Tag: Awesome Draft Picks

Personalized NFL Gear for the Just Drafted

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Have you ever wondered how they already have a personalized jersey waiting for the first round picks as they come to the stage only moments after being selected. Is there a speed stitcher on site? Does they NFL have jerseys made for each player for each team just in case? Well, the New York Times has the answers in a story last week.

Jerseys on a rack
A whole rack of blank jerseys just waiting for picks to be made.

Workers from Stahls’, a company that specializes in personalizing sports gearthat is hired by Nike, then jump into action. In advance, they made nameplates for each of the 30 prospects at Radio City in the color scheme that matches each of the 32 teams’ jerseys, or 960 nameplates in all.

When the Chicago Bears make their pick, for example, a bag with nameplates for each player is retrieved. The draft pick’s nameplate is taken out of a clear bag and given to another person who has put a Bears jersey on a thermal transfer press. The cover on the press is lowered tight on the jersey and held for five seconds at 350 degrees Fahrenheit to remove any moisture or wrinkles.

The cover is then lifted and a nameplate made of polyester Perma-Twill is positioned above the number on the back and is covered with a Teflon sheet to protect the rest of the jersey. The cover is held closed for another 20 seconds so the adhesive on the back of the nameplate can stick to the jersey. After the cover is lifted, a plastic strip is peeled off the nameplate.

In all, it takes about two minutes to personalize each jersey, which is then folded and handed to a selected fan of that team, who carries it on stage to the commissioner.

Eddie Lacy Card with Jersey
Is this really necessary? It’s like adding terrible wallpaper to a trading card.

If you read the whole article, you’ll notice a couple of things:

Later, Stahls’ will personalize a second jersey that is given to a trading card company that will cut it into little pieces and include them in a set of commemorative cards.

and

When a player is chosen, they check a list to find his cap size, and then pull that cap out the boxes of hats set aside for his new team.

Once the player returns from meeting the commissioner, his cap is taken away and later chopped into small pieces by the collectible card company.

Are there people out there that really want a tiny chopped up piece of a hat or shirt? How do they feel about socks, because I have a few that I’m tossing soon.

NFL Draft Day

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Happy NFL Draft Day! Will this be your first pick?

In other NFL news, Wes Welker was someone who didn’t take my Kentucky Derby advice and was able to come out a big winner. Not only was he dressed like a pimp, but he won and walked out with a stack of hundreds and handed a few out to random fans on the way to the exit.

Commissioner’s Corner: Keeper Leagues and Parity

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Which one do you keep?
Which one do you keep?

There are 2 basic kinds of fantasy leagues when it comes to how players are chosen from year to year: keeper and re-draft.  (An auction where all players are put back in the pool is just a re-draft where the draft style is auction.) And when it comes to keeper leagues there are very many ways to set them up.

It could be as simple as keeping just one player from the previous season – A franchise player. Or it could be as complex as keeping the same roster year to year – a dynasty league. Or anything in between. Whatever way your league chooses to run things, there should always be an eye towards parity. ?????? ??? ????????  

Why is parity so important in fantasy leagues? Because the goal of any fantasy team should be to win the league this year. Not next year. Did you join your fantasy league mainly because you enjoy doing maths and managing and spending money on nothing? I doubt it. You probably joined for the same reasons everyone else is playing: your friends and the love of the sport. You don’t see me playing a fantasy fishing season (even though I get the damn emails). I’m not playing because I don’t enjoy playing fantasy sports (I clearly do, I’m writing a blog about it), but because I don’t particularly enjoy fishing — especially from a watching others do the fishing perspective.

I’m also not saying that a team that makes good decisions over the season shouldn’t get rewarded with good keepers. It should never get to the point where some teams don’t have a real chance of winning the league solely because of the keeper rules. ???? ????

With that in mind, lets look at some of the methods of setting up and retaining parity in a keeper league. Read More

Commissioner’s Corner: Surviving The Off-Season

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Don't let your league feel like this

Don't let your league feel like this

This time of year is tough for the two biggest fantasy sports: Football and Baseball. It’s the off-season. There are no more lineup deadlines to meet and no opposing team to trash talk. Fantasy players are left wondering what to do with themselves. Well, The Commissioner is here to help with a few thought and experiences on what to do with the time.

Research – It’s never too early to start your research. Everyone does better with more knowledge under their belts. Learn about all the upcoming rookies, and who has the position that’s blocking them from being full time. Study the other people in your league. Look at the history and see what players they like – even the slightest upper hand in a trade is valuable. Pay attention to trades and free agency moves. Are they moving to a pitcher’s park or did they go from have a good offensive line to the Detroit Lions?

Keep The League Together – Maybe you all play fantasy football or basketball in the baseball off-season (or vice versa) to keep the rivalries strong. Perhaps it’s just a couple pools to keep people chatting about the league. ?????? ??? ???????? I have one friend who runs a fantasy football playoffs league. Rules are you get one player or the coach or defense from each of the 8 playoff teams to fill the roster. Points are only given to players who play each week, so having a RB for the Super Bowl winner is nice. No limit to the number of people playing because there is no draft. ???? ????? ??? ???????? Now even after the season is done, there are still players to root for. Maybe it’s only an extra month, but it’s something.

Winter Meetings – This is something my fantasy baseball league is doing for the second year now. We all get together at a restaurant/bar have some food and drink and discuss the future of our teams and the league. This is very nice for us since it is a keeper league and it allows people to possibly make some trades. I’ve heard of leagues getting together to go to games and then most people barely paying attention to the game because they’re too busy wheelin’ and dealin’ for trades.

Those are just some of the things I’ve experienced, please leave me some comments if you have seen or done other things or have ideas for what the league can do. ???? ???? ???? All in all, I think the best leagues are the ones where everyone is continually interested. Especially if that means the interest carries throughout the off-season

Commissioner’s Corner: The Constitution

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We The People ConstitutionHello fellow fantasy commissioners. Welcome to our corner. Here we shall discuss the trials, tribulations, tribbles, and elations of the job of fantasy commissioner.

Today’s topic is the league constitution.

Every league should have one. I mean it! There needs to be a place for everyone to go and review the rules and stop any disputes before they happen or blow up into friendship destorying disasters. As a commissioner, it will mean less work for you and resolving the disputes are never fun. (People start thinking you take sides and are unfair, turning a fun activity into something much less enjoyable.) Don’t assume that because everyone in your league is friends that you can work it all out, this may be true, but if it’s not then you are up shit’s creek and have no paddle.

Are you still thinking that you don’t need one or that you don’t think you can write one? It doesn’t have to be a spectacular document that gets displayed for ages in the National Archives. ????? ???? ????? It doesn’t have to cover everything. It never will anyway – even if you’ve had a league for 20 years, there’s still something that may come up. This is where you, as commissioner, make the tough decisions, and then add the rule to the constitution. In this way, your constitution is always changing and getting better.

The first step to building a constitution is to brainstorm and write down what you can think of. ????? ??? ?????? Go through the day to day and add that to what happens. Read More

On Draft or In The Bottle

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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

Our Powers Combined

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

Meet The SpartansScary 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.”

Dominique Rogers-CromartieLines 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.

Baltimore RavensAs 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.

2007: That Was The Year That Was

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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.

Named after the Michael Jackson song, of courseRavens 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.

This is MUCH better than football!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?

Read the New Republic!  Braaaagh!“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.