17 game season...in europe?

Although talks are extremely preliminary, the NFL is investigating adding a 17th regular-season game and playing it outside the United States. The extra game would take the place of one in the preseason, allowing every team to play once abroad without sacrificing a home game. - ESPN.com

Are you serious? I think Goodell looked over at the NBA and said "we need a piece of that." The NFL does not need another week added to the season, that is for sure. I wonder, though, if this opens up and opportunity in fantasy football. One of the worst parts about fantasy football is the playoffs. Because scoring is so random in fantasy football, it is seemingly meaningless how good your team has been for 13 weeks. In leagues that allow over 50% of the teams to make the playoffs, drafting guys based on good schedules in weeks 14 + 15 is important (which is ridiculous in my opinion). So knowing now that there are 17 weeks, clipping the back one off, we were customarily playing 16 weeks. With a potential for 17 weeks now, what if leagues played there playoffs with double long weeks.

For example, 12 team league that allows 6 to get in, giving the top 2 teams byes (by the way this is the best way to do a playoff format - if you do not give something to the top two teams then the regular season is embarrassingly irrelevant). Week 13 could be the 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5 round. This could be played in week 13. Then the 1 vs. 4/5 game and the 2 vs. 3/6 game could be played in weeks 14 and 15 using a cumulative score. Finally, the championship game could be played in weeks 16 and 17. There would still be a 13 week season, but now the playoffs might not be as random in their results.
So maybe there would be some good to Goodell's money grubbin' 18 week season.

NFL Draft Grading

From Rotoworld.com (great site btw)

7. (216) Michigan TE Tyler Ecker
Ht/Wt: 6-6/246
40: 4.92
Ecker was a prized recruit coming to the Wolverines but never fulfilled his promise. He frequently struggled with injuries, didn't improve as an athlete, and still isn't an efficient blocker. He's unlikely to contribute in the NFL.

Grade: F

Overall: The 'Skins didn't have many draft picks and gave them up frivolously, but we won't penalize them for it; they've already penalized themselves enough. With what they had, they did do pretty well until the Ecker bomb...

This has to be one of the most ridiculous comments in a practice that is already ridiculous. How can a 7th round pick be a "bomb." These guys often don't make teams. Why wouldn't you take a flier on a guy who was once a "prized recruit"? To make my point (more from rotoworld):

7. (252) TE Marques Colston, Hofstra
Colston was announced as a tight end. They didn’t need another mediocre one of those.
Grade: D+

Overall Draft Analysis: Bush is a gem and the Saints now have a center in Jeff Faine. Other than that, nothing gets us excited.

Overall Draft Grade: C+

I am not by any means comparing this guy to Colston, I am instead trying to illuminate the fallacy of draft grades.

Note to NFL teams: take whoever you damn well want in the 5th-7th rounds. If you were passing up a consensus quality player, he would have already been drafted.

Fantasy Baseball and Basketball

I thought I would post my opinion that fantasy basketball/baseball are about 100x better than fantasy football. There is too much available information in fantasy football and too much in the way of random scoring for it be a good game. Worse yet, there is really only one basic way to play that involves little to no strategy on anything other than lineups and rosters.

Fantasy Baseball, for example, has the huge advantage of differing league and scoring formats that the top 100 list that everyone publishes is more flexible. Further, there are different strategies for what stat to go for and whether you should punt categories, etc. This makes it more like a game and more exciting. Unlike football, the game does not end when you draft/pick up guys off of waivers. In Head-to-Head leagues, you are also concerning yourself with what the other guy is good at and adjusting accordingly.

Fantasy Basketball is the same way in that it involves determining opponent strengths and adjusting accordingly. This makes the game fun throughout the season because you feel like you are having more of an impact on the outcome.

So, in conclusion, I would highly recommend people giving fantasy basketball and baseball a whack because they are a lot more fun than football.