i'm so in love with pancakes

is it possible that jay cutler might end up as a qb bargain again next year? he's been brutalized in the press for not winning, which has absolutely no bearing on his fantasy value, but could affect his draft position. the whole issue with his coach possibly looking to replace him with cassel might even be overplayed. if you had a chance to trade for a guy you just won 11 games with, wouldn't you look into it? i think that has nearly no bearing on how much you like your existing qb. face it, cutler is not peyton manning. if josh mcdaniels was taking over the giants and there was a chance of sending eli somewhere and coming back with cassel, he would have taken it. well, maybe that's just because eli's not worth it. the guy won a super bowl. trent dilfer also won a super bowl.

what round would you need to take cutler in for him to be considered a bargain? the sixth? i suppose he's not a tremendous bargain there, unless you expect him to take another big step in his development next year. i think you have to consider brees, manning, brady, romo, warner and possibly rivers as the guys who should be drafted before him. i'd have to look more closely at the numbers, but i'm not even incredibly happy about taken warner and especially rivers before cutler. i suppose i would prefer whichever of those three fell to a lower slot. if it was warner, i would want a very good backup.

depending on who's waiting for a qb in your league and how you're doing overall, i'll take cutler over roethlisberger, because again this is fantasy not reality. perhaps the pittsburgh line will protect him better next year, but he still hasn't been a guy who throws for a lot of yards. that's never good; the one nice thing about a jay cutler is that you'll get good yardage points even when the td numbers aren't astronomical. i tend to think of rivers as a td-only guy also, but he threw for a lot of yards last year. problem is, people were drafting him relatively high in '07, got disappointed, and then watched him have a career year in '08. i'm not sure i want to be the guy paying with the expectation of a repeat performance. still, i was irrationally afraid of him last year; he was going in the 10th round in leagues i was in and i had no interest in him as a backup. as for other qbs out there, i don't want mcnabb, i don't know where to take cassel, and if you're wondering about the other manning, rub your giants super bowl pennant for good luck before you draft him in the third round.

let's take a minute to discuss draft strategy. while it's become controversial to stick with running backs as your top draft choices, i think they are the safest high draft picks. if your guy goes down and you're stuck with his backup, it's generally the running back position where the greatest value is preserved. there are times when someone steps up and does great at qb or wr. however, you can't keep a matt cassel on hand in case every tom brady goes down. look at how long it took cassel to become a valuable fantasy commodity. as someone who drafted derek anderson in one league, i can tell you that he was not a viable starter in the early going. perhaps if you believe cassel can happen again, you find a boring/reliable backup and, when your big qb pick goes down for the season, stash his backup for a solid six to eight weeks, no matter what. that's great if your team is stable enough that you can afford the bench spot. you don't have to pull stunts like that with rbs. in recent years, backs have routinely stepped in to fantasy relevance in their first couple of games in a featured role. anecdotally, it seems wide receivers can do well when they have a great qb and especially when they're stepping in as the second option. wide receiver seems tough to predict; didn't it seem obvious hixon or someone would step up for the giants?

of course, you don't want a pointless rb in a high slot instead of a standout wr or qb. you could even argue that in leagues with safer playoff formats (i was in one where 8/10 teams made it), you might not even want to draft an rb before round 5 or so. start the year with a quality platoon guy or overlooked starter, add a couple rookies, fill your bench with rbs on teams that have good systems, and get a top qb and 3 wrs with your first 4 picks. that's a workable strategy in a lot of situations. the picks would still need to fall your way, and i can't really say who i'd want to take in rd 1. btw, i'm tempted to take hasselbeck late (11th rd?) if he's available and my starter is rock solid, but there could be better options i haven't thought of yet.

finally, is anyone else waiting for the chevy volt to generate mass anger? what happens when the battery life claim - 40 miles - turns out to be like all these macbook batteries that are quoted at 5 hours? i've owned 2 powerbooks and a macbook in the past 6 years, and you can safely get a couple hours plus on a charge. what happens when the volt turns out the same way? 20 miles all electric doesn't sound that great to me. even if it's 40 at the outset, how long before the aging battery is down to 50% of its original performance? maybe this whole battery thing is a genius move by car companies. they've made cars more and more reliable, so that you can get 100,000 miles out of even lower quality vehicles (hi neon). now, with hybrids and all-electric vehicles seen as the future, the inevitable battery life issues that will come up could either help sell new cars quicker or just lead to some fat maintenance bills.

falcons preparing to make a trade?

k, i really think i'm ready for michael vick to come back to the nfl. i want him to be great, live a great life, and set an example of how to grow up and get past your transgressions. who knows if any of that will happen.

reality for real

i'm glad to see that bud selig's reported desire to hand the home run crown back to hank aaron is not something i made up in a weird dream. while avoiding judgment one way or the other on the issue, i am happy to know that i did not dream about the home run record last night.

the record's just not safe

alex rodriguez exceeds low expectations by sounding human in his apology over his past steroid use. i wonder how this will be received generally.

go hank aaron.

dreams are silly

i think i am really enjoying the fact that i'm not playing fantasy sports at the moment. the football season ended so well - my teams finished 1,1,2,3,10 - that it doesn't really matter that the one terrible team was in the league that matters the most. you have to wonder sometimes if it's time to just give up. i do have a streak of 3 straight years winning a championship on my primary account - that's 3 championships in 8 leagues - so maybe it's worth taking a shot at keeping that up. i've kicked around the idea of doing a half-season baseball league; i get so bored of fantasy baseball. i have also found that it's still pretty entertaining to read about fantasy basketball (which i have never actually played) without having a team. no pressure, all fun. maybe not as much fun as running a team when it's going well...but football is probably the one fantasy sport that's the most enjoyable and that i'm most likely to continue playing.

ultimate matchup

arizona vs oklahoma for the bcs championship next year.

nearly impossible, but one can wish

there's a playoff team here somewhere

four of my five teams made the playoffs, and in the two leagues with 4-team formats i am in the championship. one has a two-week playoff system, with semifinals from wk 14-15 and finals from wk 16-17. Personally, I could see some value in completing all playoff games by week 15.

The other two leagues offer a ridiculous format in which 8 of 10 teams made the playoffs. One of these was edited by the commissioner late in the season, with no warning. Confusing that league with the other 8 playoff team league, I initially thought I was misreading things and that the playoff format had not actually changed. Thus, I kept quiet, as no one else said anything. That is shocking to me; most of these guys know each other, from what I understand. I started playing with them last year via a friend who knew last year's commish. Maybe they were all as confused as I was. My 3rd-seeded team made the semifinal round, but if that hadn't happened, how lame would it have been? Playing a #6 team that shouldn't have been in the playoffs at all and losing? Wow.

The other thing that bothers me is divisions in fantasy leagues. If there are divisions, which serve absolutely no justifiable purpose, the playoffs should be straight seeded tournaments. We hear sports pundits talking about seeding as the best way to do real sports playoffs. However, in the real sports world you have some great geographic rivalries preserved and fostered by divisional groupings. Taking away the division champions' automatic playoff bid would take some of the fun out of those rivalries. Is there any reason at all to grant automatic playoff bids to division champions in fantasy? No, especially not in a public standard configuration league where you're playing with strangers and the arrangement is certain to be a one-year thing. The problems grow with the size of the league, a real tragedy since larger fantasy leagues are more challenging. How would you like to miss out on the playoffs despite having one of the best records in your hyper-competitive tough league just because you're unluckily in the strongest division? That just shouldn't happen.