Chris's Sports Blog NFL Preview: Day 5
Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: The Sleepers & The Creepers

The sleepers and the creepers. Sounds like a doo-wop group from the '50s. I can practically hear the DJ on the oldies radio station announce the name in his radio-guy voice. But I digress.
My first fantasy draft is just about over, but my second one begins Monday. I'm usually not paranoid (except when I think the bush next to my mailbox is looking at me) and it's not like I think the guys in my money league are going to turn my draft board into their own, but a sleeper is a little different. All it takes is one good thing written about a player you hadn't had on your radar to convince you he might have an alright season. It wouldn't necessarily be because I wrote he'd be good, but after seeing the name "Antonio Bryant" under "sleeper" an opposing player might let their imagination go crazy and start thinking, "somebody has to catch balls in San Francisco. And they're down in nearly all their games so they're going to throw. And Alex Smith can't be as bad as he was last year. Yeah, Antonio Bryant is going to be huge!" Using that stab at logic, I'm going to hold back on my my list of sleepers until next week after my draft.
In the meantime, a few thoughts from the past few days:

- With the demotion of Pluto's planetary status, the Saved By The Bell where Zack wins the quiz bowl by naming the planets thank to his pneumonic device "MVEMJSUNP" suddenly becomes horribly dated. As do we. The Wolfman put it nicely in an e-mail yesterday after a discussion about how old guys are always running into crowds of people with their cars:

The sad thing is that that's going to be us soon, driving into crowds of people, talking about how there used to be 9 planets, tvs weren't all flat screen when we were young, etc.. Plus, now it would be MVEMJSUN, kids are going to watch it and laugh just the way I laughed when Mr. Angelino told Jack on Three's Company, "Tripper, it's the 70s."

- Bill Simmons wrote a mailbag a few days ago. Take a guess as to whether he answered any e-mail about his whiny, excuse-filled poker column. Go ahead! Take a shot! I'll give you a hint: The answer is the same thing Bill Simmons heard every time he tried to get a girl to hook-up with him in college.
This begs the question: Does Simmons even acknowledge that people think he's an egomaniacal hack or does he attribute the hate-mail he doubtlessly gets to angry Yankees fans? Think about all the other writers on internet sports sites who have mailbags. Every single one puts in at least one or two rips per column. Dr. Z thrives on it. Does Simmons think if he doesn't print it everybody reading will think he's infallible and is loved by all? Somebody needs to answer this question for me. Maybe I'll run into his buddy House tonight in D.C. and he'll straighten all this out.

- Remember that Duke lacrosse case? Yeah, neither did I, until a story appeared in the The New York Times today saying, "[An examination of 1,850 pages of evidence reveals] that while there are big weaknesses in Mr. Nifong’s case, there is also a body of evidence to support his decision to take the matter to a jury."
Among this body of evidence that supports his decision:

The defense has argued that the accuser gave many divergent versions of events that night, and she did in fact give differing accounts of who did what at the party. But the files show that aside from two brief early conversations with the police, she gave largely consistent accounts of being raped by three men in a bathroom.

Translation: After changing her story three times, she finally came up with the "three men in a bathroom" account. The Times article goes on to indicate how a report from a Durham police sergeant, one that was not handed over to the prosecution until well after the players had been arrested, strengthens the D.A.'s case, but that the sergeant recounted those notes from memory because he "took few handwritten notes."
Other nuggets in the story that "support [Nifong's] decision to take the matter to a jury":

* There is no DNA evidence directly linking the suspects to the accuser.
* The array of photographs used to identify the suspects violated generally accepted guidelines for lineups, because it included only lacrosse team members. Defense lawyers have challenged it in court, arguing that all evidence that followed from the identifications should be thrown out.
* One suspect, Reade Seligmann, has what appears to be a powerful alibi, based on a cellphone log and other records that show he left the party early.

Where, may I ask, is the evidence that "supports his decision to take the matter to a jury"? Duff Wilson and Jonathan Glater did a wonderful job reporting their lengthy story, but their assertion that Nifong was right to bring the matter to a jury is totally contradictory to everything they reported. Except for the victim appearing to be in extreme pain, there isn't a single shred of evidence that anything nefarious happened at the lacrosse house that night.
I'm not quite sure how that constitutes a trial. But, then again, I wasn't up for re-election.