Well, if you've followed me at all the past few years, (in violation of that restraining order, mind you), you know that I love throwing out some bold predictions to spicen things up a bit. Because maybe I'm cooking while playing fantasy football. Who doesn't? You're the weird one. Regardless, there is some tidying up to do when it comes to how my
predictions for the past season turned out, and I'm here to pay my amends, eat my crow, and to provide a wonderful face for being really really bold, and quite possibly italic. (See what I did there?) Did I get everything wrong? Hopefully not. In fact, I might have gotten all of them right...Who knows? (I do.) And seeing as how one of them involves Ryan Mathews, you'd have to think that getting all of them right was not possible. You'd be correct with that assumption. So I'll be preparing my crow, with as much salt as possible, while we figure out how everything went down...
While normally we here at Razzball would concentrate on Fantasy Football news and analysis, or, in the very least, try to add fantasy context to that which doesn't exactly fit the mold, I won't try to cover or sugarcoat this too much. Unless it's your mother. While there really isn't anything to be gleaned from the following, except maybe sugar, suffice to say, I have thoughts on the subject, and the subject is the possibility of the Chargers moving to Los Angeles. Mind you, this aren't intricate or well-thought out, um, thoughts (I was in trouble like two words in...), but as the predominant, or only Chargers fan of the site, and probably the entire readership, I did want to weigh in on the fact that there are some fascinating things going with the Rams, Raiders, and my Chargers that involve bringing the NFL to the great (also terrible) city of Los Angeles. I'm not quite to sure what to think of all of this, and I'm sure you don't care, but I do write for a living, and the logical progression, I would think, is to use writing as a vehicle to find some sort of catharsis with the fact that my home team may move roughly 60 miles north. And with the Rams and Raiders possibly in tow, we could, at the very least, come to the determination right now that this would be the saddest three-way ever...
As I touched on in the
Way-Too-Early 2015 Rankings, we'll be using Razzball's
2014 Rankings as context to sorta-kinda make sense of where the value has gone, who surpassed expectations, and who didn't. It should be an interesting exercise, if only to talk about something football related until the preseason starts taking shape, which should be in about 18 years, or what it seems like. Good news is, I guess it's legal? Today we'll be going over Quarterbacks and how the landscape has changed. True, 95% of that landscape is Peyton Manning's forehead, but there are some interesting things going on with the other 5%.
Welcome back friends! It's time to get back into the saddle (my cowboy mode is obviously turned on at the moment) and do God's work. And that begins with our Way-Too-Early rankings for the upcoming season... which is roughly about 28 years away. But there's actually a good reason we're doing this exercise (and it's not health related). The reason is, these aren't really the 2015 Rankings, at least, not exactly. Since we're still so close to the ending of last season, you could think of this as sort of a "end-of-the-year rankings" instead. A lot of what we have here, data, impressions, analysis, is all heavily influenced, and rightfully so, by what happened in 2014. But there's still a lot to be gleaned here. Gleaning folks! So over the next month, we'll be going into more depth, position-by-position, over these rankings, and on top of that, we'll be revisiting Razzball's 2014 rankings, in a sort of retrospective way to add context to everything. Just the way your mother likes it. So then the question remains, how far has Ryan Mathews fallen since six months ago? WRONG QUESTION BRO. The real question is, how much has he risen?
Everyone.
Well, not really, and the real winners (prize winners) will be revealed after the jump, but I just want to send a shout out to everyone involved, including all the Razzball contributors who hosted a league, to all of you Razzball readers who hosted a league, and, of course, to all of you Razzballers who joined and played in our leagues. The Commentator leagues are a unique feature that I personally love to be involved with. I think it brings the community together, and sure, yeah, while you're trying to destroy each other with Aaron Rodgers and Jeremy Hill, I'd still like to think we're doing it out of love and togetherness (is that a word?). And in 2014, we had a record-breaking 40 leagues consisting of 480 fantasy owners. I look forward to building on that number next year (while also improving our content covering these leagues), and look forward to bigger and better prizes as well. In the mean time, let us recognize the 2014 Razzball Commentator League Prize Winners...
Well, this year's Super Bowl certainly wasn't last years, that's for sure. Obvious statement is obvious. Overall, it was actually a better game that I thought the NFL was capable of, but I guess I should have known better. I mean, the NFL is so disturbingly horrid at
everything except for the actual game of football, they'd be hard pressed to provide anything less than a spectacle for what is the biggest sporting event in the United States. Not counting last year's Super Bowl catastrophe of course, but that's more Peyton's fault for actually thinking his January's have changed. And so we had to witness Tom Brady and Bill Belichick win their fourth Super Bowl trophy, which, by proxy, also means we'll have to deal with a New England fan base that will no doubt rub our noses in their own pretentious self-flagellation for a good amount of time. So pretty much like any other year... Regardless, the Seahawks almost pulled off their second Super Bowl win in a row, a feat in of itself, and were essentially one yard away from doing it. While that may not seem like a consellation prize, I can say that my Chargers were a few more yards away... and some change. Yeah... change. So here's to another season gone, we hardly knew ye, yadda-yadda-yadda, Joe Flacco is too elite, etc and Andy Reid just called a timeout. Good times friends, good times indeed...
The long wait is over friends. Yes, we had plenty of time to talk ad nauseum about deflated balls, and truth be told, I'm quite relieved despite having a bounty of "ball" jokes being lined up so nicely for the last two weeks. I've come to realize that I can make d*ck and balls (and fart, if needed) jokes all day long, I don't need the 24/7 news cycle and Super Bowl click-bait on "deflate-ghazi" to do this. What a revelation! You'd think it was a revelation of some sorts to some people that the amount of collective time spent on balls, deflated or otherwise, really does show how competent the NFL is with issues that no one should really give a sh*t about. If only Ray Rice punched a deflated ball, something could be gleaned from this! Other highlights during this wait included Marshawn Lynch just barely avoiding fines by doing the very least on Media Day, and Richard Sherman contemplating what to do if his child is born later today. Yet barely any mention of Aaron Hernandez's murder trial. Priorities people. Priorities. But hey, in the end, football is back for what is essentially the biggest sports event of the year, so sit back, enjoy whatever fried foods and alcohol is in front of you, and if we're lucky, this game will be marginally more entertaining than last year's. So hopefully past the midway point of the first quarter...
