Nerds on Sports

Baseball season’s over! And nobody cares about NBA playoffs! It’s time for the second most riveting time of the year: the NFL draft!

Here are some highlights:

#1: Miami Fish: Jake Long, OT. The only OT to go first since 1967.

#2: St. Luda Rams: Chris Long, DE. Some brief camera time with Suzy Kolber proved that Chris not only runs faster and hits harder than his father Howie, but also speaks at least as well. He’s practically guaranteed a cushy commentary job when he retires, so Chris has locked his future down.

#3: Hotlanta Falcons: Matt Ryan, QB. Chris Berman described Ryan as “personable,” a comment painstakingly crafted to avoid any argument. Writers slaved over copy for hours to come up with such a non-controversial remark. “Can we say he shows promise?” “Maybe, but …” “He’s cool under pressure!” “Except when he’s throwing picks.” “Hell, stick with ‘personable’ and keep going.”

#4: Chokeland Raiders: Darren McFadden, RB. I caught a bit of Michael Smith’s interview with McFadden on ESPN earlier this week. Berman and Kiper revisited it on Saturday. “Darren McFadden: violent thug or criminal mastermind?” wasn’t quite the tone, but it was close. My take: a man who’s never been to jail, who stands by his family of crack addicts and gangsters and who takes responsibility for children he may have fathered - even before the paternity tests come back - shines like a cherub at the right hand of God in today’s NFL. Put that man on a poster.

#5: Kansas City Chefs: Glenn Dorsey, DT. I like Dorsey the most of any of the first rounders. Suzy Kolber caught him after he walked off stage, commenting on his visible emotion when he took a phone call in the green room. “It was the general manager,” Dorsey said, “asking me if I’d like to be a Chief. And I said I’d love to. And then they put the head coach [Herm Edwards] on the line. He asked, ‘You think you can help our defense out this year?’ And I said, ‘Yes sir, I surely will.’” Dorsey didn’t relay any of the rest of the conversation, though, on the subject of how bad the Chiefs’ defense is, Edwards probably didn’t lack for conversation.

#6: New York Jetropolitans: Vernon Gholston, DE. Commissioner Goodell addressed this draft pick to “Jets fans,” meaning the hundred or so people packed into the auditorium who’d been issuing a steady stream of boos for the last 45 minutes. I don’t want to say Jets fans are the worst fans in American football: the Missoula Babyspikers have a particularly grotesque halftime show, and the less said about the Portland Luftwaffe the better. About Gholston: he’s played competitively both at linebacker and at defensive end, making him a coveted multi-tool player. Which should be handy for the multiple tools filling the seats at Jets Stadium every year.

#7: New Orleans Aints: Sedrick Ellis, DT. Our first bit of draft chicanery. Bill Belichick, crafty sonuvabitch^* that he is, traded the 49ers for a first round pick - and then traded this #7 spot with New Orleans! Always thinking, that guy.

#8: Jacksonville Jagoffs, Derrick Harvey, DE. Perich at T-minus-five minutes: All right! #8! The Ravens can snatch up Dominique Rogers-Cromartie! Perich at T-minus-two minutes: The Ravens traded their draft pick? Newsome! Harbaugh! What are you thinking? Perich at T-plus-five minutes: Okay, so they traded 1 draft pick for 3 others. All right. It’s cool. We’re all cool here. I’ll clean that beer off the wall later.

#9: Cincinnati Bangles, Keith Rivers, LB. The integrity of the draft gets compromised! Hidden cameras in the Rivers’ household^** capture young master Rivers receiving a phone call. His college chum then hands him a Bengals cap, which he proudly and prominently wears for many minutes before Commission Goodell can take the stage! Shock and horror! Dishonor and taint! We learned what team he’d be playing on before we were supposed to! What’s next?

#10: New England Patsies, Read more »

It’s never too early to start talking about football.

Scary Movie VIII: if Internet pervs can cackle over Britney Spears’ declining career in the hopes that she’ll go topless when she hits bottom, then sports nerds can wait for the day that Brady Quinn appears in a Wayans Bros. movie, signalling his own demise. Quinn, if you’ll recall, held out last season (after the Browns bent over backwards to draft him) and held a clipboard for fifteen weeks. He’s apparently still fighting for the starting job this year. I think “second string for the Cleveland Browns” has become my new euphemism for “surprisingly bad.”

Lines and Corners: The NFL combine has come and gone. The story this year: linebacks and cornerbacks. Scouts oohed over the raw speed of Dominique Rogers-Cromartie and Leodis McKelvin and aahed over the massive power of Jordan Dizon, Cliff Avril and Geno Hayes. Apparently someone watched a game this past February and noted that Defense Wins Championships.

As Of Someone Gently Rapping: Speaking of the only championship in the last decade owed entirely to defensive play, the Ravens are looking to buy! CBs Chris McAllister and Samari Rolle look pretty shaky this season - the former’s coming off of knee surgery; the latter, a mild case of epilepsy. Cromartie’s unlikely to fall to the #8 slot - this is a hot year for cornerbacks - but McKelvin might, or Mike Jenkins out of South Florida. The Ravens already have some decent tools on the offense, like a Heisman-winning QB ready to step into McNair’s ratty slippers. Shore up the D and the AFC North might be a place to play again.

Now that the regular football season is over, it’s time to gaze into the crystal ball of, er, the past and see how my many predictions panned out.

Ravens Draft Day Roundup (May 1 ‘07): I predicted good things of Yamon Figurs (lots of punt returns for TDs) and Troy Smith (Heisman winning QB; potential replacement for McNair). Figurs posted 1138 yards on kickoff returns with an average of 24.7 yards per carry. This put him in the top 10 for the year.

Troy Smith didn’t start a lot of games, but he finally showed us something against the Steelers. 16 for 27, 171 yards passing, no interceptions and only 1 fumble. Not that impressive, until you remember that he’s wearing a Ravens uniform, and suddenly he becomes the best quarterback in franchise history. Maybe. We’ll see.

I call this one close enough, only by virtue of the vagueness of my original promises.

The Game in Game Theory: (Aug 28 ‘07): I predicted that Michael Strahan would stay retired and that Brady Quinn would have cause to regret holding out. I was, of course, as wrong as wrong can be about Stray: he helped carry his team to the postseason with 57 tackles, including 4 solo hits against the Patriots in Week 17 and a herculean 8 solo hits at Tampa Bay.

Brady Quinn, on the other hand, started his only game of the season in the ultimately meaningless 20-7 shellacking of the 49ers. And then, only to sub in for Derek Anderson. And then, only to go 3 for 8 and all of 45 yards. Holy hell. Notre Dame’s current quarterback put up better numbers this season.

I call this one a wash, tending toward “ehh …”. I was wrong on Strahan, but I submit history will bear me out on Quinn. Keep watching Cleveland, I, er, guess.

Fantasy Football Woes (Sep 25 ‘07): I predicted that my fantasy football team would do terribly. The Baltimore Colts finished 3-10, 14th out of 14. Of course, I stopped updating my roster after about week 9. That may have something to do with it. But I prefer to blame the Champagne of Running Backs and his unapologetic just-above-averageness. I call this one worse than I expected.

Old Man Easterbrook: I predicted that Gregg Easterbrook would keep saying the most bafflingly dumb things. Viz:

In other football news, 9-7 City of Tampa hosts a playoff game, but 11-5 Jacksonville opens on the road, 10-6 Cleveland is eliminated and the 10-6 Giants travel to the 9-7 Bucs. Has there ever been a better case for making the NFL postseason a seeded tournament? No one cares about the AFC versus NFC Super Bowl setup any more: My guess is you don’t even know how that series stands. (Basically, tied; yawn.) The postseason brackets should reward the teams that perform best, and the best Super Bowl pairing — Indianapolis versus New England — should at least be possible when the countdown begins. The NFL could retain conference and division structure for the purpose of organizing regular-season play, then make the playoffs a 12-team seeded tourney. Performance would be rewarded, and pairings would be better. What’s not to like?

“Oh man! The Steelers totally robbed the Ravens in November!”

“You said it, Chip! But with the wild card slot, we’ll meet them again in the postseason, right?”

“You couldn’t be more wrong, Frank! Thanks to the Easterbrook Rule of 2008, we have to face the correspondingly highest seed in our bracket! Looks like we’re going to Dallas!”

“Dallas? I can’t afford a plane ticket to Dallas!”

“Then that’s a hearty Go Screw Yourself from Gregg Easterbrook to you, Frank!”

“Ah ha ha! Good one, Easterbrook!”

I call this one dead on.

Never Tell Me The Odds (Oct 23 ‘07): I called the Colts, Ravens, Giants and Steelers games to be the biggest challenges between the Pats and 16-0. As it turns out, the closest scoring games between Week 8 and Week 17 were the Colts, Eagles (?!?!), Ravens and Giants. I call this one close enough.

10 Link - Bobby

“As a multi-tool player, he’s got all the versatility I need. He’s a swimmer, comfortable in ice or heat environments and he’s a veteran that just keeps getting better with time.” - Bobby

Plus, his victory poses - done whenever he extends his lifespan, defeats a boss, or finds some ratty old leather pouch - can not be topped in its grandiosity. You don’t see me humming those memorable bars whenever I “discover” my lunch at work. Not since I had to switch jobs for…some reason, anyway.

Read more »

With the next professional sports drafts many months away, Nerds On Sports is more than happy to satiate your needs for pointless ranking and and serpentine pick orders. An intrepid band of nine Internet brothers thoughtfully and methodically, and certainly not arbitrarily, chose characters and figures from the wide-ranging world of video games in order to form a team that would…um…I’m not sure. Most of my requests to clarify this issue were ignored. It was moot in the end anyway, as we weren’t even able to complete three rounds before the thread was abandoned and certain members tried to spread memes about Full House slash instead. Anyway, here’s the Round 1 analysis:

1 Solid Snake - Brett

“Why Snake:
He has a mullet.
He routinely takes on Hind D helicopters with nothing but a gun. (any MGS game)
He runs around high security military base in a cardboard box. (any MG game)
He can ride a skateboard as well as Tony Hawk. (see MGS3: Subsistence)” - Brett

Can’t fault Brett for this pick, especially since I want a cardboard box like that. It would be handy for, like, stealing t-shirts from a shopping mall kiosk, or getting adolescents into R rated movies. Can’t think of what else it would be good for.
Read more »

Let’s talk for a moment about how terrible my fantasy football team is.

First, these are some ancient quarterbacks, and I starteth one of three: Elisha Manning (New York Football Giants), Philip Rivers (San Diego Superchargers) or Jeff Garcia (Tampa Bay Bwa-ha-ha, no please, stop laughing). Of these, Eli has consistently been the best, bringing me 12 points this week and a ridiculous 48 in week 1 (the only week I’ve won so far). Of course, the week I bench Phil Rivers, he throws for 300 yards and 3 TDs against the Packers (to lose!), so I clearly don’t know what I’m doing.

My running game: Maurice “The Champagne of Running Backs” Jones-Drew (Jacksonville Jagoffs), Deuce “And a Quarter” McAllister (New Orleans Ain’ts), Ladell Betts (Washington Deadskins) and Musa Smith (Baltimore Ravens). MJD has gone from being the most potent RB on my roster to the least. Musa Smith - a guy who’ll only get the ball when Willis McGahee has both his hands bound to his sides with duct tape and can’t tuck the ball under his chin to run it for an easy 3.8 yards - puts more points on the board than MJD. I have no running game. I couldn’t even ask a running game to the prom. I couldn’t even have my mom call up a running game’s mom, spend five minutes making small talk about the condo board, and then oh so casually drop the hint that, gee, does running game have a date to the spring formal yet, because Perich doesn’t have one either, etc, all of which I overhear to my deepening mortification while I play my Nintendo DS in the living room, paralyzed between the alternatives of entangling my mom in my dating life and going without a date, even if it’s some pimply, awkward, third-string date from UCLA with chronic knee trouble.

In light of my epic misfortunes, I started a WR in the RB/WR option slot and it paid off big. Not big enough to overturn my opponent (Brian Westbrook burned his body in a holy fire this week, rushing for 110 yards and 2 TDs before the Eagles’ repulsive uniform corroded his very flesh and returned him to Questionable status), but better than I expected. Derrick Mason (Baltimore Ravens) is Steve McNair’s favorite, Jerricho Cotchery (New York Jetropolitans) alternates between spectacular and sub-par weeks and Mike Furrey (Detroit) is just no good.

Only my defense and my kicker keep me competitive at this point, and anyone who knows fantasy football should laugh out loud and stop reading. For the rest of you: the Vikings D contributed 10% of last week’s points, and Adam Vinateri another 18%. So that’s more than a quarter of my team’s score riding on draft picks #15 and #16. Somebody hang me.

The available RBs are only marginally better (Jesse Chatman from Miami; Justin Griffith out of Oakland; etc). My best hope at this point is for someone to lose all of their QBs in a freak bus accident and be so desperate that they’ll offer up Joseph “Ad-do or” Addai in exchange for Jeff Garcia. I’m not counting on it.

Two children have a slice of ice cream cake to share between them. The longer they debate over what a “fair share” would constitute for each of them, the more the cake melts. It is, in fact, entirely possible that the cake will have melted by the time they reach a consensus.

Keep that image in mind while I talk about the most exciting part of preseason football: contract holdouts!

Rookie QB Brady Quinn made headlines by holding out for weeks after signing. Larry Johnson (KC Chefs) held out until last week before signing a 5-year, $43.2M extension. Asante Samuel (NE Patsies) just announced his return yesterday, though he’s still ducking efforts to wear the “franchise” tag. And Michael Strahan (NY Football Giants) is, as of this writing (Tuesday, August 28th, 9:00ish AM), still undecided. The man might very well hang up his cleats (sources say).

So what goes on during a contract holdout? What are the costs and benefits of avoiding training camp? Is the risk worth the reward? To find out, we turn to one of the classics of game theory, Thinking Strategically, by Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff.

Reputation

For decades, the nation of Israel had a policy of never negotiating with terrorists. The government declared this to discourage hostage-taking: if capturing a civilian, or a politician, will never pay off, why bother? Israel did this to build a reputation of not being someone to screw with. The downside to having this sort of reputation, of course, is that it turns potential hostages into instant victims. There’s always a cost to talking tough.

No GM wants to cave if one of his players pouts and refuses to show up for training camp. To do so would immediately send a signal that this sort of behavior works and would open the floodgates next summer. It’s in every owner’s interest to stay firm.

At the same time, however, the players aren’t chess pawns. There’s a world of difference between an Asante Samuel and a Randall Gay (2 tackles in 3 games last year). Coach Belichick may play it off like Samuel’s return is no big deal, but the defense he spent the entire offseason crafting in his Fortress of Solitude probably hinged more on a guy who caught 10 picks last season than a guy who sat for 12 games.

Samuel knew he was valuable to the Patriots. The question was: how valuable? That’s the kind of question that a holdout is meant to uncover - by watching the management’s change in behavior as the clock ticks and the options narrow.
Read more »

Baseball’s not over yet. Not by a long shot. Most teams still have around 40 games left, and the divisional and wild card races aren’t buttoned up. Plenty of baseball left, to be sure. Oh, and Beckham fever is going strong. ESPN reported that 66,237 showed up for Saturday’s Red Bulls/Galaxy game. And the Little League World Series is as compelling as ever, with plucky kids from all over the country playing their hearts out for a shot at glory. Truly, a wonderful time to be a sports fan.

And all of this great stuff will be waiting for you when you get back. You see, you all are going to be busy for the next couple of weeks. It’s fantasy football draft season!

With fantasy football being as prolific as it is nowadays, I work under the assumption that everyone I know (including you the readers) is going to be drafting sometime between now and the start of the season. I also assume you’re already researching your late-round fliers and trying to figure out which non-LT, non-Steven Jackson running back is worth reaching for in the first round. As such, I’m not going to kick down your door and give you a sure-fire draft strategy that will win you a championship. You already have one, in theory. (Unless you plan on drafting wide receivers early. If that’s the case, I’m sorry. No one can help you.) No, what I’m here for today is to help you marry your fantasy football draft into the rest of your life. To let you know that it’s ok to be doing this, and to not do other things in order to do this. To put my hand on your shoulder and say “Hey, buddy. You can avoid a child’s soccer game to do a live draft at your old frat brother’s condo.” I’m like a modern day Miss Manners. If Miss Manners was a bald Italian that comes up with inspirational nicknames for all of his players.

So below is a list of commandments and suggestions that will help you navigate the tumultuous non-draft parts of your life during this most sacred draft time:

Your girlfriend will not understand why this is so important, so don’t explain the specifics. Read more »