The start of the 2008 season will mark MFBs 2nd season in a league that pits us against other fantasy football websites. Last season we decided to take over a team that was less than stellar in a league with a very complicated set of rules and regulations. In short, we were in over our heads. Fortunately the keeper rules allowed us to keep our quality players (Randy Moss, Donovan McNabb, Larry Fitzgerald) and the guys we had from recent drafts (Frank Gore and Roddy White, thankfully) while trimming the fat and hoping the defensive players we picked weren’t terrible. We ultimately ended up losing in the quarterfinals as the #6 seed in a 14 team league, so there’s room for improvement.

Heading into this year we are allowed to make claims to three offensive players. One player will be absolutely protected, and the other two are Restricted Free Agents, meaning that if they are won at auction by another team, we’ll get draft picks from them. Last year I’m fairly certain that all RFAs ended up with their original team. Our keeper options are:

Donovan McNabb (RFA last year)
Michael Turner
Selvin Young
Larry Fitzgerald (Keeper last year)
Randy Moss (RFA last year)
Jason Witten

Notable players we’ll also have because they’re under contract include Kellen Clemens, Roddy White, Frank Gore, Calvin Johnson, and Roddy White.

So there you have it, our offensive situation going into the start of the league. Let us know what you think about the situation and we’ll keep you updated throughout the season.

Training camp is approaching, which means the NFL regular season will be here before we know it, fully prepared to dominate our Sundays through the end of January. It’s inescapable. However, we manage to build up an itch for a little gridiron news over the summer, so here’s a little bit of what you might have missed:

Perhaps RB Travis Henry isn’t the magnanimous personality we thought he was. He’s fathered 9 kids by 17 different women, but was able to get out of a positive marijuana test last year by claiming it was courtesy of second hand smoke. I don’t run drug tests, but he must’ve been hanging out with Snoop Dogg a lot prior to that test. Now this happens. Good work, Travis.

Apparently, Clay Travis tells us, throwing the phrase “no homo” on the end of ambiguously gay sentences is all the rage in NFL locker rooms. I can use the phrase “all the rage” without the 90s Police coming after me because friends of mine from areas that aren’t exactly centers for pop culture tell me the phrase “no homo” has been used since around the same time.

The New England Patriots might have the craziest NFL fan out there. This of course comes after the same man gained notoriety for getting the Patriots helmet logo tattooed on either side of his head. The interesting thing for me is that the space on his body is “starting at only $200 per square inch.” If he’s a good business man those are the spots that receive the least amount of…shall we say exposure. I’d be very interested in finding out what someone else wants to pay $200 per square inch for to have this man tattoo it on his ass, or worse. *shudders*

Briefly, on a more depressing note, Patriots lineman Nick Kaczur was caught buying OxyContin illegally , allegedly at a clip of $3,900 for 100 pills every few days. I don’t care if they’re Flintstones Chewables, if you’re taking 100 pills of anything every few days you’ve got problems.

Appearing in a video shot by rollingout.com, Jones responds to a question about where he will be in 2-3 years.
“Hopefully 2 Pro Bowls. Hopefully I can get out of Tennessee. I want to go to Dallas,’’ Jones said. “So we’ll see how it goes and I am just going to keep my head up.” It’s unclear when the video was shot, though it’s believed it was filmed several months ago and was just posted on the site. Rollingout.com is an UrbanStyle weekly serving the African American community. Jones appears in the video wearing a t-shirt and holding a microphone.

Ah, yes, I am sure that he will be a fine addition to the thug
tradition in the Big D… Tank Johnson, TO, Deion, Irvin… ah, yes…
carrying on that fine Cowboy tradition of being “America’s [Thug] Team”.

In today’s NY Post, Peter Lauria reports
that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sent a letter yesterday to Time
Warner Cable chief Glenn Britt, proposing a baseball-style,
third-party, binding arbitration process to settle their differences.
(To recap: The NFL Network wants to be placed on a basic-cable tier,
offering a huge audience. But cable companies think it should go on a
digital tier, where a self-selecting audience would cover the
subscription fees.) TWC’s boss shot back, saying he’d happily air the
network on a digital tier for free, or offer the NFL a pay-per-view
channel to charge its own fans. Ouch.

So, maybe, they will be able to work out their problems, eventually… but, until they do, the average American football fan gets screwed, while corporate America bickers.