Fantasy Featured Stories

Seriously, no one works the day before our Independence Day. Just look at Devin's dance. That's his "Fourth of July dance."

Even your bosses know you don't work today. They accept it because it's a fact of life.

Why not come discuss some fantasy issues like -- but not limited to -- rookies that will/will not justify their hype, our previews, this year's Big Ben, this year's Braylon Edwards, or who is completely overhyped?

All this and more, at 1:00 on the day before a holiday ... at work ... you know you want to ...

You may have seen discussion yesterday about LaDanian Tomlinson v. Adrian Peterson for the number one overall pick in your fantasy draft. It's one of the many issues you have to face heading into the 2008 fantasy football season. And before you think, "Wow. Football is like three months away, losers" I will say to you "Football is only a few months away, loser".

Besides, the theme this year is "Never Too Early" and thinking that way is how you win fantasy leagues. So join myself and Matt Snyder (among other celebrities*!) on Thursday at 1pm when we will be discussing how to help you get ready for the fantasy football season (please do stop by and ask questions -- it's totally free!)

(Oh, p.s., it's my birthday. So stop by and say hello and give me stuff. Kthxbai.)

Fantasy Felony is here to help you hijack your league. If you've got questions on a deal you're pondering, hit up the Fantasy FanHouse experts via email.

You always hear fantasy chatter about leaving your lineup alone for the first few weeks of the season. Generally speaking, this is true. You drafted your particular players, and you did so for a reason. If you trust your drafting skills, you want to hold onto your players. But that doesn't mean you got everyone you wanted in a draft, or that the other owners in your league are absolutely in love with the squad they assembled. Early in the season is panic time for a lot of owners, and you have to take advantage of that. So, some doods you should think about for trade purposes:

Rich Harden, SP, OAK -- I want, desperately, to say that Harden will have a full, healthy season where he'll strike out 200, make 31 starts, and win as many games as the Oakland A's offense will let him. But that's silly, optimistic and goes against everything we've learned about playing fantasy, or Rich Harden for that matter.

But he is a top 10 pitching option in a world where injuries don't exist and some people still believe. As I type, he is in the middle of another quality start against Boston with five innings, four hits, four walks and six K's. You can absolutely swing him right now for the ever undervalued Brad Penny or ERA workhorse Chris Young, both of whom are safer bets for a full season.

MDS is in Bristol for an ESPN Media Workshop. Here's his latest dispatch from behind the cameras of the Worldwide Leader.

Yesterday I spoke with some of the bigwigs at the biggest player in the sports web world, ESPN.com. And from talking to Rob King, the editor in chief of ESPN.com, and John Kosner, senior vice president and general manager of digital media at ESPN, it's clear that the blogosphere is not a particularly high priority for ESPN.

The decision-makers at ESPN.com see three things as the top priorities for the site: Video, fantasy games and using the web to integrate all of ESPN's different platforms (TV, radio, magazine, etc.). Blogs are way down on the list of what ESPN.com cares about. It's not that they're anti-blog, it's just that they don't have all that much interest in blogs.

King (whose background is in newspapers) said that journalism is central to what ESPN.com does, and although he mentioned that he thinks highly of the work done by Henry Abbott, my general sense is that ESPN is a lot more likely to hire more beat writers like Mike Sando than it is to hire more bloggers like Abbott.

The Debriefing is a column that runs every weekday at 9:00 a.m. here on FanHouse. It goes deep into one issue and then bounces around to a plethora of smaller ones ... and does it all in a way that will make you feel like the prettiest girl at the cotillion. Bookmark this page, and visit daily.



I was going to write today about the Michael Vick apology, but I was only able to see it 693 times on television yesterday, and I didn't feel like that was enough to get a firm grasp on it. I needed at least 1,100.

Besides, I was tied up for a very, very, very long time yesterday with the AOL Fantasy Football Mock Draft. Don't get me wrong, I usually wouldn't mind a 5-hour draft ... provided that it's in person and with people I know. But. I suppose, as far as 5+ hour on-line drafts with strangers with whom I'm not in direct communication with go, this one was superb.

And since it was so much fun, I figure I should at least get a column out of it. I'd like to take you through some of the more interesting selections. You can peruse through the whole draft here if you'd like, where each selection is accompanied by comments from the general public, draft host Thomas Herrera, and the expert making the pick.

In a related story, I think it's time we re-evaluated the term "expert."

(Also at the bottom: Mexico's almost as competitive with the U.S. at basketball as they are at soccer ... Okay, I am going to talk about the Michael Vick apology, but just briefly, I promise ... and there's an ugly Ronaldinho rumor out there ... )

The Debriefing is a column that runs every weekday at 9:00 a.m. here on FanHouse. It goes deep into one issue and then bounces around to a plethora of smaller ones ... and does it all in a way that will make you feel like the prettiest girl at the cotillion. Bookmark this page, and visit daily.



Maybe this is sufficient reason to entitle this column "I'm a dork," but there are few days on the calendar that I value above the day of the annual fantasy football draft.

There's Christmas, maybe a birthday, maybe a friend gets married, maybe you're looking forward to the release of a DVD featuring your favorite adult film star, or maybe you're up for parole on November 19th ... but that's about it. How many days of the year do you get most of your friends in one room for hours at a time, with total license to insult, belittle and curse at them to your heart's content?

It's not often, and to me, those opportunities are special. By now, most of us are fantasy veterans and know how to get through a draft, but if yours is still coming up, I've put together a list of handy Do's and Don't's that might help to maximize the enjoyment of your fantasy football draft experience.

(Also at the bottom: Eddie Griffin, I'm sorry you're dead ... Stephon Marbury would like to talk to you about deers ... Oregon really has no excuse to not win the national championship in every sport, every year ... and Tiki Barber, though criticizing him, has found a way to make Eli look mature and sensible ... )

While it is rather cliché to talk about Marty Turco's playoff history as a choker, the tag has stuck on him so much that he is known for little else, despite his steadiness during the regular season. Be it nerves, bad luck, or just bad technique, Turco has looked shaky in the post-season, often abandoning the fundamentals that normally make him quite a good goaltender.

Regular Season: 320GP 2.11GAA 91.4SV%
Playoffs: 22GP 2.53GAA 89.2SV%

While the 22 playoff games is a small sample size, the nature of the playoff beast does not allow many bad games. One or two bad performances in the playoffs can kill your chances and send you to the golf course, whereas a bad game or two in the regular season will be ironed out over a long schedule of games.

Turco's first foray into the playoffs back in 2003 wasn't all that bad, as he finished with a 6-6 record, 1.87GAA and a 91.9SV%. Sure, it wasn't anything near his jaw-dropping 93.2SV% during that regular season, but it wasn't the worst performance by a goaltender popping their playoff cherry.

It was the next two series, however, that cemented Turco as a playoff turkey.

2003-04: Dallas lost in 5 games to the Avalanche with Turco putting up a 3.32GAA and 84.9SV%
2005-06: Dallas lost in 5 games, again to the Avalanche, with Turco putting up a 3.38GAA and 86.8SV%. Just terrible numbers, overall.

There is no doubt that Turco would like to shut the critics up and forget about past history, but it will take a good performance or two to do that. Perhaps not playing against the Avalanche will help his numbers? :)