So, paternity leave has afforded me the opportunity to catch up on a few things that I've lost touch with in the past few years. I've been to the dentist, seen the floor of my garage, and watched a lot of daytime television, which is where I'm going today before I get to the fantasy football connection (wait for it).
I'm not going to say The Price is Right was solely capable of making me want to fake illness for a day and stay home from school back in the day, but it was more than just a fringe benefit. TPIR was the staple of any day at home on the couch, and Bob Barker is still at the front of the line in the GOAT game show host conversation. Now, I've got some issues. First, Drew Carey is just awful. I mean, he's an energy suck at best, and unwatchable at his worst. Strike one for the modern day TPIR. Yet, many have expressed their displeasure over the Barker to Carey transition, making this hardly original. The main issue I have with the show now is that it's bidding sequence to earn a spot on stage to play a pricing game is just not workable anymore. With the influx of the one up bid (you know, the idea where the person bidding first says $1300, then the next bidder crushes dreams with the $1301), this process has literally turned into a joke where two and even three one up bids in one round are not at all uncommon. Something tells me Bob Stewart didn't have this in mind when he created the show many moons ago. I mean, you can't even win the bid anymore unless you bid last or hit it right on the nose...and let's not get our boy too excited with an exact bid.
My friends, the times have changed. We need new rules to bridge from past to future and stay progressive yet still entertaining. The solution? Simple. Blind bids. Jeopardy style bidding (yes, I know they wager, but you get the point) where you can't see anyone else's bid until they are all locked in, then revealed. Would this be so hard? Is it wrong for people to actually think when they bid and reward those that actually play the game well?
Which leads us to fantasy football. We need to get rid of the ancient here too and reward those who actually play the game well, and not give those the chance to win the showcase showdown because of a fluky occurence. Where is all this going? We need to get rid of D/ST scoring in fantasy football.
Defensive scoring is fluky, plain and simple. Can you think of any other reason the Arizona Cardinals were a top five fantasy defense this year? They were awful, right? What about New England at number three? Did they have a good defense this year? Detroit number seven? How about that stout 49ers unit that ranked second in fantasy points in 2009? I've been through the rankings for the last three years and for every good unit in the top 10 (Pittsburgh 2010, NY Jets 2009, Baltimore 2008) there is a Broncos, Lions, or Cards.
I actually play in a league without defensive scoring and I can safely say that I haven't missed it in the least. Why bother? I know when we started playing fantasy football we wanted defenses because that was the way it was supposed to be, that's the way football was. But, fantasy football is established now, and we don't need defenses anymore now that we know they decide important fantasy matchups with little more than luck invloved. That's not how I want to play my pricing game.
Cheers,
TFAM
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