Contributors
-Big Ben only being out for 4-6 weeks, as is being reported by literally every person in charge of reporting such things, is a huge win for the Steelers. (Mike Tomlin has confirmed the MCL injury during today’s press conference, but will only admit to Roethlisberger being out "for a number of weeks".)
-The fortunate part is that he wasn't planting to throw, he was attempting to move up in the pocket, so he didn't have the full body weight on the leg when he was hit. Also, if you look at the ankle, it gave a little bit, which had to have actually been a good thing. If he had full weight on the plant leg, and the foot stuck in the ground, the ACL surely would have been impacted.
-I thought hitting the QB in the knee or below was supposed to be a penalty. I’m guessing a hefty fine will be in Mark Baron’s future. I’m not smart enough to claim intent, but I’m certainly smart enough to understand reckless. Barron was trying to make a play, went down, and continued lunging directly at the knee area. Helmet-to-helmet penalties are now clearly having an impact on the way most defenders go about defending a pass downfield, and when attacking a QB in the pocket, that awareness for the knee area should be just as strong.
-Last week I wrote, “If the Bears are bad with Jay Cutler, what are they without him?” Well, they put up arguably the most consistent offensive performance in NFL history—10 possessions, 10 punts. They may have had only 1 trip into Seahawks territory, but zero turnovers! Winning!
-For Jimmy Clausen to stand out in a week where two McCowns, a Cousins, and a Weeden started says a lot about his incompetence. Yes, Seattle had Kam Chancellor back, but it is clear that Jimmy Clausen shouldn’t be pulling in an NFL paycheck. That was embarrassing.
-Speaking of embarrassing, have the Dolphins officially quit on Joe Philbin? That’s way too talented a team to perform in the way they have over the past 2 weeks. At this point, a change probably should be in order.
-The Patriots look really good right now, but the best team in the league through 3 weeks is the Arizona Cardinals.
-San Francisco’s 47-7 loss to Arizona coupled with Minnesota’s 31-14 win over San Diego is another glaring example as to why we should never overrate Week 1.
-When I received my ESPN The Magazine in the mail last week, the cover was a promotional message for Draftkings. After having seen numerous commercials, my daughter didn’t even bat an eyelash as she said, “hey, there’s Dave Gomes”.
A Generalized Truth About Daily Fantasy Sports
Commercials for Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) sites FanDuel and Draftkings are now flooding our sporting events as the DFS industry is exploding. With the popularity of fantasy sports growing every year, the promise of a chance at a big payday is obviously appealing to many who either consider themselves to be good at a particular fantasy sport, or at the very least enjoy playing. The fact is, the Draftkings mantra of “real people, real winners” is a bit disingenuous at best. The real winners they feature in their commercials, including Gomes, Drew Dinkmeyer, Chris Prince, and others, are DFS pros—“sharks”, if you will. These players, and many others, spend hours plugging in algorithms that help them come up with thousands of optimal lineups, then plug in those lineups on a nightly basis, spending thousands each night in the process. The general goal on a nightly basis is to earn about 8%-10% profit, while obviously skewing the odds incredibly in their favor when it comes to the big tournaments. As both of the leading DFS sites continue to promote the promise of a big payday, it’s important to understand that as a random player interested in testing the waters, your chances are even more minimal than they appear.
That’s not to say you can’t enjoy DFS, or make a little money in the process, but if you’re going to do it, it’s best to lower your expectations. The sites have started to promote their “50/50s” where half the field wins an additional 80% of their money back (for example, spend $5 to win $9). You can also play smaller tournaments, leagues of varying numbers of participants, and certain tournaments that limit each person to a single entry. And even in the bigger tournaments, roughly 20% of the entries submitted end up winning something, so it’s certainly not impossible to have a little fun and build up a bit of a bankroll.
For those that choose not to spend money, but are still interested in checking it out, you are able to set up a free account, and play in any number of free contests. There are always a few free tournaments that offer a very nominal and hard-to-get prize ($2 ticket to the top 5, for example), and there are also free, no-prize tournaments that are set up to help introduce you to the whole experience. You can also create your own contest, setting up a head-to-head or tournament matchup with friends that you know. I’ve actually done exactly that with my kids, setting up a free account for each, and, aside from it being a fantastic math lesson, using it to help them get into sports a little bit more. I explained the basics of how the salary cap works to my 6-year-old son, and he’s put together lineups for basketball, baseball, and football (usually beating me in the process). Yesterday, he put a lineup together that consisted of Cam Newton, Chris Johnson, Le’Veon Bell, Demaryius Thomas, Antonio Brown, John Brown, etc. Last week, he put Allen Robinson on his team and put up 200+ points (I believe the winner of the big tournaments last week had in the 230 range- I should have played his lineup and claimed it as my own).
From novices to pros, DFS can provide whatever it is that you enjoy about fantasy sports. It can be a free source of family entertainment, your nightly lottery ticket, or literally anything in between. But as with anything, it’s always good to know exactly what you’re getting into before you actually get into it.
