Or Maybe They're Just Idiots.

Last night, I talked about the lunatic right wing fringe as held captive by the same plutocratic hegemony that has all of us in its grip.  Sure, they call Obama a Nazi instead of turning their rage on Goldman Sachs, but we are united in our fury toward the establishment.

I may be on the opposite side of the political spectrum from someone who says that government should keep its hands off Social Security, but I don't hate the vibe.

In fact, I feel about Joe Wilson the same way I feel about Mark Sanford.  Except for the part where these guys legislate one way and then live another, I couldn't possibly care less about who an elected official sleeps with.  I'd love to extend a metphorical hand across the aisle in a post-partisan way to say "okay, everyone sleeps with whomever they want - it's no longer a thing.  Break."  If Joe Wilson calling the President a liar during a speech to Congress means that now that type of thing is in play, I'm down.  I'd much, much, much prefer a political culture where the President (and all elected officials) were less untouchable glass figurines and more civil servants, just well compensated, highly publicized DMV clerks.  If we can give them the whatfor now - that's terrific - and I'll expect similar rabble rousing from a lefty Congressman the next time it's appropriate.  This is a good result. 

I'm still not down with taking the guns to speeches though. 

So, I'm feeling good about the crazies.  Maybe I'm adopting that 9-12 sensibility that Simple Jack talks about (which part of 9-12 was devoted to hating the victims' families - that's something Simple Jack has subsequently said he does). 

It's a brand new day!  I may go to a John Birch Society cross burning, er, meeting, later on.

But then I read this.

It's worse than that.

That's a New Jersey poll.  Those numbers are all voters.  So, a fifth of the voters in Jersey aren't sure if Obama's the Anti-Christ. 

When you ask Republicans, it's 1/3. 

And when you ask Hispanics, it's almost half.  Almost half of the Hispanics in New Jersey think the President of the United States may be the anti-Christ.

That means that almost half of the Hispanics in New Jersey actually believe the anti-Christ may exist, which is troubling enough. 

18,000 real Americans die every year because of a lack of health insurance.

That's a 9/11 every two months. 

But we're worried about ghost stories and fairy tales. 

The Devil's imaginary.  He won't get you any faster than the Easter Bunny will bring you a chocolate egg. 

What's gonna get you is not having health care.

(edit - on the other hand, which makes three hands, I believe, and creates an even more pressing need for health care, I thought Edgar Renteria was going to come through for me last night.  He did not.  They break my heart every year.  Where's the public option on my baseball team never having won a World Series?)

Stockholm Syndrome

One of the 18,000 Americans who will die this year because of a lack of health insurance, the only industrialized country in the world where this happens, is the real life Norma Rae.

There's reason to be angry about things that happen in the United States.  Reason to march on Washington, reason to call the President of the United States a liar; reason for rage.

Like the 19 million in fines the five largest California insurance companies have had to pay out in the past 18 months.

Or that domestic violence is a pre-existing condition.

And that executives of bailed out companies are taking home millions.:

"From 2006 through 2008, the top five executives at the 20 banks that have accepted the most federal bailout dollars since the meltdown averaged $32 million each in personal compensation" -Institute for Policy Studies

I don't care where the President was born.  I don't care what he thinks of Kanye or what Kanye thinks of Taylor Swift.  I do care that we're in another Gilded Age.  Economic inequality is greater in the United States than any other industrialized nation.  Americans are literally facing real life death panels today in the form of insurance claims departments.  We stand, almost all of us, at the mercy of the crappy corporations we work for; as long as our health care is completely tied to them we are beholden - unable to step out of line, to complain about workplace conditions, to attempt to unionize, as our workplaces slash our pay and vacations, increase our hours, bully, browbeat, threaten, and intimidate us at every turn.  How easy it is to snuff us out, foreclose our homes, split our families.  The dropout rate in poor school districts runs as high as 50% ensuring a permanent supply of troops to serve as chum satisfying our permanent demand of war. 

And yet people march on Washington to carry the water for power.  Any attempt to point out that we have become a plutocracy is met with fury.  Nazis.  Socialists.  Terrorists. 

That's all that's left.  Goldman Sachs takes home nearly 2 billion in profit in a quarter but somehow ordinary Americans actually believe Obama is tearing apart the fabric of capitalism. 

It's the ultimate case of Stockholm Syndrome.  Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Simple Jack worm the plutocrats propaganda right into the brains of the oppressed.  Instead of recognizing on whom the rage should be directed - it's funneled, as it's always been in American history, toward other marginalized groups.

Field slaves were taught to resent the house slaves.  Poor white colonists, barely ekeing out livings were taught to despite the Native Americans, fighting over the same scraps as were they.  "I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong", Muhammad Ali insightfully said when refusing his induction into another American War against poor people of color in a far off place, "no Viet Cong ever called me nigger." 

Go kill middle eastern shepherds while Goldman Sachs makes 2 billion dollars.  Go kill Vietnamese.  Or Koreans.  They're the enemy.  Look over there.  Go kill Germans, they sunk the Lusitania.  Go kill the Spanish, they sunk the Maine.  Go kill Mexicans, they crossed the wrong parallel. 

Hate gays.  God says so.  Or Hispanics.  Learn the language or get out of the country.  Or blacks.  Simple Jack said Obama "hates white people."  Rush Limbaugh said today "In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering."

Go hate anyone you want.  Just let the money keep rolling in. 

While the body count keep rising.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Monday night my Giants won a baseball game; this matters because we haven’t won since and absent a statistically improbable stretch we’re marking the days until elimination.

There’s no mystery in why this Giants club will fall short of the playoffs; we have a historic imbalance between our pitching (giving up .8 runs per 9 innings less than league average) and hitting (scoring half a run less per game than league average); according to Baseball Prospectus our making the playoffs with that little offensive punch would be an almost singular happening: Unfortunately, none of the aforementioned teams disgraced the batter’s box as badly as Bochy’s bunch. Teams can clearly find their way into playoff baseball with poor offenses and tremendous rotations, but no team has done so with an awful offense even remotely comparable to the one fielded by the 2009 Giants since the Dodgers made the playoffs in the 1996 campaign.

But Monday, Juan Uribe homered twice and tripled – we scored a truckload of runs and moved to our high water mark for the season, 14 games over .500.

Gwen Knapp, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, said the real key to the win was a third inning bunt by Freddy Sanchez.

No, she really did. I know, right?

Here’s the thing – over a quarter century ago, one of the first matters argued by Bill James and subsequently proven incontrovertibly true is that bunting is harmful. Let’s say you are trailing 4-2 in the 8th inning, but have runners on first and second and nobody out. Your chance of scoring those runs decreases dramatically if you trade that scenario in to have one out and runners on 2nd and 3rd. Meaning – a successful bunt makes you less likely to score. This is true across the board in virtually any circumstance. There’s almost never a good reason to give up an out. We know this. Baseball’s almost entirely transparent. We keep really good records.  If a situation in baseball has occured before, we know what the result was.  If it's occured enough times, there's a predictive value to those past results. 

Despite this, Knapp, who gets paid to write about the Giants, credited the win to a bunt.

The scenario wasn’t exactly as I described; I mean – two runs down in the 8th inning, no outs, two on – this could be a big inning, right – a crooked number that might save the season. Clearly, that’s not a spot where you want to sacrifice an out – I mean, who would possibly do that? 

The Giants did it. Two days later. The bunt was unsuccessful. The Giants didn’t score. The Giants lost.  The Giants lost.  Again.  The San Francisco Giants have had 30 years of the 2 greatest players in National League history and have never won a World Series.  But we sure do bunt sometimes. 

So what was today's game story? How did the Chronicle report this catastrophic blunder?

That the fault wasn’t the strategy – it was the failure to execute that strategy better. 

Why is this important? It’s important because faced with that situation, the Giants, and similarly wrong thinking organizations throughout all manner of human endeavor, will bunt again. And sometimes, the bunt will work – and if it’s followed by a barrage of home runs – someone will wrongly credit the bunt.

And it’s going to cost us more games. And more games. And more games.

Why does this bunting myth persist? How can reasonable people, people who watch even more baseball than do I, fail to understand that even successful bunts are bad ideas – that they are making it less likely to win the game?

I think for two reasons.

One – because it feels like something’s happening. The runners are moving forward – and that’s what you want – you’re getting closer to the plate – closer to scoring. The cost of that movement, the out, isn’t properly appreciated; it’s subsumed by the flashiness of the success.  If I run really fast off of a cliff and flap my arms there may be a moment where it feels to me like I'm flying - it may, if you take a snapshot at exactly the right time - may even look to an outsider writing a story, look like I'm flying. 

But that's just 'cause the ground is too far away for me to notice yet that I am in free fall. 

The other reason is because it privileges expertise – strategy – playing the game “the right way.” If I’m an absolute novice, a blank slate in baseball analysis, I would look at the two homers and the triple, the actual scoring blows, and say “that Uribe guy won the game” – but the knowledgeable, those who possess the secret, special sauce understanding of the game within the game, can chuckle from an insider’s position, “you just don’t get it; you can't understand how things really work.”

Those secret divine codes are how sportswriters – and managers – how broadcasters – and coaches – how the privileged elite keep their positions. As long as games are won and lost through hidden, special strategies like that bunt – through unquantifiable means like chemistry and leadership – it maintains the requirement that those who possess those special powers stay in their positions. How does the sportswriter keep a job in 2009, when every element of every game can be watched, recorded, and analyzed by anyone with the MLB package at least as well as those who sit in the press box – she has to possess a particular, specialized level of fancypants understanding. Sure, it looks like it was those two homers – but let me tell you it was really the bunt. And that manager standing in the corner wearing a uniform for no apparent reason – well he hasn’t crossed the plate a single time all year, but without him – who would call for those magical game changing bunts? Who will  marshal collective energies of the great unwashed if not for the great and glorious leader, growing greater and more glorious every day? How can we, with only Juan Uribe and his trifling two homers and a triple, possibly win baseball games?

(Yes, this is turning into metaphor)

So, what does this have to do with the picture of the congressman from South Carolina who called the President of the United States a "liar" during a joint session of Congress last night?

I don’t know what lesson you’re going to learn from the trillion dollar endless war in Iraq.

Me, I’m learning it wasn’t poor execution, it was that we shouldn’t have done it in the first place.  It wasn't that the generals failed to get down the bunt - it was that bunting is a poor percentage play.

I don’t know what lesson you’re learning from the economic collapse.

Me, I’m learning that it wasn’t poor business judgment by some lenders, that it was the strategy of laissez faire as preached/practiced by conservatives over the past quarter century.   An entire mountain of inside baseball economic theories thoroughly discredited.

I don’t know what lesson you’re learning from the current health care crisis.

Me, I’m learning that it isn’t about too many lawsuits, not about a couple of overpaid CEOs, not about the disinclination of Americans to wash their hands. It’s about a system that makes health a private good as opposed to a public one. Every other democracy makes the choice that health is like fire protection or police protection – even if you can’t afford it, as a member of that society you should still receive coverage. Why don't we privatize the fire department (as we once did), or call the police force "socalized law and order"?  Why have a public school system at all - if parents really want their kids to learn to read and write, they'd get good enough jobs to afford to send them to private school.  Where they could pray.  To Jesus. 

Everyone else says their citizens deserve cops.  And fire departments.  And health care.  It's a choice they make as a society.

We choose to bunt with 2 on and no one out.   Which sounds like socialized baseball now that you think about it.  Sacrificing for your fellow man. 

The Congressman pictured way at the top, Joe Wilson from South Carolina, called Obama a liar last night during his speech – most have reacted negatively to this.

Let me go the other way.

On the substance, obviously the guy’s a crackpot. He called Obama a liar for saying illegal aliens won’t be covered under the health plan. He is in error.  Democrats do not want to take doctors who would normally be saving Republican lives and instead force them to give abortions to illegal aliens. 

(If Obama's a white dude, does the congressman from South Carolina do that?  If Obama's a white dude, would a Georgia Senator say he needed to show some humility?  When we look back on this - what will the historical context be of white southern congressmen shouting "you lie" as the first African-American President speaks before Congress?  What will the context be when we talk about Simple Jack saying that  the first African-American President "hates white people"?  How challenging will it be to connect those dots? )

There are those who have reacted negatively to the conservatives in the town hall meetings who have shouted and screamed and called Obama a Nazi-socialist-grandma killa.

Let me go the other way.

On the substance, these people are subliterate. Universal health care doesn’t make you a Nazi; if it did, there’d be a lot of Scandanavians with Hitlerstache. And if a country with as much unfettered corporate power as ours is socialist, that means the world’s awash in red.

But the take that we should just be respectful and mind the great and powerful President as he dispenses wisdom is a bad lesson to learn. If the Democrats had shouted down Bush when he was talking about weapons of mass destruction, or passing tax cuts for the wealthy, or gutting civil liberties protection, or the whole host of other sins to noxious to speak about in a baseball post – wouldn’t that have been a better result?

I want a Congressman to tell truth to power.  Loud, obnoxious, totally disrespectful truth. 

If the only way to get that ability is to allow a Congressman to lie to power, I'll take that trade.

We don’t need more deference to authority. We need less. When the President orders a missile strike or the Giants manager orders a bunt, I want to be able to shout at him.  I shouted at my television endlessly when Bruce Bochy sent Kevin Frandsen up to bunt, down 2 runs with nobody out in the 8th inning of a game we absolutely had to have.  If I then had to sit in a room with him, I'd have screamed that he was a crummy manager and demanded to see proof that he was born in this country and not a secret Dodger raised from birth to inflitrate us, one who would probably hand Russ Ortiz the "winning ball" as he lifted him from a World Series we were 8 outs away from winning with a 5 run lead!! 

Oh, yeah. 

If you’re wrong, you’re wrong. Regardless of title, position, or protocol.  And someone should say it.

Enough with the bunting already. 

The Weekly Ten (Ten College Football Picks. Week 2)

Week One Record: 6-4 (you're welcome)
Lock Record: 1-0 (again, you're welcome)

Week Two Picks:

WVirginia -6.5 ECarolina (win)
Virginia Tech -19 Marshall (win)
Iowa -6.5 Iowa St. (win)
Auburn -14 Miss St. (win)
BYU -17.5 Tulane (win)
Navy -7.5 LaTech (win)
BC -20.5 Kent (win)
Utah -13.5 SJ St. (loss)
Florida -36.5 Troy (win)

Lock: UNLV +7 Oregon St. (win)

Week: 9-1, Overall: 15-5
Lock: 1-0, Overall: 2-0

Week One - NFL Picks (with season predictions and my fantasy squads)).

I don't have any idea who will win the games in the first week of the NFL season.  Don't bet them.  Seriously.  Pay attention to me in six weeks.  This is just for completion purposes, as I'm going to pick every game all year.  Seriously.  Nothing good can come from playing a week one NFL game.  Nothing.  In fact, as I am going to pick every game all year in this space, consider ignoring it altogether.  Move on.  Go read something else.  Know what's good?  Mr Rogers clips on youtube.  Mr. Rogers was a good man, and I'm a bit of an ass to be honest.  Not bad hearted, just prickly. 

Carolina +1 Philadephia (loss)
NYG -6.5 Washington (loss)
Tampa +6 Dallas (loss)
Minnesota -4 Cleveland (win)
Chicago +3.5 GBay (loss)
New Orleans -13 Detroit (win)
Miami +4 Atlanta (loss)
SF +6.5 Arizona (win)
St. Louis +8.5 Seattle (loss)
NYJ +4.5 Houston (win)
NE -10.5 Buff (loss)
Baltimore -13 KC (win)
Tenn +6 Pitt (win)
Den +4.5 Cincinnati (win)
Jax +7 Indy (win)
SD -9 Oak (loss)

Overall:  8-8

2009 NFL Picks

AFC East

1. New England 12-4
-Brady's back, maybe more importantly an over the hill defense has been turned over nicely; if their secondary, which still has a patchwork quality to it, improves, they're going to the Super Bowl.   They still don't have any running backs unless Fred Taylor has more juice than it looked like last year. 

2. New York Jets 7-9
-Sanchez is one of my guys, but I don't like rookie QB (and have last year's terrible Atlanta pick as evidence) and exascerbating the rookie problem is Sanchez is a rookie with a real small number of college starts.  The schedule toughens up this year and the Jets were largely injury free a year ago.  I really like the defense and think 2010 is much more promising than 2009. 

3. Miami Dolphins 7-9
-This is why they invented the phrase regression to the mean.  Fish rode soft schedule and gimmick offense to big improvement last year, they slide this year.  That's how it usually goes.  Pennington's backing up on one of my fantasy teams.

4. Buffalo 5-11 (under 7.5 wins)
-That over/under looks like a good investment.  TO wasn't good last year and hasn't played this year; teams that turn over their OL usually require time to gell; I'm not in love with the "let's fire the OC" mentality that swept across the league in the past week, and while there's some young talent on defense, it seems a big stretch to see it showing up at an 8 win level. 


AFC North

1. Pittsburgh 10-6
-Roethlisburger's my starting QB on 2 of 3 fantasy teams, so I'm counting on him to keep his hands to himself for a few months.  There's no reason to think they won't be double digit wins again.

2. Baltimore 9-7 WC
-I loved the Ravens last year...if they started Troy Smith over Flacco.  So, take that into consideration.  Ravens led league in time of possession running their 1958 offense last year, some regression is likely.  I've got Mason on 2 fantasy teams.

3. Cincinnati 6-10
-Do I need to start calling Chad Ochocinco now?  I didn't last year, but at what point does that make me Floyd Patterson, just getting my ass whipped while Ali shouts "what's my name" (the equivalent would be what, "child please?") Chad's on one of my fantasy teams.  Bengals have lots of Trojans (Palmer, Rivers, and Maualuga, one of my all time favorites, and I wanted to see him become a Niner in a hard way) so like the Jets in the East, I'll be rooting for them in the Central, but with that OL (probably a lost season, at least half season, for Andre Smith, right?) and lack of pass rush this is top end for this team.

4. Cleveland 4-12 (under 6.5)
-This is full on rebuild.  That's a nice investment in the under.

AFC South

1. Indianapolis 12-4 (over 10 wins)
-They've won 12 games or more six straight years.  That's a trend I'm willing to follow.  I have Anthony Gonzalez on two fantasy teams.

2. Jacksonville 9-7 WC
-As a rule, when you have a good team that suffers a lot of injuries and the record suffers accordingly - look for a bounce back.  This is that bounce back.  I've got Garrard as my backup QB on one team.  I've got Torry Holt on two teams. 

3. Tennessee 8-8
-Albert Haynesworth was the best defensive player in football last year.  He's gone, Titans regress.

4. Houston 8-8
-I rode Slaton/Johnson to a fantasy title last year; I have neither on any of my 3 teams this season.  I do have Daniels twice, however. Texans turn the ball over too much; Schaub gets hurt too much; the Texans can't stop the run.  I have to divisions predicted with no one under .500, which seems unlikely.

AFC West

1. San Diego 12-4 Super Bowl Champs (over 10 wins)
-I don't know if Shawne Merriman choked Tila Tequila (what a bizarre thing to type) over the weekend, but I do know if he were a baseball player with a PED suspension in his jacket the phrase roid rage would be applied all week.  Just as if there were a baseball player with the kind of aggressive, way over the borderline-dirty reputation that Rodney Harrison has, his PED suspension would mean there was no network analyst job waiting for him post-career.  I watched Mike Tyson documentary last week (it's good, not required watching, but good to see, Tyson's always been the most compelling athlete of his time) and my thought, as it always is, is about Evander Holyfield still getting to keep his reputation.  The evidence linking Holyfield to steroids is at least as strong as the Bonds/Clemens evidence, there is "character" evidence that sportswriters care about when it's other guys (Holyfield has 11 children with 7 women), and as you watch those two fights with Tyson - and see the former cruiserweight Holyfield ram his oversized head into Tyson - over and over again - just butting him with impunity in both fights - Tyson's biting Holyfield looks less the product of a "bully giving up when confronted" (the way the Sports Industrial Complex always frames the acts) - and more of an admittedly unbalanced man taking extra-legal measures to protect himself.  Why isn't Holyfield Barry Bonds (except, of course, that Bonds is a god, the greatest player in National League history) except more violent, worse with money, and with a dislike of birth control? 

I'm picking the Chargers to win the whole thing.  I have LT on one team, I have Rivers on one team.  I have Vincent Jackson on two and the Chargers defense on one. 

2. Kansas City 7-9
I've got Bowe on one team and Cassel and Charles backing up on another.  This is a hard team to get a read on; if it's December and they're a surprise WC contender that wouldn't be a shock.

3. Oakland 5-11
-If it's December and Oakland isn't still a little embarassing that would be a shock - there's talent, more talent than this record, but that place is a mess.

4. Denver 5-11
-This is a bigger mess, at least for this season.  Denver had a terrible defense and a pretty strong offense in 2008, they gutted the latter and left the former intact.  This is a rebuild. 

NFC East

1. New York Giants NFC Champs 11-5
I'm a Umenyiora guy; the increased DL depth benefits the defense - if the OL stays healthy again, this is my NFC pick.  I've got Jacobs on one team and Hixon (underrated) on two. 

2. Philadelphia 9-7 WC
-I've written about Vick before, but smart people (including Dave Zirin, the country's most prominent lefty sportswriter and I guy I look up to in the field) continue to get this wrong.  So, let's phrase it like this.  No, to answer the question, not everyone gets a "second" chance.  To call running a dog torturing scheme for six years only a "first strike" seems a little perverse; had Vick just set up one rape stand, just attached jumper cables to electrocute one dog - and then after paying a penalty was reinstated, then he'd be on his second chance (assuming one doesn't care about whatever he put in his water bottle at the airport and the name Ron Mexico, which, to be fair, I don't).  But 6 years of torturing animals is probably not the equivalent of one swing and a miss at a slider.  Further, there are some crimes from which Vick wouldn't be reinstated.  If Rae Carruth's conviction is overturned on a technicality, he wouldn't be reinstated.  If OJ Simpson had killed his wife and her waiter friend in 1975 instead of 1995, he wouldn't have been reinstated after his acquittal.  We can ratchet that down a few notches.  What if it were rape?  Mike Tyson did a couple of years for rape - if there were an NFL player convicted of rape and released after serving two years, would he be a backup QB two years later?  What if he just gave a few 14 year old boys handjobs?  What is a worse moral offense?  6 years of torturing dogs in as vicious a way imaginable - or maybe inviting a handful (pun intended) of teenage boys over to the crib for some Madden, some Jesus juice, and a little mutual wacking?  If Vick had done that, would there be people wearing his jersey in Philadelphia today?  If Vick had been ensnared by Dateline for cyberchatting up a young girl - would he have a "second" chance?

Lots of reasons not to get a second chance.  We are absolutely saying as a society that we are less offended by Vick with his returning to the NFL.

As I've written before, it's a complicated ethical spot.  I'm uncertain how to attack Vick and also defend my eating fried chicken just twenty minutes ago.  Kill dogs and its prison.  Kill pigs and its breakfast.

I see that too.  And because of that it's not unreasonable to let Vick back in the league.

But it's also not unreasonable to be revolted by him.  He can make a living if there's a team willing to sign his paycheck.  I'm of the mind that no players should ever be banned by commissioners - if a team wants to sign Vick, as far as I'm concerned, it can.

But wow - can I say that dude, and now the Eagles, who I've liked - liked McNabb, liked Reid - they are dead to me.  There are no Eagles on my fantasy teams; I hope they go 0-16.  If Vick got hurt it wouldn't break my heart.  We'd be a better country if my meat eating sins were held against me; I'd be a far better person if I had the discipline to enforce those prohibitions myself.  Until then, until my/our ethical dissonance is satisfied, I have a new least favorite professional sports team.

3. Dallas 9-7
-Replacing my old least favorite team.  As do all right thinking people, I hate the Cowboys.  If they can stay healthy, they'll be better than this.  If they can't, they'll be worse.  Yeah, you're right.  The Dodgers are still my real least favorite team. 

4. Washington 8-8
-I've got Portis on one team - I still like Jason Campbell (I also still like Matt Leinart) and with Haynesworth aboard I just don't see this as a bad football team. 

NFC North

1. Chicago 10-6 (over 8.5 wins)
I've got Forte in one league.  I've got the defense in two. The OL turnover is a concern early and Cutler's move to Chicago doesn't really have a parallel in recent league history - that makes it a hard forecast - I'll go high and say Bears win a competitive division.

2. Green Bay 10-6 WC
-There's gonna be some firepower offensively, and I think the switch to the 3-4 will, at least by season's end, really send the Pack into the playoffs on a big roll. 

3. Minnesota 9-7
-Remember when I was the only guy who hated Brett Favre?  I've got Berrian on all 3 fantasy teams.

4. Detroit 4-12
-They'll be better.

NFC South

1. New Orleans 8-8
The offense will score a bunch; I've got Bush in one league.  They'll need to score a bunch to compensate for how much they give up.  I figure it comes out in the wash.

2. Carolina 8-8
Delhomme threw 37 interceptions the last time he played a game that counted. 

3. Atlanta 7-9
-Curse of 370!  More regression to the mean.

4. Tampa Bay 7-9
-Probably either the Saints or Panthers pick up a game and the Bucs lose one - but because I don't know which one of those teams is going to get that win, I'm sitting here with no one over .500.


NFC West

1. Seattle 9-7
-No Walter Jones, no Marcus Trufant, Julius Jones is the starting RB and still I have them winning the division.  Welcome to the NFC West.  I've got Mare on every team I have.

2. Arizona 7-9
-The Cards are solid favorites, but their pythag last year was 8-8, their becoming the worst ever SB team doesn't change their seasonlong mediocrity.  Sure, they could go 9-7 and win the division and it wouldn't be a surprise, but they aren't playing February again.

3. San Francisco 7-9 (my team, for those unaware)
- Well, so, here are my Niners.  I have none on any of 3 fantasy teams if that's a tip in some direction.  If anything, this is a game too high, I don't see a scenario where we're 9-7.  Maybe it's moving in the right direction; it's not demonstrably wrong, so that's something.  I'm not in a position, after a decade of awful, to protest Singletary, despite his really not being my kind of coach.  I'd rather have Leinart than any QB on the roster; the OL should be better; Glen Coffee looks like a terrific pick for a tandem backfield; I like Josh Morgan and (I think) still believe Crabtree will come to terms.  There are some good players on defense.  I like the general approach of the front office, more than I do, say the approach of my SFG - and I'm glad Jed has taken control.  I didn't think the owner of the Niners would be so much younger than I am when I'm still so boyish and lovely myownself, but there you go.  I will cheer.  That's what I do. 

4. St. Louis 6-10 (over 5.5 wins)
-The Rams are moving in the right direction.  I've got SJax on two teams.

Those who were with me in the old place may recall that I play 3 fantasy leagues ($) each season in hoops, baseball, and NFL.  I was on a good run until this baseball season, when I did nothing good in any league and there's just not a good excuse I can make for it.  I was wrong and I'll own it.

Here's the damage, after a long Labor Day of drafting.  All are 12 team, non PPR, with flex, head to head.

Team One
QB Roethlisberger, Pennington
RB SJax, Jacobs, RBrown, Mendenhall
WR AGonzalez, Ochocinco, Berrian, Holt, Hixon
TE Daniels
D Bears
K Mare

Team Two
QB Roethlisberger, Garrard
RB SJax, LT2, LWhite, Betts, Charles
WR  VJax, Bowe, AGonzalez, Berrian
TE Daniels
D Bears
K Mare

Team Three
QB Rivers, Cassel
RB Forte, Portis, JJones, Bush
WR Ward, Holt, Berrian, Hixon, Mason
TE Winslow
D Chargers
K Mare