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A new addition: Fantasy Football Mashup

Many of you may remember how our 2006 experiment in regular coverage of the NFL came to dominate much of this blog last fall. What most people don't know is just how popular those posts became, routinely doubling and tripling our normal daily traffic. And with my office pool picks spending most of the season above the .700 winning percentage threshold (I finished at .677), we developed a regular following of readers who profitably bet our picks every week.

Which brought Janet and I to an interesting conversation: Yes, it's nice to get that kind of attention, but is it good for Xark to lean so heavily toward NFL content? This blog is intended to be about many things, not just a few, and I began to think that chasing NFL readers was harming the identity of the site.

So last year we began quietly reviving an unpublicized blog experiment we'd called Fantasy Mashup, and this summer we really dove into generating new copy. The result:  FFBMashup.com, a site devoted  to fantasy football and NFL coverage.

You'll notice something different: Google ads, plus a display ad pointing people towards our CafePress store where we're marketing T-shirts for fantasy football players. Xark takes no advertising of any kind, but our hope is that the traffic we generate on FFBMashup will eventually cover the various costs associated with our multiple Web ventures.

So rather than posting weekly office-pool picks and power rankings on Xark, I'll be using this blog to help steer people to the full articles on FFBMashup. For instance, you can read my first 2007 Power Ranking today. The Top 5:

1. San Diego Chargers
2. New England Patriots
3. Chicago Bears
4. Dallas Cowboys
5. Carolina Panthers

Think that's wrong? Look at my bottom five:

28. Miami Dolphins
29. New York Giants
30. Oakland Raiders
31. Kansas City Chiefs
32. Atlanta Falcons

You're all invited to drop by and tell me what an idiot I am. While you're at it, check out the materials we've been building up to help you prepare for your fantasy drafts this month.

A special note for all you Packer fans: I'm not hating on Brett Favre just because I'm a Bears fan. But, yes, I am hating on him.

'07 first-draft FFB rankings: Top 12 RBs

Janet and I have been working, off and on now since 2006, to create a focused fantasy football blog. It's not ready (and these days our energies are directed elsewhere), but it's past time we started with our analysis of the upcoming fantasy football season.

I'm starting with the fantasy kingmaker position: Running Back. In most formats you'll be expected to field two of these guys, which means that acquiring a competitive edge at this position is typically Job One for most fantasy franchises. This is particularly true in leagues with some kind of roster carryover rule, where acquiring a true No. 1 RB involves risk, patience and long-range thinking.

My take on the 2007 season, as of early June: Expect a shake-up at the top of the 2006 pecking order and a lot of situational fantasy plays from October on, when injuries and game trends will dramatically alter the value of players in the 15 true RBBC situations I counted in this year's forecast.

My early list: 1. Tomlinson; 2. Maroney; 3. Steven Jackson; 4. Westbrook; 5. Parker; 6. Larry Johnson; 7. Gore; 8. Benson; 9. Addai; 10. Thomas Jones; 11. Lynch; 12. Rudi Johnson.

Read on for the arguments...

Where have all the RBs gone?

Ask anybody who has ever played fantasy football and they'll tell you that running backs are the kings of the game. This is practically an article of faith, based on decades of statistics and some simple but reliable observations about strategy.  It's the reason that most owners will draft two running backs before they address any other position. It's why an excellent wide reciever can often be had for a mediocre RB in trade.

It's also why your fantasy league has been generating some unexpected winners in 2006. Rushing touchdown production among the league's top ground-gainers is down -- way down -- over the first three weeks of the season. Compared to full-year statistics from 2005, per-game rushing touchdown production among the top 12 NFL rushers (the group fantasy players generally refer to as "No. 1 RBs") is down an eye-popping 36 percent this season.

The top 12 rushers of 2005 generated .69 rushing touchdowns per game. In 2006, that group is producing just .44 touchdowns per game. The rate drops only slightly why we look at the top 24 rushers, who are scoring .41 touchdown per game, adjusted for byes.

The downward trend is less pronounced when the comparison is applied across the league's top 24 rushers, but it doesn't go away. Among these likely starters, rushing TD production is down about 21 percent.

I don't have time to do a full analysis this morning, but look at some quick indicators and you'll spot the outline of a larger trend: After three weeks of play, NFL defenses are stuffing the run in ways that could change fantasy strategy.

• Four of the top five NFL rushers this season have yet to score a rushing touchdown.
• Five of the top 12 rushers have a yards-per-carry average below the magic 4.0 threshold. Last year only one of the top 12 held that dubious distinction.
• The No. 12 rusher in the NFL is a quarterback.
• Six of the top 24 are either backups or members of Running Back By Committee systems.

The big question: Why? Has the current arms race between offensive and defensive strategy made running the ball less effective? Has the evolution of offensive line philosophy emphasized pass protection over run production? Is there less talent? Or was 2005 the anomaly?

In the meantime, fantasy football players should be prepared to adjust their roster philosophy. If the era of the dominant Franchise RB is in decline, then the position might become more like WR, where situational matchups and waiver-wire scouting make up a big part of the game.

Female Fantasy

I've been playing Fantasy Football for four years now. I was a founding member of a league at work called the Ink Monkeys, mostly because DC was so into it.  I felt it was a measure of self-protection.

My first year, for which there are no records because we switched from CBS, I finished 7 of 14 or 12. I can't remember. The last two years I've finished in 11th place. At least I'm consistent.

So this year, my draft strategy was a little different. Gone were any emotional attachments. I ripped out any notions of team preference. What did it matter that I always hated Miami? When Daunte was still available in the middle of Round 4, I hesitated only a moment and then took him, forgetting how he done me wrong in 2004 with those pesky -1 point interceptions and fumbles. I must clarify that this was only a few weeks after surgery and I was on drugs.

So here I am, with The Claymores, a fine team that has scored the league high point total for 2 weeks running and my eyelid is twitching  over Daunte. Sundays are punctuated with happy dances and flying profanity. My daughter hides in her room. She says she hates football.

Sometimes I do too. But mostly, it's fun as hell.

2005 Manly Football League Draft

The Manly Football League wouldn't have gotten that name if the former news editor at The Mountaineer in Waynesville, one Ms. Kathy Nanney Ross, hadn't gotten wind of our plans and made a big deal about us playing fantasy football.

We told her it wasn't fantasy, it was... MANLY! Yes, it's MANLY football! And a tradition was born.

That was in 1991. Fifteen years later, our little eight-team league from the newsroom of a community newspaper in the Smoky Mountains has grown to 14 teams and we've got traditions and rivalries out the yin yang.

Aug. 27-29 Roadtrip: The Index

Leave it to a hurricane and vast human suffering to trivalize a really good time. 

Janet and I are just back from a two-night road trip, during which we repeatedly wished we had a laptop and a wi-fi connection, because we wanted to record it as we went.

Instead, I'm going to break it up into segments and post them individually, but add links to this post so that it can serve as an index to the "chapters" and photo galleries.  If Janet winds up posting on the trip, too, I'll add her links as well.

It's not significant on the scale of what people in the Delta are experiencing right now, but...

The trip
We left on Saturday morning, drove up to Spartanburg, ate lunch and drafted my 2005 MFL team. After a beer with the boys I called a place I'd found online in Black Mountain, N.C., and we got a marked-down rate on a suite at The Madison Inn, one of the coolest and quirkiest places on Earth. We got in Saturday evening, stashed our stuff, and ate a good dinner downstairs.

Sunday morning we had a huge breakfast, knocked around Black Mountain and then headed north up US Highway 221 to Valle Crusis and The Baird House, a B&B run by our friends Tom and Deede Hinson. We spent the afternoon hiking at Price Park, got something to eat in downtown Boone, then came back to sit on the porch overlooking the Watauga river and catch up with Tom.

On Monday we had coffee with Tom in the kitchen and then drove out of the valley via the "back way" down the Watauga River Road. We left the Blue Ridge the same way we came in, but continued down through Rutherfordton and back to Interstate 26.