More Football

I'm not sure why I've written so many posts on football and sports lately but here is another short one. I promise I'll get back to posts about theology and ministry soon.

While I opposed the Vikings' signing of Brett Favre on many, many levels there was one reason that seemed to rise to the top of the list. I knew that if Favre signed with the Vikings it would no longer be the team that was credited with the victory but Favre. I knew that if the Vikings make it to the Super Bowl and win it'll be Brett Favre who took them there and he will be the one upon who's shoulders the team will carried all season long.

When Favre signed I hoped that my fears would be disproved, that maybe the media would realize that the Vikings are built around Adrian Peterson, or that they would credit the defense with the marvelous work that they do. Well, I found out yesterday that my fears were correct.

I spent my weekend on a retreat with my Sr. High students and got back into town just in time for me to run home, shower, change and head back to youth group. After youth I remembered that I had a church council meeting. As I struggled to stay awake in our meeting I came to the wonderful realization that our meeting space had wireless internet and thus I could check football scores. To my dismay the first two headlines (from the ESPN and the CBS Sports applications...i think) gave headlines similar to "Favre carries Vikings in win." or "Favre and Peterson help Vikings roll over Browns."

After reading these headlines I clicked on the stats page and expected to see monster stats from both Favre and Peterson. As it was indicated Peterson ran all over the Browns gathering 180 yards and 3 TDs. Favre, however, was less than stellar throwing for 110 yards and 1 TD (stats from www.nfl.com).

Now, I didn't watch the game, but to me it seems like Favre was fairly average or slightly below average. So how in the world, with stats like that, does Favre get credit for carrying the Vikings to a win? Sure, he didn't throw any picks, but there is nothing in his stat line that indicates he carried the team to the win.

This is going to be one long season with this over-rated QB starting every week!

My Fantasy Football Team

Ok, here is my fantasy football team for our 12 team keeper league.

QB

Kurt Warner

Chad Pennington

RB

Maurice Jones-Drew

Derrick Ward

Reggie Bush

Felix Jones

WR

Bernard Berrian (you know I had to go with a Viking)

Marques Colston

Donald Driver

Earl Bennett

Patrick Crayton

Domenik Hixon

Bryant Johnson

Robert Meachem

K

Ryan Longwell

DST

Chargers

My keeper from last year was Michael Turner (RB) and I had the 10th pick in a serpentine draft format. I traded Turner and my 10th overall pick for Maurice Jones-Drew and the 5th overall pick. This would have worked out great except that, like I said in my last post, I over-thought the situation and ended up picking Warner 5th overall. Let me note that following people were off the board by the time I picked:

Peyton Manning

Tom Brady

Drew Brees

Steve Slaton

Matt Forte

L. Tomlison

Brian Westbrook

Michael Turner

Ronnie Brown

Clinton Portis

Deangelo Williams

Adrian Peterson

Chris Johnson

and 2 other people I can't remember

Novelty

A worship service works best when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it… The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God. But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping… Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god. A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant…There is really some excuse for the man who said, ‘I wish they’d remember that the chart to Peter was ‘Feed my sheep’; not ‘Try experiments on my rats’, or even ‘Teach my performing dogs new tricks.’

~ C. S. Lewis

The above quote by C. S. Lewis was introduced to me during seminary by my friend JD Walt. Although Lewis wasn't around to observe the contemporary mess that is protestant worship he hits the nail right on the head. I do believe that Novelty is the destroyer of meaningful worship services. As long as worship leaders and planners seek first creativity, uniqueness, and that which is novel, protestant worship services will continue to leave masses of Christian unfulfilled and longing for something deeper...something divine. My friend JD has been having this conversation over at his blog for as long as I've known him so if you're interested in this Protestant dialogue I'd encourage you to take a look over there because I want to take a step out of the world of worship and apply this quote to something completely different - Fantasy Football.

Just as novelty is the killer of liturgy and worship so it is also the destroyer of fantasy football drafts. In preparing for fantasy football one can find himself or herself wrapped up in an endless maze of stats and strategies. In this maze one can quickly lose sight of the practicality of it all and end up over-thinking every draft move. Sure there is advantage in having a well thought out strategy and plan for your draft but when these plans turn to trying to be sneaky, creative, and novel then one's team will quickly turn into a bag of sleeper picks that never materialize.

I speak these words from experience. About a week ago our HAG fantasy football league had our draft and at some points I succumbed to the draft death that is novelty. The desire to outthink everyone lead to me using my first round pick on a QB instead of taking a solid RB or WR. In an attempt to defend myself a little bit let me state a few things. First you should know that our league is a 12 team keeper league so all of top RBs were off the board by the time I got my first pick (#5 via trade). Secondly because of our scoring system QBs far outscore every other position in our league. For example the top QB in our league last year scored 452 fantasy points while the top RB only scored 335. Despite the difference in value the perceived value of RBs is much greater in our league and thus it was my attempt to outthink everyone that caused me to overvalue a QB and destroy my draft with novel thinking.

There is one thing that I neglected to take into account on draft day that would have saved me from succumbing to this novelty - ADP. ADP or average draft position helps people like me, who arrogantly think they can outwit everyone in their league, stay grounded and know when they should draft certain players according to the general consensus value. Sure you'll always have that person who doesn't follow the plan and takes a Defense or Kicker in the 6th round, but if I would have utilized ADP I think it would have checked my novel thinking and enabled me to get a better second string RB (aside from my keeper) and still have a great starting QB. All in all my team isn't totally destroyed but it's surely not as good as it could have been.

So there you have my thoughts on why novelty is not only a killer of worship but also a plague upon fantasy football drafts. Hopefully if you haven't drafted yet you can learn from my mistakes and use average draft position states to help you truly out-draft your opponents.

- Ben

Sports update

There has been a lot of talk as of late that the iconic Brett Favre has asked to be released from the Green Bay Packers and that if he was indeed released then his most likely landing spot would be with the Minnesota Vikings.

If you know me at all then you know that I am a die-hard Vikings fan and that I have been such since 1st grade. However, if somehow this abomination took place and Brett Favre became the Vikings quarterback I would cease being a Vikings fan for as long as he is on the roster.

I'm not sure if it's because he's quarterbacked the team I have learned to hate for what seems like my entire lifetime (since '92), or because of the fact that the media constantly jeterates (read the article it's real good) him, or just because I've seen him beat the Vikings more times than I care to recall, but I cannot stand Brett Favre and I hope he never dons Viking purple....EVER!!! Even if the all-time NFL leader in interceptions helped the Vikings to win a Superbowl it would bring me no joy.

May this awful scenario never transpire. If you want thoughts on if Favre to the Vikings is a good or bad thing you can check out the plethora of good Viking's blogs suck as:
- Pacifist Viking
- Daily Norseman
- The Viking Age
- Vikings War Cry



On to baseball!! The Orioles are in last place of their division and are 3 games under .500 at the All-Star break. While I find that disheartening, I still hold to my preseason Kierkegaardian leap of faith. I still have faith that the Orioles can come back and win the division and make a run for the World Series. Even more delightful than this hope is the fact that the Orioles are a really fun team to follow this year. They play hard, they seem like they're having fun, and I have faith that they can pull out a win in almost any game. The young talent has had its share of bumps and bruises, but if they get it together this pitching staff will be something to be feared. I'm excited for what the second half of the season will bring.


Remember the word of the day is jeterate. If you didn't read the article then go back up and click on the link and read it. It's a great article about how good and yet overrated Derek Jeter is. He's the baseball version of Brett Favre but is way more loathsome in my book.


- Ben