Posts Tagged ‘David Johnson’

Let’s call it Wednesday

Posted: January 4, 2017 by Sports Time Radio in sports, Sports Time Radio, Uncategorized
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The NFL regular season wrapped up last weekend and so did our pick contest. It took me all year, but I finally won a week outright as I went 13-3. Dan the Man finished 2nd for the week at 12-4. Schaumburg Stu and Mr. Fantasy tied at 9-7. Overall it was Schaumburg Stu who won with a record of 167-89. Dan the Man moved into 2nd place with an overall record of 159-97. Mr. Fantasy took the 3rd spot with a record of 157-99 and even though I managed to win the final week I still finished in the cellar with a record of 155-101. Will wipe the slate clean and see how we do with our playoff picks.

Speaking of the NFL playoffs the days and match ups are all set. The AFC gets things started at 3:35 p.m. on Saturday as the Houston Texans host the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders did have a better regular season record than the Texans did, but Houston won a very weak AFC South while the Raiders finished 2nd in the AFC West to the Kansas City Chiefs. The second Saturday game with a scheduled 7:15 p.m. start times has the Detroit Lions at Seattle Seahawks. The AFC again starts the Sunday playoff schedule off as the Pittsburgh Steelers host the Miami Dolphins. The game has a listed 12:05 p.m. start time. The final game to wrap up the 1st round of the playoffs has the New York Giants as the Green Bay Packers. The scheduled start time for this game is 3:40 p.m. This is another situation where the wild card team has the better record, but they play on the road because they’re facing a division winner. In the AFC the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs have the 1st round byes while in the NFC it’s the Dallas Cowboys and the Atlanta Falcons who get the opening week off.

What are your feeling about having a wild card team with a better record than a division winner hosting the playoff game. I’ve heard both sides of this argument and if you’re a Raiders or a Giants fan I can see your point, but I believe you have to get some type of reward for winning your division. It’s just kind of how the NFL goes. Some divisions are better than others and this season the AFC West and the NFC East had top team with good records. People may forget that the Dolphins where a in team, but since they play in the  win team this season, but since they play in the AFC East with the Patriots there name doesn’t really come up. I’m not sure if there needs to be a change here, but if someone had a good idea about how the NFL could handle this I’d be willing to listen to it. Feel free to let me know where you stand on this. Are you on the side of the better record getting the home game or would you like to keep it as it is with the division winners getting to host the opening round playoff games?

Are fantasy football season came to an end with the end of the NFL regular season. We have a couple of leagues that go all the way through Week 17. I know a lot of leagues end after Week 16 because of the fear of players sitting out the final week of the season, but to me it just makes it all the more challenging. We always talk about the two main leagues we play in. We have a snake league style draft and then we do and auction style draft. Both leagues are 20 team leagues and 8 teams make the playoffs. It’s the 4 division winners and then the next best 4 records regardless of how many could be in one division. In the snake league I didn’t make the playoffs. Mr. Fantasy and Dan the Man did make it, but sadly they both went out in the 1st round. In our auction league I was the only one who managed to get into the playoffs and I just made it as the 8th seed. They always say you just want to get in and I did. It worked out for me as my team ended up winning the Super Bowl.

I can still remember going into our draft Mr. Fantasy telling me how running backs where devalued. Oddly 8 of the Top 10 scorers in our snake style draft league where running backs. The other two spots in the Top 10 went to quarterbacks. Wide receiver was the hot position going into the draft, but the top scoring wide receiver in our league finished 13th overall in scoring. Going into the draft wide receivers where the Top 3 ranked players. Arizona Cardinals running back David Johnson was the top scorer in our league. Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers was the top scoring quarterback. Antonio Brown of the Pittsburgh Steelers was the top scoring wide receiver. Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs was the top scoring tight end. The top scoring Defense/Special Teams was the Kansas City Chiefs while the top scoring kicker was Justin Tucker of the Baltimore Ravens. We actually use defensive players in our leagues. The highest scoring defensive player in our league was Seattle Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner.

While you have your high scorers in fantasy you also have the players who don’t quite do as well as expected. Injuries aside here as there’s nothing you can do about that here are a few guys who didn’t do as well as projected. Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks was the 3rd quarterback pre-draft. Wilson finished as the 16th ranked quarterback. Todd Gurley of the Los Angeles Rams was projected as the 2nd best running back pre-draft. Gurley finished as the 13th ranked running back. At wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins of the Houston Texans was the 4th ranked wide receiver pre-draft. Hopkins ended up being one of the biggest fantasy bust as he finished the season as the 30th ranked wide receiver. Colby Fleener of the New Orleans Saints was projected as the 6th best tight end pre-draft. Fleener end up as the 15 ranked tight end. Again I stayed away from players who missed time with injuries this season.

You can listen the Sports Time Radio podcast live on BlogTalkRadio.com but you can also listen to the podcast any time you want at TuneIn.com

You can find me on Twitter @Burketime

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How was your week

Posted: December 10, 2016 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, football, sports
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The Oakland Raiders have to be considered one of the surprise teams of this NFL season. While I think most pundits had the Raiders improving on their 7-9 2015 record I don’t remember any of them saying the Raiders would get to double digit wins. Oakland has 10 wins right now and they have three games left in this season. The Raiders where in 1st place coming into Thursday nights game against the Kansas City Chiefs and they went out and had what was probably there worst game of the season. Oakland lost 21-13 to the Chiefs Thursday night and the game brought up some questions about the Raiders. Being that it was a short week; was it just a bad night? Is Kansas City that good? or the more pressing question could be; how hurt is Derek Carr? Carr injured the pinky on his throwing hand in the Raiders 38-24 win over the Buffalo Bills in Week 13. Carr left the game for a short period of time, but returned to lead the Raiders to a victory. Carr had his worst game of the season, but even with that he had the Raiders in position to possible tie the game late in the 4th quarter. Oakland had a 4th and 1 on the Kansas City 14 yard line with 2:06 left in the game. A false start penalty made it 4th and 6 from the Kansas City 19 yard line. Carr tried to connect with Seth Roberts on a possible game tying touchdown, but the pass fell incomplete and the Raiders turned the football over on downs allowing the Chiefs to run out the clock. Carr was 17 of 41 for just 117 yards. He was also sacked 1 time for -8 yards. The loss drops the Raiders into the first wild card spot, but they are three games ahead of the next closet wild card team. Should Carr be rested to allow his pinky time to heal before the Raiders head into the playoffs? or should he try to play through it? Week 15 has the Raiders in San Diego to face the Chargers. Week 16 they’re home against the Indianapolis Colts and they end the season on the road in Week 17 against the Denver Broncos. Now winning the division still isn’t out of the questions as the Chiefs play the Tennessee Titans at home in Week 15. Week 16 they host the Broncos and the Chiefs also end the season on the road as they play in San Diego against the Chargers in Week 17. The Raiders advantage is that the Titans and the Broncos are still in playoff contention and the Chiefs have to face both of them while the Raiders will just see the Broncos. So that makes the quarterback question even tougher. Is winning the division enough of a motive to continue to play Carr or is resting that pinky injury more important? If you’re a Raiders fan; what would you like to see them do with David Carr?

There was an interesting debate this week on which running back either Ezekiel Elliott or David Johnson is he front runner for M.V.P. Elliott is currently the NFL’s leading rusher with 1285 yards and has 12 rushing touchdowns through 13 weeks. Johnson is 3rd in rushing with 1005 yards and has 11 rushing touchdowns. Johnson is more involved in the Arizona passing game than Elliott is for Dallas. Johnson has caught 64 passes for 704 yards and has 4 receiving touchdowns. Elliott has 28 receptions for 322 yards and a touchdown. Of course Elliott’s Cowboys are 11-1 and are the first team to clinch a playoff spot. Johnson’s Cardinals are 5-6-1 and are currently 2 games out of a wild card spot. In most cases a quarterback is the front runner for M.V.P. so it’s a little different to see a couple of running backs being talked about for the award. While I’m still thinking that Tom Brady will end up winning the M.V.P. award, but how would you separate these running backs. I guess it depends on what the word valuable means to you. (Valuable meaning) Is a running back who’s going to be on a playoff team more valuable than a all around running back on a team that looks like it won’t make the playoffs. The Cowboys are touted as having the best offensive line in the NFL. Does that diminish Elliott’s accomplishments? On the other hand the Cardinals have just 5 wins and you have to wonder where they would be if Johnson wasn’t on the team. With three weeks to go will have to see what kind of numbers these two running backs continue to put up and if they can stay even it will be up to the voters to decide. Now if you had a vote who’s your NFL M.V.P.?

The baseball winter meetings wrapped up with two veteran players finding new teams. Fernando Rodney signed a 1-year $2.75 million dollar deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks. There are appearance bonuses in Rodney’s contract that could boost it up tp $4 million if he hits them all. Rodney turns 40 next March and split last season between the San Diego Padres and the Miami Marlins. With San Diego Rodney was 0-1 with an E.R.A. of 0.31 with 17 saves. In Miami Rodney went 2-3 with an E.R.A. of 5.89 and 8 saves. Will Rodney be used as a closer in Arizona or will the Diamondbacks find someone else to close with Rodney as the set up guy with closing experience. The other signing saw Dexter Fowler leave the World Series champion Chicago Cubs to join there division rival the St. Louis Cardinals on a 5-year $82.5 million dollar deal. The Cardinals where in the market for an outfielder; preferably a centerfielder; so I’m not surprised they signed Fowler. What is a bit of a surprise to me is the length and the dollars involved with the signing. Fowler hit .276 last season with 13 home runs. Fowler has always been looked at as a lead off type of hitter, but he had just 13 stolen bases last season. Fowler did walk 79 times last season and had an On Base Percentage of .393. Fowler turns 31 next March; so he’ll be in a Cardinals uniform until he’s 36 as his deal also includes a full no trade clause. Do you like Fowler as the Cardinals centerfielder?

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You can find me on Twitter @Burketime