Fantasy Football Librarian

My brother-in-law is coming into town tomorrow for a long weekend and I believe we'll be rocking the U.S. Olympic Trials for curling this Saturday. Try to hide your jealousy; the curling trials are being held just a few towns down from Boulder and I sort of feel like this might be a once in a lifetime chance to see curling in person. Who knows, maybe one day curling will be all the rage and I'll travel far and wide to watch my grandchildren win curling championships...but for now this might be as close as I ever get to such a random sport. Today's links are as follows: Having just snagged Derrick Ward in my mock draft, I'm pleased to see Gregg Rosenthal's support for Ward as the most solid free agent RB in one of his latest posts on Pancake Blocks. Early last season I remember grabbing Chansi Stuckey off of waivers after he put together a few solid weeks in a row. His value immediately tanked but I'm envisioning an increase in FFers that might be willing to...

Ahh , speculation. It's possible that I enjoy speculating about which neighborhood I could afford to live in in New York City as much as I enjoy free agency speculations. I mean, I'm not even sure that I'm moving to New York yet, nor do we have any idea what thoughts might be rolling through Anquan Boldin's head these days. But we speculate nonetheless and think about how Warner and Boldin impact one another's fantasy value (or pour over craigslist apartment postings as the case may be). So for some of the latest thoughts on free agency moves, take a look at Rotoworld's Free Agency Primer: QBs , WRs and TEs , and linebackers . Scope out Gregg Rosenthal's free agency news , too, while you're at it. Onto other links... Page 2 of Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback thoughts on free agency included such a nice little needling of Ohio State that I can't help but link to it. Sorry to my friend Joe and all other OSU fans but a Buckeye losi...

Today I would like to discuss the beauty of a Colorado winter. Sure, some days walking to the bus stop is a miserable, windy, snowy experience but then there are weeks like this one where the high every day will be right around 60. Awesomeness. Apparently I'm not much of a winter person. That whole sun and warm temperatures thing has a way of winning me over. I chatted up my grandparents yesterday who live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and they were in the midst of yet another snowstorm. Michiganders, I think it's time you consider moving to Colorado. Yes I realize there's nothing like a summer in Michigan but sadly there's also nothing quite like a winter in Michigan. Except maybe a winter in Buffalo. Lots of NFL Combine news to catch up on - take a look at the following links for Combine news and beyond: Fifth Down's Biggest Loser at Combine, and it's not Crabtree has some nice updates both on incoming rookies and oldies but goodies like Marvin Harrison. And sp...

Before I get into today's links I just wanted to tell you guys how great you are. I've been talking about my impending move to the east coast here a bit and have heard from several of you offering to be a resource for either NYC or DC, or just giving me your thoughts on why you like one of those cities. I'll have to coordinate some sort of FFLibrarian Happy Hour in whichever city we end up in so that I can personally thank you all, but until then your kindness is much appreciated. Fantasyfootball .com has taken a look at each division to see what kind of players might be targeted during the draft and trades: Team Needs: AFC West , AFC East, NFC East , NFC North , and more to come. With the Combine ramping up over the next few days, take a look at SportingNews . com's NFL Combine schedule to figure out which activities you might want to pay attention to this weekend. I've been meaning to link to this for a little while now - the Fantasy Sports Writers Associatio...

Back to the bowling alley tonight, my friends. After a rather abysmal performance 2 weeks ago I'm kind of dreading how things might go down tonight. I'm trying to train the competitor in me to reclaim the fun in bowling even if I'm only rolling at the level of an 9-year-old. I swear I am bowling at about the same pace as I was at my 9 th birthday party, which was of course held in a bowling alley. Though a duck pin bowling alley now that I think about it so I'll take some solace in the fact that I might have improved over the past 20 ish years. Enough on bowling - there's a Combine to talk about! We're being financially conservative these days and not splurging on the NFL Network at home anymore so I won't actually be able to watch non-stop Combine footage this week/weekend. Bummer. But that's where NFL.com steps up to the plate with some great coverage, videos, etc. If you're not sure who to keep an eye on during the Combine, take a look at NFL. ...

As I noted last week, my husband and I are moving this summer and we now have our future home narrowed down to either Washington, D.C., or New York City. We won't know where we're headed for sure for another month or so but I'm already starting to think about life as an NFL fan from the eastern time zone. Gotta be honest, I love watching games from the mountain time zone; the games start at an ideal 11 am and are over at a reasonable time of night. Not so on the east coast. This could be a big shift for me... I've been promising an update on my analysis of expert rankings and have fallen behind a bit. I really am hoping that this will be the week that I can pull that info together and analyze some new sites, so stay tuned on that front. Today I've got some IDP -rich links for you and news from around the league... Probably my favorite IDP writer, Matt Schauf , has an article up with 2009 IDP Sleepers for the NFC East - and future installments of IDP sleepers are...

Today is a great day, my fantasy football friends. My husband and I are a little bit closer to figuring out where we might live next year (he's finishing up his PhD this spring so he's on the job market now, traveling around for interviews) and I just found out that one of my closest friends is having a baby. Not only do I get to be Aunt Sara but it's another little mind to lead to fantasy football...and yes I realize that makes me sound like a cult leader or something. The cult of fantasy football?? Well then, read on for some cult news. So the NFL Combine is right around the corner. While many of us are spending our days wondering just how much longer winter will last, there are incoming rookies anxiously prepping for the big week in Indy. If you're wondering which players you should be keeping an eye on, take a look at The Hazean's The Rookie Report: Scouting the Scouting Combine . Or see what KFFL has to say in their 2009 NFL Draft Rankings: Top 100 . Probabl...

So in the midst of talking about my accuracy analysis or ranking of the rankings that I did with fantasy football expert sites, what I haven't mentioned so far is that I've agreed with the FSTA to take a stab at doing an accuracy analysis for fantasy baseball as well. As you can probably tell from the name of this blog, my fantasy focus is really football and I know little about fantasy baseball - so here's my request from you all for names of fantasy baseball expert sites that you would like to see analyzed. I can get my research skills in gear here and find some of the bigger names but if there are smaller sites that you'd like included, leave a message in the comments or e-mail me . One of my favorite football news items for the week is the news about the United Football League, a four-team startup football league that will begin its six-week season in October. For a list of the cities and details on who is throwing money into the UFL , check out this article . Wil...

This afternoon my dad (an awesome dude and talented writer who as of his retirement a few years ago had written more articles for the National Geographic than any other writer on subjects ranging from archaeological digs to Halley's Comet to Neandertals) is coming to Boulder for a long weekend. I'm psyched to have family visit since they're all east coasters and I don't get to see them as often as I'd like. So my mind has been on my family and less so on football...but I think I can rummage up a few links. Now that the Super Bowl is over it's time to start focusing on free agency, which starts on February 27th, just a few weeks from now. FantasyFootballChamps.com offers up a Free Agency Snapshot with a list of offensive skill position guys that are free agents this year, divided up by position. Many of these players are worth keeping an eye on during the offseason. If you've ever felt that nothing really happens in the football world during the offseason t...

Greetings fantasy fans. Last night at Bowling League Night, I bowled two of my worst games ever. My timing was unfortunate, too, since we were up against the best team in the league, which is also the only team whose members are more or less the same age as we are. But despite the absolute collapse of any bowling prowess I have built up over the past few months, I had a blast last night. Perhaps it was the fact that we ended up playing for pitchers of beer with the other team, which led to entertaining commentary from everyone (one of our opponents let us in on his secret for bowling success: as he gets ready to release the ball he just tells himself what a sexy dude he is; it works, the guy is awesome!) and some amusing celebratory dance moves on the lane from one member of my team. Good times all around. But back to football - I've heard from several of you that you appreciated the look at the experts' rankings and I'm very glad to hear that. I've had some really good...

My 2008 accuracy analysis is up on the Fifth Down! Check it out, Ranking the Rankings in Fantasy Football, 2008 and let me know what you think. Does my system make sense? Will you be thinking about this at all when you decide which rankings to look at next summer? What else would you like me to do with this? If you're wondering which sites I looked at, here's a full list of all 23 sites in alphabetical order: ADP (via FF Calculator) Ask the Commish CBS Sports ESPN Fantasy Hulks Football Outsiders FantasyFootball .com Fantasy Football Nerd Fantasy Football Sherpa Fantasy Football Starters Fantasy Football Trader Fantasy Football Xtreme FFToday FFToolbox Fantazzle Fantasy Sports Games FootballDocs FOX Sports KFFL Robocoach Rotoworld Sports Illustrated SportsBuff Yahoo! Fantasy Sports My plans for the next few months include re-running the analysis with even more sites - I've already heard from a few sites that would like to see how they stack up - and I'd also li...

Okay I'm going light on links today and focusing instead on two contests I have brewing. First, the FFLibrarian's Challenge via NFL. com's Playoff Challenge ...there were an impressive 250 of us in the FFLibrarian's Challenge group and without further ado, the top 10 finishers were: Year of the Vikes Clam Jam Al Davis Wannabe I AM LEGEND 28Rams39 Project Fantasy X Salem Cowboys Werewolves Los Angeles Pro State ballsonya Wow, yes I just basically typed "balls on ya". Unless that team moniker was actually "ball Sonya", in which case congrats to Sonya for coming in 10 th . Now as promised, the winner will receive a $25 gift card to the store of your choice, courtesy of the Bruno Boys. The top 3 winners will all receive a FFLibrarian t-shirt, which is in the works. Winners, in order to get your gear though you'll need to e-mail me and confirm your name and other info and even share your mailing address with me, which I promise to keep private. Si...

What a game - loved the fact that it actually came down to the 4 th quarter; bummed it didn't go into overtime. I was talking to my 90-year-old grandpa on the phone yesterday morning and he asked which team I was pulling for since he figured this whole fantasy football obsession of mine might give me an inside track on the winner. I told him I was routing for the Cardinals since my many years of being a Northwestern fan had instilled in me a need to pull for the underdog. My grandpa, also a Northwestern alum, paused and said, "well I'm pulling for the Steelers ; I like to be for the team that wins." So here's to being for the team that wins and my grandpa's foresight. In my morning scour for news and fantasy insights, I came across this update from ESPN on police arrests and such from the Super Bowl. My favorite part? The DUI crash involving a police horse (no horses were injured) - does that not pique your curiosity? I really would've enjoyed seeing wha...

I've decided there are few things worse than a laptop malfunction, which is exactly what I've been battling with for the past several days, hence the lack of blog posts. Thanks to the invasion of a stubborn virus, I've been slowly trying to grab things off of my dying laptop in 5 minute spurts before the laptop crashes yet again. Fun times here. But really, I should be wishing you all the merriest of Super Bowl Days! It's like a national holiday for me and I'm gearing up for the Super Bowl party circuit later this afternoon. The celebrations actually started for me last night as I went to one of my closest friend's 30th birthday party. The party included a white elephant gift exchange and you all are about to be really jealous when you hear what I took home...a Snuggie . The blanket with sleeves. I am currently staring at the blue mass of fleece that's sprawled all over a chair in my house. In fact it's so massive there's hardly chair visible and my ...