So you aren't happy with your QB?

Mr. Bill Fredericks provides a good segway for me to introduce you to my (current) QB rankings of draft eligible players next year. Who will Vikings faithful fans look to save their franchise? Maybe one of these guys?

#1a - Johnny Manziel (Texas A&M)

Post-Heisman and throughout the summer, Manziel has done nothing but torpedo his draft stock. That said, his off-the-field problems are now more of an afterthought, and will be tabled until pre-draft talk in January. The reason for the change in the headlines is due to his play against top level SEC defenses. Who have had the whole offseason to prepare for Manziel, and to his credit, he has made them look foolish. While most publications mention his small stature and absolutely silly elusiveness, his canon of an arm is the real deal.

#1b - Zach Mettenberger (LSU)

Mettenberger is the definition of arm talent, effortlessly throwing all NFL required routes with ease. At 6-5/230 he is the prototypical pocket-passer that checks all the boxes. The one knock on him, is his soon-to-be "one year wonder" tag he will be given at the end of the year. He plays the same elite SEC defenses as Manziel, but is a part of a balanced offense that doesn't always showcase his abilities. Looking into my crystal ball, I see the debate over Mettenberger and Manziel, as this year's version of Luck or RG3.

#3 - Teddy Bridgewater (Louisville)

ESPN loves Teddy Bridgewater, and it irritates me. I've seen three Cardinal games, where the presumptive 'best draft eligible QB', has done nothing to wow me. Much like many college QBs, his stat line is inflated by a conservative game plan, and protected by playing shitty college defenses. Sure he makes the occasional good throw; he's fully capable of doing so. But ESPN shows the same highlight over-and-over again, trying to make America tune in... I get irritated. I might be wrong, but I don't see a sure-fire franchise QB.

#4 - Derek Carr (Fresno State)

Brother of former first overall pick David Carr, Derek Carr is insanely underrated. He doesn't get the pub that he deserves, and I could make an argument that he is the most NFL ready QB in this draft. Carr's decision making and field vision alone warrant a 1st round consideration. Pile on a solid arm and intangibles that GMs and coaches desire; he is an extremely safe 1st round pick. The not-so-great on Carr is the not-so-talented schedule, and an offensive scheme change that limits his downfield throws.

#5a - Marcus Mariota (Oregon)

To me, Mariota is the great unknown. There is a lot of hype going around with Mariota, and I respect those that speak highly of him. That said, he plays for a spread read-option offense that loves to use misdirection to fool terrible PAC-12 defenses. Continuing with the criticisms, the talent and dynamic nature of the Duck offense does not allow less-talented opponents from playing aggressive. Overall, I have my doubts about how his abilities would translate to the NFL game, and those same doubts would continue if he were to reunite with Chip Kelly. Sadly, based off all of the aforementioned, he likely won't get the opportunity to show me differently.

#5b - Brett Hundley (UCLA) 

About mid-to-late September, Hundley was mentioned as a possible top 3 QB in the upcoming draft. Today, that has been silenced. He lacks consistency and good judgement, which is never good... but his raw athletic capability and random glimpses of talent are hard to ignore. That said, he NEEDS another year at UCLA to refine his game. His offensive scheme has it's fair share of option-read elements and a lot of shotgun/pistol looks, which are more gimmicky against NFL defenses. I see some Colin Kaepernick in his game, but he is light-years from being anywhere close to that.

Bonus - Chuckie Keaton (Utah State)

Think Russell Wilson stature and football game, that's Chuckie Keaton. He is a junior and because of a season ending knee injury, he likely won't opt for the draft. That said, if he did...

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As of today, Mariota and Hundley are borderline 1st rounders, but moreso because of their athleticism and not much else. Considering the wealth of talent at QB, I would hope that both of these guys return for their redshirt junior seasons. To me Manziel, Mettenberger, Bridgewater, and Carr are all first rounders. Sure it's October, but reference back to this post in January and again in during the draft... my confidence level on these four QBs as the cream of the crop is pretty high. In short, I think I'm smarter than all those other yahoos.

Vikings Update: Dumpster Fire

Well, this is depressing. The QB carousel continues with Christian Ponder playing like an employee who knew that he was about to get laid-off but then was called back in to finish one last spreadsheet. The "boss" should know how this is going to end -- you're going to end up with horrible results because shitty work is the reason the guy's getting laid off in the first place, and now you've obliterated whatever was left of his motivation.

And now I see this "headline" on ESPN: "Frazier: No QB announcement until Friday." Oh boy, who's it going to be?? This is what we have to look forward to if it's Freeman:

The only game of his career when Freeman had a worse completion percentage than his 37.8 rate in his Vikings debut was -- you guessed it -- in Dallas against the Cowboys last year while he was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Freeman hit just 10 of his 28 passes that day, throwing for 110 yards, a touchdown and an interception. He also fumbled twice that day, though the Buccaneers recovered both fumbles.

Yippee. Yet somehow I can't look away from this team. I'll still probably watch on Sunday because what else am I going to do? Parent? No thank you.

Weekly FAAB update

Quite the busy week this week with 11 players (over $1) coming off waivers via the FAAB. Bill had the slick-rick move of the week, outbidding Marcus by $1 for a guy who'll be dropped in 2 weeks.  Overall a lot of action by a few team as 4 teams had multiple pick ups. This weeks, "God, I hope you don't manage your personal budget the same way you do your FAAB" award winner is: Kenni. He bid $25 more than he should have. Close second is Dallas, who bid $15 for a guy I put in a $0 bid for. Way to snipe him from me...

A lot of teams bid more than $1 for guys that no one else bid on. Is this a sign that people are getting antsy with their money, are people psyching each other out or a sign that everyone else is happy with their team. We'll see if this pattern continues next week.

Player	Cost	Team	Next Highest Bid	Differential	Pickup week
Heath Miller	$3	Dallas	$1	$2	8
Marvin Jones	$22	Bill	$21	$1	9
Kendall Wright*	$15	Dallas	$0	$15	9
Emmanual Sanders*	$19	Kenni	$0	$19	9
Alex Smith	$8	Kenni	$1	$7	9
Kenny Stills	$8	Bill	$0	$8	9
Montee Ball	$7	Gow	$0	$7	9
Bilal Powell	$6	Gow	$0	$6	9
Kyle Rudolph	$3	Crabs	$0	$3	9
Dwayne Bowe	$2	Gow	$0	$2	9
Adam Vinatieri	$2	Dallas	$0	$2	9

Monday Update: A Whole New Ballgame

Gentlemen,

Week 8 is basically in the books. There's a game tonight, but every game is basically over.

How do you feel about your team at this point? 

Before you answer that, let's look at this in another way... At the beginning of this season, before anything ever happened including the draft, we all wagered $100. Essentially, you were betting on yourself.

It is October and the Gophers are bowl eligible! No, really.

Sorry, for missing the update last week.  In case you missed it the Gophers defeated Northwestern 20-17 in a game that felt a lot more like a 27-10 blow out.  I say that because that should have been the score if not for a little home cooking that took away a Gopher TD and gave NU the ball back on a failed 4th down conversion.  Nonetheless, here are the highlights if you've been living under a rock.

Cliff Notes: Ra'Shede Hageman is a beast and with the ESPN cameras focused on him he played arguably the best game of his career (up to that point) with an Int and 3 pass break-ups.

However, that is old news.  This is the new news: the Gophers defeated Nebraska 34-23 to bring their record to 6-2 (2-2) and make them bowl eligible. 

The most impressive thing about the win to me was that it didn't feel like there was any luck involved.  We were clearly the better, more physical team that shoved the ball down the throat of the Huskers.

By the numbers:

• Gophers outgained Northwestern 430-328
• Gophers rushed for 271 yards
• As an indication of what play-action can do when the running game is working, Gopher QB Phillip Nelson needed only 7 completions to throw for 152 yards.
• The Gophers averaged 7.5 yards on first down
• The Gophers had 4 sacks of Nebraska.  Nebraska had only allowed 3 sacks all season heading in to the game.

To close the discussion, I wanted a way to best represent the game in gif form.  This is what I came up with:

Tracy Claeys = Peter Griffin, Bo Pelini = Candy Bar

Up next: @ Indiana

What to expect: Offense.  Indiana has a really good one (#10 passing @ 342.7 ypg / #8 scoring @42.4ppg) and a really bad defense (#112 run defense @ 221 ypg /#110 scoring @ 37.1ppg).  The recipe for a win will be to keep the ball on the ground, eat clock, and score TDs to keep the Indiana offense on the sideline.

Week 8 Gameday Thread

Sorry for the delay again, boys. Doesn't look like I missed too much as most of our fantasy teams are stinking out the joint, other than Cracker.

Let's get some chatter going today.

TEAM NAME WEEK 8 -- “If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody come sit next to me.”

Well since my Tebow post the other week I failed, but so has Tebow so you should have seen that coming. As Dave Chappelle once said, "If you have hate in your heart let it out!"

So this week, we're gonna let some steam out instead of contemplating bringing a gun to the workplace to threaten that asshole that sits across from you that constantly clears his throat.  It's OPPONENT SLANDER WEEK! Whoever is across the matchup board from you, take 'em down a peg. Remember that time your opponent stole your formal date? Stole beer out of your fridge? Stole Mountain Dew out of your fridge? Stole your jacket and never returned it? Wore your underwear? Yeah those type of things! On a completely unrelated note, sorry Marcus Whitebread, Sorry Mort Saayed, Sorry Rob Jerks, Sorry Juan Coconuts (times two).  Wow that felt really good to get off my electronic chest.

Now on to the good part. Fortunately for me, I have multiple pictures and stories to harass my opponent with. Unfortunately for Juan, he's my opponent.

I know there's a spelling error, but seriously when is the last time you wrote a Mexican name instead of yelling it at them over the sound of a leaf blower? Exactly...can they even write their own names? I figured the only time they scribble out something that resembles a name is when they're sending more money out of this country down to Guadalajara at the local Western Union office. 

 

Juan racked up quite a few accolades in his time, but this was always his most proud award.

 

Juan after he blew a coconut while celebrating his award...and probably showing off a little too with his advanced techniques.  We could learn a lot from him, people.

Well that's my attempt to stir up drama.  I really don't care if you want to play or not, these pictures were burning a hole in my pocket (hard drive) and I really needed to share.  Don't you worry though....so many more to post.  But I'll save that for another pointless post.



Weekly FAAB update

Well, well. Bye weeks and injuries made this quite the busy week. Reed, Ivory, Boykin and James all had at least 4 teams put in bids. This weeks turd goes to myself for paying $6 more than anyone even considered for Roy Helu Jr.

Player	Cost	Team	Next Highest Bid	Differential	Pickup week
Chris Ivory	$17	Kenni	$14	$3	8
Jarret Boykin	$28	Bob	$26	$2	8
Jordan Reed	$31	Bob	$24	$7	8
Miek James	$12	Juan	$12	$0	8
Roy Helu Jr	$6	Ned	$0	$6	8

Monday Update: All Us Rowdy Friends!

I miss Hank.

Gentlemen,

We'll get to all the games and usual bullshit that no one comments on in a second. But I am really excited for tonight.

I have no idea why the Vikings are playing on Monday Night Football, especially a non-division game, but who cares? Our team is terrible and we're starting a new QB who could also be terrible but has a non-zero chance to be the franchise savior. The possibilities are limitless!

Week 7 Gameday Thread

Gents,

Sorry for the delay... I've had CenterPoint here for the last 3 hours fixing my furnace. The good news is my house is actually being heated now.

Here's a open thread for those that care...

Looks like my team is collectively taking a big dump on my face this week. Dicks.

Weekly FAAB update

Another week in the books, another week for Bill to throw his $ around on a Cowboy. This week we see Heath Miller go for $8 more than anyone else even thought about paying (Not saying he's a bad pickup, I'm just surprised that no one else even put in a $0 bid) and Gow put his faith in the Vikings D against the Giants. Am I the only one who thinks he would get more points by not starting a D and just taking a zero in that spot?

Player	Cost	Team	Next Highest Bid	Differential	Pickup week
Joseph Randle	$26	Bill	$12	$14	7
Brandon Jacobs	$24	Gow	$17	$7	7
Heath Miller	$8	Juan	$0	$8	7
Mason Crosby	$3	Crabs	$0	$3	7
Nick Foles	$2	Ned	$0	$2	7

Vikings Update: Clash of the 1-3's

We knew going into Sunday that this was undoubtedly going to be the NFL's biggest game of the week, even more exciting than Patriots v. Saints. And if you watched this game from start to finish, it did not disappoint! Unfortunately for us, 90's teal was better than classic purple on this day.

One of my personal most pressing questions coming into this game was, "Who is this Jeff Locke guy? I mean, do we have a punter or not? Seriously, who kicks a ball with their left leg?" I feel a bit embarrassed now since Mr. Locke proved me dead wrong. Looking at the stats, he averaged 49.8 yards per punt with a long of 60 yards! Never mind that when you're offense is consistently punting from your own side of the field, this may have an influence on the high punting average. What I do know is that Jeff Locke is for real and is worth that fifth round pick that could have netted in let's say another player who would be getting all blowed up by small receivers. Which brings me to the only other highlights of the game worth mentioning.


Speaking of Vikings draft picks, one of our number 1's got blowed up by Ted Ginn, Jr., who I think is my height. Little Teddy had done nothing of significance with his career until this happened on Sunday. Boom.

Xavier Rhodes should have just laid there for the rest of the game, because he later pissed off Steve Smith with some after-the-play hand-slapping. I think it's common knowledge in the NFL to not make Steve Smith angry because he will personally dismantle your team. You should have just stayed on the sidelines for this play Chad Greenway.

Hey, Greg Jennings plays football! His spectacular one-handed catch for no gain was the highlight of the game for the Vikes. Do you realize at one point in the game, Jennings had four catches for six yards? Magnificent. Who needs Julio Jones when you can get this type of production on your fantasy football squad?

 

Interesting trivia question from this game: Who is the former pro-bowl Browns quarterback that is still on an NFL roster that everyone thought was dead? Answer: Derek Anderson. It was so nice to see him get some playing time against the Vikings!

On to next week versus the Giants on MNF! (side note: I'm planning on making my MNF debut for this). Any thoughts on the over/under on how many times we will see the salsa dance? I'm hoping to see this frequently as I had zero position players score TD's in my starting lineup last week.

So we should probably talk about Josh Freeman, right? I took a bye week from writing one of these last week thinking, "Well, at least the Vikings won't get any worse this week." And boy was I wrong! I really think they missed the boat by not also signing Matt Flynn while he was available because the only thing better than three incompetent quarterbacks would be four incompetent quarterbacks.The Freeman signing is a peculiar note in Vikings history because he is a young retread, not like the old retreads of Donovan McNabb, Favre, Jeff George, Randall Cunningham, Warren Moon, Bob Loblaw, etc. Maybe they were thinking, "He eviscerated us last year, so he'll probably do the same when playing for us." The only problem with this line of thinking is that he is not good at playing quarterback.

I think a few weeks ago I said something like this is a decent but flawed team, but that sounds like an overly gracious compliment after this past week. So what can Freeman do as quarterback of the Vikings? The easy and correct answer is nothing. Josh Freeman, please prove me wrong.

Monday Update: Does This Blog Still Work?

Gentlemen,

Ok, we've had a bit of a respite here... No Monday Update* last week. Many forgotten Gameday Threads. Andy has already become too frustrated with the apathy for Team Names that we're stuck looking at [Insert Funny Here] for weeks on end...

As an aside, Lo Alcohol Tolerance is not a good name, but by spelling it as is, I always initially think Crabs was referring to Lois' (a.k.a. "Lo" among other things) alcohol tolerance. It makes me laugh, and then I realize it's just a dumb name.

Here's the point: to piggyback on Andy's Tebow speech, I'll work to be better. I have not abandoned you.

Beginning: Today.

"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be" -- John Wooden

Hey assholes, as our BOTT brother once said in so many words.  Not blogging about team names for a week isn't dickish, but someone not picking up the reins and adapting to that blog failure is worse.  That's when Bill stepped in and we all commend him for that.  Even thought the theme was gay as the day is long doesn't play into his spirit as a team player.  On behalf of a half grateful league, we salute you!

"To the fans and everyone in BOTT BALL Nation," "I'm sorry, extremely sorry. We were hoping for an undefeated team name season. That was my goal. It's something that's never been done here. But I will promise you one thing. A lot of good will come out of this. You will never see any blogger in the country blog as hard as I will blog the rest of the season. You will never see someone push the rest of the blog as hard as I will blog the rest of the season. You will never see a blog blog harder than we will the rest of the season. God bless."

I believe this says "John -1638-" which means Tim had a huge boner for Coconuts

 

I dug deep for this gem. So after you all had a quality spank to this (no Coconuts! bad Coconuts! you can't have two Pi Phis!) THIS WEEK's NAME: Tell us the worst thing about U of M sororities...



So I'm going to hell for this one but what would "Captain Hook" do if they still did this for bid day and the two sided tape ran out?

New Team Name Topic

I really need to change this team name as it's starting to give bad karma. So, off the top of my head, let's say the new topic is your most cherished toy when you were growing up. Change it if you like, or don't. I really don't care.

Weekly FAAB pickups

Slow week on the blog, huh? Anyway, here's this weeks pickup list. Bill Fredricks get the busy bee award this week with not only 2 claims, but also the WTF? of the week. Maybe the yahoo thing is broken again, so please comment if you did bid on Terrance Williams.

I'm working on a calculation to figure out the percentage of bid versus next highest bid, or WTF? percentage. If my calculations are correct (which they probably aren't), Terrance Williams is a worse overbid that Julian Edelman... My numbers really don't favor those who go against 0 bids.

Player	Cost	Team	Next Highest Bid	Differential	Pickup week
Jay Cutler	$11	Juan	$11	$0	6
Danarius Moore	$16	Marcus	$9	7	6
Steven Hauschka*	$2	Bill	$0	2	6
Terrance Williams	$12	Bill	$0	12	6

* denotes player with a $0 bid by another team.

Gopher Update: Little Brown Jug

'Twas the night before Little Brown Jug, when all through Ann Arbor

Not a creature was stirring, not even Jerry Kill;

The Minnesota fans were drinking at Blue Leprechaun,

In hopes that Nagurski soon would be there;

While visions of Maroney at midfield danced in their heads.

However, it was not to be this year.  At times Mitch Leidner looked good replacing Phillip Nelson but a head-coachless Gopher team proved no match for the mediocre looking Wolverines.  The highlight for the Gophers has to be that the running game looked much better than the prior week versus Iowa (41 carries for 136 yards), the improvement from the QB position (14/21 for 145 yards) and the continued emergence of freshman TE Maxx Williams who had 5 reception for 54 yards including this beauty for a TD.

The Gophers now have a week to regroup before heading to Evanston, IL to face a Northwestern team that looked very good in a close loss to the #3 rated Buckeyes (well, it was close until OSU covered the spread on the last play of the game when a series of desperation laterals by NU resulted in a fumble in the end zone that was recovered by the Buckeyes).  With Jerry Kill missing his first full game as Gophers coach, due to an epileptic seizure suffered Saturday morning, questions are going to be asked about the health of Jerry Kill and at what point does it turn in to more than just a distraction.  I'm in the camp that thinks Jerry Kill has earned the right to make that determination himself with his doctor and his family but at this point he has missed 25% of the season and if that persists it is a real problem.

It's never too early to start planning for Monday Night.

So here's the deal: I'm not a big fan of the rotating, decide the day of, lets try this place, MNF. I like to be able to know where I'm going well in advance so I have enough time to plan on it.

Let's start working on next week (and hopefully, all weeks).

For those that have been experimenting: have you found a place that you would want to go again? For those that haven't been able to make it out: would there be a place that you would suggest (and make it out)? If we're just going to rotate, I'm not opposed to locales that are closer to those with parental obligations.

What criteria are we looking for in a bar? TV's, drink specials, easy to find? (Marcus, don't even pull that "beer selection" crap. Every bar has about 3 "craft" beers on tap these days) Personally, I just want to be able to see/hear the game and not get yelled at by mgmt when Juan and/or Marcus get arguing.

I know certain people won't like my suggestions because they are chains, but what about the BW3 on Campus? Or Sensors in Roseville. They have plenty of TV's and will have audio.

Please discuss in the comments below.

Read'em and weep, boys. Rashad Jennings was never even within reach for those of us who are sensible...
Second week in a row that Gow has overspent for a player. 

Player	Cost	Team	Next Highest Bid	Differential	Pickup week
Greg Jennings	$4	Fred	$3	$1	5
Rashad Jennings	$22	Gow	$9	$13	5
Danny Woodhead	$9	Dallas	$7	$2	5
St Louis	$3	Gow	$1	$2	5