Advice for the NFL playoffs

I was almost swept off the sidewalk this morning. No joke. It's a rather windy day here in Boulder- wind gusts of up to 80 mph have already been clocked this morning and I swear I was almost knocked down on my daily jaunt to the bus. But I have arrived at a freakishly quiet library (oh except for the incredible whistle in our fifth floor tower-like office) and am gearing up for one of those work days where you only kind of half-work since no one else is really here. That might mean good things for all of you who are into playing some fantasy playoffs since a post chock full of links is on the agenda for today.

If you missed my post yesterday, I have a FFLibrarian's Challenge group going for the playoffs - click here to join the group or e-mail me and I can send an invitation directly your way. There are already 25+ of us and I'm excited to see how many of you are interested in keeping the FF season rolling into the playoffs!

Without further ado, today's links...

• Looking for some strategy for the playoffs challenge? Look no further than the Fantasy Sharks' Complete Fantasy Playoffs Analysis. Get a solid dose of strategy as well as teams to avoid and positional breakdowns. Helpful stuff here.
• Gregg Rosenthal (on his Rotoworld Pancake Blocks blog) has a sneak peek into his playoffs rankings, but note that he's promising more to come today with possible ranking changes.
• Bruno Boys have a QB ranking up for the Wild Card Round - and I'm thinking there are many more Bruno Boys rankings to come this week...
  
• Lester's Legends also has some NFL Playoff Fantasy Football Rankings - it almost feels like summer with all these rankings and I for one love it.
  
• Be bold are the words of wisdom from ESPN's column of FF playoff advice written by Tristan H. Cockcroft whose name seems so much more formal than my own. It might be too late but perhaps I need to start adding in a middle initial to my name or change it to something a little less banal than Sara. Though thanks to my husband for such a fun last name for this time of year - despite how sick he may be of the holiday/Holladay jokes, I still dig 'em.
  
• But back to football. For some retrospective thoughts on the 2008 season, scope out SportingNews.com's Recapturing the Season
  
• Or look ahead to the 2009 season with FFToolbox's Looking forward to 2009 or Fanball's Breakouts by Division for thoughts on players like Brent Celek and Andre Caldwell whom you'll want on your team for the 2009 season.
• And for those who want nothing to do with fantasy, here's a little something from Fantasy Outsiders for general football fans: Do Older Quarterbacks Wilt in December and January? I find the idea of determining what age is deemed "old" for a QB pretty entertaining, especially as I face a 2009 that will bring me my 30th birthday. Glad to know I'd still be considered young and spry if I was an NFL QB...
  

Finally, my poor Northwestern Wildcats lost last night in OT to Missouri. Turns out that I'm a really sore loser but I just don't think NU deserved to lose that game. It was really their game and I was bummed to see them fall apart a bit in the fourth quarter. And also bummed to have been stuck with an unbelievable number of shots of Chase Daniel's family in the stands. I'm confident that NU's star RB Tyrell Sutton, DE Corey Wootton or QB CJ Bacher had family at the game - why not spread the love? Or even show another Missouri player's family - seriously, anything other than the massive amount of air time on the Daniel family; it was egregious. But like I said, I'm a bit of a sore loser. Great season, Wildcats. Here's to an even better 2009!