A Successful Return

Yes, I made it home. If you are wondering why that is a slight shock, make sure you give my last blog posting a read where I lay out what the just completed weekend had in store for this kid (you can find that entry at Las Vegas Vacation). I don’t normally write about football here – pretty obvious when the title of my blog is BaseballGuys.com, but with less than a week to go before the NFL season counts, and with a wild weekend to recap, I’m going to push ahead with an entry about the gridiron.

Here are some of the highlights of the proceedings in Vegas as Fanball hosted the National Fantasy Football Championship.

* Some of the ADP numbers – Average Draft Position – certainly didn’t seem to play themselves out at the NFFC.

Jay Cutler was getting no love as he even fell out of the top-10 at the quarterback position at times.

Kevin Kolb who soared up to #7 at the QB spot has seen his ADP dip back to #10. He was being taken by some inside the top-10, but there may have been as many times when he was on the outside looking in at the top-10 at the position.

Maurice Jones-Drew has everyone panicked with that knee injury of his. The clear cut #3 option overall according to almost everyone worth a darn, he was falling to 4-5-6 and he even fell to #7 in one draft I witnessed. If he falls to you at #7 thank your lucky stars as you’ll likely get a tremendous value (kind of like last season when Joe Mauer was falling into the 7th to 9th round because people were worried about the back injury that was likely to sideline him for the month of April. We all know how fantabulistic that turned out for those that took a chance on the Twins’ catcher. What, you thought I would write a whole piece without mentioning baseball? You know me better than that by now don’t you?).

* Ryan Grant continues to get no love. I guess people see him and think ‘little’ upside, though in his defense, he is one of only four running backs to have rushed for at least 1,200-yards in each of the past two seasons. The others are Adrian Peterson, Thomas Jones and Chris Johnson.

* The Bellagio hosts a hell of an event. Plus, I swear on my mother’s life, I think there are only hot women with four inch heels and tight miniskirts allowed within the city limits of Las Vegas. There’s some astounding scenery in that town.

* Everyone is on the bandwagon with the 49ers defense.

* Speaking of that bandwagon, Arian Foster‘s can barely hold another soul. The guy is simply zooming up draft boards at an astounding rate for a guy who, four months ago, was barely on anyone’s radar.

* How in the world did I have to pay $13 for a White Russian? And no, I’m not talking about one of those hotties in a mini-skirt, I mean the drink. Don’t worry, I got back at them though with my $17 dollar Eiffel Tower drink from Paris. That’s my 15.6 laptop in the picture for scale, and despite what looks like a pink hue, the color was a manly white.

* People still seem to love taking quarterback’s early. I touched on why I think that isn’t necessarily the best plan of action in NFL Mailbag – The QB Conundrum.

So there it is.

I’m back at home in sunny California, I didn’t lose a kidney or get arrested, and I remember the entire trip (no blackouts). All in all, that sounds like a pretty good weekend doesn’t it?

By Ray Flowers