NEWS

Over/Under: 2016 Preseason Edition

Nick Wood & Kurt Willette, Owner Pro Tempores


August 24, 2016


As we embark on another YFFL season, two of the league's GMs sat down to pose a few over/unders to each other in an attempt to sort out some preseason questions. Here are Nick and Kurt's thoughts on the new season:


Kurt's Over/Unders for Nick

Le'Veon Bell You aren't fooling anyone with that winter hat Le'Veon. You shouldn't be able to see your breath during the middle of the day in August.

(3) Number of injuries/suspensions Gibby's roster will sustain while securing another abysmal season.

NICK: OVER. Le'Veon can't seem to do it without a little help from A-Rod's "doctors", Matt Jones will likely get injured simply because he plays for the Redskins, and Jordan Matthews always looks good on paper, but he's due to get injured in a Philly bar fight or running from getting shot at by Marvin Harrison's crew at a car wash. Those are the given players who will miss time on the field for the Llamas, but I'd also suspect DeMarco Murray, who is always a candidate for a MCL sprain or hamstring pull, will go down at some point, Coby Fleener will likely be late for practice or his team's charter getting his long flowing locks trimmed, and Chandler Catanzaro just seems like the second coming of "The Idiot Kicker" Mike Vanderjagt, so who knows what trouble he'll get into. So, yes, I'd easily take the over on this one as Gibby faces another season of great expectations only to be derailed by players missing time for one reason or another. Keep an eye out on Gibby, now living back in Maine, spending a few weekends down at the owner's home in Middletown, CT trying to plead his case to the team's brass.

(1) Number of sleeper picks Jon will hit on in this draft.

NICK: We all know the answer to this is clearly OVER. Jon is typically used to flying under the radar when it comes to preparing for the draft. Little did we know, he really moved out to the Freeport/Yarmouth border to hide the Despicable Me Minions he has living on his property doing all his research for him. Truth be told, his kids actually despise the movies they made about these things and can't stand when Jon and Megan make them wear Minion T-shirts to school as that's simply his cover-story. Jon will land another Keenan Allen in the second round, a Torrey Smith in the 3rd, or perhaps even a player like Jassie James Decker's husband in the 4th.

(20) Number of times Steve will submit an unsolicited application/article/podcast to Rotoworld.

NICK: This is actually an UNDER by a landslide. The reason being, I know a few police officers here in Stamford (where the Rotoworld headquarters are) and they have made me aware that there is a restraining order put in place by Rotoworld against Steve. His claim to be Evan Silva who misplaced his badge got him in the door the last time he tried, but that's as far as he got.

Anthony Aceto Has this guy been the real owner of the White Guys all along?

(0) Number of trades Aceto will seriously consider this season.

NICK: I'm actually going to say OVER, simply because zero is as low as you can go. I'm not really going to broach this topic in great detail - I'll just say he's part of the Trading Witness Protection Program. We're not even sure if it is really him responding to posts in the forum.

(6) Number of current players on Bobby's Thugs that won't be on a team by the end of preseason.

NICK: OVER. Kind of easy to say at this point since we've not submitted our final cuts yet and he has five players on his roster who have either called it quits, have been cut by their most recent NFL team, or are a kicker who will likely be let go by their current NFL team for domestic abuse. Bobby clearly has a lot of cleaning up to do with this roster, but no one can argue that he's got a great centerpiece in Andrew Luck to build around.

(8) Number of road rage incidents Bri is involved in during the NFL season this year.

NICK: UNDER. Bri has found zen in his hiking and is going to be raising the YFFL championship banner this year with the Brothers. (I purposely wrote that to jinx him. Now, he'll have four of his top five players on the Brothers go down with devastating injuries and Bri will probably also get arrested on his way to hike in Vermont or New Hampshire this fall for getting into a dispute with a hippie Bikram yoga instructor over who has the right of way at a four way stop sign...)

(10) Number of teams with a realistic chance to make the playoffs this season.

NICK: PUSH. It is hard to make this call before seeing the draft results, but I'm going to say that just about every year there is a chance for 10 or more of the teams to have a shot at the postseason. Any team with a QB capable of scoring 130+ points in a season has a shot if injuries are avoided and a couple position players have standout seasons.


Nick's Over/Unders for Kurt

Chris on a horse Chris is all business.

(2) Number of times we hear from Chris Davidson in the forum.

KURT: UNDER and if you said 0, I would say PUSH. Davidson is the Barry Sanders of the YFFL; he's very businesslike as he hands the ball to the ref and acts like he's been there before. He sees no value in trash talk and generally finds the banter uninteresting. If the conversation isn't about teeny-bopper music, dancing or Red Bulls and vodka, he's out.

(3) Number of trades up to and including draft night.

KURT: I'll have to take the UNDER at this point given nobody has made any moves, and everyone likes to overvalue their players. You could literally take several owners/GMs and have them evaluate a deal, then swap teams so they were then looking at it from the other owner/GMs side and they would claim they were getting screwed both times.

(1) Guests not directly involved with the YFFL (a wife or significant other) who will appear on the podcasts.

KURT: This should be OVER right? I mean, let's face it, the podcast had a nice novelty factor in its inaugural season, but I often found myself asking what the hell has my life come to that I'm listening to these 2 boobs talk about their fantasy teams for 30 minutes? It often led to self-reflection and regret. I would highly recommend that they shorten it to 10 minutes and rotate in guests for a brief 2 minute segment.

(1) Number of trades the Chickens are a part of this season.

KURT: OVER. The Chickens are no longer a threat and no one in the league is more aggressive at finding a deal than Nick. Rumor has it he started trading lunch items at work to fill the void and was so good at exploiting his coworkers that he often ended his work day with his desk covered in more food than he could possibly consume while his colleagues went home confused and malnourished.

PBR "Hey Steve, are these free game?"

(4) Number of teams that will spend at least a week atop the Power Rankings in 2016.

KURT: OVER. I think there is more parity this year than people might expect. I think we enter this season like the presidential election: sure, we have some candidates, but no one feels good about them.

(11) Number of Steve's beers (purchased for a party back in 2012 and not consumed since) that Mike will consume on draft night.

KURT: PUSH. This assumes Steve only has 11 of these left. I'd imagine upon the realization that there are none left Mike will insist on finding the guy who used to live in Steve's driveway and see if he has any extra beers.

(2.5) Times Kevin will advertise useless guys available for trade in the forum, A.K.A. "the Starks posts".

KURT: I'll take the OVER. The Huskers look like a roster filled with these guys. It's going to be a long year for the Huskers, but no worries...UConn women's basketball is just around the corner.