Posts Tagged ‘LeShon McCoy’

Let’s call it Wednesday

Posted: March 4, 2015 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, sports
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There are very few blockbuster player for player trades in the NFL; so when the Philadelphia Eagles traded LeShon McCoy one of the top running backs in the NFL to the Buffalo Bills for linebacker Kiko Alonso it caught me a bit by surprise. McCoy rushed for 1319 yards and 5 touchdowns last season on 312 carries. He also caught 28 passes for 155 yards. Alonso missed the entire 2014 season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), but is expected to be ready to go for the 2015 season. 2013 was Alonso rookie season where he had 87 tackles, assisted on 72 other while picking for 4 passes, recovering 2 fumbles and forcing 1 fumble. He also had 2 quarterback sacks. Looking at this trade it may be one of those that turns out to benefit both teams. Philadelphia gets some salary cap room and if they cut linebacker DeMeco Ryans as it’s being reported they will it will open up a little over $14 million dollars in salary cap room for the Eagles. Buffalo has a new head coach in Rex Ryan and with Fred Jackson getting up there in age and C.J. Spiller never really becoming the running back the Bills had hoped he’d be when drafted McCoy gives them the go to running back that Ryan likes to have. I did see some reports out there that say this is the first move in the Eagles going out and getting Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota in the upcoming draft. Mariota won’t be on the board when the Eagles 1st round pick comes up at #20; so if he’s their guy they’re going to have to find a way to move up to get him. There’s a chance the New York Jets might take him with the 6th pick. The St. Louis Rams pick 10th and they might be looking for a quarterback and then there’s always the chance that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers take Mariota with the #1 pick in the draft. You’d have to guess it will cost the Eagles Nick Foles that #20 pick and more to move up high enough to get Mariota. Then the question becomes is he worth that? Even though he’s familiar with coach Chip Kelly’s offense. Is he a franchise type of quarterback? The Eagles also seem to have quite a few needs on defense and while they’ll have that extra salary cap money some of it will go to re-signing wide receiver Jeremy Maclin. It looked like the Eagles would address their defenses issues in the draft, but if they make a deal for Mariota how many of those draft picks would be included in that deal. Don’t forget that the Bills may not be sold on E.J. Manuel as their quarterback, but remember the Bills dealt their 1st round pick to the Cleveland Browns; so they could move up and select wide receiver Sammy Watkins in 2014. Free agents can start signing with teams on March 10th; so the NFL off-season is getting ready to roll.

So who are you picking for NBA MVP for this season? I’ve heard a lot of talk about this the last week or so and it seems to have been narrowed down to four players. Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, James Harden of the Houston Rockets, Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder and of course LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Curry is averaging 23.9 points per game (PPG) is handing out 7.8 assists per game (APG) and leads the NBA. averaging 2.1 steals per game. Curry also leads the N.B.A. in 3-pointers attempted with 454 and 3-pointers made with 187. Don’t forget the Warriors also have the best record in the NBA at 46-12. James Harden is leading the NBA in scoring averaging 27.1 PPG he’s handing out 6.9 APG He leads the NBA in free throws made (492) and free throws attempted (568) and has taken the most shots in the league this season with 1062. The Rockets are in 2nd place at 41-19 a 1 1/2 games behind the Memphis Grizzlies in the Southwest division of the Western conference. Westbrook is averaging 26.5 PPG and handing out 8.1 APG The draw back with Westbrook maybe the fact that he’s missed 15 games so far this season and right now is recovering from surgery to repair facial fractures; so that missed game total may go up. The Thunder are 33-27 and hanging on to the 8th spot in the Western conference. You’d have to think if they don’t make the playoffs Westbrook may drop out of the MVP race. James may be in the same area as Westbrook is as he’s missed 11 games so far this season and you wonder if that total will go up as he takes games off getting ready for the playoff run. James does average 26.2 PPG he is also handing out 7.2 APG he does lead the NBA in field goals made with 479. The Cavaliers are in 2nd place at 38-24 and just a 1/2 behind the Chicago Bulls in the Central division of the Eastern conference. The votes are supposed to be turned in before the playoffs start; so that shouldn’t impact the voting. If I’m picking right now I’ll take Curry as the MVP with Harden 2nd, James 3rd with Westbrook 4th. How do you got?

We’ve been previewing the upcoming baseball season on Sports Time Radio by talking to different bloggers who cover the teams. Yesterday we had Brian Helberg from HaloHangout.com on with us to discuss the Los Angeles Angels 2015 season. On Friday we have a loaded line up of guests to talk baseball. Tony Fischer from HeatWaved.com will joins us at the start of the podcast (9:00 p.m.) to talk about the Arizona Diamondbacks 2015 season. At 9:30 p.m. Scott Andres from LasordsLair.com comes back on the podcast to talk about the Los Angeles Dodgers 2015 season. Mark O’Neill from AroundtheFoghorn.com joins us again (10:00 p.m.) to preview the San Francisco Giants 2015 season. Will wrap up the night with Billy Brost from FriarsOnBase.com talking San Diego Padres baseball starting at 10:30 p.m. It will be a full night of baseball on the podcast; so the season must be getting close to starting.

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How was Your Week?

Posted: November 15, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, football
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11/15/14

We’re heading into the home stretch for fantasy football as a lot of leagues wrap up a week or two before the regular season ends. I thought it would be a good time to look and see who’s been disappointing for fantasy owners. I’m going off of the ranking that were used in our longest running fantasy league called Next Year is Here 13. I know it’s 2014, but when I renewed the league I forgot to change the year. We’re going to try and stay away from players who missed multiple games because of injuries or suspension. At quarterback Jay Cutler of the Chicago Bears was the 18th rated player at draft time. Cutler is the 63rd ranked player going into Week 11. Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton was ranked 39th at the start of the season. Newton missed a lot of the pre-season injured and it seems to have carried over into the season as Newton is ranked as the 65th overall player right now. Colin Kaepernick the San Francisco 49ers quarterback was the 31st ranked player coming into the season. Through 11 weeks Kapernick is in the 89th position among all players. If you remember at the start of this fantasy football season all the talk was about the running backs being the guys you needed to have. In our league running backs where projected to be the top 5 scoring players in our league. Through 11 weeks there is only 1 running back (DeMarco Murray) in the top 5 total scores. LeShon McCoy of the Philadelphia Eagles was the #1 overall rated player in our league coming into the 2014 season. Right now McCoy is the 71st rated player in our league. Green Bay Packers running back Eddie Lacy was the 5th rated player in our league. As of right now Lacy is the 44th rated player. Zac Stacy of the St. Louis Rams came into the season as the 29th rated running back. Through 11 weeks Stacy is rated at 215th. There are probably quite a few more running backs that we could list here, but we’ll save that for the end of the season. A lot of the top wide receivers have been injured and missed multiple games; so they’ll get a pass right now. Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall was rated as the 13th overall player coming into 2014. Right now Marshall is rated as the 70th overall player. Keenan Allen if the San Diego Chargers was supposed to be the 27th overall player. Even with the solid year San Diego is having Allen is rated at 161st right now. Maybe Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Vincent Jackson was over rated at 36th to start the season. Even if Jackson was rated a little to high; he should be in a better position than 124th where he is right now.Injuries affect the tight end ratings as well and I actually had to search a little bit to find 3 tight ends. Playing in the up tempo Philadelphia Eagles offense Zac Ertz was in the 102nd position to start the season. Through 11 weeks Ertz is rated as the 137th overall player. Ladarius Green of the San Diego Chargers was supposed to take some catches away from Antonio Gates at tight end and that made Green the 137th rated player to start the season.Green was ranked 7 spots ahead of Gates. After 11 weeks Green is the 1782nd rated player overall while Gates is in the 37th spot. Since we need a third tight end let’s go with Tim Wright of the New England Patriots. Wright was traded to the Patriots at the start of the season and he was ranked as the 208th overall player. Right now Wright is ranked as the 208th overall player and while that not a huge drop I’m sure fantasy owners where looking at Rob Gronkowski’s injury history and thinking they might have a steal with Wright. I figured I’d looking and see if there where some kickers we could add as disappointing, but all 4 of them are rated higher now than where they started the season. The 4 kickers that are down from the start of the season are Josh Brown of the New York Giants. Brown started at 1814th and is now 2285th. Greg Zuerlein of the St. Louis Rams started the season at 1852nd and is now at 2301st. Ryan Succop of the Tennessee Titans started the season at 1857th and is now at 2309th. Oakland Raiders kicker Sebastian Janikowski started at 1968th and is now 2313rd. The team defense/special teams category had a few teams that dropped way down from where they started the season at. The Denver Broncos were rated 282nd to start and are now at 1755th. The Seattle Seahawks where rated at 133rd to start the season; the highest rated defense to start the season. Now the Seahawks defense is ranked at 177th. The St. Louis Rams defense came in at 177th to start the season. At the start of Week 11 the Rams defense is at 1785th. Come the end of the season we’ll have to see if these players turn it around of if 2014 is going to be disappointing for their fantasy owners.

The Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) handed out their awards for the Major League Baseball regular season. Remember these awards cover just the regular season; no post season included. Overall I thought they did a good job of picking award winner for the American League and National League at 4 of the 4 categories. AL Manager of the Year was Buck Showalter of the Baltimore Orioles while the Washington Nationals Matt Williams won the NL award. On a side note Schaumburg Stu picked both of these guys to win this award at the start of the season. In the AL, Jose Abreu won the Rookie of the Year award while Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets was the winner in the NL . I actually picked Abreu to win at the start of the season. I thought they might miss the AL Cy Young award winner, but they got the right guy as Cory Klober of the Cleveland Indians won the award. I thought they might go with “The King” Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners, but Hernandez finished 2nd in the voting. On the NL side Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers won the award getting all of the 1st place votes. Of course Kershaw was Dan the Man’s pick at the start of the season. Mike Trout was the unanimous selection for AL MVP and while Schaumburg Stu, Mr. Fantasy and I all had Trout winning this award I don’t think any of us thought he get all of the 1st place votes like he did. Where I think the BBWAA missed was their choice for NL MVP Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw pitched in 27 games this season. 27 games is just under 17% of the season. Does he deserve this award based on the fact that he’s only involved in 17% of his teams games; the answer should be NO! While Keshaw was dominant when he pitched he didn’t show up in enough games to win the MVP award. The mainstream media push that Kershaw got probably put him over the top for this award, but it’s sad that voters pay more attention to what people say than players on the field. Looking at the NL voting San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey finished 6th and was actually left off of a ballot; really off a ballot. I thought Posey and Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates who finished 3rd where the players who would battle it out for this award. Troy Tulowitzki of the Colorado Rockies got a 10th place vote from the voter who left Posey off his ballot. I would love to know how he thought that Tulowitski was a Top 10 MVP candidate, but Posey wasn’t. I know every year there are questions about how these awards are handed out, but like I said I think they got most of them correct this season. Well all, but one. Maybe next season they’ll get them all right.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

So how was your week?

8/30/14 How was your Week?

Posted: August 30, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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With the Major League Baseball pennant races heating up in a big way, the NFL getting ready to start and the Team USA keeping the NBA in the news people have a tendency to forget about the NHL in their off-season. The NHL did find a way to grab some headlines when a rumor came out that they where looking to add 4 expansion teams by the year 2017. The cities rumored to get expansion franchises are Las Vegas, Seattle, Quebec City and a second team in Toronto. NHL spokesman Gary Meagher has said that there’s no talk of adding teams and expansion isn’t on the Board of Governor’s agenda. NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed as much in an interview with TVA Sports that expansion was “Not in our plans,” he said. “Nothing new to report on expansion.” Any time you add teams to your league there’s a chance that it will water down your product but I like the idea of adding teams to the NHL. I think the cities that were mentioned would be good choices for NHL teams. Seattle has been looking for and deserves another professional sports team since the NBA’s Seattle Supersonics moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder. If you remember Quebec has had an NHL team before the Nordiques. The Nordiques started in the World Hockey League before moving to the NHL in 1979. They played in Quebec until the end of the 1995 season, after that season the team moved to Colorado and became the Avalanche. The Nordiques hold the distinction of being the only major professional sports team to have been based in Quebec City in the modern era, and one of only two ever; the other, the Quebec Bulldogs, played one season in the NHL in 1919–20. If you’re a Toronto Maple Leaf fan you might not like the idea of adding a 2nd team to the city there but it would be a good place for the NHL to add a team. The Maple Leafs are always among the best drawing teams in the NHL and as long as the 2nd team had an up to date stadium to play in and it wasn’t to close to where the Maple Leaf Gardens the team should do well. The interesting choice of cities would be the rumored team in Las Vegas. The first question that came to my mind was how would a professional hockey player handle the lifestyle of living in Las Vegas. A team in Vegas always raises the question if corruption might be an issue but players make so much money now; could someone actually buy an athlete off? I think at one point in time every major professional sports league has been rumored to be looking into having a team in Las Vegas and it looks like the NHL may be the first one to do it. How about you, are you for or against NHL expansion?

WE had our 1st of two fantasy football drafts last night. It was our traditional snake style draft. Snake style means you select #1 through #20 and then the team with the 20th pick gets the 21st pick and the draft heads back down to #1. I ended up with the 3rd pick in the draft. Dan the Man was picking 8th and Mr. Fantasy was way down at pick #17. At #3 I went with Philadelphia Eagles running back LeShon McCoy. Dan the Man also went running back in the 1st round taking Eddie Lacy of the Green Bay Packers. Being the homer that he is at #17 Mr. Fantasy selected Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall. Picking 4th in the 2nd round Mr. Fantasy took running back Alfred Morris of the Washington Redskins. With the 13th pick of the 2nd round Dan the Man went running back again taking C.J. Spiller of the Buffalo Bills. My next selection was the 18th pick of the 2nd round and I took another running back like Dan the Man did. I went with Toby Gerhart of the Jacksonville Jaquars. I don’t want to go over every selection we made, but I’d like to go through two more rounds with you; so you can get an idea how we try to build our teams. In the 3rd round I took Percy Harvin; wide receiver Seattle Seahawks. Dan the Man took New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz and Mr. Fantasy’s 3rd round pick was Cleveland Browns tight end Jordan Cameron. Working the other way for the 4th round Mr. Fantasy selected another Cleveland Browns player. This time he went with running back Ben Tate. I know you where hoping I was going to type Johnny Manziel, but the 4th round would be way, way early to take Johnny “Football” that would be really early. In the 4th round Dan the Man selected Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. When it got to my pick in the 4th round I took Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten. The Mr. irrelevant pick in our draft was New Orleans Saints safety Kenny Vaccaro. Vaccaro was the 20th pick in the 22nd round to end our draft last night. Our auction league draft is tonight and that has an entirely different strategy that the draft we had last night does. There are many. many theories on how to put your auction league teams together and I haven’t found one that works for me yet. I’ve always looked for players I thought would put up good numbers and tried to land them at a value price. Or I’ll take a player who seems to be a good value at the price he’s at when his name is on the board. The example I’ll give you from last season that blew up in my face was the quarterback position. I ended up with Eli manning and Matt Schaub at the quarterback position last season and I paid less that $15 dollars for them. I thought I was in a good position with 2 choices at quarterback that may not have been spectacular but very solid players. Not to go into too much detail, but you know how those 2 picks worked out for me. I have to find a way to either spend my money better or just get better performance out of the guys I pay for.

On the Thursday edition of Sports Time Radio we had on a guest. Al Yellon of www.bleedcubbieblue.com joined the show to talk a little Cubs baseball. We’re always looking for guest on Sports Time Radio; so if you know someone we should have on to talk any sport, contact us Sportstimeradio@hotmail.com

So how was your week?

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

How was your week 7/26/14

Posted: July 26, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, football, sports, Uncategorized
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Now that NFL training camps are open fantasy football drafts should start happening. Yesterday (Friday) on Sports Time Radio we spent the entire show discussing football. There’s also suppose to the first Mr. Fantasy mock draft coming soon; so look for that. The conversation of who would be the #1 overall pick in our league came up. I believe that it will be Philadelphia Eagles running back LeShom McCoy or Kansas City Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles. Mr. Fantasy added in Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson. While any of these 3 would be good choices I think Charles is the pick here. Out of these 3 running backs Charles is the only one with an experienced NFL quarterback in Alex Smith. While Nick Foles had a break out season last year for the Eagles there are still some questions about him and remember he didn’t play a full season. Even though Peterson is used to have what you would call a below average quarterback under center it allows teams to stack the line of scrimmage against him and it does hurt his numbers. Can you just imagine the kind of numbers Peterson might out up with just an average quarterback. Does Peterson having Matt Cassell, Christian Ponder or rookie Teddy Bridgewater handing him the ball make you think teams won’t be keying on him. Top running backs always need help from a quarterback and while McCoy will get some help from Foles I don’t think Peterson will get enough from his quarterback and Charles will get the most from Smith. If you don’t end up with a top 3 pick; what do you do? Well with the Marshawn Lynch hold out Matt Forte clearly looks like the next best running back on the board. After Forte there are a group of players that could have great seasons for you or could leave you looking at your team asking yourself why you drafted this guy in the 1st round. In our league you have to start 2 running backs a week; so we have to hunt up other guys as well. I have three running backs that I’m looking at and wondering if I get them as my 2nd running back will they be worth that spot. Toby Gerhart is with the Jacksonville jaguars now and all reports are saying they like him as a 3 down back. If this is the case even on a bad team Gerhart might be worth a shot. This is the first time Gerhart will be the #1 running back for a team and that may have him trying to prove something. Another running back who hasn’t really been under the radar the last few seasons, but has changed teams and is that teams #1 running option is Ben Tate. The Cleveland Browns signed Tate to be their #1 running back and take some pressure off of Brian Hoyer to start and then Johnny Manziel, Tate has put up good number before as Arian Foster back up with the Houston Texans, but in Cleveland he’s the clear-cut #1 running back. The 3rd guy on my list is Rashad Jennings now with the New York Giants. David Wilson is coming off a serious neck injury and even when healthy was a disappointment last season. Jennings has some injury concerns of his own, but the Giants like to run the football and this could increase his numbers for you. Jennings should be the Giants #1 running back and it’s nice to have the #1 running back on a year that likes to run the football. If your that Fantasy football guy who likes to try to find the best rookie running back this may be a tough season for you to do that. Off the bat it seems like the only one who might get a reasonable amount of playing time would be Bishop Sankey of the Tennessee Titans. While Sankey is scheduled to split time with Shonn Greene; Sankey is the receiving back out of the pair. This should help Sankey pick up points from 20 yard line to 20 yard line, but it’s Greene who the Titans will use in-goal line situations. That means Greene will steal some touchdowns that belong to Sankey and of course points from your team. As always it’s still early in the NFL season and injuries change things in a big, big hurry. Will have to see how pre-season plays out, but it’s always fun to talk about it.

It seems like when Dan the Man wasn’t looking the San Francisco Giants took the National League West division lead from his Los Angeles Dodgers. While the Giants only have a half of a game lead over the Dodgers as I’m writing this a lot of baseball experts had the Giants as dead when the Dodgers went past them into 1st place earlier in the season. In pre-season picks we all went with the Dodgers to win the West, but a lot of people made that choice. I did have the Giants in the playoffs as one of the wild card teams. As the trade deadline draws closer you wonder if either team will make a move to try to separate themselves in the division. There has been some talk that Matt Kemp would be okay with being traded by the Dodgers and you have to wonder what they could get in return for him. Kemp is signed through 2019 for around $20 million dollars a season. I guess the question I would ask is would Kemp the right combination of prospects and a whole bunch of money be enough for the Dodgers to land David Price. Dan the Man’s ears just perked up. Yes I said David Price. While the Tampa Bay Rays have worked their way back into the pennant race in the American League East you have to wonder if a deal like that could happen. Would the Dodgers be willing to deal a Joc Pederson, Julio Urias, Corey Seager or Alexander Guerrero in a package to bring back Price. It would be a lot to give up, but it could give the Dodgers a World Series. Without a deal by either the Giants or the Dodgers will have some fun watching the N.L. West these last couple months of the season.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.