We all play games, whether it be fantasy sports or psychological battles with one’s SIGNIFICANT OTHER, which I’m bolding because I think it should be a horror movie title or a boss in the Dark Souls series. Fantasy Football holds all the hallmarks of a Souls-type video game; You get crushed Week 1, you spend time getting pumped/reading primers to help in your next run, and then you either triumph the next time you play, or you’re sent back to the last bonfire, full of impotent rage and complaining about how the system cheated you. Perhaps a Tecmo Bowl comparison would have worked better, but it’s too on the nose, and it’s been about five years since I last emulated the Eagles to yet another perfect season. Let us continue to explore the biases that reshape our mind’s eyeballs (maybe into cubes, or even tetrahedrons!):
Dunning-Kruger Effect – Experts thinking they’re under-qualified, non-experts thinking they’re experts. The D-K Effect is woven into the DNA of Twitter, as well as in fantasy sports column replies.
End-of-History Illusion – You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Categorically untrue, so keep reading and researching. Lord, the internet has destroyed the meaning of “research” for me. Anyways, you can and will improve, unless it’s against me, in which case your failure is a necessity for my well-being. Chew on that, empathy!
Exaggerated Expectation – You expect a TE that has almost no targets this season to suddenly net you 10 fantasy points because you read a tweet about another tweet, who tweeted about a press conference snippet taken out of context.
Expectation Bias – You run and believe in projections that cater to your opinion, and shout down anyone/any piece of data that disagrees with your findings. Fantasy football, Twitter, etc…maybe
Do not ignore your biases, friends. Sometimes they’re wrong, just like my opinions. Do be kind to yourself if you do lose, and remember our time on this strange orb is briefer than a men’s underwear salesman. Weather your defeats if they come, and stay grateful for every last opportunity we have to win or lose anything. Most of all, own your decisions. If you read a bad blurb and get truly blurbstomped, you still used your thumb or mouse to make that choice. Own it, thumb or mouse person!
On to those blurbs!
A Blurbstomp Reminder
We will analyze player blurbs from a given evening, knowing that 1-2 writers are usually responsible for all the player write-ups posted within an hour of the game results. We will look at:
- Flowery Diction – how sites juice up descriptions of player performance
- Q and Q – when a site contradicts a player valuation on back-to-back blurbs
- Trade Blades
- Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
The hope is that by season’s end, we’ll all feel more confident about our player evaluations when it comes to the waiver wire. We will read blurbs and not be swayed by excessive superlatives, faulty injury reporting, and micro-hype. I will know that I have done my job when Grey posts, and there isn’t a single question about catchers that he did not address in his post. Onward to Roto Wokeness!
Flowery Diction
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports A.J. Brown is expected to be considered week-to-week with a strained hamstring.
Brown left in Week 3 in the first quarter and was subsequently ruled out. The week-to-week status means Brown should miss the Titans’ Week 4 matchup with the Jets. Given how beatable the Jets are through the air, Julio Jones, with an increased role, could push for WR1 numbers. Chester Rodgers should be the next man up at receiver. He is tied at third on the Titans with 13 targets and scored in the red zone last week. Derrick Henry, who has already been more involved in the passing game this year, figures to maintain his surprising target numbers with the lack of receiving talent Tennessee has behind Jones.
Source: RotoworldSportsEdgeNBC.com
I get that the word “considered” has become a rhetorical cudgel in the parlance of sports injuries. However, the juxtaposition of the words “expected” and “considered” makes this an extremely awkward piece of news. Is this news though? We knew A.J. Brown was injured, so what does this blurb tell us? It does not give us an injury timeline, it does not regale us with good tidings that the injury was merely a bruise. Instead, we’re told to “expect” him to be out with an injury. This is the equivalent of CNN giving breathless coverage of a potential hurricane, and it’s just someone talking about hurricanes for an hour with no actual update because the hurricane is still barely a tropical storm. The excitement (for them) is the potential for more news. That’s gross, friends.
This is not as gross, but it’s boring and it hurts my little baby brain.
Q and Q
Kenneth Gainwell rushed one time for two yards and caught 3-of-4 targets for 32 yards in the Eagles’ Week 3 loss to the Cowboys.
Gainwell didn’t touch the ball in the first half, and the Eagles called just three run plays to their running backs in this one. Miles Sanders handled the other two. Gainwell really wasn’t involved until the final couple possessions with the game already out of hand. He’s still well ahead of Boston Scott as the backup to Sanders. Gainwell needs to be rostered in all 12- and 14-team leagues.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
- Rushed one time for two yards
- Did not touch the ball in the first half
- Eagles called just three run plays
- Gainwell wasn’t involved until the final couple (sic) possessions
- He needs to be rostered in all 12- and 14-team leagues
Yeah, I agree, it’s time to cut bait after…wait whuuuuut???
A league has to be a bit deeper to justify being rostered in all 12- and 14-team leagues. Am I that out of touch? Have I lost whatever touch I even had? How is touch measured? Who is doing the measuring? Is it Mr. McFeely? He seems like he’s too busy collecting documentary footage and writing scripts for his daily visit to Mr. Rogers. An odd duck, that fellow, using his lunch break to show one of his clients how toothbrushes are made.
Regardless, I know the flow of the game affected Gainwell’s production, but lordy, the idea that he needs to be owned is a bit ludicrous. Dallas’s Tony Pollard had 11 carries for 60 yards, and they found it necessary to mention volatility for his role on the team. So Gainwell has one rush for two yards, and he’s highly rosterable, but Pollard has 10 more carries and 58 more yards and is volatile? I am more confused and curious than when I started.
Also, Gainwell is not a great football name for a 2nd/3rd string running back. Maybe Gainsome? Or Gainmaybe? If my name was Work Punny, I would expect to receive the same groaners from you lot.
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
NJ.com’s Darryl Slater said Kadarius Toney “might” be the Giants’ slot receiver in Week 4 if Sterling Shepard (hamstring) is out.
It would seem the Giants will be forced to play their first round pick, with whom they have been less than thrilled and clueless about how to effectively utilize his speed and explosiveness. Giants head coach Joe Judge hedged when asked if Toney would step in as the team’s slot guy without Shepard but said the Giants are “focused on” getting Toney more touches. “We’ve got to get him the ball, and we definitely want to,” Judge said. “He’s got the ability to make some guys miss in space. He comes off the ball with a different level of speed than a lot of guys. I’m not going to say we’re going to manufacture 50, 60 snaps artificially with him. But if the opportunity presents itself, we’ll definitely try to get him the ball.” Shepard and Darius Slayton exiting early against the Falcons in Week 4 forced the Giants to use Toney on 66 percent of their offensive snaps. He ran 82.4 percent of his pass routes from the slot. He would be an interesting PPR option for fantasy managers scrambling for usable receivers in Week 4.
Source: Rotoedgeworldsports.com
I cannot understate how thin the tightwire is on this here blurb. More than any sport, again based on the once-a-week schedule, football’s content mill recycling seems unrivaled. This blurb is a 3D puzzle, only the bottom and top pieces are missing. He is an “interesting” PPR option based on opportunity alone? His coach, whose sound bite involved 10% of “Toney’s a heck of a player,” and 90% “well heck we don’t have a gun to our heads here,” states he’s not going to force the ball to him, and the person writing the article for NJ.com (New Jersey – Now We Have a Website!) immediately spent the next few paragraphs describing Toney as “raw” and “unpolished.”. I haven’t heard of a worse endorsement since Jesse Owens recommended Alf Landon for President in 1936. Even if he wasn’t running against FDR, would you endorse PRESIDENT ALF???
You know what? I would. Who cares about the living wage he installed, all the public works, the economic recovery? President Alf baby! We missed out, but somewhere, on a parallel plane of existence, Alf won the presidency. He scuttled the New Deal, he championed zeppelins and opposed cars, and most importantly, he pushed NASA to investigate immortality rather than chart a piddling romp on an overrated, pock-marked satellite. They succeed and he is immortal. President Alf, forever 53 years old, goes on to invent the hoverboard, and a future promised to us in this cursed timeline moves forward, slipping through our fingers like a liquid.
So, basically, I wouldn’t sniff around Toney unless we get anything better than, “A beat reporter said that the coach said he’s a good player, but let’s not put the cart in front of the horse, and then a blogger summarized all of that while minimizing the blogger’s hedging against Toney playing much, and then the blogger added a big old might in front of Kadarius Toney’s name.”
That’s blog science, friends! Stayed tuned and keep your eyeballs peeled, because there are very few idioms more gruesome than the one I just wrote! That’s a gross expression no matter where you’re from, but especially if you’re a member of the Residents!
Happy blurb hunting to all, and to all a good blurb night!
