Power Powell Rankings Week 3: Eye Of The Tiger
Preface:
God, I'm going to get a "John, you're being pretentious" series of eye rolls for this one from Keith. I hope putting a preface is worth it.
I can't handle going to the gym fellas. For me it's a perfect amalgamation of all the variables of society that can hit my annoyance button almost immediately. For the sake of argument I'll say I haven't gone to a physical gym per say since I was rooming with Drew. I'm a free spirit "the world is my gym" type and going to a building to develop muscle groups and stamina produces the same visceral reaction that I'm sure most of you get when you picture someone kicking a puppy. At the gym there isn't necessarily a personality type one can generalize to mean "gym person". I can lump a bunch of off-putting stereotypes and characteristics with ease, but these features usually only emanate from certain people there. For the sake of not naming every level of Hell described in Dante's Inferno, I'll just say it seems to be a veritable smorgasbord of all these seven deadly sins exhibited by those clientele. I'd assume that that type of "gym person" at this point would call my view of this environment as "negative", "dickish" and (my personal favourite) "cynical." They might have something there, but what I believe they're overlooking (can you believe it?) is that I do admire the core of what they're doing a lot. Like a lot a lot. Each day each of these human beings decide to go and try to better themselves in a way that they believe is true and correct. I just can't handle that they throw all the dopamine and serotonin fuelled responses in the form of fitness centre boorishness and evangelism. We've all heard it when we've put on a couple pounds: "oh you should just do blank, that's what I do", "have you tried blank? It might work for you". I'm guilty of doing that, I try not to as much as I've realized we need to figure out our own way of doing things and some times the best way of doing things is keeping your nose out. The point I'm trying to make with this preface is this, if you love fantasy football as much as I do then go about it the way you want to and don't put so much stock in what other manager's are doing. Fantasy football is a competition, a game of probability and it's not worth getting bent out of shape about.
Power Powell Rankings Week 3: Eye Of The Tiger
I had a pretty traumatic incident happen to me about a year and a half ago. It felt like everything I perceived as real in my world was not only shallow, but possibly not even there. When I'd ask if other's were seeing what I was seeing, I got blank stares and a lack of understanding for my point of view. It was a stressful enough experience to make me decide to make a life changing decision.
I decided to dissect everything that I thought made me John and cut it all off. The plan was then to put back the pieces that I believed were positive, beneficial and true to myself so I'd become the best version of myself.
Long story short it's taken a long time to do what I planned to do and I'm not there yet, but at least I'm not as depressingly nihilistic as I was last year (that's been met with overwhelming positivity at the Dirom household). Hell, I even feel like I'm a little bit more upbeat and positive now. I mean not "gym person" hyped (see how I tied that shoelace?), but I look at most parts of my life with a tethered level of excitement.
God, I'm going to get a "John, you're being pretentious" series of eye rolls for this one from Keith. I hope putting a preface is worth it.
I can't handle going to the gym fellas. For me it's a perfect amalgamation of all the variables of society that can hit my annoyance button almost immediately. For the sake of argument I'll say I haven't gone to a physical gym per say since I was rooming with Drew. I'm a free spirit "the world is my gym" type and going to a building to develop muscle groups and stamina produces the same visceral reaction that I'm sure most of you get when you picture someone kicking a puppy. At the gym there isn't necessarily a personality type one can generalize to mean "gym person". I can lump a bunch of off-putting stereotypes and characteristics with ease, but these features usually only emanate from certain people there. For the sake of not naming every level of Hell described in Dante's Inferno, I'll just say it seems to be a veritable smorgasbord of all these seven deadly sins exhibited by those clientele. I'd assume that that type of "gym person" at this point would call my view of this environment as "negative", "dickish" and (my personal favourite) "cynical." They might have something there, but what I believe they're overlooking (can you believe it?) is that I do admire the core of what they're doing a lot. Like a lot a lot. Each day each of these human beings decide to go and try to better themselves in a way that they believe is true and correct. I just can't handle that they throw all the dopamine and serotonin fuelled responses in the form of fitness centre boorishness and evangelism. We've all heard it when we've put on a couple pounds: "oh you should just do blank, that's what I do", "have you tried blank? It might work for you". I'm guilty of doing that, I try not to as much as I've realized we need to figure out our own way of doing things and some times the best way of doing things is keeping your nose out. The point I'm trying to make with this preface is this, if you love fantasy football as much as I do then go about it the way you want to and don't put so much stock in what other manager's are doing. Fantasy football is a competition, a game of probability and it's not worth getting bent out of shape about.
Power Powell Rankings Week 3: Eye Of The Tiger
I had a pretty traumatic incident happen to me about a year and a half ago. It felt like everything I perceived as real in my world was not only shallow, but possibly not even there. When I'd ask if other's were seeing what I was seeing, I got blank stares and a lack of understanding for my point of view. It was a stressful enough experience to make me decide to make a life changing decision.
I decided to dissect everything that I thought made me John and cut it all off. The plan was then to put back the pieces that I believed were positive, beneficial and true to myself so I'd become the best version of myself.
Long story short it's taken a long time to do what I planned to do and I'm not there yet, but at least I'm not as depressingly nihilistic as I was last year (that's been met with overwhelming positivity at the Dirom household). Hell, I even feel like I'm a little bit more upbeat and positive now. I mean not "gym person" hyped (see how I tied that shoelace?), but I look at most parts of my life with a tethered level of excitement.
It's been pretty difficult. It took a lot of habitual changes, physical/mental training and a lot of film watching. Not just NCAA prospect film, like normal films. My favourite film of the last eighteen months has been Rocky. I'm not entirely sure if it's even that unoriginal to like that movie at this point in North American culture, but I'm not going to lie. I love the direction, the grittiness of the Philadelphia streets and, most of all, the titular character. Rocky at the beginning of the flick is lovable, but hard to relate to. By the end of the show he's become an idea, a goal or an aspiration that seems unachievable. I've watched a film from the series at least once every six weeks, I'm hooked. It's helped me continue to keep putting the real John together and out there for the world, cracks and all.
The reason I bring it up is this is a new era for The Fantasy League Of Extraordinary Gentleman. We've added two owners, whilst maintaining the current keeper system. I've got to be honest I really never thought about some of the variables I've observed over the first two weeks of the season. It's been a really different season than others. There has been an consistent waiver wire scrimmage, but the elephant in the room, over the last week, has been trades.
In the TFLOEG we have a free market trading system with a vote against option to avoid the odd chance of collusion. More often then not over the years, the trades have been accepted without incident, but due to the inclusion of Blackberry Messenger to our league my phone was in a tizzy going into the Thursday Night game. Some owner's felt the trade was one sided and other's were apathetic; but it seemed necessary for these manager's views to have a Commissioner response.
It was hard to not let my own feelings on the matters cloud the responses I had to put out with a level of democratic candour. In my heart I knew that the owner's involved had no idea that there would be this level of outcry and there was no real malice intended.
The fact is this managers, TFLOEG is a democracy and sometimes it won't seem fair to some of you. But, what makes this league the best fantasy league any of us have ever been in is the fact that there is democracy and we all give varying degrees of a crap about each other. It's not another lame NFL.com sanctioned league with nameless opponents you never talk to, it's a community. We have a league, a blog, a BBM group, annual owner's breakfasts and an occasional podcast (spoiler alert). We're a lifestyle and I'm the commissioner of that lifestyle. I stated in the preface that I hate fitness evangelism, but I'm going to do it just this one time for the league.
I watched that a couple times before this week's match ups, hell I usually watch that clip once a week regardless. All I have to say fellas, is put your lineups together as best you can this season, but as Rocky'll tell ya stop "looking for something to blame" if you feel trades are seemingly unfair, if you're team is 0-2 or if there's fluke injuries taking over your team "that's what cowards do and that ain't you!"
LET IT BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!
1. Oh That's Nasty (Dawson)- Dawson made a bunch of moves last week and, as a result, has a fairly stacked starting lineup. The overlooked side of all the transactions is that his depth at the positions is now lacking. If this Tevin Coleman injury lingers too far it may be costly. However, you have to admire his effort for sending trades around the league!
"It ain't about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." -Rocky
Until next week,
-The Commish
For you eager beavers check this out:
The reason I bring it up is this is a new era for The Fantasy League Of Extraordinary Gentleman. We've added two owners, whilst maintaining the current keeper system. I've got to be honest I really never thought about some of the variables I've observed over the first two weeks of the season. It's been a really different season than others. There has been an consistent waiver wire scrimmage, but the elephant in the room, over the last week, has been trades.
In the TFLOEG we have a free market trading system with a vote against option to avoid the odd chance of collusion. More often then not over the years, the trades have been accepted without incident, but due to the inclusion of Blackberry Messenger to our league my phone was in a tizzy going into the Thursday Night game. Some owner's felt the trade was one sided and other's were apathetic; but it seemed necessary for these manager's views to have a Commissioner response.
It was hard to not let my own feelings on the matters cloud the responses I had to put out with a level of democratic candour. In my heart I knew that the owner's involved had no idea that there would be this level of outcry and there was no real malice intended.
The fact is this managers, TFLOEG is a democracy and sometimes it won't seem fair to some of you. But, what makes this league the best fantasy league any of us have ever been in is the fact that there is democracy and we all give varying degrees of a crap about each other. It's not another lame NFL.com sanctioned league with nameless opponents you never talk to, it's a community. We have a league, a blog, a BBM group, annual owner's breakfasts and an occasional podcast (spoiler alert). We're a lifestyle and I'm the commissioner of that lifestyle. I stated in the preface that I hate fitness evangelism, but I'm going to do it just this one time for the league.
I watched that a couple times before this week's match ups, hell I usually watch that clip once a week regardless. All I have to say fellas, is put your lineups together as best you can this season, but as Rocky'll tell ya stop "looking for something to blame" if you feel trades are seemingly unfair, if you're team is 0-2 or if there's fluke injuries taking over your team "that's what cowards do and that ain't you!"
LET IT BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!
1. Oh That's Nasty (Dawson)- Dawson made a bunch of moves last week and, as a result, has a fairly stacked starting lineup. The overlooked side of all the transactions is that his depth at the positions is now lacking. If this Tevin Coleman injury lingers too far it may be costly. However, you have to admire his effort for sending trades around the league!
2. Clipboard Jesus (Andrew)- Andrew's team is still comfortable at the number two spot. Both Andrew and I have two homer players in our starting lineup and it hasn't necessarily worked out, yet. I think this Sunday Andrew will be on cloud nine with double Jimmy Graham TDs, double Beast mode TDs and the Seahawks moving to 1-2!
3. You can run but you can't Hyde (Steve)- Steve's team is essentially the embodiment of a dark horse team. Every time you try to count him out he finds a way to win. That Marshall play was ridiculous good! If this keeps up we may have to have a jersey ceremony over Skype.
4. NFL OWNER (Shayne)- Shayne's in a fortunate situation having his home team QB as his fantasy QB. As NFL.com's Chris Wessling has said of Roger's play of late "he looks like MJ out there, trying new things just to challenge himself." The flip pass to Lacy last week and that cocky grin. It doesn't hurt having Gronk's longest active TD per game streak to hang your hat on.
5. NINERS (Stan)- Stan's team still looks good despite a close loss this week. The only question I have is whether or not it may be time to put in Carson Palmer, that guy is unstoppable right now. But, having both Palmer and Ryan is a problem worth having.
6. The Fear Boners (John)- The Eagles will determine my season and so far that looks to be an up and down emotional rollercoaster. I'm game.
7. Las Vegas Posse (Clarke)- Both the expansion teams got a win this week! The reason I put Clarke above, is that he made the Dez deal. It might not work out for him this season, but as he's told me this year "I'm playing for next year". Gurley, Yeldin, Dez and Jeffrey it's a good looking future...
8. No Punt Intended (Travis)- However, Travis has an exciting looking present. He picked up two players I'm keen to watch in his trade with Dawson, but he didn't have that killer instinct I was hoping for. Brass tacks fellas, anyone who's been in a fantasy baseball/hockey league with Dawson before has seen this manic frenzy of roster moves. I'm happy you've found a boy for you're stable in Tyrod Taylor, but I would have grabbed Tannehill as well from Dawson. Just a whisker, just a whisker.
9. The Keith-glorius Basterds (Keith)- This is going to be the hardest one to write, because I don't want to anger Jakeithba. Keith is at the top of the ranks for 0-2 teams, but his record is still 0-2 that's why he's here. He has the best one-two punch of receivers and a lot of potential; but he's still 0-2. My heart is breaking for his team this week due to injuries (Brees is perceivably out, don't believe the might play hype). For sake of argument, if Lacy didn't get injured so quickly this rank would not be where it is. Hopefully Keith's bad luck is just about to change and brighter win's are in store for my parter in rhyme.
10. My Ball Zack Ertz (Aaron)- Aaron had a win y'all. But, Brandon Marshall... Man that was a hard matchup to watch, my Bro-lo and my protege. Most weeks I cheer against whoever plays either of them to be honest, but this time I had to back out emotionally. He's got Brady and some gumption. I'm excited to see what happens when Foster gets back.
11. Layeth The Smacketh Down (Curtis)- Look, I always tell you folks that if you listen to fantasy football podcasts, it'll help you awareness of player personnel and potential in the game. The only podcast I listen to in the regular season is not NFL.com or ESPN or CBS, it's The Fantasy Footballers . These guys have been on the David Johnson hype train for months, so much so that every time they say his name it's to Love Rollercoaster by Red Hot Chili Peppers . Curtis' team is frisky in all the right places and I got to tell you I watch his roster some days with a lot of excitement.
12. Scraps (Mike)- Mike is active and looking for ways to make his team better. I love it! Chris Ivory was a good pick up, but like I said with Travis' blurb I would have gouged Dawson a little for Megatron.
"It ain't about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." -Rocky
Until next week,
-The Commish
For you eager beavers check this out:
No worries John, no anger here. I let all my thoughts out last week, and I'm at peace with your ranking system (at least until next season when the same idea bothers me again).
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