Advice From The Substitute Teacher
10/11/07
The “Gut Feeling” is often synonymous with a sense
of desperation resulting from a lack of preparation. The Gut Check
is a huge proponent of studying the numbers, but there’s
a point where one can place too much emphasis on the wrong information.
This can result in the undervaluing or overlooking a player’s
potential. Therefore, The Weekly Gut Check is devoted to examining
the frame of reference behind certain number-driven guidelines
that fantasy football owners use to make decisions.
Although The Weekly Gut Check doesn’t claim to be psychic,
he does believe that he can dispel certain numbers biases and
help you make the best choices for your team. We’ll keep
a running tally of The Weekly Gut Check’s insights. This
way you can gauge his views as something to seriously consider,
or at least seriously consider running the opposite way as fast
as you can!
My name is Lisa. Matthew Waldman has come down with a case of writer’s
block, so I’m filling in this week. I’m a friend of
his—although I’m not sure why, because he’s weird.
But since Matthew agreed to let me fill in, you should be confident
in my advice this week. Although Matthew is really into this fantasy
football thing, I only know a few things about fantasy football:
things Matthew shared with me (which is surprisingly very little);
the fact that it generates a lot of money; and the way the guys
in my office between the ages of 23-34 react when I tell them my
friend is a fantasy football writer. If they knew that he’s
37 and has less furniture in his house than they do in just one
room of their first postgraduate apartment or bachelor pad, they
might not call it a dream job anymore.
They also react the same way when they see piles of photos on
my desk of me standing at the 50-yard line with the likes of Carson
Palmer and Jay Cutler. I get it, but at the same time I don’t.
I deal with famous people—it’s a job. They take pictures with
me because it’s their job to persuade me to do my job for them.
But my staff still freaks out around some of these people.
For instance last night I met Nelly.
My co-worker was about to cry when she realized who it was, and
I had no clue (He’s on your IPOD, Lisa!). I’ll
be surprised if my co-worker speaks with me for the rest of the
week without mentioning this every hour (He’s on your
IPOD, Lisa!).
My First Nugget of Wisdom: Choose Teams and
Players By The Colors They Wear
Teams that wear brown and orange are only a good option for autumn—especially
if they have animal prints in their ensemble. There are exceptions
I’ll discuss later, but this is generally not a good look
past October. That means the Browns and Bengals are about as good
as they are going to get. The Cowboys and Patriots are very stylish
you should watch them closely.
USC Trojans
You can’t go wrong with USC players. There are certain
areas of the country you shouldn’t pick players from, but
I’m not going to tell you where because I don’t want
negative feedback, I’m already like the substitute teacher,
why invite more problems? I told Matthew this was the basis of
my strategy for picking players and he told me I better address
the Stanford game. So I would like to say I truly believe that
Pete Carroll was showing the team that they were fallible because
they played crappy the week before at Washington and they were
basically playing this bad while they were number one.
They hadn’t lost at home in like 37 games. They simply
lost their edge. Booty was on the cover of so many things, and
he’s not that good. This was a wake up call. They may not
get back into the title hunt, but they will be much better now.
I can guarantee you this: You will have a winning team if you
have Reggie
Bush from this point forward. So my advice to you: Reggie
Bush. Not Matt Leinart, because Matt Leinart has a child out of
wedlock while he was in college. He hangs out with Paris Hilton.
He has the ego the size of California. Matt Leinart needs to understand
he is a football player and not a celebrity.
 Carson
Palmer is hot, but he plays for the Bengals and the Bengals
are a team full of people who should be in jail. Matthew asked
me why Palmer was hot because from his point of view, Carson dresses
like a slob (one of my points below). He’s always asking why,
why, why? Carson Palmer is just hot. Cute. The guy is closer
in age to me than Matt Leinart. If I liked Matt that would be
a whole Mrs. Robinson scenario—Yick! On the other hand,
peering into Carson Palmer’s locker during training camp was the
best event of my life—lots of supplements and lots of USC paraphernalia.
He’s a good alumnus.
What about LenDale
White? Matthew asked. White’s good, but he’s no Reggie
Bush. Here’s the problem with Lendale White: He’s good, but he
doesn’t market himself well. Look at Michael Vick and the salary
he commanded. He was a mediocre quarterback, at best. Where did
Vick ever take his team? Did they win playoff games? Did they
go to the Super Bowl? There are a lot of other quarterbacks out
there. Look for players who know how to market themselves—they
are smarter and that means they will play better.
Take Steven Jackson. First of all, he didn’t go to USC—big
mistake. Huge. Second, when he did play well, he didn’t
do a great job of marketing himself. He’s in one commercial
and you can’t even see his face? No wonder he’s slumping.
Tom Brady? He’s with A-list actresses and models, SNL,
and credit card commercials—good marketing.
Peyton Manning? SNL and strong commercial choices.
LaDainian
Tomlinson? Good dresser and avoided the Madden game.
Reggie Bush had a tough start, but he’s from USC, markets
himself well, and dresses as neat as pin. If you don’t stick
with him, you’re going against my intiution. I wouldn’t
recommend it—women have better intuition then you guys.
Tony Romo, on the other hand, is on an ESPN commercial and you
can see his face. Tiger Woods is on ESPN commercials, EA Sports
commercials, and American Express Commercials. As you can see,
Tony has the right idea. He even got away with a bad game this
week and still came out looking good. See, it’s all about
the marketing. And if you don’t have good marketing, don’t
dress well, or come from USC, then you better have coaches from
USC like Norm Chow and Jeff Fisher. Maybe this is why I like Matthew,
he may have chosen a team that’s an ultimate fashion victim
and a quarterback I don’t want to talk about because of
what he did at Texas, but at least the team is coached by two
Trojans.
Good Dressers
Look for players who dress well—not players who wear the
best bling. A good, well-tailored suit, dress shirt, and tie on
game day. Not f#$king sweats. A very good tailored, expensive
suit with good shoes. No big chains. Peyton Manning dresses well.
Johnnie Morton dresses well, is he still playing? That’s
right, Matthew pointed out that my bud Johnnie now spends his
time getting knocked out in Mixed Martial Arts events instead
of catching footballs—again, I don’t know why I’m
doing this for him. He’s not cooperating with promoting
my alma mater the way it should be. I’m not sure if he’ll
be allowed to watch the next USC game with me, I’m already
blaming him for the Stanford loss. Just because we were 41-point
favorite it is no reason to tape the stupid LSU-Florida game.
Do you really want to see people slapping their hands together
trying to imitate a reptile? How stupid…
Go With Your Gut
My advice to all you readers pouring over your stupid charts
and stats: Use your intuition and go with your gut. Matthew doesn’t
do this enough. For example, he should stop thinking he will beat
me in basketball because of the fact that I’m 5-6 and he’s
nearly 6 feet and outweighs me by nearly my entire body weight.
He’s relying too much on stats. The fact is I trained at
the same facility as Kevin Garnett and actually came in second
in a free throw contest against him and two other NBA players.
Matthew has no chance of winning. He knows this in his gut, but
he won’t acknowledge it. I’m going to run him ragged.
If you know in your gut that your team is bad, face it now and
make some trades. Preferably for some USC players who dress well
before the game, play on a team with a stylish, winter uniform
(New England, Indianapolis, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh—you
can never have too much black in your wardrobe), and have a good
marketing strategy. At least get football players who have three
of these four things going for them.
 If
you do these four things (and get Reggie Bush), you will win your
championship. Winning can be a lot like the feeling you get from
good sex. I told Matthew that he should write a comparison between
sex and fantasy football. All Matthew had to say was unlike a
single orgasm, winning one championship is something you can celebrate
for at least 6 months and most likely the entire year. It sounds
like he knows of what he speaks, because if any of you guys out
there are telling your woman how well you performed for them 6
months ago, you better take up fantasy football full-time and
get used to living without furniture—like Matthew…
(Writer’s Note: Despite the fact that basketball-wise
I’m going to be Ed Pickney to her Patrick Ewing, I appreciate
Lisa for contributing to this week’s column and saving my
ass. She should be amply rewarded and if you win your league with
this advice let me know. Next week I will get my database fixed
and examine historical mid-season stats and second half splits).
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