Fantasy Football has peaked

Like Starbuck's circa 2003, fantasy football has peaked. The Clarion Content's editorial board was first introduced to the game in New Jersey in 1986. There were no on-line sites to look up stats. Heck, the manual was a printed copy which had to be shared amongst participants. Drafts were conducted in person. When the Mile Square FFL league created Excel spreadsheets to assist in scoring, it was considered a tremendous advance. Even then, stats still had to be laboriously transcribed from the USA Today sports page into said spreadsheets.

The game has come light years from there. Drafts can be held virtually, on-line. There are not only numerous fantasy football magazines, but endless player rating websites. All scoring and even transactions can be processed for free by an outside service provider like ESPN, Yahoo, CBS Sportsline and their ilk. The central themes remain the same, a love of sports and competition with friends. But unfortunately, as with so many things, technology is squeezing the joy out of it. There is so much information on every game and every player available to everyone at this point, fantasy football has become overwhelming. Hours and hours can be wasted perusing not only box scores and injury reports, but scouting sites featuring minutia like average yards per carry, home and away, on turf and on grass, night and day, in cold or warm weather, ad infinitum, ad naseaum.

A brilliant description of the state of fantasy football now from Clarion fave, Bill Simmons, "Really, the fantasy football season isn't fun. Winning is OK; losing is agonizing. You constantly feel awful about your choices and your bad luck; it's the only exercise that causes arguments with friends you normally never would argue with; and you spend roughly a kazillion hours managing your team for the 10 percent chance that you might win your league. There's just not a ton of upside. It's almost like smoking cigarettes -- it started out with good intentions, and it's something to do, and it can be fun in the right moments, but ultimately, there are an inordinate amount of moments when you find yourself leaning out a window in 20-degree weather to puff out a quick cig as your nose gets frostbitten, or bumming a cig from a group of horrible girls and then feeling obligated to talk to them, or waking up in the morning and coughing up your right lung. Really, it's more harm than fun. And yet, we continue to do it. And love it. This entire paragraph made me want to smoke."

Latest LeBron speculation

Read ESPN basketball writer Mark Stein's latest analysis about how LeBron James's impending free agency is going to play out here. The Clarion Content has long said and continues to believe that there is no chance of LeBron being a Net. As veteran New York politics watchers, we knew Nets owner Bruce Ratner was never going to be able to get the development deal done in Brooklyn that he was claiming he could. Even before the global economic credit crunch, there was no chance. (Recall the NYC Olympic bid and the Jets West Side football stadium follies.)

This inability to move to Brooklyn means that the Jay-Z being a minority owner of the Nets shtick is cool, but not necessarily a game changer for LeBron's free agency decision. The Clarion Content would say now that Isaiah is no longer running the team, the Knicks have to be at least co-favorites for the LeBron free agency sweepstakes. The other favorite, has the opportunity to offer him the one thing the Knicks can't between now and then, a championship. If LeBron wins that title, he just might stay in Cleveland.

Stein's Daily Dime also has a list of the highest salaried NBA players this year, including such genius contracts as tied for the second highest paid player in the league at $21 million plus per annum Jason "Zero Titles" Kidd and Jermaine "North of the Border" O'Neal. Of course, no one really tops the non-playing, sixth highest paid player overall, Knicks bench warmer, Stephon Marbury.

Knicks hope

As Knicks fans we will continue to hold out hope for at least a few more weeks...

Texas Tech, epic

Here is a link to an excellent article about Texas Tech's stupendous win over the #1 Texas Longhorns last night. Texas Tech's euphoria may only last a week or two, highly ranked opponents Oklahoma State and Oklahoma lay ahead, but this game will be sewed into the tapestry of Lone Star state football. In a state that loves its football as much as anywhere in the nation, this was a game for the ages. It was the best game the Clarion Content has seen since Vince Young found away to propel the Longhorns to a national championship victory over mighty USC, a real humdinger!

Florida-Georgia

It is now fair to say that Georgia Coach Mark Richt's ridiculous and unsportsmanlike stunt last year won Georgia one game, but lost them one, too. Florida looked pretty motivated today.

For those who don't know the story: Coach Richt in the locker room before the big game in Jacksonville last year told his kids to "make sure" that they got an excessive celebration penalty after they scored their first touchdown in the game formerly known as 'The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.' He claims despite making this asinine recommendation that he didn't realize his entire team would storm the field to stomp on the Florida endzone. Whether he knew it or not to get the unsportsmanlike penalty was his suggestion, not the kids' spontaneous idea. It appeared to motivate Georgia last year, though Knowshon Moreno's 188 yard rushing day probably helped at least as much.

This year it surely motivated the Florida Gators as they were asked about it all week. Florida Coach Urban Meyer put a gag order on the team in regards to the incident, but it was all over the airwaves and the newspapers. Today Florida took Georgia out behind the woodshed. Leading 49 to 3 over the formerly one loss, 6th ranked Bulldogs, before beating them 49-10.

Singletary

The NFL has been buzzing about Hall of Fame linebacker and new San Francisco 49ers coach Mike Singletary. Not only did Singletary send a player to the locker room early, launch into a postgame press conference tirade, but apparently he dropped his trousers at half time to make a point to his team about how badly they were playing. The Clarion Content has no problem with it. Discipline at work for highly paid athletes, it is their job. They are likely playing in a stadium that was at least partially publicly financed. We are glad to hear that Singletary thinks they have an obligation to try to play their best. Hold them accountable, coach.

Knicks Undefeated

The New York Knickerbockers won their season opening game at Madison Square Garden last night. They defeated Dwayne Wade and the improving Miami Heat. The Clarion Content knows that this is likely going to be a long season for our beloved Knicks. We weren't a fan of the Mike D'Dantoni hire, nor the Danilo Gallinari pick. But for one night, all is well in the Garden.

Why D'Antoni wouldn't even let self-interested team killers and shirkers Stephon Marbury and Eddie Curry off of the bench. Hooray!

Three other quick NBA notes: one from the Knicks game, how about Heat rookie, Michael Beasly, a selfish, score first, cancer if we've ever seen one, who isn't fit to be compared to Alex English, let alone Dominique Wilkins managed a measly 9 points and 4 boards. He was outscored and outrebounded by rookie point guard Mario Chalmers!

Two: Can anyone believe Greg Oden? One game and he is out two to four weeks with a foot sprain? There is no way to avoid the Sam Bowie comparisons now.

Three: Isaiah Thomas. Whoa. Let us take pause and recognize that this is the world of sport. We wanted Isaiah out of the Knicks hierarchy as much as anyone, but let us hope the man is not so despondent as to hurt himself or anyone else. This is a trainwreck we have advance notice of, someone had better make sure the man is getting counseling. We hope his former coach and mentor Bob Knight has reached out to Isaiah. The Clarion Content sends get well wishes to Isaiah the human being.

Fools running baseball

The Bud Selig brigade of fools and losers was at it again last night. At least Gary Bettman is getting paid by David Stern and the NBA to destroy the NHL. Bud Selig and crew are attempting to kill Major League baseball simply to satisfy their monstrous egos and stuff their already fat wallets.

Last night's World Series game played in a driving rain for six innings was ridiculous. It should have never started. After Morons 'r Us let it start, it should have been stopped before it got to the official five innings. Instead, they played through a driving rain in 40 degree weather. The Clarion Content is sure that was fun for the home fans who shelled out hundreds of dollars a ticket to sit through that shit. Worse yet, the way MLB waited for the game to be tied, then immediately suspended it, gave all the feel that the fix was in. Our correspondent was sitting in a sports bar watching the game, everybody in the place knew as soon as the Rays tied it, they were going to stop the game. (Just as we knew once the fools let it go past the bottom of the 5th, they weren't going to stop it with the Phillies ahead.)

This all brought to you by the same idiots who let the All-Star game end in a tie. Then decided two wrongs can't possibly make us look more asinine and turned an exhibition game into the decider of home field advantage for the sports championship.

You don't play the sport's championship game under conditions that you never, ever play in during the regular season. If all of the players are used to games being delayed or canceled in a driving rain why play on? It was dangerous and ignorant. Oh wait, he knew better than the weatherman, all along according to the Philadelphia Daily News's Bill Conlin, "Selig said that as of 6:30 p.m. only a tenth of an inch of rain was forecast to fall between game time and midnight. About the same time that Bastardi (AccuWeather meteorologist) called for a cancellation."

Can someone, please, please, please send Bud Selig back to the used car lot???

If that's what it takes

The Clarion Content has long been a proponent of a college football playoff. The format we support would be an eight team playoff using the biggest of the bowls in a rotation system for the semifinals and finals. The teams included would be the champions of the six major conferences and two wild cards selected by a combination of the computers and the polls.

For years folks have been telling us that it would never ever happen. There are too many interested parties with too much cash at stake in the status quo. The Clarion heartily disagrees. The system it would appear to our eyes has been edging closer to a playoff for some time, the BCS as awful as it is, is significantly better than what college football had forty years ago. (Chaos and backroom chicanery.) However, to say the BCS is better is like saying, 'at least its only a small dent in your new car, as opposed to a large one.' It still sucks. The biggest obstacles to bagging the BCS for a real playoff system are the Big Ten and the PAC Ten. The mess that the end of this regular season foreshadows might just be enough to change minds, though we hope that every year.

The Clarion projects that Alabama, Florida, Texas and USC will all finish with one loss. Penn State will finish undefeated. What if somehow the computers and the pollsters still refused to put Penn State in the national championship game, not inconceivable given the putrid state of the Big Ten, and the long time that Penn State will spend out of the national spotlight while other teams are finishing strong in their conference championship games? If Penn State were left out under that scenario would the hue and cry be loud enough to get a playoff system? Even a four team playoff? The Clarion hopes so, if that's what it takes. Penn State has been there before under Joe Paterno, undefeated and screwed out of the national championship game. Surely the Big Ten would have to come around to supporting a playoff then?

Even if Penn State gets in, how to select the challenger out of the one loss teams? Thorny and arbitrary as that is, it still might not be enough to bring around the playoff holdouts. Though if Penn State loses in that scenario, say to a 1 loss USC and a 1 loss Florida whips Texas in the Fiesta Bowl? What then?

How many times?

The Clarion Content cannot believe how many times in the last two weeks we have had to address the failure of television providers to show viewers live sporting events. When we read yet another story of this kind of snafu, our reaction was along the lines of, "You have got to be kidding!?!"

But no, they weren't. Here is the story, monopolist and convicted bandwidth denier Comcast Cable, who controls the airwaves in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area lost the Phillies telecast of Game Three. Comcast went down across the Philadelphia area, parts of central Pennsylvania and South Jersey for 20 minutes in the middle of the game. They lost coverage with spectacularly bad timing for Phillies fans, causing them to miss Chase Utley and Ryan Howard's back to back 6th inning homers.

Congratulations on a craptastic job, Comcast!