escobante

i tend to go the other way sometimes. instead of avoiding players that have burnt me, i go after players from other squads that killed me. i drafted ward in 2004 after repeatedly getting hammered by ward in 2003. i do agree about lelie and evans. but i wouldn't have taken them last year either.

walker has the right to hold out and not get paid. no one is saying he doesn't. the team has a right not to pay more. there is a contract in place, pure and simple. maybe some players get better deals, but fairness isn't an issue. a contract is a written and signed agreement. it is what it is, no more no less. no one made moral or value judgements about walker's hold out. favre made his own self interested criticisms and pundits commented on its usefullness or advantage/disadvantage, but reasonable people weren't saying he was a jerk or anything. to's situation was disimilar in so many ways. he caught flak because in general he is an ass and not very personable. people made moral or value judements regarding his comments and behavior, not the request for a new contract. pundits criticised the wisdom of paying him more or not, but his right to request more money wasn't begrudged him. lets face it. these are adults who are making millions of dollars a year playing a game. they should be able to handle the percieved emotional slights of being told "we can't take a chance on you injuring yourself". they didn't lie to mac9, he knew already that they are not going to retain him with his current contract. there is no reason for him to feel slighted. and i'm sure he knows that. it is probably just posturing by his agent. if his feelings are hurt because of this, then i have less respect for him (he is one of my favorite players).

"absolutely insane". i love it. props to you dawg.

i've heard this from several people, including pete prisco and other columnists. i think we should be realistic about this, the opponent was pit, the eventual superbowl champs. kitna hadn't started a game in over a year, and he was asked to throw on 70% of cincy's offensive downs. kitna may not light it up this year (i don't think that was the prediction - this harmon guy had him listed like 20th or something), but his performance in the playoffs is hardly a measuring stick. kitna is only the highest in the nfcn because the competition is favre (who may retire), grossman (need i say more), and brad johnson (he might do better, but is hurting for receivers without nate dawg). i don't think many people out there have any of these guys as a starting fantasy qb.

i will spare you the direct math related insult ( because i do make mistakes at times) but two teams make it to their respective championship games each year. the eagles have to play another team in the nfc championship game. so that is a 1 in 8 shot. i think you are thinking about the superbowl, which was not mentioned in my post. not sure what about my logic was flawed, but always willing to reconsider if you have some insight. oh, and, if you aren't crying about the eagles front office, then you were not the subject of the post. don't be so defensive.

wow, what spoiled philly brats. like to portray themselves as blue collar tough guys, but can't believe how jipped they have been to have one of the two best teams over the past 5 years. there are 32 teams in the league. that means that all things being equal, you should expect your team to make the champioship game once every 8 years on average. going strictly on odds, you should expect there to be a 1 in 64 chance of going to the championship game two years straight. you see where this is going. now after pulling out my calculator, lets see what the number is for 4 straight years. well i'll be... a 1 in 4096 chance. now that is sad. with such great odds, you would think that the eagles might have won the superbowl every year. now of course the results are not strictly odds based. the success of the team is based upon the skill of players, coaches and management as well. so all in all, to effect such a drastic swing in probability, the Eagles organization has done EXTREEMLY well. so stop crying, you philly wanne be tough guys.

true, it is possible, but my point - i think is clear from the context - is that having the highest scoring player doesn't guarantee a victory. kraziness said that basically it wasn't better to have LJ on his team last year than SA, because the guy who had SA in the playoffs last year knocked him out. but it is factually true that LJ outscored SA in last years playoff games (weeks 14-16). So having LJ instead of SA didn't hurt him, but rather, he would have lost by even more if not for owning LJ. His problem is that it isn't a one to one ratio, there are other players involved. So while LJ was significantly better than anyone else over the second half of the season, there were others who were close, and if you didn't have them on your team, someone else had them on theirs which means they just need to edge you with their role players or a little luck, which is pretty much a toss up. i won both my 14 man leagues last year with LJ on both rosters, but one league had mcnair (scoring a hefty negative 2 fantasy points during superbowl week) and carson palmer in the other league, the league's highest scoring QB. the point is that there a lot of other factors than just one player's performance. though LJ made the difference in my case

one stud can't wipe out drafting poorly the rest of the way

owens was physically healed and just because "a number of other players" would not have played, doesn't mean those who suit up are "courageous". did TO say it was courageous of McNabb to play even though he was tired? no because courageous doesn't come into it. These guys, all of them, play through pain. and i doubt there are that many guys who at 90% (i'll spare you the discussion on percentages) would sit out the game. It was the freaking super bowl for god sake! TO has never played in one and knows he might not ever again. It is what all of those guys play for. i am not taking anything away from him. he played great. had a great game, but it was not courageous. again, he was healthy. playing when healthy isn't anything out of the ordinary. he just had a great game. as for best player on the field, owens didn't pass the ball to himself. owens didn't put any points on the board. he may have been the best player on the field for philly that day, but it isn't a given and a good game doesn't make you courageous. he was one of 104 guys on the field, but the only one singled out as "courageous". and, i could be wrong, but i think you may be taking some liberties with bellichek's words. i highly doubt he said in an interview leading up to the superbowl that TO was just a decoy. the guy who makes no excuses about anything and never says anything bad about an opponent, saying the other team's number one receiver is a decoy without any knowledge of his condition. but i could be wrong. and if he did say it, it just makes bellichek an ass, not TO a superman. sorry, didn't mean to be longwinded, but i think athletes are amazing with regard to their physical abilities, but they aren't exactly out there risking their lives for some little old lady on the corner getting mugged. they are playing a game and the hyperbole about courage grinds me.

can we all stop with the rediculous "courageous" performance at the superbowl talk. it wasn't courageous. he was healed, just quicker than most thought. he wasn't blinded in one eye and decided to play the rest of the game instead of getting it taken care of. he rehabbed like the professional he is supposed to be so that he could play in the superbowl. and all of the "i did it for my team" is crap, like he didn't want to play in the superbowl, but sacrificed to help his team. TO is a ###### no matter which way you put it. To say that "well there are other pricks on the team also" doesn't make him any more likeable or less of a problem. TO is getting ripped for a reason, a good reason.