Xark!

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.