JulianCasablancas

Hi, I'm in a 14-team, 2 player keeper league. Fifteen man rosters, non-PPR, 6pts per passing TD, and otherwise standard scoring. This particular league has been is entering its 3rd year, and despite loving my roster after each of the first 2 drafts, I've been beset by injuries and bad luck (and probably poor add/drop decisions) to finish near the bottom of the standings each time. My keepers are Ray Rice (for a 5th round pick) and LeGarrett Blount (for a 15th rounder). There are 28 players being kept. I have the #2, #17, #22, and #41 overall picks prior to my not picking the 5th round. I will have the option of either picking Brees and/or Brady. On the other hand, Fitzgerald, V Jackson, and Jennings are the WRs available. The guy picking #1 overall kept Nicks so he won't likely be taking a WR. Would you guys take a QB or a WR here? If I take a QB, the WRs available at #17 will most likely by in the Mike Williams / Santonio range. If I pass on a QB, I'm looking at getting a Freeman/Kolb/Bradford/Stafford type (every other top 7 QB, plus Big Ben and Ryan kept) later on. As an aside Turner and Mendenhall are available with my #2 overall pick as well, but in a league this deep I think I'd like to fill out more of my other starting spots before grabbing a 3rd RB. Thanks so much in advance. This decision is killing me. Draft is tonight!

Thanks for the advice guys. To clarify a couple of things for MFF - it's not a PPR, it's standard scoring. There is money involved, but it's not a large amount ($100/yr), and the bragging rights are far more important than the money in this league. You're right in that I should make the playoffs, as I'm 6-2, and the guy who is one spot out of the playoffs is 3-5, in a 13-week regular season. Also, I think I would need a big bounce-back from Boldin in the 2nd half of the season to be able to trade him for anymore than a second rounder rookie draft pick at this point.

Background: I'm in 10 team dynasty league. My team is currently 6-2, which is unexpected because I thought this would be a rebuilding year. My team is admittedly not as good as my record - I've had the least points scored against me in the league, and I'm 9th in points scored (although I'm really close to 6th). I'm not super strong at any position. Since this trade only involves WR and RB: My current RBs - Turner, Addai, Maroney, McCoy, Choice, Moats My current WRs - V Jackson, Burleson, Collie, Harvin, Coles, A Bryant, Mark Clayton I was offered Ahmed Bradshaw, Kevin Smith, and Anquan Boldin for Turner Both RBs I'm being offered are young (23yo), and Boldin is only 29. Turner is 27, so as an RB I figure he has 2-3 good years left - not convinced that he is going to be able to go longer just because he started off slow in San Diego. For this season I think I'm making myself weaker, given that all 3 players I'm being offered have injury concerns. If I was 2-6, I'd make this trade in a heartbeat. Our playoffs are only 3 rounds, and only 2 rounds if I stay in 1st place in the division and get a 1st round bye. Fantasy playoffs are a bit of a crapshoot, so I was hoping Turner might get hot at that time and lead me to a championship. On the other hand, I had a strong rookie draft (McCoy, Harvin, Sanchez, Collie), and I also have Flacco and Gonzo, so I feel like I'm building something pretty good for the future, and this trade might reap benefits next year.

The proper analogy isn't that the LA Galaxy would join the premier league. The proper comparison would be the EPL creating a franchise in an east coast US city (NYC, Miami?), and holding an expansion draft of EPL players to stalk the team. And I think that team would work in the US. It wouldn't be an 'insult' to either league if the league itself went about creating the franchise. Unless you think that the league would be insulting itself. I've mentioned already why this can't be used as a comparison. NFL Europe was a second-rate product. Major League Soccer is also an inferior product. That's why they failed and struggle, respectively. I wouldn't have gone to many NFL Europe games either, and I love the NFL. The USA in general does not 'hate' soccer. I doubt Londoners 'hate' American football either. I don't think the NFL owners, who have have to approve of expansions and relocations, have these kind of conditions. And to answer your question...um, hopefully. I agree with this, and the team would have to play in either an AFC or NFC East, for sure. You don't think there aren't advertising dollars in London? Have you been to London? As long as the stadium sells out, ads get sold, and some merch gets sold, the rest of the owners' money comes in from TV deals. In fact, a new team in London would likely result in a more lucrative UK TV deal for the owners, while the American broadcasters' deals would be unaffected. Well, that's an issue I can't help you with. But, quite frankly, I'm not surprised. It's not out of character from your Dallas Empire posts.

Sounds like a question for Peter King.

All of those are valid points. Paying in pounds would help if they were paid the same amount overall, irrespective of the exchange rate. In the NHL example, players on Canadian teams went from making $2mil/yr CDN to $2mil/yr USD, because the weaker dollar here was making Canadian teams less attractive from a financial standpoint. I'm just saying that perhaps something similar could be done in the London situation, although the UK pound is at least 2x the value of the USD, so obviously the players couldn't just make their current salary in USD - Hainesworth's $100mil would become $200mil! The novelty wearing off and revenue dropping failing could happen anywhere. Pro teams that rarely win tend to have trouble selling tickets, with a few exceptions. The market in London is bigger than the LA market in sheer numbers. The potential is there. It would have a better chance of success than some of the US cities the NFL has ventured into in the past couple of decades. I'm not saying a team there would do better than a team in LA - I just don't understand how 1) LA NEEDS a team (the city of LA is still standing and surviving without an NFL team, and one might argue that no city truly NEEDS a particular sports team 2) the NFL NEEDS to be in LA (the league is the most successful pro sports league in the country, it's been doing just fine without a team in LA, and will probably continue to do just fine without one). I'm not saying that the NFL NEEDS a team in London or vice versa, I just think it's a nice idea and that it might work. Similarly, I think an English Premiership league soccer team would work in the US if it was based out of NYC or Miami. I don't think you have to worry about losing football as 'America's game'. Expanding the game to a couple of other countries (the UK, maybe.....um, Canada?) will be good for the sport, and the NFL. That thin talent pool that a few of the commenters have mentioned could be deepened if the game caught on internationally over the long-term. There has been talk of holding a Super Bowl in London, which I think is a shame. The SuperBowl is total Americana (some of the hype is awesome, some if kind of kitch-y) and it wouldn't have nearly the same atmosphere if it was played off of US soil. Plus, they'd have to start it at noontime here and that would suck. But we'd almost be less hungover at work the next day.

Globalization of the NFL is already happening (preseason games in Canada, Asia, regular season games in Mexico, London), so the 'this is America's game/Goddell is a moron/Europeans as pansies' is going to have to deal with it. It's inevitable, and it's happening already. The argument that NFL Europe failed over there already doesn't hold any weight. It was a 2nd rate production and any half-intelligent football fan knows that. I'm in Canada, and I don't go to CFL games for the same reason, but if there was an NFL team in my city I'd sure as hell buy season tickets. Sure, these regular season games in London are one-time events that sellout, but I don't think we can conclusively say that an NFL team based there would fail/relocate. BTW, what makes LA/Vegas/insertUScityhere more 'deserving' of an NFL team than London? Is it by virtue of having a certain size population base, not having an NFL team already and existing within the continental US? I don't think any city particularly 'deserves' a franchise. The salary and income tax issue might be solved by paying players in UK pounds. Not sure how realistic this is, but the Canadian NHL teams used to pay their players in Canadian dollars, but the league changed this to US dollars several years ago (when there was more of a disparity between the exchange rates) to make Canadian teams more attractive to free agents. Perhaps the NFL could do this. Also, I don't think the location itself is that undesirable. If players were from the east coast, it wouldn't be much more of a flight to see their friends/family than it would be if they played in Seattle. London's a nice place, the lifestyle and nightlife there would perhaps be more desirable than places like Cleveland or Green Bay (which I'm sure are great places, they're just not an international capital city) The travel issue is a bit of a nightmare, I'll concede that. If the London team even plays 2 midwest or west coast teams a year, that would be a bit of a competitive advantage.

I have both of these guys in my dynasty league. I think the answer depends on what exactly you need them for. I think Addai will end the year with more Fantasy points in a standard scoring format, but that Choice will have lots of games of 0-3 points, and the occasional big game when Barber and/or Felix are injured (and they both seem to be fairly injury-prone). If this is someone you need to plug in every week, Addai is more consistent (as sad as his numbers might be), so he's the better choice. If you're looking to stash someone on your bench and use them when the situation is right, then Choice would be your man. That said, I have bye-week issues at RB this week and might have to start both of them

Ditto. I'm 2-0 with Addai.

I had assumed this would be the plan as well (directly replacing the last 2 preseason games with 2 regular season games in late August), but they speculated on Pardon The Interruption 2 days ago that the league would cut the preseason down to 2 games, and tack the extra 2 regular season games onto the end of the current NFL schedule, thus bumping the playoffs and SuperBowl back by 2 weeks as well. Wilbon and Kornheiser said it has to do with TV ratings, as viewership is lower in the summer months than winter months. If this is the way it ends up going down, it looks like the Fantasy season will extended into January now, if you expand your current 13 week regular season + 3 week playoff into a 15+3 season. My concern from both an NFL fan and Fantasy Football perspective is that there are going to be a LOT more meaningless games with an 18 game slate. Think back to week 17 last year - there were a lot of games that had little relevance. If the playoff format stays the same, with 6 teams/conference getting in, there are going to be a lot of garbage games both on TV and deciding FF championships.

Damnit. B+ for effort, D- for execution?

Their taxi squad is gonna be so good this year.

True, but Mari J. Uana of the Philadelphia Daily News says that this issue won't likely be resolved by the time that the Eagles have their next OTA on April 20th.

+1

Didn't they give up a 1st and a 3rd rounder for Roy Williams? Worst. Trade. Ever. At this point, anyway.