The 40ft Post: Here We Go (Again)

I caught a back-to-school commercial during one of the Raiders’ preseason games. The reason it caught my eye (or more importantly my ear) is that it was a bunch of grade school children singing along with Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again.

Those of you, my age and older, will conjure up only one thing when that particular song is being played:

Tawny Kitaen rolling around on the hood of a car.

If you do not see this image burned into the back of your head, well . . . I’m afraid we can’t be friends anymore.

Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.

Now, as always, you might be wondering why that little piece of information has any football relevance.

Two reasons:

First, our Miss Tawny was married to Whitesnake front man David Coverdale, while having a wonderfully elicit affair with none other than former running back, O.J. Simpson. She then divorced Mr. Coverdale and then went right into a terrible marriage with a baseball player.

The girl likes cars and athletes and former Deep Purple band members. IN THAT ORDER.

Smoke on the water, indeed.

Anyway, the second fun bit, is that I’m fascinated by the marketing executive who asked himself: “How do I combine sex and school supplies, and frame that for an audience who wants to see how well Amari Cooper has progressed for the seven or eight plays he might be allowed to play?”

Pretty ingenious if you ask me.

Certainly caught my attention.

Amari looked good and I really want a trapper-keeper for no known reason.

And it does make a nice little segue into my Fantasy Football thoughts this week, because for those of us that are less than a week away from draft day(s), it’s time to CRACK OPEN THE BOOKS and try to remember who the hell Thomas Rawls is, and why he is so important.

Now, for those of you that don’t read NFL news daily . . . you haven’t missed much.

Chip Kelly is now the coach of the doomed 49ers. The Russians accused Peyton Manning of taking Performance Enhancing Drugs (they obviously were asleep in 2015), and every player who was injured last year is quote “In the best shape of their lives.” unquote.

I think even ESPN said Tawny Kitaen is in THE BEST SHAPE OF HER LIFE.

The ghost of an eleven year old me shivered a bit.

Oh, except Karlos Williams. Apparently all he wants to do when he gets home is take his bra off and pour himself a very large glass of wine.

He was dropped by the Bills for being fat and unappreciative.

Thank goodness that’s not grounds for divorce in the state of California, or I might come home one day with all my clothes out on the lawn.

Now, when you do crack open those books, you’ll be excited to find out that the draft rankings are all over wide-receivers this year. Antonio Brown is the clear number one, along with OBJ, Julio Jones, AJ Greenery, and all the guys you could have found last year in the back of round two.

Experts hate running backs.

And there are some who are still convinced you should get Gronk in the 9th spot.

Go ahead dude . . . to each his own.

No one thinks you should draft a QB before Round 7, and if you do, you’re clearly on crack.

Says everyone who got Blake Bortles on the waiver wire last year, and no one who grabbed Cam Newton in the 3rd.

If you grabbed Cammy in the third, you probably had a good year.

But essentially, it won’t take you long to learn the truth, which is that it doesn’t matter who you choose as long as they’re the right guys.

Now when I set up my rankings, I usually start with the rankings of a seasoned expert who I don’t find too cloying to listen to or read.

CBS Sports dudes are pretty cool. The NFL Fantasy guys alway say the opposite of what everyone else is saying and some of the Yahoo guys take douche-baggery to a whole new level. And there’s always that one argumentative guy on the panel who insists on calling soccer “Futbol”

Fuck that guy.

And once I’ve found my expert and loaded up his or her rank, I tinker with it a bit, just in case my iPad goes down during the draft and the computer starts to make my decisions for me.

Like the guy who drafted Melvin Gordon last year with the fifth overall pick. Not that Jamaal Charles did me much better . . . like at all . . . but I slept soundly for three weeks in September.

I tinker because I would never pick Gronk in the first round. I don’t want CJ Anderson over Shady McCoy, and I don’t want Edelman until three days before Brady returns.

I also like to give a little juice to my favorite guys.

Guys I like to watch play. Old guys on the verge of making a comeback. Young guys who could supplant the season veteran in week 4. Arian Foster.

You know . . . my guys.

And then I sorta fill in the blanks.

For the record . . . however . . . tinkering with the expert rankings has not in anyway shape or form, helped me out the slightest bit.

Ever.

So this year, I will do none of that. (Sorta . . . I will fill up some of the later rounds with defensive players so I’m not searching for them).

But I won’t, I will not tinker beyond one or two little bits. Not for the first few rounds at least.

Also, if you're wondering why the picture is of the 2013 fantasy draft, it's because that's the first year I tinkered heavily with the Draft Rankings. My first three picks ended up being CJ Spiller, Lamar Miller, and David Wilson.

Who the hell is David Wilson, you ask. 

Oh . . . only the super fast, super slippery, lead back for the New York Giants who got hurt in the first fifteen minutes of the very first game and never saw the inside of the stadium again.

Ask Peter.

I did get Josh Gordon in Round 9. That was his year. His only year. And my only solid pick, and because of that, he became one of my guys.

But I will not be tinkering with the rankings this year.

That way, I don’t get seduced to reach for Josh Gordon in Round 5.

I mean, it’s not like he’s a curvaceous red-head crawling around on the hood of a Jaguar.

That would be Andy Dalton.

And not until Round 10

The 40ft Post - LoveHateRelationships

So I got a call from my dad a few days ago.

He sounded very concerned.

The reason he sounded concerned was because my book publisher just went out of business 12 weeks before my first novel was set to go to print.

I told him what I pretty much have said to everyone, which is that I'm at the bottom of a soul crushing existential crisis. No biggie.

You're probably wondering what any of that has to do with a fantasy football blog.

I'll get there . . . I promise.

See . . . the thing is . . . and remember that I'm still contractually obligated not to say anything nasty about my former firm . . . the thing is . . . I knew about four weeks after signing my contract, that there were going to be problems.

I legally can't say how I knew.

I just knew.

It was the same kind of feeling one might get in late September after drafting CJ Spiller in the first round of 2013. Or Monte Ball, who couldn't possibly suck with a QB like Peyton. Or the guy last year who grabbed Melvin Gordon with the third pick, or I with Eddie Lacy.

A running back who will now and forever be described by me as "The Jello Bowl of Rolling Sadness."

Then something occurred to me last night while watching "The JBoRS" against the Raiders in a preseason game.

He looked really good.

Like First Round Draft Pick, kinda good.

And then I felt a little guilty. The guy, after all, submarined my entire STD roster last year, because I knew going into the season "The JBoRS" is traditionally a slow starter, so I rolled with him about four weeks longer than I should have.

Couldn't help it. I have a particular fantasy man-crush on bruising running backs in high powered offenses.

The logic is sound.

I checked it twice.

But wise men say . . . only fools rush in.

(Note: that was both a football pun AND an Elvis reference. Or UB40 if you're my age, or Haley Reinhart if you're an American idol fan with your own Snapchat account.)

Point is . . . sometimes you just can't help falling in love.

Like for me, it's Arian Foster (whose jersey BTW is hanging as a sound baffle in my home studio).

I just love watching the guy play. It's like he's handed the ball, he reaches out, and then rides the wave of the defensive line like Patrick Swayze in Point Break.

Why did they have to remake that movie?

Leave my childhood alone you son-of-a-bitch.

And here's the thing . . . he's playing for the Dolphins this year. There's gotta be a water metaphor there but it's escaping me.

But they don't exactly have a lot of oomph when it comes to featuring a lead back.

(Okay . . . Ricky Williams . . . Reggie Bush 2012 . . . shush you)

Lamar Miller has been on the very edge of a break-out campaign since 2013.

That's gotta suck. Living on the edge like that.

And with Foster . . . I know . . . I know he's gonna tear some soft tissue early enough in the season that the person who drafted him is gonna wish they went with a kicker instead, but, I promise you this, when we get to the tail end of Round 4, I'm gonna be scrolling down the draft rankings and doing some quick calculations in my head.

It's just a thing I will do.

I won't necessarily draft him, but I'll be thinking about it. What I'm thinking is wrong, but I'll be doing it anyway.

And Foster isn't my only Achilles Heel. I was super high on Darren McFadden last year, grabbed him in both leagues, and when he started breaking my heart, I dropped him a few weeks later because I was saving roster space for Kniles Davis.

Had I only known.

Run DMC ended up being RB5 last year. So even if I didn't reap the benefits, I was at least half right.

Not so much with Kniles.

And, to strengthen my point, I'm not the only girl in the league who has certain proclivities when it comes to approaching draft day.

My brother's Inside Line-Backer Trigger Finger gets itchy at the back of Round 3.

Mr. Frank is a Jets fan whose signature move was to high five everyone in the bar every time Eric Decker got the ball last year.

Then he'd look over at his partner and say "See! I told you! That's MY decker right there, baby, yeah!"

I might have made that up.

Anyway,

If you want Drew Brees you better grab him in the first round, because Karen is gonna get him in the second. She's the nice lady with the filthy mouth I mentioned in the last blog. Again, she won last year, so I'm just gonna keep my mouth shut.

Grandpa Puddin' Pop stretches for Patriots, and you'll only hear him swear like a sailor if someone grabs Gronkowski before him in the first round. He will grab Brady in the 4th. (My first prediction for the year)

My buddy Peter has got a thing for old guys.

His dream roster would look like: Phillip Rivers, Steve Smith, Larry Fitzgerald, Matt Forte, Frank Gore, Antonio Gates, Phil Dawson, and the 1985 Bears Defense. And then his bench would be filled with NY Giants.

Actually, Rivers might be gang busters this year. It's the first time in a decade that his wife hasn't given birth to a new baby during the preseason.

Poor guy couldn't pull out of his own drive way.

But this year he might be getting a full 8 hours of sleep.

And Keenan Allen.

Which sort of leads me to the darker side of the spectrum.

The guys we hate.

For every Foster, Brees, Jet, Old Guy . . . there's that list of players that we wouldn't touch with Michael Phelps' torso.

Dude's got a long torso.

All I'm sayin'

For me . . . that guy is Eli Manning.

"Two time Super Bowl MVP Manning?" you say.

Yes, I reply.

"The QB you can draft in Round 12 and has a 95% chance to give you a Top 10 finish, Manning?" you say a little more smugly.

Yes, I say, but I'm now looking at my feet.

"Doesn't he play for the Giants?" Peter asks.

I guess, I murmur, as I go to the fridge looking for an unexpired Yoplait.

"Wait though!" you shout. "Doesn't he get to throw to Odell Beckham and pre-season darling Sterling Sheppard this year?!"

I'm now hiding behind my couch with the dust bunnies and sticky Otter Pop wrappers.

See . . . the thing is . . . I don't hate the player. I just hate the player in THIS game.

If you wanna roll with him this year. Do it. I ain't got no qualms against him.

But do not . . . I repeat . . . do not roll with him in a QB committee.

Every week he sits on your bench will be a 5 TD 372 yard barnstormer.

Every week he leads your roster will be a 7 interception blowout because the Giants are leading 7-0 and McAdoo wants the offense to slow down.

I'm not saying that could happen.

I'm saying that will happen.

Happens every year.

Take my word.

Rolling with Eli is like picking up a pretty girl at the bar, with long legs, a saucy mouth and just enough make-up to accentuate, only when you bring her home she tells you she is a born-again christian, and she's also a vegan who doesn't like to read and is covered in cat hair.

(I didn't mean "born again" as a terrible trait, I meant "chaste." Very, very, chaste.)

All I'm sayin'

Now, a savvy reader like yourself might think that this is some Inception level subterfuge. That I'm purposely writing bad things about the guy to push him further down the draft order so I can snatch him up. Maybe it will make me feel better after grabbing "The Jello Bowl of Rolling Sadness" in the second round.

Those that know me, know that ain't likely.

Or is it?

I might just be playing you like Kevin Costner played the Seattle Seahawks in "Draft Day"

Which, by the way, has a cameo of Arian Foster.

The 40ft Post - Killing in the Name Of

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Why yes, sirs and madams, the Fantasy Football Season 2016 is ready to get rolling like a 2015 Eddie Lacy down a gentle slope.

For those of you who are new to "The 40ft Post" it is a weekly fantasy commentary on all things that make me laugh.

We'll do the Big News of the Week, Injury Round-Up, What to Watch For Next Week, My Own Private Fantasy Land, and Crazy Stupid Predictions.

This is not an expert analysis, nor are you likely to ever read a single thing in this blog that will help you out with your respective teams.

To prove my point, in the 5 years and 8 teams I have managed, I have only been invited to the playoffs once (thanks in large part to Jay Cutler's garbage time stats), however, I will add that I once would have taken top honors had Percy Harvin not had two touchdowns called back. I lost that game by exactly 1.37 points.

So, suffice it to say, when it comes to the meth-like addiction I have to Fantasy Football, I am Jessie Pinkman.

I AM NOT THE ONE WHO KNOCKS.

The goal of this annual blog is to make me laugh and possibly make your Wednesday morning trips to the toilet a little more enjoyable. Lookin' at you Frank, looking at you.

Now the first goal when we are three weeks from our draft (or three weeks past, in the case of my fun team) is to take a deep look into the darkness that was last season, and figure out exactly what I could have done better.

The first bit was obvious. I took Megatron over OBJ in the second round . . . and I did that twice.

I did that because I have squirrel-like flight response to everything Eli Manning. More about that in next week's blog when we talk about Love/Hate relationships.

The second bit was going RB heavy, even in my PPR league. And because of that, I got smoked by the third bit . . .

Injury.

Injury freaking everywhere.

To prove that analysis, in my PPR/IDP league, of the 19 members of that roster, I ended with only a single player from my original draft. Brandon Cooks.

Thank you Brandon.

Also, of that 19 player roster, over half the players I finished with weren't even drafted. Who the hell  bought stock in Charcandrick West when Kniles Davis was the clear back-up?

Nobody . . . that's who . . . but I did have the advantage of being kinda mostly sober when Jamaal went down . . . and I have fast fingers.

In my own defense, I won 5 out of the final 6 contests, but it was too little, too late.

I'm sure the injury bug bit you too. I know it did. I've been watching you.

But my teams got throttled like a Jeb Bush Super PAC.

Please clap . . .

There didn't seem to be any through-line. No particular thing I could point to and say, "Yeah, Buddy, either throw some dirt on it or go sit with Victor Cruz while he's getting his mani-pedi."

And then it hit me in the face like Dirty Sanchez's Offensive Line,

It was all about the Team Names.

See, in the beginning of last year there was a smorgasbord of ridiculous avoidable injuries in the preseason, and frankly, I couldn't help myself from poking a little fun at the players expense.

My PPR/IDP team was named "PierrePaulsFinger" After a really stupid 4th of July party.

Then, to compound my error I named my STD team "Genos Oral Surgeon"

Part in bad taste, part just to tease Frank's beloved Jets.

Don't push, Frank, easy does it.

Now, if I were to follow the same path of bad taste, I might name my teams something like: "LetThePhoneDropMcfadden" or "PeeALittleStraighterNextTimeLeveon"

But that's not going to happen this year.

This year I've named my teams after unstoppable forces of nature. Like a 2013 Adrian Peterson, or Von Miller at the Super Bowl, or Josh Gordon's Pot Dealer.

And since it's a complicated world, and I'm a complicated guy, I've decided that the theme this year is Unstoppable Political Forces of Nature.

It is an election year after all, and I plan on offending you, regardless of who you vote for, at least twelve times over the next eighteen weeks.

That is my promise.

So we'll be toting the line with THREE, count 'em, THREE leagues this year, because a wise man once told me that if you can't win . . . add more teams until you do.

Puts the odds in your favor. Assuming you don't draft the exact same team, or tempt the gods with your dark sense of humor.

No matter how dark funny you think you are, the gods are dark funnier.

As I've said . . . I'll be managing three teams this year. One FUN league with strangers I found on Yahoo. One STD League with a surprising amount of people from New York, and of course, my wildly scoring PPR/IDP league, where I get to go head-to-head against my family, friends, one guy I randomly went to high-school with, and Karen.

Karen won the league last year, which, my brother told me is pretty good for a girl.

(That was a joke . . . Karen's a mean competitor with an absolutely filthy trash-talk game)

(That also was a joke, she's a very nice lady.)

So this year, my FUN team is:

"Teddy's Stump Speech"

After our beloved Theodore Roosevelt during his BullMoose campaign where he was shot in the chest, and finished the speech anyway. Rough Rider indeed.

Unstoppable Political Force of Nature

Next comes my STD (Standard Scoring, not Sexually Transmitted), to be named after the legendary New Yorker and 140 character juggernaut:

"Trump's Twitter Game"

There ain't nothing, nothing, more unstoppable than Teflon Don's tiny little thumbs when it comes to creating an absolute shit-show and then walking away with millions of dollars in campaign funds.

Now, I know Donald Trump might not get anywhere near the Red-Zone come November, which is just about the time I'm gonna need the good juju, but win or lose, his Twitter Game will be on point and unstoppable until Hilary takes the oath of office.

Or Armageddon.

Okay, so lastly, in my PPR/IDP league, for the most seriously unstoppable unflappable political force of nature . . . the man who gave us WMDs, Haliburton, and told a congressmen to go f#$% himself on the House floor, the Darth Vader in a room full of prepubescent younglings . . . I give you:

"Cheney's Shotgun"

On February 11th, 2006, while serving as Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney shot a lawyer in the face while quail hunting in Texas.

Not only did he avoid any injury to himself or his reputation, he actually had the 78 year old half faced man apologize for getting in his way.

It doesn't get much more injury proof than that.

So with that . . . it's time for me to sign out.

Pinch it off Frank, your family is starting to worry.