There's Always Someone to Blame...

Tonight my fantasy league is having a huge debate trying to determine why team Jailbait, who otherwise is substantially knowledgeable in fantasy football, would start the season a meager 1-6 with no hope in sight. There are several theories. The first has to do with balance. This week Notre Dame broke its 6 week losing streak to Boston College and therefore it would only be fair if the Notre Dame grad, Jailbait, lost to the BC grad, Golden Rules. That explains Week 7, but what about the first 6 weeks? The overwhelming conclusion can be summed up in one word: MICHIGAN. The owner in question has been canoodling with a certain Michigan grad ever since the football season began and the implications have been severe. The football gods have spoken and Jailbait must be punished, with Week 7 being particularly painful for her. Not only did she have Leon Washington score zero points and end up on IR, but she also had Brian Westbrook score zero points and leave the game and Chris Cooley score just 4.25 points before he left the game. The following debate took place and while it may seem to have gotten off-track, it left us with a simple conclusion:

Golden Rules: Oh, I didn't know that Sharon was a Notre Dame grad. That explains everything! God let Notre Dame win on Saturday, so He let me win today.
Jailbait: ha. unbelievable. but why do i always have to lose??!!
Blonde Devils: ...I have one word for you: Michigan. Yes, everyone, that's right, Sharon is dating a Michigan grad!
Jailbait: but i taunt him...........a lot!!!
Black Widows: Eve may have taunted the devil, but it still got her naked in a field.
Blonde Devils: Is that a bad thing?
Black Widows: ...Adam and Eve disobeyed God = bad thing! Sharon, stop "taunting" the devil. Jailbait: f*ck me.......i met him at the end of August.......ohhhhhhh what have i done????!!!!!!!
Blonde Devils: ...but you said she ended up naked in a field, presumably with a hot guy (Adam) so I'm just wondering if that's such a bad thing?
Black Widows: Who said Adam was hot and yes it is a bad thing! I know you are aware of the story, but perhaps you don't understand it?! God mad at you= bad thing. And on Alexandra's behalf...ew.
Jailbait: oh lord, and i didn't know Golden Rules went to BC. Jesus. i'm taking an ambien and hoping it will make me forget this whole weekend.........
Black Widows: Going to bed. Sharon, say 21 Hail Marys and then go to bed.
Jailbait: I'm going to say at least 50 Hail Mary's, otherwise I'm afraid a bolt of lightning will strike the building across the street, bounce off, come in my window, and round the corner and hit me in bed. and it's not even storming out....
Conclusion: Michigan fans cannot be trusted...

The Boycott Persists (aka Ode to a Salary Cap)

One of my favorite things to do during the summer when I was growing up was to lie on the sofa with the patio door open, listening to the radio broadcast of the Cleveland Indians games with my dad. To this day, listening to baseball on the radio is still one of my favorite things to do. It's just become slightly more complicated with the suspect radio reception in my apartment and a sliding door that opens to a balcony overlooking Broadway rather than a backyard. But once the playoffs begin, I begin my boycott. Why? I simply want a salary cap.

The 90's had some of the best baseball I've seen and the Indians were one of the hottest teams around. And they did it the right way--they grew their players through the farm system and developed them into major league ballplayers. Lofton, Ramirez, Thome, Vizquel, Alomar, Baerga, Mesa, Hersheiser, etc. all for the bargain price of $35 Million a year in 1995. The highest payroll that year was just a bit under $50 Million and the lowest just over $12 Million. That disparity is a far cry from what we've witnessed in baseball over the past 10 years. In 2001 team payrolls hit $100 Million for the first time and never looked back.

What's startling is how those teams with the top 10 highest payrolls differ from the rest of the league in terms of their ability to play in the post-season. While everyone acknowledges the elementary argument that the highest payroll does not guarantee a championship and that teams with small payrolls still make the playoffs, payroll has an impact nonetheless.

In order to understand this, let's take a look at this decade. If one considers all 30 teams and the likelihood of a team making one of the eight playoff spots in a given year, there is a 26.7% chance. However, if one takes into account payroll, the chances change dramatically depending on where your team falls in the hierarchy. In the past decade, if you were one of the fortunate fans who's team fell in the top 10 highest payrolls, then there was a 43% chance your team would make it to the post-season. Even better if your team had the highest payroll, in which case there was a 90% chance your team would make the playoffs. Too bad for the other 20 teams...just an 18.5% chance of making the playoffs for teams not in payroll's top 10.

So I boycott the postseason. It's unfair, uncompetitive, unsatisfying and un-fun...and will be until baseball gets a salary cap.

USC's First "Touchdown" Against the Buckeyes on Saturday Night

Please note the left knee visibly touching the ground at the 1 yard line along with the ball in the same location, OUT of the endzone...

MNF 9.14.09

The oddest moment of tonight's MNF game between Buffalo and New England was at the very end when Suzy Kolber stood next to Tom Brady attempting to interview him. He glanced to his left and distinctly decided NOT to speak to her. Then when he started walking away, she grabbed his arm and the following conversation ensued:

Suzy: After all the time...
Tom: I'm going in.
Suzy: After all the time...
Tom: I'm going in (he starts to jog)
Suzy: (jogging with him) What was it like to lead a dramatic comeback?
Tom: What did you say?
Suzy: After all the time away, what was it like to lead such a dramatic comeback?
Tom: I can't hear a word you're saying...it's that loud in here (he added to save face)...
Suzy: After all the time away what was it like to lead such a dramatic come-back?
Tom: (after realizing he can't shake her he finally stops jogging) well it's not how we drew it up, but I'll take the win. You know, we did a lot of things poorly but I'm glad we got the win.
Suzy: Congratulations...(she walks away, pushes her hair back and doesn't look pleased).

It was pretty amusing to watch. In other news, the best moment of the night was when the Patriots almost lost...and anytime Jon Gruden spoke...

NFL Week 1 Recap (to the extent I care)

Chicago@Green Bay. Jay Cutler had 4 interceptions (a career high) and at one point almost threw three picks in less than 10 seconds. I'm not sure who's fault it is, Cutler's or his receivers or me for jinxing him by drafting him in my fantasy league. But I expect next week to be much better.

New York Jets@Houston. Mark Sanchez looked decent against a team that went 8-8 last year and finished in the bottom third in the league in 8 of the main defensive categories. My point: Don't get too excited Jets fans as he still has a lot to prove. As for Houston, Slaton needs to go sage himself and figure out where his energy is being thrown off...I wonder who he's dating as that could have something to do with it.

Minnesota@Cleveland. Adrian Peterson looked like a beast, Cleveland scored an offensive touchdown (at the point in the game when it didn't actually matter anymore) and someone please explain to me who was behind the wildcat goal line thing that failed miserably? Btw, Brett Favre had his 270th career start. I find that completely unacceptable for someone who has retired twice. If you are going to "retire" you need to at least miss one game so that we believe you are actually genuine and not just doing this for attention.

As for how A Girl's Fantasy feels about the Shawn Merriman incident in light of the fact that there's a $10 fine for domestic violence in our league: 1) He has simply been accused and is innocent until proven guilty; 2) We believe Merriman over Tila Tequila (yeah, that's right, the girl we all used to be friends with on MySpace back when that was almost cool); 3) the only crime we consider him guilty of is bad judgment in dating choices. As a result, we have instituted a new rule that comes long overdue, a $5 fine for dating reality stars.

Week 1 College Football Recap

1. ACC. Best game without a doubt was Miami v. Florida State. Both quarterbacks had career nights and offense was a plenty as neither defense looked quite as "fast" as predicted. Miami's Jacory Harris had 386 passing yards, approximately double the yards he's had in any game to-date. And FSU's QB Christian Ponder looked nothing like he did in 2008, luckily. Although they lost the game, a bright spot for the Seminoles is true freshman Greg Reid who forced the pick-6 of Harris with less than 12 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter and in the final drive of the game gave Florida State field position in Miami territory with his kick return. Luckily an ACC win was guaranteed in this game because it was a rough start for the conference. In non-conference match-ups they went 4-6, including two losses to FCS schools thanks to Duke (v. Richmond) and Viginia (v. William and Mary). Btw, the fact that Duke was upset by Richmond shouldn't be that surprising considering they did the exact same thing to the Blue Devils in 2006. Something to keep an eye on for next week is Clemson's C.J. Spiller. The holder of 10 school records was injured on a punt return in the second quarter last week against Middle Tennessee State and didn't return. Spiller claims his foot/hamstring (conflicting reports) injury is "fine" and it better be as the Tigers play Georgia Tech next week and will need to put up some decent numbers on the ground to compete with a team that had 335 rushing yards last week (albeit against Jacksonville State, but still...)

2. The Big Ten. They escaped with some extremely close wins over formidable opponents such as Navy, Syracuse and Iowa State (obviously joking) and once again primed the media for discussions regarding how over-rated and slow they are. As I always do, I will reiterate how this first week generally means nothing as long as you win. The only team that shocked me was Illinois and how terrible they were again Missouri. The latter lost Chase Daniel and Jeremy Maclin and still put up 37 points against a team that finished in the top-20 in total defense last year. And speaking of 2008, in this contest last year, Illinois passed for 451 yards and 5 touchdowns and scored 52 points compared to 179 yards and zero touchdowns through the air and just 9 points this year. Perhaps injuries may have been a small excuse for the Illini though... Arrelious Benn and Jason Ford left early with ankle sprains while Daniel Dufrene sat out with...you can guess...an ankle injury. And at least for week 1, Shonn Greene's absense was noteable. As a team Iowa had a total of 87 yards rushing, while Greene had at least 100 yards on the ground in every single game in 2008. He was second in the nation only to UConn's Donald Brown and somehow I have both of them on my fantasy team this year (I'll explain later but having two rookies isn't exactly a good thing and that's not even the half of it).

3. The Pac-10. There was nothing to learn about this conference this week other than the fact that Oregon has some issues. We'll see how SC handles losing 11 players to the NFL Draft next week when they visit the Horseshoe. Cal's 52-13 win over Maryland was somewhat unexpected but I suppose the Terrapins couldn't handle losing 4 of their top 5 tacklers and having one of the most inexperienced O-lines in the nation. Cal went 9-4 in 2008 and one would expect them to improve upon that in 2009 given the talent returning, the emergence of Jahvid Best, hopefully not having to deal with the injury problems from last year and the fact that the dizzying alternation between Nate Longshore and Kevin Riley at quarterback is a moot concern. But even with a certain starter in Riley, given that Jeff Tedford seems to hit 9 or 10 wins only every other year, I wouldn't be surprised if this team somehow ends up stepping down a notch.

4. The Big 12. The offense we saw from Oklahoma this weekend had practically nothing in common with the record-setting one of 2008. With Jermaine Gresham out due to injury and Sam Bradford going down with a shoulder sprain, the only familiar faces out there were at tailback and left tackle. And having 9 guys back from a defense that ranked 99th last year against the pass didn't help, especially going against Max Hall.

5. The Big East. Let's go UC. I tried to pick Cincinnati against the spread in the pool I'm in but the guys running it forgot to tell me that the rules require me to pick a team playing on Saturday only. Bummer.

6. The SEC. I really look forward to watching Alabama this year...and can't wait to find out which regular season game Florida loses : )

According to my Nonna...

Derek Anderson, or D.A. as the local Cleveland announcers apparently are calling him...still looks quite hesitant. And Cleveland still can't throw a touchdown in the redzone, but beggers can't be choosers and if the Browns are winning, I won't complain (too much).