forte:  Healthy, but now he's the whole of the Bears' offense.
4. Antonio Gates:  Bad foot.  Out for weeks now.
5. Nate Kaeding:  Bum knee.  Gave out on the first play of the season.
6. Receivers:  What receivers?

This team has turned into mush -- the kind of mush that turned in one of my worst fantasy performances ever this week.  They lost 79-57 to a team called Let's Smoke Crack.  It gets worse this week, as the Cats face the league-leading Gridiron Heroes.  Frequent, the begging and meowing for ball-carrying treats will be.

The Fluttering Horde, on the other hand, delivered lots of Africanized bee stings to the Purple Dragons, romping to a 117-56 win.  I just love, love, love me some Darren Sproles.  Next up:  one of my winless nephews, Svelte & Vexatious.

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