Ask the Experts
Posted Nov. 21 at 05:19 AM
ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly, with answers to a new question being posted every Thursday morning.
How the guest experts responded when we asked them:
Are you for, against, or indifferent to the NFL's decision to play weekly games on Thursday in the second half of the season?
PATRICK GLEESING
Let's see, Thursdays, another night staying late at work or another opportunity to get together with the guys, fire up the barbeque and ice the beer glasses. Hmmm, which do I prefer? Fantasy football creates excitement by giving us a stake in every NFL game, regardless of our loyalties. Since the byes are over, there isn't as much maintenance for commissioners, so, Thursday deadlines will allow them to enjoy the weekends more. The only downside I can see is less time for research to judge the extent of various injuries and to make better roster decisions.
Gleesing is the owner of and senior writer for fantasyfootballdrafthub.com. He can be reached at patrick@fantasyfootballdrafthub.com.
JEFFREY KAMYS
As a fan I am glad they brought back the Thursday night football series. As a kid I enjoyed getting a mid-week NFL treat and I have fond memories of the Thursday night games. However, as a fantasy operator it's a bit more difficult to prepare matchups earlier in the week, since most other teams won't release any serious injury data until Friday. The new version of the NFL injury report has also become a joke this year, which just creates more chaos but that's another story altogether.
Kamys is president of Dr. Stats Fantasy Sports. His company, via the web, offers player news, injury reports, cheat sheets, projections, weekly matchups, statistics, and a customized team tracker. Dr. Stats Fantasy Sports also e-mails preseason newsletters and reports throughout the season. For more info visit www.docstats.com or send e-mail to webmaster@docstats.com.
CARL WEATHERFORD
It’s fine with me, I actually prefer it. Most of the country is on a holiday or an altered work schedule from Thanksgiving through the end of the regular season. It is nice to have pro football mid-week when you are out of town (or at home) with family/friends. Thursday games before Thanksgiving are a bit much but on or after - yes, I hope they keep it up.
Weatherford is owner/editor of www.coachbox.com, a fantasy football news and advice community online since 1997. Weatherford was author of the directory and technical editor for IDG Book’s Fantasy Sports Online For Dummies. He has been participating in magazine and expert panels since 1997 and has played fantasy football for over 20 years.
IAN ALLAN
I think there are competitive issues with the Thursday games. I don’t like teams having only three days between games. That’s tough, particularly on the team that needs to travel. Considering that each team also has a bye week, I would prefer to see the league switch to a system where if a team is playing on a Thursday, it would have a bye the previous week. For Thanksgiving, for example, the Lions, Cowboys, Falcons, Packers, Jets and Colts would have all had their byes in week 11, giving them a week and a half to prepare for these upcoming games.
Allan is the senior writer for Fantasy Football Index magazine. He’s also one of the main content contributors for that company’s website, www.fantasyindex.com. His IAN ALLAN’S MAILBAG column is posted on Fridays.
STEVEN LASSAN
With the college football season winding down, I am all for having Thursday night football -- although it does make for a short week for fantasy owners and can be difficult when making a call on an injury that could impact your roster. I've encountered several difficult calls on players, where I would have one fantasy starter on a Sunday game (who may be a gametime call) and my top back-up play on a Thursday -- and it made for a couple tricky decisions needless to say. My biggest concern about the Thursday night games? The NFL Network. There are still people who don't have this network on their cable package and with the Dallas-Green Bay game on the horizon, one of the top games of the NFL season may not be seen by who knows how many. Although the early lineups and a little more work in the front side of the week for us fantasy writers are the downsides, I am all for having Thursday night games in the second half of the year.
Lassan is a senior staff writer for Pro Fantasy Sports. For more info, visit the websites www.profantasysports.com and www.fswa.org.
MIKE NAZAREK
All of the leagues I participate in allow owners to set only Thursday night players by the start of the Thursday game(s), so from a fantasy standpoint, the impact is minimal. Now, if you are asking about how my schedule for writing my premium weekly newsletter is affected, that's a different story. Everything scheduled for late Wednesday and Thursday is pushing up into Wednesday, so from a personal standpoint, it makes my business life tough mid-week. However, it also makes Thursday more like Friday in terms of a light workday. You gotta take the good with the bad!
Nazarek is the CEO of Fantasy Football Mastermind Inc. His company offers an online rookie draft kit, preseason draft guide, customizable cheat sheets, a fantasy auction drafting program, weekly in-season fantasy newsletters, injury reports and free NFL news (updated daily) at its web site. He is the reigning three-peat champion of the SI.com Experts Fantasy League. He is also a nationally published writer in several fantasy magazines and a columnist for SI.com. For more info go to http://www.ffmastermind.com. Nazarek can be reached at 702-568-7118 or miken@ffmastermind.com.
BRIAN SWAW
I love the start of Thursday night games as a fan give me one more nationally televised game and one more day a week to watch NFL football. From a Fantasy Football owner it is fine as long as your whole roster does not have to be set on Thursday night and you are able to make additional lineup moves before kickoff on Sunday which I am pretty sure most leagues are run that way. From Expert stand point totally different, it cuts our schedule by 48 hours and more pressured to deliver rankings, match-up data and projections 1-2 days earlier. But overall one more day of NFL Football is all worth it, just give me something better than the Colts and Falcons please……
Swaw is senior writer and owner of GameTimeDecisions.net and the co-host of two fantasy football radio shows for ESPN AM 1000 in Chicago -- Fantasy Football Island and Fantasy Expert. He has been a keynote speaker for the FSTA and several fantasy football conventions with the likes of John Clayton, Chris Mortensen, Sean Salisbury and Mark Schlereth. For more info, visit www.gametimedecisions.net.
SCOTT ENDSLEY
The NFL is cutting off its nose to spite its face. They are getting greedy, period. More stand alone games means more viewers and more money. For now. But eventually they will thin out the product, over expose and begin to lose some of the extreme popularity. One of the great things about the NFL was a week of build up and then BAM – everybody plays! A Monday Night finish was fantastic. But now, they are spreading themselves too thin. It won’t hurt them yet; they are still very popular, but this could be the beginning of trouble for the NFL’s popularity if they keep this up.
Endsley is co-owner and a senior fantasy football consultant for FantasyDraftEdge.com. For more info, go to www.fantasydraftedge.com.
DAVID DOREY
I love having Thursday games as a way to showcase two teams with no others playing at the same time. Certainly people do not have to watch it if they do not want but in a league with 16 games each week of which typically 9 occur at the same time in the early round and four are in the later round on Sunday. It’s just a way to watch teams play “by themselves”. I love it.
Dorey is the co-founder of TheHuddle.com and the lead NFL analyst. He has been projecting players and predicting games since 1997 and has also authored the book Fantasy Football: The Next Level which is available at all major bookstores and at Amazon.com. Dorey is one of the top prognosticators in the Fantasy Football Index Experts Poll every year and won it in 2005.
RYAN DODSON
As fans, we think the idea has good and bad qualities. Rabid fans are able to enjoy their favorite sport three days early during the week. It adds excitement to the weekday and reminds us that the weekend is just around the corner. However, we feel it takes away from the tradition of Sunday football. It would be interesting to see what the players and coaches felt about Thursday football because it creates havoc for injured players gearing up for the short week. Would Detroit Lions running back Kevin Jones (foot) and his sore foot be better served to play on Sunday rather than skipping the needed time off during the week to heal? Are coaching staffs given enough time during the short week to plan for the upcoming bout? It's great for the fans, but we really wonder how much of a detriment it is to the coaches and players hindered by the short week.
KFFL offers football as well as baseball content and has captured over a dozen expert league championships. Founded in 1996, this company offers daily news, preseason draft guides, player rankings, sleepers, busts, weekly newsletters and more. KFFL also provides fantasy content to various organizations including SportsTicker and Yahoo! Sports. For more information, visit www.kffl.com .
ANDY RICHARDSON
As a fan, I love having an extra night of football. (Except for when my team plays and I have to live without them on the weekend.) As an owner, it can be a drag -- I have to remember which of my various leagues have their waiver schedules change and whatnot. And of course, from a work standpoint, it makes for a lot of headaches regarding the different schedules information comes out on. But really, there's nothing better than waking up Friday morning and seeing you're ahead 37-0 based on a couple of players.
Richardson has been a columnist and contributor to the Fantasy Football Index magazine and web site for the past six years. His responsibilities include team defense and IDP projections, as well as various site features. He has run the magazine's annual draft and auction leagues since their inception. Other writing credits have included FFToday.com and football coverage for newspapers in Colorado and Florida. For more information go to www.fantasyindex.com.
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