Sports

Fantasy Football for Dummies- The Straight Shuter

Jesse Shuter

Staff Writer

 

Photo courtesy of http://minnlawyer.com/jdr/2012/08/23/fantasy-football-isnt-illegal-right/

 

With most fantasy leagues entering the playoffs, I thought it would be a good time to teach those of you that are not aware of what fantasy sports are, or why they are so popular, exactly what everyone is raving about.

 

Mostly popular among older men, fantasy sports are becoming more and more popular and well known. It allows people who may not otherwise be interested in sports find that pull in a fun way.

 

Basically the idea for fantasy football is that you draft a team of players from the real National Football League (NFL) and then your team in pinned against the other teams in your league and the team with the most points in a given week wins that week. There are many variations of rosters and point systems, but there is also the standard setup.

 

The standard fantasy league roster contains a quarterback (QB); two running backs (RB); two wide receivers (WR); a tight end (TE); a flex (RB or WR or TE); a team defense; kicker (K); and 7 bench spots. The standard point system works this way: for a quarterback every 25 passing yards is a point; for everyone, every 10 rushing yards and every 10 receiving yards is a point. I say everyone because technically anyone can run or catch the ball, typically a RB runs and receives, a WR and TE just receives and a QB just runs but mainly passes. Also for everyone a touchdown is six points and a two point conversion is two points. For a kicker, a field goal is three points and an extra point is one point, however a fifty+ yard field goal is four points.

 

A defense is different, you start with ten points and lose points based on how many points and/or yards you give up to the other team. You gain points by getting sacks, interceptions (INT), fumble recoveries and defensive or kick return touchdowns. A sack is typically one point, INT and fumbles are two, and touchdowns are six.

 

At the beginning of the year the teams set up a draft where they either take turns picking players in a snake draft (1, 2, 3, 4……7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6…) or they draft players by bidding in an auction. In the auction, you start with a given amount of money and need to have at least one dollar for every player, so obviously the better players go for more money but you don’t want to spend 100 dollars on one player, because depending on the amount of money you start with, that could be half of your stash on one player.

 

Once you have drafted your team you follow your team throughout the year. You have a bench, so when a player in your starting lineup gets hurt you can swap them for a bench player who is reserved on your team but not active. You do not get the points from players on your bench, but it is a good storage spot for players you might need and do not want other teams to have the opportunity to own.

 

The next thing to understand is the bye week system. Every football team gets one week off to rest, and when that week comes you need to be prepared with a replacement player. Usually that player will be on your bench, however, for kickers and some lesser defenses, the points are not any different than a free agent. Therefore, you can just add one from the free agency pool and drop yours.

 

The free agency pool are the players that are unowned, typically you use it when one of your players turns out to be a bust or when one of the available players turns out to be a stud. There is also the waiver period. When a player is dropped from another team in your league or even your own, or after a player plays in their game in a given week, they go on waivers for typically a three day period. A waiver period is a length of time (determined by the league) that available players sit in free agency, but they are locked, meaning that they cannot be added during the waiver period, but a request to add them can be made. This way everyone has the chance to realize that they are available, and then the person with the highest waiver claim, which is determined by the draft order and whether or not you have used you waiver yet, gets the player, assuming they want him.

 

An integral part of fantasy football is trades. Trades are very simple, sometimes you get tired of your players or (as an example) you have an excess of running backs, you have a great one sitting on your bench, you can’t get any use from him, but someone else can. Meanwhile you don’t have any good wide receivers. Trades exists so that you can trade your players that you don’t need for ones that you do.

 

Speaking from experience, fantasy football is a wonderful thing. When I was younger I knew almost nothing about sports, but through fantasy football, I have learned a lot and I like to think of myself as knowledgable when it comes to sports. If you have an interest in learning about sports, I recommend joining a fantasy league.

 

Shuter’s Love/Hate:

In honor of this article being focused on fantasy sports, instead of a takeaway, I thought I would expand on my sleeper pick giving my favorite and least favorite pick at each position.

 

 

Quarterback:

Love- Nick Foles, Philadelphia Eagles v. Detroit Lions

Now I might be a little bit biased because of my being an Eagles fan, but I think Foles is poised for a big week. He is one touchdown away from tying the the record for most touchdowns without an interception, and don’t you think for a second he isn’t aware of that.

 

Hate- Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks at San Francisco 49ers

He is coming off a big week, but I have not been tricked like others. Seattle is the most up and down team in football. On a good day, there is by far no one better, but on a bad day just about anyone can keep up with them. So this week they leave their safe, cozy, record noise breaking home and go on the road to a competitive San Fran. I still think they will win, but not by much.

 

Running Back:

Love: Matt Forte, Chicago Bears v. Dallas Cowboys

Forte has proven to be a stud, this week he is at home against the horrible Dallas run defense. I predict 100 yards and two touchdowns.

 

Hate: LeSean McCoy, Philadelphia Eagles v. Detroit Lions

As much as I hate putting Shady here, he is going against the best defensive line in football on a day where it looks like it may snow. Nothing against his skills, but this is a recipe for disaster.

 

Wide Receiver:

Love: Mike Wallace, Miami Dolphins at Pittsburgh Steelers

His return home should be good for him. I have a feeling he will want to stick it to his old team, and what a perfect way to do it by running circles around their weak secondary.

 

Hate: Anquan Boldin, San Francisco 49ers v. Seattle Seahawks

Anquan started the year hot, but paired against Richard Sherman the Sherminator, and with Michael Crabtree back stealing the show, I don’t know if he gets a catch.

 

Tight End:

Love: Jared Cook, St. Louis Rams at Arizona Cardinals

The Cardinals have a good defense, but they haven’t been able to stop a tight end all year, and Cook is a very talented tight end. If anyone scores a touchdown for the Rams it will be him.

 

Hate: Coby Fleener, Indianapolis Colts at Cincinnati Bengals

The Colts have been struggling as of late and Fleener may not do too well against a relatively strong Bengals defense.

How to Save a Baseball Team- The Straight Shuter

by Jesse Shuter

Staff Writer

 

http://www.threespringsfruitfarm.com/blog/10/2009

 

Each year the baseball season comes and goes and some teams are left happy, while others are left disappointed and sad. That is when the free agency system comes into play.

 

For those of you that don’t know what free agency is, here is a brief description. Each player signs a contract when they play for a given team. This contract insures their participation in that team’s games in exchange for an agreed upon amount of money. This contract also lasts an agreed upon number of years. When the contract is up, the player becomes a free agent and is allowed to sign with any team that they wish.

 

In the MLB there is also something called arbitration. In a very basic definition, a player has to qualify for arbitration by having played a certain amount of time, and then the team can offer the player an arbitration contract. If the player agrees, then instead of going to free agency, the player goes to a court with the team where the salary is determined.

 

Now that we know what free agency is, let’s get to the point of this article. What do teams want out of free agency? Or better yet, what should teams want out of free agency? The simplest answer is to fill the holes in their team.

 

Usually a team wants to fill a hole that is left by a player leaving their team. For example, this year the San Francisco Giants have two pitchers, Ryan Vogelsong, and Barry Zito, going to free agency so they made sure they would be okay by signing Tim Hudson away from his original team, the Atlanta Braves.

 

Some teams try to fix themselves in other ways, for example, two years ago the Texas Rangers lost star outfielder Josh Hamilton. Since then they have missed his power in their lineup. They also have a star prospect shortstop/second baseman in Jurickson Profar. So they made a great move and traded away their current star second baseman Ian Kinsler for star first baseman Prince Fielder, thereby making room for Profar and getting huge power back into their lineup by acquiring fielder.

 

The Take Away:

 

For this week’s take away, I decided what would fix the Philadelphia Phillies. I love the Phillies more than any team in the MLB and because I love them I feel that it is my job to fix them.

 

Step 1: Starting Pitching

 

Right now the Phillies’ rotation looks like this: Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Miguel Gonzalez, Kyle Kendrick, and Jonathan Pettibone. Therefore, they have two incredible starters at numbers one and two respectively (Lee and Hamels) followed by a young promising pitcher currently in the number three spot (Gonzalez) and two scrubs, i.e., players who are either untalented or have lost their talent from getting older, rounding out the rotation of five (Kendrick and Pettibone).

 

Because of these scrubs, I believe they need two pitchers to make their rotation great. They need a solid number three and number four starter because Gonzalez can be their fifth starter easily.

 

For their number three starter they should sign one of the following: Ubaldo Jimenez; Ervin Santana; Ricky Nolasco; or Matt Garza. I recommend Santana, because he is a risky signing so he will go for less money and as a number three starter, there is much less risk than the risk teams would be taking if they wanted to sign him as their number one or two starting pitcher.

 

For their number four starter they have these choices: Bartolo Colon; Hiroki Kuroda; Paul Maholm; Bronson Arroyo. I like Maholm the best out of these options, because he is still young and won’t cost a lot, plus as a number four starter he is a high end pitcher.

 

Step 2: Relief Pitcher

The Phillies have always had some relief problems. They have a great closer in Jonathan Papelbon but they need help getting from the starting pitcher to their closer. They have two options here, Joaquin Benoit or Edward Mujica. Mujica is younger, but by the end of the year last year he started to slow down which is why I like Benoit better.

 

Step 3: Outfielder

The Phillies started the offseason by signing Marlon Byrd. He is okay, but not what they should be looking for. They need a starting outfielder/batter to carry their team. They have quite a few options here in Jacoby Ellsbury; Shin-Soo Choo; Curtis Granderson; or Nelson Cruz. The Phillies already talked to Nelson Cruz and couldn’t work a contract out so he won’t work. I love Ellsbury for the Phillies. Ellsbury is by far the most talented of the group, therefore, he will cost the most. However, Ellsbury is also young, and a switch hitter. The Phillies really need a hitter of his magnitude to fill out their lineup, plus the fact that he is a switch hitter in a heavily right handed lineup would help a lot.

 

Step 4: The Trade

This last step will be the hardest to pull off, especially considering the things that need to happen for it to work. This trade if pulled off would be PERFECT. The Texas Rangers have already made one trade this year and they are definitely not done yet. Experts think they want offseason prize Robinson Cano. Cano is a star and he would make their lineup incredible. However, he plays second base and their would be no room for Jurickson Profar. They do, however, need an outfielder. It was originally thought that they would trade Profar to the Cardinals for star prospect outfielder Oscar Taveras. The Cardinals, however, have already signed shortstop Johnny Peralta so they no longer need Profar. So if the Phillies sign Ellsbury (Step 3) then they could trade young outfielder Domonic Brown to the Rangers for Profar, then Profar could take over for Utley/Rollins when they leave, or he could play second base and Utley could slide over to third. Obviously there are a lot of “what ifs” that need to happen for this to work out, like the signing of Ellsbury and Cano, but if this trade works out the Phillies will be fixed.

 

Shuter’s Sleeper of the Week:

Torrey Smith (WR) Baltimore Ravens:

Smith is playing on Thanksgiving against the Steelers. The Steelers have a terrible pass defense, so I expect Smith to take at least one pass to the house and get a lot of points. Smith is a solid WR1 and Great WR2 this week.

Is it Worth it?- Sports Talk with the Straight Shuter

by Jesse Shuter

Staff Writer

Courtesy of http://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/11/ jason-babin-dreadlocks-andre-ellington/

 

In sports today, you hear about injuries every day. Whether it is a high ankle sprain, a concussion or even an ACL tear. They are happening more and more often each year. Throughout this article I am going to focus on these types of injuries in the NFL, although what is said here can be applied to almost any professional sport.

 

Players continue to put themselves at risk by trying to get every last yard instead of maybe taking a few less yards, but walking away injury free. Some injuries happen to be more gruesome than others.

 

Sometimes these players get lucky and nothing happens and they don’t realize that they are putting themselves in harms way because they walk away healthy. Other times, they get hurt whether for the rest of the game, a week or even a season, yet they still are willing to risk it all the next time they get a chance.

 

Then there are the unlucky ones. The most common example is Joe Theismann. Theismann was a quarterback for the Washington Redskins and was an extremely talented quarterback with the rest of his career to look forward to. Then tragedy struck.

 

Theismann was playing in a game against the New York Giants and was getting blitzed by the opposing team’s defense. The blitz was working because a few players broke through the offensive line. One of the players happened to be Lawrence Taylor. Lawrence Taylor is a hall of fame player, and is known as possibly the best defensive or even the best overall player of all time.

 

Theismann was not able to avoid the oncoming traffic of players and took the sack for a loss of yards. The sack was not the end of the play, however, because as he was getting sacked, Lawrence Taylor came flying in to finish the job and landed on Theismann’s leg.

 

If you have ever seen this play, you know what happens next. Lawrence Taylor was beginning to celebrate the play when he heard a scream of agony behind him. He spun around to see Theismann laying of the ground with a leg bone split in half. The injury was so horrible that Theismann could never play again and that play ended his career early.

 

There are some other more recent example of gruesome injuries. Two from this year come to mind, and both of these players are on the same team. These players are Andre Ellington and Rashad Johnson of the Arizona Cardinals. Johnson’s injury came earlier this year.

 

Johnson was just making any old play that day when Darren Sproles of the New Orleans Saints was running with the ball and he tackled him, no big deal right? Well it turned out that when Johnson stood up, he was a little bit lighter. The top of his middle finger was gone. How? You might ask, but not even Johnson knows. According to Johnson, his best guess is that the finger snapped off when he hit the turf, not when hitting Sproles.

 

The other situation happened this past Sunday (11/17/13). Andre Ellington running back for the Cardinals was handed the ball and took off. He was met by Jason Babin, a defensive player for the Jaguars who tackled him. However, Babin tackled him in an interesting way. Babin tackled Ellington by the hair. In fact, he tackled so hard that he pulled the dreadlocks right out of his head.

 

Luckily both of these players were able to return to play very soon after their unfortunate and extremely painful injuries.

 

The Take Away:

So here comes the question. Should these players be risking injury to such an extent? I say yes.

 

Now everyone today is concerned about the players health and rightfully so. However I feel that it is getting way out of hand.

 

The NFL continues to try and makes it’s game safer for the players, but at what cost?They are ruining the integrity of the game, all these rules are making too hard for the players to do their best.

 

I do agree, however, with the no head to head hits rule because I feel that concussions are the biggest threat to players because of the affect they can have on the players in the long run, after their football careers are over they should still possess all of their mental faculties.

 

I respect players that give it 110% and risk their health for the benefit of their team. If I were running a team those are the type of guys I would want. It shows dedication and respect to themselves, their team and the game to try as hard as these players do.

 

As I said last week in my column about Pat Tillman here are so few players that are good people and that care for other people more than themselves. This is why I respect players that give it all each and every day.

Courtesy of http://www.azcardinals.com/news-and-events /article-2/Rashad-Johnson-Fingertip-Loss-Got- 9-more/9fc32981-1f41- 406c-9a5c-b704948351b4

Shuter’s Sleeper of the Week:

Zac Stacy (RB) Rams-

This week the Rams are playing the Bears at home coming off a bye week. These are the same Bears that made former stud Ray Rice who has been struggling all year look like his former self. This is a matchup made in heaven and as far as I am concerned, Stacy is a must start in any and every league.

The Pat Tillman Legacy

by Jesse Shuter

Staff Writer

Photo courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Pat_Tillman

 

This past monday, November 11th was Veterans Day. Veterans Day is a day in which we honor and remember all the men and women that risk and have lost their lives fighting for our country. There are many reasons and stories of people joining the military, but none more touching than the story of Pat Tillman.

 

This Sunday the NFL honored military veterans in many ways. All the staff and players could be seen on the sidelines and on the field wearing the camouflage colors of the army. In addition, veterans and soldiers were honored by taking a break from the armed forces  to spend a day with NFL players. The last way the NFL recognized Veterans Day was to raise money for veterans’ foundations, one of which was the Pat Tillman Foundation.

 

The story of Pat Tillman is one of the most courageous stories I have ever heard. Tillman was a professional football player, who played safety for Arizona Cardinals.

 

In college Tillman was an incredible athlete.  Despite his somewhat smaller stature, he played linebacker at Arizona State University. He led ASU to an undefeated season and was voted Pac-10 defensive player of the year. Not only was Tillman an incredible athlete, but he was also very bright. He graduated college after three and a half years with a 3.85 GPA.

 

In May 2002, after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Tillman was offered a 3 year, 3.6 million dollar contract. Tillman did something that probably no other NFL player, or most other people for that matter, would have done. He turned down the potential fortune of money to join the army and help his struggling country. He did this because of the feeling of obligation towards his country.

 

The tragic part of this story is what happened next. After joining the Army Rangers, he was sent to Afghanistan. Tillman was killed in battle. It was first reported that he was killed by enemy fire and he was awarded with the silver star for valor. The Pentagon later revealed that he was actually killed by friendly fire.

 

This is a man who was on top of the world by today’s standards and gave it all away just because of a sense of responsibility he felt for his country. This man should be a role model for not only all football players but all Americans in today’s society.

 

My reason for writing this article is to spread the word of Pat Tillman’s legacy. Pat Tillman is an American hero, but you don’t hear about him unless you watch the NFL so I wanted to make sure that all the people that read this article understand true devotion and honor.

 

The Take Away:

 

Today in the NFL more players are punished than any other professional sport. Let me explain what I mean by that. Whenever there is reports of DUIs or murders by professional athletes it is most likely the NFL.

 

Ray Lewis allegedly killed someone. Aaron Hernandez allegedly killed someone. Dez Bryant beat his own mother. Justin Blackmon has been suspended twice for drug abuse. Richie Incognito has been fined and cut for abusing and bullying fellow teammates. There are countless examples of criminal and immoral behavior that these professional athletes.

 

It’s not just the lack of criminal activity that makes Tillman such an outstanding character. Today, athletes continually prove that they are only looking out for themselves. They are always searching for the biggest contracts, and the most glory. If they don’t get what they want they stop showing up to practice. It isn’t about the game or even the team anymore. Professional sports are about the players today.

 

This is why a man like Pat Tillman is so rare. It is hard to find an NFL player who is such a good person anymore. Don’t get me wrong, there are so many great people in the NFL and I am not saying that all football players are bad people, but it is so hard to find someone of outstanding character like Tillman.

 

Shuter’s Sleeper of the Week:

Percy Harvin (WR) Seahawks-

This should be Harvin’s first game back, and after a long recovery period I believe he will come ready to play. This speedy and almost electric receiver is going up against the Minnesota Vikings, who have one of the worst defenses in football, at home in Seattle. Seattle is notoriously one of if not the hardest stadium for an away team to play in. This is because of the stadium’s design in which the sound from the stands bounces off the roof and directly onto the field. I expect Harvin to get at least one touchdown assuming he plays, but I also expect Golden Tate to get a healthy helping of points.