I gave blood last week

Switching gears a bit here. For whatever reason, I haven't been looking forward to writing any of my Bears blog posts with the exception of the first one. So, instead I'm just going to write whatever comes to mind. Ok, back to the title of the post.

Given that my mom used to be a nurse and my dad was always in and out of the hospital, I've had a bit more exposure to that sort of thing than a lot of people. For example, I've known my blood type for as long as I can remember. I thought it was weird when Charleen didn't know hers. (she does now by the way). I'm type O+. Basically what that means is that I'm the second best blood donor by type there is. About 85% (source) of the people in the US are RH positive, and my blood can be used to donate to all of them.

So basically I should probably  be donating at least a few times a year. The reason I haven't been? Well, I never donated through high school or before. There's no real reason why, I just don't think I remember too much exposure to blood drives or anything like that. In my freshman year of college however; there was a blood drive on campus. Knowing my blood type, I figured, "why not?" I've never been a big fan of needles. I'm don't have an irrational fear of them, they just kinda hurt and I'm not a large fan of pain. Anyway, I go through all of the preliminaries (height, weight, hemoglobin test, blood pressure). Everything checked out fine so on to the donation. They get the needle in my arm and while it wasn't the most pleasant feeling in the world, I figured I could deal with it for 5-10 minutes...and then they noticed that blood wasn't flowing. I had clotted the needle. The method for addressing this? Shake the needle a bit while it's still in my arm to try and knock the clot loose. It worked (and it hurt...a lot) and we went on with the donation...until I clotted the needle again. Wash, rinse, and repeat and by the 3rd time I had clotted the needle, I decided that I was done. The disappointing part is that since they didn't get a full pint, they had to throw it out. So all of that for nothing. That was 11 years ago, and hadn't tried donating since. Every time it came up, I just thought of that experience and couldn't convince myself to do it.

On Tuesday, John Deere had a blood drive at work. A coworker of mine was planning on going and had mentioned it earlier in the morning. I was still trying to play catch up since I was on vacation on Friday and Monday so I didn't even remotely think about going. Well, later that day after things had calmed down for me, he still hadn't gone and again asked if anyone wanted to come with. I spent about 5 minutes mentally talking myself into it and we headed off to the factory auditorium to donate.

ZERO PROBLEMS! Long story short, it hurt more in the 30 seconds while I was holding gauze on the wound after the fact than the entire donation did. Piece of cake. I got up, had my cookies and juice and went back to work. I got a little light headed later that evening, but other than that, I was fine. In 51 more days I can donate again, and I think it'll be something I do more regularly.

It's an unfortunate fact that donations don't go well every time and even more unfortunate that it went so badly on my first try, but I'm glad my second experience went so well. Anyway, my point in all of this is that I'm glad I gave it another try.

Patrick

Fantasy Football Rookie (Week 9)

Tuesday Morning - 

Long, busy weekend, and not the greatest of fantasy weeks, but at the end of it I somehow managed to end up in first place!

This week I need a replacement for my kicker on bye and a second active defensive player, and I really don't know who to drop to make room for them. I might just drop my kicker to pick up a new one... and if he gets snatched up in the meantime, stick with the new one for the season. I'll have to see who's available though, if it would be worth the risk.

I don't really want to do that with my defensive guy who's out on bye because he's pretty consistent, and I don't necessarily want to drop Lance Briggs for the same reason... he's out for several weeks, but it'd be nice to see him back to form once he gets back, if I have room to keep him through this bit of bye week shuffling.

A few of my receivers have been rather sub-par lately... I might drop one of them (though I only have one to spare this week with Calvin Johnson being on bye.)

Frickin' bye weeks...

Wednesday Afternoon - 

Free agency is open for the week, and I picked up the players I needed to fill out my roster -- Kai Forbath as kicker (he's the guy I had as a backup early on before dropping him back in Week 3) and Nick Roach as defensive player (a former Bear who's now with Oakland... he's good, and has a decent matchup this week and a great one in Week 11 when my new defensive guy goes on his bye... assuming I don't just keep Roach as my second starter and relegate last week's acquisition to back up).

With these couple pick-ups, my starters for the week are now set. I have no backups. Anyone not starting is either on bye or out with injury. If anything bad happens to make one of my actives inactive between now and Sunday, I'll have to scramble, or just eat the point loss.

QB - Cam Newton, Joe Flacco
RB - Matt Forte, Eddie Lacy
WR - Pierre Garcon, Steve Smith, Denarius Moore
TE - Kyle Rudolph
K - Kai Forbath
D/ST - Ravens
D - Alec Ogletree, Nick Roach

Fantasy Football Rookie (Week 8)

Monday Morning - 

Two of my three defensive players are now out. I'm not sure if Bobby Wagner's is an extended injury, but Lance Briggs will be out for weeks. I think it's time to sign some new players. Luckily, defensive players are plentiful. I also need to be thinking about another kicker; my guy's bye is coming up, not this week but next week.

Tuesday Morning - 

Surprisingly, I ended up with the highest score again this week. Surprising because my score wasn't ridiculously high -- I guess no one had a really good week -- but at least this time I did about as well as I could have done, unlike last week. I was right to put Moreno in over Bush, although Eddie Lacy outscored both of them (though only by a few points). Also, all of my quarterbacks fell short of their projections this week, and I would have gotten an extra point and a half if I'd played Flacco instead of Eli.

I still need to make some roster changes, but I'll wait till tomorrow for free agency rather than using up my good waiver position... there may come a time when I really need it, and I don't think that's this week.

Thursday Afternoon - 

I don't really have time to give a rundown of my decisions this week, other than to say it's the usual combination of analysts' predictions, byes/injuries, projected points according to Yahoo, and strengths/weaknesses of matchups.

QB - Cam Newton, Eli Manning
RB - Knowshon Moreno, Eddie Lacy (first time starting the rookie, let's see if it pays off)
WR - Calvin Johnson, Pierre Garcon, Marques Colston
TE - Julius Thomas
K - David Akers
D/ST - 49ers
D - NaVorro Bowman, Alec Ogletree (another rookie, just picked him up, let's see how he does)

We're headed to Chicago this weekend (actual Chicago, not 20 miles west of Chicago) so I don't know how actively I'll be keeping up on my team. No, we didn't plan this mini-vacation to coincide with the Bears' bye week, but I'm definitely not complaining that it turned out that way.

Fantasy Football Rookie (Week 7)

Tuesday Afternoon - 

I'm back in 2nd place. At 180 points, I actually had the highest scoring game in my league this week... and yet I could have had over 50 more if I'd made some different decisions. Joe Flacco outscored Eli Manning. Calvin Johnson played but didn't do much (nor did my other receivers). For the first time this year, Kyle Rudolph had a better game than Julius Thomas. And while I was right to swap Knowshon Moreno for Reggie Bush, Bush ended up doing better than Forte did on Thursday.

That Thursday game is always frustrating. Luckily, I don't have to worry about Thursday this week...

Thursday Night - 

Looking over my roster, there are no big surprises or agonizing decisions coming up this week. My backup receivers are on bye, and one of my defensive players is out with an injury, so those positions are locked. Where I have decisions to make, the predictions I'm seeing are pretty consistent for most of my players. I'm a little torn on defense/special teams; seems most analysts are still saying 49ers are the better bet, but Pittsburgh (whom the Ravens are playing) has given up more points to defenses this season than Tennessee has. Also, I've got three pretty solid running backs and only two open spots, but that's not exactly a terrible problem to have.

Going with the following starters:

QB - Cam Newton, Eli Manning
RB - Matt Forte, Knowshon Moreno
WR - Calvin Johnson, Pierre Garcon, Steve Smith
TE - Julius Thomas
K - David Akers
D/ST - 49ers
D - Lance Briggs, NaVorro Bowman

(Pierre Garcon is playing against the Bears this week, so here's hoping for "good, but not good enough.")

Fantasy Football Rookie (Week 6)

Monday Morning - 

Well, with a couple exceptions, my offense was lousy this week. I was so busy scrambling to replace Calvin Johnson that I didn't think about the fact that Reggie Bush probably wouldn't have a great game in a one-dimensional offense and I might want to put him on the bench. The other really big disappointment is that Marques Colston only got 1.5 points; if the Saints were going to beat the Bears, I would have at least liked my fantasy receiver to rack up some points in the process.

On the plus side, the 49ers did great as my defense, and Briggs also had a great game (while the supposedly higher ranked linebacker on my bench did terrible).

All in all, it was a better week than it felt like it was while I was checking in on my scores. Really the only thing I should have done differently was put Knowshon Moreno in for Reggie Bush. If Johnson is out another week, I'll be keeping that in mind.

Tuesday Morning - 

I'm solidly in 3rd place this week, more than 20 points behind 2nd place and more than 30 points ahead of 4th place. Pat, it should be noted, had a blowout game this week and is now sitting in 1st for the first time this season.

I have three players playing Thursday night in the Bears/Giants game -- Matt Forte, Lance Briggs, and Eli Manning. I'll be starting all of them. The rest of my roster can wait for now. (Technically I have a RB on the Giants as well, but he's out this week with a neck injury. I haven't played him since Week 1 anyway.)

Friday Morning - 

I went with Eli over Joe Flacco for a couple reasons... Eli has more interceptions, but he also has more yards and touchdowns, and consistently gets more points despite his mistakes... but after last night I don't know that that's going to be the case this week.

I definitely don't have the points I was hoping for after three players, but we'll see how Sunday goes.

Cam Newton will be my other starting quarterback, Julius Thomas my tight end, David Akers my kicker, the 49ers my defense/special teams, and NaVorro Bowman my other defensive player. My other running back and my three wide receivers will depend on if Calvin Johnson (currently questionable) plays or not.

If he starts, then my wide receivers will be Calvin Johnson, Pierre Garcon, and Steve Smith, with Reggie Bush as my second running back. But if Johnson doesn't play, I'll swap in Marques Colston for him, and Knowshon Moreno for Bush. As I discovered last week, Bush probably won't have a great game if he and Johnson aren't working together in a multi-dimensional offense.

To be honest, I'm debating subbing in Moreno anyway; he and Bush are projected to be relatively close, and this way I'm covered if Johnson starts but goes down or just doesn't play extensively...

Gah! So many variables! So much uncertainty! Even the experts are proven wrong all the time, and if I follow their advice and it doesn't pay off, then I kick myself for not following my gut... but what's my gut worth? What do I know?

Next to nothing!

I know I'm doing way better than I thought I would, but I just don't know if I'm cut out for fantasy football.

2013 Chicago Bears: Week 5

Opponent: New Orleans Saints
Location: Home
Outcome: Loss
Record: 3-2 (1-1)

2-2 (1-0) Green Bay Packers
1-3 (0-2) Minnesota Vikings (Bye Week)
3-2 (2-1) Detroit Lions

I may have mentioned this before, but now that the bye weeks have started, I'm not really going to talk about the division standings. The whole "half game" thing just gets too convoluted for my taste. Besides, by week 9, we'll have a better overall idea of how teams are actually doing.

This week the Bears again lost by 8 points, but this one wasn't as painful to watch as last week. The team looked much better than they did against the Lions despite some early bumps.

Offense
This would be where the early bumps were. On the offense's first play Matt Forte dropped the ball...literally. Cutler pitched it to him and it just slipped through his fingers. Starting out 2nd and 20 on your own 10 yard line is no way to start the game. 3 and out. The next possession started with a fumble causing sack where the offense failed to adjust properly for a blitz. Cutler is included and possibly most at fault for this. Long story short, the Bears started out way too slow against a very good Saints team and were behind the rest of the game. The offense really started to click after about the first 22 minutes of play, but you can't come to play 2/3 of a game and expect to win against a good team. One particularly bright spot though, was Alshon Jeffery. He set a new Bears' receiving record with 218 yards on 10 receptions. Let other teams be warned, if you continue to double cover Brandon Marshall, we have a #2 receiver who is more than capable of stepping up.

Defense
The defense looked much better this week. Their tackling was much improved, they held the Saints to a season low 347 yards (yes, that's their low), and did not give up nearly as many big plays as they have been the last couple of games. The one big slip that I noticed was Lance Briggs falling for a hard count on 4th and 1 where the Saints probably weren't actually going for it. He's a veteran player and knows better than that. The other thing that was less than ideal is that the Bears did not generate any takeaways, but Drew Brees is one of the more accurate QBs in the league so it's not so worrisome.

Special Teams
The Saints did a good job of not letting Hester do much in the return game. He had very few opportunities and he played smart by not trying to force anything. Adam Podlesh was much better today and we never gave up field position due to special teams play.

Overall the team looked better than they did in week 4, but the offense needs to do more to get rolling sooner. Punting from your own 20 yard line to start the game just sets a bad tone and forces you to play from behind all day. One other thing I have noticed is that Cutler seems to play better when he's in a hurry. I almost wonder if trying to play a no-huddle type of offense would benefit him. Next week (tomorrow) the Giants come to town. They are 0-5 and even though they have some great players and coaches, the Bears should be able to get back on the right track and make them 0-6. BEAR DOWN!

Fantasy Football Rookie (Week 5)

Tuesday Morning - 

I'm in 2nd... by less than three points.

The first bye week of the season went alright. I could be nine points farther ahead had I made a couple different choices. Probably the biggest disappointment is that Calvin Johnson didn't have a better game, but he usually doesn't do great against the Bears. Their kicker, on the other hand, was the highest scoring kicker this week... small silver lining to the Bears' loss, but I guess it's something.

Looking ahead to next week, my bye week players are my backup tight end and one of my receivers, so those starter positions are locked. I do wonder if I want to pick up another wide receiver for more options while my guys are rotating through bye weeks, but I don't know if there's anyone I could get right now that would be better than the options I have (assuming no injuries... which is a dangerous assumption to make, but I can always pick up another player if that happens).

Friday Morning - 

(Huh, and now I'm back in third... again, by less than three points. I wonder if they were late factoring in Monday night players, or there was some stat correction later in the week. Oh, well...)

(ETA: Or because Week 5's already started and the guy who passed me up probably had someone playing last night. *facepalm*)

Most of my picks this week are fairly straightforward. Like I said, my wide receivers and tight end are set. I'm sticking with my usual starters for most everyone else.

My defensive players are where the trouble is. It's not really trouble, per se; even when I make the "wrong" choices, my players are all within a few points of each other, so it's not a big deal. It's just frustrating. On the one site that I've found that ranks defensive players, either the analysts are extremely biased against Lance Briggs for some reason, or they're using a points system that's vastly different than the one my league uses... because he's consistently ranked far, far below my other two players - NaVorro Bowman and Bobby Wagner - yet he's outperformed both of them three out of the four weeks so far, and in two of those three weeks he had the least promising match up (based on how many points the opposing offense usually gives up to linebackers, which all three of my players are).

So, I'm done listening to the "experts" for this category, and unless someone has an injury, I'll be sticking with Bowman and Briggs from now on.

For the record, then, my starters this week are:

QB - Cam Newton, Eli Manning
RB - Matt Forte, Reggie Bush
WR - Calvin Johnson, Marques Colston, Steve Smith, Denarius Moore
TE - Julius Thomas
K - David Akers
D/ST - 49ers
D - Lance Briggs, NaVorro Bowman

And in "conflicts of interest," Colston is playing against the Bears. We'll see how that game goes.

ETA: Sunday Morning (an hour before kickoff) - 

Well, crap. Calvin Johnson is inactive, and my backup WR is on bye. This is just what I was afraid of. Time to scramble...

2013 Chicago Bears: Week 4

Opponent: Detroit Lions
Location: Away
Outcome: Loss
Record: 3-1 (1-1)

1-2 (0-0) Green Bay Packers (Bye Week)
1-3 (0-2) Minnesota Vikings
3-1 (2-0) Detroit Lions

I'm not going to sugar coat it. It was an ugly game for the Bears. Detroit showed up to play in the 1st half, the Bears didn't.

Offense
The offense had 3 interceptions, 1 fumble, a couple of costly offensive penalties, 2 sacks, some bad throws, some dropped catches, and no third down conversions until the 3rd quarter. To be honest, it felt a bit like last year. Often the other team's defense didn't have to beat us, we were beating ourselves.

Defense
When the opposing running back is averaging 10 yards/carry, you're not doing well. This is something that has been worrying me for the last couple of weeks. There has been sloppy tackling and too many big plays by the opponent. The cover 2 scheme is supposed to be a bend but don't break defense and the Bears D has been breaking a lot this season. They did generate some takeaways, but the Lions scored on every possession but the first in the first half.

Special Teams
We allowed a 57 yard punt return. Our gunner got there and slowed up the returner, but the 2nd and 3rd guys on the coverage team were out of position and the left side of the field was completely open. After that we kicked out of bounds and gave the Lions great field position all day. Last I checked WE had the scary kick returner, not everyone else.

We knew there'd be bumps in the road this year. I was just hoping that a game against the Lions wasn't going to be one of them.

I do think it's kind of funny though. The media now seems to be completely ready and willing to throw in the towel on the Bears this year after one loss. I saw a Bears team have several things not go their way, but this organization has preached resiliency. It's one game and next week is a completely new one. It was also nice to see the team turn things around in the second half. The defense was getting stops, and the offense started to get back in sync. Unfortunately they had dug themselves too big a hole. The Bears were composed and Cutler didn't give the media any drama bits that they seem to be starving for. In fact, he pointed the thumb at himself for all of the turnovers. It was a disappointing game overall, but I have no reason to think that they won't move on and come back fighting next week.

BEAR DOWN!!!

Fantasy Football Rookie (Week 4)

Tuesday Morning - 

I'm in 3rd!

I had a pretty good week. Both of my new acquisitions paid off. And while not all my highest scoring guys were active (WR Colston had a marginally better week than Smith, QB Flacco had a marginally better week than Eli), if I'd had a crystal ball and made all the perfect decisions, the difference would have been less than 5 points on offense.

Defense, though . . . ouch. My starters, the 49ers, got 1 lousy point. The Baltimore Ravens, sitting on my bench, got 21. That hurts. Even that wouldn't have been enough to push me into 2nd place (it's still hard to believe I'm in 3rd!), but later in the season I might be wishing I had those extra 20 points.

Week 4 marks the first of the bye weeks, so I'll have fewer options when it comes to putting my roster together . . . but I'll worry about that later in the week. I DO have some guys playing Thursday night this week, so those decisions will need to be made early.

Wednesday Afternoon - 

I'm picking the Ravens for my defense/special teams this week. They seem to be favored on most ranking lists I see, and after the abysmal game the 49ers had last week (at least as it affects my fantasy team) I'm more than willing to take their advice.

The downside of the Thursday night game is that it's so far removed from the rest of them. If I put someone in, and they have a great game, that's great. If I leave someone out, and they have a lousy game, also great. But if the 49ers have a good game tomorrow night, I have to wait until Sunday to see if the Ravens have a better one. I think I would have liked fantasy a lot more back in the days when the only Thursday games were on Thanksgiving.

As for my defensive players, I'm leaving NaVorro Bowman (who plays on the 49ers) in. I'll probably go with him and Bobby Wagner again this week, with Lance Briggs on the bench (apparently linebackers haven't done well against Detroit so far this year), but Bowman's the one who's locked in.

I'll figure out the rest of my lineup later, although I have several players on bye this week, so my options are somewhat limited.

Friday Morning - 

Experts, you fail me! The 49ers' D/ST got 13 points sitting on my bench; I guess I'll have to wait and see how the Ravens do. Thankfully, NaVorro Bowman had a pretty good game; I would have been pretty annoyed if the team as a whole did great but the one player I had in didn't.

As for the rest of my lineup . . .

Quarterbacks: Cam Newton and the Panthers have a bye week, so (working with the roster I have, anyway) I have no choice but to start Eli Manning and Joe Flacco. C'mon, boys, get out there and have a great game!

Running Backs: I'm starting Matt Forte and Reggie Bush, who are actually playing against each other this week. Hopefully they both have great games (without Bush being good enough to help his team win). Knowshon Moreno and David Wilson will stay on my bench, and Eddie Lacy and the Packers have a bye week.

Wide Receivers: Steve Smith (Panthers again) is on bye, so again, my starters are set by default: Calvin Johnson, Pierre Garcon, and Marques Colston. (And, like Bush, I need Johnson to have a good game . . . but not TOO good . . .)

Tight End: Julius Thomas is in, Kyle Rudolph is out. No bye week here, but also not a terribly difficult decision.

Kicker: David Akers (once again, I have no backup). Now, when the Bears' defense forces the Lions to settle for a field goal, I'll have two reasons to cheer.

Chicago Bears: Week 3

Opponent: Pittsburgh Steelers
Location: Away
Outcome: Win
Record: 3-0 (1-0)

1-2 (0-0) Green Bay Packers
0-3 (0-2) Minnesota Vikings
2-1 (1-0) Detroit Lions

The AFC North was generous to the Bears this week. The Bengals and the Browns beat the Packers and Vikings respectively. In addition, the Steelers lost to the Bears in Pittsburgh. All in all, a good weekend for the Bears

Offense
I was very impressed with how the offensive line held up in their first away game. They looked very good in the first quarter moving down the field and getting a field goal on the opening drive. Marshall was quiet this week, but Alshon Jeffery and Earl Bennett got in on some passing action. After the first half though, it seems that Mark Trestman pulled back his offense and was concentrating on ball security over scoring more points. It seems that the arrow is still pointing up and from the way the players are talking, Trestman still has a lot of plays that we haven't seen yet.

Defense
There were 5 turnovers, 2 pick sixes, and some hits behind the line of scrimmage that made me wonder if the Steelers carry a change of pants with them. The defense was able to get pressure on the quarterback, but often had to do it with blitzes. The front 4 still isn't getting consistent pressure and to make matters worse, Henry Melton is out for the season with a torn ACL. I feel especially bad for him since he was playing under the franchise tag and very possibly may be done as a Bear. With his recovery projected for sometime in the spring, his stock is not going to be very high next year when he hits free agency. Anyway, sorry for the derail. I'm still a bit worried about the Bears defense. The 5 takeaways were wonderful, but they're giving up way too many big plays every game. If they can't find a way to get good pressure with their front 4, it's going to put a lot of pressure on our secondary and our offense.

Special Teams
Our special teams group was very quiet this week. The Steelers were probably scared off a bit by Hester's performance last week so they only allowed him to return 2 kickoffs. I expect teams to forget about him again in a week or 2 so we should see some good returns in the near future. On a special teams side note. I watched a few games this weekend and I noticed a lot of kickoffs being fielded just short of the endzone. It could have been bad kicks, the weather, or avoiding particular returners, but I wonder if it might be a trend towards trying to pin a team with a kickoff. Last year with the new kickoff rule, it was easy for teams to blast the ball out the back of the end zone for a touch back, but I wonder if teams are now playing with the short distance in the same way as a directional punt. Trying not to automatically give the other team 20 yards. It'll be something to pay attention to in the coming weeks.

Play of the game
This game had so many amazing plays. To name a few: Either one of the pick 6s, Matt Forte's long run, the defense slamming through the Pittsburgh line to tackle for a loss, and Earl Bennett's amazing TD catch. My favorite one though has to be when Jay Cutler ran for 13 yards on 3rd and 10 and instead of sliding like everyone expected him to, he plowed over the Steelers' safety and knocked him on his butt. I love having a QB who's not afraid to take a hit.

Up next are the Lions in Detroit. This is going to be a tough game. The Lions were much better than their record indicated last year, and they are going to be hungry to knock the Bears out of first place in the division at home. I think this is going to be a shoot out between quarterbacks. Trestman, time to open up that playbook a bit more. BEAR DOWN!!!