A week from now, on August 1,  I will hop on my bike and pedal from Southdale shopping center in Edina, Minnesota to Treasure Island Resort and Casino near Red Wing, Minnesota. Then the next day I’ll wake up early and ride back to Apple Valley, Minnesota.  Of course, as you can probably tell from the tab at the top of the page or the logo on the right hand side, my bike excursion will be for The Hartford Breast Cancer Ride. To learn more about this great event and why I care enough to ride my bike nearly 150 miles in two days, please click on either the tab at the top or that pink bike logo over there. Or just visit BreastCancerRide.org.

Two weeks after the Ride I’ll be driving back to Treasure Island for a much different reason, the Fantasy Football Camp with KFAN Radio.  I will be co-hosting the “Fantasy Football Weekly” radio show per usual that morning from 10-12 on the ‘FAN, but we’ll be broadcasting the show live from Treasure Island at the event. Our radio program will be followed by a live mock draft in which I will take part along with my co-hosts, other on-air personalities from the station, and assorted other fantasy experts from around the industry. After that, my co-hosts and I will deliver even more fantasy tips and analysis…stuff that doesn’t fit into a normal radio show format. Plus we’ll have a question and answer session. As you can see in this press release regarding the event, there will even be space set aside for your league to hold their draft.

We did a similar event to this with the radio station two years ago and it was a big hit. The crowd was huge and we had a lot of fun. I encourage any of you who are hard-core fantasy football fans to make the trek to Treasure Island for the function. I hope to see you there!

As they say, “the island is calling.”  Apparently I’m heeding the call.

I always find NFL strength of schedule analysis to be a bit overrated because it is based solely on last year’s winning percentages and does not account for the changes made since via free agency and the draft. Nor does it account for injuries. Case in point: does anyone think the New England Patriots will be worse this year than they were last year when Tom Brady essentially missed the entire season?

Nevertheless, looking at the strength of schedule can give one an approximate idea of how soft or hard a given team’s schedule is at a glance. It’s entertaining and good water cooler fodder. To that end, the table on the right shows this year’s strength of schedule ranked from toughest to easiest.

In terms of its usefulness for fantasy football purposes, the strength of schedule purely based on winning percentages from last year has a limited application. It is far better to analyze how opposing defenses fared against the run and against the pass and then break those stats down further into yardage and touchdowns to determine how that translates into points in your league’s particular scoring system.

Even then, the schedule analysis must be tempered by the fact that it’s still just last year’s stats and many things can change from year to year. In that context it is interesting data to have, yet it should not be a primary determining factor in doing your player rankings. It is most useful when deciding between two players at the same position with similar values. Using the strength of each player’s schedule can act as a tie-breaking factor in these cases.

FantasyFootballChamps.com has a great series on S.O.S. that takes this fantasy perspective. I would encourage FFChamps subscribers to have a look if they find this sort of thing interesting and helpful.

It was good to be back on the radio airwaves today!

I joined Paul Charchian and John Tuvey in studio at KFAN Radio this morning to talk fantasy football for an hour. Our primary topic was sleepers and I touted Shaun Hill, Ray Rice, and Justin Gage as three of my favorite underrated players this preseason. We also got into where we’d rank each of the primary Vikings players since KFAN is the Vikings flagship station. John and I say Adrian Peterson is the No. 1 player in fantasy football; Charch went with Maurice Jones-Drew (wrong answer!).

Today’s hour of fantasy football speculation was a precursor of sorts to our “Fantasy Football Weekly” radio program which kicks off its 15th season on August 1. The show can be heard Saturdays from 10-12 noon CT on KFAN and KFAN.com, where it can also be downloaded (after it airs) in their “FAN on Demand” section.  It is the longest-running and most popular show of it’s kind on the air. Check it out sometime and see why!

To listen to Tuesday’s program, click here.

As I mentioned, the show begins August 1st; however, I will be out of the studio that day riding my bike on The Hartford Breast Cancer Ride.  My plan is to call in from the road that day for about five minutes, but we’ll have to see if I remember to do so while trying to bike nearly 150 miles in two days.

By the way, if you wish to sponsor me on The Hartford Breast Cancer Ride, you may do so online at my personal page here.  Thanks in advance for your generosity!

The draft is and may always be the most popular way to distribute players in fantasy football. It’s a shame, though, because using an auction is a much better method. There are a lot of old-timers out there who steadfastly refuse to try an auction for reasons ranging from “we’ve always used a draft, so there’s no reason to change” to “auctions sound too complicated and will just take forever.” Both are merely excuses, and bad ones at that. As a long-time auction apologist, I feel it is my duty to annually spread the good word about auctions. So here then are my five reasons why your league should use an auction rather than a draft this year:

1. Auctions are fairer
There is absolutely no question that an auction is a more equitable means of distributing players than a draft. Even if your draft uses a serpentine method in which the order reverses every round (1-12, 12-1) an auction is fairer. It’s simple: in an auction every team is on equal footing. Every team gets the same auction budget and has to buy the same number of players. Unlike a draft in which the order (oftentimes a random order totally based on luck) determines who will be getting the best players at the top, an auction allows everyone a shot at the best players as long as they are willing to pay the price. Said another way, there is only one No.1 pick in a draft, but everyone is capable of getting the best player in an auction. The last I checked fairness is something for which we should strive when making the rules that govern fantasy football leagues.

2. Auctions are more fun
Let me see if this sounds familiar: it’s draft day and you make your pick, then 20 minutes later you make your next pick. Between selections you hear someone ask at least once, “who the bleep is up?!” while some numskull frantically flips through magazines that were written five months earlier trying to decide between four different tight ends. Yes, draft day is a lot of fun, but it can also get very tedious, even boring, at times. That is never the case in an auction because the answer to “who’s up?” is always “everyone.” You can bid on every stinkin’ player if you want, provided you still have ample money left in your auction coffers. The action never drags in an auction, unlike a draft where owners often have enough time to take a short nap between picks.

3. More strategy is a good thing
If using your brain is an issue, then maybe you ought to quit your whining and stick with drafts. However, for those of you who actually believe you might know a little something more than the next guy about this great obsession we call fantasy football, then the opportunity to employ more strategy (i.e. think) should be a welcome endeavor. Yes, an auction involves more strategy than a draft. It involves pre-auction strategy like devising a list of projected auction values and figuring out how you want to budget your money. It also involves in-auction strategy such as bidding patterns, getting tells on other owners, and making plan changes on the fly. In other words it gives everyone a chance to flex their brain muscles rather than sit on them for four hours while periodically spitting out a name.

4. Auctions reward those who prepare
If we really want to continue rewarding the lazy, then the terrorists have won. Don’t you hate it when “that guy” stumbles into a good team on draft day? You know the guy—he’s the one who pays no attention to football all offseason, shows up to a draft with nothing but a case of beer, Xeroxes a copy of your C3 cheat sheet from FFChamps, lucks into a top-three pick, and then just goes down the line on his (your) cheat sheet picking the next best player? Meanwhile, you’ve studied, planned, and stayed on top of the news, only to get the ninth pick and leave the draft frustrated and depressed. An auction does not allow for someone to be unprepared. Those who are unprepared for an auction will be eaten up in an auction format and left unprepared when the season starts. Those who prepare, even a little, will actually benefit from their hard work and knowledge via better bidding.

5. Auctions are easier than you think
Auctions are a bit more challenging than a draft, but seriously you don’t even have to be smarter than a fifth grader to figure them out. If you can read, speak, count to 100, and have mastered the art of subtraction (addition’s tricky friend) you are qualified to participate in a fantasy football auction. It’s really not that tough, people. And, no, it doesn’t take 10 hours. If you have a half-way decent auctioneer it shouldn’t take any longer than a draft does… and it will be so much more action-packed and fun it will feel like it actually takes less time.

I don’t know of a league that has tried an auction that has gone back to doing a draft.

Is your league contemplating the switch?

You hereby have my permission—in fact, I implore you—to copy and paste this article into an email or just copy the link and send it to the nonbelievers in your league. If I can convert even one more league to use an auction rather than a draft I will feel as though I have made this world just a little better place for future generations.

This article was originally published by me at FantasyFootballChamps.com

As I was doing some research today for an article at FFChamps.com I came across a rather troubling revelation. I was writing a little something about Packers kicker Mason Crosby because he led the NFL in scoring last year with 141 points and I cited the fact that no kicker has led the league in scoring in consecutive seasons since the Patriots John Smith did so in 1979 and 1980. I annually cite this stat for the reigning scoring champ amongst kickers as a reason to not expect a great follow up season. What’s more, kickers rarely come close to their league-leading total for an encore; just three of them since Smith’s repeat have even come within 20 points of their league-leading total the following year. However, I knew that stat already too because, you know, I’m kind of a fantasy stat geek like that.

What I did not realize, though, was just how pervasive the curse of the leading scorer was. It’s almost as lethal as the Madden or Sports Illustrated cover jinxes. Note I said “leading scorer,” not “leading scorer among kickers.” Of the last eight scoring champs (i.e. all of them this millennium) five are no longer in the NFL. The only three active players are the last two—Crosby and LaDainian Tomlsinon—and Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri, who led the league in 2004 with 141 points as a member of the Patriots. The other players to lead the NFL in scoring since 2000 are: Shaun Alexander (2005) who has yet to find a team willing to sign him since being cut by the Seahawks, Jeff Wilkins (2003) who retired this offseason, Priest Holmes (2002), and Marshall Faulk (2000 and 2001). Go back a bit further and you have Mike Vanderjagt (1999), Gary Anderson (1998), and Mike Hollis (1997), none of whom have an NFL job.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily worry me as far as Crosby is concerned since he is still a few months shy of his 24th birthday and the good kickers have been known to stick around until their late 30s and early 40s. I’m not saying I think Crosby will repeat as scoring champ this season, with or without Brett Favre, because by all accounts that isn’t humanly possible. However, my findings add more fuel to my anti-Tomlinson malaise. I have no doubt that Tomlinson deserves to be one of the first two players selected in fantasy drafts for non-keeper and non-dynasty leagues this year. That said, he turned 29 a few weeks ago, had a knee injury during the postseason that would have forced him to miss an estimated six games had it occurred during the regular season, and spoke to ESPN earlier this offseason about the fact that he won’t be playing five years from now because he wants to go out on top. Running backs that produce past the age of 30 are rare and the level of average output declines precipitously for each additional year after that.

Thus, even in the best scenario I would have thought that L.T. only had three good seasons left in the tank. The jinx of the scoring leader suggests, however, that his exit from the game might come even sooner and there is no hope for another season like the one he had two years ago. I hope that’s wrong, but who am I to argue with such overwhelming evidence?

I realize it’s early and the season doesn’t start for another three months, but I’ve participated in several fantasy football industry expert mock drafts already this year. In fact, we just held our first one of the preseason over at FFChamps.com. I gathered some familiar faces from my days at Fanball.com along with some of my associates at FFChamps and we did a 10-team, 14-round mock on Monday night. The scoring system used was a standard 75 percent-touchdown and 25 percent-yardage with no PPR. The roster requirements were as follows: 1 quarterback, 2 running backs, 2 wide receivers, 1 tight end, 1 kicker, 1 defense/special teams, and 6 bench players (any position).

I had the fourth overall pick and took Brian Westbrook, after LaDainian Tomlinson, Adrian Peterson, and Steven Jackson went 1-2-3. Here’s how my entire draft went:

1. Brian Westbrook, RB, Eagles
2. Peyton Manning, QB, Colts
3. Steve Smith, WR, Panthers
4. Julius Jones, RB, Seahawks
5. Rudi Johnson, RB, Bengals
6. Calvin Johnson, WR, Lions
7. LenDale White, RB, Titans
8. Tony Gonzalelz, TE, Chiefs
9. Bernard Berrian, WR, Vikings
10. Jerry Porter, WR, Jaguars
11. Jay Cutler, QB, Broncos
12. Baltimore Ravens defense
13. Rob Bironas, K, Titans
14. Ted Ginn Jr., WR, Dolphins

FFChamps subscribers can view the entire mock draft by following this link.

Mock… yeah. Draft… yeah. Ing…yeah. Yeah… yeah!

I just wanted to let all of you know that I have organized the first fantasy football Expert Mock Draft of the preseason for FantasyFootballChamps.com and it will take place this upcoming Monday, June 9 at 9:30 pm ET. Those of you who are FFChamps subscribers will be able to follow along online live by going to the mock draft section of the site.

The other fantasy football industry veterans who will be taking part in the mockery: John Tuvey, Jon Lopuch, Christian Peterson, Jason Powell, Mat Harrison, Tom Blomberg, Court Mann, Colin Pekruhn, and Joe Potenza. I’d like to invite all of you to stop by and watch the draft unfold, but in case you can’t we’ll have the results posted for subscribers at FFChamps immediately afterward.

The Broncos’ release of Travis Henry on Monday means that second-year sprinter Selvin Young is entrenched as the Broncos starting running back… for now. Simply put, no Broncos’ back job is ever safe as long as Mike Shanahan is head coach. That being said, Young sits atop the depth chart and should be unchallenged for the role now that Henry has been shown the door.

Young likely saw Monday’s dismissal of last year’s starter coming last week when he told the Denver Post that he thought he could rush for 2,000 yards this season. “The key to that to me is staying healthy,” Young told the Post. “Everything else, I believe in wholeheartedly. It’s not like I said something to try to get a laugh or to smile or to get people to pay attention to me. It’s something I believe is in me.” Many a running back has had the temerity to forecast a 2,000-yard season for himself, only to fail miserably. The most recent example was Frank Gore prior to last season’s 1,102-yard output. A little math tells us that if you multiply Young’s gaudy 5.2 yards-per-carry average from last year over a full season of, say, 350-plus carries…and, carry the one, you get close to 2,000 yards. Of course, only five running backs have cracked the 2,000-yard barrier and, call me crazy, but I’ll take the Vikings Adrian Peterson over Young in that prop bet any day of the week.

The main point for fantasy owners in all of this is that the job is Young’s to lose and, say what you will about his meddling, but the Broncos have a long history under Shanahan of producing successful fantasy backs. Go ahead and move Young up your cheat sheet to the brink of the top 30 and be prepared to keep moving him up if the Broncos’ training camp competition cements his status as their feature back.

I’m rather skeptical that it will, though. The Broncos really like rookie Ryan Torain and brought in Michael Pittman last week in all likelihood to serve as their third-down back. Andre Hall is also in the mix for touches if he makes the team ahead of Pittman. What’s more, Young’s size has been a bit of a question mark and Shanahan may opt to give someone other than Selvin carries in the red zone. Young packed on five-to-10 pounds of additional muscle this offseason, but it remains to be seen whether it’s enough.

As for Henry, his run as a significant fantasy football player is over and his career may be too. T-Hen turns 30 in October, the age when most running backs jump the shark in terms of productivity and begin breaking down. Henry, however, has played a full 16-game season just once in his seven-year career and nagging injuries hampered him after a quick start last season. Heck, he has a hamstring injury right now and was staying away from the Broncos’ OTA’s, a move that appears to have been the last straw for him in Denver. Add in the fact that he is one positive drug test away from a one-year NFL suspension, and the risk is just too high for all but the most desperate of teams to sign him. Now add in the fact that Henry successfully appealed a positive marijuana test last October, two months after it was disclosed in court that he had fathered nine children by nine different mothers in six years, and the inevitable PR nightmare won’t be worth the hassle for any team.