fantasy football preview 2008
Jason posted on August 25, 2008

Sometimes I think that fantasy football is my least favorite fantasy sport. As someone with loads of free time and an unbridled urge to succeed in virtual reality where I could not succeed in actual reality, I like to work at fantasy sports. I spend hours and hours doing research, creating my own spreadsheets, and pumping my leaguemates with false information (“Dude, I really think that Brodie Coyle has top five QB potential this year”) in the hopes of getting inside their heads. My relationships suffer in mid-March (fantasy baseball drafting season) and all of August (fantasy baseball trade deadline, fantasy football research and draft), as I lose track of emails and phone calls and would rather spend a Thursday night at home drinking cans of Bud and arguing the merits of trading Evan Longoria and Brandon Webb for Johan Santana in my three-player keeper league or Clinton Portis vs. Frank Gore than going out and trying to talk to girls (yeech). To me, fantasy sports are about two main things – statistics and valuation – and if you have a good grasps of these, you will do well in your fantasy league.

The third component of fantasy sports is much more prevalent in fantasy football than in baseball or basketball, and this is the very reason that I like football least. That component is luck. No matter how much research you do, how much you know about players and coaches and offensive schemes, it all comes down to one number: 16. There are only sixteen games in a fantasy football season (and many leagues hold their championship game in Week 16, as starters on playoff-bound teams are often rested in Week 17, thereby reducing their season to fifteen meaningful games). This is a very small sample size compared to 162 baseball games, 82 basketball games, and however many games they play in hockey (if that sport’s still around). On any given week, anything can happen: Tom Brady can go without a touchdown, the Bears could score 42 points against your defense, Stephen Jackson can leave a game after one play. Here’s a statistical study of six weeks in the life of an NFL running back to help illustrate the randomness of fantasy football (carries – yards rushing – touchdowns – fantasy points; I’m leaving out receptions to make it as uncomplicated as possible):

Week 1: 30 – 296 – 3 – 47.6
Week 2: 11 –45 – 0 – 4.5
Week 3: DNP
Week 4: DNP
Week 5: 15 – 116 – 2 – 23.6
Week 6: 14 – 3 – 0 – .3

That’s 47.6 points, then 4.5, then two DNPs, then 23.6, then .3 points per week for the guy who will most likely be the #2 overall pick in your league: Adrian Peterson. No one will disagree with you if you say the guy’s a beast, but his talent does not often result in consistent and positive fantasy points.

While Peterson is an extreme example, this is the case with all football players. Guys will have great games, guys will have stink-bombs, guys will play ok – and there’s nothing you can do but let them play out their full sixteen games. Compare this to baseball, where I can tell you that Kosuke Fukudome is a must play at home (where his OBP is .411 in 58 games versus .326 in 54 games on the road) and Ryan Howard could be benched against lefties (he’s batting .186 in 188 ABs against lefties compared to .271 in 266 ABs against righties this year, with career splits of .221 and .308) and you see what I’m getting at. For the uber nerd like myself, football is frustrating because of its small sample size and strong reliance on luck, and because quite often these factors result in losing to girls. Which sucks.

(Hear me now: I’m not saying luck isn’t involved in fantasy baseball or basketball. For example, talk to the people who took Carl Crawford in the first, thought they had a gems in Robby Cano and Travis Hafner on the right side of their infield, and just knew their three-headed monster of Bedard-Harang-Chris Young would K them right to their league title. It’s just that you’re able to overcome injuries or poor performance a lot more easily in baseball because there are 162 freaking games.)

Still, that does not mean that my research for football, for all its potential meaninglessness, is any less fervent or thorough. I approach football just as I approach baseball, and actually usually play in more football leagues per season (four this year) compared to baseball (one I care about more than my family, one I don’t really care about, and one in which I merely consult on the draft and trades, leaving the day-to-day operations to my partner). It is precisely because of the fact that it’s only sixteen games that fantasy football is the most popular sports – anybody can put together the team and everyone has a chance to win, which is not the case for other fantasy sports.

Alright, let’s start with the general tips, then get on with the rankings.

1) Do your research. This may seem obvious, but if you wing it, you’ll lose. Sure, anyone with a fundamental knowledge of football can navigate through the first few rounds, but what happens in Round 8 when you’re looking for a 3rd receiver and are deciding between Chris Chambers and Santana Moss?

(Actually, they’d be pretty solid third WRs.)

At the very least, visit the fantasy sections of ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS Sportsline to get a general idea of two things: what statistics players put up last year and where players are being drafting. Yeah, odds are good that Peyton Manning will have around 30 TDs and he’s a high pick, but what about a guy like Phillip Rivers? Where’s he being drafted in relation to Jay Cutler or David Garrad? Can you get those guys in the 12th round, whereas you’d need to draft Peyton in the 2nd?

Go into the draft with some stuff printed out with last year’s stats. That’ll give you a cheat sheet to look over during the draft. Additionally, I like to highlight certain guys I like, making notes on the side. Do whatever makes you comfortable, but you should have a little bit of paperwork to refer to during the draft and to keep you grounded.

2) Lie and manipulate. If you are in a league with friends, constantly engage them in conversations before the draft. Feel them out about their battle plans, who they like, etc and reciprocate with information that is entirely false. The important thing is to be sincere and seem honest. A good way to do this is by saying stuff like, “You know, I don’t even know if I should tell you this, but I think last year was not a fluke for Big Ben and see him getting even better” when you secretly think that there’s no chance in hell he throws for 22 TDs, let alone the 32 he threw for last year

Say you have the 5th pick in the first round, and your buddy has the 4th. You really, really want Joseph Addai, but think your buddy at 4 is going to take him. The solution: talk up another player. “Dude, I love Stephen Jackson. The Rams have drastically improved in the offseason and he’s motivated with that holdout. But c’mon - don’t take him, dude. I’m calling dibbs on him.” There’s a chance that your buddy at 4 will then take Jackson in the hopes of screwing you over, and you’ll get Addai. Remember, the other owners in your league are just as soulless as you are, just much, much dumber. The point is, NEVER show your true hand. Flaunt your fake hand constantly.

3) Know your scoring system and positions. Football leagues often times have different scoring rules and settings. Are QB TDs worth four points or six? Are there points awarded for receptions? If so, how many? Do you start two QBs every week or just one? (I personally think you’re not a man unless you’re in a two QB league; why should the most important position in the field be relegated to secondary status in leagues? Would you draft Earnest Graham before Drew Brees in real life?) Is there a WR/RB flex position? How many bench spots are there?

These are all important questions that can drastically influence the way you draft. Drew Brees is a late second round pick in a two-QB league. Reggie Bush has a lot more value in a PPR (points per reception) league; Michael Turner, he of 11 career receptions, does not.

4) Don’t panic, and start or stay off the waves. Countless mistakes are made during the draft because the manager was panicking. Don’t be that dude. When your pick is on its way back to you, be sure to have at least two choices ready. This way, if the guy ahead of you takes the player you wanted, you don’t make a rash decision and end up taking a kicker in the 5th round.

A good deal of draft panic derives from position runs. This happens when a number of players of the same position are selected in a row, causing owners to think, “Holy crap! All the [QBs, WRs, TEs, etc] are going! I have to get one now!” The result is that they wind up with a not-as-good player, because they jumped on the wave too late.

My advice is to either stay off these or start them. I usually stay off rather than start them, just because it’s easier. But say you’re in the fifth round, and the guy a few picks before you takes Donovan McNabb. Then the next guy takes Matt Hasselbeck. Then the next guy takes Derek Anderson. Then it’s on. You’ll see a flurry of managers selecting QBs that shouldn’t be selected. In this situation, I would back off, take a RB or star WR, and wait a few rounds before taking a serviceable QB (Eli, Cutler, Garrard, etc).

Runs or waves most often happen late in the draft when people pick kickers or defenses. I usually completely ignore these, preferring instead to take a third RB or another QB. Which brings us to…

5) Fuck tight ends, kickers, and defenses. There’s something to be said for having Antonio Gates or Tony Gonzalez, but if you don’t get them in round 4 or 5, forget it. In a 16 round draft, I won’t take these three positions until rounds 12-16. And even then I don’t put much thought into it. I’d rather pick up a different defense every week and draft a backup RB with starting potential than take the Minnesota defense in the 8th. And this year, TE is very, very deep – it’s possible to grab a guy like Todd Heap or Owen Daniels several rounds after Messrs. Whitten, Gates and Gonzalez are gone.

6) Know your enemy. When you’re picking, it’s important to know who the guys around you already have on their teams. For example, say you have the 8th pick in a 10 person league. It’s the 3rd round, and you’re really looking for a QB, but you see that a nice WR has fallen to you. Check to see who the 9th and 10th owners have. If they already have a QB, take the WR with your 3rd round choice and then get the QB on the wrap in the 4th round, following the logic that if the guys picking after you already have a QB, they’re not going to take another one. This knowledge is key.

(This sounds confusing, but it’s not. Basically, if you’re deciding between two positions, look at the people picking after you to see what they need.)

7) Think “best available.” I’m all for filling out your roster positions, but at the same time I adhere to the principle of “best available,” meaning take the best available player, regardless of position. For example, say by the 4th round I’ve drafted two quality RBs and a decent WR. In Round 4, if I see another very good RB who I think has lasted too long, I will take him over a WR that I like, even though I’ve already drafted my two starting RBs and need another WR. Sure, it means that I have one RB too many, but it also means that my competitor won’t have this RB on his team. It’s a wise decision to draft best available because it means a) you’ll have trade bait and b) it’s offensive by being defensive.

This strategy is especially important this year, due to the unprecedented number of RB by committee (RBBC) situations. Previously, it was recommended to go RB-RB in the first two rounds. But this year, by my count about half the teams in the NFL will be spreading their carries out among several RBs. This, combined with the emergence of Tom “God” Brady and the incredible season of Randy Moss and the other talent at the top of the WR pool, means the RB-RB approach may not be the wisest course of action this year.

8 ) Handcuff, handcuff, handcuff. Spend the last few rounds making sure you draft the backups of your marquee players. Players get hurt and their backups step up and often times play well (especially in the case of RBs and, to a lesser extent, QBs). Some must-have handcuffs this year include Jacob Hester (SD), Ray Rice (Bal), Chester Taylor (Min), Ladell Betts (Was) and Lorenzo Booker (Phi), to name a few.

So there are your tips. Now onto the positions.

[Note: We will assume that this is a standard scoring league – four points for QB TD, six for others; no ppr; etc – with ten teams playing head-to-head, the position break-down being: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, K, DEF. Lists will be broken into tiers, followed by an explanation, followed by players I think are overvalued (i.e. players I think who are going higher in drafts than their performance this year will merit) and players I think are undervalued (um, the opposite over overvalued).]

QUARTERBACK
1 Tom Brady, NE
2 Peyton Manning, Ind
3 Tony Romo, Dal
4 Drew Brees, NO

5 Carson Palmer, Cin
6 Ben Roethlisberger, Pit
7 Matt Hasselbeck, Sea
8 Donovan McNabb, Phi

9 Derek Anderson, Cle
10 Jay Cutler, Den
11 David Garrard, Jax
12 Matt Schaub, Hou
13 Eli Manning, NYG
14 Marc Bulger, StL
15 Philip Rivers, SD
16 Jake Delhomme, Car
17 Brett Favre, NYJ

18 Kurt Warner, Ari
19 Aaron Rodgers, GB
20 Jason Campbell, Was
21 John Kitna, Det
22 Vince Young, Ten
23 Jeff Garcia, TB
24 Trent Edwards, Buf

In a two QB league, Tom Brady is your sixth overall pick, and Peyton, Romo and possibly Brees should all be gone by the start of the third round (as of this writing, I’m not concerned about Manning’s injury and am convinced he’ll play Week One). In a one QB league, you have a lot more freedom and can grab a premier signal-caller later. But be wary – you do not want to end up with Jeff Garcia as your starting QB. According to Yahoo standard scoring, eleven of the top twenty in total points last year were QBs. In order to run with the big dogs in your league, it’s important to get a top-ten QB, so while you can wait a little bit before drafting one, don’t get too cute with the QB position.

Overvalued: As alluded to above, Big Ben is not going to throw 30+ TDs this year (if any of you would like to make a side bet on this, my email again is jason_at_jasonmulgrew.com). Following my “never pay for a career year” advice, I also wouldn’t be thrilled if Derek Anderson was my top QB. I’m not so sure Cleveland is as good as last year’s record indicates and am not a fan of any of the guys in that offense this year. Their inter-conference division is the NFC East and they have games at Jacksonville and against Denver, Houston and Indy. No thanks. I think you have a Jets fan in your league and I think he’s going to take Brett Favre before you do, and I think he’s going to get 24 touchdowns, 23 interceptions and 3800 yards.

Undervalued: “In the past five years, I’ve thrown 26, 22 (in 14 games), 24, 18 (in 12 games) and 28 TDs. I’m bald, kinda dorky, and play in the Northwest, but every year I get drafted way later than I should. My name is Matt Hasselbeck.” Carson Palmer threw a career high 20 INTs last year and could have a nice bounce-back year (he threw 18 INT in his rookie year, but only 12 and 13 in years after that). If you’re a gambler, sixteen games of Donovan McNabb is a top three QB. Marc Bulger shouldn’t be your starter, but you should draft him (he was the #3 QB in 2006 before last year’s injuries and is worth the risk). Schaub is healthy and could be sumpin’ special. If I have to read one more puff piece about Jason Campbell and Jim Zorn, I’m going to consider them legally married.

RUNNING BACK
1 LaDainian Tomlinson, SD*
2 Brian Westbrook, Phi*
3 Adrian Peterson, Min*
4 Joseph Addai, Ind*
5 Stephen Jackson, Stl*

6 Marion Barber, Dal*
7 Clinton Portis, Was*
8 Frank Gore, SF*
9 Marshawn Lynch, Buf*

10 Larry Johnson, KC*
11 Ryan Grant, GB*
12 Maurice Jones-Drew, Jac
13 Willis McGahee, Bal
14 Reggie Bush, NO
15 Willie Parker, Pit
16 Edgerrin James, Ari*
17 Michael Turner, Atl*
18 Thomas Jones, NYJ*
19 Jamal Lewis, Cle*
19.1 Brandon Jacobs, NYG
20 Laurence Maroney, NE
21 Ronnie Brown, Mia
23 Earnest Graham, TB
24 Darren McFadden, Oak

25 Matt Forte, Chi*
26 Lendale White, Ten
27 Fred Taylor, Jax
28 Chris Johnson, Ten
29 DeAngelo Willams, Car
30 Jonathan Stewart, Car
31 Ray Rice, Bal
32 Ricky Williams, Mia
33 Selvin Young, Den
34 Rashard Mendenhall, Pit
35 Kevin Smith, Det
36 Justin Fargas, Oak
37 Felix Jones, Dal
38 Julius Jones, Sea
39 Maurice Morris, Sea
40 Chris Perry, Cin
41 Steve Slaton, Hou
42 Chestor Taylor, Min
43 Jerious Norwood, Atl
44 Rudi Johnson, Cin
45 Ahman Green, Hou

A “*” indicates an RB that will not be splitting carries or involved in a running back by committee situation. The simplest way to view these rankings is that the first tier are the sure things and should be the first five picks in your draft, the second tier is the almost sure things and should be gone by the mid-second at the latest, and the third tier is where it starts getting dangerous – these are high-ceiling RBs, but face committee situations (Bush, MJD, Jacobs, Maroney), injury concerns or old age (Johnson, McGahee, Edge, Lewis, Jones) or are limited experience guys (Grant, Turner).

My strategy is that, depending on the size of the league, I like to walk out of a draft with 4-5 RBs. I’ll try to grab at least one guy from tier one or two above, at least one guy from tier three, one rookie and one handcuff to my top RB. This way you cover all your bases: you’ve got two starters, a back-up/handcuff, and a rookie who just may surprise you.

Overvalued: Call me a homer, but give me the #2 pick and I’m taking Brian Westbrook. I may eat my words, but to me he’s more a sure thing than AP, and a sure thing is what you’re looking for in your first round pick. I’m down on Barber a bit – his physical style and the fact that he’s never had more than 204 carries in a season means that Felix Jones, a favorite of Jerry Jones, could be involved in the running game way more than people think. Here are five guys I would rather not draft:

Larry Johnson – KC stinks and so does their o-line. LJ is coming off major surgery and is older than people realize (29). Could be great, but too much of a question mark.

Ryan Grant – GB caught lightening in a bottle last year with Favre having a career year and their defense playing great, and I don’t think they can repeat their performance. This could come back to haunt me, but I’d rather not be bothered with this guy or his team situation.

Brandon Jacobs – Too much going on it that backfield with Ward and Bradshaw.

Laurence Maroney – One dimensional back in the system that does not favor single, dominant RBs (Corey Dillon’s monster 2004 being the exception). The signing of Lamont Jordan – to go along with Sammy Morris and Kevin Faulk – doesn’t make Maroney any more appealing. He’ll go higher than he should because New England scored 15,000 points last year.

Darren McFadden – Someone’s going to take him way before I’m ready to.

Undervalued: I almost don’t want to say this, since I’ve only had one of my four drafts this year, but where are people shitting on Willie Parker so much? Yeah, he only had 2 TDs last year, and yeah, Mendenhall should see some goal-line carries, but this guy is going way, way later than he should be. I’m not necessarily saying he’ll return to 2006 form (1494 yards, 13 rushing TDs and 3 receiving TDs), but is it much of a stretch to give him 1300 yards and 8-9 TDs? And this guy is being drafted as the RB19?

I also previously liked Thomas Jones, but now that Favre’s on the team, he may be a bit overvalued. Other guys I like and think are being undervalued are Lynch (beast), McGahee (stock has dropped due to injury, but the talent is there – just be sure to grab Rice as your handcuff), and Edge James (expect another quiet 1200-7 season), to name a few. Of the rookies, I’m loving Chris Johnson, mostly because Lendale White likes mayo more than football, and Felix Jones, for reasons stated above.

One last thing: there is real value to be had in a few choice backfields (in order): Cincinnati, Houston and Seattle. Someone’s going to rise up and be a very, very good RB on each of these teams, so watch them closely. If I had to guess, I’d say Perry, Slaton and Jones.

WIDE RECEIVER
1 Randy Moss, NE
2 Terrell Owens, Dal
3 Reggie Wayne, Ind
4 Larry Fitzgerald, Ari

5 Braylon Edwards, Cle
6 Andre Johnson, Hou
7 Marques Colston, NO
8 T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Cin
9 Torry Holt, StL
10 Chad Johnson, Cin
11 Roy Williams, Det
12 Plaxico Burress, NYG
13 Anquan Boldin, Ari
14 Santonio Holmes, Pit
15 Calvin Johnson, Det
16 Anquan Boldin, Ari

17 Steve Smith, Car
18 Jerricho Cotchery, NYJ
19 Wes Welker, NE
20 Roddy White, Atl
21 Donald Driver, GB
22 Brandon Marshall, Den
23 Nate Burleson, Sea
24 Lee Evans, Buf
25 Laverneus Coles, NYJ
26 Dwayne Bowe, KC
27 Marvin Harrison, Ind
28 Hines Ward, Pit
29 Chris Chambers, SD
30 Santana Moss, Was
31 Greg Jennings, GB
32 Ted Ginn, Mia
33 Anthony Gonzalez, Ind
34 Joey Galloway, TB
35 Derrick Mason, Bal
36 Reggie Brown, Phi
37 Bernard Berrian, Min
38 Javon Walker, Oak
39 Mushin Muhammed, Car
40 Patrick Crayton, Dal

Oh, wide receiver – the bane of the fantasy manager’s existence and certainly the hardest position to predict. Once you get back those top 25-30, who will make up the bulk of your league’s WR1 and WR2, you might as well pick out a hat if you’re trying to find the ideal WR3 and WR4 for your team.

The easiest way to circumvent this? If you’re starting three WRs, grab two from the top 25 or so listed above, or even higher. In a one QB league, I’d be inclined to draft some combination of three RBs and three WRs in the first six rounds, eschewing the higher profile TEs (more on this later) and the top half dozen QBs to make sure I’m loaded at those two positions. And this year, considering the decline of the single RB and the rise of the RBBC, I’m personally going to be focusing my efforts more on landing two big-time WRs. For example, I’d feel more comfortable after three rounds with Westbrook, Reggie Wayne and Andre Johnson than with Westbrook, Brandon Jacobs and Earnest Graham, as in the first scenario I’d use many of my later picks to grab high-ceiling rookie RBs or RBCC guys

Overvalued: Steve Smith. And not just because he’s serving a two game suspension. Here’s an email I sent to my roommate Mark, a huge fantasy football guy, just this week:

“You know what? I’ve never been a big Steve Smith fan. If you look at his career stats, he honestly had ONE great year: 2005, when he had 103 catches, 1563 yards and 12 TDs. Otherwise, in the three productive seasons around that (03, 06, 07 - he was hurt in 04), he’s averaged 85 catches, 1100 yards, 7-8 TDs. Numbers for a good WR2, but not for one of the first five WR off the board. He gets by totally on name rep - the Mighty Mite stuff and because he’s brash - and this year, with the two game suspension, there’s no way I’m getting him, since he always goes higher than where I’d take him.

I’m telling you, Steve Smith as WR1 is a myth. Now watch as he goes for 1600 yards and 16 TDs this year.”

I’m down on Braylon Edwards because he’s on the Browns, who I think will be quite bad. Down also on Chad Johnson (injured and typically scores in bunches), Plaxico (SB hangover for the whole team), Roddy White (crappy QB on bad, bad team), Dwayne Bowe (same), Greg Jennings (Favre hangover).

Undervalued: Everyone raving about Calvin Johnson and not talking much about Roy Williams – this could be the year he vaults into the top ten or higher. I love Anquan Boldin, whose upset essentially because his teammate Larry Fitzgerald makes oodles more money than he does. I’ll be targeting Donald Driver, Nate Burleson, Hines Ward, Ted Ginn and Mushin Muhammed in all of my leagues (I bet I’ll end up with at least two of these guys on every team I own).

TIGHT END
1 Jason Whitten, Dal
2 Kellen Winslow, Cle
3 Tony Gonzalez, KC
4 Chris Cooley, Was
5 Dallas Clark, Ind
6 Antonio Gates, SD

7 Jeremy Shockey, NO

8 Tony Scheffler, Den
9 Owen Daniels, Hou
10 Todd Heap, Bal
11 Vernon Davis, SF
12 LJ Smith, Phi
13 Ben Watson, NE
14 Heath Miller, Pit
15 Alge Crumpler, Ten
16 Dustin Keller, NYJ
17 Greg Olsen, Chi

The tier system looks weird with only Shockey by his lonesome in the second one, but hear me out. This year, the cream of the crop is very good. To land one of those top six guys, you’re going to have to use a pick in the first six rounds. Each of them produced between 150 and 126 points, which to put it in perspective, would put them around the same value as WR15 to WR25.

Shortly after the Big Six, Jeremy Shockey should be taken. Count me among the Shockey believers – he couldn’t have landed in a better offensive system and as a complete dickhead, he’d love nothing more to show up the Giants for disrespecting him – but since there are a number of believers, I’m guessing he’s going to be drafted before I’m ready to take him.

That leaves us with that third tier. There are a number of attractive options here that can be drafted rather late, from TEs returning from injury (Todd Heap, LJ Smith) to guys who can really separate themselves this year (Scheffler, Daniels, Davis) to those available at bargain-basement prices who could provide good returns (Crumpler, Watson, Keller).

Because it’s a short list, I won’t do over/undervalued, but here are some thoughts:

- I have Gates so low because I’m concerned about this toe. If I’m going to use a high pick on a TE, a position at which I start only one player per week and usually carry only one, I’m going to use it on the safest bet possible. You can overcome an injury to a RB or WR or QB because you’ll carry so many on your team. If you use a top six pick on a TE and he misses time, you’re in trouble. If you do draft Gates, I strongly suggest grabbing a mid-range backup like Crumpler or LJ Smith.

- I have absolutely no statistical evidence to back this up, but I think Chris Cooley could be gigantic this year.

- I have absolutely no statistical evidence to back this up, but I think Alge Crumpler could be pretty dang good this year. While Vince Young is no Michael Vick, he’s not too far off.

- I say this every year, but maybe this is the one time it comes true: you could do worse than LJ Smith very, very late as your starting TE. He’s a two-time Pro Bowler who got the franchise tag, coming off an injury with something to prove. McNabb has said numerous times in the media this off-season that he wants LJ more involved in the red zone. I’m not saying you should expect 1000 yards and 10 TDs, but you could get something like 600 and 6 or 7, which would put him right around TE7 territory. Not bad for a guy who, according to one site I visit, is on average going in Round 16.

DEFENSE
No rankings here, as I’m one of the most anti-DEF guys I know. I never take a defense before the last few rounds, because, unless you count special teams, too much of it is based on a fluke – a defensive touchdown is worth six points, a huge value, and defensive touchdowns are impossible to predict, even for ball-hawking, high takeaway teams.

For example, here’s the 2007 top five teams in takeaways. The number in parentheses represents how many defensive touchdowns that team scored.

San Diego 48 (5)
Indianapolis 35 (2)
Cincinnati 35 (3)
Tampa Bay 35 (2)
Detroit 35 (4)

And here’s last year’s top five in defensive touchdowns. The number in parentheses represents how many takeaways that team had.

Minnesota 8 (31)
Arizona 6 (29)
New England 6 (31)
San Diego 5 (48)
NYG 5 (25)
NO 5 (23)

What does this tell us? A lot of takeaways does not always equal a lot of defensive touchdowns, and a lot of touchdowns does not always equal a lot of takeaways. San Diego had over twice as many takeaways as New Orleans, but the same amount of defensive touchdowns. Picking a defense is basically a crapshoot, so I’d rather draft one later and use a higher pick not on San Diego, Minnesota or New England, but on a potential break-out WR4 or RB3.

Want more proof? Last year’s number one defense scored 200 points. Last year’s tenth best defense scored 146. That’s a difference of 3.3 points a game. Not entirely inconsequential, but does that 3.3 points per game make it worth drafting a defense in Round 11 as opposed to Round 16? Hardly.

So I recommended two strategies for drafting defenses:

1) The “Who Plays the Shit Team” Strategy. Every week, someone’s going to have to play against Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Atlanta and Kansas City. Those are five teams that should not put up very strong offensive numbers this year. Every week, simply rotate whatever defense is playing against the guys, preferably one that’s playing at home (i.e. play Carolina when Chicago goes to visit them in Week 2). This will allow you to pick up a defense in the second to last round and use a higher pick on a potential high-ceiling or upside position player.

2) The “Seattle at Home” Strategy. Most fantasy sites have the Seattle defense ranked around the tenth to twelfth best defense, which means you should be able to draft them fairly late. Seattle is a very inhospitable place to play for opposing teams and last year the Seahawks only gave up 13.8 points per game at home. In 2006, the number was inflated because of some shoot-outs (20 points per game), but in 2005, it was down again to 12.8 points per game. Therefore, play Seattle’s defense whenever it’s home and sit them on the road. If you play this properly, you could potentially wind up with a top-five defensive numbers.

(Hell, combine the two strategies – Seattle at home all the time and then whoever’s playing the shit teams above when they’re away.)

KICKER
I’m not going to rank kickers, because under no circumstances should you take one before the very last round of your draft. Some fun with kicker numbers: Last year, according to Yahoo default scoring, the kicker with the most points scored 156. The kicker who was tenth in points scored 132 points. That’s a difference of 1.5 points per game. Can’t say this enough: kickers do not matter. Grab one in the last round.

************

That’s all I got for you. Good luck in your draft and should you win any prize money because of this, please remember who spent a week and about fifteen combined hours putting together the fantasy football preview you used.

prognostication, reaction
Jason posted on August 19, 2008

As someone who has garnered an unreasonable amount of success from an internet diary, I’m used to people out there in the interweb writing mean things about me. This is the trade-off I’ve made: In exchange for the money and the fame, the deals and the agents and, of course, the boobie pics and the blowjobs, every once in a while one of you will email me a link to someone trashing me.

I’m fine with this. Really. I’ve probably have written over a million words on this here site and have been doing this for a long, long time, so I can take anything dished out, as I focus not so much on the vitriol spewed by strangers but on the sheer luck that has enabled me to make an actual career of poop/fat/dick jokes, without much talent to speak of, with no training aside from a creative writing course taken pass/fail in the second semester of my senior year, and with an incredible penchant for long, run-on sentences and a near-daily misuse of semicolons; and colons.

Most of the time these attacks have come from people I’ve never met, but in some rare cases, they’ve come from people I know. For example, a pseudo-ex once wrote a post on her blog that my friends found particularly spectacular (my buddies Kyle and Ben continued to check on her blog for the very reason of discovering such nuggets). And while all of these attacks I’ve read with a grain of salt and actually found entertaining, this one hurt ol’ Uncle Jason - at least one part of it. It wasn’t when she called me a self-absorbed dramatic hypochondriac (guilty!). Nor was it the part about me wondering why women will only have sex with me while they’re blacked out (I can tell you that I spend no time wondering about that, since the answer is pretty self-evident). It wasn’t even when she said that I’d have a midlife crisis because of my insecurities about my hair loss and little bird and will ultimately get blown by a man, love it, and pronounce my homosexuality to the world (she’s a regular Nostradamus - it’s like Buster with the cheese wheel, so impressive that I’m not even mad). No, it was none of these that pierced my armor. Instead, it was when she suggested that I’d gain back all the weight that I had recently lost.

Back then, I had gone on a diet and dropped a bunch of lbs, going from 232.5 to 196 in exactly two months. It was probably the most impressive thing I’ve ever done in my life and immediately after my two month experiment was up, I made a solemn promise to myself that I’d never gain the weight back. While 196 was a little much (or rather, a little low), I’d allow myself to get up to a comfortable fighting weight, somewhere between 205 and 210, because if 75% of your universe of jokes is about how fat you are, it doesn’t go over so well if you’re 6′1″ and 196 pounds.

That was just about two years ago. After the diet, I stopped weighing myself and going to the gym five times a week, but adjusted my lifestyle to maintain that ideal weight. I walked about 3.5 miles to work every day and still hit up the gym every so often; changed my nutrition slightly, forsaking my bacon-egg-cheese sandwich/Reuben/chicken parm meal plan for a more reasonable bagel/cereal/chicken parm plan; and tried to the extent possible to reduce my late-night gorging (alcohol consumption was not restricted before, during, or after the diet). I did this for two years, using all the new clothes I bought while at my thinnest as my barometer - as long as they still fit, I was fine.

But then I moved to LA.

In case you haven’t heard this elsewhere, Los Angeles is not the most walkable city (walking being my main and favored form of exercise). For the past two-plus months, my daily walking consists of to the car in the garage at home, from the car in the garage at the office, reverse, then repeat. I live in the suburbs, so for miles in any direction, there are nothing but houses, with maybe a strip mall thrown in there somewhere. Even my walk to the beach - not that I go the beach, but there’s a decent cheesesteak place near there - about a mile and a half, is houses and houses and houses and houses and houses and then suddenly ocean. So I’m not taking the leisure walks here that I did in NYC, when I’d wander around Villages, staring at the beautiful women, gathering masturbatory material for later, and somewhere in there stopping for a cupcake.

Also, in case you haven’t heard this elsewhere, Los Angeles has got to be the fast-food capital of the world. Not only are there In-N-Out burgers seemingly everywhere, but on my drive to work alone there are two Carls Jrs, three Jack-in-the-Boxes, a McDonald’s, a Burger King, two El Pollo Locos, a Wienerschnizel, three Taco Bells (bestill my heart!), and something utterly frightening called Yoshinoya Beef Bowl. Worse, because it’s summer, many of these places are featuring specialty milkshakes. Carl’s Jr now has a Cap’n Crunch milkshake, which nearly put me into a diabetic coma after I ate it, and also a Banana Cream Pie milkshake that made me so sick a few weekends ago that I had to bring a pillow into the bathroom - around the fourth shit/vomit gargoyle I think I fell into anaplactic shock.

Back in the day right after I ended my diet, I went shopping with my friend Nicole. This was a big, big mistake. I spent about $1200 on five (yes, five) fancy shirts. I did this because when I am rich I will do whatever a woman says and subsequently I almost immediately regretted the purchase. I never really wore the fancy shirts (I bought other, less fancy shirts as well) and to this day, three of them sit in my closet with their tags still on. I just don’t really care about fashion - for the past fifteen years, my wardrobe has been determined by what’s on sale and in XL at The Gap/Banana Republic - and could not bring myself to wear douchey shirts from John Varvatos. “John Varvatos” sounds like the douchebag in college who drove around in a Land Rover and had a cell phone before everyone else.

But now that I live in LA, I’m required to up my douchebag quota, lest I be run out of town. So last week, I took one of these fancy-pants JV shirts out of the closet, pulled off the tags, pulled it on me, and…

It didn’t fit.

Like, not even close.

This was a shock. Though I wasn’t stepping on the scale every day, all of my other clothes fit just fine. Had these shirts shrunk from disuse?, I wondered. Or was it that the clothes I have been wearing have, like the earth’s crust, been slowly moving and growing to keep up with my ever-increasing girth? A sad thought, indeed.

So I decided that I’d get back on the diet train. Like a real, actual diet, with reduced calorie intake and gym visits and the whole nine yards. I spent over a grand for those d-bag shirts. If I wanted to, I was sure as shit going to be able to wear them. But before I was going away to skinny town, I was going to have a Fat Boy Heaven weekend.

To that end, if it was possible to overdose on bacon, I would have this weekend. Friday we had a small bbq at my house, at which I made half-pound cheeseburgers - with bacon and cheese cooked into the middle of them. The recipe comes from my friend (not Site Guy) Brendan and involves making little balls of crumbled bacon and shredded cheese held together by cooled and coagulated bacon grease (yum!). These balls are then placed between two beef patties, the beef patties edges are sealed off, and the burgers are cooked as they normally are. Each burger was about a half pound and was so delicious that instead of growling, my belly actually said “Bro, more burgers” for most of Saturday. On Saturday night I had grand plans but decided instead to stay in to have a Beers of World tour in my house. See, we have a beer fridge in my house. Yes, I live with two people and all of us are in our late 20’s and we have a beer fridge. Laugh if you will (I did), but this is very useful, as my roommates Mark and Selena like to cook and the main fridge is full with foods and such. This is new for me; my fridge for the past few years in NYC consisted of pizza boxes, cans of red bull and Budweiser, and various kinds of mustard. Because I’m desperate for a hobby, I’ve been buying different kinds of beer, the result being that the beer fridge now has about ten different kinds of beer in it. On Saturday night, I drank eight of these varieties (more than one bottle, in most cases). My hangover Sunday was…not good.

On Monday morning, after a final Sunday night meal of Thai (nowhere near as good as Sea) and Ben & Jerry’s (at least they have Oatmeal Cookie Chunk out here), I stepped on the scale. When I started my previous diet, I was 232.5. I went all the way down to 196. My skinniest shirt didn’t fit any longer, but most of my other clothes fit just fine. I figured I’d weigh in at about 217, 218, leaving my 10 pounds to knock off to get to my fighting weight and into my d-bag shirts.

The scale read 227.

Ugh. Not my finest moment.

Four hours later, I was signing up for a gym membership. Nine hours later, I was on a treadmill. Twenty-four hours later, my legs, I believe, are partially broken, or otherwise have been poisoned. Though not a doctor, based on my performance on the treadmill, I am currently not healthy enough for sexual activity. Just in case you were thinking of seducing me. Probably shouldn’t. My heart will burst.

Not only that, on my way out of my new gym, I was railroaded. I stood there, panting, sweating, waiting for my new ID card, when a trainer, a fit and attractive woman in her 30’s said, “Your picture came out good.” I said thanks and introduced myself and she did the same, saying “So you’re new here?” I went into my just-moved-here-from-NYC spiel and she said she was a new trainer at the gym. She then asked if I got free personal training sessions for joining and before I could answer, the guy who signed me up sidled up to me and said, “Yep - he actually gets two!” Before I knew it, the woman trainer had a book out, I had signed up for a free training session with her the following week, and she was telling about all the martial arts that she’s studied and how she’d like to try boxing with me.

Well.

Though I had already been penciled in for the session, I knew there was no way I was going to go through with it. Not because I have anything against women or women trainers - I’m sure that this woman not only knows her shit, but also could beat my ass - but because of my dad. My dad, all things considered, is a pretty liberal guy. I could come home with a black boyfriend named Felix and he wouldn’t bat an eye. Alternatively, I could come home with an eyepatch and one less arm and he wouldn’t say a thing. But being taught to fight by a girl…this would put him over the edge. My dad - the same man who’s been stabbed, has had all his teeth knocked out in various donnybrooks, who’s even been arrested for attempted murder - learning that his first-born son is being taught to fight by a girl. I almost want to erase this paragraph so he doesn’t get wind of it. Let’s just change the subject.

The point: I’m back on the health wagon and will be chubby no more. I’m happy that after only one day of dieting that featured two solid poops, three square meals, and the worst under-30 performance on a treadmill in Beverly Hills history, I’m already down to 224. As long as I stay away from those bacon cheeseburgers, I should continue dropping the lbs without a problem.

Self-absorbed? Sure. Unable to convince a woman with a blood-alcohol level under .18 to have sex with me? You bet. A gay-in-waiting? Come back in a few, but it’s likely. But a supreme fatty who squandered his greatest achievement and over a grand on shirts he can’t wear anymore? Not for all the Cap’n Crunch milkshakes in the world.

back, probably
Jason posted on July 29, 2008

There – I know it’s late, but better late than never: six posts, totaling almost 10,000 words. My excuse this time is the shitty new Wordpress template. I won’t get into it, but I couldn’t post anything with line breaks in it and I sure as shit wasn’t going to keep asking Site Guy Brendan to put up every single post for me. Then I was on vacation. So there’s your delay. Anyway, we still haven’t really worked this shit out, but we’re working on it. However, posting will resume as normal. (Hopefully.)

thoughts after living in los angeles for two months
Jason posted on July 24, 2008

I have made a tremendous mistake.

Moving from NYC to Los Angeles may not rank up there with, say, millions of Jews fleeing Russia into Germany after World War One to escape persecution (whoops!), but on a personal level, me moving to LA is much worse (hey, I didn’t know any of those Jews).

I honestly don’t even know where to start, how to express the anger and self-loathing that has built up in me over the past few weeks. So let’s just jump right in and try to make sense of it later. We’ll start with the least aggravating and move to the most aggravating.

My commute is homicide-inducing.

I am living in a lovely little beach community called Redondo Beach. I live in a house with two roommates, both people I knew before moving out here, Mark and Selena. My original plan was to move to LA and crash with friends until I found a place on craigslist, thinking that it would be easier to find a place here on the ground as opposed to over email and realizing that what very little I now owned could easily be stored in my Town Car. However, their third roommate, Chris, called me a week or two before I moved to LA and said he was moving out. I knew the area (a little bit), knew the roommates and the rent was ungodly cheap, so I decided to take his spot.

(Full disclosure: I’ve actually made out with Selena in the past, but so far we’ve passed through several weekends of me being drunk and living in the same house as her and I’ve yet to be removed from the premises in handcuffs. I am also pretty sure that I’m not being followed by detectives from SVU as they try to build a case on me, since for the most part my actions speak for themselves and no case-building is necessary. Rest assured that if anything should happen, Site Guy Brendan will let you know. Also, I’m innocent. Probably.)

Every other time I’ve visited Los Angeles I’ve worked New York hours; that is, 6:30am to 2:30pm LA time. Therefore, as long as I stuck to these hours, my commutes to and from work, no matter who I was crashing with and where they lived, were pretty easy. Also, the novelty of driving, something I’ve rarely done for that past eight years in NYC, made dealing with the commute possible. I was just happy to be in a car, listening to the radio, laughing at people who were honking at me while I drove slowly and confusedly through the streets of LA; me driving on these trips was not dissimilar to Balki driving through Los Angeles, straight off the boat from Mypos.

Now however I work LA hours, 9am to 5pm local time (read: the very peak traffic times). My office is 15.6 miles from my current home, not an unreasonable distance in the grand scheme of things; I would guess that the large majority of Americans commute farther every day. But in Los Angeles, at 9am and at 5pm, 15.6 miles is not so much a “reasonable commute” but rather a test of endurance and sanity and an exercise in pure white hot hate.

To travel those 15.6 miles in the morning, it takes me an average of 1 hour and 25 minutes. In the evening, the commute’s a little better - I can be home in about 1 hour 15 minutes. That’s 2 hours and 40 minutes to travel 31.2 miles every single day (well, five days a week). I start my work day with an hour and a half in the car, and I end my work day with an hour and a half in the car. Nearly 1/8th of my day is spent in traffic. Three hours of my life every day not only gone, but dissolved in a sea of metal, heat, and fumes; incompetent drivers, bad radio stations, and angry people.

It’s hard for me to quantify or qualify how slow and miserable my commute is, driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic, moving less than 10mph for 90% of the drive. I would like to invite all of you car-owners out there to take your car out for a spin, drive 12mph for 90 minutes, then report back about to whether you came home and beat your wife and kids or dumped your boyfriend/girlfriend. I’d really be interested to know, because after doing this commute for three weeks, I think I know why marriages fail and children grow up goth/sluts/theater majors - it is impossible for a rational, sane human being to sustain any reasonable level of happiness in such traffic. This unhappiness must then be deflected onto spouses or children and, long story short, this is a big part of the reason why we have "Girls Gone Wild" and 85% of all memoirs ever written.

(Not to mention, do you know how hard it is to change lanes in bumper-to-bumper traffic while driving a Lincoln Town Car? There are apartment buildings with better maneuverability than this car. The blindspots on it are so large that the sun itself could descend upon the earth and into the lane of traffic next to me, and if it wasn’t immediately to my left or right, I wouldn’t see it. When I do change lanes, I essentially look at the lane I’m going into, shrug and say “Meh”, and then blindly dart over. There is one point in the commute when I have to quickly pass over three lanes in only a short distance and I have so little idea if any cars are coming, I instinctively shut off my radio or iPod at this point, hoping as I blindly move the car to the right that if I’m going to hit anyone they’re going to honk, so their honking would alert me to either move back into my former lane, stop, or brace myself for impact. It is unquestionably only a matter of time before I kill a bicyclist. I’m so serious about this that for a moment I contemplated not writing that sentence, for fear that when it does actually happen, I’ll look even more like a monster. But you should know before it happens and hits the papers that it’s not my fault. Honest.)

In NYC, I used to walk to work. It would take me 28 minutes and I loved it - I got exercise, prepared for/unwound from a day at the office, and got to see the city coming to life in the morning and preparing for leisure in the evening. I loved each of those 28 minutes. Now, by the time I get to work I want to put my fist through my computer, and by the time I get home at night I want to jerk off, take a Xanax and go to bed. Los Angeles. Awesome. But even if I did want to do something when I came home from work, I couldn’t, because…

I am bored to shit.

Redondo is close to the beach. And the rent is cheap. So this is good.

But I am not a beach person. I am chubby, have no muscle mass to speak of, am so pale that parts of my body are actually see-through, and am approaching the time of my life when the hair on my back exceeds the hair on my head. So for me, living in Redondo to take advantage of the beach is the same thing as living near a poison factory to take advantage of the poison (“Well, at least you got the poison in Redondo, right?”).

But the cheap rent is key. A big reason why I moved out of NYC is that I simply couldn’t afford it any longer. I’m not poor – good lord, please don’t ever mistake me for a poor – but spending $2000 a month in rent and paying $1000 a month on top of that to live LA one week a month (flight, rental car, drinks for those letting me crash, occasional hotel room, etc) – is not going to allow for much savings. So now that I live in LA, my monthly “shelter” expenses have gone from $3000 to $700. This is a lot of extra money and I plan to save some in order to return to NYC and be able to afford a slave (wish me luck); the rest will go mostly to drugs and trinkets. In addition, I moved from a two-bedroom apartment in Little Italy/Chinatown that flooded with feces every six weeks to a three-bedroom, two bath home in Southern California with a yard. In theory, sounds great.

But you know what? It might turn out to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. I could go on and on about how I live in the suburbs and it’s terrible, but here’s an attempt at being word-efficient (and name-droppy): Heath Ledger died one block from my old apartment; now, I can’t walk to a bar.

Look, I don’t think I’m very high-maintenance. It really doesn’t take much to make me happy. I basically need three things: meat, beer and music or sports (I would add boobies to this list, but we’ll get to that later). And much like your average house pet, it doesn’t take much to entertain me: some jangling keys will usually keep me occupied for hours. So really, I’m not asking for much here. Christ, one of my top five favorite activities is getting drunk on Amtrak trains, so you have to understand that I am a simple, simple man.

But I am bored to shit in LA. Absolutely, 100% bored to shit. I live smack in the middle of the suburbs. I shop at a supermarket. If I want a burger and a beer, I have to drive. Within one square mile of my place, there is nothing but houses – I mean this literally, no stores, no bars, not even any landmarks – just an endless sea of suburban houses. My closest friend is Brian, who is 12 miles away and – no joke – last time I was in his neighborhood, on his street, actually, I sideswiped a parked car so bad that I’m not sure I can ever go back (I’m not sure how many black 1996 Lincoln Town Cars with PA plates there are roaming around Venice). My favorite night in LA was a few weeks back when my friends had a welcome party for me at a bar in Santa Monica, which is 15 or so miles from my place. The cab there was $55, my bar tab was $170, and the cab back was $80 – I could have gone and fucked two black chicks in Vegas for about $40 more.

This is how bad it is: Since I have nothing to do during the week, I’ve been spending more time at work – just because I want to. I figure I could go home and do nothing, or I could get an hour or two closer to sleep at work and take care of some stuff. So what happened? I got a raise. I got a fucking raise that I didn’t even ask for, because since I moved to LA, I’m in the office at 8:30am every morning and never out before 7pm. While my bosses think this is because I’m working harder (and admittedly, I am doing more work), it’s really because I have so little to do at home that I prefer to be in my office – which is terribly, terribly sad for someone who used to start drinking red bull in his office at 4pm on every Friday so he could drink until 4am that night. And I got a raise because I’m just that bored and unhappy in LA. I don’t know if I’m proud of this raise or if I should immediately invest this extra money in a cock-fighting ring in my neighborhood or give the money to a local high school basketball star to shave some points just to make things a little more exciting. Honestly, it’s getting to the point that every time I pull into my driveway I’m hoping that someone is in the process of robbing my home – chasing Mexicans around my house would be a far better evening activity than another Will & Grace rerun on Lifetime.

(Hilarious show, by the way. That Karen is just too much!)

This boredom doesn’t end with the weekend, either. The bars in Redondo/Hermosa/Manhattan beach, well, they leave a little bit to be desired if you know how to pronounce “Dostoyevsky” and don’t know where your lat is. I really don’t think the people in these bars know if anyone’s making music besides Rhiannon and the Bravery and if the Pacific is the world’s largest ocean or just “Fucking awesome, bro. That ocean is fucking awesome. Seriously. Bro. Fag. Lat.” The most intellectually stimulating conversation I had was when me and Brian – a former Division I wrestler – were trying to decide under what conditions he could beat up Kobe Bryant (we decided that if given one year to train and provided with head gear and metal fangs he may just be able to take him – Brian’s a biter). I really feel like I’d be more at home in prison than in these bars, because at least I watch and enjoy prison shows; I’m not as well-versed in tan people high-fiving and doing shots of 180 bombs. So I actually prefer the work-week to the weekends, because on Saturday, I wake up, have nothing to do except for maybe getting an oil change, then just have to kill some time before going out and wondering what the hell I was thinking when I moved from NYC to this place.

Hear me out: I’m not saying that I was the King of New York or anything. It’s not like I was hanging out with Prince and banging various models after long nights of cocaine and clubbing. But NYC was perfect for me, precisely because I was lazy. I could sit at home, have a few beers with friends, and then go out to one of the 50 or so bars within a half-mile of my apartment. Or, I could drink alone, send a mass text message at 11:30pm, and then have at least three options of places to go, friends out in various parts of the city. Now, my social life is Brian or my (really quite wonderful) roommates; the rest of my friends are disqualified because they live too far away. And really, that’s about it.

(By the way, I really have no idea why I named Prince above. Just came to me. Seems like a guy that likes luxurious things and the like.)

I don’t even know if I necessarily need to cover this next point, but here goes…

I may never have sex again (for free).

There is nothing to be had for me in the boobie department in Los Angeles. The women here are so astoundingly hot, I’m speechless. I simply can’t describe it. Think of all the clichés that one might have heard about LA women, especially those who live in towns with names Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach, and they’re all true. There is so much blond and tan and boobie that I am at a loss for words (and this doesn’t happen often).

And none of it is for me. Absolutely none of these boobies are for me. After living here for two months, the only conditions under which I could ever see myself sleeping with any of the girls in these bars involves a chloroform-soaked hanky, a whole lotta bleach, and a sturdy shovel. Otherwise, it’s just not gonna happen.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but when I moved from New York to Los Angeles, I also went back to high school. See, in high school I was:

- reasonably smart

- relatively funny

- possessing a good knowledge of sports and music

I was also:

- quite overweight

- completely unathletic

- about as likely to find my way into a girl’s pants as a tampon made of shark teeth

Fortunately, as the years progressed, as alcohol became more available, and as women grew increasingly comfortable with the idea settling at the end of the night for the guy who might kinda look like a rapist but probably couldn’t overpower them, lo and behold, I began having sex – even (gasp!) fairly regularly. In college, and later in New York City, I learned that many a physical short-coming (pun intended) could be overcome with a few shots of SoCo and lime and a well-placed self-deprecating joke or mention of, you know, a book or a poem or something. These, I now refer to, as the Golden Years.

But now that I’ve moved to LA, things have reverted back to the old high school days. I am now:

- reasonably smart

- relatively funny

- possessing a good knowledge of sports and music

I am also:

- quite overweight

- completely unathletic

- about as likely to find my way into a girl’s pants as a tampon made of shark teeth

that is on fire and being carried by a werewolf

In Los Angeles, there is nothing that can overcome physical short-comings; no joke, no mention of something intelligent, nothing. If I actually did converse with these women, aside from me occasionally saying, “Excuse me, I’m just trying to get to the bathroom” and them replying, “Is that your penis you’re trying to show me, or do you have a baby in your jeans that’s trying to show me its penis?”, it would probably (hypothetically) go something like this:

Me: “About me? Well, let’s see…I spend my Saturday afternoons teaching Latin to inner-city African-American children. I started a non-profit devoted exclusively to saving and rehabilitating three-legged puppies. The most important person in my life is my mother. I was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 2006 and wrote just about half of Cat Stevens’ catalogue (I have perfect pitch and can play several instruments). I like to cook, go to church, vote democrat and I can make women have multiple orgasms by staring at them, counting to three, and snapping my fingers.”

Girl: [staring at bartender/volleyball player/guy who can squat a higher number of pounds than points he scored on his SAT] “I’m sorry – I wasn’t really listening. How many push-ups can you do again? Did you say that already?”

Me: “Oh, I forgot one thing – do you know God? Long story short, I beat him in ‘Jeopardy’ about six years ago and now I’m immortal. Seriously, I can’t die. Subsequently, last year He and I bet on the Super Bowl and I won again, and now every time a woman gives me a blowjob, He deposits $5000 in her bank account. I can’t believe I forgot about that. He thought of that one.”

Girl: [looking at friend standing behind me mouthing, “Is that John Candy?”] “So…is it like more or less than 50 push-ups? Just give me a number here.”

[Girl mouthes “I think so” over my shoulder back to friend]

So like in high school, I can do nothing but wait and hope that girls eventually get lonely or desperate or want to get back at their ex-boyfriends and/or accept a dare from their friends. Until then, like back in high school, it’s back to stripping down, lying down on the bathroom floor, and masturbating like a goddamn mental patient (four-five times a day). We’re going old school-style.

******

Things will change for the better here in Los Angeles, if only because they have to. But I realize in order for me to make things better, I’m going to have to work on them. That is, I have to either move or find a better route to work, I have to put more effort into my friendships, and I have to start taking steroids and using less big words. But here’s a little something you should know about me: I don’t like working hard. While we’re here, another thing you should know about me: I’m a quitter. So if I know myself, I’m not going to change who I am or what I like to do to make my life out here more enjoyable. Instead, I’m more likely to shut it down, retreat inward, and treat this year in LA like I would a year in prison: keep to myself, read the Koran, and maybe dabble here and there in getting raped - all so that one year from now when I get back to NYC, I can look back on my time in Los Angeles and say, “No matter what happened, I survived. I endured and lived to tell about it. And that counts for something. Probably very little, but something.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a date with the bathroom floor.

vacation/east coast recap
Jason posted on July 22, 2008

You know where this is gonna go, so let’s just get there. Together. Now.

Red-eyes are fucking terrible

Of all of the variations of hell that have been conjured up by the greatest minds, from Dante to Sartre, Virgil to Matthew, Milton to Plato, I think I’ve figured out a version that tops them all: Hell is a never-ending loop of nightly red-eye flights.

I took a red eye from Los Angeles to New York City, and while I could not possibly have been happier about being out of LA and in NYC, my happiness was tempered by the fact that I was so tired after landing that I couldn’t say for certain if I was actually in NYC, on earth, or just dreaming (or maybe none or all of the above). The only thing kept me awake at my desk on that first day in NYC (I worked out of the NYC office my first Thursday and Friday on the east coast) was my unnaturally rapid heartbeat, courtesy of the half-dozen diet cokes I’d consumed during the day to keep everything moving along as smoothly as possible.

Women can alter their menstruation cycles with a pill, thus preventing them from getting pregnant. We’ve been putting men, animals and, accordingly to conspiracy theorists, criminals on the moon for decades. A question that twenty years ago would take hours and volumes of encyclopedias to answer can now be figured out in under thirty seconds through Google. Ten years ago, I had to spend $15 to buy a CD for one song; now, I buy a CD happens with less regularity than I buy condoms. (Which is rare. Trust me.) One year ago, I thought I had downloaded every last bit of free porn on the internet. Then Redtube came along and made me a man. All this, and yet humanity can still not figure out how to make plane that comfortably sleeps passengers during an overnight flight while being cost-friendly at the same time.

Look, I’m not being delusional here – I’m not asking for a geisha girl stewardess to come in my private suite (with bathroom) on my flight from London to Hong Kong and stick various things into her body for my enjoyment. I mean, I know such arrangements exist, but I have neither the finances to afford them nor the desire to pursue them. Mostly because I like boobies and Asian girls don’t have boobies – and the ones that do have boobies are not so much interested in a chubby bearded Irish guy and tend to lean more toward the LA Clippers/My penis is so advanced it can vote-types.

But for $600, you’d think they’d make things a little more comfortable (and I sat in a reclining exit row!). I didn’t sleep at all on the flight, save for at one point when I looked at my iPod and say that it was 2:28am, then looked back in what I thought was a few minutes to see it was 3:13am, so I grabbed about a 40 minute block of unconsciousness. Otherwise, nada.

So I’m done with red-eyes. I always talk myself into taking them, thinking they’re the most convenient, and this time, I say to myself, I’ll fall asleep on the plane. And it never, ever happens – I may arrive conveniently in the morning, but then my whole day is shot because I’m so tired.

So no more red-eyes. They are truly, truly hell. And the best hell ever, really.

DUYS

Speaking of hell, North Wildwood, New Jersey, the shore town my family and my entire neighborhood has spent summers in for decades, is starting to change. It seems that the guidos that have for years inhabited the shore towns of North Jersey are being priced out and making their way down to South Jersey, particularly North Wildwood. This is a shame, really; for generations upon generations, North Wildwood has been the summer home for 90% of the families from my neighborhood in South Philly (Second Street). But those guidos, they’re like cockroaches. Dumb, drunk, tweezed, teased cockroaches. And once they take over, they don’t leave.

Despites the presence of an alarming about of guidos and douchebags in the bars, the 10^th Annual “Drink Until You Shit” tour was another great success. Once again, no one shit (running it to three years in a row no one has pooped themselves on the tour, which is a shame), but we had around 100 people involved, wearing t-shirts and celebrating the drinking and shitting lifestyle. We had planned to name our friend Dan captain for the tour, not so much for his performance last year but as a lifetime achievement award for best embodying the spirit of the tour, but, true to form, Dan couldn’t be located. Like, for the whole weekend. I honestly don’t know if he’s been located since. So we had no captain this year.

For me, it was an up and down night. For the most part, I held it together, being in co-charge of the pub crawl and all and having to answer questions and be a good host. But once we hit the last bar, I really don’t remember much aside from sweating a whole bunch and, ultimately, making a turkey sandwich after coming home to find my little sister passed out on the floor of my aunt’s house. So she had a good night.

Every year, David (the DUYS co-founder) and I say it’s going to be our last year. The tenth would be a good one to go out on; it’s a nice number, and this year we lost a record amount of money on the t-shirts (since they were tye-dye and cost a fortune to make and we never make a profit anyway and we usually wind up getting too drunk to carry them any longer and so leave them in a bar). But with each passing year, I wonder if how we could ever put an end to DUYS. We’ve been around long enough that people know that the first Saturday after Fourth of July weekend is DUYS time, and seeing the happiness (and drunkenness) on so many people’s faces gives me great joy. So my prediction: there will be an 11^th DUYS. Be sure to keep your July 11, 2009 open.

Bar domination, part one

One of the things I’ve often wanted to do is go into a bar in the afternoon, possibly even when it opens, and sit there getting smashed until it closes. I knew I would do this eventually, but I never thought it’d be because I couldn’t see my friends’ new baby.

My friends Joe and Dani had a baby. It’s a boy, but I won’t give any more details, since I really don’t want this child mentioned on here so early in his life; if that’s not the very definition of “damning,” I don’t know what is. The kid was born the Sunday, the day after DUYS. I got to Boston on Monday night and asked if they wanted me to come to the hospital to see the baby. However, Dani and Joe were (understandably) tired and suggested I try the next day, as they’d be out of the hospital and home. No problem.

It’s weird on a number of levels when your friends have a baby, but in this case, I was in town only for a short while – all the way from Los Angeles, without a Boston visit scheduled again until March 2009 – and I wanted see the lil’ SOB, but I also wanted to be respectful of their privacy – Christ, they just had their first kid two days prior, after all. So on Tuesday, after showering and beating off and having run out of things to do, I texted Joe, inquiring about the baby, and he gave me the hold sign – they were home but not feeling it at the moment. I decided the best course of action would be to head to near where he lives – Boylston Street by the Pru – and kill time until I got the green light to see the lil’ guy. Joe said he’d hit me back in two hours (it was about 2:30pm when he said this).

It was very hot on Boylston, so I had walked less than a half block before I sought refuge in a bar, a sports pub unfortunately named McGreevey’s on the far western end of Boylston. It was just after three and the place was empty. I had had Anna’s for breakfast (a breakfast of champions, if I ever heard of one) and wasn’t hungry, but figured a nice pint of Guinness and the paper would help me kill some time until Joe got back to me. It was about 3pm.

Three and a half hours and several pints later, I heard from Joe, who said they were still not feeling any visitors. By this time I was pretty well in the bag and perfectly ok to sit there, nice and cozy, at the bar. So I texted my buddies Bill and Nevin and Site Guy Brendan, and by 8pm, the four of us were watching the All Star Game, pounding pints with grace and aplomb and definitely more than a little fear and anger about our real lives, which prevent us from doing this all day, every day, all the time.

We drank and ate and drank some more and I sat on the same bar stool, getting up only go to the bathroom, from 3pm until 1:30am, when the lights came on and we were asked to leave. My bar tab was a shocking $277 (including tip). Even more shocking was that all during the drink-a-thon, the first three-plus hours of which I spent alone, I did not get a single buy-back, not one free beer. I don’t want to say any more about this, because I’ll get so angry that I won’t be able to type for the next several hours.

So despite the travesty of the non-buy-back, Tuesday was an exceptional day, the easily the longest I’ve ever spent in a single bar (I think). While not a true open-to-close day, I think I did pretty well.

(And because I drank Guinness the whole day, I was not hungover the next day. However, my butt…well, let’s just say it didn’t make it. Not a good scene.)

29

Back in NYC, my birthday on Thursday night was spent much like I imagine most of my birthdays will be spent for the rest of my life: steak dinner with some friends, followed by a few whiskey drinks, followed by an aborted masturbation session in the shower because it’s too damn hot and I’m full of red meat and rye whiskey. This is the truest, most sincere paragraph I’ve ever written in this blog.

There was nothing exemplary to report about the birthday, aside from the good company of my friends Jeremy, Meredith, Nicole and Brendan and another stellar steak (with foie gras butter!) from Dylan Prime. But here it is: another year has gone by and I remain threesome-less. I know, I know – I’ve been complaining about this since the dawn of time (or at least, the beginning of this website). And true, I haven’t really been trying to make this happen; I’ve adopted an insouciant approach recently, thinking that if I act too cool for school for a threesome, I’ll start having several a week.

But honest to goodness, a legit goal is to pull off a threesome before my 30^th birthday. No idea how I’m going to go about this (aside from craiglist – “Chubby 29 year old sad and wants to fuck you and your friend or whatever. So sad inside.”), but I want to have a memory of three-way love to wank to after my Dylan Prime steak next July 17. Mark it down.

Bar domination, part two

On Friday afternoon, my buddy Mike had a half-day and suggested I meet him and our buddy Fran for drinks at 3pm at Pete’s Tavern. Never one to turn down such an offer, I agreed. In the cab, I was talking to my buddy Brian on the phone and told him I’d call him back in a little bit – I was going to have a few drinks and didn’t think it would last very long.

Whoops.

Mike and Fran and I hit it hard at Pete’s Tavern. Then our buddy Pat showed up. Then some of their buddies from work and my friend Meg joined the group. Then we moved over to 7B (real name: Horseshoe Bar) . I usually hate 7B because I feel like I’m in a bodega when I’m there: the booths are so close to the bar that they’re almost on top of each other, and things – the bar, the booths, the chairs – are packed so tightly together that if the bar’s even a little bit crowded, you’re better off peeing outside or under the table, because there’s no way you can get through everyone. But it wasn’t crowded on that Friday night and anyway we were rolling large, as my buddy Terrence and my brother, who was in town, met us out, as well as our friend Bryan.

You can probably guess how this one ended: my buddy Brian, who I told I’m call back shortly at 3pm, didn’t hear from me again until 5am, after a trip to Rosario’s after the bar closed. Brian didn’t answer since it was around 2am in LA and I’m told the message I left him consisted mostly of me chewing, sprinkled with a little bit of snorting, but hey – I’m a man of my word and I did call him back.

It was a glorious wonderful night. The only downside was that I was so crippled that the next day, Saturday night in NYC, I couldn’t even make it out. I guess this is what happens when you turn 29.

******

I’m leaving a number of things out, but I think you get the drift – I had a blast back on the east coast. And I look forward to doing all (or most of it) again in the fall.

(God, I miss NYC…)