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The Favre Problem

So future first-ballot Hall of Famer Brett Favre is un-retiring, and the Green Bay Packers don't want him back.  That means one thing: Temporary pandemonium in the NFL.

First, and let's get this out of the way up front, Favre is 36 going on 12. Got it? You can call this personal character trait charming, charismatic, passionate, competitive, immature, selfish, stupid, whatever. It's all of those things. Favre's just a guy who will be in middle school his entire life. If you're into that, cool. If you're not, stay away.

Which brings us to our subject: Now that Green Bay has decided to pass on Favre's services, the Packers simply must trade him. All three of the Packers' NFC North opponents would start Favre if they had him, and the Minnesota Vikings would be extremely likely to make a determined run at signing him if he ever becomes available as a free agent. The Vikings with Favre would be an NFC Championship favorite, and they also happen to be the Packers' opening week opponent. Ouch.

Hence, this principle is so foundational that it goes beyond a mere rule and must be considered a given: You don't release Favre, because you can't ever allow him to wind up with an NFC North team. EVER. In fact, you might even put a "no-re-trade" clause in any deal you write, just to prevent your trading partner from flipping Farve to the Vikings for a blockbuster offer.

With that out of the way, here's...

RULE NO. 1:
BRETT FAVRE CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO STEP FOOT ON THE FROZEN TUNDRA OF LAMBEAU FIELD IN ANOTHER TEAM'S COLORS DURING THE 2008 SEASON

That's the Packer's nightmare scenario, and it's why they'll think short-term first. Screw 2009. Just don't allow Brett to stalk them on their home turf.

That removes non-division home opponents Dallas, Atlanta, Indianapolis, and Houston from the list of possible trade partners. Gone. No matter what they offer.

RULE NO. 2:
WRITE OFF THE PACKERS' 2008 ROAD OPPONENTS WHILE YOU'RE AT IT

Brett playing against your team is just a no-win situation for the Packers' front office.  So add Tampa, Seattle, Tennessee and Jacksonville to your "off-limits" list.

RULE NO. 3:
FLAG ALL POTENTIAL PLAYOFF OPPONENTS

Favre isn't likely to accept a trade to a non-contending team, which means you'll have to be very careful about trading him within the NFC. We've already removed seven NFC teams, and of the remaining eight only two are potential contenders that would have reason to consider trading:  The Arizona Cardinals and the Carolina Panthers.

Favre would start for both teams, and would likely make either the odds-on favorite in its respective division. 

Could the Packers trade him to Phoenix or Charlotte? Sure. But that added risk -- that Green Bay wins the North only to host Favre in a playoff game -- will have to add a punitive premium to the Packers'  trade requirements.  In other words, if the Cards  or the Panthers want him, they'll have to offer an absurd package of draft picks.

CONCLUSION: BRETT FAVRE IS HEADING TO THE AFC

There are five American Conference teams in the running, one of which makes perfect sense as his next employer and another that could turn a Favre signing into a cascade of good fortune. Read on...

Rookie RB FFB analysis

Every now and then a receiver or a quarterback comes into the NFL as a rookie and makes a significant statistical splash. Finding that guy? It's a crapshoot.

That's why the fantasy focus on NFL Draft Day belongs on the running back group. Look at what Adrian Peterson and Marshawn Lynch did last year.

This year's running back class? It's even better, and much deeper. Here's my first-glimpse fantasy ranking of the guys picked on Day 1.

Dallas, Arkansas, Jones & McFadden

There's an interesting subplot haunting the preparations for next month's NFL, and it would likely involve two of the league's most iconoclastic owners: Brain-eating zombie Al Davis and Cowboys showboater Jerry Jones. Follow along:

Jones, who played for Arkansas in college, is in the market for Razorback halfback Darren McFadden, and he's bankrolled by two first-round picks. You'd think that would be a good start for a move-up-and-get-him deal, but Dallas' picks are No. 22 and No. 28. In the informal but sacrosanct system that NFL general managers use for covering their ass on draft day, those two picks have a combined value of 1,440 points.

The No. 1 overall? It's valued at 3,000. Basically unreachable.

But it's becoming increasingly clear that no team will take McFadden with the first pick, in spite of a near-consensus view among scouts that McFadden is the best running back prospect to enter the league in a decade.

How far will he slide? He's unlikely to be drafted before the No. 4 pick (1,800 points, Raiders), but would almost certainly be drafted no later than No. 6 (1,600 points, Jets).  That's a range that Jones could reach -- if he really, really wants to get his man.

7:14 sighting, Soldier Field

Bears trail the Broncos 34-20 in 4th quarter when the Broncos' punt coverage team pins them down at their own 10-yard-line.

But an illegal formation penalty -- perhaps the most piddling of touch-fouls -- forces the Broncos to re-kick.

The Bears block the punt and recover it at the Denver 18.

Time remaining on the clock?

7 minutes, 14 seconds.

Bears come back and win in overtime.

Football Fix-It: 4 new rules

Three rules changes the NFL needs to make:

1. No touchbacks on kickoffs. I figure about every fifth NFL kickoff ends with somebody meekly kneeling in the end zone. I say make every kickoff live, with no option to take the ball on the 20. That means more returns, more gamesmanship, more emphasis on deep kicking and elusive returners. And, yes, probably worse average field position. A kickoff that goes through the endzone untouched would go back to the 20, but if a receiver touches the ball and it goes out of bounds in the end zone, it's a safety.
   
2. If a player fumbles out of the end zone, the offensive team gets the ball back at the spot of the fumble. The dumbest rule in football is the one that gives the defense the ball at the 20 if an offensive player fumbles short of the goal line and it dribbles through the end zone and out of play. If I fumble at the 2 and it goes out at the 1, the ball comes back to the 2 and it's second down. Why the enormous bonus for the defense if the fumble goes through the end zone? It's like hitting the lottery.
3. Get rid of the illegal man down-field penalty. If the defense disrupts a screen pass and the QB improvises, there's a great chance that some lineman will be flagged for releasing down the field too early. My question: Why NOT let lineman head upfield before the pass is thrown? Hell, it might be interesting to see what coaches would do with that. Get rid of this dumb rule.

And one way to vastly improve TV coverage:

Before every snap, insert a thumbnail split-screen that shows an overview of the defense alignment. The standard pre-snap TV shot doesn't show you what the safeties are doing, but camera operators could frame the pre-snap slightly differently and you could drop in the smaller split screen on the lower third and viewers would have some sense of what the defense is giving on each play. 

Bears fan seeks happiness

This should tell you why I understand futility, why I have a sense of fatalism that makes Mexican junkies look optimistic: I've been a Chicago Bears fan since Bobby Douglass was under center in the early 1970s.

Well, shouldn't I have something to say about this? I can change, can't I? There is such a thing as free will, right?

Because let's face it: It could be a while before pulling for the Bears is much fun again...

Point-spread picks posted

For those of you who came here looking for Xark's weekly NFL office-pool and point-spread picks, this week's complete guide is now posted at Fantasy Football Mashup.

Week 3 power rankings at FFBMashup.com

I posted them, in a stupor, just before midnight last night, but they're there.

What's striking me right now isn't how competitive the NFL is, in the sense that lots of teams have a shot at the title, but how similar most of the teams are. There's a gulf between the top two teams and the rest of the league, and once you get past the top six or seven there's not much of a drop-off until you get down to the bottom two or three. Call it the triumph of the bell curve.

NFL Power Rankings

Those of you looking for Xark's weekly NFL Power Rankings can find them at Fantasy Football Mashup (ffbmashup.com). I published this week's rankings at 1:40 a.m. Tuesday, which was right after the conclusion of the last Monday night game, and we're going to work to keep them as timely as possible.

Next up on the FFBMashup calendar: Week 2 Office Pool Picks. I came out of Week 1 fairly intact (10-6 winners,  8-8 against the spread, 2-2 best bets), and though those numbers aren't good, I wasn't unhappy with the way I predicted opening round of games. In fact, I actually hit on 7 of my 9 picks (straight-up and against the spread) that I ranked as higher confidence than my "Just Guessing" category (3-4/1-6).

Those of you who bet all my picks from Wednesday actually finished better (11-5) than I did. I changed my Green Bay upset special on Sunday because of the Packers late injury report. D'oh! Shows what I know.

Phunny Photoshop @ Blue Ridge Blog

Marie at Blue Ridge Blog is one of the best photographers on the planet (well, OK, I'm gushing, but she really is good), and she's just put up a Photoshop related to the ASU-Michigan game. I'd show it here, but I respect her copyright, which she states on her site. But go look at it. She's also got a great post-game gallery, and a link to this pretty amazing post from before the game.

NFL Week 1: Power rankings & game picks

Xark's popular NFL power rankings and weekly office pool picks have moved to our new all-football blog, Fantasy Football Mashup (www.FFBMashup.com). I just finished the first "for-real" power ranking late last night, and this evening I put the finishing touches on the office pool picks, which went .677 for the year in 2006.

The power rankings have got some surprises in them, judging by what the "professionals" have to say about this year's NFL, and this season's weekly office pool picks will include point-spread picks for the complete season. I just finished the Week 1 picks, which are typically dicey. We'll see.

O. My. Gawd.

Appalachian State 34, Michigan 32.

Hang on, everyone. Here comes The Apocalypse.

This is the biggest upset in the history of college football.

Sunday, Sept. 2 note: Thanks to Tim for finding the video, which is still just fairy tale stuff, no matter how many times I watch it. How long before somebody makes a feature film about this game? And what's next? A No. 16 seed beating a No. 1 in the NCAA tourney?

Preseason Confusion

Last Saturday evening, Titans Coach Jeff Fisher did not allow starting quarterback Vince Young to play in their preseason game at home against the Washington Redskins.  Young was reportedly being punished for having violated team policy by returning to his home for sleep rather than staying at the team’s hotel rooms.  It was a bit of a disappointment, of course, for fans who attended the game, as well as those who watched it on television (in Nashville, of course, but I would assume also in Washington and wherever it was watched by Young/Titan/NFL fans).

Somehow, Tennessean columnist Joe Biddle has managed to make a column out of this—a muddled, confused and contradictory column, mind you, but yes, a column.  Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that Biddle simultaneously argues that Fisher “did the right thing” and that the Titans “stuck it to their fans” by not playing Young (I mean, Biddle often meanders like this in his columns) and just pay attention to the two main contentions: 1. NFL preseason games are overpriced and a way to “stick it to the fans” and 2. Vince Young should not have been benched because it “disappointed the fans.”

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.

The ignored Vick issue

It may seem a bit more heated than this on talk radio, but the debate over Michael Vick and his due-process rights really got settled weeks ago. Vick will be convicted or acquitted in federal court, and up until that point he'll be paid as his contract stipulates despite the fact that he won't be playing for the long-suffering Atlanta Falcons. End of story.

A few people will treat this "anti-Vick" decision by the NFL as a proxy issue for their feelings about racism in general, but it's a poor analogy. The league's new commissioner went on a personal-conduct-policy tear months before the Vick indictment, and from a practical standpoint, the Falcons can't afford to have Vick disrupt their 2007 season. They're better off from a competitive standpoint if he sits.

But the big issue before us is what becomes of Vick after the court decision. Jail time is probable if he's convicted, but what if he isn't (which happens to about 10 percent of defendants facing federal indictments)? Will the NFL welcome Vick back?

And this is what brings us to what should be a central issue in the Vick case, but somehow isn't: Gambling.

Isn't it strange that, for all the media attention paid to Vick and dogfighting, so little attention has been paid to the basic purpose of this brutal bloodsport? I've yet to hear or read a commentary that connects the dots between Vick's involvement in an illegal gambling enterprise, at whatever level of plausible deniability, and his simultaneous involvement in a professional sport that must take great pains to keep its operations free of connection to gamblers.

Why is that, exactly?

NFL Draft Day 1 Fantasy Report

From a fantasy football perspective, the top three rounds of this year's NFL Draft were pretty tame. By my count there are only five potential rookie fantasy starters at the end of the day, and few veterans moved around.

SAFEST ROOKIE FROM A FANTASY PERSPECTIVE: Assuming he signs his contract and shows up to minicamp and training camp, RB Marshawn Lynch should be a Day 1 starter for Buffalo. There are reasons to like this player in this situation:  He's the No. 2 RB in this year's class, has a good combination of skills and talents, and he goes to a Bills team that has a good young QB-WR combo in Losman and Evans. Also the Bills invested in offensive linemen during free agency. Lynch doesn't look like a sure-fire NFL star, but he's the kind of guy who could gain 1,100 yards and score eight to 10 times in 2007.

BOOM-BUST PICK: Adrian Peterson dropped to the Vikings at No. 7, and since Minnesota just picked up former Baltimore backup Chester Taylor for big bucks in 2006 free agency, that puts the draft's top RB in an RBBC with a guy coming off a 1,200-yard season. Combine that with his indeterminate recovery from a broken clavicle and it's pretty obvious that Peterson is a high-risk fantasy pick, particularly in teams that don't carry-over players from season to season.

But here's the way I look at it. Bottom line on Peterson is that he'll play. His floor is about 600 yards and five touchdowns. His ceiling? Nobody knows. Peterson comes into the league with powers and abilities far above those of mere mortals.

It says here that he'll split time with Taylor his rookie season, post No. 3 RB fantasy stats, and then move into a true feature-back role in 2008.

GREAT PLAYER, BUT CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM: Everybody in the world agrees that Calvin Johnson is a once-in-a-generation prospect, but his fantasy situation is murky at best. In the first place, he'll be playing alongside the closest thing to a Calvin Johnson clone in the league (Roy Williams). His Mad Scientist offensive coordinator did a poor job of keeping the Lions balanced in 2006, which means that situations, competition and poor QB play could do more to shut down Johnson than any defense opposing coordinators are likely to devise.

Johnson should become a great fantasy player, but it might take him two or three years. Had he gone to Tampa I'd have considered him a potential Top 20 WR in 2007, but right now he looks more like a No. 3 with upside.

TIGHT END CONTRIBUTOR: One of the under-reported stories of Day 1 was the plunge taken by Miami TE Greg Olsen. Considered the No. 11 pick overall by Mel Kiper, Olsen was considered a mid-first-rounder in most mock drafts. When he slid all the way to the Bears at No. 31, Jerry Angelo abandoned his plans to trade down and took the tight end he has been looking for since 2005.

Olsen will not be the starter in Chicago. That distinction will belong to Desmond Clark, who is coming off his Mentos year. But don't get too hung up on that. Olsen will see plenty of action in 2007 and could wind up being a valuable pickup in leagues that require a TE. Just don't overspend to get him, because he's not likely to score like one of the top six NFL TEs.

SITUATIONAL SLEEPER:  Brandon Jackson doesn't strike me as an NFL fantasy stud, but he's a first-day rookie in a good situation. Green Bay can move the football, and Jackson is in position to contend for the starting job. Doesn't mean he'll take advantage of the opportunity, though.

NOT THIS YEAR: Jamarcus Russell and Brady Quinn might start for their prospective teams  at some point this season, but they're not worth drafting in most fantasy leagues. Picking up as free agents during the season? That's more like  it. 

VETERANS WHOSE STOCK JUST DROPPED: If you've got Chester Taylor on your roster, today was a bad day. Not only did Taylor finish 2006 weak after a strong start, but now he starts the 2007 season as the guy competing with Peterson, one of the most dynamic RBs to come into the league in a decade. He was a protectable player on Friday, but he's a toss-back-in-the-pool guy as of Saturday afternoon.

Steven Jackson is universally recognized as a Top 5 (if not Top 3) fantasy RB. But the Rams may have created a bit of an RBBC when they drafted FB/RB Brian Leonard in the 2nd round. Leonard (who would have been an intriguing fantasy prospect had the Giants drafted him on the previous pick) is just too good to leave on the bench.

VETERANS WHOSE STOCK JUST ROSE: Josh McCown moved from backing up Jon Kitna in Detroit to an open competition for the starting QB job in Oakland. McCown is a journeyman, but he could easily be the opening day starter for the Raiders. Just don't expect to see him keep that job all season.

Jamal Lewis and Edgerrin James should both benefit from nice OL upgrades.

SHOES WAITING TO DROP: Somebody is going to trade for Michael Turner, but who? Randy Moss should be moving to Green Bay on Sunday, also.

Devin Hester: 100

From an ESPN article on EA Sports' decision to give Bears return ace Devin Hester a 100-point rating for speed in its Madden 2008 video game. It's the first time the gamemaker has ever given a player a 100 point rating for speed.

Hester has been known to have been lobbying members of the Madden NFL 08 development team for the top speed rating. He's certainly deserving of the honor; after all, there's pure speed and then there's football speed, which measures how fast a player can go weighed down with pads and equipment while 11 men on the other team try to bring him down. As he showed many times during his breakout rookie season, Hester's football speed is top-notch, and now Madden NFL 08 will pay him the ultimate respect by giving him a perfect rating in that category.

This is remarkable, considering the fact that just a year ago, before being drafted in the second round by the Bears, Hester was timed at 4.41 and 4.51 in the 40-yard dash. Decent numbers to be sure, but not even the fastest of his draft class, much less the fastest of all time.

I know this looks bad, but...

OK, down 29-17 with no time left on the clock and everybody gone home looks bad, but I just know we can still pull this one out!

Super Bowl, (& elf panties) bitches!