The Weekly Gut Check - Vol. 53
Musings
11/3/05

The “Gut Feeling” is often synonymous with a sense of desperation resulting from a lack of preparation. The Gut Check is a huge proponent of studying the numbers, but there’s a point where one can place too much emphasis on the wrong information. This can result in the undervaluing or overlooking a player’s potential. Therefore, The Weekly Gut Check is devoted to examining the frame of reference behind certain number-driven guidelines that fantasy football owners use to make decisions.

Although The Weekly Gut Check doesn’t claim to be psychic, he does believe that he can dispel certain numbers biases and help you make the best choices for your team. We’ll keep a running tally of The Weekly Gut Check’s insights. This way you can gauge his views as something to seriously consider, or at least seriously consider running the opposite way as fast as you can!

Feeling Good about these Summer Predictions: Tiki Barber as an under-appreciate offensive centerpiece—Brandon Jacobs be damned! Larry Fitzgerald and Donté Stallworth breaking out this year. Drafting Heath Miller at the end of as many drafts as Yours Truly could this summer. Mike Anderson, Karlos Dansby, Kyle Vanden Bosch, Odell Thurman, and Derrick Johnson on The Gut Check’s all-preseason squad.

The Corollary—Wishing this didn’t have to be brought up: Touting Ahman Green. Yours Truly sincerely apologizes for this one. Downplaying the offensive line problems was a potential draft-killer. Somehow The Gut Check has to figure out a way to develop a predictive analysis for offensive line play. The offensive line rankings he did last year are a great formula for units with no turnover in staffing, but it doesn’t do much to account for change. Once Yours Truly can combine offensive line play and a few other factors into a player’s Crank Score, he’ll be rolling.

Kinda-Sorta: The Gut Check contends he was right about his reasons why Willis McGahee would be over-valued in drafts this summer: J.P. Losman. Fortunately for McGahee owners, the Bills came to their senses, and inserted Kelly Holcomb. Now McGahee is the second-leading rusher in the AFC. Deshaun Foster the best mid-round value? Well, if Stephen Davis didn’t appear out of nowhere during the last week of the preseason…Foster has looked good in limited time.

Standing by these Claims to the Bitter End: Carson Palmer started great, but his past few games have been a dose of reality. Yours Truly still believes Palmer will have up and down performances that will drive some contending fantasy owners nuts. Kerry Collins will catch fire in the second half of the season. Randy Moss’ injury, and Nov Turner’s hesitation to rely upon Lamont Jordan sidetracked Collins production a bit. The Gut Check still believes Collins will make many fantasy owners happy—especially Oakland figuring out how to force defenses to contend with Jordan. Cadillac started well, hid his injury, and has fantasy owners pining for him ever since. Yours Truly still foresees some quality starts from the Tampa rookie.

On The Lighter Side: Anyone else think Ben Roethlisberger is looking like Will Ferrell’s kid brother with that hairdo? And what’s up with the sideburns? Seriously, who cares? The Gut Check will let Kid Brother Cow Bell, QB his squad in real life.

Topics From The FF Today Board

If Farve, Bruschi, and Vick were drowning who would the media save first? None. All three would get run over by the mass of boats speeding to the scene for the exclusive.

Dear Gregory Gall…

The only plausible excuse you would have for doing what you did is mental illness—but that’s out of the question based on initial accounts you were just drunk and stupid. You broke the law. And you were enough of a distraction for the Green Bay Packers to have a plausible reason—beyond their horrible performance for the first 58 minutes—for losing this game. Cincinnati may not be far from Kentucky, but even at Churchill Downs on Derby Day, the locals are smart enough to confine this stuff to the infield.

Never mind all of that: You, the Detroit Pistons fans, and the father and son combo that hopped onto the field at Comiskey Park and took pot shots at an umpire, are giving major league sports more reasons to consider security that may one day lead to what we see in other countries during soccer matches. The Gut Check doesn’t want to get into the subject of politics here, but regardless of your leanings most relatively sane, American citizens should be able to concede our society has its own unique set of flaws—behaviors that open us up to rightful, and accurate criticism from the rest of the world.

Nobody is perfect, but one thing about American Sport is that beyond all the celebrity there is still a sense of purity involved with going to an arena to watch a game. It’s sickening to hear about other countries where riot police have to be on hand at a soccer match, players’ families are kidnapped, or fans throw batteries and coins onto basketball courts at the players.

The Gut Check would hate to see the actions of so few idiots necessitate the leagues to further strip away the remaining innocence and purity of their games. One of our perceived flaws is our historical tendency to solve problems with violence. By they way, if you haven’t seen The History of Violence, don’t wait any longer—great movie. Anyhow, Yours Truly is willing to be a hypocrite in this situation. While he doesn’t advocate violence as a normal solution, he endorses the idea that the next time some drunk fool decides to disrupt the game, the players should make him the #1 highlight for Tom Jackson’s Jacked Up segment on ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown.

The Gut Check is sure you’ll see the tape over and over while sitting there in a courtroom. You’ll notice the expression on Favre’s face. While Yours Truly doubts Favre has any interest in Women’s Tennis, The Gut Check bets Favre has heard of Monica Seles, and what happened to her. The look on his face looked a lot like someone wondering if they were safe. People like you Gregory Gall, ruin it for the rest of us…

Look Over Your Shoulder…

Reggie Williams—While you’re making wild gyrations after a 6-yard reception, the guy drafted three rounds after you, makes game-changing catches. Ernest Wilford has made a first down on 14 of his 15 receptions this year. His 145-yard effort was against a depleted, Rams secondary but Wilford has done enough to force the Jaguars organization to give him the opportunity over the more expensive…err, higher profile options. Don’t be surprised if Matt Jones and Ernest Wilford are the 1-2 punch in Jacksonville for years to come.

NFC East—The Miami Dolphins will be a dangerous, second-half team. New York, you have too many holes on either side of the ball. Buffalo, you are better with Holcomb but not good enough to win the division. New England you still have the decided edge, don’t be surprised of Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams not only give Miami fans hope for next year, but also get hyped as the best tandem backfield in Miami since Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick. The Gut Check thinks Ricky Williams is going to make some fantasy owners happy for several games down the stretch. He may not be happy playing football, but Yours Truly can understand how one can be great at their job, yet still hate it. Ricky Williams is as talented an RB as there is in football. He’s beginning to regain his form, and if Nick Saban can manage to get both backs 15-20 carries in a game, we’ll be hearing a lot about a surprisingly competitive Miami team as the winter sneaks up on us. Look for some weekly upsets involving Miami in this division.

NFL—drunken idiots are pouring out of the stands to steal the football from players. Are you going to wait for one to pretend he’s a defensive end before you think of a real solution? Please don’t make fans sit in coliseums that are filled with cages and barbed wire, either.

The Gut Check’s Mid-Year, League Report Card

So far, Yours Truly is in contention with most of his leagues with a traditional auction or snake draft. Admittedly some teams have a much better chance than others. You’ll notice, The Gut Check problems resulted from consistently picking some of the same players that haven’t panned out thus far.

Scouting Reports—There isn’t one this week, but there will be new one for week 10.