NFL Free Agency | Trade Jabber 2/29/08

The melting pot of the NFL, Free Agency has begun! With that we see teams shooting trades and cutting players, trying to beat the deadline as well. Let’s have a look around at the NFL Free Agency and trade happenings.

 

It appears that the Saints have finally got another big name LB after all these years. Well, was a big name before injuries and the 3-4 defense hampered his productivity in New York. Word is that Jonathan Vilma will be going to the Saints for a conditional draft pick. If he can get past the bum knee, Vilma is what the Saints have been missing for some time and they can shift the focus of their $30 Million in cap space elsewhere. After it appearing that Brian Young and Mark Simoneau would be set out to pasture, the Saints worked deals out to keep them In New Orleans. The Saints are still rumored to be looking at Asante Samuel and his hefty price tag.

 

The Eagles gave the boot to Jevon Kearse. Poor fella has never really lived up to that Freak in Tennessee.

 

“We tried to work out a restructure with the Eagles and it didn’t work out,” Drew Rosenhaus said last week at the NFL Scouting Combine. “He had a wonderful career there.”

The Eagles could also be looking to bulk up their defensive backfield with Gibril Wilson and Asante Samuel.

 

Ty Law’s days in Kansas City appear to be coming to an end. The Chiefs have told Law that he will be released, likely in the next week. This type of thing cracks me up. Why tell him that and wait a week? That’s like your girlfriend of couple years telling you your going to break up…but not until next week, me and the girls are going to be going to Spring Break and when i get back we can break up then.

 

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NFL Draft Prospects | Top 10 RB’s

I can’t recall in recent memory, a draft that has been so deep in quality runners. While 2006 produced many solid halfbacks, it is my belief that the players who will chosen in the 3rd, 4th and 5th rounds of this draft are of much better talent and have a better shot of becoming legitimate feature backs.

#1 Darren McFadden, Arkansas

Despite what Mike Mayock says, I have difficulty pushing DMac down enough that Mendenhall or Stewart chases him down. Paternity suits and knocks on character aside withstanding, Darren McFadden is still the number one prospect for halfbacks in this draft. His vision, elusiveness and speed will allow him to be a productive NFL runner. Running a 4.27 forty definitely doesn’t hurt.

#2 Rashard Mendenhall, Illinois

Mendenhall has had his praises sung by many a scout over the past couple of weeks. He is described as “the entire package” and that may indeed be true. Mendenhall is about as fast as a 225 pound back can be. His rare mix of size, speed and agility allow him to run by you, dance around you or run you over if he so chooses.

#3 Jonathan Stewart, Oregon

The proverbial bowling ball runner, Stewart is an old school coaches dream. A guy who can pound the ball inside 30 times a game and tire out a defense. Stewart may have lost a position on Mendenhall due to Mendenhall’s great combine but make no mistake; Stewart is strong and runs a quick dash for a 230 pound guy. He is easily first round talent and will not be far behind Mendenhall.

#4 Ray Rice, Rutgers

Rice is a meat-and-potatoes kind of runner. His speed and agility good but not great. His size isn’t the best but he packs a lot of weight onto a smaller frame. What he does excel at is running the ball early and often and getting production. Many compare Rice to Frank Gore; a stocky, compact guy who is fast and agile enough to make you miss and leave you in the dust but also physical enough to take 25 handoffs a game and bruise your linebackers. His durability is unquestionable after taking nearly 1000 handoffs in three years without major injury. He should be a steal for a team in the early to mid second round.

#5 Felix Jones, Arkansas

I was very high on Jones until the combine. When north-south speed and big play ability are your calling card, you can’t run a 4.47 and expect scouts not to be disappointed. A few months aso, many postulated whether McFadden was even the best runningback on his own team. Jones is still a supreme talent but he has question marks. He hasn’t carried a full load at the collegiate level and may have difficulty transitioning into an NFL feature back. I still believe that Jones can bounce back and will be an impact player in the NFL but for now, Rice leapfrogs Jones into the 4th spot.

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Fantasy Dynasty 101 | pt. 8

We are getting there class! By now you can already have a league pretty much put together and even be drafting if you wish. What we cover today will be in season and offseason roster moves, Free Agency and Waivers. First let’s review and if you are joining late you should start from the beginning…

Part 1
Get your owners, Cost/Payout, Where to host your league
Part 2
Appoint a Commish, Communication, Rulebook
Part 3
Rulebook contents
Part 4
Franchise Ownership, Tanking, League Currency
Part 5
Using IDP or Team D/ST, Lineups, Roster Size, Developmental Taxi Squad
Part 6
Filling Rosters, Determining Draft Order, Rookie Draft, Vet Draft
Part 7
Roster Management, Contracts, Injured Reserve

STEP NINETEEN: FREE AGENCY

Any player that is not on a roster or Developmental Taxi Squad(pt.5) is considered a Free Agent. Your league needs to determine how often players can be picked up. Why not just do it like any other league? Because you are dealing with owners picking up the Free Agents using the league currency (pt 4). It is possible to have the currency entered into your league hosts software and kept track of that way. For our example league, each teams currency is tracked on the home page for the league for all to see. It is then manually subtracted by the Commish as it is used to keep track of it. Sounds like more work for the Commish but it isn’t much.

First determine your Free Agent dates. How often are teams allowed to obtain them? Since this is a year-round Dynasty league you are going to have some dates sprinkled out during the offseason and then weekly during the season. Here is the example of our Free Agency dates from the example league…

FA dates:
Feb 1
March 15
First Thursday after the rookie draft
First and 3rd Thursdays in June/July
Bi-weekly beginning on 1st Thursday in August
Weekly once season begins
FA ends last week of the league Regular season until Feb 1 the next
yr

How are free agents obtained? We do this as a blind auction to a dummy email account that is only used for free agency. The Commish and Co-Commish have to have their bids in a day earlier than the rest of the league. This is so there isn’t suspected foul play. Hopefully you are with a group of people you trust. Both the Commish and Co-Commish should check the dummy email account after the deadline (there should be a deadline time determined on the date). Bids can be sent all week from the end of the last deadline time up to the current deadline time. Only the last email should be accepted. For example, if an owner sends in three emails that week and changes things up in each one, only the last one will be accepted. This saves the Commish from sifting through trying to figure out for himself who the owner still wants and doesn’t. This rule is understood in our league (after some time) and myself, I don’t even open the earlier emails, I delete them and only open the last.

Things that need to be considered. Before an owner can pick up a player there has to be some things in place. #1, he needs the cash to pay for the player(pt.4), #2 he needs to have at least one year to assign him a contract (pt.7), and he must have an open roster spot(pt.5). Taking these things into consideration is one reason to have the commish making the moves with the dummy email account rather than the system doing it. If your leagues software can handle tracking this stuff, by all means, go for it.

In the email the owner has a template they should follow. In it is the team name, player they are bidding on, how much they are bidding, and the contract(pt.7) they are assigning. They can also add a conditional player if they are outbid on that player.

Example-Waiver Request #1

Player to be added: Joe Player/QB/Balt.
player to be dropped: Yo Mamma/S/Mia
Bid: $5

Contract: 3 years
Conditional Player-(You may add the players here, in
order of who to place the bid on if above player is
taken)

The owner can have several of these in one email as multiple emails will not be accepted.

Yes, you will run into owners bidding on the same player. You can determine tiebreakers. The player first should be given to the team with the high bid. If there is a tie on the high bid than the player will go to the team with the worst record. If there is still a tie, the player goes to the team that has scored the lower amount of points to that point in the season. If it is during the offseason, use the same tiebreakers but use the record and points from the previous season.

In the first preseason you won’t have records to go by. In this case the owners that tied can auction for the player with the bid in their original email as the minimum bid.

***Players obtained in the offseason do not need to be assigned a contract until the final roster cuts/ contract assignment date (pt.5). During the offseason roster size is unlimited. Owners will be deciding who they will and will not be keeping. If they add a FA in April for example, they do not have to give him a contract until it is determined he makes the final cut.

PART TWENTY: WAIVERS

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Football RSS Reading Made Easy

Your a football fan, right? You have heard of RSS, right? There is a chance your reading this in an RSS Reader right now (if you are, thanks for subscribing…if not, read on and please subscribe). RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has become my best friend as a football fan, fantasy football owner, and blogger. Some people though have not jumped into it yet. I know, huh?

The beauty of the RSS Reader is that it brings the stories your looking for to you. As I typed that I received a notification that a new story came in on mine. Time is something we can all afford to save and when your surfing for football related news it helps to have all the up to date info in one place rather than out looking for it. What am I getting to you ask?

There are several options to choose from when looking for a reader. A new RSS reader has come to my attention that is for the football junkie. This reader is perfect for the football fan that has not yet jumped on the RSS wagon. One of the things that I have heard people say when asked why they don’t use a reader is that they are not very good with computers and don’t know what to do with an RSS Reader. This one is as simple as downloading it. It comes with feeds built in so if you don’t know how to add them you can use it as is. Adding them is really not very difficult once you get the ball rolling.

Simply go and download the reader. It comes with RSS feeds for some of the mainstream sites and the option for you to choose feeds at your leisure for any of the 32 NFL teams. It has a notification that will let you know if an updated story has come in from one of your feeds (this can be turned on or off).

Jump over and have a look at all the features whether your new to RSS or just looking for a new reader. It also has several options for music, podcasts, searching news, blogs and message boards, movies and videos. It’s pretty awesome. I did a search for NFL Draft videos and tons of videos came up. Right in the reader I was able to watch a Chris Johnson highlight video!

Advantages for the enduser

• Supports RSS 0.9, 0.91, 1.0, 2.0 and ATOM
• Configure, add and delete your own RSS Feeds
• Personalised information- and mediastream
• Search in a large quantity of news, information, videofiles, audio and images
• Supports a large offer of formats (avi, mpeg, mp3, wav, doc, pdf, jpg etc.)
• User-friendly interface
• Be the first to know the recent Footballnews of different RSS Feed
• 100% Free! , virus, spam and spyware free!

If your one of those that have been afraid to try this techy type thing, be afraid no more! With the built in feeds you don’t have to do anything but read up on your fantasy players as the news comes to you. Read more

NFL Draft Combine Rolling

I have to wonder how many marriages and relationships were strained this weekend with all of the NFL Draft Combine coverage. Guys (and some Gals) spending hours in front of the TV preparing for the hours they will spend in front of the TV in April. I have to admit I was on the opposite end of the marriage spectrum spending the weekend at my Mother in-law’s house. The wife is happy…Me…not so much. So this morning I’m spending some time in the film room (read, my kitchen on the laptop) catching up.

I have been singing praise of the new NFL.com since they unveiled it going into last season. With them putting limitations on video being used by the media they have done well with providing it on their site. It takes away from it a bit watching the combine online but I do have to say that it’s kind of cool to be able to choose the 3-4 minute snippets I’m watching instead of the hours of filler.

Check out the NFL.com Combine page. You can catch some video there or go straight to the Video Gallery. They have a “Top 10″ for Sunday. Myself, I enjoyed the QB, RB, WR, recaps.

tag: NFL Draft, Combine, Video, Football, Sports

NFL Free Agent Jabber 2/20/08

Ahh yes. Time for Free Agency rumors. This is what keeps us fueled this time of year, isn’t it? What NFL Jersey will these players put on?

The Colts have tagged Dallas Clark. You could see some interesting battle here. With the Suggs drama in Baltimore, is there an argument that Clark should be tagged as a WR? How often was he lined up in the slot compared to in next to the Tackle at TE?

If you have been under a rock when it comes to the NFL right now, the Ravens slapped a franchise tag on Terrel Suggs as a linebacker. What’s the big deal you ask? About $800,000 difference in what he would get if it was as a DE. Suggs argues that he played more than half of his snaps with his hand down. Who would have thought the Hokey Pokey could make such a difference if your left hand is in?

So it appears that the Patriots have made an offer to Zach Thomas. Considering everyone they have it could be the best place for him. Somewhere he can go and not have to play every snap. But when do they start getting younger?

From There is NO Offseason member TripleW64:

Why would they want to get older at that position? Seems to me they have enough aging veterans at LB. Kinda scary if you get younger at a position by adding a soon to be 36 year old, concussed LB.

Current ages:
Seau 39
Bruschi 34
Vrabel 32
Thomas 30

That is a very valid point. Who do they plan to keep? From the article linked above at the Miami Herald…

The Patriots are interested in Thomas because both of their inside linebackers — Junior Seau and Tedy Bruschi — are free agents. Seau is 39 years old while Bruschi, three months older than Thomas, will be 35 during the 2008 season.

There likely isn’t a place in the NFL that could use an experienced MLB more than the New Orleans Saints. Thomas is in town today and the team is also going to visit with the ex-Panther, Dan Morgan. After CB, Linebacker is always mentioned as a need for the Saints in the offseason. Considering your two main targets at this point can’t seem to stay on the field the better option may be to look at the NFL Draft. A short term deal at the most would be the best move if they were to sign one of these guys and then draft a project. We all know they could sure use some leadership at the position.

There is plenty of interest for former Falcons TE Alge Crumpler according to his agent, Jason Williams…

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2008 NFL Fantasy Football Combine

That’s right, I said that. It’s coming on Saturday, February 23rd. If your one of those lucky people with the NFL Network you can watch guys run drills that will take you back to the Presidential Fitness Tests in gym class in the 80’s. You can watch it with more in mind than who your favorite team may draft. I know that I don’t look at things in the NFL as many do. There are stages for a lot of folk in the offseason. Super Bowl…Combine…Draft…Preseason. Throw in some Free Agency in there I guess. There is a certain breed that looks at the whole calendar year in a different light. That breed is the Dynasty/Keeper fantasy football owner.

Not even the yearly fantasy football player is up bunched in with this group. Many of them shut down this time of year, focusing on family…jobs…American Idol. Not that we don’t give some thought to those things. The Dynasty/Keeper owner is running a franchise. For myself, I get more out of football this way. I’m keeping an eye on cuts…where the hell is the migraine ridden Zach Thomas going to end up? I need to know if I franchise tag him in an IDP Dynasty this year. I’m keeping an eye on the combine and draft because…well…I’m going to have several rookie drafts in the weeks following the NFL Draft. To be honest, without that burden, I’m not going to care much how high a guy can jump or run without pads on. It still isn’t that big of a gauge but I get that much more out of it knowing that I’m preparing for a championship run in my league.

Do you play in a Dynasty/Keeper (or want to)? Watch this VIDEO of Mike Maylock’s Top 5 Running backs and tell me it doesn’t get your fantasy juices going! How about WR’s and TE’s? I tell you, if your a big fan of fantasy football and have not taken the jump to Dynasty/Keeper land your missing out! Let’s face it…most of us are not going to be a GM in the NFL. We are not going to be scouts either. That’s what this whole “fantasy” thing is all about, get the most out of it.

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2008 NFL Draft Prospects | Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie

Name: Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie
Position: Cornerback
School: Tennessee State
Year: Senior
2007 Stats: 6 INT
Ht: 6-1
Wt: 183
40: 4.35 (est)
Bench: N/A
Expected draft position: CB 3-7 1st round
YouTube Linkage

Strengths: Lightning quick for a corner his size. Good ball instincts and excellent coverage. Big playmaker on defense

Concerns: Sometimes gets fooled by double moves. Level of competition may be questioned.

Comments: DRC had an excellent Senior Bowl and likely made himself a fair amount of cash by moving up many scouts charts. His speed and size will allow him to be an excellent corner in the NFL but his pedigree may cause a drop in his positioning for the draft.

tag: NFL, Draft, Profile, Tennessee State, Football, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, video, Football Jabber, Prospect, 2008

2008 NFL Draft Prospects | Leodis McKelvin

Name: Leodis McKelvin
Position: Cornerback
School: Troy
Year: Senior
2007 Stats: 25 PR 436 PR yds 3 TD 33 KR 765 KR yds 60 tackles 2 INT 3 Fumbles forced 8 passes defensed
Ht: 5-11
Wt: 187
40: 4.36 (est)
Bench: N/A
Expected draft position: CB 1-3 1st round
YouTube Linkage

Strengths: Elite kick return abilities paried with excellent defensive abilities. Excellent burst and recovery speed. Good reactionary abilities and hands to disrupt the play. Hands are good enough to play a bit of wide receiver. Great football knowledge and instincts will allow him to play complex defenses in the NFL.

Concerns: May suffer against physical receivers.

Comments: Quite possibly the most talented corner available in the draft, McKelvin can do it all. Incorrectly labelled by some as a kick return specialist, McKelvin plays a mean cornerback as well. I liken him to Terrence McGee. There is a good chance that in a few years, he will be the best returner and the best corner on his team.

tag: NFL, Draft, Profile, troy, Football, Leodis McKelvin, video, Football Jabber, Prospect, 2008

2008 NFL Draft Prospects | Antoine Cason

Name: Antoine Cason
Position: Cornerback
School: Arizona
Year: Senior
2007 Stats: 71 total tackles, 1 Sack, 5 INT (2 for TD), 14 pass defenses, 2 Fumbles Forced
Ht: 6-0
Wt: 185
40: 4.39 (est)
Bench: N/A
Expected draft position: CB 3-6 1st round
YouTube Linkage
Strengths: A defensive playmaker in the purest sense, thinking of taking it to the house every time he gets the ball. Excellent footwork, good positioning and great recovery speed allows Cason to play man-to-man effectively as evidenced in Arizona’s defensive scheme.

Concerns: Likely will suffer on run defense as his small frame will not allow him to shed blocks from bigger wide receivers.
Comments: Cason could have been in the same breath as Leon Hall and Darelle Revis last year but opted to return to school. The fact that he is considered first round talent despite playing in the offense heavy Pac 10 says alot about his abilities. Cason was invited to and declined to participate in the Senior Bowl, a move that may likely see Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie leapfrog him as the third CB chosen. However, I feel that there are few corners as tested and proven as Cason who defended against some of the better offensive players in the country over the past few years.

tag: NFL, Draft, Profile, Arizona, Football, Antoine Cason, video, Football Jabber, Prospect, 2008

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