Where have you been and what's the delay in getting a mailbag? Are you going to become a poor man's Sports Guy and give us a column once every 6 months?
- Angie via Twitter
To be even the poorest man's poor man version of the Sports Guy would be an honor, but I still wouldn’t make my readers wait six months for a column…and I work for a living. So, yeah Sports Guy, if you can even call yourself that anymore (Commissioner's Note: I think he goes by Bill now), are you even relevant anymore? Asking for a friend.
But where I have been…I could come up with something witty and exciting to say, but the reality is my life is crazy busy but at the same time incredibly boring. Let’s see, I work a new job, had to deal with Year End of said job, daughter needed tubes in her ears, I had finals for two Fall Semester MBA classes (Commissioner's Note: Showoff), a very sick dog who I thought we were going to have to put down (who has recovered hallelujah!)….I think that’s about it. BUT I’M BACK BABY!
Among the 13 other GMRRFFA owners, which owner's actions led to the most embarrassing moment you've ever been involved in? - The Commissioner, DC You’re really testing my memory here which is dwindling to the point that I have been considering the stuff I see on TV but I can’t remember what it’s called…definition of irony, but let’s use everyone's favorite crutch in this scenario and use GOOGLE! The search results are in and survey says PREVAGEN, yeah I need to try that stuff, I could use a libido boost and staying power. Wait, what problem did I want to fix?
Back on topic, the action that caused the most embarrassing moment for me was something that your boy Smeet did. Since I was a terrible owner for most(?) of the season and blew FAAB dollars TWICE on the likes of Fitzmagic and overpaying for TJ Yeldon, I ended up having 0 ability to pick up any free agents. This leads me to trading my only TE left, Vance “Big” McDonald for Eli Manning and Mike Davis to fill some needs heading into the LB6. At this point I was thinking I had no shot at winning said bracket because SOMEHOW a playoff contender decided to offload Mahomes and Chubb to a team in the losers bracket and I was ok with not playing a TE. But then I decided I needed to make an effort to try and play with a full team. This leads to the most embarrassing moment. I had to BEG Toby for the last healthy TE standing for the Bengals and pay him with Future Draft dollars and the best kicker to ever play for the Bears (wish they still had him I bet), Robbie Gould. Nothing is more embarrassing than that. Well maybe trading a CHEAP keeper in Mahomes is worse. Yeah that is, but begging Toby for anything is pretty bad.
What was your New Years resolution, and how quickly was it abandoned?
- My extra 40 pounds, Parsippany, NJ
Leave me alone! I stopped making resolutions so therefore I can’t be a quitter. Though my LAST New Years resolution was to be able to dunk a basketball again. I thought that was a great idea as it gave me an actionable goal that wasn’t predicated on diet or weight loss per se but just being able to do something athletic. However, I gave up when I tried learning how to jump rope and discovered I couldn’t.
Who would you compare Tom Brady to in real life?
- Aliens, Outer Space
Hold up, this ISN’T real life? Tom Brady isn’t real? He certainly looks real, and makes funny middle-aged white guy jokes like he and LeBron James are both amazing athletes.
I am going to assume you mean like a regular, non-famous person, like someone who hasn’t been to nine Super Bowls. Without spending much time on this, I would have to say our boy Vienna Sausages (Commissioner's Note: WTF? You know thousands of people on a planet with billions of people, and you choose the Sausage King???). When it comes to things that don’t matter at all like Beer Pong and Fantasy Football, the guy is a savant. He can lead teams to the championship one Solo cup at a time, or through insane amounts of trades. If anyone was keeping track at home, I think he decided after drafting Bell, he would mastermind 100 trades till he ended up with CMC on his team, and he succeeded. Seriously has anyone ever been involved with this many trades of decent players so much in one season? EVER? To recap:
1)Trades Mixon, Michel, and Kupp, for Garcon, AB, and Agholor before the season even starts.
2)Trades AB for John Brown and AJ Green.
3)Trades Green, Yeldon, Cooper for CMC, Chester Rogers, and Christian Kirk
4)Trades Bell for Ingram II
5)Trades Ingram II for DJ Moore
6)Trades Cam Newton for Matt Breida and Russell Wilson
7)Trades his Soul to the Devil for the Third Championship in Riff Raff League History
And that’s where the real life Tom Brady comparison comes full circle. Pretty sure he sold his soul too. Did you see his combine photos? And yet gets the girl, drooool, and 9 SB appearances. Seriously?
What’s the scariest natural disaster you can envision yourself in, and how would you handle it if it happened to you?
- The Unicorn, Oakland, CA Does zombie apocalypse count? Just thinking about myself in a Natural Disaster of any kind scares the crap out of me, more so now that I am a father as I have to think logistics for a wife AND a toddler. I like zombie apocalypse because I think that’s the easiest situation to survive since well its complete fiction and I actually think about that scenario a million times more than any other and this point I have spent so much time on the subject I would argue I have a doctorate in Zombie Apocalypse planning. So with that in mind any real disaster would be terrible but the worst for me would have to be Tornado.
As a child I had recurring nightmares of tornadoes sweeping through town and sucking me out of my window and launching me thousands of feet in the air. Eventually however I started controlling my dreams a bit and miraculously would sky dive down to air planes that would be placed in a way that gave me stairs back to the ground, completely ignoring the fact that you can’t just step off a plane onto the ground doing like a 100 knots. Anyway, tornadoes. They can come out of nowhere and change directions on a dime and just do insane things that are completely unpredictable. Not that other disasters are MORE predictable but you know a hurricane is coming for days and can plan accordingly. Earthquakes/wildfires/tsunamis are all terrifying but also a little more avoidable depending on location…yeah this answer is over because I now realize how unprepared I am for any disaster. But since my parents ARE always prepared, I think my efforts for survival would be to make it to my parents’ house at all costs (Commissioner's Note: Good call, but you tackled this issue like months ago Smeet.).
If Smeet were Kyler Murray, which sport would he choose?
- Coop, Some Crappy Virginia Suburb
This is easy, baseball for so many reasons. How many players in MLB have had CTE? Pretty sure that’s like .00000001% the number of players from the NFL who have it. Realistically I am TOO SHORT to play QB in the NFL. There is no salary cap in MLB and contracts are all fully guaranteed. I’m a better baseball player than QB even though I won the Heisman; I am that good at baseball. Did I mention fully guaranteed contracts? No salary cap? Less injuries? It’s baseball hands down, but I do love football. Maybe I can do both...
Who you got in the Super Bowl and why?
- Gamblers Everywhere
Seemingly rare stance here as a non-Pats fan but I actually am rooting for the Pats and thus think they will win. Seems everyone not a Pats fan HATES the Pats but not me. I respect what they have done and appreciate how hard it must be to be this good for this long. Yes, people complain about deflategate, spy gate, and whatever else the Pats are accused of but come on people you don’t go to nine super bowls without being good and having a group of players and coaches all drinking the same Kool-Aid, Oh yeah!
But back to the game and my pick. Pats are giving 2.5 and I think that’s a steal, take the Pats all day with that. The Rams are good, don’t get me wrong, and I would love to see Aaron Donald win the MVP with a monster game but there has to be something said for the poise the Pats can carry in this game that the Rams cannot match. Some key numbers below:
4: The number of Rams players with ANY Super Bowl experience.
5: Total number of Super Bowls played in by a Ram, led by CJ Anderson who has been to 2, and he has been on the Rams for like 5 minutes.
38: Total number of Patriots to play in a Super Bowl.
86: Total number of Super Bowls played in by a Pat, of course led by the most important position player on the field, the QB Tom Brady.
That feeling you get on the first day of school, first day of a new job, your wedding, birth of your first kid are all moments that flood your head with emotions that are not easily dismissed, the moments are bigger than you and you get nervous. With that, I say the Rams lose but keep it close if not even leading in the 4th Quarter but won’t be able to flap the unflappable Pats and lose 27 to 24.