More football and "Lions for Lambs"

Sorry for the long delay- I've been busy being unemployed. Believe it or not, watching a 16-month-old all day is an awful lot of work. Also, for the first time in my life, I'm starting to get swamped with calls from collectors. Believe me, guys, I would LOVE to write you a check.

Anyway, that's not what you (both) come here to read. Please indulge me as I go over this weekend's action. As a 49er fan, I was thrilled to see Gore break off those two 80-yd. runs, and also to see the team win the game. I know it's way too early for this, but the 49ers' magic number against both of these teams is now 14. That means that, starting today, if the sum of the Niners' wins and the Seahawks losses is 14 or higher, then the Niners are ahead of them in the standings. Same for the Cardinals. The way the 49ers area playing right now, I think it's totally reasonable to expect them to win three out of their four remaining divisional games (sweep the Rams and take one from either the Seahawks or Cards). If they just go 4-6 outside of the division, that puts them at 9-7 and probably ahead in terms of tiebreakers. I don't see anybody else in the division going 10-6.

As to the runs themselves, I think it's ironic how other teams' stubbornness seems to work against them. That is at least three different times in the past few years that I've seen Gore break a super-long run when the other team stuck 8 guys in a straight line across the line of scrimmage. I understand that such a defensive formation is a good way to stop him for no gain, but when there isn't a 2nd level, all he has to do is break one tackle, or one lineman needs to tear things up, and he's gone for 80 yds, instead of 6. I will admit, though, that I'm a little frustrated that Vernon Davis isn't doing more. When I'm playing Madden, I throw crossing routes to him all day. Not sure why the Niners don't do that.

Finally, the last thing I want to address today is the movie "Lions for Lambs". According to Dish Network, it's only a 2-star movie, but I thought it was great. Obviously, it won't particularly appeal to the Fox News crowd (I guess I gave away a bit of my own prejudice there), but I love how it attacks a lot of different forms of dishonesty. It paints news networks, ambitious politicians, and apathetic college kids all in very negative lights. It addresses the (mostly unstated) feeling among (some of) the educated that the military consists of young men who couldn't do anything better with their life, but it does so subtly, and without really stepping on any toes.

Fantasy Auction

Well, we had our draft today. It didn't go exactly how I planned, but I think it worked out for everyone- had two no-shows, gave one a premade team that seemed fair (she really wanted to play this year) and just dropped the other team (he told me repeatedly that it's "not a big deal", and I can see him being frustrated if he were stuck w/ a team he didn't create).

Anyway, the real interesting part centers around a somewhat abstract concept. Taking a step back from fantasy football, I should explain that I love competition. I love to win, but more than that, I just love to compete. Whether it's something physical, a video game, poker, or monopoly, I love the feeling of developing a strategy and refining it. To be honest, in the moment, I will try as hard as I can to win, but I'm now almost numb to the outcome. Anyway, what this has to do with fantasy football is I feel like I have to limit myself a little bit, and I hate that feeling. I hate not calling plays that I know will work in Madden, I hate people not wanting to trade in Monopoly, I hate checking down hands against my wife if we play poker together. Since I'm numb to outcomes, (for the most part; I'll still take your winning lotto ticket if you don't want it) removing skill from games makes them boring. Here, I feel as though I could make a trade or two and give myself about a 60% chance to win the league, but doing so would probably just piss everyone else off.

Anyway, I apologize if that last paragraph wasn't totally clear; I didn't articulate the point especially well. I'll have more to say about the draft in the next couple days. BTW- if you care, my team is this (12 team league):

Schaub

Gore

Portis

Houshmandzadeh

Royal

Pierre Thomas

Carolina D.

Akers

Bench:

Bowe

Marshall

J. Stewart

F. Jones

Lee Evans

Bernard Berrian

I'm in the process of trading Bowe, Marshall, and Thomas for Steve Slaton, which seems more than fair. The reason I'm doing it (paying two talented WRs for a slight upgrade at RB) is my bench is full and I need to take another TE (b/c I don't want to drop Vernon Davis during the bye), so I was going to lose someone for nothing within a few weeks anyway. Also, in Royal, Evans, Berrian, and Housmandzadeh, I have four receivers that I would be comfortable starting, and I like the potential of both Jonathon Stewart and Felix Jones.

More to come soon...

Game Went OK

Well, don't tell anyone else in my fantasy football league, but I was excited by how well the 49ers' offensive line played tonight. Coffee had over 100 yards in just a half of football, and looked very good, but he was untouched for 10 yards or so on at least three different runs. In my opinion, he also left a bunch of yards on the field by not seeing cutback lanes. Assuming the Raiders aren't absolutely horrible up front (and therefore the results of this game have some predictive value), I think Frank Gore is ready for a huge season. Also, I'm not an Alex Smith fan, but I really liked what he did today. He played hard (everyone talks about the big block on Ellis, but his tackle on the seven yard line savve a touchdown. It was good to see him acting like he was comfortable playing football. Finally, it was great to see that no one was hurt. As I said in my previous post, I was scared that the Raiders would go out there trying to hurt a 49er.

Once again, I'm exhausted, but I do want to give a sneak preview of my next few entries- There will be a fantasy auction recap (auction takes place in exactly 10 1/2 hours), a post on time machines, and I will also write about the most interesting part of professional football.

Thank you for reading,

Alex

First Post

Well, I'm probably a few years late to this shindig, but I feel as though I've been selfish in not sharing my thoughts with the rest of the internet. First things first, let me thank you (both) for reading this, I hope that you feel a sense of ownership by being here first. If all goes well and I become the straight equivalent of Perez Hilton, you can all tell your friends that you read me before I was "me". Congrats on that.

Before I get into any real deep stuff, let me briefly introduce my blog- This blog is basically the sum of everything that I find interesting, topics that you don't usually associate with one another. After my family, I love football (specifically the 49ers, Pomona-Pitzer, and fantasy football), poker, politics, economics, and video games. My favorite book is Levitt and Dubner's "Freakonomics"; my favorite columnists are Gregg Easterbrook and Bill Simmons, and my favorite websites are slickdeals, 2 + 2, and deadspin. I plan on using these interests as ingredients and creating a giant thought casserole- hopefully it's closer to the delicious turkey burgers I recently "invented" (ground turkey, A1 steak sauce, tabasco, taco seasoning, corn, and black beans) than my toddler-age experiments involving soda and cereal.

With all of that said, I want to get started with my first post. I hope that I'm wrong, but I have a really bad feeling about the 49ers-Raiders preseason game tomorrow. From what I've read online, (Sando referencing John Clayton) the 49ers absolutely demolished the Raiders in their combined practices earlier this week, and were none too classy in doing so. While it's great to hear that the 49ers are looking good, it scares me that they felt the need to mess with the Raiders, of all teams.

I try to compare everything that happens on any scale to a schoolyard confrontation. Here, you have my guys (the 49ers) choosing to pick on the kid (the Raiders) who are neglected and unloved, starving for attention, and who have absolutely nothing to lose. That's the kid you stay away from because you don't want him blowing up your house 20 years later.

Well, it's late and I'm exhausted, but we'll see what happens with this tomorrow- I hope I'm wrong.