Month: October 2015

Deadspin had two good articles about daily fantasy sports, one which I shared elsewhere but will post here for those who missed it.

First, an in-depth article about how the NFL’s influence allowed daily fantasy sports leagues to become reality.

Second, Barry Petchesky weighs in on how the recent DFS controversy may do more to set back a push for legalizing gambling than it may convince people to support it.

Needless to say, the DFS controversy isn’t going to die down any time soon, especially because those ads are certain to keep running constantly during NFL programming.

Pro Football Focus’ Sam Monson examines Peyton Manning’s play against the Vikings and discusses what was the real issue: Decision making.

I said as much in my Gut Reaction earlier this week, but Monson takes time to illustrate where Peyton made good decisions as well. Specific examples of those I’ll point out:
Continue reading PFF’s Monson On Manning And What It Really Means

It seemed like only yesterday that the Oakland Raiders were the joke of the AFC West. That is no longer the case, but it doesn’t mean they are evenly matched with the Broncos. Let’s examine this year’s Raiders squad.

First, we must remember that when general manager Reggie McKenzie took over, the Raiders were a mess from both the roster and salary cap standpoint. He inherited a team that wasn’t going to be transformed overnight, even if the Raiders managed to get Andrew Luck, because the late Al Davis was still using outdated strategies to build the roster. And while Al’s son Mark Davis may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, he deserves credit for showing patience with McKenzie.
Continue reading Midweek Musings: This Is Not Your Al Davis’ Raiders Team

A few years ago, when the likes of Brian Burke, Pro Football Reference and Pro Football Focus (I’ll refer to the latter as PFF from here on) were putting together team rankings, I noticed that each site tended to differ on where they ranked teams and what their systems examined.

I noticed that Burke would sometimes rank a team in the top 10 that Pro Football Reference Simple Ranking System put further down the ranks. So I decided to take the rankings that each site did, using Burke’s breakdowns of offense and defense, the same for SRS, and throwing in PFF’s power rankings. I did that to see if it could give a clearer picture of where teams measured up and account for what some might call anomalies in a site’s rankings.
Continue reading The Not So Scientific Power Rankings

Greg Hardy.

Remind me again why Rice is considered persona non grata in the NFL, while Hardy will be welcomed back with open arms on Sunday.

For quite some time, I’ve been disturbed that Ray Rice has received the lion’s share of blame in this department.  What Rice did was unquestionably wrong, but he has also done about everything that could be expected to show remorse for his actions and work on making himself a better man.  In contrast, Hardy has continued to show no shred of such decency.

Christine Brennan’s closing question quoted above is a bit rhetorical, but I think it’s still deserves an answer:

1. Rice was caught on video, and Hardy wasn’t.
2. Still, there is a defensible football argument to be made that Rice’s skills were prepped for a decline after six years of heavy duty with the Ravens, particularly his 3.1 average on 660 yards in his last season there.

It will be interesting to see how Hardy performs in Dallas, and what happens after his one-year deal there expires.  Will memories of his past fade away? I’m not thrilled to discover what the answer will be.

Pro Football Focus ranked Evan Mathis and Vance Walker among the top 10 free agent signings of the 2015 season/offseason.

The best thing about Mathis is he was a street free agent, so the Broncos got a quality player that won’t affect the compensatory draft picks they could get in 2016.

Throw in Darian Stewart, who has been a quality player, and the Broncos have three free agents that proved good value signings.

There have been misses (Shelley Smith, for example), but as always, it’s important to hit more than you miss, and when you hit, get the best value you can. That’s what John Elway continues to do with most of his FA signings.

I am sure most of you know that the Monday Night Football game between the Seahawks and the Lions ended in controversial fashion.

Long story short: As Calvin Johnson ran to the end zone after catching a pass, Kam Chancellor knocked the ball loose. It landed in the end zone, where K.J. Wright knocked it out of bounds. It should have been a penalty but the line judge didn’t throw his flag.
Continue reading Do We Need More Reviews Or A Rule Change?

Following the Seattle Seahawks’ controversial victory over the Detroit Lions last night, Seahawks’ defensive end, Michael Bennett, blamed the assassination of John F. Kennedy on Lions’ quarterback, Matthew Stafford. Bennett’s basis? The fact that Stafford grew up in the Dallas, Texas area. Considering that Stafford was born twenty-five years after JFK’s assassination and how many current and former NFL players grew up in Dallas, Bennett’s commentary should be considered one of the most asinine ever uttered by an NFL player.

Well, this is something:

A major scandal is erupting in the multibillion dollar industry of fantasy sports, the online and unregulated business in which players assemble their fantasy teams with real athletes. On Monday, the two major fantasy companies were forced to release statements defending their businesses’ integrity after what amounted to allegations of insider trading, that employees were placing bets on information not available to the public.

Last week, a DraftKings employee admitted to inadvertently releasing data before the start of the third week of N.F.L. games, a move akin to insider trading in the stock market. The employee – a midlevel content manager — won $350,000 at rival site FanDuel that same week.

The incident has raised questions about who at daily fantasy companies has access to valuable data, how it is protected and whether the industry can — or wants — to police itself.

The entire article is worth the read, and it will be curious to see if other media outlets follow up, especially those connected to a network broadcasting NFL games. When I first approached this topic, Yahmule had a good comment on how entities like the Nevada Gaming Commission root out scandals related to gambling, and how things could come “back to bite [FanDuel and DraftKings] in the ass”.  Looks like that biting may come quicker than we anticipated.

All of the media discussions were focused on Adrian Peterson and his god-like ability to run and whether or not the Broncos defense could stop him. No one discussed other factors such as Teddy Bridgewater, who played well, or the Broncos offense. We discovered a few things throughout the game that are highlighted below:

Continue reading Vikings at Broncos: The 10 Things I Liked and the 10 Things I Didn’t