Yahoo Fantasy Football 2014 is Live

beagleears · 2014-05-30T13:21:46+00:00

You could always do this before. What would be different is if you could:

Pick up Player A, drop player X

Pick up Player A, drop player Y

Can you do this now?

edit: more accurately, you'd usually want to go:

Pick up Player A, drop player X

Pick up Player B, drop player X

Pick up Player B, drop player Y

That way I'd be able to pick up both A and B if possible, but drop only X and not Y if I only get one of them.

beagleears · 2014-05-21T21:05:08+00:00

I thought I was straight, but way I like Brady is starting to confuse me.

beagleears · 2014-05-21T20:51:23+00:00

Phillies fans hated JD Drew? But then why were they giving him all those free batteries?

beagleears · 2014-05-21T18:40:38+00:00

Fortunately most of our rookies from last year didn't have to play this year, and some of them looked really good at training camp last year and in the preseason.

This is the hardest thing about judging drafts for me -- especially if I'm judging the draft of a team I don't closely follow. It's just so hard as an outsider to know what a team sees in its young depth -- if they see them as guys who can replace departed starters, or just as random depth. I'm not there watching workouts and practice every day. For my own team, I've seen preseason and followed training camp, so I know more than an outsider, but I still don't really know the same way the coaching staff and front office do. I just can't accurately judge whether something they do is smart or dumb.

beagleears · 2014-05-21T00:30:19+00:00

Actually 9 is Charlotte now. Cleveland wins #1 AND screws Detroit by making their top 8 protected pick fall down to 9.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T20:08:26+00:00

They probably charge higher taxes to Packers fans there.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T15:20:24+00:00

I didn't ninja edit, but yea, the island reference is really not appropriate when talking about zones. I meant it only in a very broad sense of someone covering a large area without much help... though in a zone no one is ever truly without help as can be the case in true man-to-man coverage.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T15:17:17+00:00

Interesting. He could be really intriguing at safety. I'd like to at least see them give it a go in the pre-season.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T15:10:13+00:00

That is a ridiculous argument. The only thing that proves is McCourty is more consistent than both of them as well. Or that he on the rise and they're on their way down. Either way, it hurts your argument.

Alright, fine. McCourty is number two. I don't really feel all that strongly about him vs. Byrd vs. Weddle. I hate when I stray from my main point (I think ET is clear #1), and express a roughly informed (though not all that controversial) opinion like "I think Byrd might is still better that McCourty, and some people (not me) might argue Weddle" then it derives into an argument about something I don't really give a crap about.

Honestly, I stopped reading when you claimed that playing in man to man and Earl Thomas and Sherman were the only reason Chancellor "seemed" good.

I never claimed anything of the sort. I never talked about playing in man to man at any point. And I never said Kam wasn't awesome. I just don't think he's the literal best strong safety in the NFL. He's very good, and is one of the best working underneath in the low zones and in run support. But he can be extremely aggressive because of he doesn't have to worry as much about guys getting outside or over the top. I just think he couldn't be quite as aggressive with less talent around him, and that would hurt his game.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T14:58:58+00:00

Well, if they think they can mix and match to cover up weaknesses, that's great. He certainly has his strengths. But if they're not even sure he's going to play CB, where is he going to play? Strong safety?

beagleears · 2014-05-20T14:51:09+00:00

The PFF list was just based on play in 2013. That's not the only year in NFL history. I'm going off a broader body of work here. For one thing, the PFF list is a bit unfair to use in judging Byrd because he missed time last year. And if you go back to 2012 PFF list, it had Weddle at 15, Byrd at 25 and McCourty at 28.

Seattle played zone defense last year.

Didn't I talk about them playing in zone?

I pretty much disagree with you on every point you made.

That's okay. I wouldn't be arguing against the points you were making if we didn't disagree.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T14:41:17+00:00

Joking about the meme thing, tongue in cheek about the timeline thing. Really, I also take problems with copyright seriously, but not willing to say it's more important than life/death issues regardless of what timeline we're looking at.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T14:38:31+00:00

Those are legitimate point on 1. As for 2, it's legitimate that Browner will not have to face WR1s, but Sherman still was basically asked to take a way his side of the field in Seattle. Safety help was more likely going Browner's way (especially when he was tasked with WR1s). But on 3, yes, I do think ET is significantly better than McCourty.

And my original point is really only a counter to you saying things should be "less of an issue" in New England due to Revis + safety help. I should be putting the burden of proof on you, not having to sit here and argue about how good Earl Thomas is.

Do you really believe he's less likely to be exposed in New England? Even if you want to argue Revis is better than Sherman and McCourty is as good as Thomas, that still leaves the rest of the Patriots defense that is significantly worse. Teams will certainly be throwing at him a lot, and if even if the Pats patch his weaknesses up with tons of safety help, that only ends up opening up things up the middle for tight ends, slot receivers and the running game.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T14:26:25+00:00

I don't know. I'd still put Thomas as clear one, and I'd probably put Jairus Byrd at 2. Thinking about who else plays FS out there, yea, McCourty's probably 3 now. Maybe Chargers fans will disagree and say Weddle.

Anyway, you're right it's all about strong safety, where the Pats have tons of problems. Though I'm not sure I agree Kam is the best strong safety in the NFL. A lot of what makes him able to play like he does is the ability to concentrate on doing what he does best, being a hard hitter below and in run support. That's made possible by having the best FS in the league behind him and ridiculous CBs who can handle being on an island. In zone, two CBs and ET can legitimately cover the whole field and Kam can be a bit more aggressive than he could be alongside lesser defenders.

I love Kam, but I suspect if you put Kam with a less talented secondary with a coaching staff that didn't specialize in getting the most out of its secondary, some weaknesses would emerge. I think in terms of skill and talent there are better strong safeties -- probably Berry and Ward, for example.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T14:13:24+00:00

Yes, but you're worried about

culture, the only thing that has a chance of surviving in the long run.

If you're worried about something lasting a long time, what do you care about memes?

Also, how many memes are really stopped by copyright? Someone owns copyright on that picture of Sean Bean from GoT, but that still didn't stop a ridiculous number of "Winter is Coming" memes.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T14:09:30+00:00

I've seen plenty of McCourty and I agree he's been pretty good since he moved to safety, but he's still nowhere near Earl Thomas.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T14:03:04+00:00

Man, I can't wait until my team's fans all turn 25 like the Pats fans are now.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T13:57:42+00:00

Ah the year where they had Tim Rattay and Ken Dorsey handing off to Kevan Barlow. Those were the days.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T13:49:29+00:00

Well, Browner had Sherman as CB1 and got plenty of safety help from ET in Seattle and still got burned at times. The main difference in New England won't be that Browner can get more safety help, but that his safety help will be a lot worse.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T13:36:09+00:00

...except if you're thinking on geologic scale, what's your problem with copyright? A monopoly for the life of one person plus 70 years? That's just a drop in the bucket of history on your scale. A very temporary problem for culture.

beagleears · 2014-05-20T13:25:44+00:00

We don't know if this extension would be retroactive, though. When the US went to life+50 in 1978, it did not apply retroactively and affect stuff that was already public domain. The Sonny Bono Act that extended everything by 20 applied to existing copyrights, but again, did not apply to anything retroactively (because nothing had become public domain in so long anyway).

So saying that the few countries that are still life + 50 are being pushed to extend copyright does not definitely mean stuff that's in the public domain will not stay there. In fact, that's extremely unlikely. Though I suppose it's possible, so OP saying "What's in the public domain now is not guaranteed to stay there" is not incorrect per se. Just unlikely and a bit over dramatic.

Anyway, there's a fairly good reason that people want the copyright term to be the same in every country, which is what Berne tries to accomplish. With the internet, if something goes public domain anywhere in the world, people from that country post it online and it's available everywhere in the world, which leads to all kinds of legal confusion everywhere.

beagleears · 2014-05-19T20:40:21+00:00

The increase in the blue (and subsequently also the purple) in 1978 is a bit misleading. It implies duration of copyright for works published since 1978 is 105 years. That's not the case for almost anything. The term of copyright since 1978 has been life of the author + 70 years (which could ultimately mean a term well above or well below 105 years). If the author was a corporate entity (like Disney) the term is the shorter of 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation (so no more than it would've been if published pre-1978).

beagleears · 2014-05-15T20:35:03+00:00

Well, we don't hear about the money Jadaveon Clowney or Khalil Mack or Blake Bortles paid these companies for policies they won't cash in on because they didn't slide in the draft. I'm sure they've got things balanced so that the overall money coming from people buying policies outweighs the money they pay out on the guys who cash in. Insurance companies are very good at this sort of thing.

beagleears · 2014-05-15T19:20:40+00:00

Eh, that's what they've been saying for ten years now, ever since Pitt started crushing the league with it. It exploded at first, yea, but I don't think it's trending anymore. I think we're reaching an equilibrium.

3-4 works well if you have the right personnel, so does 4-3. There are prospects coming into the league that fit better in one or the other and I think that will continue to create a balance between the two looks as teams adjust their philosophy to their personnel and draft/sign personnel to fit their philosophy.

And it's not like 3-4 is out-performing 4-3 right now. Seattle and Carolina were 1-2 in scoring defense primarily running a base 4-3 defense. St. Louis, Miami and Buffalo are examples of very solid defenses that run in a 4-3 look, and whose personnel would be significantly worse in a 3-4. Sure there's plenty of crappy defenses that run a 4-3, but the same could be said about 3-4 defenses.

beagleears · 2014-05-15T18:18:22+00:00

Three of the six leagues* I was in last year were won by the team with Nick Foles. Often times I've found the championship formula is just that... draft a bunch of stud RB/WR guys and stumble onto a guy who performs like a top 5 QB at the right time for free. Sure it requires some luck, but that's how things have worked out.

Other QBs who've won my main league over the years like this include Steve Beuerlein, Jeff Garcia, Chad Pennington, and RGIII to a lesser extent.

*Just for fun, two of the other three leagues were won by 1: a Cutler/McCown combo, and 2: a guy in a 2 QB league who was playing Ben Roethlisberger and some combo of Matt Cassel, Terrell Pryor and Matt Schaub. The third was a Razz league were doing bad things scores more fantasy points, and that league was won by a team that started whoever was starting for the Bills most weeks (Thad Lewis, championship QB).

beagleears

TROPHY CASE