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And please support this site's advertisers. They help make free sites like this one possible.“We ended up winning in the end. It wasn't the way we wanted to, but a win is a win.” -- Browns QB Brady Quinn, winning 29-27 on a 56-yard field goal after Buffalo had come from 13 points down to take the lead late in the game RotoGuru Sponsor of the MonthYou may already have your list of resources, but why not add an unbiased expert opinion to any fantasy basketball concern you have? YourFantasyAdvisor.com offers one-on-one advice for fantasy basketball hobbyists, beginners & even Gurupies. Easily the most personalized, expert & intuitive advice around! function playtune(source,path) {11/18 - Cleveland needs to get more Monday night games on its schedule. This year, they are 2-0 on Mondays, and 2-6 on other days.In Football Pickoff, favorites fared relatively well this week in spite of losing the Sunday and Monday night games. As a consequence, 63% of slates scored in the black. Kudos to WorldB, who got 14/15 games correct for the top score of 631. (Note that because the Philly/Cincy game ended in a tie, that game results in no points.) 11/17 - The leading football TSNP producer yesterday was T.J. Houshmanzadeh, with 436. What makes that somewhat surprising is that not only did Cincy not win, they scored only 13 points total. But across the board, there just weren’t that many monster games yesterday. Perhaps the most interesting play of the day was the final play of the Pittsburgh-San Diego game. Troy Polamalu apparently scooped up a fumbled lateral and returned it for a touchdown. The TD was allowed at first, but then disallowed on review as an illegal forward pass. But after the game, officials realized that the score should have counted after all. However, NFL will not make an adjustment.Certainly, if you had the Pittsburgh defense, or even Polamalu in an IDP league, the blown call hurts. But the broader issue is that the proper call would have allowed Pittsburgh to cover the point spread. Anyone who bet on the Steelers to cover has to be seething today. And anyone who bet on the Chargers got an early Christmas present.The other interesting aspect of the score is that it is the first time in history that an NFL game has ended 11-10. Thanks to Gurupie Premium Lumber for suggesting today’s quote. 11/14 - Matt Cassell put up Brady-esque numbers; his 682 TSNP topped the output for all but one of Brady’s games last season. But he didn’t accomplish the one thing that Brady was the master at: winning. Still, if you had Cassell in your fantasy lineup this week, I’m sure you couldn’t care less about that!In the NBA, no one posted a triple double, the first time in three nights. But Lebron made it interesting, falling short by only two boards. And Andris Biedrins continued his studly year, with 17 points, 19 rebounds, and 48.5 TSNP. Biedrins currently ranks 5th overall in total TSNP this season. (Like we all saw that coming!) I did manage to draft him on my RIBC team in round 6 (pick 64). So far that’s looking pretty good. Fortunately, Dalembert was taken two picks earlier, or I’d probably have taken him instead. Dalembert ranks #118 so far. But of course, the season is only about 10% complete. Too early to jump to any conclusions. 11/13 - A few years ago, the 2004 NBA draft debate came down to Dwight Howard vs. Emeka Okafor for the first pick. Orlando clearly got it right. If he could only shoot free throws, he could be fantasy hoops’ most dominant player. Regardless, using TSNP as a yardstick, he’s more than doubling Okafor this year. I decided to pull up that year’s draft class, just to see how some of the other early picks have progressed. After Howard and Okafor, the list continues with 3 Ben Gordon4 Shaun Livingston5 Devin Harris6 Josh Childress7 Luol Deng8 Rafael Araujo9 Andre Iguodala10 Luke JacksonNot exactly a ”Who’s Who” list of current NBA stars, is it? There are some more notable names further down the list, however:11 Andris Biedrins15 Al Jefferson17 Josh Smith26 Kevin MartinMeanwhile, other first rounders included Robert Swift, Kris Humphries, Kirk Snyder, Pavel Podkolzin, Viktor Khryapa, Sergei Monia, and David Harrison. Just goes to show that the draft is far from a science.The Jets and Pats play in tonight’s NFL game. Make sure your rosters and/or picks aren’t caught off guard by the early action. 11/12 - We had the first triple double of the NBA season last night, and it came from the most likely source. Jason Kidd logged his 101st career TD, and no other active player is anywhere close. Kidd ranks 3rd all time, but still needs 37 more to catch Magic Johnson at #2. That seems unlikely, although he has produced a total of 25 over the last two seasons – which were his two most productive years for turning the feat. Even at that pace, he’d need three full seasons to get there, at which point he’d be 39 years old. (The all time leader, Oscar Robertson, is out of reach with 181.)Yesterday I noted that O.J. Mayo had been trending up nicely over his first eight NBA games. But he’s not the most productive rookie so far. That honor belongs to Chicago’s Derrick Rose, who has averaged better than 31 TSNP/game on 18.8 points, 5.3 assists, 4.6 rebounds, and a steal per game. His shooting percentages of 46.8%/84.2% are also quite good. 11/11 - We’ve now passed the bye week portion of the NFL schedule. In salary cap games, there’s no more easy money to be made by simply picking up players coming off of byes. With seven weeks left in the season, it’s time to find the best matchups and race to the finish line by accumulating points, without regard to expected price movements. In fact, some of the best pickups now will be the unpopular picks who score well, since they’ll differentiate you from the masses. In Football Pickoff, it was the best weekend of the season so far for picking favorites. As a consequence, about 2/3rds of all slates posted positive scores this weekend. Two teams tied for the top score of 604 with identical picks, getting 13/14 correct. In the NBA, O.J. Mayo had his best outing of the season, with 33 points, 5 assists, and 3 steals, and 47.5 TSNP. He’s shown steady and rapid improvement in the early going, and if the trend continues, he’ll be a monster. A pending lull in the Grizzlies schedule makes him an unattractive pickup in the TSN game right now (only 3 games in the next 10 days), but at some point he could be a great bargain. Or, he could revert to typical rookie volatility. Worth keeping an eye on, regardless. 11/10 - How sorry is Oakland? Raider DB Rashad Baker was the second leading receiver for the Panthers yesterday, with two of Oakland’s four interceptions. Only Muhsin Muhammad hauled in more throws (3) from Jake Delhomme. And yet the Raiders still lost convincingly. And according to NFL.com, Delhomme became just the second quarterback since 1970 to complete fewer than 30 percent of his passes and throw four interceptions in a victory.The Vikings scored 7 points in the second quarter yesterday. Nothing unusual about that. But they did it as a field goal and two safeties. Nothing usual about that.And while on the topic of uncommon combinations, the Jets scored 47 points, and Brett Favre threw for only 167 yards and one TD. And staying on topic, while switching sports: The Knicks are now 4-2, after handing Utah its first defeat of the season. This marks the first time the Knicks have been 2 games over .500 since 2005. Last year, they didn’t win their 4th game until they had notched 9 in the loss column. By the way, that 4th win came again Utah as well. 11/7 - If you were planning to dump Jay Cutler, I hope you forgot to pull the trigger before last night’s Elway-esque performance. Sadly, I remembered. And my point avoidance strategy continues to be executed with near military precision.In a typical light-schedule Thursday, TMac had the only 50+ TSNP outing. And with only 4 teams playing, Dwight Howard and Yao Ming weren’t even above the median for starting center production, getting bested by Aldridge and Dalembert. Go figure. 11/6 - Wow! I point out that Amare Stoudemire has had a bit of a disappointing start in yesterday’s blurb, and he responds by scoring 49 and producing 89 TSNP. I never realized I had such a strong motivational influence. Anyone else you want me to disparage in this space?The other surprising output last night was from Tony Parker, who scored 55 points in Minnesota. I know the game had two overtime periods, but 55 points, 10 assists, 7 rebounds, and 74 TSNP is a monster night, regardless of game length. Parker’s 4-game average of 33 points scored is more than double his career average, and there’s no reason to expect it to continue. But he hasn’t scored less than 22 points in any of the four games. If you got him as a mid-round guard in your draft, you have to be pretty excited so far.One final reminder about football. Denver plays at Cleveland tonight. If you need to make roster adjustments, tomorrow may be too late. 11/5 - The NBA season is young, but one of the early disappointments has to be Amare Stoudemire. Admittedly, his numbers don’t stink: 21 points and 9 rebounds per game aren’t chopped liver. But he was a consensus top 5 pick in fantasy drafts this year, even going as high as #1 in some. And those expectations were based on something more like 25 points, 10 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1 steal, and high shooting percentages (like 60%/80%). He’s short of all of those standards so far. And last night’s 14 point, 5 rebound effort didn’t help. Of course, at this stage of the season, those averages could be repaired in a matter of a few weeks. But if you drafted him early, you’d probably like to see some upward momentum. Soon.In case you hadn’t noticed, the NFL starts playing a Thursday night game this week, and that means you can’t necessarily wait until Saturday to make your roster adjustments. Denver plays in Cleveland this week. If you do or don’t plan to use any players from those teams, make sure you get them into or out of your lineup before tomorrow night. And for Football Pickoff, you’ll need to make your pick for that game by 8:15pm (scheduled kickoff). You can wait until the weekend to make your other picks, but that pick’s for that game will freeze tomorrow night. 11/4 - If you needed some Monday night points to make your fantasy football weekend, you probably came up short – unless you had the Pittsburgh defense, or perhaps some individual defensive players. Football Pickoff results ended the weekend in balance once again, with 52% of slates posting positive scores. Kudos to Bob, who managed the top weekly score of 531 in spite of getting last night’s game wrong. Note also that Midseason scoring began this week. There is a separate competition which excludes all scoring from the first 8 weeks. You can see those standings by selecting “Midseason total” in the sort order menu. Obviously, Bob has the early lead.The NBA offered a moderate schedule last night, with 6 games on tap. Centers dominated the production, with the only three TSNP totals above 50: Marc Gasol, Dwight Howard, and Andris Biedrins. The night was probably more notable for the disappointing performances from several players whose initial hot starts are now looking like a bait-and-switch, including Tyrus Thomas with his third consecutive sub-20 TSNP game, Kelenna Azubuike with his second straight 11 TSNP outing, and Darrell Arthur, whose 13.5 TSNP followed up a 5.5 stinker on Saturday. The good news is that I didn’t use any trades to pick up these players. The bad news is that two of them were on my roster to begin with – and will probably have to be exchanged for the next future disappointments. Oh well. 11/3 - In many respects, this appears to have been a good week to have taken the “road less traveled.” To wit:The 3rd ranked QB was Tyler ThigpenOther QBs in the top ten included Joe Flacco, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Gus Frerotte, and Dan Orlovsky.The top 5 running backs included Ray Rice and Peyton HillisThe top 6 wide receivers included Eddie Royal, Derrick Mason, Josh Cribbs, Antonio Bryant, Derek Stanley.On any given weekend, you expect to find a few of these types of names at the top of the performance lists. But this week seems excessive. So if you failed to find many (or any) of these guys, join the club. And if you had some of them as bye week fillers on any of your “draft & trade” teams, celebrate. In all likelihood, though, you had some big scores on your bench this week. 10/31 - I misread the NBA schedule yesterday. Every NBA team had not yet played a game, as Charlotte and Dallas both had their season openers last night. And the wait didn’t apparently help either team. Rick Carlisle’s advice in today’s quote (“You got to be careful about overreacting to one game”) is good advice for fantasy hoops as well. But in at least one instance, an early signal in the TSN salary cap game seems clear: dump Matt Barnes! He may turn out to be a useful fantasy player. But after two games, he has amassed only 21.5 TSNP in total, less than ½ TSNP per minute played. And in the Ultimate game, he’s 44% of all rosters. (Note: For those who haven’t yet noticed, TSN is publishing ownership numbers on their site this season. You can find this info under the Analysis menu.) Poor production, high ownership, and only one game in the next four days combine to produce the “perfect storm” - a swift and punishing price drop for any manager who chooses patience over panic. After his disappointing opening game, I had feared that he would post a modest result last night, giving a mixed signal. But 8 TSNP in 26 minutes is about the strongest sell signal he could send. I don’t usually make trade recommendations in this space, but this one is a no brainer (for which some might say I am inherently qualified.)At the other end of the spectrum, Chris Paul is certainly living up to his status as the consensus #1 pick in the RIHC leagues. In his first two games, he’s averaged 20½ pts, 10½ assts, 6½ rebounds, and 3 steals. Interestingly, Matt Barnes drew the starting assignment to guard Paul last night. Evidently, Paul’s game was a real Barnes-burner. 10/30 - Every NBA team has now played at least one game. Most have played exactly one game. So we have a little bit of information to digest.And a little bit of misinformation – because stats from the first several games always attain exaggerated relevance. During the season, if a player averages 20 fantasy points per game, he’ll occasionally have a 35 point game. And that game will typically be discounted until there is a discernable trend to suggest that it might persist. But in the first week, we have no trends to evaluate. Some players produced stats in their opener that will be above their longer term production. We just don’t know who they are. That’s not to say that you should not react to surprising results. Just recognize that today’s diamond in the rough could quickly turn out to be plastic. And one or two of those potential diamonds could turn out to be real after all. Judge wisely! And remember, that’s why they pay us the big bucks.And speaking of big bucks, thanks to those of you who generously responded to last week’s pitch for more GuruPatron donations. Almost $500 has come in during the past week, and we have almost reached last year’s total donations of $3,384. Admittedly, last year was the low year, but it’s gratifying to see the trend stabilize – and with two months to go, perhaps we will see a modest bounce. 10/29 - I hope Greg Oden does not turn out to be as injury prone as his college and pro career to-date would suggest. But history shows that some big men just have trouble staying healthy. And thus far, “healthy Greg Oden” is an oxymoron.No NBA player really lit up the stat sheet last night. LeBron had spurts of stat stuffing, but also missed too many shots, particularly from the foul line, where he was only 4-8, including several critical misses in the 4th quarter. Kobe had similar fantasy point production in a game that was never very close in the second half.Some of you have noticed that I recently implemented an enhancement to the message forum that should allow lengthy threads to load and display faster. For threads that have more than 70 replies, only the most recent 50 replies will display when you first access the thread. Once the recent posts are displayed, the browser will continue to load the hidden items in the background, so that if you want to unhide all of the earlier posts, you can do that as desired. Let me know if any of you encounter problems or errors with the new routine. I have heard of no glitches so far, but it’s possible that some browsers or some threads will have quirks that I’ll need to compensate for. And if there are threads that you haven’t bothered to investigate solely due to size, you should be able to do so now. – even if you only have dial-up speed. 10/28 - Bud Selig says he would have suspended the game, regardless of the inning or score. But he sure seemed intent on getting through five innings, in spite of increasingly unplayable conditions. It’s understandable that a number of Phillies are angry at the situation – not only for having to play the top of the 6th, when the Rays sloshed out a run to tie the game – but maybe even for starting the game in the first place. And just imagine the angst that would prevail if this were the Cubs in the shoes of the Phillies. Tampa Bay would probably have become a prohibitive favorite overnight!In Football Pickoff, we had our first perfect slate of the season, as Beerhunters3 posted the maximum possible score (+840) for the weekend, not only picking every winner correctly, but getting the optimum double. And it’s not like this was an easier than average week, as only 52% of entries posted positive scores. Well done!If you aren’t involved in any fantasy hoops, then you can take it easy for a few days. But if you are, then today is the day to get all of your ducks in order. Tonight features three games to open the NBA regular season, and all of the remaining teams will be in action by tomorrow night. If you’re playing salary cap games, tonight will be full of hope. And by Thursday morning, buyer’s remorse will abound. ‘Twas ever thus. 10/27 - If you had Drew Brees, here’s hoping your weekend game doesn’t go down to the wire. With 14 seconds remaining, rather than risking a blocked punt or a long punt return, Brees took a 4th down snap at the San Diego 26 yard line and proceeded to run backwards to take a safety – and -26 rushing yards! If those lost fantasy points matter, that’s got to sting!Looking around the TSN football landscape, I found quite a few teams that had Santana Moss, who was the highest scoring WR for the week. But I’ll bet no one had the receivers ranked #2 and #3. Admittedly, Donnie Avery wouldn’t have been a completely looney pick, with reasonable production the last few weeks and a minimum TSN pricetag. But Ted Ginn’s 371 TSNP almost doubled his output for the season. And if you did have that pair, you’re wasting your time on fantasy sports!The NBA season starts tomorrow night. I know that some of you who play the TSN Ultimate salary cap game have used a “day late” strategy in the past, effectively conceding points for the first several days in order to get jump on the early price gainers. This year, you’ll forfeit your first 4 trades with that approach, so it’s really not a viable tactic any more. So get those lineups set before tomorrow night. 10/24 - I wonder how David Price will be ranked for next spring’s fantasy baseball drafts.Tonight marks the end of NBA preseason games. Preseason activity can give important insights into how new players and traded players might be used. But preseason action can also provide a fair amount of misinformation, since established players generally sit while others are given a chance to show what they can do. In any event, those stats are available in the sortable stats for the TSN and NBASE games. Caveat emptor. Regular season action starts next Tuesday. 10/23 - The World Series is off and running. If it goes past 5 games, national interest should pick up. Until then, it doesn’t seem to be a big deal outside of Philly and Tampa.The various RIHC drafts are either complete or in their final stages. Now we hurry up and wait for opening night, which is next Tuesday. For casual NBA fans, the regular season opener is no big deal. For fantasy hoops, though, it’s when the rubber meets the road. Although fantasy hoops clearly has a smaller national following that baseball or football, it does rank up there in the RotoGuru community, partly due to the strong international interest. I think the Hoops message forum is more active (in season) than either the baseball or football forums, and the various RotoGuru tools for hoops – the color coded schedule, the Sched-O-Matic, the sortable stats with projection capabilities – offer useful and unique capabilities. I’m sure it’s no accident that many of the top participants in the TSN Hoops game, and even in the NBA Stock Exchange game, frequent this site.Which brings me to my seasonal pitch. This site runs primarily on my passion and commitment. The forum depends on active participation from Gurupies around the world. The financial costs are modest, but not immaterial. And while I’m clearly not doing this for financial reward – if that was my motivation, then I’ve failed – your donations as GuruPatrons are important not only in offsetting the hard costs of hosting and maintaining a web site, but also of showing me that this site still matters to you. If we get to a point where I perceive that it doesn’t matter, then I can find other ways to kill time. And believe me, this is a big time killer! Aside from a brief one-week hiatus to Sweden in 2003 when the site was pretty much left on autopilot, I’ve spent some time every single day over the past 11 years updating and processing stats, blurbing, deterring troublemakers and spammers at the forum, and administering a variety of game opportunities that don’t attract a large crowd, but hopefully do provide some enjoyment and stimulation for many of you. I don’t devote much effort to trolling for donations. That’s not my focus, and it’s not my style. But to the extent that the success of this site is measured in the financial support of users, the trend is decidedly negative. The commitment of many of you is remarkable, especially given the limited effort I devote to begging. Still, last year’s tally of 72 donors giving $3,384 was the lowest in the seven years of the GuruPatron program. And this year, we’re still 15% shy of that level. It does, on occasion, make me wonder how closely we’re approaching the time to move on.Don’t panic – I’m not about to fold the tent yet. I’m not at a critical decision point. But a more widespread show of support would help to keep those “life after RotoGuru” thoughts at bay. If this site still matters to you, GuruPatron donations are an effective way to show me and to show others.Thanks as always. End of pitch. 10/22 - Maybe if I lived in Cleveland and was closer to the day-to-day situation, I’d understand. But I don’t follow the gist of Kellen Winslow’s complaints. And the Browns’ reaction seems overdone. There must be more to this feud than I’m getting.The NBA season starts in less than a week, and the preseason must be winding down, because some of the top players are starting to show their stuff. For example, Chris Paul played 35 minutes last night posted a stat line that justifies his consensus #1 pick status in fantasy hoops this season: 23 points, 15 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, and a block. That’s 65 TSNP, if you’re inclined to keep score that way. Lebron and Wade also had strong showings. One of this month’s trendy picks, Danny Granger, put up 43 TSNP in 37 minutes. And Andrew Bynum finally had one of those “pick up where you left off last year” nights, with 46.5 TSNP in just 26 minutes. 10/21 - With seven weeks in the NFL record books, the stats show some surprising names at the top. Using total TSNP as a measuring stick:The top two QBs are Brees and Aaron Rodgers (Brett who?)The top two RBs are Reggie Bush and Clinton Portis. (Of course, some of Bush’s points come from special team returns, which are excluded in many formats.) The third ranked RB is Marion Barber. The top two receivers are Greg Jennings and DeSean Jackson. Perhaps more surprising is the lack of some names in their position’s top ten (numbers in parentheses show the TSNP/game ranking for that position): Peyton Manning (14), Tomlinson (17), Adrian Peterson (11), Terrell Owens (23), Randy Moss (27 – although that’s obviously not all Moss’ fault), and Braylon Edwards (40). So much for preseason rankings. Football pickoff results were very balanced this week, with half posting positive scores, and half underwater. Congrats to SkySail, with the week’s high score of +562 on 12 correct picks, including a double of St. Louis. 10/20 - Autumn Monday mornings are usually devoted to digesting football stats from the previous day. But this morning, I’m juggling three Hoops drafts, and my head is spinning. I did manage to get football stats processed, but I haven’t really done much analysis, other than to recognize that my weekend quarterback choices of Peyton Manning and Drew Brees both fizzled. Even if you combine their output, the totals fell short of my expectations for either one.And following up on my Dallas QB dilemma (see Friday’s blurb), I can’t help but notice that Joe Flacco would have been much better than Brad Johnson after all. Oh well.I guess I should at least pay some lip service to the AL Championship game. Suffice it to say than whenever it looked like Tampa Bay might come up a “day late and a dollar short,” they found a way to get the job done. Their surprising turnaround season was clearly no fluke. This team has talent and cahones. Quite a story. And it’s still being written. 10/17 - My prediction about the baseballl game was spot on – the game took over 4 hours, and didn’t end until after midnight local time. But the maxim that “momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher” was too shortsighted. It should probably be something like “momentum is the next pitcher.” Scott Kazmir had things well in control, but the normally reliable Rays bullpen imploded – or the Red Sox bats exploded – take your pick. Even the TV announcers had all but conceded this one to the visitors in the 7th inning. Tampa has been good all year at facing down Boston every time the Sox approached them in the standings. But they still have to do it one more time. And history suggests that it’s not a given.This Tony Romo situation has the potential to mess up my RIFC team. Romo is my QB, but I also drafted Brad Johnson. So when Romo’s injury was first announced, I figured I was well prepared. But now it sounds like Romo might play. Will it be a game time decision? If Romo does play (vs. the Rams), will they sit him if the Cowboys start to pull away? This could turn into a real headache if I end up with two half-QBs. And my only other QB is Flacco – so taking out the uncertainty by starting him instead is not an attractive alternative. Ugh. 10/16 - I’m getting a late start on today’s blurb, which seems odd, given the lack of live action occurring at this time of the week. However, I spent most of my morning on Hoops-related activities – first adding about 100 new player prices to the TSN sortable stats, and then arm wrestling myself over my next pick in the RIHC draft. We’re in the third round, and the current challenge is that there are plenty of highly desirable players still available. In a few more days, we’ll be struggling to find any player that we really want to draft.Boston rolls the Daisuke tonight, trying to send their series back to Florida. The momentum is certainly against them, although it’s hard to imagine they would get swept in Beantown. Of course, there is a saying that “Momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher” (attributed to Earl Weaver). The best prediction that I can make is that the game will probably end very late. Even game #1, when Daisuke flirted with a no hitter and the final score was 2-0, took almost 3½ hours. 10/15 - The fat lady hasn’t yet sung, but it’s looking rather unlikely that Fox TV will get its Sox-Dodgers matchup, although Boston has made a habit on recent years of overcoming deficits like this. Or worse. We’ll know shortly.It’s been a wild week for the Cowboys, and it’s still only Wednesday. So far, they’ve lost the trio of Romo, Jones, and Jones for at least four games. And with the impending holes at QB, RB, and DB, they traded for a wide receiver. Go figure. They have done a good job of cornering the Roy Williams market, however, as they now sport two of them on their roster.The RIHC draft has begun, and will continue for the next 7-8 days. Draft rationales for each pick will also be posted, although on a two round lag. We should get those started tomorrow. 10/14 - The NFC East is supposed to be the beast. But this weekend, the Cowboys, Redskins, and Giants lost to the Cardinals, Rams, and Browns. And last night’s capper in Cleveland wasn’t even much of a contest, as the Giants defense failed to get a turnover or a sack. In fact, Cleveland never even had to punt. As the NFC East went, so went many Football Pickoff slates, as only about one-third of all entries posted positive scores this weekend. Congrats to beejay_100, who managed the top score of 403 in spite of missing last night’s upset. 10/13 - For several teams, this was one of those “any given Sunday”s. Washington found a way to keep the Rams from falling on their own swords – several times. Dallas couldn’t find the consistency needed to avoid reliance on unlikely plays – and then handed the game to Arizona after failing to capitalize on the favorable coin flip. And Detroit almost handed Minnesota an improbable loss. For this Lions team, almost winning may be as good as it gets. Those who were all set to watch both baseball and football last night quickly found that neither game offered much after the opening minutes. The Dodgers produced all the scoring they needed in the first inning, and the game was never close after that. Meanwhile, the Chargers never let the Patriots into the game, winning 30-10 in a game that was not as close as the score indicated. I sat there with the remote control poised to shift back and forth, but eventually decided to watch a rerun of “Hogan’s Heroes” instead (although admittedly, the outcome of that adventure was never in doubt, either. But it was funnier.) Click here for prior daily blurbs, by month:2008:October . . . September . . . August . . . July . . . June . . . May . . . April . . . March . . . February . . . January2007:December . . . November . . . October . . . September . . . August . . . July . . . June . . . May . . . April . . . March . . . February . . . January2006:December . . . November . . . October . . . September . . . August . . . July . . . June . . . May . . . April . . . March . . . February . . . January2005:December . . . November . . . October . . . September . . . August . . . July . . . June . . . May . . . April . . . March . . . February . . . January2004:December . . . November . . . October . . . September . . . August . . . July . . . June . . . May . . . April . . . March . . . February . . . January2003:December . . . November . . . October . . . September . . . August . . . July . . . June . . . May . . . April . . . March . . . February . . . January2002:December . . . November . . . October . . . September . . . August . . . July . . . June . . . May . . . April . . . March . . . February . . . January2001:December . . . November . . . October . . . September . . . August . . . July . . . June . . . May . . . April . . . March . . . February . . . January2000:December . . . November . . . October . . . September . . . August . . . July . . . June . . . May . . . April . . . March . . . February . . . January1999:December . . . November . . . October . . . September . . . August . . . July . . . June . . . May . . . April . . . March . . . February . . . January 1998: December . . . November . . . October . . . September . . . August . . . July . . . June . . . May . . . April . . . MarchRotoGuru is produced by Dave Hall (a.k.a. the Guru), an avid fantasy sports player. He is not employed by any of the fantasy sports games discussed within this site, and all opinions expressed are solely his own. Questions or comments are welcome, and should be emailed to Guru<davehall@rotoguru2.com>. © Copyright 1998-2008 by Uncommon Cents, LLC. All rights reserved. |
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