Monday's Musings - 8/29/2011

- First off, my fantasy football draft was a disaster.  We play in a modified keeper league where you keep 6 and have two players available in a transition round where you can take a player off someone else's team in exchange for your first round pick.  I had #7 and there are really only 5.5 good rookie prospects so I figure I'll take Santonio Holmes off another dude's roster.  Well then freaking Snake takes him instead at #4.

I'm not panicking yet, figuring I have good RB depth with Ray Rice, LaSean McCoy, and Deangelo Williams, so I'll just hope I can get WR Greg Little or something at 7 and everything will be ok.  Then fucking Bear takes Williams off my roster with his #9 pick and I go into minor panic mode.  But now I have #7 and #9.  I know I now need a RB and, since I was unable to consummate a trade for Sam Bradford, need a QB as well since I'm not sure of Peyton's status.  I figure I'll grab Matt Stafford at #7 and then take the best available RB at #9.

Well guess what?  Bear takes Stafford at #9 and now all hell breaks loose.  It's suddenly going down as if I have no idea what I'm doing.  I end up drafting Delone Carter at #7 despite the fact that I have no idea how to pronounce his name and that he's the back-up RB, then Greg Little goes right after me and there is literally nobody interesting left to draft.  I end up going with Kevin Kolb and, just to show how panicked I was, I nearly took Jay Cutler here which is a move that I do believe would have gotten me kicked out of the league - although Bogart's dad probably would have tongue-kissed me since he loves the Bears like Joe Mauer loves sitting.

Then round 2 rolls around and I take Joe Addai because apparently I'm now handcuffing shitty running backs together.  Everything just snowballs somehow and by draft end I end up with all four Colt running backs and a receiver I've never heard of but he's #2 on Arizona and I've already got Kevin Kolb so what the hell?  Yes, all four Colt running backs (Addai, Carter, Donald Brown, and Javarris James).  Then the night ended with me getting a case of Coors Light out of the trunk of my car and me, Snake, Dawger, Bogart, and Bear plowing into a 30-pack of White Castle sliders.  Or maybe Snake walked home by then.  I don't know.  I had a lot of beer.

Still, though, I ended up with my big WR sleeper who I might as well tell you is Brandon Gibson from St. Louis because I know one of those assholes will put it in the comments anyway.  Trust me on this.  St. Louis is going to throw the ball a lot and Bradford won't be content to go dinking around to RBs and Danny Amendola again, one of the grown-up wideouts is going to have a big year.  You know it won't be Mike Sims-Walker because we've already seen his upside, so that leaves Donnie Avery, Gibson, or Danario Alexander.  Avery is coming off an injury and his name is Donnie and Alexander is already hurt, so not only is Gibson the most talented off all those dorks but he'll have the best opportunity as well.  Holy shit was that paragraph football nerd-y.  Sorry.  I like to stick to baseball and college basketball nerdy.  That's way more high class.  Like Outback vs. Olive Garden.

Anyway, here's the team:

Qb Peyton Manning, Kevin Kolb
Rb Ray Rice, LaSean McCoy, all the Colts, Demarco Murray, Javon Ringer
WR Hakeem Nicks, Dez Bryant, Jeremy Maclin, Andre Roberts, Brandon Gibson
TE Jason Witten
K  don't remember
DEF probably someone like the Saints

Not too bad.

-  You probably missed this because you don't pay attention to cool things, but Andre Drummond finally is officially on-board the UCONN train.  Drummond was ranked as the #1 center by everybody, and the #1 overall player for 2012 by ESPN and NBAdraft.net and the #2 player by Rivals and Scout.  Bascially he's an absolute monster - think Dwight Howard/Kevin Garnett - awesome on defense, awesome rebounder, and a developing offensive game, although based on sheer size and athleticism he's going to get his points.  A program changing type of player (assuming he ends up being eligible - some minor questions there).

UCONN was rumored to be in the lead for him, but he announced he was going to go to prep school for a year.  Then last Friday he tweeted that he would be attending UCONN after all, and the one UCONN fan I know pretty much lost his mind and maxed out multiple betting accounts taking the Huskies to win the whole thing at 30-1.  Not bad, actually, because it's now dropped to 15-1. 

Basically they now have Drummond, Jeremy Lamb who really started to come into his own at the end of last year, and Shabazz Napier and Alex Oriakhi who were keys in the tournament victory and should be better this year.  Add in freshman small foward DeAndre Daniels, the #10 player in the country no less, and UCONN has suddenly gone from a good team to a legitimate threat to repeat.  Fellow freshman Ryan Boatright (#48 nationally) can push Napier, so between the two the biggest weak link for UCONN is handled, and with Lamb, Oriakhi, Drummond, and Roscoe Smith this is going to be an incredibly good defensive team.  Between them, North Carolina, Ohio State, and Kentucky there are going to be some insanely good teams this year.  Should be fun.  Until I have to go watch the Gophers play.

-  I guess the big NFL news, besides that my team rocks, is that Mike Vick signed a 6 year, $100 million deal with the Eagles.  I was so interested in this news that I farted and then yawned.

-  Oh dude I almost totally forgot about this.  The other day on the radio Dark Star and one of the sidekick guys were talking Twins and they started talking about a the Twins needing a legit ace.  Whoever it was asked if Dark Star thought there was any way the Twins could get Felix Hernandez.  Dark Star said they'd have to give up "Kubel, a starter, and a young guy like Plouffe or Tolbert."  What.  The.  Eff?  I can't even see PA making that statement and he's a total retard, while Star - although a total retard - at least seems to understand baseball and the Twins.  I was just floored.  I think Kubel, any starter, and Plouffe or Tolbert might land you like,

-  Jesus Christ J.J. Hardy hit another home run tonight.  That's #26.  He's the first AL shortstop since 2007 to hit 25 or more in a season.  You know who the last one was?  J.J. freaking Hardy.  In a related note, did you know Khalil Greene hit 27 home runs in 2007?  That's weird.  Too bad he went all wack-o and crazied himself right out of the league.  True story.  Also a true story - I'm bored.  God this blog sucks.

-  Oh, but dinner tonight was a white chicken chili put together by the missus.  She likes her food a little less spicy than I do, so I would have added some cayenne pepper, but the flavor was excellent.  Mixing in black beans with the cannellini beans not only gave it a better flavor, but also was a nice contrast in color.  I mean come on, white, black, it's just like the black and white cookie.  Mrs. W - bringing racial harmony to the world one delicious recipe at a time.